🌅 Up and attum! We're back for another week.

• High in the low 80s today. Chance of thunderstorms tonight, per NWS.

🎂 Happy birthday to our member Becki Whitaker!

Today's newsletter is 1,032 words — a 3.5-minute read.

Our CEO Jim VandeHei writes in his weekly C-Suite newsletter:

My wife, Autumn, has spent nearly a quarter of the past four years in ERs and hospitals, untangling and battling three chronic conditions — and a shamefully broken U.S. medical system.

A series of frustrating experiences left us infuriated and hopeless — until we landed in Minnesota and got a glimpse of medical nirvana: the Mayo Clinic.

Why it matters: Mayo offers a model for transforming a health care system where most people currently pay new Cadillac prices for used Ford Escort outcomes.

How it works: Mayo doctors are paid to heal, not to operate or medicate: no bonuses for procedures or visits.

• Nurses were responsible for smaller caseloads than we've experienced at even some of the best hospitals back home in Washington, D.C.

What we're watching: A rural community hospital will never recruit 4,000 Mayo-caliber specialists or replicate its brand or destination economics — but maybe it doesn't need to.

• Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, a gastroenterologist who's president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic, told me he's racing to show the federal government and other hospitals how to use AI to replicate Mayo's magic.

The latest: Mayo recently signed a deal with Microsoft to expand and expedite its own frontier AI model to scale and refine this work.

Zoom in: Mayo's scarcest asset — coordinated diagnostic brilliance based on real data, cases, lab results and patients — is exactly what AI is getting good at.

• Doctors can leverage massive databases of medical information, sorted and analyzed by AI, to help find cures and better serve patients.

Consider cases like Autumn's: She has several different things wrong requiring expertise across many domains.

• Few, if any, humans could piece together this puzzle alone. This is where AI could make a big impact — now.

The catch: "I could give this to every hospital — and they can't use it," Farrugia told me.

• That's because most hospitals lack the technology, money, systems and focus to use health data drawn from broader pools.
• Farrugia argues the government needs to force hospitals to change, with "carrots and sticks."

The bottom line: Done right, this would be a life-changer for people who are chronically ill like Autumn, who often get the worst, least coordinated attention.

Go deeper: Jim's full column. If you're in health care, we'd love to hear your thoughts on his take!

• If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Ask to join Jim's new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.

🇲🇽 Oro by Nixta was named one of the country's greatest Mexican restaurants by the New York Times.

🌪️ A weather-themed sports bar from retired KSTP meteorologist Dave Dahl is opening in Stillwater this fall, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports.

• Tornado Room Bar & Grill will stream games and local weather reports, while an in-house tornado siren will signal that drinks are half price for five minutes.

🥗 Sweetgreen is coming to the Mall of America, per a release. The fast-casual salad chain, which has four other locations in the Twin Cities, will open the outpost Sept. 8.

🌮 Arizona Taco Co., the New Hope fast-casual Mexican restaurant, held a grand opening for its second location in Uptown's Seven Points over the weekend.

• Plus: New Haven-style pizza spot OG ZaZa hinted at a new Uptown location on Instagram this week.

🥐 ICYMI: There's a new walk-up bakery in Northeast Minneapolis. Solomon's Bakery Express moved into the corner shack formerly occupied by Slice Pizza last month.

• Expect European-style breads, pastries and coffees.

🍻 Minneapolis craft brewery Fulton Brewing has acquired Bemidji Brewing, per Bring Me The News. The downtown Bemidji taproom will remain open.

Share with a foodie

📱 Minneapolis' top public safety official Todd Barnette told the Star Tribune that City Council VP Jamal Osman demanded a political favor in exchange for his vote on Barnette's nomination for a second term this past spring.

• Osman called Barnette's allegation "a frickin' lie," and said he was calling to discuss "legitimate concerns" about Barnette's job performance. Osman ultimately voted against Barnette.

🗳️ Conservative media figure James O'Keefe and his team posed as Muslims while visiting Minnesota polling places and asking election workers about the state's vouching system during last week's primary. (MPR News)

• Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon called it "outrageous" misconduct that could put O'Keefe's team "in legal jeopardy."
• O'Keefe's group told KSTP that no laws were broken.

🛴 Another "scooter takeover!" For the second straight weekend, hundreds of people rode e-scooters in downtown Minneapolis Friday night for what was billed as a peaceful protest against Flock surveillance cameras. (KARE 11)

• Lime had instituted restrictions after some riders wound up on I-35W during a similar "takeover" on Aug. 8.

🕯️A vigil honoring the mother and daughter killed in a murder-suicide at an in-home daycare in Hopkins will be held at 6:30 tonight. (Info)

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Thank you for reading and supporting local journalism.

We asked you to share your summer vacation photos, and boy did Axios reader Anna S. deliver some beauties.

🍹 She captured this total beach vibe looking north from the Coco Vibe Beach Bar at Playas del Coco in Costa Rica. (You can almost smell the sea breeze, right?)

• She also shared this breathtaking view above Laguna de Apoyo in Nicaragua.

📭 Hit reply and share where you've been traveling this summer! We may share it in a future newsletter.

🍽️ Kyle enjoyed the birria risotto at the new Nokomis House.

🤣 Torey can't get enough of her new favorite "influencer."

🎹 Audrey enjoyed Society of Chemists' album release show at Berlin.

✌️ Nick is on sabbatical.

Today's newsletter was edited by Larry Graham.