The PiPress' Rachel Stassen-Berger says some Franken absentee voters with court-approved ballots are changing their stories. At least three seem to indicate their ballots should be invalid. "The shifting stories exemplify how, even with a lot of time, legal help and sworn statements, it is hard to tell which of the 11,000 rejected absentee ballots are valid and which are not," Stassen-Berger writes. On a hallelujah note, Coleman's side says it will be "done done" with its case this week.

Related: Minnesota Independent's Paul Demko writes that Franken wants to set up two new recount funds. Donors could give up to $30,000, but that needs FEC approval. Via Talking Points Memo, Washington Post congressional correspondent Shailagh Murray says "it seems more and more likely that the Minnesota race will wind up as a re-vote." Huh? There's no provision for such a move in state law. Later in the online chat, Murray tries to explain that Coleman's "desperate" tactics should merit the re-vote.

A thousand words: Great Richard Tsong-Taatarii photo of a house with a new, towering Crosstown bridge in its side yard. The Strib's James Shiffer says MnDOT originally didn't want to pay Mary VanSlooten for expanding the 35W interchange almost directly above her head, but after walls cracked, they've now forked out around $200K. The house was so close that snowplow spew would rain down. My question: What about the person who lives next to Mary?

White Bear cops are investigating the owner of Myth nightclub for a scammy-seeming poker site, the PiPress' John Brewer reports. Michael Ogren's Zosoz.com allegedly passed 100 or so bad checks totaling up to $200,000. You could play poker for nothing — and win! Somehow, investors' money dried up. Ogren says he made good on the checks, but that doesn't make the crime go away, cops say. The guy has quite the court record (plus a land deal with Denny Hecker).

The Strib's David Phelps says legal fees now top $2.5 million for the Tom Petters case. Receiver Doug Kelley wants $368,000 for December and January; Petters' defense seeks $332,000 and Kelley aides Lindquist & Vennum $312,000. The feds want a three-week payment delay to examine legal bills for non-charged Petters employees. Minor headline/story disagreement: The hed says fees "top $1.6 million" while the story says the tab "totaled nearly $1.6 million."

The Strib's Thomas Lee provides more details on that planned $1 billion biotech playpen near Rochester. It's actually a $1 billion fund, pumped by a couple of California investors; Mayo Clinic is key to the deal; it will "steer start-ups founded on its technology." The $50 million for highway improvements is from stimulus funds. The $1 bil compares to an annual average of $4.4 million investors have thrown at Minnesota biotech startups.

Following proposed local-government aid cuts, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak will forestall cop reductions with stimulus money, the Strib's Steve Brandt reports. That's only good for this year; 2010 could see more than 100 positions — 10 percent of the force — gone. Rybak proposes $100-$900 commercial building inspection fees, and up to $20 a year for street lighting. Most job losses are managerial, but six firefighting positions go. The city would dump health functions, civil-rights complaints and some road repair on the state.

The instigator of those LGA cuts, Gov. Pawlenty, will take all the stimulus cash, the Strib's Kevin Diaz writes. He wriggles out of doing the "Full Jindal" — refusing a symbolic slice of Obama bucks — because the state already complies with federal unemployment rules the Louisiana governor is grandstanding on.

The Strib's Jenna Ross says local Pell Grantees might not benefit from stimulus-fueled increases. That's because as the fed Pell money goes up, state Pell cash goes down. That is, unless local legislators want to pony up more, which is unlikely in an awful budget year, MPR's Tim Post notes, adding lots of details. MPR's Bob Collins has more on the push/pulling at News Cut.

A big story in my social circle: Minneapolis schools Superintendent Bill Green wants to exit a metrowide desegregation district after next year, saying there's not enough desegration, the Strib's Norman Draper reports. That would upend 2,100 kids attending Golden Valley's fine arts-focused FAIR middle school and downtown Minneapolis' IDDS. FAIR is 69 percent white with no English-language-learner kids; IDDS is majority minority. The district would save $4 million in tuition costs, and forgo transportation expenses.

Minneapolis schools could start before Labor Day — Sept. 7 this year — the Strib's Patrice Relerford reports. Kids would also attend the day before Thanksgiving, and teachers would lose a planning day. In return, school would be out June 8, 2010. State approval is needed. St. Paul's year starts Sept. 8 and ends June 11, but they had to cut winter break to do it.

After St. Paul snow-emergency ticket-givers went crazy, the city will probably dump contractors next year, the PiPress' Tad Vezner writes. City employees will likely do the deed, though cost considerations may make this problematic: One can assume the city went the private route to save bucks, but with budget cuts will have even less next year.

FBI director Robert Mueller confirms that a Minneapolis man was a suicide bomber — the first with U.S. citizenship, the Strib reports. Shirwa Ahmed "was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota" before blowing himself up in Somalia, Mueller said in a speech. A local mosque's attorney alleges the FBI director "doesn't really know what's happened."

A tax-evading oddball gets an extra four years for threatening a judge. Ex-entrepreneur Robert Beale got 48 months while co-conspirators got 24, AP reports. They wanted to "get rid of" U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery, in part through a Jesus-overseen kangaroo court.

Ex-Viking and cop assaulter Carl Eller was hauled off to the pokey to begin a 58-day jail stay after a judicial tongue-lashing, the PiPress' David Hanners reports. Money quote from Judge Dan Mabley: "I have to send a message that I do not find credible his defenses, and the best way I can send that message is to take him into custody today." The Strib's Rochelle Olson says the move "surprised most in the courtroom."

More Eller: Also guilty of refusing a sobriety test, Eller will have to cough up $3,000 and be on home monitoring for a year.

It wasn't the only verbal beating in Vikingsland: At the Legislature, politicians cranked on Sports Facilities Commission members seeking a new Vikes stadium, the Strib's Mike Kaszuba writes.

Nort spews: The Vikings are on the verge of trading for career backup Sage Rosenfels. Houston Chronicle commenters actually seem a bit broken up about the deal. Some refer to the "Rosencopter." What's that? Click here and here.