From the conversation:
Nina Moini: ... I think it’s this question now before the U.S. Supreme Court of balancing and helping, I guess, law enforcement. A lot of people hear it and they think, well, why not? If it helps people solve a crime, let’s give them all this information. But there are constitutional rights. There are laws. What are the questions that are before the U.S. Supreme Court as it pertains to people’s privacy and just rights? 

Julie Jonas: Well, the big issue comes down to do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy in where we go, in our locations throughout our day? I think most people would say, yes, we do – that law enforcement can’t use our cell phone data, and we all use our cell phones so regularly that they can’t use that information to track us. Now, of course, it’s wonderful as a crime-solving tool, but you can think about other ways where it could be misused to track people, to political meetings, or to abortion clinics or other health care providers. 

There have been instances of companies who are not perhaps as reliable as Google is, where they sell this data to law enforcement. In one case, they used it to out a Catholic priest who was visiting gay bars. In another case, they were selling this data to the federal government using a popular Muslim dating website, as well as an app that allowed them to know the direction of Mecca when they said their daily prayers. So you can see where this is a very slippery slope. And I think Google was trying to be careful, but maybe it wasn’t quite enough. 

Moini: I wonder if you know about alternatives for law enforcement to get location data regardless of this ruling. Are there other ways that could preserve more privacy for people? 

Jonas: No the other ways are actually worse for people because law enforcement can buy this data. There are companies out there like X-mode, and SafeGraph, Fog Data Science who are selling it to law enforcement. And because law enforcement isn’t compelling them to sell it, there’s no warrant requirement at all. So oftentimes, defendants and other people don’t even know it’s happening.

University of St. Thomas President Rob Vischer recently wrote an op-ed for University Business about the importance of educating the whole person as artificial intelligence continues to transform higher education and the workforce. In the piece, Vischer argues that while colleges and universities must help students develop career skills, they must also foster purpose, character, critical thinking, and the human qualities that support lifelong success and flourishing.

Below is his full op-ed, as featured in University Business:
I recently met with a first-year student who wanted my advice on how to achieve her remarkably specific and demanding career goals. When I nudged her to reflect on the source of those goals, the tears came quickly and the words tumbled after them: carrying a family legacy forward, making her name in the world, providing for her future kids and grandkids.

“Wow,” I observed as gently as possible, “that’s a lot of weight for an 18-year-old to carry.”

Don’t get me wrong, having career goals is important. But life teaches us (sometimes painfully) they are a woefully inadequate foundation for a meaningful life. That puts higher education at an important crossroads as the AI explosion has many current and future college students worried about their employment prospects.

Let’s be clear: Universities must take seriously the pressure they face to demonstrate a strong economic value proposition for students and their families. We absolutely cannot afford, however, to become transactional, focused only on providing necessary job skills as efficiently as possible.

Efficiency is important, but one of the best ways to help graduates get good jobs is to care about more than their ability to get good jobs. By engaging our students on deeper questions of meaning and purpose, we help them grow in character and prepare them for lifelong flourishing.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, almost 40% of core job skills will change by 2030 and the skills growing fastest aren’t only technical ones. While technical skills still remain relevant, AI is automating more tasks, and hiring managers are increasingly focused on human skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, adaptability, entrepreneurial thinking, creativity, communication, relationship-building, empathy, and initiative.

Those skills develop as a person grows in self-awareness, engages with a wide range of life experiences and perspectives, and deepens their understanding of the human condition. An aspiring engineer must learn the nuts and bolts of their field, but their long-term career prospects will suffer if they’re myopically focused on technical skills and inattentive to the human dimension of professional excellence.

More broadly, career preparation should not be higher education’s only objective. If college is simply an economic transaction, we tell our students they don’t need to spend time or energy understanding history, grappling with the meaning of life, developing a love of art or literature, experiencing the joy of scientific discovery, honing their leadership skills, appreciating the wonders of nature, pushing forward on their faith journey, or discerning their vocation.

We tell them they definitely don’t need to spend time figuring out how it all fits together, exploring whether diverse domains of knowledge have any relationship to one another or to their own lived experience.

Ideally, a college education will help students connect the dots that support the cultivation of a meaningful life. In his new book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, Arthur Brooks defines a life of meaning as a life of coherence (“Why do things happen the way they do in my life?”) plus purpose (“Why am I moving in this direction?”) plus significance (“Why does my life matter?”).

There’s a place for personal and professional goals in any meaningful life, of course. But if they consist only of goals rooted in extrinsic achievement, they’ll fall short. Are they prepared to answer deeper questions of coherence, purpose, and significance?

At their best, universities are in the business of transformation, helping develop students’ whole selves – body, mind, spirit – and cultivating the virtues necessary not only to succeed professionally, but to thrive as people. This dimension of our work should always have been at the heart of a university’s mission: In a world where AI will be automating a rapidly expanding range of cognitive tasks, this dimension must also be at the heart of our business model.

