The University of Minnesota Police Department resolved a bomb threat investigation at TCF Bank Stadium, according to a University spokesperson Thursday afternoon.

According to the spokesperson, the threat was called in at around 1:15 p.m. UMPD officers — along with their K-9 detection unit — swept the building and did not find anything relevant to the threat. 

According to an initial all-campus alert, sent at around 1:30 p.m., the building was evacuated of those preparing for a football game Friday. A second alert, sent about an hour later, notified the campus community of “the all clear.”

The game against the University of Iowa Hawkeyes will continue with regular security protocols tomorrow. 

This is a breaking news report. More information will be added as it becomes available.

National Signing Day saw three 2021 recruits officially commit to the Gophers’ women’s basketball program.

Katie Borowicz, Maggie Czinano and Alanna Micheaux officially put pen to paper Wednesday afternoon confirming their commitment to the University of Minnesota. Each of the 2021 recruits officially signed their National Letter of intent, the school announced Thursday.

“I am thrilled to announce our 2021 Gopher Women’s basketball recruiting class,” head coach Lindsay Whalen said in a statement. “This trio brings us three extremely unselfish players who are willing to fill whatever role they need to in order to bring continued success to our program.”

Czinano, a local talent, currently attends Watertown-Mayer High School. She comes from a basketball family, as her older sister Monika is currently a member of the University of Iowa’s basketball team.

Czinano is listed at 5-foot-11 and plays predominantly at the one or two-guard position. She is a very skilled player on the offensive side of the ball, as she has shown the ability to create her own shot at a high level. Her elite length for her size makes her a very versatile defender.

Borowicz is listed at 5-foot-6 and spends most of her time at the point guard position. In 2019 as a junior, she averaged a remarkable 31 points for her high school team shooting 50% from the field and adding six rebounds and six steals per contest.

Borowicz is also a local product from Roseau High School, and she also comes from a basketball family. When Borowicz was a freshman on Rouseau’s varsity team, they went undefeated and won the state title in 2017. She shared the floor with her two older sisters, Kylie and Kacie. Kylie played two years at Minnesota State Moorhead, and Kacie just completed her first year at the University of North Dakota.

Micheaux a Wayne, Mich., native is the highest ranked recruit of the three. According to ProspectNation.com, she is rated as a four-star recruit, the No. 75 overall player in the country and the No. 9 power forward.

Listed at 6-foot-2, Micheaux will add height to the Gophers’ 2021 recruiting class. As a junior, she averaged 26.4 points, 14 rebounds, 3.2 blocks, 2.6 assists, and 1.8 steals per contest. She led Wayne Memorial High School to district and regional championships along the way.

Czinano, Borowicz and Micheaux should all have the opportunity to contribute as soon as they step on campus. Whalen continues to be very successful in her hopes of keeping Minnesota’s local talent in-state to play for the Gophers, and her nationwide recruiting prowess continues to stand out.

Between the overwhelming flood of Twitter updates and the lethargic assemblage of legitimate election data, voters across the nation have found themselves emotionally wasted. What began with the discouraging reality of the refresh button on a blue and red screen and helicopters floating through the Minneapolis sky has finally ended in relative peace. The light at the end of the tunnel presented itself on Saturday when Biden reached 290 electoral votes with the acquisition of Pennsylvania and Nevada. But, despite an initial wave of euphoria following the results, many of us remain profoundly disappointed.

President Trump spent his term deepening tensions that should have been repaired. He was listless when his country called for a leader and governed with ineptitude and cruelty. And still, he ran a close race for a second term.

The most recent data shows that Trump won 43% of the nationwide popular vote and 42% of the Minnesotan vote. Still more disappointing is the breakdown of votes by demographic. According to exit polls, 57% of white voters voted for Trump and so did 42% of voters with college degrees. In contrast, Biden easily collected the popular vote from Black, Asian and Hispanic/Latino voters, winning by a margin greater than 30% in each domain. These results aren’t only unacceptable but deeply disturbing. Evidently, Biden’s race was won by those oppressed during the Trump administration without significant support from their more privileged voting counterparts.

The Washington Post’s exit polls revealed that Trump’s supporters in the 2020 election were very often white, evangelical Christians, and those whose family income was greater than $100,000 a year. Their greatest concerns regarding the election were the economy and crime and safety. Biden supporters voted for coronavirus relief, healthcare policy and, above all, racial equality. Trump’s presidency and subsequent race for a second term was propped up by systemic racism and those whom it resonated with. His policies were backed up by more than 70 million Americans.

