Podcast appearances and mentions of paul international airport

Traveling through the airport can be stressful — with confusing terminals, unexpected delays and the worry of getting to your gate on time.  But even with the long lines and crowded concourses, the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport consistently ranks as one of the best airports in the country. In fact, it's been recognized as the top “mega airport” in North America multiple times. So, what makes it stand out?A big part of the answer is the Airport Foundation MSP. You may have seen their friendly volunteers in green vests ready to answer questions, give directions or just lend a helping hand.The foundation also arranges for live music in the terminals, displays of local art and even therapy animals to help travelers de-stress. They aim to make MSP a warmer and more welcoming space.MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests take a closer look at this unique nonprofit, its growing volunteer program and what it takes to be part of their team.Guests:Jana Webster is the president and CEO of the Airport Foundation MSP, a nonprofit organization that helps travelers navigate and feel comfortable in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.  Sara Ernst is the director of volunteer operations at the Airport Foundation MSP, where she recruits, trains and manages volunteers.      

Editor's note: This story includes a racial slur.I'm often asked about my favorite stories I've covered as a reporter. That's a hard question to answer after spending 35 years working in journalism, most of them as a local television reporter.Rarely does anyone ask about my hardest moments. That question brings to mind a very vivid memory. In December 2015, I stood in the middle of Plymouth Avenue in north Minneapolis facing the Minneapolis Police Department's 4th Precinct building, watching angry officers and defiant community members clash.Days earlier, police had shot and killed Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old Black man, during a confrontation. Community members wanted answers. Protesters blockaded the entrance to the 4th Precinct and the street outside.In front of me stood armed officers in riot helmets telling the crowd to disperse, and protesters screaming back and holding their ground. I saw the handcuffs come out and arrests happen. Police pulled down a “Black Lives Matter” banner from the building as they cleared out a spreading encampment. I could feel the distrust and rage between the mostly Black residents and mostly white officers.The shooting and its aftermath pushed Minnesota to the center of a painful national debate over police, people of color and deadly force. Months later, the Twin Cities would be torn again by another police shooting of a Black man, Philando Castile. In 2020 came George Floyd, killed by a Minneapolis police officer as he lay handcuffed and face down in the street, pleading that he couldn't breathe.‘You want me to go where? With who?'Nine years after witnessing the battle for the 4th Precinct, I got a message from a manager at MPR News, where I host a morning talk show. The bosses wanted me to travel to Montgomery, Ala., a city at the center of the slave trade and the Civil Rights Movement, with a contingent that included 4th Precinct officers. Reading the message, remembering what I witnessed in 2015 and the department's history of dysfunction and accusations of violence, I thought, “You want me to go where? With who? Why?” Turns out there was a good reason for the ask. Emerging from the killings of Clark and Castile, a small group, the Police and Black Men Project, had formed to talk about the roots of their distrust. They included Minneapolis police officers, Black and white, along with Black community members, leaders of nonprofits, government agencies and private businesses. Some were once incarcerated. All have strong opinions about law enforcement. Group members have met regularly the past eight years.They went to Montgomery in 2023 to tour museums and historical sites. They wanted to do something bigger in 2024, to go back to Alabama with a larger group and wider audience. They called MPR News.Nine years after Jamar Clark's killing, I was called again to witness police and Black men but in a very different way.We were invited to go along in December and record the group's private discussions as they processed what they had seen and heard at each of the tour stops. Our team included editor and producer Stephen Smith and freelance photographer Desmon Williams, who goes by “Dolo.”In their conversations, this group explored a significant part of American history, one many people still struggle to discuss and understand or even acknowledge.400 years of racial terror: Inside The Legacy MuseumWe arrived in Montgomery on a Tuesday afternoon after flying from Minneapolis to Atlanta and then renting SUVs for the two-hour drive. The weather was terrible. Torrential rain and dangerous driving conditions. I wondered if it was some sort of sign of what's to come. We gathered with the group — all men — for dinner, the first of many meals these men would share. I discovered some of them have known each other for years and others are still getting to know each other.  The next morning, the officers and community members filed out of a hotel in downtown Montgomery, all dressed the same — hooded sweatshirts with artwork on the back and the words “Black Men and Police Project” and “Peace” and “Alabama 2024.” On the back, there's an image of a handshake between a black and a white hand with the downtown Minneapolis skyline in the background.The design was created by teenagers in a life-skills mentoring program run by group member Jamil Jackson. It's called Change Equals Opportunity. Jackson is also head basketball coach at Minneapolis Camden High School and one of the founders of Freedom Fighters, which focuses on public safety.Throughout the next few days these sweatshirts would turn heads. Passersby would ask them questions about the Police and Black Men Project as the group walked down the street and waited in lines at restaurants and museums.On this day, our first stop is The Legacy Museum. This is a place to learn about 400 years of American history involving slavery, racial terrorism, legalized segregation and mass incarceration in a way that pulls you into the past. The museum sits on the site of a cotton warehouse where enslaved Black people were forced to work when the cotton economy drove American slavery. I can't bring my microphone in for what seems to me an excellent reason — to respect the solemnity of a museum dedicated to the memory of a national atrocity.Organized evilMoments after stepping into the first area of the exhibit space, you find yourself in darkness, standing in what looks, feels and sounds like the bottom of the ocean. You're introduced to the terrifying expanse of the Atlantic Ocean that more than 13 million Africans were forced to cross in slave ships. Nearly 2 million of them died in this Middle Passage.You're surrounded by underwater sculptures of human bodies, looking at what appears to be the heads, shoulders and arms of enslaved Africans who died after being chained together and then forced onto ships during the transatlantic slave trade. Many of them died from illnesses on the ships due to the horrific conditions. Their bodies were thrown in the ocean. The facial expressions portray horror and despair. As you look at them or try not to, you're hearing the sounds of waves.Later in the day in small group discussions, I listened to the officers and community members discuss what it was like to walk through this display. Several described the experience of feeling shook to the core as they took in this particular scene at the start of the tour. George Warzinik, a sergeant in the Minneapolis 4th Precinct, said later he was shocked by the organized evil of lynching.“My image was always this mob stormed the police station or something, the officers are overwhelmed or whatever, looked away. But there was a headline that said there's a lynching scheduled for tomorrow at 5 o'clock. This is cold calculated. This is, it's booked, it's scheduled, and the governor said he couldn't do anything about it. The governor!” said Warzinik.“We're not talking about the local police guy down there with two, two deputies who's overwhelmed. So, the kind of organizational part of it, you know, that's just really struck me.”As we continue to walk through the exhibit spaces, we move into a section about mass incarceration. You can sit down on a stool and pick up a phone and watch a video that depicts a prisoner welcoming your visit. Each person tells you about the conditions inside the prison and declares their innocence in a crime that landed them behind bars. These are stories told by real incarcerated people.It was after sitting through these video testimonials that I needed a break and went and sat in the women's restroom for a few minutes.‘Not a glimmer of hope'Later in the museum cafeteria filled with students, we met for lunch over delicious soul food to talk about what we've seen. Moving into small groups in a private room, I heard the men share their thoughts about what they'd seen.Like Warzinik, group leader Bill Doherty was struck by the banal efficiency of enslaving and terrorizing people. A retired University of Minnesota professor, his family foundation helped pay for the trip in 2024.“One of the things I got this time is that it takes organization and big systems to do this kind of evil. It's not just in the hearts of individuals,” he said. “I never knew how much the banking system was involved in, in slavery and the slave trade, but slaves were collateral for loans. So the banks were supporting the system by saying, ‘Yeah, you got 12 slaves. I'll lend you this money.' Oh my goodness,” he said.Sherman Patterson, vice president of a Minneapolis nonprofit called Lights On!, noted a quote on the wall about the loss of hope: “I was taught that there was hope after the grave. I lost all hope after I was sold to the South.”“Just think about that, what that's saying,” said Patterson. “That's just, not a glimmer of hope. That's just pure hell. And then the woman who was raped several times and had the kid by her master and she defended herself and killed him and then the justice system said you have no right to defend yourself,” said Patterson, one of the elders in this group.“I grew up in Savannah, Georgia,” he added. “I grew up in true segregation as a kid up until 1975 and saw those things. My grandmother was born in 1919 and sitting on a porch watching her be calling the nigger and all of this here. We could not go downtown in certain places because we were taught you can't, you better not, and this is what you do. So there is anger, but being with this group, this is why we're here. There's hope. There is hope and we're moving forward.”We stop next at the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. It's a 17-acre site overlooking the Alabama River and the city of Montgomery. On this river, tens of thousands of enslaved people were transported in chains to the slave market. Many, many thousands toiled in fields and factories up and down the Alabama River. And Montgomery was one of the largest slave-trading centers in the United States.‘One heart, and it bleeds the same color'On Day 2, we went to First Baptist Church on the edge of downtown Montgomery. It's a handsome red brick building with a bell tower and a large, round stained glass window. First Baptist was founded in 1867. It is one of the first Black churches in the Montgomery area and became one of the largest Black churches in the South. It played a huge role in the Civil Rights Movement. The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, a close friend and associate of Martin Luther King Jr., was pastor.In the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and 1956, First Baptist was a community organizing center. During the Freedom Rides of 1961, this church was besieged for a time by a huge white mob threatening to burn it down.I'd been looking forward to this visit. I grew up in Black Baptist churches in rural communities in southern Virginia. My grandparents raised me, and my grandfather was the pastor of several churches when I was a child. We were greeted in the parking lot by an older Black man, Deacon Emeritus Howard Davis, who reminded me of my grandfather. Davis, 81, was baptized at the church and spent his entire life there as an active member and leader. He greeted each of the men in the group with a smile and a handshake. He shared a bit of the history of the church and the role the building and the people who sat inside it played during the Civil Rights Movement.He described how his family taught him to stay away from white people, particularly white women and girls, and how to this day white women make him nervous. He understands the flip side of that and how white children were told to stay away from Black people and fear them, and how that affects how many of them view Black people today.He also spoke of the modern day challenges that Black people face. He took questions from men in the group and didn't hesitate to shake his head at times and admit he didn't have the answer. At one point one of the group members asked him to pray for them, and he did.Our next stop was Montgomery's former Greyhound Bus Station, now the Freedom Rides Museum. In 1961, teams of volunteers from the North and South challenged the Jim Crow practice of racially-segregated travel on buses and trains in the South. The Freedom Riders were mostly young people, Black and white. They were arrested for violating state and local segregation laws by riding together and ignoring the segregated seating. Local police in many southern towns let the Ku Klux Klan and other mobs attack them.Here, I recorded audio of an interview with community member Brantley Johnson. He reflected on what he saw and how he felt about going on this trip. Johnson said he ran with a gang in Minneapolis and ended up in prison. “When I got out, I promised my kids that I would never leave them again.” He's been part of regular meetings around the 4th Precinct and has been trying to work on ways to build trust between police officers and residents.“We have to meet them at their hardest moments, just like they have to meet us at our hardest moments,” he said of the police. “Because at the end of the day, we all have one heart, and it bleeds the same color, no matter what.”Later, we head to the Rosa Parks Museum on the campus of Troy University. Parks played a pivotal role in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. She refused to give up her seat in the so-called “colored section” so that a white woman could have it. Parks was arrested for violating the local bus segregation law. In response, Montgomery's Black community boycotted the bus system for more than a year. The protest brought King, then a local pastor, to national prominence and led eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court declaring bus segregation unconstitutional.Our last two stops on this trip are a walking tour of downtown Montgomery and then the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It's a profoundly moving 6-acre site in downtown Montgomery. Out of respect for the solemnity of this space, we've been asked not to record audio during the visit. The group splits into smaller groups and scatters in different directions. I follow a group up a hill to what's known as the lynching memorial. I've been there before. A year ago while attending a conference in Birmingham, my husband and I drove to Montgomery to visit The Legacy Museum and the memorial.  I found a monument with the name of a city very close to where I grew up, Danville, Va. The first name on the monument was of a man whose last name was Davis and I took a picture of it. Edward Davis, 11.03.1883. That's when he was lynched. I wonder if we're related.Courage to say ‘No'We return to Minneapolis, where the temperature is in single digits, a little colder than the 50s in Alabama.Not only is the weather different, the men appear different than they were when we gathered at the gate to board our flight days earlier.  That morning they were relaxed, even joking around with one another. Now the mood is more somber and the facial expressions appear to be more reflective. I sense a new confidence in them. To me they look like they are ready to approach future interactions with more knowledge and understanding, more empathy.At different points of the trip, many of the men said they were surprised by how much of the history of this country is not taught in schools. Some seemed troubled by how much they didn't know.The group disperses at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. I can tell everyone's eager to go home. I know I am. I want to be alone with my thoughts and there's a lot to think about.Like, how does one person change things? How does a small group bring change to a whole police department? How does a small group of community members bring change to a whole city?When I get home, I immediately start to unpack. Most of my souvenirs are clothes, including the navy blue T-shirt I bought at the Rosa Parks Museum. It has a small drawing of her face on the right sleeve and on the front there's one word followed by a period.It simply says “No.”Rosa Parks became famous for the moment in time when she'd had enough of racial segregation, injustice and violence. She said no. When I saw that shirt hanging on a wall in the museum gift shop I screamed “Yes!” I searched for my size and bought it.Back at home in St. Paul, I'm wondering why that shirt speaks to my heart in such a profound way? I think it's because it represents a response from a Black woman living at a time when America was at a breaking point. Much like I feel we are today. And the answer to the problem on that day on the bus for Rosa Parks, was a bold refusal to continue on the same path.It takes courage to say no when it's easier and safer to say yes.What I saw in each of the men I spent four days with in Montgomery was a bold refusal to continue on the same path.  Angela Davis' behind-the-scenes photos from Alabama Each brought curiosity to every site we visited. Each brought an understanding they have a lot to learn. Each sought a way to take something they learned in Montgomery back to Minneapolis and put it to work, taking law enforcement and community relations in a different direction.History has shown us where racial segregation and abuse of power lead. My question is this: What will you say when presented with circumstances that don't feel fair and equitable? What will you do when you are encouraged to go along to get along, even if those actions reinforce racism and division? Will you say “No”?Angela Davis hosts MPR News with Angela Davis, a weekday talk show that airs at 9 a.m. She's been a journalist for more than 30 years in the Twin Cities and across the country.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance landed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, just as his Democratic counterpart Tim Walz was taking off for Wisconsin.Our politics team is following them both and we get an update on this late stage of their presidential campaigns. In the Twin Cities you can find restaurants with cuisines from all over the world. And you can find the ingredients for making them at a number of international grocery stores. We dive in.Minnesota and New York are tied in the WNBA finals series, with one win each. We talk about Sunday's loss and the team's chances going forward.Plus, it's Indigenous People's Day and we have a special song of the day to celebrate.Our Minnesota Music Minute was “Burning Bridges” by Kokou Kah.Our Song of the Day was “Wild Rice Moon” by MPR News' Leah Lemm. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