Which brings me back to my student, instead of focusing on the weight of her future responsibilities, I tried to pivot our conversation to the here and now as Brooks does in his book: What’s one thing she’s learned about herself during her first year of college? What does she hope to learn about the world during her upcoming study abroad? What are the classes that have energized her, and what might that tell her about her vocation?

By the end of our conversation, there were more smiles than tears. She asked if we could meet again. For those of us in higher education, few appointments could be more precious.

From the op-ed:
Our research makes clear why that urgency is warranted. More than 800,000 Minnesotans, or nearly one-third of the state’s workforce, are in jobs where they are highly exposed to AI. That makes Minnesota’s workforce the most vulnerable in the Midwest and the tenth most vulnerable in the nation. Women and people in industries with lower union membership face disproportionately high exposure, leaving some of the most precarious workers with the fewest protections. 

Job displacement is only part of the story, as AI reshapes work in ways that go far beyond whether someone keeps their position. Ask anyone who has recently applied for a job, and they can tell you about AI being used to screen their application, interview them and even decide if they get hired. Or ask someone who already has a job. They may tell you about AI tracking their keystrokes, analyzing their call times or setting their wages. These systems affect every Minnesota worker.

To be fair, the failure to provide new regulations does not fall equally on every member of the Legislature. Several lawmakers introduced bills this session aimed at addressing these very concerns. They deserve credit for their leadership, even if it was not rewarded with legislative victories.

What makes the legislature’s paralysis more damaging is a closing window. Last December, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prevent states from regulating AI. Legal experts are skeptical this move will hold up, but the threat is real, and the clock is ticking. Where Minnesota remained passive, other states across the country, red and blue alike, surged ahead. 

We have already seen what happens when the government waits for technology to police itself. For years, lawmakers watched social media platforms cause documented harm while debating whether and how to act. By the time serious regulation was on the table, the companies were too powerful and the damage too entrenched. AI is moving faster than social media ever did and can touch the lives of far more people. The same hesitation, applied here, will produce even worse results.

From the article:
Michael Rota, a philosophy professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, told OSV News he also thinks the ministry can help keep kids Catholic.

“There’s good reason to think that Trinity House Community meetings, and other gatherings like them, will help parents hand on the faith to their children,” he said. “Formation in community promotes most of the factors that make it more likely that kids raised Catholic will make the faith their own as adults – factors like increased religious activity, a deepening of faith-supportive peer relationships, and a sense of the importance of religious faith.”

From KSTP:
Moran said she reviewed the 94-page indictment and believes federal prosecutors gathered strong initial evidence, but she questioned whether the case is equally strong against all 15 people charged.

“My instinct in reading those 94 pages is that they seem to have much stronger evidence against some people than against others,” said Moran.

Moran said some people are mentioned far less than others in the indictment, which she believes defense attorneys will challenge.

“The line between what was protected protest activity and what crosses into impeding or obstructing is already not very clear, and then when you say ‘Well, there are particular people who maybe didn’t impede or obstruct but just entered into some possible agreement to do that,’ then you’re getting farther and farther away from the ones who actually did something problematic,” said Moran.

From FOX 9:
The FOX 9 Investigators tracked nearly 60 other assault cases in Minnesota where people were accused of assaulting or impeding a federal officer during Operation Metro Surge. 

More than half of those cases have since been dropped, with some attorneys making accusations of “outrageous government conduct” and that it lacked “credible evidence.” 

Dig deeper:

Assault cases were also regularly dismissed or declined to charge during the immigration enforcement surge in Chicago last fall. 

“We have a number of demonstrably false claims where judges have found that Homeland Security agents were making misrepresentations about assaults,” said University of St. Thomas law professor Rachel Moran.

From the story:
“It was an interesting report in that the number of unemployed people went down, but so did the number of employed people,” Schipper said.

As Schipper explained, the number of jobs has grown, but the number of Minnesotans working has been shrinking for six straight months. Asked why more people are dropping out of the labor force, (DEED Labor Market Information Director) Angelina Nguyen said DEED does not yet have an answer. ...

The report also showed that some blue-collar jobs, including in the leisure and hospitality industries, are growing again, while some white-collar jobs, including finance, are shrinking. Schipper and Nguyen said that may be one reason Minnesota’s average hourly wage dropped 0.5% from May 2025 to May 2026, while U.S. pay rose 3.5%. The inflation index outpaced both, increasing by 4.2%.

From the article:
A DOJ spokesperson responded to Schiltz’s conclusions in a brief statement. “The Department takes the unlawful obstruction of federal law enforcement operations extremely seriously and will continue to act in full compliance with the law to investigate these matters.” 