Although racial minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community and international students only make up a portion of the University of Minnesota student body, they are critically important to our campus culture. In 2019, the University of Minnesota reported almost 8,000 minority-identifying undergraduate students, and in 2018, U.S. News ranked Minneapolis and St. Paul among the country’s most diverse cities. Trump’s presidency has put immense stress on minority groups on college campuses and across the country. His failures to address police brutality and xenophobic assertions, especially as COVID-19 entered the United States, serve as examples of Trump’s permittance of policies that undermine the validity of critical communities. As a result, he quickly lost their support.

However, the gross mass of voters who did not recognize Trump’s hypocrisy and enduring oppressive scare tactics as a significant fault serves as a warning. It also serves as a reminder that our country is built on the grounds where those with the most to lose perpetually have the least to win. As the inauguration draws nearer, we must remember that Biden’s election is not an enormous victory for fundamental human rights but the beginning of reparations long overdue.

On Thursday, Nov. 5, a student posted “I really can’t keep ‘living’ like this” in the r/uofmn subreddit. The post detailed the monotony of sitting at a desk all day, completing assignment after assignment, feeling unsupported and as though there isn’t an end in sight to the ensuing stress of this year.

As the pandemic reaches its eighth month in the United States, some students have echoed feelings of monotony and fatigue surrounding online schooling and COVID-19-related stress.

“I didn’t think anything could possibly be worse for my mental state than the country teetering on the edge of fascism but with a project, major assignment, and/or midterm in every single class this week [my professors] managed to pull it off. Theres no real end to anything in sight and I just don’t have the will to keep up any more,” BossMatt101, the author of the post said.

The post gained more than 350 upvotes and was met with similar sentiments and advice. Students replied with thoughtful messages, reminding the author that there is hope, offering up podcast recommendations, self-care advice and even a play session with one student’s dog.

Patricia Frazier is a professor who studies stress and trauma through the University’s psychology department. She’s focused on college student mental health and, in particular, how students have fared throughout the pandemic.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Frazier, along with fellow psychology professor Liza Meredith at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and assistant professor Viann Nguyen-Feng at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, has collected data on stressors experienced by students during the pandemic and the efficacy of online stress management interventions.

Frazier and her colleagues found the main concerns among students this semester include concerns about grades, missing friends, online class difficulty, uncertainty about COVID-19 and lack of motivation.

These stressors are common among college students, and a greater number of stressors can be associated with feeling more depressed, Frazier explained.

So how do we combat these feelings? Through their stress management intervention classes, Frazier and her colleagues encourage students to remind themselves of what they do have control over instead of what they can’t control.

Some of Frazier’s solutions to feeling better during this time are simple, like making sure to get enough sleep, avoiding the news and taking intentional schoolwork breaks throughout the day.

“Even though we can’t do everything that we normally can, we can still try to do things that bring us joy,” Frazier said.

Director of the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing, Mary Jo Kreitzer, recommended that students take some time to process everything going on by spending some time in nature.

“For many, this has been a time to sort out priorities – what really matters and what are the things that I can do now – and in the future,” Kreitzer said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

The Bakken Center offers resources on its website for students dealing with stress. The Student Corner offers college students stories and advice on how to cope with the uncertainty, fear and anxiety of this time.

As a source of joy, Jake Ender, a fourth-year student studying speech-language-hearing sciences, has taken this time to learn how to cook for himself. He’s learned how to cook Japanese dumplings, ramen and more.

“There’s different things you can do to occupy your mind, and I think that there’s lots of problems you could solve in your own life that don’t have to do with going out into the world,” Ender said.

Ender’s main advice for students is to exercise, explore different hobbies during this time and take it day by day with patience.

“Now’s a tough time for everyone, teachers included — the entire university institution included. So I think just being patient and trying to boost each other, wherever we can, is probably the most important thing we can do.”

Continuity is one of the key elements every football coach and player loves to have coming into any season, and those who have it are reaping the rewards in an odd 2020 season.

For the Gophers’ offense, continuity was somewhat of a mixed bag at the beginning of the season. Yes, Minnesota replaced former offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca with new co-coordinators in newcomer Mike Sanford and newly promoted Matt Simon.

But, the team also had the luxury of returning many key players like Tanner Morgan at quarterback, Rashod Bateman and Chris Autman-Bell at receiver and Mohamed Ibrahim at running back.

Even the offensive line had continuity with three returning starters and two others, John Michael Schmitz and Axel Ruschmeyer, who were ready to step into starting roles.

With over a third of the season completed, Morgan and the coordinators have communicated smoothly during games, playmakers have been getting the ball and the offense has seen continuous improvement from game to game.

