Good News ~ 2/22/26 - 2/28/26
Good News in Minnesota
Sunday, February 22, 2026
Minnesota Angryman calls protests and peaceful demonstrations âgroup therapyâ. seems fitting.
A march to honor Alex Pretti, marking one-month since his death started at Whittier Park yesterday.
Diane Moua, a Hmong Minneapolis chef received special recognition on Good Morning America for blending âher award-winning pastry skill with the flavors of her Hmong heritage.â
The Minnesota Rebel Loon resistance logo has inspired a nationwide movement of attaching state birds to the rebel insignia. They can be seen at creaturesofresistance.câŠ
Thank you Chris Damian for this HUGE list of donation drives, fundraisers, and other MN events happening through the end of February. This list only grows every single dayâŠand doesnât account for the small 3-10 person actions happening everywhere. substack.com/profile/11âŠ
More than 80 Minnesotans have offered sworn declarations in the amended complaint filed by the ACLU in Tincher v. Noem. Presiding judge Eric Tostrud (a Trump appointee) indicated he will rule in an expedited basis.
Here are some numbers for you:
lawyers have filed 1000+ individual charges to detentions.
MN fed judges have ordered releases hundreds of times for unlawful arrests and detentions.
400+ federal judges nationwide have issued 4000+ rulings finding ICE held people illegally
Ten women who have never met each other gathered on a quiet St. Paul home yesterday, sharing their stories and their passion for protecting Minnesota. It was instant kinship. This is called hyper-local organizing, and is how it is done here in the north star state.
Thanks for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely,
TeriLeighđ
P.S. question for you all, if I had âthanks for giving a shitâ and âlove fiercelyâ MN t-shirts and stickers and magnets made up, would any of you buy them? with profits going to MN mutual aid.
Monday, February 23, 2026
When Brandi Carlile performed a special concert here in Minneapolis last Saturday, she invited the MN Singing Resistance to perform on stage with her! (this one gave me chills).
A school board member from Fridley schools (a north suburb of the twin cities) has been reporting that ICE is blending in and waiting at the schools for drop off and pick up. The community has responded by forming a human shield to stop kids from seeing what is happening on the street.
Former Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak is referring to Minneapolis as âThe City That Wonât Breakâ and Minnesota as âThe State Teaching the World How to Love Your Neighborâ
Pods of Resistance Singers are popping up all over the city, in groups as small as 5-6 people, as well as in crowds of thousands. These events are meeting weekly, or even daily!
St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her attended an online town hall last night and informed citizens to call 911 if we witness anyone getting abducted by ICE as police will respond, and that the city is not allowing ICE to stage on city property and that they are to wear ID tags and no face coverings. This might explain why I saw such a heavy police presence on the streets on Friday when ICE was so prevalent. For every ice vehicle I saw, I saw 3-4 police vehicles.
Minnesota definitions of the word âprotestâ
One way people gather peacefully to show care and solidarity.
Collective action reflecting shared responsibility within a community.
The BYHAC - Black Youth Healing Arts Center in Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul is using art to help the young people navigate the trauma we are experiencing as a collective.
Thank you for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely.
I have a storefront working on designs for merchâŠcoming soon
TeriLeighđ
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Much of the good news today lives in the legal world. Minnesota has always been a state and community that does things by the book, and we are throwing the book at the feds in big ways.
Minnesota won the most Olympic medals than any other state. Minnesota had 26 athletes competing in the Olympics, bringing home 13 of medals: 10 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze. (btw - the Womenâs Olympic Hockey Team turned down an invitation to tonightâs State of the Union Address).
Minnesota was just ranked the second-best state to raise a family (behind Massachusetts), based on family fun, health & safety, education & child care, affordability, and socio-economics.
Rapper Yung Gravy has been working with local activists donating money and supplies directly to families impacted by immigration raids.
When a shooting occurred at a local mall, William Swift, owner of Enchanted Fantasy Film Museum inside the mall did what Minnesotans do. He opened his doors making his shop a safety zone.
Judge Eric Tostrud, for the second time, has found the federal government in civil contempt for violating a direct court order. The govât must pay for a detaineeâs return flight to Minnesota after he was released in Texas without ID or belongings.
A coalition of of religious organization and faith leaders filed a lawsuit against DHS yesterday, alleging that federal agents have repeatedly blocked clergy from providing essential pastoral care to detainees held at the Whipple Federal Building, in violation of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Minnesota leadership confirmed yesterday that they did NOT agree to any policy concessions to end the surge, countering the narrative provided by the federal government. Minnesota has not changed any policies, practices, or procedures in how they handle immigration, and our local sanctuary laws and community protections remain fully in force.
Volunteer attorneys from all specialties (divorce, estate, corporate, etc) have mobilized to file over 1000 habeas corpus petitions since January.
