Walker Orenstein reports on the state Legislature for MinnPost, with a particular focus on covering issues affecting Greater Minnesota. He can be reached at worenstein@minnpost.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at @walkerorenstein.
Minnesota requires public officials to disclose source of income, property owned, significant holding in stocks and bonds and, yes, any horse racing interests.
Walz also downplayed the possibility for a special session, even after Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller said Republicans may back down from a threat to fire Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm.
In Roseau, in northwestern Minnesota, the problem is so acute that the city has taken drastic measures, building a $6.8 million apartment complex that is funded almost entirely with public money.
Instead, Walz said he’s focusing on the few things left in his control, such as expanding eligibility for COVID-19 vaccine boosters and using his platform as governor to ask people to get vaccinated.
While the tight labor market isn’t new, it has gotten worse since the onset of the pandemic. Minnesota’s labor force participation rate has dropped to a point it hasn’t seen since the late ’70s, when fewer women were in the workforce.
Though lawmakers and the general public once had to notify the state Department of Public Safety when they had a gun at the Capitol complex, the Legislature got rid of that requirement years ago.
LaTrisha Vetaw crushed Council Member Phillipe Cunningham in north Minneapolis’ Ward 4, while Emily Koski handily beat Jeremy Schroeder in south Minneapolis’ Ward 11.
On Monday, the Minnesota Department of Health said they know of 8,184 cases throughout the pandemic in the state in which someone who previously had COVID-19 was reinfected.
Starlink’s technology has the potential to connect parts of rural Minnesota where high-speed internet is expensive to build and hard to come by, but the service has also stirred up plenty of debate — and frustration — among public officials.
The money represents unprecedented spending on child care, even as child care advocates say it’s not nearly enough to address longstanding economic problems with the system.
While some are concerned with environmental dangers of aquaculture, others see the industry as a promising one for Minnesota.
Many of Minnesota’s small, in-home child care businesses say larger centers get more attention and resources from the government.
A law passed by the Minnesota Legislature in June required the state to reopen all the stations.
In some ways, Minnesota is an outlier, in that it was one of two Midwestern states that shifted overall toward Democrats in recent elections.
Minnesota reported 127 new COVID-19 deaths in the last week, up from 94 the week prior.
Logging has made large improvements in safety, especially as the industry has become more mechanized, but it is still far more dangerous than many occupations in Minnesota.
The Northwest Angle loan program is open to any “remote recreational business” in the area that lost more than 30 percent of its revenue between March of 2020 and 2021 and was impacted by the border closure.
Central Lakes College and Ridgewater College are launching programs aimed at training the next generation of animal slaughter, butchery and processing workers.
For weeks, Tim Walz has been locked in debate with Senate Republicans over a GOP threat to remove Jan Malcolm as MDH commissioner during a special session.
The push is part an effort by the DNR to improve relationships with tribes in Minnesota.