One of the five people charged with trying to bribe a juror in the Feeding Our Future trial pleaded guilty Tuesday. And Delta travelers are not the only ones stranded at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Pilots and flight attendants are also facing challenges with flight delays and cancellations.And Metro Transit says more operators and demand are allowing the agency to increase frequency on the Blue and Green lines in the Twin Cities area. The light rail trains will run more frequently in middle of the day until 6 p.m. The changes take effect mid-August.This is an MPR News morning update, hosted by Jacob Aloi. Music by Gary Meister.Find these headlines and more at Mprnews.org.Feeding Our Future defendant pleads guilty to jury bribery attemptTravel woes and Delta delays continue, but may be easing at MSP airportRead the latest edition of the AM Update newsletter.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or RSS.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reported several dozen delayed or canceled flights Friday morning amid a global internet outage. Delta, Sun Country, Allegiant, United and American are among the airlines affected by the outage. Around the world, the internet outage has reportedly affected stores, banks and hospitals.And former President Trump closed out the Republican National Convention on Thursday night in Wisconsin.

Tuesdays and Fridays are special days for a small group of students from Lac qui Parle Valley Schools near Milan. That's when the Milan Kids Club is in session at the former Milan Public School building.Rosalia Iowanes and Justleen Ponun, two teens employed by the program, have set up the volleyball net in the gym. Some students play barefoot. The sport is immensely popular in the Micronesian community.Justleen explained the volleyball connection.“Most of us would say it's our favorite sport because some of us grew up playing volleyball and yeah, volleyball is also like a favorite sport back in Micronesia,” she said. Justleen's family moved from Micronesia to Milan. However, Justleen was born in Willmar, 43 miles east of town.Her family is not alone. From Micronesia to MilanFamilies have been relocating from the Federated States of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean to this southwest Minnesota town for more than 20 years. The small but steady stream of Micronesians arriving in this rural town, founded in the 19th Century by Norwegian immigrants, is a big change, explained program director Ann Thompson.The Micronesian community has boosted Milan's once declining population and brought a new energy to town, she added. Their presence has boosted the economy and infused youth into an aging populace. Charthttps://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/18102929/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/18102929“Milan went from the oldest community in Chippewa County, oldest average age … a little bit of diversity, but not much to being the youngest community, growing population and really diverse,” Thompson said. “It's a big change.”Thompson said longtime residents have realized over time there are benefits to having an immigrant community in Milan: More kids in schools and more kids to clothe and feed.According to data from the 2020 U.S. Census, Micronesians made up 57 percent of Milan's population of 428. The town's numbers peaked in the 1940 census with 624 residents and trended downward until it hit its lowest number, 326, in 2000.Datahttps://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/18102809/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/18102809Between 2000 and 2020, Milan's population grew by 31 percent, according to census data. Micronesia is a region of about 2,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The region also includes the island nation of the Federated States of Micronesia, which is nearly 7,000 miles away from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Chuuk is one of the country's four states. Romanum is an island in Chuuk. And almost every person of Micronesian descent living in Milan, is from Romanum.How did Micronesians know about Milan, whose motto is “Norwegian Capital U.S.A.”? The connection begins with former Milan area resident, Erik Thompson, who served in the Peace Corps in Chuuk.  Thompson continued his Micronesian friendships after he left service. One of them visited Thompson in Milan. Thompson's friend later decided to settle in Milan with his family. Milan is roughly the same size as their island, Romanum, Erik Thompson told MPR News in 2010.“He thought he wouldn't be overwhelmed by the size of the place, and that I could speak his language so I could help him make a transition,” Thompson said of one of his friends from Romanum. “But he said he also wanted to bring his family over so kids could get a good education.”Afterward, others from Romanum moved to Milan as well.An agreement between Micronesia and the U.S. allows for citizens from both countries to work and travel freely between the two nations. Community cohesion can be noisyAnn Thompson says there were challenges for residents and newcomers.For example, Micronesians play music in the town park which might be too loud for some residents. They, in turn, may decline to directly ask for the music to be lowered, Thompson said, because of what she calls ‘Minnesota passive aggressiveness.'“There's angst,” Thompson said.Erika Raymond, the co-owner of E and J Micronesian Mart on Main street, says the park is packed every day with Micronesians.She says community members like to meet up at the park to play volleyball or basketball and they bring speakers to play music.“Some people just want peace and quiet but we're there every day making noises, but that's just how we are,” Raymond said. “We're a community that loves to hang around everyday. We're just very family-oriented. Not all of us are related. But if you're from somewhere and you come in and look, you'd think we're all related.”‘That's what I love about Milan'In 2007, Ann Thompson said a group of concerned citizens formed a nonprofit called the Greater Milan Initiative. The nonprofit paid $1 to the Lac qui Parle Valley School District for the former K-12 school which had been closed since 1990.The initiative manages the building and offers programs such as the kids club and a 4-H club. The WIC Clinic and other social service providers come by regularly to serve residents. The school district provides the funding for the kids club, Thompson said.  “They see this as a kind of an extra support group for the kids, kind of reinforcing what they're learning at school,” she said. “They have choices. They can play in the gym, or they can do art. We've been doing a lot of art exploration. We're working on this movie. That was their idea.”Nelisa Raymond is from Romanum. She's married and has a daughter in high school. She also works for the Appleton Milan Elementary School. Raymond remembers the day she arrived at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.“I came in April. And it's still cold over here. But there's no snow on the ground. So I open the door from the airport. It's like, whoa, it's cold and it's sunny,” Raymond said. “So I went back inside and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.'”Erika Raymond said she is torn about returning to Romanum. She wants to return, but she has four children, ages 8 to 15, to think about.“As I'm getting older and older, I prefer back home. But then I have my kids so that's why we're here. I want them to get a good education,” she said. Raymond hopes they finish college and secure good jobs.Still, there's something about Milan.“It's a peaceful town. It's not crowded. And you feel safe with your kids roaming around town, and we feel safe,” Raymond said. “Yeah, that's what I love about Milan.”Correction (May 29, 2024): An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated who paid Lac qui Parle Valley School District for the school building. The story has been updated.

Lane closures are in place along a stretch of Interstate 494 in the southern Twin Cities metro area. The freeway is down to two lanes in each direction across the Minnesota River near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The closures will remain in place through late October. And hours after unionized education support professionals in Minneapolis Public Schools filed a notice to strike later this month, leaders from both the union and district announced they'd reached a deal. This is an MPR News morning update, hosted by Elana See. Music by Gary Meister.Find more from these stories at MPRnews.org.Minneapolis schools, support staff reach deal to avoid strikeRead the latest edition of the AM Update newsletter.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or RSS.

Welcome aboard another episode of the Flying Midwest Podcast! Have you ever wondered about airport management and reliever airports? We welcome Joe Harris of the Metropolitan Airports Commission to talk talk about their system, his role, and much more. This Minnesota based airports commission runs the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and a number of reliever airports in the Twin Cities. To learn more about MAC, check out their website: https://metroairports.org/ Be sure to follow us, subscribe on social media, and leave us a review wherever you find our podcast. Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.flyingmidwest.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.facebook.com/flyingmidwestpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Linktree: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/flyingmidwestpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Flyingmidwestpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Free content isn't always free. Each month, we have various costs associated with bringing you the podcast. If you would like to help us financially, you can purchase our merch, check out some great gear from Lightspeed, Flying Eyes, and Pilot Quarters at our affiliate links, or become a member of our Patreon community. We have a ton of great merch in our merch store just in time for summer. On our Patreon, we will have exclusive interview content, Jim's attempt at blogging with his CFI Quest, and a look at Madi's old blog from her early days in aviation. We hope you consider supporting us and becoming a Patron. Join our Patreon Community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Flyingmidwestpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.flyingmidwest.com/merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Checkout Lightspeed Headsets at our affiliate page.⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.lightspeedaviation.com/?campaign=flyingmidwest23&ref=101⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out Flying Eyes Optics! They design sunglasses and eyewear for pilots, by pilots. Go check out all of their great line of products at out affiliate page. If you like what you see, use coupon code "FlyingMidwest10" and get 10% off your purchase. Flying Eyes - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://flyingeyesoptics.com/?ref=Flyingmidwest23⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out the latest and greatest in chart inspired apparel! ⁠⁠⁠www.Pilotquarters.com

A major storm system bringing freezing rain and blizzard conditions to parts of the Great Plains Tuesday is affecting some flights to and from the Twin Cities. The Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport is reporting about a dozen canceled arrivals or departures, including flights to and from Grand Forks and Rapid City. This is the afternoon MPR News update for Tuesday, hosted by Jacob Aloi. Theme music by Gary Meister.

Eric Johnson's dad was in aviation so he grew up going to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He remembers spinning hot dog racks and generic restaurants. As his career started at MSP, the airport brought aboard more creative thinkers.  Working with consultants and operators interested in pushing boundaries, the airport became one of the first to start changing the industry. The result was a concessions program resembling a mall, with dynamic storefronts and eye-catching design that helped transition not just MSP but the entire industry.

Henry Lake and Chis Tubbs the plans to makeover the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, what are your best and worst airports, and a concerning story about Minneapolis Police Chief Chief Brian O'Hara.

Steve Thomson (in for Henry Lake) and Chris Tubbs react to the no marijuna smoking ban at Mpls./St. Paul International Airport, do you like handing out candy at Halloween, and we have a Scoreboard.

