Minnesota Legislature looks for way to exempt Mayo Clinic from proposed nurse staffing requirements

Stribber Jeremy Olson reports, “A plan to exempt Mayo Clinic in Rochester from Minnesota nurse staffing legislation is gaining traction, but the special treatment is upsetting the rest of the state’s hospitals. Negotiations accelerated last week after Mayo threatened to relocate a billion-dollar expansion project outside Minnesota if it was subject to the staffing legislation and another proposal to penalize hospitals with excessive spending growth.”

For the AP, Steve Karnowski reports, “Minnesota Democratic leaders will convene an emergency meeting Thursday evening to respond to the chaos that broke out during a convention to endorse a candidate for a Minneapolis City Council race.”

Alexandra Simon for KARE 11 says, “Minneapolis Police said dozens of cars might’ve been damaged overnight by a group of people smashing windows and rummaging through cars. Police said they received multiple 911 calls between 12:45 a.m. and 2 a.m. Monday, where callers said between five and 15 people were going through neighborhoods and smashing out car windows.”

MPR’s Matt Sepic reports, “Two men who attacked a transgender woman at a Minneapolis light rail station in February are expected to receive four-month jail sentences as part of plea agreements with prosecutors. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said it did not seek hate crime sentencing enhancements because there is no evidence to indicate that anti-trans bias motivated the men.”

Chris Serres and Liz Sawyer of the Strib say, “Faced with rising concerns over youth crime, Minnesota lawmakers are poised to pass the most significant changes in a generation to the state’s troubled juvenile justice system. An expansive public safety bill being debated Monday seeks to reduce juvenile crime by creating a new, statewide office that would encourage alternative approaches to holding youth accountable without sentencing them in courts.”

And this from WCCO-TV, “Some south metro residents say Monday was like any other day – until some foul-smelling stuff fell from the sky. Carisa Browne was waiting in the drive-thru line at the Caribou Coffee off Highway 13 and Cliff Road in Burnsville. ‘I was waiting in line, getting my daily coffee…and all of a sudden brown dropped onto my vehicle’, Browne said. ‘It was like it rained brown for a second, boom, like that. I got out and I went to the car in front of me and I was like, ‘What just happened to us?”

A KMSP-TV story says, “An air quality alert has been issued for northern Minnesota due to wildfire smoke coming from Canada.  The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) on Monday, May 15, issued an air quality alert for northern Minnesota, with the alert going into effect from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, May 16.  “