Against Michigan, Minnesota had a few early possessions that did not turn into points and put the team in an early hole. At Maryland, the Gophers clawed their way back from an early deficit through the rushing attack, but they failed to close out the game and lost in overtime. And last week against Illinois, the offense took control of the game early and went on to top the Fighting Illini 41-14 with 541 total yards.

Not only has the offense been playing well as a whole, but two significant developments have come from this new offensive staff. One is the player-coach relationship that has developed with Sanford. While it might take time for players to be accustomed to a new play caller, most Gophers have said Sanford and Simon have not changed the play-calling and concepts drastically from last season.

What has changed, however, is the new energy Sanford brings to the unit.

“I love coach Sanford to death. When he came in for spring ball, he was very aggressive in practice,” Autman-Bell said. “He’s very high-energy, just like [head coach P.J. Fleck] as well. It’s really good that your offensive coordinator is super hyped and super energized. He’s always the first one there to hype you up.”

The second development is the stellar individual performances, particularly from Ibrahim. Coming into the season, it was thought Ibrahim might share the backfield with redshirt freshmen Cam Wiley and Treyson Potts like he did last season with Rodney Smith and Shannon Brooks.

Instead, he has taken over as the go-to guy. In the first three outings, Ibrahim averaged a little over 190 rushing yards per game, ran for more than 200 yards twice and scored 10 touchdowns. He was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week after scoring four touchdowns in his second game in a row and setting a career-high in all-purpose yards with 282 at Illinois.

“I watched the Outback Bowl knowing I would possibly be in this position, and to say that I became a Mohamed Ibrahim fan would be a huge understatement after watching that Outback Bowl,” Sanford said. “His character is on a different level.”

The receiving corps has also begun to pick up where it left off last season. Bateman had his first dynamic performance last week, hauling in 10 catches for 139 yards and getting under a high-arching pass from Morgan for his first score of 2020.

And after being the third option throughout 2019, Autman-Bell stepped up against Maryland for his first career 100-yard receiving game and also went up for a deep pass and came down with it for a highlight-reel score.

Minnesota’s offense will face its next challenge this Friday at home against Iowa. The Hawkeyes are coming off a shutdown victory against Michigan State. In the first three Gopher-Hawkeye meetings under head coach Fleck, Minnesota is 0-3 and has averaged 20 points per game.

Capturing the stories of refugees isn’t an easy job, but for Kao Kalia Yang, sharing the lives of others is what gives her a purpose.

The St. Paul-based author released her latest book, “Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir,” on Nov. 10 and is gearing up for a virtual book launch with the University of Minnesota on Nov. 16.

“Somewhere in the Unknown World” tells the stories of 14 different refugees from across the world. Coming from places like Somalia and Russia, everyone in the book ended up in Minnesota, Yang said.

Minnesota has more refugees per capita than any other state in the country, according to the Immigration Law Center of Minnesota.

For Yang the stories are personal.

“Long before I knew I was going to be an author, I’ve been collecting refugee stories as a refugee myself,” Yang said. “I went across the stretch of my community, which was not very hard at all.”

Yang met fellow refugees at her son’s school, in the doctor’s office and through friends. Through the community connections, she was able to build together a web of stories, all sharing a similar experience but with different details.

“It tells stories from so many different people and communities. It helps us understand … what it’s like to have to flee for your lives in fear of persecution, what it’s like to be forced to come to a new country and start all over,” said Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. “But there are also stories of young people and people in love and people who are going through the same stages of young adulthood that everyone goes through.”

Lee commended Yang on her ability to take personal and unique stories and frame them in a way that everyone can understand.

“The book is both an evocative work of literature and an act of connection, letting everyone enter into lives and histories that aren’t usually visible,” said Yang’s editor, Riva Hocherman in an email.

As the first Hmong American author to publish a novel in the United States, Yang said she feels a great deal of responsibility when writing. She knows that by virtue of simply being a Hmong American writing and speaking about refugee experiences, she’s representative of her community.

She wants to use the power and recognition she has to tell refugee stories. “These stories are incredible. But they’ve been incredibly silent,” Yang said.

Lee said that refugee stories are especially important right now given the current government administration. In 2020, a maximum of 18,000 refugees are allowed into the United States, the lowest ever recorded refugee cap, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Before Trump, the lowest refugee cap was 67,000 refugees in 1986.

Yang is partnering with the University of Minnesota Immigration History Research Center and the International Rescue Committee to host a virtual book launch on Nov. 16 at 4 p.m. Yang will read a book excerpt, have a conversation with Lee, and the IRC will talk about immigration policy.