Paulding County News Podcast Sunday 10, 2023  Ga. grandfather celebrating 25th anniversary on vacation in Mexico dies of heart attack:    A Paulding County grandfather, Brandon Baxter, died of cardiac arrest during his 25th wedding anniversary vacation in Mexico. His wife, Misty, faced challenges in a foreign hospital, prompting a GoFundMe that raised $18,000 for an Air Evac. Despite efforts, Brandon was declared brain-dead, donating organs to save three lives. Misty, a special needs teacher, is now the family's primary provider, facing financial strain. The community supports her return to teaching, aiming to raise $100,000 for medical, funeral expenses, and to maintain their home. Brandon's sudden death left an emotional and financial impact on the family.................This from Wsbtv    Chattahoochee Tech Aviation Training Academy launching three programs of study for 2024 spring semester:  Chattahoochee Technical College in Paulding County is gearing up for three aviation programs set to launch in the spring of 2024. Students can now apply for the Aircraft Structural Technology diploma program, as well as Technical Certificates of Credit in Avionics Bench Technician and Aircraft Upholstery and Trim. The programs, housed in the new 55,000 square-foot Aviation Training Academy at Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport, aim to train students for careers in aircraft maintenance, repair, and service. The curriculum covers various aspects, including aircraft structure, avionics electronics, and upholstery. Construction of the academy is on track for completion by December 2023............This from the MDJ    Goat man:    Ches McCartney, aka The Goat Man, was a local legend known across small towns, with newspapers and radio stations reporting sightings of him and his goats. His storytelling prowess captivated audiences, leading to children being taken out of school to witness his unique presence. Living outside societal norms, McCartney shared tales of his past, including marrying a Spanish knife thrower after running away to New York at 14. The Paulding County Genealogical Society presented "Ches McCartney: The Origin and History of the Goat Man" on October 7th at 10 AM, shedding light on this intriguing figure.............This from the Dallas New Era      Weather:    This weeks weather will be in the mid to low 70's for the highs and the lows are going to be in the lower 50's. Fall is finally making its grand debut after tricking us with summer again. #weatherreport #coolingoff #perfectweather    Paulding County Arrest Reports:  Caylin Ricks was booked on 10/2/2023 for falsely reporting of a crime and having false statements/ writings/ conceal facts/ fraudulent documents in the matters of government.     Rhianna Woods was booked on 10/4/2023 for speeding, no license on person, and for purchase, possession, manufacture, distribution, or sale of controlled substances or marijuana penalties.     AGAIN, PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE INDIVIDUALS HAVE ONLY BEEN ARRESTED AND ARE NOT CONVICTED. THEY HAVE NOT HAD THEIR DAY IN COURT WHEN WE RECORDED THIS PODCAST. WE WISH THEM LUCK ON THEIR DAY IN THE COURT.    Demo former jail:  Paulding County planners are progressing in maximizing Dallas real estate by demolishing the former jail and sheriff's offices, which relocated in 2020. The plan includes constructing a new Fleet Maintenance building to replace the aging sheriff's office and jail. The bidding process for the demolition project saw seven bidders, with the lowest bid at $113,000. The project is expected to take several months, during which design work for the new building will commence. The site, northeast of Dallas, is a top contender for the Fleet Maintenance building, with an estimated completion date around 2025...............This from the Dallas New Era      Sports:  From the Paulding Sports Chronicles  2 of our Paulding County Softball teams are ranked in the top 5 of their regions!  In 6A East paulding is in 4th Place and in 7A North Paulding is in 2nd place.    Weird news:  Box of giraffe poop seized at MSP Airport:    A woman flying from Kenya to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for attempting to bring giraffe poop into the country. The woman declared the giraffe feces, stating her intention to make a necklace from it. Customs agents discovered over a dozen pieces of giraffe poop and a shell in her belongings. The woman had used moose feces for similar purposes at her Iowa home. Authorities highlighted the danger of bringing fecal matter into the U.S., citing the risk of disease transmission. The confiscated giraffe poop was seized and destroyed following USDA destruction protocol..........This from Fox 5  Can you imagine you are at the airport and then you smell a Zoo? Oh, I'm sorry Paulding County you don't actually need Giraffe poop you can just have a beautiful necklace from your pets! It is a win win!      Here are some things you're talking about: Call us with your thoughts or story at ‪(770) 799-6810  From What's Happening in Paulding County Facebook Page:  Cynthia Bosted from Dallas posted “There's literally no appetizing food in Dallas or Hiram. This is awful”  These are your responses from actual Paulding County citizens - as reported on What's Happening Paulding County   Sean Rainwater from Acworth “Just bring a buc-ees to paulding!”  Hope Moore from Dallas “Meh. I think there are good things in both of those towns depending on the cuisine you're seeking. Is steak like Bones in ATL, well no, but if I want to spend $300+ on dinner I go to Atlanta proper.  For casual dinners, there are plenty of decent options. Or you could always move since you're not a tree. “  Joyce Holmes from Hiram “In my opinion we did not ask for everyone to move here in the first place and when y'all did you brought this crap with you so if you like it move back to where you came from.”  Christopher Lee Byrd from Rockmart “You could…eat at home?”    From the Paulding County Sheriff's Office Facebook page:  They posted “Sergeant Clint Barker of our Courthouse Security Division (a proud Auburn Tiger football fan) and Superior Court Judge Dean Bucci (a proud Georgia Bulldog football fan) decided to place a "friendly wager" on the teams' football game this past weekend.   On the way in to work this morning, Sergeant Barker could not wait to show Judge Bucci the poster he made. Rumor has it, Sergeant Barker even has his poster proudly displayed in his office.”    Others commented:  Sarah Marion Hitchcock from Atlanta “I love this “    Reece Brown from Dallas “Bless Barker!! I hope maybe he will learn better.”    Andrea Pearson from Rockmart “We  Sgt Barker!! Go Dawgs “    Dana Greene from Dallas “Looking good Barker.”    From the What's Happening in Paulding County Facebook page:  Heather Gretsinger from Atlanta “PSA: Not everyone drives a car with a back-up camera. I know how to drive and use my mirrors, but seriously, why do people think it's ok to just walk right behind my car when I am backing up? This has been happening more and more lately. Please, when you are in a parking lot , pay attention to your surroundings!!”    These are your responses from actual Paulding County citizens - as reported on What's Happening Paulding County  Chris Lanham from Dallas “They walk like they drive. Everyone else are just in thier way and where they are going is more important than where you're going. It doesn't need to be said where its organizing from. We already know!”  Amanda Walters from Dallas “It's abundantly apparent on this thread that people do not know the driving laws and they need to revisit that.”  Cory Hobgood from Atlanta “The amount of times I've been at the Hiram Walmart and people have yelled at me for some goofy reason in the parking lot is absurd. I'm really starting to think no one knows anything about anything, even me. “  Amy Marie from Dallas “People are looking at their phones and just about walk into traffic”    Thanks for being one of the 9850 downloads we have had to the Paulding co news podcast since we launched in JULY. We are watching your social media post. Who knows, your friends and family could make the news, just based off their post. Soo make sure you listen subscribe and tell your friends about Paulding County News podcast. #facebook #pages #whatareyoutalkingabout #thisisyourstory #yourstory #yourcommunity #needsyourattention    Events:   Family Movie night  Halloween costume shop  Community Wellness Fair     #eventshappeningnearyou #weekendevents #weekdayevents #pauldingcountyuncensoredfacebookpage #whatyouaretalkingabout #whatsgoingoninpauldingcounty #events #loveevents #getyououtofthehouse #funforthefamily  Gas Tax Suspension, State Of Emergency Extended:  Governor Brian Kemp has extended the suspension of the statewide gas tax and the state of emergency until November 11 at 11:59 p.m. The extension comes as the initial order, which was set to expire on Friday, would have otherwise lapsed. This decision is part of ongoing measures to address and mitigate challenges related to the availability and affordability of fuel in the state...........This from the Patch      Interview: Ashley Henson Public Information officer at PC Sheriff's department    www.esogrepair.com      www.chattahoochietech.edu  www.cuofga.org www.daycosystems.com  www.angie.atlcommunities.com  www.powerselectricga.com http://www.newseason.cc/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prepare yourself for a chilling journey into the heart of a harrowing double homicide that took place in the lush confines of the Glensheen Estate. This episode unravels the bloody morning of June 27, 1977 when two members of the Condon family and their nurse were found brutally slain. Listen as we take you back to the initial investigation led by seasoned detectives, Gary Waller and Richard Jagoda, who trudged through a maze of power and wealth to unearth the truth. You'll almost smell the fear in the air as Officer Chris Couserva, the first responder, vividly paints the gruesome picture of the crime scene.Brace yourselves as we delve deeper into the unspeakable horrors that unfolded within the grand rooms of the Glensheen Mansion. The brutal attack on Velma Petila and the sinister clues scattered in Elizabeth Condon's bedroom will leave you in a state of shock. We trace the trail of evidence, right from the nurse's bedroom to a stolen car found at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. We also bring you the intriguing insights of Vera Dunbar, a close confidante of the Condons, whose interviews offer a peek into the secretive lives of the victims.In the latter part of our episode, we point an analytical lens at the investigation, shedding light on potential oversights in evidence collection and the hurdles faced by the Duluth Police Department. Despite these difficulties, we highlight the relentless efforts of the officers who left no stone unturned in solving this high-profile case. Strap in for a suspense-filled ride through the haunting corridors of the Glensheen Mansion - an episode that promises to keep you on the edge of your seat till the very end. Support the show

Minnesota is full of iconic, beloved landmarks. But there are lots of other, “functional” landmarks we pass by every day. The story of how one underused, nearly anonymous piece of architecture came to be was nearly lost to time and fading memories. That is, until a man from Bloomington, Minn., spent two months trying to uncover its history.The “Bloomfield Bridge,” as dubbed by the Assumption Church due to its location, is an oddly placed pedestrian bridge crossing I-494, just west of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. It extends from a Grainger warehouse in Bloomington across a freeway to a Taco Bell in Richfield, Minn.One day, Tyler Vigen stepped outside of the Taco Bell and asked the seemingly simple question: “Why is this bridge here?”While not a journalist but a curious individual, he set out to find the answer. Vigen ultimately found that its purpose served students of the Assumption Church and School who needed a clear path. But he spent nearly ten hours a week each week trying to reach that simple conclusion, parsing through hundreds of archived documents in several states. Vigen was a guest on Morning Edition and shared his journey into Minnesota lore that has gone viral.Listen to the full interview by clicking the player above. ”I set out to understand more about this bridge, in particular, I learned much more about the area around it,” Vigen said. “I think that people who are reading [my article], though, are interested in how interested I am.”Vigen drives under the pedestrian bridge on his way to the airport and its purpose nagged at him enough to bring it up to his wife. She didn't dismiss the idea, and so Vigen was intrigued and determined.“It didn't make sense to me why it was there, because it lands in some grass that seems to go to nowhere.”Vigen's journey down the rabbit hole began with reading the bridge's plaque — eventually speaking with parishioners of the church and even the former principal around the time of the bridge's construction. He went through several boxes of documents at the Minnesota Historical Society and ended up involving eight federal, state and local agencies in his quest to discover the bridge's purpose. He reached the near-end of his goose chase on a trip to the National Archives in Kansas City. Vigen reflected on his fervor, travels and FOIA requests, saying that he should have simply been talking to more people all along. Vigen's final story was about 6,000 words long, with another 4,000 in footnotes. He said it was even longer before his wife Zidi Chen helped him to edit it down. He even went as far as to request permission from the FAA to take drone footage of the bridge, due to its proximity to the airport. “She helped to make it clear and concise for everyone to read”, he said. Vigen said the “Bloomfield bridge” endeavor wasn't planned, so while it's not on the agenda, another deep dive isn't off the table.Give Vigen's work a read. It's worth the time investment. And when you do, be sure to click on his embedded footnotes, for extra nuggets highlighting his curiosity and spirit.

Back in 1973, Fred and Earline Estes had a dream of owning their own business and working for themselves. They bought a Hallmark store and slowly expanded it to a small chain of gift shops. Over the years, as their two children got older, they brought them in to work in the stores.Now, 50 years later, Estes Enterprises, Inc. is thriving. It runs 15 retail shops inside the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Tampa International Airport. If you've flown out of MSP, you might have bought a phone charger or a snack at one of the Estes shops. MPR News host Angela Davis talks with the second generation of the family business about their history, managing family and workplace relationships and giving back. One way they do that is through the Fred & Earline Estes Diversity Scholarship at the University of Minnesota.Guests Frederic Estes is president of Estes Enterprises, Inc., a business started by his late parents, Fred and Earline Estes. The family-owned company began with a single Hallmark store in 1973 and now runs 15 retail stores in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Tampa International Airport.  Lisa Estes worked for her parents' company Estes Enterprises, Inc., running the first store at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and serving as vice-president until leaving the company in 1997. She's been an investigator with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office for more than twenty years.Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. 

Hector Airport Executive Director Shawn Dobberstein explains the Sun Coutry, Landline announcement.  Sun Country Airlines and Landline will start a new service beginning March 1 that will provide non-stop motorcoach bus transportation from Hector Airport to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sam Brinton is out of a job. From the Daily Beast: A Biden administration nuclear waste official, Sam Brinton, is out of a job after being accused of stealing airport luggage in two separate incidents. “Sam Brinton is no longer a DOE employee,” a Department of Energy spokesperson told The Daily Beast on Monday evening. “By law, the Department of Energy cannot comment further on personnel matters.” Brinton, who attracted attention as one of the federal government's first non-binary officials, was first charged last month for nabbing a woman's suitcase from the baggage carousel at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in September. They initially denied taking the bag—which was reportedly worth more than $2,500—but later said they had grabbed it by mistake. Brinton checked the luggage on at least two other flights following the alleged theft, including a Sept. 18 flight back to Washington D.C. and an Oct. 9 trip to Europe, according to The Star Tribune. The newspaper also reported that Brinton admitted to officers they dumped the bag's contents in a St. Paul hotel room after realizing their mistake, hoping the situation would go away. Then last week a second set of charges were filed in Las Vegas for Brinton—with police sharing surveillance footage of them leaving the Harry Reid International Airport with another woman's bag—this one worth an estimated $3,670, according to court documents. Meanwhile, Chris Beck is urging Americans to "wake up" about transgender activism and the health care providers. From FOX News: A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.  "Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help." "I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that's why I'm here right now. I'm trying to correct that." Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman. "I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn't," he said during the interview.            Get exclusive content here!: https://thepetekalinershow.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Heavy snow fell across southern and central Minnesota, leading to multiple crashes, closed runways at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and snow emergencies in the Twin Cities. This is the evening MPR News update for Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022. Hosted by Peter Cox. Theme music by Gary Meister.

Mark Ceilley of St. Paul has picture books on the mind, as a debut author himself. On a recent trip through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Ceilley discovered Picture Book Parade. The series features one picture book by a Minnesota author every two months through next August. Individual pages are blown up on panels so that visitors may feel they are stepping into the story. The book for this month and next is “In Search of the Gingerbread Man” by Timi Bliss, followed in 2023 by Peter Pearson's “How to Eat an Airplane,” Molly Beth Griffen's “Ten Beautiful Things,” Cheryl Minnema's book “Johnny's Pheasant” and Bao Phi's “A Different Pond.”   The exhibit is located between gates C18 and C19 at Terminal 1. Wendy Knox of Frank Theatre stopped at Prove Collective in Duluth to see Carolyn Sue Olson's work. Olson created a series of brightly colored oil pastel portraits of essential workers, beginning with the stay-at-home order in March 2020 and continuing through July 2021. The portraits have been on display in various locations around the state, but this is the first time all 100 have been exhibited together. Olson has put the complete series in a book, which is available through her website. The show runs until Nov. 18. Knox found encountering the entire collection a powerful experience. “You forget certain things that have happened” over the course of the pandemic, Knox said, “it is a little stroll down a not-pleasant memory lane, but it is really informative to see” what we've been through. Breanne Tepler, lead singer/songwriter of Breanne Marie and the Front Porch Sinners, loves the art and music scene in Duluth. This Thursday evening, she's heading to Wussow's Concert Cafe, which she calls “the heart and soul of the Duluth music scene,” for a concert and artist's opening reception. The artist is Annmarie Geniusz, a “wickedly talented” Duluth-based artist who creates joyful, whimsical creative works, from illustrations and murals to stained glass creations. Geniusz will be the November featured artist at Wussow's, and the artist's reception will feature local ska band, Woodblind, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tepler also says to check out the mural Geniusz painted next door Wussow's, at Zenith Bookstore.