Weekly filings of habeas corpus petitions have declined from 130 to 46, indicating fewer arrests.
Fridley and Duluth school districts have filed a federal emergency motion to halt immigration enforcement near classrooms and bus stops.
Minnesota educators were celebrated this week as heroes for providing critical support to families during the surge.
Dropkick Murphys, an iconic band, announced a free acoustic memorial show in a Minneapolis parking lot near Eat Street where Alex Prettiâs Memorial is. The event will be livestreamed globally and is raising funds for local rent relief and small businesses.
Whistleblower, Ryan Schwank, a former trainer and lawyer for ICE testified yesterday revealing unconstitutional practices and directives and training procedures within ICE.
**I need to acknowledge and give proper credit⊠I get a lot of my good news reports from Sean Snow, an independent journalist in Minnesota.
While ICE is not as active within the city of Minneapolis, they are much more active in St. Paul (my home) and outer suburbs and more rural communities. St. Paul is handling it well, and SPPD is supporting the community well. However, for the outer suburbs and rural communities, the ICE raids are more devastating as they donât have the capacity for rapid response as the cities do.
We have two seasons here in Minnesota, winter and road construction. While we are recognizing that nothing lasts forever and the intensity of the raids may pass, we have a long road in front of us in terms of cleaning up the pothole mess that was left. Our economy has been decimated, and the trauma we are enduring will require deep healing.
We also know that this resistance is not for Minnesota alone. This is a national situation that is impacting global relationships. We Minnesotans know that the world is watching us, and we carry the responsibility of not only showing the way, but teaching, leading, facilitating, and healing all at the same time. Fierce Love always prevails. Weâre on it.
Thanks for giving a shit,
I love you all fiercely.
TeriLeighđ
Good News in Minnesota
âSpecial Womenâs Editionâ
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
volunteer doulas are making house-calls to provide prenatal care and provide in-home births to moms who are sheltering-in-place.
nursing mothers continue to donate milk to babies when their mothers were taken by ICE.
Brandi Carlile raised over $600K for human rights at her Be Human MN concert.
The USA Womenâs Hockey Team won the gold medal, six of its members come from Minnesota, and they turned down an invitation to the State of the Union Address tonight.
Women, particularly retired women, here in MN are taking on the biggest of the burdens in coordinating donations, deliveries, rapid response, and protest actions. There is a fearless quality to these âmoms and grey-hairedsâ as they know they have the time, the resources, and the privilege to make the biggest difference.
Iâve come to learn that the combination of rage and guilt of a woman over 50 is a powerful force of Fierce Love that will prevail no matter what.
Iâm collecting the stories of these women, and calling for interviews for a project âŠworking title WOMN⊠if you are a Minnesota mom or grey-haired willing to share your story with me, please comment here or DM me.
Thanks for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely,
TeriLeighđ
Wednesday February 25, 2026
This week Minnesota is coordinating a week of action today through March 1st. Bring the Heat, Melt the ICE features protests, walkouts, teach-ins, noise demos, marches, phone banking, and singing resistance and other events throughout the state every day.
March 1st a historic tenant union rent strike is planned to put public pressure on leadership to enact an eviction moratorium and rent relief for families impacted by ICE.
Melt the Ice organizers offer these Lessons
Find & Follow ICE with whistles, cameras. Stay safe in numbers, and keep your distance. Large numbers have proven to make ICE leave, and documentation is proving to support legal actions down the road.
Mutual Aid for Impacted Communities networks for food, grocery distribution, ride sharing, rent relief and more comes most readily from hyper-local community action.
Neighborhood Organizing start small, host potlucks, drive through your neighborhood streets, invite your direct neighbors over. Get to know who belongs in your neighborhood so when ICE appears they stand out to everyone.
Labor Organizing the power of the people to shutdown the economy is one of the most effective weapons. Coordinated action through unions and labor forces is vital to protest success.
Intervention Points & Secondary Targets protesting against corporate leadership that is not taking a stand such as Target, local hotels, car rentals companies can.
A coalition of 50 Organizations issued a joint condemnation demanding that federal authorities stop blocking Minnesotaâs independent investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti.
Minnesotaâs grassroots response was featured on CNN piece titled âMinnesota Becomes a National Model.â (you do give a shit!)
Unanimous city council votes for Minneapolis and St. Paul in January for an eviction moratorium, and now Berkeley CA pressing Gov Tim Walz to enact the eviction moratorium.
A growing list of cities across the country are passing solidarity measures in response to the situation in Minneapolis.
Thanks again to Sean Snow, independent journalist for his amazing reports. If you havenât found him yet, his writing and reporting is top-notch. He produces a list of Minnesota news, Good News, and National News every morning, and always adds a bit of symbolism and nature metaphor at the beginning.
