Weekend Reformer: North Memorial acquisition gets AG approval

Good morning, Reformers. 

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has given the thumbs up for South Dakota-based Sanford Health to acquire the financially struggling North Memorial Health next month after the three parties signed a 10-year oversight agreement. 

The proposed acquisition had alarmed healthcare advocates and labor leaders, who worry consolidation will hurt patient care and drive up costs — as research has shown it often does — and lead to the reduction of critical services at North Memorial’s Robbinsdale hospital and the possible closure of one of the state’s few Level 1 trauma centers there. 

As part of the agreement, announced Friday, Sanford committed to maintaining hospital and emergency services at the Robbinsdale hospital, which is the health system’s flagship safety net hospital, for the next decade. 

Ellison’s office, which was bestowed with expanded regulatory powers over healthcare mergers by the Legislature in 2023, still needs to make a decision on their review of a far larger proposed acquisition of Allina Health by California-based Sutter Health.

Read my report here. 

Michelle Griffith and I attended the public remembrance for the victims of the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the tragedy that killed two children: 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski. 

Madison McVan followed the legal wrangling between Minnesota and Texas over custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Christian Castro, who is charged in the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in north Minneapolis in January. A federal judge in Texas denied the state’s extradition request and Castro was released from jail. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Castro might flee the country to his girlfriend in Mexico. 

Madi was also in federal court to cover hearings in the case of the 15 anti-ICE protesters, which uncovered an expansive federal surveillance operation of churches, unions and progressive nonprofit organizations. More documents were released in the case this week revealing new information about the extent of the surveillance, and an attorney for one of the defendants is seeking to have even more files released. 

Melissa Whitler published another bombshell scoop about Minneapolis Public Schools’ fiscal failings. The district lost out on $4.1 million in state and federal special education aid during the 2025-26 school year due to a district accounting mistake. This is the third multi-million dollar blunder Melissa has reported since January. 

A truth council assembled by Gov. Tim Walz heard testimony for the first time Wednesday from people who say they were harmed by the thousands of federal immigration agents sent to Minnesota this winter. Madi also covered that. 

Immigration enforcement in Minnesota has returned to pre-Operation Metro Surge levels, according to newly released federal data, I reported. At the same time, nationally, federal immigration agents arrested far more immigrants in July than before. 

Michelle reported on Republican gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth’s light-on-details plan to cut $1 billion from the state budget — about 1.5% of the state’s current two-year general fund budget. She also proposed tax cuts to help families cope with rising costs, but declined to criticize the Trump policies driving up prices (tariffs and the war in Iran).  

Max Nesterak wrote about a federal judge’s ruling that Charles Marohn, founder of the urban planning advocacy organization Strong Towns, can legally call himself a “professional engineer” despite the objections of the state of Minnesota. He’s been in a yearslong battle with the Minnesota Board of Architecture, Engineering, Land Surveying, Landscape Architecture, Geoscience and Interior Design — known helpfully as AELSLAGID. 

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to pay $214 million to Minnesota over 10 years to settle a lawsuit brought by dozens of states alleging it knowingly made its apps addictive for children, I reported. As part of the settlement, the company will also make numerous changes to its social media apps. 

Two utility ratepayer advocates urged state regulators to reconsider a June order allowing Xcel Energy to raise its Minnesota electric customers’ rates by about $210 million over the next two years, Brian Martucci reported. 

Peyton Haug wrote about a Minnesota company with a new product that promises to help farmers deal with their nitrogen anxiety caused by skyrocketing prices. The alternative, made by Pivot Bio, is a non-synthetic, bacterial source of nitrogen that can also reduce the nitrogen runoff that’s a major source of water pollution.

Editor J. Patrick Coolican wrote that Minnesotans have been in the fight of our lives against the Trump administration, which has to rank among the most lawless in American history. Electing Republican Ron Schutz for attorney general, he argues, would make no more sense than the federal government hiring someone from the American Chemical Council to regulate chemical safety (which they did). 

Rob Levine, a Minnesota writer and photographer, called for skepticism of the revised NewRange copper-nickel mining plan, describing the permitting process so far as an "embarrassing joke.” 

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