NONPROFITS

Adair Mosley

The GroundBreak Coalition, a Minneapolis-based community funding organization made up of corporate, civic and philanthropic leaders, announced Adair Mosley as its first chief executive officer, effective Sept. 15. Mosley served on the organization’s founding board of directors and was CEO of the African American Leadership Forum.

AIRLINES

Sun Country Airlines announced that D. Torque Zubeck has been named senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective Sept. 2. Zubeck most recently served as chief financial officer of Mesa Airlines and prior to that in multiple executive roles at Alaska Airlines. The company also announced that Stephen Coley has been permanently named senior vice president and head of operations effective Aug. 13. Coley had been serving in an interim role in both positions since late April. Sun Country is based at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

AIRPORTS

The Metropolitan Airports Commission announced it has promoted Mark Rudolph to assistant director of field maintenance to oversee Federal Aviation Administration airfield maintenance compliance requirements at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Rudolph previously served as manager of field maintenance and planning, overseeing MSP’s fleet department as well as fleet maintenance needs at the MAC’s six general aviation Twin Cities airports.

ARCHITECTURE/ENGINEERING

Golden Valley-based engineering and consulting firm WSB announced the hiring of Spencer Mertes as director of HRIS and total rewards, a new leadership position overseeing the firm’s human resources.

EDUCATION

Minnesota FFA, a St. Paul-based chapter of a national organization focused on high school agricultural curricula, announced the hiring of Mary Hoffmann as executive director of the Minnesota FFA Association. Hoffmann is a former secondary agricultural education teacher, most recently in Sleepy Eye, Minn.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

St. Paul Federal Credit Union, St. Paul, announced the appointment of Chris Petersen as chief executive officer. Petersen has been with the company for more than 26 years, most recently serving as CFO and interim CEO. … KLC Financial, a Minnetonka-based provider of equipment lease and purchase financing for business, announced the promotion of Amy Lewis from vice president of operations to chief operating officer. Lewis has been with the company since 2022.

GOVERNMENT

Crow Wing County announced it has approved Kelsey Hopps as county attorney, succeeding Don Ryan, who is retiring after more than 30 years in the position. Hopps has been assistant county attorney for seven years. She will serve the rest of Ryan’s term through Dec. 31, 2026. An election will be held for the next four year term on Nov. 3, 2026. … Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced that Eric Taubel will serve as executive director of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management. Taubel has been in the role in an interim capacity since January after serving as the office’s first general counsel.

HEALTH CARE

Visana Health, a Bloomington-based virtual women’s health clinic, announced it has appointed Tom Maraday as chief commercial officer. Maraday’s résumé includes executive stints at Omada Health, EHE Health, Bright Horizons and Plus One (now Optum).

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

Minze Health, a developer of digital diagnostic and therapeutic devices for urology maladies, announced Thomas Moore as president and chief executive officer, based in the Twin Cities. Moore previously served as chief commercial officer at GT Medical Technologies. The company is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

POLITICS

The Center of the American Experiment, a Golden Valley-based political policy advocacy group, announced the hiring of Josiah Padley as a policy fellow covering education. Padley studied classics and history at Baylor University, worked with the Hertog Institute as a political studies fellow and a humanities program facilitator. Most recently, she taught Attic Greek, Latin and ancient history in Baton Rouge, La.

SPORTS

The PGA of America and Hazeltine National Golf Club announced Dan Mulheran has been named general chair of the 2029 Ryder Cup. Mulheran is president of Abbey Street, an Eden Prairie wealth management and institutional consulting firm. Additional Ryder Cup executive committee members are Greta Siedow, Marty Hancharenko, Matt Hanson, Ben Clymer, Dave Susla, Bob Fafinski and Ruth Kimmelshue. Hazeltine National Golf Club is located in Chaska.

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Edward Lotterman

Many economic sectors in our country will face difficult and turbulent times over the next several years. Agriculture faces a true crisis in a matter of months.

Some problems that will be acute in October may abate — such as where to physically store surplus soybeans designated for export if none can be moved to other countries because of President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade and political wars with the rest of the world.

But the immediate lack of farm-product export sales caused by Trump’s policies creates deeper and broader problems for U.S. field crop farmers than in Trump’s first administration.

The breakneck recklessness of Trump’s foreign policy is transforming our international and trade relationships in ways not easily reversed. The United States is in the most fundamental transition since the Truman administration 80 years ago and that is bad news for farmers.