Police at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport say they've found the family of an infant girl who turned up with a woman at one of the airport's light rail stations. This is a morning update from MPR News, hosted by Cathy Wurzer. Music by Gary Meister.

www.patreon.com/accidentaldads for bonus content and to support the show AND The Save The Music Foundation!   Top police stings   A sting operation is a deceitful operation used by law enforcement to apprehend criminals in the act of trying to commit a crime. In order to obtain proof of a suspect's misconduct, a typical sting involves an undercover law enforcement officer, investigator, or cooperative member of the public acting as a criminal partner or prospective victim and cooperating with a suspect's activities. Journalists for the mass media occasionally use sting operations to film and disseminate footage of illegal conduct.   Sting procedures are prevalent in many nations, including the United States, but are prohibited in others, like Sweden and France. Certain sting operations are prohibited, such as those carried out in the Philippines where it is against the law for police enforcement to act as drug traffickers in order to catch purchasers of illegal substances.   Examples   Offering free sports or airline tickets to lure fugitives out of hiding. Deploying a bait car (also called a honey trap) to catch a car thief Setting up a seemingly vulnerable honeypot computer to lure and gain information about hackers Arranging for someone under the legal drinking age to ask an adult to buy an alcoholic beverage or tobacco products for them Passing off weapons or explosives (whether fake or real), to a would-be terrorist Posing as: someone who is seeking illegal drugs, contraband, or child pornography, to catch a supplier (or as a supplier to catch a customer) a child in a chat room to identify a potential online child predator a potential customer of illegal prostitution, or as a prostitute to catch a would-be customer a hitman to catch customers and solicitors of murder-for-hire; or as a customer to catch a hitman a spectator of an illegal dogfighting ring a documentary film crew to lure a pirate to the country where a crime was committed.   Whether sting operations constitute entrapment raises ethical questions. Law enforcement might have to be careful not to incite someone who wouldn't have otherwise committed a crime to do so. Additionally, while conducting such operations, the police frequently commit the same crimes, like purchasing or selling narcotics, enticing prostitutes, etc. The defendant may raise the entrapment defense in common law jurisdictions.   Contrary to common belief, however, laws against entrapment do not forbid undercover police personnel from pretending to be criminals or deny that they are police officers. Entrapment is normally only a defense when suspects are coerced into confessing to a crime they probably would not have otherwise committed. However, the legal meaning of this coercion differs widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Entrapment might be used as a defense, for instance, if undercover agents forced a possible suspect to manufacture illicit narcotics in order to sell them. Entrapment has often not taken place if a suspect is already producing narcotics and authorities pretend as purchasers to apprehend them.   Operation Entebbe The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos successfully carried out Operation Entebbe or Operation Thunderbolt, a counterterrorism hostage-rescue mission, at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 4, 1976. A week earlier, on June 27, two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO) (who had previously split from the PFLP of George Habash) and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells hijacked an Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner carrying 248 passengers. The declared goal of the hijackers was to trade the hostages for the release of 13 detainees in four other countries and the release of 40 Palestinian terrorists and related prisoners who were detained in Israel. The flight, which had left Tel Aviv for Paris, was rerouted after a stopover in Athens through Benghazi to Entebbe, the country of Uganda's principal airport. The ruler Idi Amin, who had been made aware of the hijacking from the start[10], encouraged the hijackers and personally greeted them. The hijackers confined all Israelis and a few non-Israeli Jews into a separate room after transferring all captives from the plane to a deserted airport facility.  148 captives who were not Israelis were freed and taken to Paris over the course of the next two days. Ninety-four passengers—mostly Israelis—and the 12-person Air France crew were held captive and threatened with execution.  Based on information from the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, the IDF took action. If the demands for the release of the prisoners were not granted, the hijackers threatened to murder the hostages. The preparation of the rescue effort was prompted by this threat. These strategies included getting ready for armed opposition from the Uganda Army. It was a nighttime operation. For the rescue mission, Israeli transport planes flew 100 commandos to Uganda over a distance of 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles). The operation took 90 minutes to complete after a week of planning. Out of the 106 captives still held, 102 were freed, and three were murdered. In a hospital, the second captive was later slain. Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the unit leader, was one of the five injured Israeli commandos. Netanyahu was Benjamin Netanyahu's elder sibling and the future Israeli prime minister. Eleven Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of the Ugandan air force were destroyed, and all five hijackers and forty-five Ugandan troops were killed. Idi Amin gave the command to attack and kill Kenyans living in Uganda after the operation because Kenyan sources supported Israel. 245 Kenyans in Uganda were killed as a consequence, and 3,000 left the nation. In honor of Yonatan Netanyahu, the commander of the force, Operation Entebbe, which had the military codename Operation Thunderbolt, is occasionally referred to retroactively as Operation Jonathan.   Operation Valkyrie Senior Nazi military officers and Adolf Hitler convened in the Wolf's Lair in Rastenburg, Eastern Prussia, on July 20, 1944. Hitler's body was discovered scattered across the table as the Nazi military chiefs sat down to plan troop deployments on the Eastern Front when an explosion burst through the steamy meeting room. With the Führer's death, the Nazi threat to Europe could have been lifted. or so it seems at first.   Claus von Stauffenberg and his accomplices believed they had turned the course of World War II and maybe saved thousands of extra lives for a brief period of time in history. The July Plot, also known as Operation Valkyrie, was the most famous attempt to have Hitler killed, although it was ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons, some of which are still unknown to this day. The July Plot Is Hatched Many Germans, including some of the country's top military figures, had begun to lose faith in Germany's ability to win the war by the summer of 1944. Hitler was widely held responsible for ruining Germany. The Wolfsschanze was one of Hitler's military headquarters. A number of prominent politicians and senior military figures devised a plan to murder the Führer by detonating a bomb at a conference there in order to spark political unification and a coup. Operation Valkyrie was the name of the strategy. The plan was that after Hitler's death, the military would assert that the murder was the result of a Nazi Party coup attempt, and the Reserve Army would take significant buildings in Berlin and detain senior Nazi figures. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler would become Germany's new chancellor, and Ludwig Beck would become its first president. The new administration wanted to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to the war, ideally with benefits for Germany. The main conspirators' motives varied, according to Philipp Freiherr Von Boeselager, one of the last remaining participants in the July Plot. Many of them only saw it as a means of avoiding military defeat, while others hoped to at least partially restore some of the nation's morals. They chose Claus von Stauffenberg, a young colonel in the German army, to carry out the assassination. Despite not being a member of the Nazi party in the traditional sense, Stauffenberg was a devoted German patriot. In the end, he came to think that if Germany was to be saved, it was his patriotic duty to expel Adolf Hitler. Hitler, though, had experienced assassination attempts before. Assassination attempts against Hitler had been more frequent since his spectacular ascent to the top of Germany's political scene in the late 1930s. Hitler, who was becoming more and more paranoid, frequently altered his plans without warning and at the last minute. What Went Wrong Stauffenberg entered the bunker at Wolfsschanze on July 20, 1944. The conference was planned to take place in a concrete, windowless subterranean bunker that was closed off by a large steel door. By making sure it happened within one of these facilities, the detonation would be confined and anyone nearby the explosive device would die quickly from the shrapnel. The conference was moved to an above-ground wooden bunker with better air circulation on July 20 due to the oppressively hot weather, according to Pierre Galante's Operation Valkyrie: The German Generals' Plot Against Hitler. Numerous windows, a wooden table, and other beautiful furniture were all present in the area, which meant that the potential explosion would be much diminished since the energy of the blast would be absorbed and diffused. Stauffenberg was aware that this was the case, but he nonetheless proceeded, assuming that two explosives would be sufficient to destroy the room and kill everyone within. Stauffenberg excused himself when he arrived, saying that he needed to change his clothing, and went to a private room. The two explosives needed to be armed and primed. However, he only had time to arm one of the two devices due to an unexpected phone call and a quick knock at his door. Thus, the possibility of a greater blast was cut in half. Stauffenberg realized that in order to cause any kind of harm, the explosive device needed to be placed as near to Hitler as possible. He was able to get a seat as near to Hitler as possible with only one other person between them by claiming that his hearing was impaired due to his wounds. Placing the bag as near to Hitler as possible, Stauffenberg then left the room pretending to take a personal call. The briefcase was accidentally shifted to the opposite side of a large wooden leg that was supporting the meeting room table as another official was taking a seat. The Aftermath Panic broke out after the device exploded at precisely 12:42 pm. Twenty individuals were hurt, including three cops who subsequently died from their injuries, and a stenographer was instantaneously murdered. Stauffenberg and his assistant Werner von Haeften leapt into a staff car and bluffed their way past three different military checkpoints to flee the mayhem at the Wolfsschanze complex because they believed that Hitler was indeed dead. Hitler, however, along with everyone else who was protected by the large wooden table leg, only suffered a few minor cuts and an eardrum perforation. He had fully torn-up pants, and the Nazi leadership would subsequently utilize pictures of them in a propaganda effort. Ian Kershaw, a historian, claims that during the explosion, contradictory news concerning Hitler's fate came. In spite of the disarray, the Reserve Army started detaining senior Nazi officials in Berlin. The entire scheme, however, was eventually thwarted by delays, unclear communication, and the announcement that Hitler was still alive. The conspirators were all given the death penalty in a hastily called court martial the same evening by General Friedrich Fromm. In the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, a makeshift firing squad murdered Stauffenberg, von Haeften, Olbricht, and another officer, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, while Ludwig Beck committed himself. At Berlin's Plötzensee jail, Berthold Stauffenberg was gently strangled while the incident was being recorded for Hitler to see. Hitler's life was ultimately saved that day by a number of interrelated reasons, but the conspirators were right that Germany was headed for disaster. Less than a year later, the Nazi leader and his closest advisers committed suicide. Operation Iceman Ever wonder what its like working undercover with an alleged murderer? Well, let's just say it's not hard to get a stuffy nose around this case… In fact, serial killer Richard Kuklinski's preferred method of murder involved using a nasal spray bottle to spritz cyanide into the faces of his victims. As a result, undercover agent Dominick Polifrone was never more on guard than during the 18 months he spent building a case against the so-called Iceman. “No matter where I went with him, I wore this leather jacket with a pocket sewn inside containing a small-caliber weapon,” recalls Polifrone, who gained his target's confidence and taped dozens of their conversations. “I knew that I was somewhere on his hit list. If he'd pulled out that nasal spray, I'd have to protect myself.” The streetwise New Jersey officer acquired enough proof before Kuklinski had suspicions, preventing that situation from occurring. Finally, the enormous 6-foot-4 gangland killer was apprehended thanks to his evidence. “I've met hundreds of bad guys, but Kuklinski was a totally different type of individual,” he tells The Post. “He was coldhearted — ice-cold like the devil. He had no remorse about anything.”  Kuklinski was captured by Polifrone in a combined operation between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the office of the New Jersey attorney general. The criminal, who was a leading suspect in the murder of a mobster whose body was found two years after his disappearance, was posing as a respectable businessman residing in suburban Dumont, New Jersey. The reason the medical examiners discovered ice in the muscle tissue was because Kuklinski, who earned his notoriety for frequently freezing the bodies of his victims and then defrosting them, erred that time. Police made an indirect connection between the deceased man and Kuklinski, who was charged with a number of previous homicides.  “We had to get something nobody knew,” recalls Polifrone. The sting only appears briefly on screen in the film. In order to gain Kuklinski's trust, Polifrone, a resident of Hackensack, New Jersey, pretended to be a "bad person" for a whole year and a half. They met in parks and rest areas along highways and discussed the horrific killings Kuklinski had carried out, including a Mafia hit in Detroit for which he was paid $65,000. Additionally, there were "statement killings." To put a dead canary in the mouth of a victim as a warning to other victims, one mafia leader paid him extra. Another occasion, Kuklinski made light of the fact that he saw a gang member consume an entire cheeseburger laced with cyanide before passing away while joking with Polifrone. Recalls the cop: “He told me that cyanide normally works real quick and easy, but that ‘this guy has the constitution of a God damn ox, and is just eating and eating.  “He said he almost ate the whole burger and then, bam, he's down!” Polifrone knew exactly how to play his role. “I laughed, of course,” he shrugs. “That's what bad guys do.”  Paradoxically, Kuklinski was a committed family man. He led a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence.  “He never socialized, gambled or messed around with other women,” adds Polifrone. “He lived for his wife and kids.” One minute he'd be repairing his daughters' toys, the next, dismembering a body with a chain saw and stuffing it into an oil drum. “He would come home and completely shut off this murderous component and seek security and love from his family,” says “Iceman” director Vromen. “He fulfilled the need to provide for them by killing.” Polifrone finally nailed Kuklinski after tricking him into buying what he thought was pure cyanide. A team of feds and ATF officers arrested him in December 1986. Twenty-eight years later, he reflects on the man who died, apparently of natural causes, in Trenton Prison in 2006 at age 70. Eyebrows were raised because he was due to appear as a witness at the trial of a Gambino family underboss. “I hope he died a slow death because of what he did to families and individuals,” concludes Polifrone. “He had no mercy. And if it was foul play, that's OK with me.” So let's talk about some controversial sting operations you may or may not have heard of.   ACORN Sting   Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is known as ACORN. ACORN was a group of neighborhood-based organizations in the US that supported low- and middle-income families. They also offered details on affordable housing and voter registration. James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, two young conservative activists, published recordings that had been edited with care in 2009. The two pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute before using a hidden camera to get unflattering answers from ACORN workers that seemed to give them advice on how to hide their prostitution business and avoid paying taxes.The plea for assistance in obtaining funding for a brothel didn't appear to deter the ACORN employees either. This sparked a national debate and led to a reduction in financing from public and private sources. ACORN declared on March 22, 2010, that it was disbanding and shutting all of its connected state chapters as a result of declining funding. Interesting fact: On January 25, 2010, James O'Keefe and three other people were detained on felony charges for allegedly tampering with the phones at Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans. O'Keefe stated that he was looking into claims that Landrieu's staff had dismissed constituent phone calls over the health care issue. O'Keefe recorded the action as they pretended to be telephone repairmen.In the end, they were accused with breaking into a government building under false pretenses, a misdemeanor. Following his admission of guilt, O'Keefe received a three-year probationary period, 100 hours of community service, and a $1,500 fine.   Operation West End The largest undercover news story in Indian journalism has been described like this. In order to expose the alleged culture of bribery inside the Indian Ministry of Defense, a well-known newspaper from India by the name of Tehelka—which translates as "sensation" in Hindi—started its first significant undercover operation, "Operation West End" in 2001. Two reporters from the publication pretended to be London-based armaments dealers from a fake firm. In the undercover film, numerous politicians and defense officials are shown discussing and accepting bribes in exchange for assisting them in obtaining government contracts, including Bangaru Laxman, secretary of the ruling BJP party. Laxman and Military Minister George Fernandes (shown above) resigned following the release of the tapes, and a number of other defense ministry employees were placed on administrative leave.   Interesting Fact: Instead of initially acting on the evidence from the sting operation, the Indian government accused the newspaper of fabricating the allegations. The main financial backers of Tehelka were made targets of investigations, and the newspaper company was almost ruined. In 2003, Tehelka was re-launched as a weekly newspaper, and was funded by faithful subscribers and other well-wishers. In 2007, Tehelka shifted to a regular magazine format.   Senator Larry Craig On June 11, 2007, an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation targeting males cruising for sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport detained Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer, claimed that just after noon, the suspect entered a restroom and shut the door. Craig then moved into the stall next to him and propped his suitcase up against the stall door's front. By obscuring the front view, this is frequently done in an effort to hide sexual activity. Several minutes later, the officer claimed to have noticed Craig looking into his stall through a gap, tapping his right foot repeatedly, then moving it till it brushed Karsnia's. Craig then passed his hand under the stall divider into Karsnia's stall with his palm up and guided it along the divider toward the front of the stall three times. Karsnia then waved his badge back, to which the senator responded, “No!” The senator pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, but changed his mind after word of his arrest later became public. Craig claimed he just had a “wide stance”, and he only pleaded guilty to avoid a spectacle.An appeals court rejected his request to change his mind about entering a guilty plea. Craig completed his time in the Senate but was unable to have his case dismissed by the Senate Ethics Committee. Craig departed office on January 3, 2009, having not to run for reelection in 2008. Fascinating Fact: Soon after Craig was arrested, the men's room started to resemble a tourist destination, with people coming to seek directions and take photographs. Even restroom tissue may be purchased on eBay. Listen to the conversation between Senator Craig and Sgt. Karsnia immediately following the arrest here.   7 Sarah Ferguson was victimized by Mazher Mahmood, a reporter for the tabloid daily "News of the World," in May 2010. In order to set up a meeting with Ferguson, Mahmood pretended to be a wealthy international businessman. The Duchess, who was discreetly recorded throughout the encounter, offered to connect the "tycoon" with Prince Andrew's influential inner circle. "500,000 pounds when you can, to me, open doors," Sarah Ferguson is heard saying on the video. She may also be seen removing a briefcase that is holding $40,000 in cash. After the event was reported, Ferguson's spokesman claimed she was both "devastated" and "regretful." She said that she had been drinking before asking for the money and was "in the gutter at that point" in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Mazher Mahmood, the guy who pretended to be the tycoon, is referred to as the "Fake Sheikh" and has conned several famous people. No one is certain if that is his true name or what his real history is since he likes to make things as mysterious as possible. The journalist denies ever allowing his face to appear in any of his pieces and claims to have received several death threats. He also avoids public appearances.   Bait Cars The Minneapolis Police Department employed the first bait cars in the 1990s. The largest bait car fleet in North America is now situated in Surrey, British Columbia, which is widely regarded as the continent's "auto theft capital." The cars are carefully modified, equipped with GPS tracking equipment, audio/video surveillance, and an engine-disabling remote control. It has helped to lower car theft by 47% when it was introduced in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2004. In one of the more contentious bait vehicle stings, a lady was murdered nearly instantaneously after a robber driving a bait car drove into her in Dallas, Texas, in 2008. To resolve the litigation, $245,000 was given to the victim's family. Fact: The key to determining whether police are utilizing a bait car improperly and would result in entrapment is if they left it in a way that would tempt someone who would not ordinarily commit a crime. Here, you can view one of the more eye-catching (to put it mildly) bait vehicle stings. Many others will undoubtedly have the same thoughts as I had. “Where the heck was the kill switch?”   Marion Barry A well-known politician and former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry. Police were going to conduct an undercover narcotics transaction with former Virgin Islands official Charles Lewis on December 22, 1988, but they were turned back when they discovered Mayor Marion Barry was in Lewis's hotel room. This prompted a grand jury inquiry into potential mayor meddling in the narcotics probe. Barry testified for three hours in front of the grand jury before telling reporters he had done nothing wrong. Then, on January 18, 1990, Barry was arrested in a Washington, D.C. hotel after using crack cocaine in a room with his former girlfriend, who had turned informant for the FBI. This was the result of a sting operation put up by the FBI and D.C. Police. Barry said the now-famous phrase, "Bitch set me up," which has come to be linked with him. Following his arrest and subsequent trial, Barry made the decision not to run for mayor again. He was charged with 14 charges by a grand jury, including suspected grand jury perjury. The mayor could have spent 26 years in prison if found guilty on all 14 counts. Barry was only given a six-month prison term after the jury found him guilty of using cocaine. Barry campaigned for municipal council after being let out of prison. He garnered 70% of the vote due to his widespread popularity and the perception held by many that Marion Barry was the target of a political witch hunt by the government. Then, in 1995, Barry won a fourth term as mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry is currently back in his position on the D.C. city council. Regardless of your opinion on Marion Barry, you have to respect his perseverance and drive to help the people of Washington, D.C. The aforementioned occurrence is only a small portion of his remarkable life. A documentary titled "The Nine Lives of Marion Barry" was produced by HBO.    Joran Van der Sloot Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot is a key suspect in the case of Natalee Holloway, who vanished on May 30, 2005, while traveling to Aruba to celebrate her high school graduation. On March 29, 2010, Van der Sloot got in touch with Beth Twitty Holloway's mother's attorney John Q. Kelly, reviving the case. Van der Sloot promised to provide details about Holloway's demise and the whereabouts of her remains in exchange for a total of $250,000 with a $25,000 down payment. After Kelly and Twitty made contact with Alabama law enforcement, the FBI launched a sting operation. On May 10, Van der Sloot accepted a wire transfer of $15,000 to his Dutch bank account along with an additional cash payment of $10,000. He drove Kelly to the location of Holloway's remains in exchange for the cash. He indicated a home, saying that his father had assisted in burying the body in the foundation. The home had not yet been constructed when Holloway vanished, therefore this turned out to be untrue. Later, Van der Sloot informed Kelly through email that the entire incident was a fraud. At this point, police might have detained Van der Sloot for wire fraud and extortion, but they chose to wait while they worked to establish a case of murder against him. Van der Sloot was not only let free, he was also given permission to depart Aruba and travel to Bogotá, Colombia, and then Lima, Peru, with the money he had made from the operation. He met Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old University of Lima business student, in a casino hotel in the city. Ramirez and Van der Sloot are seen entering a hotel room together on security footage, but only Van der Sloot is seen exiting. On June 2, Ramirez was discovered dead in the hotel room that Van der Sloot had booked, her neck broken and she had been battered to death. On May 30, 2010, precisely five years after Natalee Holloway vanished, Ramirez passed away. A person arrested Van der Sloot He admitted to the murder on June 3 and June 7. Fascinating fact: Van der Sloot is presently detained at Peru's Miguel Castro jail, where murder charges have been brought. He apparently now claims that if he is permitted to move to a jail in Aruba, he would tell the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway's remains.   Perverted Justice Stings Perverted-Justice is a group that uses volunteers to masquerade as juveniles online, often between the ages of 10-15, and wait for an adult to message or email the decoy back. If the topic becomes sexual, they won't actively reject it or support it. Then, in order to set up a meeting, they will attempt to identify the males by acquiring their phone numbers and other information. The group then provides law enforcement with the information. Additionally, Perverted-Justice has worked with the American reality show "To Catch a Predator." In Murphy, Texas, one of the more contentious instances took place in 2006. Louis Conradt (seen above), a district attorney in Texas, pretended to be a 19-year-old college student and had sexually explicit internet conversations with a person he thought was a 13-year-old kid. They hired an actress to portray the youngster on the phone when Conradt demanded images of the boy's genitalia. Conradt stopped returning phone calls and instant messages, so police and the reality program decided to conduct a search warrant operation at his residence. A gunshot was heard as the police entered the scene to make an arrest. Conradt was inside with a self-inflicted wound when they arrived, and he eventually passed away at a hospital. 23 people were taken into custody for online solicitation of minors as a consequence of the sting operation in Murphy, Texas. Due to inadequate evidence, none of the 23 instances were prosecuted as of June 2007. Conradt's family launched a $105 million lawsuit against Dateline's To Catch a Predator series. The dispute was ultimately resolved outside of court. All next episodes' development was halted by the network in 2008. Rachel Hoffman On February 22, 2007, a traffic stop in Tallahassee, Florida, resulted in Rachel Hoffman being found in possession of 25 grams of marijuana. Then, on April 17, 2008, police searched her flat and found 4 ecstasy tablets and 151.7 grams of marijuana. Police allegedly threatened to put her in jail unless she worked as an undercover informant for them, according to her account. She was then dispatched untrained to an undercover gathering to purchase a weapon and a significant quantity of narcotics from two alleged drug traffickers. The suspects relocated the drug purchase while she was there. When she departed the buy place in the car with the two suspects, the police officers who were keeping an eye on the sting lost sight of her. The identical gun she was intended to purchase was used to kill her by the two suspects while they were in motion. Two days later, her corpse was discovered close to Perry, Florida. One of the murder suspects was convicted of first-degree murder and given a life sentence without the possibility of parole on December 17, 2009, which would have been Rachel Hoffman's 25th birthday. Trial for the second murder suspect is set for October 2010. Interesting Fact: On May 7, 2009, a law called “Rachel's Law” was passed by the Florida State Senate. Rachel's Law requires law enforcement agencies to (a) provide special training for officers who recruit confidential informants, (b) instruct informants that reduced sentences may not be provided in exchange for their work, and (c) permit informants to request a lawyer if they want one.    Mr. Big The Royal Canadian Mounted Police created Mr. Big, sometimes known as "the Canadian method," in the early 1990s in response to unsolved killings. It is employed in Canada and Australia, but many other nations, like the United States and England, view it as entrapment. The technique works something like this: An undercover police unit poses as members of a fictitious gang, into which the suspect is inducted. The suspect is invited to participate in a series of criminal activities (all faked by the police). In addition, the “gang members” build a personal relationship with the suspect, by drinking together and other social activities. After some time, the gang boss, Mr. Big, is presented to him. The police have a fresh interest in the first crime, and the suspect is instructed to provide the gang with further information. They clarify that Mr. Big might be able to affect the course of the police investigation, but only if he confesses to the full extent of the crime. He is also warned that if he conceals any other previous offenses, the gang could decide against working with him in the future since he would be a burden. