By JONATHAN MATTISE

When Brown University junior Mia Tretta’s phone began buzzing with an emergency alert during finals week, she tried to convince herself it couldn’t be happening again.

In 2019, Tretta had been shot in the abdomen during a mass shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. Two students were killed, and she and two others were wounded. She was 15 at the time.

On Saturday, Tretta was studying in her dorm with a friend when the first message arrived, warning of an emergency at the university’s engineering building. Something must have happened, she thought, but surely it couldn’t be a shooting.

As more alerts poured in, urging people to lock down and stay away from windows, the familiarity of the language made clear what she had feared. By the end of the day, two people were dead and nine others injured in the Providence, Rhode Island, shooting that once again upended a school campus.

“No one should ever have to go through one shooting, let alone two,” Tretta said in a phone interview Sunday. “And as someone who was shot at my high school when I was 15 years old, I never thought that this was something I’d have to go through again.”

Tretta’s experience captures a grim reality for a generation now in college: students who grew up rehearsing lockdowns and active-shooter drills, only to encounter the same violence again years later on campuses that once seemed like an escape from it.

In recent years, small groups of students have endured multiple mass shootings at different stages of their education, including survivors of the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who later experienced a deadly shooting at Florida State University in April.

Another Brown student, Zoe Weissman, reflected on social media about attending middle school next door to the Parkland high school during the mass killing there. She said she was outside the middle school when the shooting happened, and heard gunshots and screams, saw first responders and then watched videos of what happened.

Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Craig Greenberg said on Facebook that his son Ben, a junior at Brown, is safe after using furniture to barricade himself and his roommates inside their room. Greenberg survived an assassination attempt during his mayoral campaign in 2022.

After Tretta was shot in high school, she pushed for tighter gun restrictions and rose to a leadership role with the group Students Demand Action. Her advocacy took her to the White House under former President Joe Biden, and she also met with his former Attorney General Merrick Garland.

She has particularly focused on “ghost guns,” such as the one used at her high school, that can be built from parts and make it difficult to track or regulate owners.

And at Brown, Tretta had been working on a paper about the educational journeys of students who have lived through school shootings, a subject shaped by her own experience. The paper was due in a few days.

Tretta, who studies international and public affairs and education, said Saturday was the first time she’d gotten such an active shooter alert at Brown.

“I chose Brown, a place that I love, because it felt like somewhere I could finally be safe and finally, you know, be normal in this new normal that I live of a school shooting survivor,” she said. “And it’s happened again. And it didn’t have to.”

Frankie Capan III gave himself one last chance to regain PGA Tour membership for the 2026 season this weekend, but he was done in by final-round struggles at PGA Tour Q-School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

The North Oaks product fired a 1-over round of 71 — his worst score of the week — in Sunday’s fourth round to finish in a tie for 20th in the 176-man field.

The top five finishers earned their 2026 PGA Tour cards. Capan entered the final round just outside of the top 10.

After finishing outside of the top 125 in his rookie season on the PGA Tour in 2025, Capan will return to the Korn Ferry Tour — the PGA Tour’s direct feeder tour — in 2026.

Capan struggled throughout his rookie season, but he found his form in the fall. Q-School marked his third top-20 finish in six starts. His strong play allowed the 26-year-old to flirt with finishing inside the top 100 in the seasonlong points list to maintain his PGA Tour card that way.

Should Capan deliver similar results on the Korn Ferry Tour — a tour on which he finished third in 2024 — he’ll certainly achieve the top-20 seasonlong finish needed to return to the PGA Tour in 2027.

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As a former chair of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents, I am discouraged to see Fairview and M Physicians (UMP) attempting to strike a deal that so clearly weakens long-term health education, research and access in Minnesota.

I believe many aspects of this proposed agreement, from the scant details available publicly, will negatively affect Minnesota’s healthcare landscape for years to come.

First, their proposed funding model will slash investment to an already underfunded Medical School by at least 50%.

Also, it is highly unlikely that any of the proposed “incentive” income will materialize. Similarly, the privatization of UMP will also jeopardize the Medical School’s ability to attract additional State of Minnesota funding, including for a needed new hospital that Fairview cannot finance privately given the condition of its balance sheet.

A lack of investment could drive up Medical School tuition, hamper the recruitment and retention of high-quality students and teaching physicians, diminish life-saving research, and halt the advancement of new technology.

Second, the deal assigns Fairview power over how physicians dedicate their time.

As a result, Fairview could compel physicians to focus more time on clinical practice in service of Fairview’s challenged bottom line — leaving less time (or no time) for teaching and research. The clinical care provided by M Physicians is a huge financial driver for Fairview — both in terms of total revenue and gross margins — and nothing would prevent Fairview from prioritizing that revenue over the University’s critical public-service priorities.