Agriculture may be just the first sector to feel the pain, others will follow, but its unique characteristics will make the coming travail particularly severe. It is the one economic sector that most closely approximates “perfect competition,” with many sellers and many buyers, homogeneous products, relatively low barriers to entry or exit and an abundance of information. Unfortunately, these conditions, fostering a large number of producers, makes U.S. agriculture vulnerable to boom and bust cycles. A bust seems to be unfolding now.

There had been a boom in the period from 1910 to 1920. In the new century, with increasingly capable horse-drawn or steam powered machinery, output per farmer had risen rapidly so that the 1910-1914 pre-war period is often used as a reference point for desired profitability in farming. Feeding war-torn Europe extended the boom. In Minnesota alone, tens of thousands of stately new farmhouses and modern barns were built, replacing rudimentary ones constructed a few decades earlier by settlers.

But the end of wartime demand and a ham-handedly severe contraction of credit by the new Federal Reserve threw agriculture into financial difficulties in the 1920s. This worsened as the global economy collapsed in the 1930s. U.S. history classes and Great Depression retrospectives teach about how the Dust Bowl was exacerbated by harsh climate conditions. Farm households still made up a third of all Americans. Before prosperity returned with World War II, a third of all U.S. farms had gone through foreclosure or bankruptcy.

With post-war peacetime, a second wave of mechanization based on modern tractors and combines with internal-combustion engines and hydraulic systems along with hybrid seed corn and cheap synthetic fertilizers boosted production faster than domestic demand. A U.S. dollar overvalued in the Bretton Woods international financial system limited export sales. The government intervened by buying up crops and storing them. This created chronic and troublesome surpluses. Many farmers moved to cities. Federal ag policy shifted to paying farmers not to produce.

The devaluation of the dollar in the 1971 “Nixon shock” suddenly made U.S. farm products far more competitive in world markets. Coupled with a rigid Communist regime in the USSR that needed to appease an increasingly restive population with more food, U.S. agriculture entered an export-fueled wave of prosperity not seen for 50 years.

With higher prices, farmers bought new machinery, erected grain storage and handling, improved drainage and spent on farm houses and other buildings. And they sought to expand their operations by purchases of additional land that would allow full realization of the capacity of newer tractors and other machinery. Young people who had left stagnant farms for university degrees and urban jobs came back to the farms already dreaming of further expansion. Land prices rose and then rose again.

So did inflation in the general economy. Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve, knowing he would clamp down sharply on the money supply. He did, driving interest rates to unprecedented levels, and suddenly burdening farmers who depended on borrowed money.

High interest rates attracted foreign capital, driving up the value of the U.S. dollar thus making U.S. wheat, soybeans and cotton more expensive. Carter also suspended grain sales to the Soviet Union following its invasion of Afghanistan. Many blamed that for the ag troubles that followed; but this ignores the fact that ag exports continued to climb, hitting levels that would not be matched until the 1990s.

Yet the combination of high interest rates and shrinking export sales put field crop agriculture into the worst crisis since the Depression. Estimates of the number of bankruptcies varied but were near those of the 1930s. The strong dollar was dealing similar blows to U.S. steel and auto industries, so discontent and financial pain were widespread. The 1995 farm bill re-structured measures dating back to 1933. Farming recovered slowly, but rural social structures had changed permanently.

Recovery was slow, but China’s economic flowering set off a “global commodity supercycle” around 2004 that pushed up prices of most major field crops — soybeans, wheat, corn, cotton —  and the sales prices of land needed to grow them. Midwestern cropland in the doldrums around $1,500 an acre in 1990 hit $2,500 by 2003 and topped $5,000 by 2009. There was another spurt around 2012 and then level prices for a decade until most recently, when COVID-era low interest rates, a weaker dollar and Russia’s invasion of European breadbasket Ukraine touched off another frenzy.

Thus, in many cases, prices of cropland are 10 times as high as they were in the wake of the 1980s crisis.

Which brings us to today and the second Trump administration. Now, with higher interest rates, a president battling all the other countries in the world rather than just China, continued expansion of South American ag exports and greater production in economically vibrant India, U.S. farmers now seek large subsidies because current yields and prices do not cover their “cost of production.”