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are shown in the picture above carrying the hats of the four officers who were killed in Edmonton, Canada, in 2005 at a memorial service. Two of the men serving prison sentences for the murders made confessions to Mr. Big operatives.Interesting Fact: In British Columbia, the technique has been used over 180 times, and, in 80% of the cases, it resulted in either a confession or the elimination of the suspect from suspicion. However, cases of false confessions and wrongful convictions have recently come to the public's attention, and many are starting to question the controversial technique. In 2007, a documentary was made, called Mr. Big, that was very critical of the procedure.   You can't talk about undercover operations without talking about the mob. Here are five badasses who infiltrated the mob.   In law enforcement, working as an undercover officer carries the high risk of discovery by criminal suspects, leading to violence, torture and death. But the rewards can be huge, with wire recordings and eyewitness testimony that can result in arrests and convictions. A trained officer knows how to strategize, win the confidence of their targets and get them to reveal what's needed to build a case to take to trial. It requires an unusual kind of person, able to work under stress, stay focused, pull off the character he or she is playing and be prepared to tell many lies. What follows here is a list of five remarkable individuals whose undercover operations, despite real dangers, resulted in the convictions of leaders and associates of organized crime, over almost a century. This list leaves out many other famous undercover officers, whom we would like to recognize in the future. Perhaps because of the gravity of the investigations, and the financial resources required, all of these undercover officers worked for agencies of the U.S. government. MICHAEL MALONE Mike Malone worked undercover for the Treasury Department's Intelligence Unit. In the late 1920s, he infiltrated Al Capone's Chicago Outfit and helped convict the crime boss of tax evasion. Michael Malone had all the makings of an undercover agent who would successfully infiltrate Al Capone's Chicago gang for nearly two years. Malone, whose parents came over from Ireland, grew up in New Jersey and meshed well with its European immigrants, eventually learning to speak Gaelic, Italian, Yiddish and Greek. With his “black Irish” dark hair and skin, he resembled someone from southern Europe. After finessing his way into Capone's inner circle in 1929, Malone proved invaluable to his superiors in the Treasury Department pursuing a tax evasion case against the Chicago crime boss. Despite the danger, Malone kept an iron will. Blowing his cover would have proved fatal. But given his skills, it didn't happen. While Malone kept up the charade, he delivered information that proved incriminating not only for Capone, but for his top enforcer, Frank Nitti (aka Nitto). Malone remained disguised within Capone's bootlegging band even for a time after the feds filed tax charges against Capone, Nitti and Capone's brother, Ralph, in 1931. When Capone's jury trial commenced, and the Treasury Department removed Malone from his undercover job, the agent gained a bit of respect from the embarrassed gang chief himself. In the Chicago courthouse, Malone happened to enter an elevator where Capone stood with his defense lawyers. “The only thing that fooled me was your looks,” Capone is said as to have remarked to Malone. “You look like a Wop. You took your chances, and I took mine. I lost.” From 1929 to 1931, Malone fed intelligence about Capone that would culminate in the historic conviction of the nation's most notorious Mob boss. His fascinating story began after his service in World War I. With law enforcement his career goal, Malone joined the Treasury Department's Intelligence Unit later known as the “T-Men.” Early on, in the 1920s, Malone appreciated how donning disguises brought him closer to the suspects. He posed in everyman roles such as garbage man and shoe shiner. Elmer Irey, chief of the Intelligence Unit, had worked with undercover agent Malone on Prohibition cases. Once, Irey enlisted Malone to smash a West Coast version of “Rum Row,” rumrunners selling contraband Canadian liquor from ships off the coast of San Francisco. Malone posed as gangster from Chicago in hiding, with money to invest in illegal booze. He devised a nighttime sting operation. Agents posing as bootleggers drove speedboats out to the booze-laden mother ship and, after money changed hands, Malone fired off a flare, signaling the U.S. Coast Guard, which boarded the mother ship and arrested the astonished bootleggers. President Herbert Hoover entered office in March 1929, a few weeks following the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, where seven men associated with Capone's bitter rival in bootlegging, George “Bugs” Moran, died in gunfire. Hoover conferred with Irey and urged him to compile a team of special agents to “get Capone” on tax charges. Meanwhile, another team of Prohibition Unit agents in Chicago, headed by Eliot Ness, would attack Capone on violations of federal liquor laws under the Volstead Act. Irey appointed Special Agent Frank Wilson, Malone and several others to the get Capone team. Meanwhile, a group of wealthy business executives in Chicago, called the Secret Six, donated large sums of money for expenses to assist the feds in getting Capone. Malone used their largess to purchase some expensive clothing to look the part of a well-heeled hoodlum that Capone would envy. Malone set about infiltrating Capone's underworld at its core – the Lexington Hotel, where the boss and his men lived. Wearing a fancy suit, purple shirt and white hat, Malone sat in the lobby, reading newspapers for days on end. He spoke in an Italian accent, introduced himself as “Mike Lepito,” met Capone men playing craps and played the part of a mobster. He mailed letters to friends in Philadelphia, who wrote back. Capone's guys broke into his room, noted his pricey checkered suits and silk underwear. They opened his mail from Philadelphia, read the letters written, impressively, in underworld lingo they understood. They informed Capone. Finally, Capone sent a cohort down to the lobby to ask “Lepito” about his business in town. “Keeping quiet,” Malone replied in his Italian inflection. In the coming days, over drinks, Malone told the guy he was on the lam for burglary in Philadelphia. That got Malone invitations to play poker and trade gossip with the gang, then dinner at their hangout, the New Florence, and then to attend the birthday party Capone planned for Frank Nitti at the Lexington. Malone met Capone at Nitti's party. The secret agent's new acquaintances included big-shot hoods Nitti, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, Murray “The Camel” Humphreys and Sam “Golf Bag” Hunt. Malone was in. He discreetly phoned Wilson about what he'd overheard within the gang. Wilson and his aides traced signatures on bank checks while pursuing tax evasion cases against Nitti and Guzik. A federal court in Chicago convicted Guzik, who got a five-year sentence. But Nitti skipped town. Malone, assigned to find him, followed Nitti's wife to an apartment building in Berwyn, Illinois. There, the cops nabbed Nitti, later sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax evasion. Then the police pinched Al himself following his 1931 indictment on tax charges. “Mike Lepito” was there at the Lexington when Al Capone arrived back, triumphant about his release on $50,000 bail. Malone listened and reported to Wilson about Capone's scheme to bribe and fix the jury in his favor. The feds moved quickly and a judge created a new list of jurors. Malone then reported Capone's plot to hire five gunman from New York to kill four federal officials in Chicago – including Wilson. With safety measures in place, Capone ordered the gunmen to leave town. Capone's trial, after a judge refused to plea bargain with the Mob boss, started in October 1931. Four days afterward, Malone finally gave up the act. The news spread fast to Capone and his men. Malone had heard that Phil D'Andrea, Capone's bodyguard, planned to bring a concealed gun into the courthouse. Malone and another agent frisked and disarmed D'Andrea, and had him arrested. A jury Capone could not fix found the boss guilty on 22 criminal counts. The judge gave him 11 years in the federal pen and a $50,000 fine, plus court costs. Months later, in early 1932, the Intelligence Unit had Malone, Irey, Wilson and Special Agent A. P. Madden probe the kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh's son. The team's persistence paid off within two years, with the capture (and conviction) of suspect Bruno Hauptman, who still had some of the marked currency the agents convinced Lindbergh to use as ransom money. Malone had other notable cases. In 1933, Irey assigned him to find fugitive New York gangster Waxey Gordon, wanted for tax evasion. Malone located Gordon in a remote cottage in the Catskill Mountains. Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey took the case, and the court put Waxey away for 10 years. A year later, Malone infiltrated Louisiana Governor Huey “Kingfish” Long's crooked crew. After Long's assassination, the IRS won a tax fraud conviction against Malone's target, Long's close aide, Seymour Weiss. In his last undercover operation before his death, the Intelligence Unit gave Malone a large amount of cash and a Cadillac to use in Miami Beach, disguised as a rich syndicate man. He found and reported what the agency wanted – details of a coast-to-coast illegal abortion ring. After Malone's death in 1960, Wilson described him to a news reporter as “the best undercover agent we ever had.” JOSEPH PISTONE Joe Pistone is one of the FBI's most celebrated undercover agents. Using the name Donnie Brasco, he infiltrated the New York Mafia and helped produce 200 indictments. Courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In New York City during the mid-1970s, the FBI investigated a rash of truck hijackings happening each day. The agency assigned agent Joseph “Joe” Pistone to go undercover for six months to find out where the Mob-connected thieves took the stolen cargo. His adopted name was “Donnie Brasco.” He was so effective as a wiseguy that the FBI let him keep it up. No one knew how far the investigation would lead, or what it would mean for Pistone, who started as an agent in 1969. His experience would eventually prompt the mobsters in New York to put out a $500,000 contract for his murder, but it never happened. In the end, the evidence and trial testimony he provided in the 1980s produced 200 indictments of Mob associates and more than 100 convictions. His work decimated the Bonannos, one of New York's five major crime families. Pistone's journey while undercover, impersonating a mobbed-up jewel thief, would last an incredible five years, from 1976 to 1981, during which he penetrated the upper levels of the Bonnano organization. No FBI agent had made it inside the Mob like that. The agency beforehand had to rely on informants. Pistone took a class to learn about jewelry to make his affectation believable. In Brooklyn and Manhattan, he roamed bars and restaurants frequented by Mob types. He communicated using the street smarts he absorbed growing up as a working-class Italian-American kid in Paterson, New Jersey, where he went to Italian social clubs and encountered local hoods. Years in, he had the Bonanno circle so convinced that it moved to have him a “made” man shortly before the FBI ended his assignment. At first he befriended low-level mobsters. He wore a wire to record conversations, and committed to memory names and license plates since taking notes would obviously raise red flags. By 1976, he'd won the trust of important Bonnano members, notably family soldier Benjamin “Lefty Guns” Ruggiero, said to have killed 26 people, and capo Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano. Ruggerio recommended him so that he could join the clan. Pistone's Mob activities centered in New York and Florida, taking him away from his wife and young daughters for extended times. Pistone even had to vacation with his demanding cohorts. He moved his family members out of state for their protection. As “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone helped Ruggerio transfer stolen goods and sell guns. He engaged in loansharking, extortion and illegal gambling. Once, while pretending to be an expert in burglar alarms, angry Mob associates intent on committing burglaries demanded he reveal the name of a mobster who would vouch for him. The FBI used an informant to quell their suspicions. In the 1997 film Donnie Brasco, undercover agent Joe Pistone is played by Johnny Depp, left. Al Pacino, right, plays Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero. In 1981, the situation intensified again when the crime family commanded him to kill an adversary. The FBI pulled him out of the sting. It was time to start making cases, and for him to testify in open court as himself. Starting in 1982, Pistone's testimony over the next several years in racketeering cases sent more than 100 mobsters to long prison terms. Prosecutors considered him crucial to convicting 21 defendants in the “Pizza Connection” case of pizzerias used to traffic in heroin and launder money for the Sicilian Mafia. Pistone went into hiding and later retired from the FBI, unscathed, in 1986. In the 1990s, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, former underboss for the Gambino family who turned FBI informant, said the embarrassment from the “Brasco” case drove bosses in New York's crime families to suspend the Bonanno group from its board of directors. But Pistone couldn't stay retired. In 1992, at age 53, he requested reinstatement with the FBI, which agreed only if he would enter the agency's strict training class, lasting 16 weeks at its base in Quantico, Virginia. Pistone endured the rigorous course alongside recruits in their 20s. He passed and the FBI rehired him, at least until the mandatory retirement age of 57. Pistone's 1988 book on his undercover experiences, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, was a bestseller. Based on the book, actor Johnny Depp portrayed Pistone in the 1997 feature film Donnie Brasco, with Al Pacino as Ruggerio. JACK GARCIA Jack Garcia was an FBI undercover agent of Cuban descent who convinced members of the Italian-American Mafia that he was Italian. He took part in more than 100 undercover investigations over a 26-year career. Before he succeeded in infiltrating New York's Gambino crime family, FBI agent Joaquin “Jack” Garcia had to go school. That is, the FBI's “mob school,” where he received an education in how to hit the ground running with veteran mobsters. His teacher was special agent Nat Parisi. First off, Parisi said, do not carry a wallet – wiseguys carry wads of currency, often bound by the kind of rubber band grocery stores use to keep broccoli together. Also, correctly pronouncing Italian food matters – as Tony Soprano might say, those long pasta shells are not “manicotti,” but “manicote.” Another valuable lesson he learned is that his Mob brethren loved compliments – his favorite one: “Where did you get those nice threads? You look like a million dollars.” In his 26-year career as an FBI agent, Garcia took part in more than 100 undercover investigations, from Miami to New York, Atlantic City and Los Angeles, targeting mobsters, drug traffickers and corrupt politicians and cops. He participated in the highest number of undercover cases in FBI history. In many of his capers, he impersonated a mobster, using the name “Jack Falcone” (in honor of the Italian judge Giovanni Falcone, killed by the Sicilian Mafia in the 1990s). As a backstory, he told his Mob marks about having a Sicilian pedigree (actually he's a native of Havana and grew up in the Bronx) with an expertise in stealing and fencing stolen goods, with jewelry as his specialty. Sometimes, he had to run several undercover roles at once. He took advantage of his fluency in Spanish and Italian, being careful not to mix things up when the phone rang. In the early 2000s, the FBI chose Garcia for what would be the most fruitful infiltration of an organized crime family since Joe Pistone's in the 1970s. While undercover as “Jack Falcone” with the Gambino's family's chapter in Westchester County, New York, for two years, he flashed cash, Rolex watches, diamond rings, flat-screen TVs and other supposed stolen property (items seized in other FBI cases). Much of the cash he held went to pay for expensive dinners – mobsters, he said, are notoriously cheap when the check comes. He gained 80 pounds over the two years. One mobster in particular who liked his money and goods, and would become his almost daily companion, was Gambino capo Gregory DePalma. An “old school” hood who in 2003 finished serving 70 months for racketeering, DePalma right away threatened violence and extorted owners of Westchester-area construction firms, strip joints, restaurants and other businesses. Garcia said he witnessed DePalma commit a crime almost every day. The FBI had Garcia pose as a wiseguy seeking to invest in a topless bar in the Bronx. Garcia's inquiries led him to meet DePalma in 2003. By providing stolen property for DePalma to sell for cash, Garcia convinced him that “Jack Falcone” was an experienced jewelry thief and fencer from Miami. When Garcia hung out with DePalma over the two-year period, he wore a body wire, and the FBI planted bugging devices at DePalma's hangouts. Garcia gave DePalma a cell phone that the talkative mob capo used prodigiously, not knowing the FBI had bugged it. The operation yielded 5,000 hours of recorded conversations used to implicate DePalma and other Gambino men in racketeering. In 2005, DePalma planned to honor “Falcone” by rendering him “made” within the Gambino family. In a recorded conversation, Garcia as “Falcone” replied to DePalma, “I'm honored for that,” he said, in the tape later used in court. “I will never let you down either.” But it wasn't to be. After Garcia witnessed a Gambino soldier beat another member with a crystal candlestick, the FBI shut down the undercover operation. (Garcia and Pistone are the only law enforcement officers ever nominated to be “made.”) Garcia's efforts inside the Gambino crew paid off big time. The evidence he delivered for the FBI resulted in the arrest of 32 Gambino members and associates, including DePalma, Gambino boss Arnold “Zeke” Squitieri and underboss Anthony “The Genius” Megale. DePalma went to trial in 2006. Garcia, who retired from the FBI two months before the trial started, agreed to testify in federal court in Manhattan. The jury found DePalma guilty on 27 counts, and the judge gave the 74-year-old a 12-year prison term. Like Pistone, Garcia's undercover career is chronicled in a memoir, Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family. KIKI CAMARENA Kiki Camarena was an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Mexico. After contributing information that led to major drug busts, he was tortured and murdered by drug cartel bosses in 1985. Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, the late Drug Enforcement Administration agent assigned to investigate drug trafficking in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the 1980s, is famous as one of the most heroic DEA agents ever. But he is more well-known in death than in life. His torture-murder in Mexico in 1985 took place at the hands of drug cartel bosses with the complicity of high-level Mexican government officials, law enforcement and, allegedly, the CIA. At the time, the Reagan administration was secretly training and supplying Central American guerilla fighters, known as the “Contras,” against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The U.S. government allegedly granted the cartel bosses free rein to traffic drugs – to the point of using CIA-recruited American pilots to fly cocaine into the United States to sell for cash so the cartel could make donations to buy more weaponry for the Contras. Camarena, born in Mexicali, Mexico, in 1947, moved with his impoverished family to Calexico, California. He served as a firefighter in Calexico, and with a strong desire for police work, joined the Imperial County Sheriff's Department, moving up to its narcotics task force. The experience led to his career in the DEA starting in 1975. Assigned to the DEA office in the “narco paradise” of Guadalajara in 1980, Camarena was a convincing undercover officer with his appearance and ability to speak Spanish and barrio “street” language to fit in with the drug underworld. His target was the powerful Guadalajara drug cartel (which later evolved into the Sinaloa cartel). In the early 1980s, in what he called “Operation Padrino,” Camarena arranged for U.S. agents to seize international bank accounts held by wealthy cartel drug lords. He developed evidence of major marijuana plantations in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, based on informants and overflights in a plane flown by his DEA pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar. In November 1984, from his background work, Mexican federal police and the DEA raided enormous pot-growing operations on a ranch in Zacatecas that employed thousands of field hands. The task force confiscated 20 tons of marijuana, burned the crop and made 177 arrests. The bust cost cartel figure Rafael Caro Quintero about $50 million. Caro Quintero believed his operation had the protection of the Mexican army, and the CIA, since he owned a farm used to train the U.S.-backed Contras. He vowed revenge against Camarena. Meanwhile, a DEA force organized by Camarena seized a large cache of cocaine shipped by cartel boss Miguel Felix Gallardo's operation to New Mexico and Texas. Gallardo also believed he had CIA and Mexican official protection. During the fall of 1984, Quintero held meetings with top cartel traffickers Gallardo, Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseco Carrillo and Ruben Zuno Arce. Also present, thanks to rampant corruption bought by the Guadalajara cartel, were Mexico's minister of domestic affairs and DFA chief Manuel Bartlett Diaz, plus Mexico's defense minister, the head of Mexico's Interpol office and the governor of the state of Jalisco. The agenda was to kidnap Camarena and get him to reveal his informants and other information. Zuno Arce gave the order. Fonseca only intended to scare and release him, but Quintero wanted to kill the DEA man. On February 7, 1985, Quintero and Gallardo directed their henchmen to kidnap Camarena off a street in Guadalajara. As the agent walked from the U.S. consulate to meet his wife for lunch, they forced him at gunpoint into a car and drove him to a residence used for cartel rendezvous. They bound and blindfolded him, turned on a tape recorder and questioned him, during which he was severely beaten and tortured. The lead interrogator was the crooked head of the secret police in Guadalajara, Sergio Espino Verdin. The cartel men wanted to know what Camarena knew about them, their dealings with Mexican officials and the CIA's involvement in drug trafficking. The gangsters also brought in and beat up Zavala, Camarena's pilot. Both men died about two days later, angering Fonseco, who told Quintero not to kill Camarena. Camarena's wife reported him missing and Washington launched what would be the largest manhunt in the history of the DEA. The cartel had the two men's bodies buried, then dug up and relocated to a farm in another state, where Mexican police found them in early March. During his funeral a week later, Camarena's family interred his ashes in Calexico. His slaying triggered an international incident. U.S. officials ordered all cars from Mexico at the border searched, effectively closing it. The investigation revealed the CIA connection, leading to bitter clashes between CIA and DEA agents. A federal court in Los Angeles charged 22 defendants in the murders of Camarena and Zavala. Under pressure, Mexican authorities acted, arresting 13 men. Mexican courts convicted Fonseco, Quintero and Espino, and sentenced each to 40 years, although Quintero won early release on a technicality in 2013. U.S. officials are still seeking Quintero to face federal charges. Mexican police arrested Gallardo in 1989, and he received 40 years. A court in Los Angeles found Zuno Arce guilty in the murders in 1990, sentenced him to two life terms in prison, where he died in 2012. In Camarena's honor, in 1985 the National Family Partnership started the National Red Ribbon Campaign, a volunteer anti-drug use and education effort that urges youths to recite a pledge to refrain from drugs, and celebrates “Red Ribbon Week” on drug awareness each October. Camarena's is featured as a character, played by actor Michael Pena, in a chapter of the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico, about on his actions with the DEA. JAY DOBYNS Jay Dobyns went undercover with the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle gang for 20 months in Arizona on behalf of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His work led to 16 arrests. For Jay Dobyns, fitting in with the infamous biker gang the Hells Angels for almost two years meant adhering to his undercover alter ego, Jay “Bird” Davis, to the point of obsession. To maintain his cover, he had to divert his mind away from his wife and kids. And it all would be worth it – at least that's what he thought at the time. Dobyns had hit on his best clandestine ruse yet while in Arizona in 2001, after 15 years of service as an undercover special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. While working undercover cases in the late 1980s for the ATF, he'd been injured twice – from a gunshot wound to the back from a suspect in Tucson and when gunrunners hit him with a car during an attempted getaway in Chicago. He took part in investigations of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Other undercover roles of his ended in the arrests of a Mexican drug boss and members of the Aryan Brotherhood gang. Altogether, he served in more than 500 undercover operations disguised as a hitman and Mob debt collector. He infiltrated organized crime groups and gangs engaged in drug and arms smuggling. In 2001, to gather intelligence as “Davis” for the ATF in northern Arizona, Dobyns worked in the Bullhead City area, posing as a gun seller and an enforcer for a nonexistent collections agency. But his operation was interrupted in 2002 with the now-famous riot and shootout among members of the Angels and a competing biker gang, the Mongols, at the Harrah's casino in nearby Laughlin, Nevada, during the annual River Run motorcycle rally. Two Angels and one Mongol died and dozens of people were injured. The ATF brass soon redirected him to penetrate the dangerous Hells Angels club. Dobyns certainly had the physical part down with his beard and six-foot, one-inch frame he used as an all-conference football player for the University of Arizona. Later, an Angels member would apply tattoos covering his upper arms. Dobyns teamed with another ATF agent, two other undercover officers and a pair of paid informants. The idea was to create a fake biker gang with the aid of one of the informants who once served in a motorcycle gang based in Tijuana, Mexico. The gangster informant and Dobyns would run the gang, called the Solo Angeles, promote it as a pro-Hells Angels crew and request to join the Angels as a “nomad” chapter. The ATF named the setup “Operation Black Biscuit.” As a convincer, Dobyns and his fellow agent feigned an execution of a Mongol member, tying up an agent, placing cow's brains and bloody Mongol clothing on him and taking a photo. Based on the picture, the Angels took the bait and let them hang out and ride with them. They trusted him so much they offered to make him a member of the Angels' Skull Valley Chapter. He was the first law enforcement officer to infiltrate the Angels. His undercover penetration of the Angels lasted more than 20 months, one of the longest ever for the ATF. His work ended with 16 arrests from the Angels gang. But the criminal case, amid problems between the ATF and Justice Department lawyers, fell through in federal court. Federal prosecutors blamed the ATF, saying the agency did not reveal evidence from informants. In 2006, the feds dropped racketeering enterprise charges – the most serious — against all but four of 42 Angels charged in the Laughlin riot. Dobyns' battle with his own employer, the ATF, soon began. He filed suit in federal court against the agency alleging it did not protect him while he was on duty. He won a $373,000 settlement in 2007. The next year, Dobyns's wife and two kids barely escaped after someone firebombed the family home in Tucson. The ATF investigated Dobyns himself as a suspect in the arson. Investigators cleared him. In 2014, the year he retired after 27 years with the ATF, he filed another suit, for $17.2 million, saying the ATF failed to safeguard his family amid death threats. A judge awarded him $173,000. During an appeal, the judge voided the monetary judgment, but recommended discipline for ATF personnel and barred seven Justice Department attorneys from the case. He ordered a special master to investigate government actions in the case, and possible misconduct by the feds in the arson investigation. But the judge died of cancer. The special master in a report said that the first case was fair enough and required no further probe into the federal government. A new judge accepted the recommendation. Dobyns has authored two books, one on his undercover experiences, another on his travails with the ATF. These days, he delivers lectures on his life to audiences at universities and law enforcement associations nationwide. And now some of our infamous quick hitters:   Donald Duck decoy   Police in Fort Lee, New Jersey used a Donald Duck costume as a decoy to catch drivers who failed to yield to pedestrians. Drivers who didn't stop for the cartoon duck were ticketed. One woman, Karen Haigh, fought her $230 ticket.   "They told me that I was getting a ticket for not stopping for a duck," she told Eyewitness News. "But it scared me. I'm a woman. This huge duck scared me."  Coco the Clown   These old clips from the show COPS show a strange undercover police sting, and proves the adage that clowns are usually scary or just creepy. One cop dressed up as Coco the Clown, an outfit that kind of resembles John Wayne Gacy, to catch women working as sex workers. Spoiler: he pretty much sprays all of them with silly string and the whole thing is sad to watch. Amish woman   At least one cop from the Pulaski Township Police Department in Pennsylvania dressed up as an Amish woman in an attempt to catch a sexual predator. Sgt. Chad Adams of the Pulaski Township Police Department wandered the streets for two months in 2014 after police were tipped off that a predator was masturbating in front of children, according to the Associated Press. He posted on the department's Facebook page, “Hey friends, sometimes being a police officer means going undercover and doing what you have to do to catch the bad guy. Now that our investigation is complete I'll share with you this photo! Back in January we had an individual preying on Amish children walking home from school. The male individual was pulling up to the children and getting out of his car and masturbating in front of them. Although we did not apprehend the individual we believe he was caught in another county. I wanted to share with you that we will use all means available to try and protect our children. That includes dressing up as an Amish woman to attempt to apprehend a pervert! Thanks goes out to the Neshannock police and New Wilmington police in assistance with the investigation! Sincerely, Sergeant Chad Adams.”   Sadly, the sting didn't work, but police believe it is because the culprit moved into another county.   DVD Prize sting   Police in Phoenix, Arizona set up a sting to catch people with outstanding warrants, mostly DUIs, in 2002. The people were told they won a DVD player. People thought they were showing up to pick up their prize. Instead, they walked right into their own arrest. Watch as these suspects went from excited to shocked to sad. Panhandling trick   In 2015, undercover cops in California posed as panhandlers to ticket distracted drivers. They stood on the side of the road, posed as panhandlers and holding signs that identified them as police officers. The pieces of cardboard they were holding also stated that they were looking for seatbelt and cellphone violations. For those drivers who weren't paying attention

