The last time Minneapolis musician Mike Kota played on the same stage as Hozier was in 2023, when she opened for the Irish singer-songwriter at a pop-up concert at First Avenue in Minneapolis. She played for a crowd of about 1,500 people.

Now, two years later, Kota is playing on the same day as Hozier at the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival, which is expected to draw 30,000 people each day over three days this weekend.

“I appreciate that they put us on the same day again,” Kota said. “It’s such an honor. But I just kind of view myself as a little peasant here, and those are the kings.”

The Yacht Club Festival at St. Paul’s Harriet Island Regional Park launched last summer, drawing about 70,000 concertgoers over two days. This year, the event has expanded to three days, Friday through Sunday.

Minnesota artists Kota, Maygen & the Birdwatcher, Motion City Soundtrack, Cory Wong, Rafaella, Laamar and Landon Conrath will be performing in a lineup alongside Hozier, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, Sublime and Weezer.

For local musicians, the Yacht Club Festival is more than a fun outdoor gig. It’s a chance to promote new music, gain a wider audience and represent the Minnesota music scene, they say.

“I think for a lot of us, for myself, it’s like I need to showcase what the Twin Cities arts community developed in me,” Minneapolis musician Wong said. “And how we can play alongside all the cats from all the major music towns.”

Maygen & the Birdwatcher

Minnesota folk-country band Maygen & the Birdwatcher kicks off the festival at 12:50 p.m. Friday with a set from their seven-piece band.

Lead singer-songwriters Maygen Lacey and Noah Neumann said they’re squeezing seven songs into their 30-minute show.

The group has played festivals before, including the Blue Ox Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wis., where they shared a stage with Sierra Ferrell and Old Crow Medicine Show. But Yacht Club is the largest festival they’ve played to date.

“We actually have to pinch ourselves, that we get to, you know, be at a festival playing with all these amazing bands,” Lacey said. “Especially in our hometown.”

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What to know if you’re headed to the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival

Lacey and Neumann said they play on the same day as Sheryl Crow.

“I’ve been listening to her since I was like, 4,” Neumann said.

Maygen & the Birdwatcher blends its country, bluegrass and soul influences in its new album, “The Americana Dream,” which will be released Oct. 10. The band already released two singles, and is closing its act Friday with an unreleased single from the album.

“It’s giant because it’s going to hopefully just increase our exposure here,” Lacey said. “Who knows, maybe Sheryl Crow will ask us to come open for her or something. You never know what could happen when you play a festival.”

Mike Kota

Singer-songwriter Mike Kota plays at 1:20 p.m. Friday.

Kota has already experienced the ripple effect of performing alongside a big-name artist. She said opening for Hozier exposed her to local booking agents and led to her next gig, opening for Shakey Graves and Lucius in 2023 at Bauhaus Brew Labs in Minneapolis.

“More shows came from that show. So that was huge,” Kota said. “It was a good real-life affirmation of ‘I’m on the right path.’”

Kota gets inspiration for her genre-blurring indie music from alternative artists such as King Krule, whose music she described as an “acquired taste.” Her new EP, “Through Fire,” releases Friday, the same day as her Yacht Club Festival performance.

“It’s a huge audience to pitch the EP to,” Kota said. “My goal performing live is to kind of lose myself in the song and do the music justice.”

Motion City Soundtrack

Minneapolis rock band Motion City Soundtrack plays at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The band first formed in 1997, releasing six albums before going on hiatus in 2016.

After gradually returning to touring after the pandemic, the band will release “The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World,” its first album in almost a decade, on Sept. 19.

“This one, I think, is special,” lead guitarist Joshua Cain said. “It feels like an important record for us.”

Cain said the Yacht Club Festival is the band’s last big show before the album releases. The group will play its newest single, “She Is Afraid,” on Saturday.

“It’s just fun to play a Minnesota crowd, you know,” Cain said. “We haven’t done a Minnesota show in a little bit.”

Cain said playing music festivals allows Minnesota artists to reach a wider audience, versus playing local venues that often attract a specific group of people. And although Motion City Soundtrack is a “unique, nerdy band,” Cain said the members are inspired by Fall Out Boy, Weezer and Green Day.

“We like the music at this festival a lot as a band,” he said. “It’s just amazing to get to play shows with these guys.”

Cory Wong

Cory Wong plays at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. He just returned to the United States after playing July 12 at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Earlier this summer, he headlined a tour in Japan.

“It’s fun to come back home after playing all these other big festivals and other big shows,” Wong said. “I have a bunch of friends that are coming in town, a bunch of the other bands. I almost feel like I’m, in a little way, hosting.”

He said the Yacht Club Festival lineup might seem random to some people, but that he and his friends are the perfect target audience for it.