If physicians are forced to prioritize clinical time over teaching, mentorship and research, the innovative and supportive environment that gave rise to the next generation of health leaders and breakthroughs like open-heart surgery, implantable pacemakers, cell therapy for cancer and bone marrow transplants will be at risk.

Instead, the ‘All Minnesota’ plan

President Cunningham’s “All Minnesota” plan, developed in partnership with statewide providers, is the better path. It is a forward-thinking plan that ends the status quo, addresses critical workforce demands, and anticipates the impending number of forced mergers in the healthcare delivery system.

One, it will bring a larger investment to Minnesota healthcare.

The University has already pledged $1 billion over five years, twice as much as Fairview has proposed. Currently, nearly 70% of the state’s physicians and other health professionals train at the University of Minnesota. This plan will lead to more graduates, grads who are more likely to live and work throughout Minnesota, especially in rural communities.

Two, it greatly improves access to all of the University of Minnesota’s academic health programs in all corners of the state — including dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health, and veterinary medicine. Patients across multiple providers could seamlessly tap into the University and benefit from the latest medical research as well as clinical trials.

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Three, it will create a necessary size and breadth of a healthcare enterprise that can withstand the incredible current and cascading financial pressures facing the industry.

Fairview publicly stated they cannot support academic health for the state. If they can’t afford to fairly support it, then they must allow other partners to share in the mission. Unlike Fairview’s largely urban model, the University of Minnesota has statewide land-grant obligations — and frankly a big vision — for delivery of integrated health education, research and patient care. Minnesotans deserve the best possible outcome and the University stands ready to deliver.

Regent Emeritus Richard B. Beeson served on the University of Minnesota Board of Regents from 2009 to 2021 and as board chair from 2013 to 2015. He was also a president of Sunrise Banks in St. Paul for 20 years, chair of the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and active on other volunteer boards and committees.

MOORHEAD, Minn. — A Moorhead middle school student arrested Thursday allegedly brought 1,500 pills that could contain fentanyl to Horizon Middle School.

During a press conference Friday, the Moorhead Police Department shared further information about the student’s arrest on suspicion of possessing drugs on school property. Police Chief Chris Helmick said a 13-year-old male student was arrested Thursday for first-degree possession of a controlled substance. He is being held at the juvenile detention center.

“I think we can all agree that this type of criminal activity in our schools is unacceptable, and there are many unanswered questions as to how this could happen,” Helmick said.

The student’s identity and specific details of the case will not be released due to privacy laws, the Moorhead Police Department said.

Helmick said the student was arrested after another student told Horizon Middle School staff that the boy had a large quantity of blue pills. School staff worked with the school resource officer to locate and detain the student suspected of possessing the pills.

Through field testing, detectives from the Moorhead police narcotics unit determined the pills could contain fentanyl. Further lab testing will be required to confirm if the pills contain fentanyl, Helmick said.

Pills of this type are valued at around $25 a pill, he said, making the entire bag worth more than $35,000. Pills of the sort are dangerous for adults, and even more so for children, he said.

“You put that in a child, who is much smaller, and you put that same quantity in them, you’re likely to kill them,” Helmick said.

Moorhead Area Public Schools Superintendent Brandon Lunak said the student who notified school staff of the pills did the right thing.

“Because of their courageous actions of finding somebody and telling somebody something, that they knew something wasn’t right, we were able to take care of this situation effectively and promptly,” Lunak said.

In response to Thursday’s arrest, the Moorhead Police Department will begin conducting regular K-9 searches in Horizon Middle School and Moorhead High School, Helmick said. The department has two K-9 search dogs and plans to add a third in 2026.

“The primary goal of these checks is to deter other incidents like this from occurring in the future,” Helmick said. “However, for anyone who thinks they will be able to bring illegal narcotics into the schools, please know this: you will be caught. And to anyone who thinks they can bring guns or other weapons into schools, you will be caught, as well.”

Helmick became choked up as he continued.

“Dr. Lunak and I are both in agreement that we’ve had enough of this, our parents and our students have had enough of this, and it’s going to stop,” Helmick said.

Earlier this year, Moorhead Area Public Schools had two gun-related incidents at the Moorhead High School Career Academy.

Lunak encouraged parents to talk with their children about the drug arrest and earlier gun arrests.

“Talk to your son or daughter about these events, and talk to them about the severity of them, because at the end of the day, they are also a line of defense for us,” Lunak said. “We need our community, and all the way down to our parents, to also talk to our kids on the importance of making good, sound choices.”

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