Synopsis On today's date in 1980, a week-long festival entitled “New Music America” came to a close in Minneapolis with a concert at that city's Guthrie Theater. The program included the premiere of “High Life for Strings,” composed by David Byrne, a musician best known for his work with a rock band called The Talking Heads. Byrne later recalled, “When I participated in the New Music America festival in Minneapolis, minimalism and New-Age noodling were making big in-roads into a scene that had been more insular and academic. My piece, for a dozen strings was on a program with Philip Glass.” Byrne says he was influenced by the intricate rhythms of West African pop music. Brian Eno was another rock musician represented during the Festival in Minneapolis. Some years earlier, Eno had been so irritated by the inane, chirpy muzak he heard while traveling that he composed a soothing ambient synthesizer score he called “Music for Airports.” Appropriately enough, during the 8 days of the Festival, Eno's score was broadcast 24 hours a day throughout the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Decades after its composition, composer Michael Gordon arranged Brian Eno's synthesizer score for acoustic instruments, and recorded this arrangement of “Music for Airports” with the “Bang on a Can All-Stars.” Music Played in Today's Program David Byrne (b. 1952) –High Life (Balanescu Quartet) Argo 436 565 Brian Eno (b. 1948) arr. Gordon –Music for Airports (Bang on a Can All-Stars) Point Music 314 536 847