“We’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the best lineup ever,’” Wong said. “There’s such an amazing combination of really big, powerful acts, bands that have some sort of nostalgia to us, and also a lot of new and up-and-coming bands.”

Wong’s mostly-instrumental funk music takes inspiration from Prince and Tower of Power. His 10-piece band will play a set Saturday that alternates between “meticulously arranged music” and experimental improvisation.

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Wong also wanted to use his show to highlight other local artists. He’s having Lars Pruitt, vocalist for the Minneapolis indie rock band Yam Haus, join his set for a song.

“There is a real sense of camaraderie coming from the same sort of place,” Wong said. “A lot of us (Minnesota musicians) look out for each other and check in on each other.”

Lacey said she was personally excited to see Kota’s set.

“A lot of the local artists are familiar names, and they’re all sweethearts and deserve it, so I’m very excited,” Kota said.

As Lacey said, you never know what could happen when you play a festival.

The Gophers football team held its annual local media day on Wednesday and with 21 total players speaking to reporters, they nearly could have gone to the line of scrimmage and run a play.

But the U will have to wait until July 27 for the start of fall camp, and until Aug. 28 for the season opener at home against Buffalo. But hype, perspectives and little nuggets of information were shared earlier this week.

Here are eight standout quotes from the players’ question-and-answer sessions:

‘Delusional’ goal

It’s often hard to pry a big-picture perspective out of a P.J. Fleck-coached player, but third-year cornerback Za’Quan Bryan and linebacker Maverick Baranowski were willing to take the blinders off.

“A successful season is really just us getting to the CFP (the 12-team College Football Playoff),” Bryan said. “We are delusional this year, and that is the thing for us. … I don’t have any personal goals. My goal is this team getting to the CFP and get to that level that we want to be at.”

After an 8-5 overall record a year ago, including 5-4 in Big Ten play, the Gophers will need to fill multiple positions (including Bryan at corner), stay incredibly healthy and improve in one-possession games. But if those things happen, the schedule might set up for the U could have a run like Indiana had last season, surprise entrants in the expanded playoff field.

‘Night and day’

Drake Lindsey is the presumptive starting quarterback, stepping in for departed senior Max Brosmer, an undrafted free agent who will start training camp with the Vikings next week. The redshirt freshman got a taste of college ball last year, completing 4 of 5 pass attempts for 50 yards and a touchdown across three games.

Now a year older, with two sets of spring practices and a year of tutelage under Brosmer, Lindsey feels much more comfortable taking the wheel.

“I feel like it’s day and night,” he said. “I go back sometimes and watch last fall camp and spring ball and it’s just the little things, like managing the line of scrimmage, looking at the play clock nonstop, making sure everyone is on the ball, off the ball. … Things that Max had really taught me and the coaches have taught me. Just the details within every single play.”

Newcomer mistakes are bound to happen, and Fleck’s willingness to trust Lindsey on the next series will be paramount to the U’s success this fall.

‘Skip through college’

After a breakout true freshman season, safety Koi Perich has been receiving preseason All-America accolades and award watch-list shoutouts going into a sophomore season that will include an expanded role on offense on top of his already big roles on defense and as a returner on special teams.

But this was not his boyhood dream coming out of Esko, Minn.

“I didn’t watch college football,” Perich said. “My dream was to play for the Vikings. I would just skip through college if I could and go straight to the Vikings. But you’ve got to do your three years. I’m willing to do it.”

Camaraderie

The Gophers pride themselves on being a close-knit outfit and one example of that is how approximately 40 players came out to celebrate star defensive end Anthony Smith’s 21st birthday this summer.

“It was such a blast,” linebacker Maverick Baranowski said. “We all got dinner. That doesn’t happen everywhere, that connectedness.”

Big shoes to fill

Blindside tackle Aireontae Ersery extended the U’s streak of having a first- or second-round pick to six straight NFL drafts last April, and his exit left an enormous opening along the offensive line.

When Ersery opted out of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, true freshman Nathan Roy got 15 snaps against Virginia Tech. The four-star recruit and No. 1 prospect out of Wisconsin might get that amount of plays in the first quarter of the opening game this year.

“Super talented,” said veteran lineman Greg Johnson. “I mean, he is a freak athlete, can move really well. It’s fun to play next to him because of how good an athlete he is. He makes my job pretty easy at times because in our pass sets, I trust him to do his job well. In the run game, he has gotten a lot more physical, as well.”

Darius Taylor #1 of the Minnesota Golden Gophers rushes with the ball in the fourth quarter against the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium on Nov. 29, 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images)

Requirements

Running back Darius Taylor missed half his freshman season with injuries, but he played in 12 of 13 games a year ago and amassed team highs of 1,336 yards from scrimmage (986 rushing and 350 receiving) and 12 total touchdowns.