You can find the Zoom link for the event on the IHRC website.

Yang’s book shows positive representation of refugees, something that the community desperately needs, according to Lee. For Yang, it’s all about using her gift with words for good.

She said, “Writing gives me purpose. Writing helps me find meaning. Writing gives me a venue to speak to the world that I love so much.”

In collaboration with People for PSEO, the Minnesota Student Association plans to increase PSEO student access to campus mental health resources in an upcoming initiative.

PSEO, or Postsecondary Enrollment Options, allows high school-aged students to take university-level courses to fulfill both high school and college credit requirements. PSEO students can take up to 12-13 credits at the University of Minnesota each semester.

Because they do not pay Student Services Fees, PSEO students have to pay additional expenses to access services at Boynton Health, said Zeke Jackson, the director of People for PSEO and a second-year University student. As a result, Jackson said PSEO students do not have equal access to mental health resources compared to undergraduate students.

To support their mental health, PSEO students have access to resources like Student Counseling Services, the Center for Spirituality & Healing’s “Wellbeing U” digital learning series, the Pet Away Worry & Stress program and a course titled Success Over Stress.

Some students said the University can do more to provide PSEO students with adequate mental health resources.

“If you don’t have a community as a PSEO student, and you don’t feel like you’re fully engaged at high school or college, PSEO can be really lonely,” Jackson said. “I would say that PSEO is so important to students for so many different reasons. Colleges should be providing services, diverse services, to students that reflect those differing reasons that students enroll in the PSEO program in the first place.”

Sophia Pung, a junior in high school and a first-year PSEO student at the University, said she has only received three emails from the University regarding mental health so far this semester. She also said she has not felt like a part of the University community, largely due to COVID-19.

“It’s definitely been harder because I haven’t felt like I am a PSEO student because I’ve not been going to the U at all. It is different, and I think it’s harder to learn for everyone and just in general,” Pung said.

Even though the initiative to provide more mental health resources to students is in the early planning stages, MSA’s PSEO representative, Safiya Anwar, said the initiative is personal to her.

“While a few [resources] on campus are available to PSEO students, there is more that can be done,” Anwar said in an email. “PSEO students may not voice their need for support due to the complicated process that arises. Concerns about privacy have also been brought up in the conversation surrounding mental health and PSEO students, as many are minors. In short, the discussion of PSEO students and mental health is complicated but ever-important.”

On Wednesday, the Gophers’ officially added Treyton Thompson and Kenny Pohto to their roster for the 2021-22 season. Both commits signed their National Letter of Intent, head coach Richard Pitino announced.

Both commits are listed as three-star recruits on 247sports, however, ESPN gave them each a four star rating, making this the seventh straight year the Gophers have landed at least one four-star recruit.

Thompson has previous ties to Minnesota being an Alexandria, Minnesota, native before he transferred to La Lumiere School in Indiana. Pohto, a Stockholm, Sweden native, currently resides in Kansas where he plays for Sunrise Christian Academy.

Coincidentally, both commits play the center position and come in at 6-foot-11, the difference being Pohto has 50 pounds on Thompson. In their respective states, Thompson is ranked the No. 5 center and Pohto is ranked as the No. 4 center, while they are both in the top-30 at their position in the nation.

In high school, Thompson played his first two years at Alexandria High School where he averaged 15.8 points and 8.5 rebounds during his sophomore year. Once he transferred to La Lumiere, he helped bring the Lakers to a 22-5 season. He also has experience in AAU playing for D1 Minnesota.

Pohto played for the Buffaloes last season, which MaxPreps has them ranked No. 2 in the country. He brings a three point shot to the team hitting 53% from deep last year. He also represented Sweden at the 2018 FIBA U16 European Championships, and averaged 13.1 points and 11.6 rebounds over the tournament.

Both recruits will have role models to watch on the team in junior center Liam Robbins and grad transfer forward Brandon Johnson.

The euphoria one feels watching a burly man score points against other burly men in a sporting event is the exact type of euphoria I experience when I get to watch pasty middle-aged people interpret poll results on CNN. God, what a rush! Watching John King expertly poke and jab at his fancy SMARTboard machine as he explains the importance of Polk County, Florida, to me. He dodges technical difficulties, creates dynamic plays/projected outcomes and passes the conversation perfectly to America’s favorite silver fox, Anderson Cooper, in the endzone. Last week was like the Super Bowl, NBA Finals and the World Cup all wrapped up into one ultimate event: the presidential election.