In the basement of a Columbia Heights home, Baheerullah Shinwari offers an assortment of nuts and hot tea. There are enough almonds, pistachios and cashews to feed a dozen people, but there are only a few people seated on traditional Afghan floor cushions and rugs. Hospitality is an important part of his culture, the father of five explained. “Can I make you some lunch?” Shinwari offered in Pashto. Kerem Yücel for MPR News It is a tradition in Afghan culture to serve candy and nuts to the guests who come to the house. Kerem Yücel for MPR News Baheerullah Shinwari offers tea to Ahmad Shah during an interview. Since the United States pulled out of Afghanistan after a 20-year war last August, Minnesota has seen an influx of more than 1,500 newly arrived Afghans to the state. Among the Afghan evacuees was the Shinwari family which includes Baheerullah, his wife and five children, ranging in age from 2 to 13. All of them are learning English together. “Once they learn English, life will be easy for them,” Shinwari said. He adds that he hopes they will all become doctors.  The Shinwari family is not unlike other groups of new Minnesota residents, like Hmong and Somali refugees who arrived here in the 1970s and 1990s, who've come here to escape natural or man made-disasters. Five agencies in Minnesota have been at the forefront of efforts to resettle refugees: the International Institute of Minnesota, Minnesota Council of Churches, Arrive Ministries, Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota and Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota. Shinwari is still working on his English, so helping translate is Ahmad Shah, who worked as an interpreter in Afghanistan before coming to Minnesota himself in 2016. Kerem Yücel for MPR News Ahmad Shah (left) and Baheerullah Shinwari (right) pose for a photo in Shinwari's home. Shah founded the Afghan Community of Minnesota and also works with one of the five resettlement agencies in Minnesota, the Minnesota Council of Churches. When Shah first came to Minnesota there were about 300 Afghans in the state, he recalled. In the last several months since the end of the war, that number has grown to around 1,800 and counting. And they are relying heavily on the people like him who have already settled in for help with basic needs like transportation, filling out paperwork, finding work and enrolling children in schools.  “We make their connections with communities and different organizations,” Shah explained. “Then they will understand in the future and they can solve their own problems.” Shah said Shinwari was lucky he already had a cousin living in Minnesota who found him this home. The resettlement agencies help with six months of rent and other resources. For the Shinwari family, that time period has passed and this is the first month the Shinwaris are expected to pay all their bills on their own. Shah said that is when it is most important for the growing community to help one another. Shinwari, who has a background in military service working alongside Americans, found work as a security guard and then another job at Boston Scientific on his own, Shah said. Kerem Yücel for MPR News Baheerullah Shinwari and his son Yasser play in their home. Help is only temporary State Refugee Coordinator Rachele King explains the hard work is just beginning for many newly arrived Afghan individuals and families that came with nothing and have experienced a great deal of trauma. Assistance from the state resettlement agencies is not expected to be a long-term resource. “It is really buying people time to fully integrate and draw on the resiliency they have, skills they came with and the experience and hope and desire for a future here,” King said.   King explains individual presidential administrations set a cap for how many refugees the country will accept every year. Those numbers fell to historic lows under the Trump administration and continued below average under the Biden administration and during the coronavirus pandemic. The federal government then consults with the Minnesota Department of Human Services and resettlement agencies to see how many refugees they can reasonably accommodate when factoring in housing and other challenges. Kerem Yücel for MPR News Yasser, son of Baheerullah Shinwari, steps out from their home. In the case of Afghan evacuees, who worked along U.S. troops, King said the federal government created a parallel system for newly arrived Afghans that gives them humanitarian protection status for two years, but does not give them refugee status or a clear path to permanent residency, which is the goal since most fear for their lives if they returned to Afghanistan. “So that is a really huge question, challenge and concern for so many of the people who are here right now because it's an open question of what permanency looks like and what exact path that will take.” Congress recently declined to pass a measure, the Afghan Adjustment Act, that would have created a path to permanent residency for newly arrived Afghans. Sarah Brenes, the Refugee & Immigrant Program Director for The Advocates for Human Rights, said in the absence of an adjustment act, organizations like hers are working hard to mobilize volunteer attorneys to represent individuals and families in asylum claims, one of the two main paths to permanent status.  “We are partnering with other legal service providers, resettlement agencies and community organizations to also support those who may be eligible for Special Immigrant Visas based on their work with the U.S. Government while in Afghanistan,” Brenes said.   Besides questions about how they will be able to stay in the United States, Shah said many newly arrived Afghans are extremely worried about their family members or colleagues among the thousands of Afghan allies the U.S. left behind in its chaotic withdrawal. “Twenty-four hours per day, people searching for them to find them and kill them,” Shah said. “Their life is pretty dangerous.” A familiar story The stories of Afghan arrivals and those left behind remind historian Chia Youyee Vang of her own family story. Vang's family members were among some of the first Hmong arrivals in Minnesota in the 1970s. The Vietnam War had spread to Laos and the United States recruited the Hmong to fight against communism.  “We paid for this migration with the blood of our men and women who died on behalf of the American nation, although knowing nothing about it,” Vang said. Vang is now a historian, author and Vice Chancellor of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Vang described how war and natural disasters often lead to new groups arriving in Minnesota. While there are what she calls push factors, like war, there are also pull factors, like the hope for a better quality of life in the United States that lead to new arrivals and various forms of immigration. The first large group of immigrants arrived from Europe, mostly Norway, Sweden, Ireland and Germany. Hmong refugees began arriving in the mid 1970s, and Somali refugees began arriving in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Somali government led to extreme violence. People born in Mexico, India and Ethiopia also make up the largest groups of foreign-born Minnesotans, according to state researchers. Christopher Juhn for MPR News 2017 Aidarus Aden, a refugee from Somalia, holds a sign at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport on Jan. 29, 2017, in protest of the refugee ban that then-President Trump used an executive order to enact. Minnesota is also home to other, smaller refugee communities from around the world. According to a 2017 State Department report, in 2016 people from more than two dozen countries, including Myanmar, Belarus, Syria and Sri Lanka sought refuge in Minnesota.   As communities began to thrive over time, mostly in and around the Twin Cities, Vang explained they invited others to come through a process called chain migration.  “There are pockets all over the state, too, but they are mostly in the Twin Cities where there is a critical mass and you can have social support,” Vang said “So nothing different, in my opinion, than what the Norwegians and Swedes, nothing different than what they did.” New arrivals in workforce  Doualy Xaykaothao | MPR News 2016 Kaw Hai is the lead auto mechanic at SKD Auto Tek in St. Paul, here in October 2016. He's a refugee from the Karen State in Burma. According to 2017 data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, resettling refugees benefits the country's economy. While the exact yearly costs of refugee resettlement for Minnesota are difficult to determine, DHS receives approximately $5 million in yearly federal funds to support the statewide resettlement of refugees. State resettlement agencies reported that in fiscal year 2017, Minnesota ranked 13th in resettling refugees but was the highest per capita in the country. Thanks to a reputation as a welcoming state, Minnesota ranked first in the nation for secondary migration, which occurs when refugees move to Minnesota after an initial resettlement somewhere else. As consumers, immigrants, not just refugees, have an estimated more $650 billion in lifetime earnings and annual purchasing power of $5 billion, according to Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota. Immigrants pay an estimated $793 million in state and local taxes, annually. Immigrants are also a vital part of Minnesota's economy, according to state Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove. The state estimates 10 percent of Minnesota's labor force are born outside of the U.S. About 105,000 new foreign-born residents joined the state over the last decade. “In fact, the only reason we are growing at all is because of international immigration,” Grove said about Minnesota. Minnesota also has an historic more than 200,000 open jobs, which is part of the reason the state created an Office of New Americans — which started services during the pandemic to help get resources to struggling immigrant-owned businesses.  “I think a lot of businesses would like to access immigrant talent and they don't really know how,” Grove said. “Unless you're big enough to have the resources a larger company might have, finding that talent is harder.”  Grove hopes the office will provide more efficient and individualized resources to pair people with jobs that match any previous experiences.  “I think it's just an awakening from an economic perspective, let alone a moral one, that this is imperative,” Grove said. “We have got to make the welcome mat for immigrants in this state as good as it's ever been.” But the office is grant-funded, leaving its future funding uncertain.  Vang said as a more diverse and international population continues to grow in Minnesota, and as conflict across the world continues to drive more movement across the globe, the state has a unique opportunity to embrace change and flourish as a result. “As a historian I keep reminding others, the things happening now, they have happened before,” Vang said. “It is about how we respond to them.” Pay it forward Kerem Yücel for MPR News Baheerullah Shinwari and his son Yasser sit front of the their house in Columbia Heights on May 11. Baheerullah Shinwari has hope. Hope that he, his wife and their five children — with help from the community — will thrive. Shinwari also looks forward to the day his family can pay it forward and help other new arrivals to Minnesota.  “I am happy, life is going well.” Full series North Star Journey What should we cover next? Pass the Mic Immigrants and refugees in Minnesota Connecting past and present