Iâm holding a Fierce Love for Minnesota Group Healing today at 11am CST on Zoom featuring Theta Healer Kyle Fisk. The healing portion of this session will be recorded and posted on my Fierce Love publication for anyone who cannot attend.
Thanks for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely,
TeriLeighđ
Thursday February 26, 2026
The Singing Resistance is hosting sing-in protests nationwide on Saturday February 28 and Sunday March 1. Singing Resistance now has 95 city chapters and one in Canada.
A summit organized by Duluth Indivisible, Itasca Indivisible, and Brainerd Lake Indivisible met at a YMCA camp in Sturgeon Lake for an overnight grassroots organizing retreat. 65 people from 25 different groups came together to plan, organize, and coordinate resistance movements to bring back to their individual communities.
Local communities and city councils have stopped ICE from purchasing twelve warehouse sites that would have become concentration camps. Two of those blocked sites are in Minnesota.
Sixty empty school desks sit outside the Minnesota State Capitol representing the student lives taken by gun violence as MN legislators renewed their push for new gun restrictions to protect children.
Aliya Rahman, the MN woman with autism and disabilities who testified at Congressional DHS Oversight hearings about being unlawfully detained and injured by ICE attended the State of the Union as a guest of Ilhan Omar. She was forcefully removed from the SOTU, arrested and detained a second time. After being released at 4am, she showed up for her early morning media interviews and spoke out once again. This woman is a powerhouse!
While JD Vance and Dr. Oz announced that the federal government is now withholding some Medicaid payments to the State of Minnesota, the people of Minnesota are more resolved to support each other with hyper-local efforts. The government is not our friend, so we are finding strength in our neighbors and friends.
Mayor Jacob Freyâs office reports that the city has reported fewer 911 calls for ICE-related incidents. ICE has stopped targeting Minneapolis and moved to suburbs and rural areas.
MN State Senator Alice Mann attended a hearing in the Education Policy Committee where legislation was introduced to protect schools and children from ICE. She reported that her Republican colleagues did not understand why this legislation was necessary as they were not aware of the reports from schools, principals, teachers, and superintendents (who spoke at the hearing). She encouraged her constituents to get out and talk to their Republican neighbors, to share with them the testimonies that were given at the hearing. Our leadership continues to encourage neighbors to talk to neighbors and bridge the division and divide.
What Iâm reflecting on this week is that what we are learning from all this is that we need to take care of ourselves, in small local communities. We cannot depend on the government to bail us out anymore. We are building our own strength in new and profound ways.
I had 25 loving souls participate in my Fierce Love for Minnesota Group Healing yesterday and we raised over $500 for rental assistance. Iâll report later today about the families we helped.
Thanks for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely,
TeriLeighđ
Friday February 27, 2026
The Immigrant Rapid Response Fund surpassed $10M in global donations.
standwithminnesota.com is nearing $10M in donations.
The overwhelming response from donations across all 50 states proves that compassion is very much alive.
Minneapolis ICE related 911 calls have started to drop, indicating that there is less disruptive activity. (this does not mean they are gone or this is overâŠpeople are still being abductedâŠitâs just not as rampant or violent within the city of Minneapolis)
A 2500 member Dungeons & Dragons Twin Cities Gaming group pivoted from games to mutual aid by coordinating food deliveries, âKnow Your Rightsâ workshops, and legal support. This is a great example of how every community group has repurposed their missions to establish their own grassroots community support measures.
New York Times documented the gap between federal rhetoric and the local reality by reporting that only 30% of MN ICE detentions came from local jails, proving that Hennepin County has not changed their policies and did not make any deals with the federal government.
Hellâs Kitchen, a famous Mpls downtown restaurant raised $15,443 at their first Hotcakes for a Helluva Cause pancake breakfast. Selling 850 tickets the funds will help save Mercado Central which houses 35 small businesses.
Yesterday, JD Vance and Dr. Oz announced that $259M in federal Medicaid payments to MN will freeze, a report of federal data released by the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proved that the overall rate of improper payment in MNâs Medicaid program is 2.3%, and falls far below the national average of 6.1%. At the same time Governor Walz unveiled an 18-point anti-fraud package designed to increase oversight and establish a new Office of Inspector General. This package will extend fraud statutes of limitations, strengthen investigative powers, and institute a lifetime ban on state contracts for providers convicted of fraud. (in other words, MN is one of the better states at catching and handling the fraudâŠand now we are even better at it!)
An open mic at the Whipple Federal Building brought out some of the best artists, poets, musicians, and speakers. (see video attached)
âMost Republicans are GOOD PEOPLE. Most Democrats are GOOD PEOPLE. The White House says outrageous things to make you hate your neighbor. Your neighbor isnât the problem. The White House is.â ~Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
Yesterday, I shared that I had a case of the sads, and you all stepped up with your own good news to flood my comment field. I spent two hours last night giggling, smiling, and responding to as many as I could. If you get a case of the sads, I highly recommend scrolling through the comments on that note. I still feel the sads, AND feeling them with the happies and joys and giggles makes me feel fully ALIVE. Thank you all!