This is an old lament that sways the sympathy of urbanites. But it glosses over a key factor. There are two categories of production costs: Ones that vary with output and are zero when output is zero are “variable costs;” in farming these include seed, fertilizer, chemicals, diesel fuel, energy for drying, storage and delivery.

Then there are “fixed costs” that one pays regardless of the level of output. These include interest on money invested in machinery and facilities and the depreciation of the same, as well as insurance, marketing information and so on. And from a cash-flow perspective, principal payments on land and machinery loans need to come from somewhere.

So with current product prices, most farmers can quite readily cover all variable costs. But with interest rates above where they had been for at least a decade after the 2007 Wall Street financial debacle, there is not enough revenue left over to pay all the fixed costs. This year the gap is great and growing as a trade war of choice — and not of necessity — dims export prospects.

So farmers want big subsidies. The trouble is that any time crop subsidies are raised, farmers bid up land prices. There is a ratcheting effect that, whenever the economy pauses, leaves farmers unable to cover the cost of production. Consider now that if cropland prices had not jumped by 30% to 50% since 2020, their costs would be a lot lower. Much more could be said and there will be ample opportunities to do so as the problem will be in the news for months.

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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

By Harlan Vaughn, Bankrate.com

Whether you travel often or would like to travel more, earning frequent flyer miles or points with an airline and its participating partners can help you get free flights. You can also enjoy perks such as airport lounge access, free checked bags and priority boarding.

You can typically collect frequent flyer miles through an airline loyalty program, but there are other easy ways to boost your stash of miles, such as through eligible credit card spending.

If you’ve never used a frequent flyer program before, you may wonder how they work and whether they can really benefit you. In this guide, we cover what you need to know about earning and redeeming frequent flyer miles and how travel credit cards can help you earn free flights.

How to earn frequent flyer miles

You can earn airline miles or points in many ways, such as by booking flights or spending money with a credit card through online shopping portals that allow you to earn airline miles on your purchases.

Earn miles through flights

To earn miles when you buy plane tickets, you’ll need to sign up for an airline’s loyalty program. Because most major airlines are part of a larger alliance, joining one frequent flyer program allows you to book award flights with a dozen or more airlines.

For example, United Airlines belongs to the Star Alliance, an airline network comprising over 20-plus airlines, including Air Canada, Air China and Lufthansa. When you become a member of United’s loyalty program, United MileagePlus, you’ll be able to earn rewards that can be used for Star Alliance airline partner flights booked through United.

Another airline network is SkyTeam, which includes Delta Air Lines, Air France and Aeromexico, among others. There’s also the Oneworld alliance, which counts American Airlines, British Airways and Qantas among its list of participating airlines.

After you complete enrollment for the loyalty program you want to join, you’ll get an email confirming your account with your new frequent flyer number. You’ll need to enter this number when you book flights to earn miles on those flights. Otherwise, you could miss out on earning rewards (though some programs allow you to add your number after booking).

You can often earn elite status if you join a program and meet specific requirements. For example, with the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, you can reach:

MVP status after flying 20,000 miles in one year.
MVP Gold status after flying 40,000 miles.
MVP Gold 75K status after flying 75,000 miles.
MVP Gold 100K status after flying 100,000 miles.

Once you have elite status, you unlock access to valuable perks that can make travel more enjoyable. Depending on your status level, you could earn waived baggage fees, early boarding, lounge access, priority upgrades and free seat selection. The higher the tier, the better the rewards.

Earn miles with an eligible credit card

Travel credit cards — including credit cards that earn travel rewards, airline credit cards and hotel credit cards — allow you to earn miles or points through eligible credit card spending.

Many general travel credit cards allow you to earn flexible travel rewards, meaning you can typically redeem travel rewards with numerous airline and hotel partners. However, airline and hotel credit cards only allow you to earn and redeem rewards with a specific airline or hotel brand.

Additionally, the type of spending that qualifies for earning miles or points and the number of miles or points you’ll earn vary by the card issuer and card you choose, as different cards have different rewards programs and rates.

Most cards give you at least 1X miles or points for every dollar you spend on them, allowing you to rack up rewards every time you make a purchase. With a tiered rewards card, you may also earn a higher rate for purchases in specific categories.

Co-branded credit cards

The Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card is a co-branded airline credit card that allows you to earn frequent flyer miles with Delta Air Lines. It offers:

Earn 2X Miles on Delta purchases, at U.S. Supermarkets and at restaurants worldwide, including takeout and delivery in the U.S.
Earn 1X Mile on all other eligible purchases.

