Corin Hoggard, News Reporter

07/06/2025

Sunday Run Day!

Beautiful morning for a long run!
Love the Guthrie’s Endless Bridge, so adding that to the list of bridge photos I’ve taken.
Apologies to anyone who had to see the ghostly pale dad bod running those last several miles with bloody nips.

06/28/2025

An emotional day at the Capitol giving Melissa, Mark, and Gilbert Hortman their due.
I tried to sum up hours of hugs, tributes, and tears in 3 minutes:

Thousands of people, including former President Biden, went to the Minnesota Capitol Friday to mourn Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their dog, Gilbert.

06/16/2025

They caught the assassin! Alive.

06/15/2025

One Minnesota

Today, we are all one Minnesota.
I’ve moved a lot in my lifetime and I have a habit of blending in wherever I am, but never quite feeling like I’m from the place or any place, really.

Today, I feel like I’ve always been from Minnesota.
I see beauty all around me. When I . When a street festival takes over Stone Arch. When my neighbors pick me up after a hard day at work. When I see live music. When the mayor runs past me with extra security today. When I fish the lakes. When I roam the Capitol. When the Capitol press corps shares hugs and grieves together. And when I think of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, her husband Mark, and the Hoffman family.
I refuse to let the ugliness win.
I hope by doing this I honor the victims, people I know/knew personally and respected greatly.

06/14/2025

Hard to believe this kind of targeted political violence can actually happen.
But here we are.
House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and Sen. John Hoffman, both DFLers, have been shot.

A shelter-in-place alert was sent out at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning by the Brooklyn Park Police Department after multiple shootings. A suspect in the shooting may be impersonating law enforcement and should not be approached.

06/10/2025

BOOK BAN REVERSAL!

I originally reported this story in December: https://www.fox9.com/news/book-bans-anoka-co-schools-national-review and followed up on it a couple times.

Last night, the St. Francis Area School Board agreed to restore all the banned books.
They approved settlements in two lawsuits related to the book ban, including that reversal of bans under the old policy.
They also instituted a new policy for removing materials.
It requires a super majority of a local review committee to recommend removing material.
If the school board decides against the committee's and superintendent's recommendations, they have to do it in writing and then act at a regular board meeting with a minimum of 3 days notice to the public.

An Anoka County school district is now letting a conservative-aligned national group decide which books are allowed in its libraries.

06/09/2025

Widely shared, but wrong.

During debate on cutting undocumented immigrant adults from MN Care, Rep. Kaohly Vang Her mentioned her family’s immigration. In part, she said “My family broke the law to come here. I never knew that. I just learned that now. So when you’re thinking about voting ‘no’ on this bill, you’re voting ‘no’ against someone like me.”
Rep. Her’s comments led to some widely shared misinformation on social media with folks claiming she’s undocumented herself…
She’s not.
She’s a naturalized citizen who was once a Hmong refugee, but who became a citizen in 7th or 8th grade.
She said her father just told her he got them to the U.S. a little faster by fudging some paperwork, skipping a generation in relationships because Rep. Her’s grandfather was a colonel helping the CIA in the Secret War in Laos/Vietnam.
But they were always going to come here and citizenship was always on their agenda.

06/09/2025

The House passed the bill taking undocumented adults off MN Care 68-65.
As promised in the agreement between the leaders, Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman cast the deciding vote.

06/09/2025

The Minnesota House has gaveled in for the special session.
21 hours to get 14 bills passed.
The Senate is still relatively empty.

06/07/2025

06/07/2025

Prince and Joy and I rode our bikes over to Lake of the Isles for the pencil’s annual sharpening!

The famous pencil sprung from its predecessor’s untimely death in 2017 and the trunk’s new life is a Minneapolis highlight.
Its annual sharpening is must-see entertainment!

06/06/2025

It’s official.
Special session Monday and scheduled to last just one day.