While the U breaks in a new QB, offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh said during spring practices that Minnesota will lean more on Taylor in the run game.

“The demands on the field have to meet the demands off the field,” Taylor said. “That requires nutrition and in the training room. I did a great job of that last year, and now I’m trying to uphold that.”

HAVOC

The Gophers have to overcome the upheaval inherent in a third defensive coordinator in three years, with safeties coach Danny Collins promoted to run the entire unit after Corey Hetherman took a pay bump to join the Miami Hurricanes. Collin’s acronym for his defense is HAVOC, and the Gophers hope to wreak a lot of it on opponents.

A lot of the defensive principles will remain the same from Hetherman and Joe Rossi, including an emphasis on takeaways, on which Minnesota feasted last year. The U was tied for seventh in the nation in interceptions (17) and 36th in total takeaways (21) in 2024.

“(The next level) is continuing to develop the high football IQ as D.C. continues to talk about,” said defensive tackle Jalen Logan-Redding.

Catch radius

With the exits of Daniel Jackson and Elijah Spencer, the Gophers lost roughly 50 percent of its receptions, yards and touchdowns from wide receivers last season.

Minnesota returns Le’Meke Brockington, Cristian Driver, Kenric Lanier, Nuke Hayes, Jalen Smith and others, while adding three transfers in Javon Tracy (Miami of Ohio), Logan Loya (UCLA) and Malachi Coleman (Nebraska).

“This is the most-talented wide receiver room we have ever had, probably the most experienced, most versatile,” Brockington, a fifth-year senior, said.

It’s a crowded room, but Brockington, Tracy and Loya are the most-likely leaders in the bunch.

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By LEA SKENE

A federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump illegally fired two Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year in his efforts to exert control over independent agencies across the government.

One of the commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya, resigned after suing to challenge the firings. The other plaintiff, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, can now resume her duties as commissioner because Trump lacks the constitutional authority to remove her, the judge ruled Thursday.

Attorneys for the Trump administration almost immediately declared their intent to appeal.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan cited decades of legal precedent in her written opinion, including a 1935 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found a similar attempt by President Franklin D. Roosevelt was unlawful because commissioners could be removed only for cause, not at the president’s whim. She said her ruling would uphold “clearly established law that has been enacted by a coequal branch of government, reaffirmed by another coequal branch, and acquiesced to by thirteen executives over the course of ninety years.”

Trump fired the commission’s two Democratic members in March. The FTC is a regulator created by Congress that enforces consumer protection measures and antitrust legislation. Its seats typically include three members of the president’s party and two from the opposing party.

Commissioners Bedoya and Slaughter said they’d been dismissed illegally and immediately promised to sue. Bedoya later submitted his resignation in June. Slaughter has four years left in her term as commissioner.

“As the Court recognized today, the law is clear, and I look forward to getting back to work,” Slaughter said in a statement Thursday.

During a May court hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C., plaintiffs’ attorneys warned against granting the president “absolute removal power over any executive officer,” saying it would effectively eliminate an important check on his power.

“That has never been the case in this country,” said attorney Aaron Crowell. “That’s not the law. That has never been the law.”

But attorneys for the Trump administration argued that the FTC’s role has expanded since the 1930s, and as such, its members should answer directly to the president.

“The president should be able to remove someone who is actively blocking his policies, for example,” Department of Justice attorney Emily Hall said during the hearing.

AliKhan, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in 2023, noted the long line of presidents before Trump who didn’t try to push the limits.

Commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They serve seven-year terms that are staggered to prevent multiple vacancies at once. They can be fired for displaying specific bad behaviors, including inefficiency, neglect of duty and malfeasance in office.

Trump told Bedoya and Slaughter that he was dismissing them because their service on the commission was inconsistent with his administration’s priorities, according to the lawsuit.

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In its 1935 decision, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the president couldn’t fire leaders of independent agencies without cause. Otherwise, the agencies would become more political and less independent. While that restriction was eroded in a subsequent decision that came in 2020, it has largely remained in place. The case, known as Humphrey’s Executor has been central to a number of court challenges against the Trump administration’s personnel moves targeting boards and government executives.

The legal fight over the firings could have consequences for other independent agencies, including the Federal Reserve, an institution that has long sought to protect its independence. Economists and financial markets broadly support an independent Fed because they worry a politicized version would be more reluctant to take unpopular steps to fight inflation, such as raise interest rates.

Plaintiffs argue that a politicized FTC could also favor powerful corporations while driving up prices for consumers.

Attorney Amit Agarwal said the case isn’t just about his clients keeping their jobs. He said it’s about protecting “the will of the American people” and their right to have independent agencies working on their behalf.