Thanks for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely,
TeriLeighđ
GOOD NEWS from Minnesota
Substack Edition - February 28th, 2026
I asked for happy news and you all showed up to shovel me out of the sads with a tater-tot hotdish in one hand and a dad joke in the other.
Here are just a few:
A little boy named Victor gifted his bus attendant a âheart robot thing,â
A whole crew of neighbors has been meeting weekly for two years to clean up a local creek: invasive plants removed, natives planted, watershed friendship formed⊠and trout are starting to show up again.
A brand new Singing Resistance group formed with neighbors and theyâre having their first rehearsal/gathering this Sunday.
One street with 35 homes turned into an actual village: Memorial Day picnic, Halloween party, food drive, email group, lost pets tracked, cookies shared, snow shoveling help.
Someoneâs retired Craigslist furniture seller delivered a chest of drawers and then proceeded to restore faith in humanity with unexpected kindness.
A neighbor showed up after a huge snow dump with a snowblower that broke⊠and then he shoveled anyway, smiling, because âneighbors and friends do that.
A 13-year-old played Falstaff in Shakespeare (fat suit, beard, wig, 500 lines memorized) in a FOUR-HOUR uncut production performed by kids ages 10â14. No phones. Just brains, bodies, swords, and theater magic.
After attending our Fierce Love for MN Group Healing, a participant slept almost 11 hours after being sick for weeks⊠and didnât cough all night. The body remembered how to rest.
A sixth grade teacher is âpushing hard on empathyâ in the classroom and learning new lingo from the kids. (Great aura, everyone.)
And a few dad jokes, just cuz. . .
âHave you heard about the new corduroy pillows? Theyâre making headlines.â
âHow do you make a Kleenex dance? Blow a little boogie in it.â
âWhy did the honest rainbow stop talking to the dirty window? Because it lacked transparency.â đđȘ
If you need me this weekend, Iâll be over here working my way through commenting back on each one. If youâre feeling a case of the sads, I invite you to happy-scroll the comments here. Itâs great medicine.
Thanks for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely.
TeriLeighđ
Saturday February 28, 2026
Authors for Minnesota day - TODAY from 12pm-4pm - 26 independent bookstores across the state in MN are hosting over 50 authors to raise money for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and the Womenâs Foundation of Minnesota Immigration Rapid Response Fund.
People from across the country are traveling to the Twin Cities, both as tourists to spend money at our local small businesses or to come here and learn in person the Minnesota ways to bring home to their states. (Iâll be hosting one today, canât wait to see you Tom Schell !)
A Haven Watch volunteer, Morgan Woodruff, received a man who had been released from Whipple after being detained for 3 months. He has been here legally for 37 years, and while he was detained, he lost his job and his disabled mother had to care for herself. The volunteer said she asked him if he wanted to call his family and he said âno, I want to surprise my mom.â She said he was the happiest and toughest person she had ever met. He said his faith got him through. There is no further court date, he was released without charges.
Judge John Tunheim converted a temporary order into a permanent preliminary injunction protecting 5600 Minnesota refugees from arrest or detention under Operation PARRIS. His 66pg opinion called the fed govât actions a dystopian nightmare.
COPAL and The Immigrant Defense Network have raised over $1.5M to support families impacted by ICE raids with more than $700K already distributed to help with housing, groceries, and medical care.
UNIDOS Minnesota has called out Target Corp and will gather outside Orchestra Hall today to confront Target board members attending a shareholders event, demanding that they publicly oppose Operation Metro Surge.
It is important to note, ICE is not gone, and they are still up to their shenanigans. Yesterday, raids and violent abductions were documented in NE Mpls, and in suburban parking lots. Our immigrants still donât feel safe to leave their homes, and we continue to show up every day for mutual aid deliveries, fund-raising drives, and protests. We are tired, and we have accepted this as our current ânormalâ.
Sean Snow - the independent reporter where I get much of my good news each day says this about Minnesota:
âWeâre known as the âNorth Star State,â but itâs not just a tagline. To us, Polaris is not just a symbol, it is a fixed point. While every other light in the sky shifts and wanders, the North Star remains stillâŠa constant guide for those navigating the deep woods or the open water. It creates the comfort that when the world feels like its spinning out of control, true leadership is about being the one thing that doesnât move. Yesterday, as federal indictments and executive pressure intensified, Minnesotaâs fixed points held steady, with unyielding judges and vigilant neighbors proving that even in the darkest night, we know exactly where we stand.â
Thanks for giving a shit.
I love you all fiercely,
TeriLeighđ
