5 things to know today: Walkout, Attracting tourists, Cobber recovers, ISIS, Unlikely pair

A global walkout aimed at increasing awareness of climate issues is set to take place today with at least some local young people planning to take part.

A number of students at Ben Franklin Middle School in Fargo informed school officials they plan to participate in the walkout and school officials said they were working on a plan that would accommodate the situation, according to AnnMarie Campbell, a spokesperson for the school district.

Campbell said a similar process would take place at other schools if students inform school administrators they would like to participate in the walkout.

The demonstration will be similar to other "strikes" that have taken place around the globe since August 2018, when Greta Thunberg, a teen from Sweden, sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks to protest what she felt was a lack of action on climate change.

More from The Forum's Dave Olson

The five Indigenous nations in North Dakota have teamed up to promote Indian Country to the world as the 2016 Standing Rock protest over the Dakota Access oil pipeline helped put tribal tourism on the map.

The controversy “opened up the world’s eyes again to Indian Country,” said Les Thomas, chairman of the North Dakota Native Tourism Alliance. “The whole world wants to know about Indian Country. They’re interested.”

Thomas, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, helped start the North Dakota Native Tourism Alliance three years ago in the hopes of attracting international tourists in search of cultural experiences and developing the state’s tribal economies. He said he wants to "preserve, protect and promote Native cultures" and educate non-Indigenous peoples.

Read more from The Forum's Natasha Rausch

On a recent hunting trip with his father and older brother, Michael Herzog was hiking in the mountains near Scofield, Utah, something that didn't seem possible for the former Concordia Cobbers quarterback six months ago.

"I was sucking air and my heart's beating like crazy, and usually you're like 'This sucks,' but I'm alive and I could feel it so I love that" said the 24-year-old Herzog, who is from Detroit Lakes, Minn.

Herzog has symbolically climbed a mountain after he was involved in a serious accident last spring.

Read more from The Forum's Eric Peterson

From Minnesota Public Radio via Forum News Service

A St. Louis Park, Minn., man who investigators say left his family four years ago to join the terrorist group Islamic State, or ISIS, has turned up in a Syrian prison.

Abdelhamid Al-Madioum is a U.S. citizen born in Morocco. In the summer of 2015, while on break from studying computer science at Normandale Community College, he went with his parents on a two-month vacation to Morocco.

Al-Madioum socialized with family members on July 7 and then slipped away early the next morning, taking only his cellphone and passport, according to federal documents. The young man — who was 18 at the time — caught an 8:25 a.m. flight from Casablanca to Istanbul. Turkey is a common point of departure for aspiring ISIS fighters.

More from Minnesota Public Radio's Matt Sepic

Literacy and laundry. Suds and storytime. Unlike that missing sock, libraries and laundromats are seemingly the perfect match.
"The laundromat — of course!" Jenny Rodger said when she first heard about the Wash and Learn initiative.

Rodger, public services supervisor at Moorhead Public Library, said the international program through Libraries Without Borders began in Detroit as a way to bring public library services to laundromats.

Pop-up libraries in non-traditional learning spaces offer families more than books as they wait to fold clothes and head home. Educational opportunities range from story time, technology assistance with eBooks, smartphones and other gadgets, as well as the chance to sign up for library cards.
Read more from The Forum's Kim Hyatt