The number of people expected to pass through the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is nearly double last Thanksgiving's peak travel day, and about 70 percent of pre-pandemic holiday travel. Airport officials predict Wednesday will be the busiest day, with nearly 32,000 travelers passing through airport security checkpoints. This is an MPR News morning update for Monday, November 22, 2021. Hosted by Cathy Wurzer. Our theme music is by Gary Meister.

A man in Minneapolis threatens to kill TSA after he began masturbating naked in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Overview:If over a quarter century of America's Funniest Home Videos has taught us anything, it's that people fall—a lot. But with falls accounting for over 30,000 deaths in the U.S. each year (the third highest among accidental deaths), it's not always as funny as Bob Saget, Tom Bergeron, Alfonso Ribiero or *insert dad-joke machine here* make it seem. The cost of these accidents is steep—with the average disabling claim costing a hefty $28,000. The good news? The right traction device cost just a few bucks to keep you upright and out of harm's way. But choosing the right one is key. Peter Freeberg, ACS Safety Manager at Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport, joins us to discuss the challenges of keeping his crews upright in the frozen north. Show Highlights:How to drive PPE compliance by giving work crews a deeper sense of ownership in the selection processHow the right ice cleats/traction devices improve safety & productivity How the wrong ice cleats/traction devices can actually cause injuries and equipment damageFeatured End User/Guest:Peter Freeberg, Operations Service Manager, MSP Int'l Airport As Operations Service Manager for Delta Airlines at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Peter and his team are on the frontline of below-wing operations. Always looking for ways to improve and do the job just plain better, Peter's team was integral in helping Ergodyne develop the industry's first true indoor/outdoor spikeless traction device.Alsie Nelson, Product Director, ErgodyneAlsie leads the development of products that combat temperature stress, including cooling PPE and winter work gear. Her dedication to mitigating the risk of temperature stress on the job has helped propel Ergodyne into one of the most respected thought leaders in the category.

When Sunisa Lee and Grace McCallum left for Tokyo, they weren't quite the household and social media names they've since become. They returned Thursday to a crowd of more than 200 people at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. This is an MPR News morning update for Friday, August 6, 2021. Hosted by Cathy Wurzer. Our theme music is by Gary Meister.

It has been roughly a century since planes began flying at what is now Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, which has evolved from a bankrupt racetrack to an acclaimed travel hub. Transportation reporter Janet Moore joins the podcast to discuss the airport's long history. LINKS: From bankrupt racetrack to aviation hub — what remains from MSP Airport's early days? (May 2021 Curious Minnesota story) Panoramic photo of the 1923 Wold-Chamberlain dedication ceremony. A history of the Twin City Motor Speedway (from Winter 2007-2008 issue of Minnesota History magazine)

Frederic Estes is the latest in his family in a long line of entrepreneurs which began with his great uncle began a business in Des Moines, IA. Years later, his uncle and father then expanded the business to Minnesota where they would also operate a number of Hallmark stores. It was at this time when Estes Gifts and News opened in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in 1987, utilizing their experience operating retail stores on the street and the rise of the ACDBE program. Frederic is now continuing the next generation of operators in MSP and beyond. November is Small Business Month and so throughout the month we will feature various small businesses in airports. The entire series is sponsored by global retailer WHSmith. For more information on how they can bring their retail experiences to your airport, visit whsmith.co.uk.

Georgia native Kate Webb began her aviation career with Chattanooga Airport before moving northward to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. In no time, she made her way back south to Tampa International Airport as the director of concessions. In this episode of Ones To Watch, you don't just learn about what brought Kate to the industry and how she's developed her passion for the airport industry. You'll learn about how she's really embraced her new state. Also not to be missed is a little known fact about what prompted her to go on a very unique journey across the country.

Are you a RINO? Or, in less political terms, are you a fake Christian? A fake? BLOG POST: https://www.thehakereport.com/blog/2019/7/21/are-you-a-rino-sun-jul-21-2019 (Drudge) Omar vows to be 'nightmare' for Trump… (NY Post) Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota responded defiantly Thursday to Trump telling her to go back, and his supporters chanting, “Send her back!” She told reporters at the Capitol that she believes the president is a “fascist” and cast the confrontation as a fight over “what this country truly should be.” (THAT'S RIGHT!) “We are going to continue to be a nightmare to this president because his policies are a nightmare to us. We are not deterred. We are not frightened,” she told a cheering crowd that greeted her like a local hero at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport as she flew in from Washington, D.C. The NY Post falsely accuses President Trump of “racist rhetoric.” GREAT CALLS, THANK YOU!

It's been a memorable five years for Isabella Rhawie at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.  In a relatively short time, she has been involved in the planning and tendering of a new program and is now watching that same program come to life.  In our conversation, Isabella details how she came to the airport, the nearly overwhelming amount of info she had to learn and what she compared it to, her influences that extend beyond the airport community, and more. Ones To Watch is a new, recurring series produced by Airport Experience News. Here we will feature emerging, up-and-coming members of commercial management teams from across North America.

Super Bowl festivities in the Twin Cities are in full swing. Fans from around the country will fly into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for the festivities. MSP is expecting almost 70,000 passengers to fly out Monday after the big game, which would be a record travel day for the airport. The state Management and Budget office recently released a report on how the state handles sexual harassment. Gov. Mark Dayton requested the department review policies and procedures after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced at the Capitol.