Protesters take knee outside U.S. Bank Stadium before Vikings game

How dare these people exercise their rights! We’re talking pro football here. Is nothing sacred? MPR’s Jon Collins says: “About 60 demonstrators kneeled and held signs outside U.S. Bank Stadium before the Vikings game Sunday. Organizer Mel Reeves said they hoped to bring attention to the issue of police brutality. ‘This isn’t about the Vikings,’ said Reeves. ‘It’s not about the flag, it’s not about the anthem, it’s simply about trying to bring attention to this national problem.’”

In the Star Tribune, Hannah Covington reports, “The raised signs were at times met by boos and middle fingers hoisted into the air by fans walking by. … Fans outside the stadium listened to chants of ‘No justice, no peace; prosecute the police,’ as well as ‘This is what democracy looks like’, as protesters knelt. … Nearby, Minnesota native Travis Undestad also waited to get inside the stadium — his first visit to the Vikings’ new facility. ‘Keep politics and football separate,’ said Undestad, who was visiting from Florida. ‘I’m here to watch the game.’”

Without Janet Jackson, mind you. The AP says: “The NFL announced Sunday night that [Justin] Timberlake will headline the Super Bowl halftime show Feb. 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. … Timberlake performed at the 2001 Super Bowl with N’Sync, and he sang ‘Rock Your Body’ with Jackson in 2004 in Houston. That performance concluded with Timberlake ripping her costume to reveal her right breast bare except for a nipple shield.” How did the Republic survive?

Local angle alert. A Politico story by Philip Shenon says, “Trump administration and other government officials say privately that President Donald Trump is almost certain to block the release of information from some of the thousands of classified files related to the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy that are scheduled to be made public in less than a week by the National Archives. … ‘If there is not full disclosure of the documents, I would be very disappointed,’ said Judge John R. Tunheim, the federal judge in Minneapolis who led the Assassination Records Review Board, the temporary federal agency created by the 1992 law that was responsible for the initial declassification of assassination documents. ‘The time for full disclosure has long since passed.’” 

Speaking of an issue with legs, Steve Karnowski of the AP reports: “The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency kicks off a week of public hearings Monday on changing a water quality standard that’s meant to protect wild rice, a proposal that has managed to anger environmentalists and industry alike. The proposal would change Minnesota’s standard for sulfate discharges into waters where wild rice grows from the current flat limit of 10 milligrams per liter to a more complicated formula based on the characteristics of individual lakes and streams.”

One act. Two tragedies. Says an AP story: “Investigators say a young driver was using the social media app Snapchat just before she struck and killed a bicyclist in Sibley County. A criminal complaint filed against the 16-year-old girl charges her with criminal vehicular homicide and reckless driving in the June death of 56-year-old Phillip Andrew Ilg of New Prague. The complaint said the girl told a state trooper she had glanced down only for a second before striking the man with her Ford Explorer.”

What’s a week without a disclosure from Wells Fargo? In The New York Times, Gretchen Morgenson writes, “A federal regulator criticized Wells Fargo for engaging in unfair and deceptive practices and failing to manage risks, and said it had not set aside enough money to pay back the customers it harmed. … Wells Fargo has set aside $80 million to compensate the 570,000 customers it said were harmed by receiving auto insurance they didn’t want. The comptroller’s office said that the amount was inadequate and that the bank might have to pay out substantially more as additional victims were identified — partly because Wells Fargo’s analysis of how much money it needed to set aside excluded many years when the insurance was being imposed.” 

Finally, there’s this: 

Poetry in motion… #ThisIsYourTime #PhantomCam pic.twitter.com/VifN6W18IT

— NBA (@NBA) October 23, 2017