While I am relieved and thrilled about the election results, it did make me realize one thing: I really want to live in a world where we can create Fantasy Politics. The same thing, really, as fantasy football but with members of our U.S. government. We could text our friends things like, “I’ll trade you Cory Gardner for John Hickenlooper,” and, “You’re not gonna start Tina Smith? Dude, she’s about to go off!” We track them even after major elections, and we give them merit and points based off of different variables, like what bills they help pass in the House, how many different pantsuits they own and how many lies they have told the American people.

This concept would not only be wildly entertaining, but it could completely change the face of American politics. Think about it: Some people will literally watch football for hours just because they are involved in a fantasy football league. Imagine how many Americans we could engage in politics with Fantasy Politics. (I’ve got to get this copyrighted!) We could have millions of Americans streaming local C-SPAN congressional hearings, sitting on the edge of their seats in anticipation of what politicians might do. Fantasy Politics could increase the amount of informed, knowledgeable citizens we have in our country. Furthermore, think of all the jobs we could create. We could have political announcers sitting off to the side of Senate hearings and giving us play-by-play commentary:

“If you’re just tuning in, Sen. Susan Collins was giving her reasons as to why children should not be allowed to have fun. John, your thoughts on this?”

“Thanks, Dale — yeah, she’s been practicing this argument all offseason, but unfortunately I don’t think her execution is there, and it’s becoming a real fumble.”

We could even get referees to blow the whistle on politicians when they are lying, and then for an added bonus, we can put these politicians in a penalty box, but in our version, it’s one of those carnival game dunk tanks. Oh, oh, oh! And, the American people get the chance to win a sweepstakes every week to go down to Washington, D.C. and be the one to throw the ball that potentially drenches that lying, cheating scum we elected to be our senator! How awesome would that be?

I’m telling you folks, this is the answer we’ve all been waiting for. If we want to fix the overloading, leaking diaper that is the American political system, we can start by creating Fantasy Politics. We’ll have more people learning about the system, their representatives and how we can make a difference in it all. Fantasy Politics would hold our leaders responsible lest they want to end up at the bottom of all our draft lists. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to reach out to any and all people who might know how to make an app.

As a child, I dreamed of one day being the President of the United States. On the occasions in elementary school that I was brave enough to voice this hope out loud, I was nearly always shot down with some sneering remark about how, as a girl, I was immediately disqualified from ever holding such a powerful position.

On Saturday night, I sat on my couch and cried as the first female vice president in the history of our nation stood on stage and told young girls everywhere to dream, and dream ambitiously. Kamala Harris’ story is one of firsts. She is the daughter of immigrants, the first Asian American elected to the vice presidency, the first Black vice president-elect, the first graduate of a historically Black college and the first member of a Black sorority to hold that office. I celebrate her ascension and all of the boundaries it breaks.

But, I will still hold her and President-elect Joe Biden accountable. For many young adults, voting for the Biden-Harris ticket was not a welcome choice but a necessary one. An Instagram account, @SettleforBiden, garnered over 290,000 followers pushing people to vote for the lesser of two evils. The fight did not end with the election. Too often, there seems to be a divide between the average voter and the people who represent them. We feel as though we have no control over the actions of politicians, and voting seems like a shot in the dark. You pick the candidate you hope dearly will do the least harm and pray to whomever that the promises made to you are upheld.

As a nation, we came together and denied President Donald Trump a second term in office. This is a reminder that as constituents, we are not playing cards to be collected and kept. Our power is in our hands. We choose who leads us, who represents our values and who holds the image of America that we want manifested. That power does not disappear after the ballot boxes have gone away.

We may have entered a time of healing, but America’s wounds have deepened over the last four years. We continue to live through an onslaught of systemic discrimination, racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia and countless other afflictions. Neither Biden nor Harris have clean records — career politicians rarely do. But, we face a turning point in American politics, and it is not a return to normalcy. “Normal,” in the American sense of the word, is no longer acceptable. Instead, we move forward to an America that we can speak of with pride. An America in which we do not allow politicians to turn their backs as Black men are killed in our streets, as children are separated from families and kept in cages, as hundreds of thousands die preventable COVID-related deaths.

Democracy is a double-edged sword. In an ideal world, it is representative; but representation necessitates participation. The election of 2020 will go down in history for many reasons, one of which is the highest rates of voter turnout since at least 1900. When we raise our voice, the noise is too deafening to ever be silenced.

Keep yelling. Keep tweeting. Keep up with politics, even if it’s just at the local level. Local governance has far more power than we tend to acknowledge. Call out the politicians who make choices you don’t agree with, and show up for those who keep their promises. You put them in office. If they don’t show up for you and what you believe in, you have the power to take them out.