Mark Osler, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and a former federal prosecutor, said the ruling is noteworthy.

“It is rare for a subpoena to be quashed, but this was a rare kind of investigation as well, and Judge Schiltz concluding that there was political motivation, for example, is very unusual,” he said.

“We’re not talking about some radical, out there judge,” he said. “We’re talking about a rock-solid federal judge who seems to have reached a breaking point.”

Public officials targeted by the subpoenas issued statements welcoming the judge’s decision.

The Henry L. Alder Award honors beginning college or university faculty members whose teaching has been extra ordinarily successful and effective. Each year, up to three professors with fewer than 7-years teaching are chosen for this national award to receive $1,000 and a certificate of recognition.

The award will be presented in August at MathFest, the MAA's annual conference, in Boston. There, the recipients are expected to attend and make a presentation.

Barrios' classroom focuses on humanizing mathematics within historical narratives and helping students connect, collaborate, and build confidence in their skills.

By making a collaborative space, he encourages students to welcome different perspectives and productive struggles.

Barrio's impact is also represented through the Pomona Research in Mathematics Experience, where he mentors undergraduate students in research and supports their journey toward graduate study.

"Through his dedication to equitable teaching, mentorship, and community building, Dr. Barrios is a most deserving recipient of the 2026 Henry L. Alder Award," according to the Mathematical Association of America.

Mike Porter, senior clinical professor of marketing at the University of St. Thomas, was featured in a “Homegrown Hustle” podcast video. From the customer’s journey to economic strategies, Porter discusses what successful marketing means, and how to know you’re taking your business in the right direction. 

From the video: 

Mike Porter: Qualitative research gives you the opportunity to learn the things you can’t know or you can’t guess. So, in a focus group or a one-on-one interview, you’re learning things about me and marketing that you would not have known to ask about. … It’s better for dialogue to happen across the table. We call it “cross talk,” and when that starts happening, that’s where the value is. 

Matt Eickman: And that expands on the qualitative side.

Porter: Then as a marketer you can say “Okay, well these are the things we learned that we kind of thought we knew about, and here’s the stuff that’s new.” ... The point is this back and forth, and research is a good thing. You do some quant, you learn some things, you go back to qualitative and learn some more things. It’s an interactive process and good marketing has some of that going on all the time. 

Eickman: So, if I had to guess, these focus groups were being recorded and documented. And it’s just a concept to put into a stage, and the idea is to go deeper into the qualitative side? 

Porter: What we’re trying to do is find better ways to get deeper, more real truth out of people. My colleague calls this whole thing “the quest for truth.” ... I was telling my students yesterday, I could not do what he does with his age group. He can tell a story about his life and put people in a much more comfortable space, and so that back and forth creates the rapport. … So, who’s know the questioner makes a difference too.

The lyrics were inspired by Psalm 91, which depicts wing-related imagery and offers comfort and assurance of God’s protection during times of fear or grief.

The song was published by North American Liturgy Resources and spread through the U.S., resonating with military sectors, Native American communities and countries around the nation. The song has been translated into Catalan, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. 

Joncas recognized the impact of his composition when former President Joe Biden quoted the piece, speaking to the various interpretations of comfort. 

Music had always been a staple in Joncas’ life, stemming from his mother’s background as a lyric soprano and his father’s background in technical theater. 

When his family moved to St. Charles Borromeo, his interest in music grew along with him, guiding Joncas toward piano lessons, choir groups and liturgical music.

In 2003, Joncas was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder. With physical complications regarding his voice and ability to play the guitar, his illness shifted the perspective of music and ministry.

During the pandemic, he composed another piece called “Shelter Me,” inspired by Psalm 23. The passage speaks on the relationship between the divine and humans, with a primary focus on shepherds and flock. 

From the article:

The verses came directly from Psalm 91, long familiar to him through compline, or night prayer, in the Liturgy of the Hours. “I prayed Psalm 91 for years,” he said. “That text seemed to be deeply consoling to me.”

At the time, grief surrounded Joncas personally as well. His sister, Babette, who had lived with physical difficulties throughout her life, had recently died in her early 20s.

Beyond personal loss, America itself felt fractured, he said, with the Vietnam War, civil rights struggles and social upheaval. 

“There was a sense of grieving over the direction the United States was going,” he said. The refrain of “On Eagle’s Wings” did not come directly from a single biblical passage but from combined scriptural images. The hymn was first performed at the wake service for Hall’s father in Omaha in April 1976 and then again the following day at the funeral Mass as the responsorial song.

He could not have imagined what would follow, he said.

The first major turning point came when North American Liturgy Resources, a small publishing company, accepted the song for publication and recording in 1979. Soon afterward, “On Eagle’s Wings” appeared in Glory and Praise, a hymnal that spread rapidly through Catholic parishes in the United States in the post–Vatican II era.