You can redeem miles with partner airlines in the same alliance, but co-branded credit cards are generally best for travelers loyal to one network.

General travel rewards cards

Then there’s the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, a general travel rewards card that allows you to earn transferable rewards. It offers:

Earn 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠.
Earn 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries.
Earn 2x on all other travel purchases.
Earn 1x on all other purchases.

Points can then be redeemed for 1:1 transfers to Chase airline and hotel loyalty program partners.

Another perk of travel rewards credit cards is that they often come with a welcome bonus for new cardholders, which you can use to jump start your stockpile of miles or points. In most cases, you’ll have to spend a specific dollar amount on a card within a set amount of time to earn a bonus. You may also qualify for elite status simply by holding the airline or hotel’s co-branded card.

Chase Sapphire Preferred vs. Delta SkyMiles Gold welcome bonus

The Chase Sapphire Preferred currently offers a welcome bonus of 75,000 points after you spend $5,000 within the first three months of account opening, which is worth $750 when redeemed for travel through Chase Travel℠ but can be worth up to $2,000 with the right transfer partner, according to Bankrate’s valuations.

For comparison, the Delta SkyMiles Gold card offers 50,000 bonus miles after you spend $2,000 in the first six months from account opening, which is worth around $960 with the right transfer partner, based on Bankrate’s valuations.

Getting approved for a top travel rewards credit card can be more complicated than signing up for an airline loyalty program. You’ll generally need a good to excellent credit score and a low debt-to-income ratio to qualify for the best travel cards. If you’re new to travel cards, you may want to look at the best travel cards for beginners first to make the card-choosing process easier.

Earn by buying, transferring or pooling miles

Although the primary ways to earn airline miles or points are by joining a loyalty program or regularly spending money on a travel rewards card, you have other options for racking up rewards.

Many loyalty programs allow you to buy miles or points if you don’t have enough in your account to book your desired vacation. The process is usually easy and can be done through the rewards program portal.

Remember, though, that buying miles is often not worth it, as they tend to cost more than their redemption value. But if you’re just shy of having enough miles to book your flight, buying more may be cheaper than purchasing the ticket with cash. You may also want to buy points if they go on sale, and you can get a good deal.

Need to add points or miles to your frequent flyer account?

If you need a few more points or miles to book a flight, you’ll often have the option to transfer rewards. If you have an eligible general travel card, you can easily transfer your rewards to any of your credit card issuer’s partner airlines. Most transfers are instant, while others can take a few days to process. Transfers aren’t reversible, so be careful when entering the number of points or miles you want to move.

Lastly, some loyalty programs allow you to pool your points or miles with family and friends who are members of the same program. For example, the Frontier Miles program offers a family pooling feature that allows you to share miles with up to eight friends and family members.

Earn through shopping portals and dining programs

Many major airline loyalty programs — including Southwest Rapid Rewards and Delta SkyMiles — have shopping portals you can use to earn miles on purchases you’re already planning to make. To do this, you’ll typically head to the rewards program’s shopping portal first. Then, check out available retailers or promotions or search for items you want to buy. Clicking through the portal will track your activity so that when you complete your purchase, you’ll receive credit in the form of extra miles or points added to your rewards account.

The best part? You don’t need to hold a co-branded airline card to take advantage of these offers. For example, fans of American Airlines can join the AAdvantage program for free and use their frequent flyer number to create an account with its online eShopping portal. Plus, paying for eShopping purchases with a card that earns American AAdvantage miles lets you double-dip on rewards, getting you to that award flight more quickly.

Similar to online shopping portals, dining programs also earn you rewards for eating at select restaurants. You’ll have to enroll in these programs separately (as you do with a shopping portal). Once you have an account, you’ll have to use your linked debit or credit cards to pay for your meal at an eligible restaurant.

How to redeem frequent flyer miles

Building a portfolio of frequent flyer miles can feel exciting, but don’t forget the real purpose of doing so — redeeming your miles for travel. Having a plan for redeeming your rewards isn’t just an essential part of maximizing your effort. Airline and hotel loyalty programs regularly devalue their points and miles, so holding them long-term puts you at risk of losing value over time.

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The rewards programs associated with general travel credit cards typically provide more flexible redemption options than airline frequent flyer programs. With a general travel credit card, you can often redeem rewards for all types of travel purchases, along with cash back, gift cards, merchandise, event tickets and more. You may also be able to transfer your points or miles to a travel partner, increasing the potential value of your redemptions.

