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Inside the Chaos at MPS
The Minnesota Reformer's Melissa Whitler has been doing some excellent work lately regarding the ongoing financial meltdown at Minneapolis Public Schools. Her latest takes you behind the scenes of "a year of chaos and dysfunction" in the district's finance department, where a senior officer continued working for months even as red flags about his conduct mounted.
"Warning signs about the Minneapolis Public Schools' senior finance officer, Ibrahima Diop, had been accumulating for months: IRS penalties, a mysterious deficit in the district’s healthcare trust account, a blistering outside audit that referred to the department’s 'pervasive fear and uncertainty,' two reprimands and a performance improvement plan," Whitler begins.
Diop, who shockingly did not respond to requests for comment, was MPS's top financial official for a decade, and he remained in that post through January 2 of this year even as concerns grew. And this shit sucks: District Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams has not publicly addressed why he was allowed to remain in that role and has declined the Reformer's repeated interview requests. "The district says it will not be doing interviews on these topics because of the 'substantial amount of not public and private data involved,'” Whitler writes.
A lack of district sources didn't kneecap the Reformer, which used public records to give us this inside look at a department in turmoil and "a district slow to respond."
Church Fraud!
In 2022, Real Believers Faith Center in north Minneapolis made headlines after buying a "troubled" Marathon gas station on West Broadway. At the time, the couple behind the church told the Star Tribune they planned to expand onto the property and build additional worship and youth centers.
"We're not intimidated by it, we're excited about it," Rev. Larry Cook, a pastor at Real Believers, told the Strib at the time. "The community needs help."
What a thoughtful purchase! So it was nice to see Cook and his wife Sharon in the news again today for—oh, wait, no, never mind, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing the couple, who are accused of misusing more than $2 million meant for their nonprofits. They allegedly used the funds on luxury vacation rentals, Louis Vuitton bags, NBA tickets, and more.
Fox 9 has the whole rundown on the expenses, which also include guns ($3,045.79), Home Depot ($113,848.21), and movies/Netflix ($4,412.61—how???).
And—plot twist!—the lawsuit states that while the couple threw a "new management" celebration for the Marathon in 2022, the Cooks never actually owned the gas station.
Remembering Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives
More families than ever before are seeking help from Minnesota's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) Office. That's according to Ana Negrete, a planner for the MMIR Office, who tells MPR News's Melissa Olson that the office is also assisting with—and closing—more cases as families increasingly come forward.
That shift is in part thanks to the office's Gaagige-Mikwendaagoziwag Reward Fund. Launched in 2025, the fund offers rewards up to $10,000 for tips in missing persons and homicide investigations. In some cases, families can use those funds to buy billboard space or search kits asking anyone who might have information to share it.
“Other families are starting to think, OK, well, is this something that could lead to resolution for my loved one that was murdered?” Negrete says, which has given families “a kind of renewed sense of hope.” When the fund launched, her office was assisting with four open cases; today, that number is 21.
May 5 is a national day of remembrance each year for missing and murdered Indigenous relatives, and WCCO also brings us this report from a remembrance celebration at the Minneapolis American Indian Center on Franklin Avenue.
Was Heidi Klum's Met Gala Outfit an Homage to Veiled Lady at Mia?
If you've seen any of the outfits from Monday night's Met Gala in New York City, you already know there were only, like, three interesting choices—one of which was the sculptural, statuesque look sported by Heidi Klum.
Hey, it's no worm, but what an incredibly gorgeous look. And of course, it left at least some locals wondering: Is this a nod to the Veiled Lady sculpture at Minneapolis Institute of Art?
It turns out that it kinda-sorta is! Klum was exploring sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when she was inspired by Raffaelle Monti’s 1854 piece The Veiled Woman, according to the Star Tribune's Alicia Eler. Monti is also behind Mia'sVeiled Lady, a smaller, bust version of The Veiled Woman.
And Klum isn't the only one who likes Monti's work. "It’s come to really be the most popular object in the whole museum, I think because our public has decided they love it,” Max Bryant, Mia’s associate curator of European decorative arts and sculpture, says of Veiled Lady.