“America is already suffering from an excess of executive power, and the last thing we need is to hand vast new powers to the president over Congress’s explicit and longstanding objection,” Agarwal said in a statement responding to the ruling, adding that “if Trump wants even more power, he should ask the people’s elected representatives in Congress, not unelected and politically unaccountable courts.”

By TRACEE M. HERBAUGH

If you’re going to be road-tripping with your family this summer, get ready to embrace unexpected moments of both connection and inevitable chaos.

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I found both when I packed up the car with my husband and two kids — one of them a teenager — for the eight-hour drive from Boston to Niagara Falls. We had taken long road trips as a family in the past, but our kids, now 8 and 14, were older. My son, firmly in his “closed-door, don’t talk to me” phase, wasn’t exactly thrilled about spending over 460 miles trapped in our smallish Nissan Rogue. We also live in a part of the country where we don’t spend much time in cars in our everyday life.

How would we all manage the close quarters?

Here’s some of what I learned — along with advice from the experts — about not only surviving a family road trip but having a good time:

First, why do it?

Many road-trip veterans cite the chance to bond and create family memories. Eighteen-year-old Samara Worsham, for example, spent 30 days crossing 25 states with her family in 2022. Now preparing to leave for college, she says she cherishes that time on the road.

“There were long stretches with no cellular data, leaving us nothing to do but talk,” she said.

Along with visiting U.S. landmarks, Worsham’s fondest memories include hotel pool swims with her siblings, and her father’s mission to sample every fast-food chain across the country.

There are practical advantages to the family car trip too.

“It’s more economical than flying, especially with a big family,” says Jamie Davis Smith, a lawyer and writer from Washington, D.C., who takes a road trip every year with her husband and children. “Plus, you don’t have to rent a car at the destination.”

Get family input on the itinerary

Alain Robert, founder of The Travelologist, a Canadian travel agency, recommends including the whole family in planning.

“Ask what they’d like to see or do. Build around everyone’s interests,” he advised. “Once you have a backbone itinerary, share it and manage expectations.”

My family, in particular the kids, wanted to get there as soon as possible. They had their eyes on the destination, not the journey.

Include some cheesy stops — if you can take the time

Davis Smith said her family loves to discover quirky roadside attractions; on one trip, they had fun stopping at the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama — a store that sells lost airline luggage.

Inspired, I downloaded the Roadtrippers app and mapped out a few detour-worthy stops. Our shortlist included the Jell-O Museum in LeRoy, New York, as well as the Schuyler Mansion (of “Hamilton” fame) in Albany, New York.

But best-laid plans… We quickly realized that an eight-hour haul didn’t leave much wiggle room for exploration. Lesson learned: Keep daily driving to six hours or less if you want time to explore. We didn’t have time for either of those two stops.

Whether you bring your pet or not, prepare for extra costs

We briefly considered bringing Rosie, our 2-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, but the hotel we’d booked at Niagara wasn’t dog-friendly. No friends were available to watch her, so at the last minute, we boarded her at our vet — a first for Rosie.

We hadn’t expected she would need two new vaccines, and we had to squeeze in a vet appointment two days before departure. This meant a steep bill the morning we left, and boarding costs awaiting us when we returned.

Travel journalist Kelly Burch, who road-tripped around the U.S. for seven months with her husband, two kids and senior dog, warned that pet policies on the road can be unpredictable. One budget hotel near Yellowstone National Park wouldn’t even allow their dog to stay in their RV on the property.

“Triple check pet policies,” she advised.

Teens…

Knowing my teenager would need space, I splurged on a junior suite. He got his own bed, slept late and had the space to recharge. The suite came with a small kitchen and a breathtaking view of Horseshoe Falls — well worth the extra cost for three nights.

If we’d stayed longer, I would have reconsidered the splurge. But since we saved money by not flying, the room felt like a worthwhile tradeoff.

… and screens

If your kids are on the younger side, divert them with family car games.

“If you start the screen early, it can be difficult to convince them to do anything else,” says freelance journalist Stratton Lawrence, 43, who has written for Travel & Leisure about his family road trips — without devices. He’s driven with his young kids and wife from South Carolina to the Pacific Coast twice, including one three-month stretch on the road.

Even older kids, he says, will appreciate something like a deck of cards or a paper atlas to see the geography.

“If you’re going to be in a car for 100-plus hours, the kids aren’t going to be entertained watching TV that whole time, so you have to have other things,” he said.

Overall, I think my teenager thought the trip was OK. His friend happened to be visiting Niagara Falls with her family and staying in the same hotel where we stayed. That was a welcome surprise. He also seemed to like our daytime outings, especially the boat ride into the Horseshoe Falls, where we got drenched with water.

I figure, if a trip is mostly OK for a teenager, it’s a success.