Frequent flyer programs, however, are limited to travel redemptions only, such as booking airfare. Similarly, points and miles earned with co-branded travel credit cards may be limited to redemption with the card’s specific airline or hotel partner’s booking portal. Always check your desired program for the specific options available to you to ensure the redemption options align with what you’re looking for.

Redeem through an airline program

Log in to your airline loyalty program account.
Search for your desired flight. You can choose to see how much flights cost in either dollars or miles (or points).
Choose miles or points as your form of payment when checking out.

Note that if you’re looking to redeem miles for a flight within an airline alliance, you might need to call the airline for assistance with the booking.

Redeem through a credit card program

Log in to your credit card account.
Locate the rewards portal. From there, you should be able to redeem your rewards for travel bookings, gift cards, charitable donations and more. To redeem for travel, you can redeem your rewards through your issuer’s travel portal or transfer your rewards to one of your issuer’s travel partners. Typically, your rewards go further when you transfer your points or miles to a high-value rewards program.
Select the redemption option you’re interested in and follow the prompts.

Before using your points or miles, ensure you’re getting the best deal, especially if you’re booking travel. Because airlines calculate the rewards value of their flights differently, sometimes you can save thousands of points or miles just by booking your ticket through a partner airline. Start by checking out one of the many tools available to redeem rewards for flights.

The bottom line

You can earn airline miles or points on the purchases you’re already making by signing up for a travel rewards card or joining your preferred airline loyalty program.

If you join the right rewards program for your spending habits and choose the most valuable redemption options to maximize your rewards earnings, your next trip could be closer than you think.

Frequently asked questions about frequent flyer miles

What’s the fastest way to get airline miles? It greatly depends on the frequent flyer program you’re a part of. However, usually one of the fastest ways is to have a credit card that earns miles on everyday purchases, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, so you can rack up miles without much effort.If you have a co-branded card, then flying often with that airline and making eligible purchases may be your best bet.If you have neither, then stick to flying with the airline you prefer, and make sure to enter your frequent flyer number when making purchases to accumulate every mile you can.

How do I join a frequent flyer program for free? Most frequent flyer programs are free to join. The process to sign up has only a few steps:Head to the frequent flyer website you would like to join, such as the American AAdvantage program.Click on the “Join for free” button or a similar button that says “Sign up.”Follow the prompts to sign up for an account. You will likely need to enter your personal information, such as name, address and contact information.

How many miles are needed for a free flight? Different frequent flyer programs require different amounts of miles to earn a free flight. For example, Delta SkyMiles offers award deals for flights. Currently, a round-trip flight in the U.S. can go for as low as 5,000 miles, plus a small fee. Comparatively, United Airlines offers domestic round-trip flights starting at around around 7,0000 miles.

Key takeaways

Join your preferred airline’s loyalty program for free to earn and redeem points and miles for your next flight.
With a general travel rewards credit card or co-branded airline credit card, you can earn points and miles through eligible credit card spending.
For more ways to earn points and miles, consider buying, transferring or pooling rewards or using airline shopping and dining portals.

©2025 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A streak of cooler days has us thinking about sweaters, pumpkins and leaves.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center expects above normal temperatures and normal chances of precipitation from September through November. So, the sweaters might have to stay tucked away for a bit longer.

What does the weather forecast mean for leaves? When will they change color? Since 2013, SmokyMountains.com has used historical temperature, precipitation and regional tree data and feedback from foliage fans around the United States to produce a map that shows a county-by-county view of the best times to visit for peak leaf-peeping.

In 2024, the concern was dry weather, which could impact the bright, fiery foliage across the region. Many factors, however, are involved in when and how leaves change color, according to The Morton Arboretum in Lisle.

The dates given below might not be hard and fast rules but more like guidelines on when to expect the leaves to appear in their full glory. Users are also encouraged to upload photos and details from their area to help improve the predictions.

Northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin could see peak leaf color in mid-October. Want to experience the red, yellow and orange tree canopy sooner? Travel farther north in late September or early October.

2025 fall foliage prediction map, by county

Click and drag on the button below to view the expected color change in leaves during the weeks ahead.

Source: SmokyMountains.com

Looking for a leafy location to visit in each of the 50 states? SmokyMountains.com has a guide for that too.