Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday.
Minneapolis teachers are on strike this morning, but St. Paul teachers are in the classroom as usual after they reached a deal on a contract last night. The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers said its negotiators could not come to an agreement with the district on the union's main demands, including caps on class sizes, and more mental health supports for students. The strike will shutter classrooms for more than 30,000 students and have about 4,000 teachers and staff out of work. There is no immediate indication when talks might resume. “While it is disappointing to hear this news, we know our organizations’ mutual priorities are based on our deep commitment to the education of Minneapolis students,” Minneapolis Public Schools said in a statement. “MPS will remain at the mediation table non-stop in an effort to reduce the length and impact of this strike.” The tentative agreement in St. Paul includes keeping class size caps, one-time recognition payments to educators and “increased compensation, particularly for educational assistants who are often the lowest paid employees in the district,” according to a press release from Education Minnesota. Read more here.
The Minnesota House Commerce Committee will hear a bill today that legalizes sports betting and puts the state’s Indian tribes in charge of operating it. MPR’s Tim Pugmire reports: Under the 28-page bill, sports betting would take place at Native American casinos and online through mobile applications operated by the tribes. “Minnesotans would be able to visit sports betting lounges and casinos all across Minnesota, and they’ll also be able to wager on sports from their own mobile phones,” Stephenson said. An earlier version of the House proposal included Minnesota’s two horse racing tracks, but those entities are no longer included. “The tribes are really the subject matter experts,” Stephenson said. The Minnesota Indian Gaming Association issued its most supportive statement yet on the sports betting push. The 10 member tribal nations said they “support state efforts to authorize sports wagering at tribal gaming properties and through online/mobile platforms and believe tribes are best positioned to offer this new market to the state’s consumers.”
From the Star Tribune:The organization that runs Minnesota's high school tournaments says it's working with students, educators and parents to address racist taunts and remarks at sporting events. Minnesota State High School League Executive Director Erich Martens detailed the organization's plans to state legislators during a House Education Policy Committee meeting Monday. His testimony comes after several schools, from New Prague to Minnetonka, have addressed racism in their sports programs in the past few weeks. He said recent news reports detailing racist taunting and bullying during high school sporting events don't necessarily correlate with an increase in such incidents. But Martens told lawmakers they represent a troubling trend nonetheless. "These events clearly indicate that there is more work to do," he said.
MPR’s Kirsi Marohn reports: After two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, case numbers are finally on the decline, and many restrictions are being lifted. But Minnesota's poultry producers are on high alert for a different deadly virus: highly pathogenic avian influenza. Back in 2015, 9 million birds in Minnesota were killed by the virus, or euthanized to slow its spread. It’s believed to be spread by migrating waterfowl in the spring. This year, it's already been detected in poultry flocks in South Dakota and Iowa. Minnesota turkey and chicken growers say they’re employing lessons learned from 2015 to try to prevent another outbreak. "It really taught us that the flocks that are located just outside our back door are vulnerable to a very highly efficient, lethal killer virus,” said Lynette Gessell, a Morrison County turkey farmer. “It really taught us that we needed to think about what we could do to protect our flocks."
More candidates are getting in the race for the 1st Congressional District seat left open by the death of Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn. Brad Finstad filed for the seat Monday. He’s a former Republican state representative and was President Trump’s State Director for USDA Rural Development in Minnesota. “I’ll fight the extreme Biden and Pelosi agenda that’s devastating our families,” Finstad said in a statement announcing his campaign. “We must slash inflation, get control of the border, restore American energy independence and end the Covid mandate madness.” Hagedorn's funeral was held over the weekend and former 1st District GOP Chair Jerod Spilman told MPR’s Mark Zdechlik he expects more candidates to emerge. "The people who I've talked to who are running, many of them were waiting until after the eulogies and the sympathies and the wake,” Spilman said. “So this week is going to be a flurry of activity." State Rep. Jeremy Munson, R-Lake Crystal, also filed yesterday. The special election will be held on August 9, the same day as the primary for the general election.
MinnPost reports on a state Senate committee hearing about grants from a nonprofit that were used to help local governments hold elections amid the pandemic in 2020 . From the story: During the hearing, Sen. Mark Koran, R-North Branch, said that a national nonprofit that’s received funding from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan — the Center for Tech and Civic Life — used grants distributed to local election offices to influence the outcome of the 2020 vote. In some cases, Koran said, local elections were turned over to the non-government entities. “It’s shocking that so many cities allowed this undue influence in their election process to try to affect the outcome,” Koran told the Senate State Government and Elections Committee. “It’s shocking that a county would willingly give up that type of control to an outside entity.” Secretary of State Steve Simon said even holding a hearing on the bill that airs allegations that go un-rebutted is damaging. “There was zero undue influence. There was zero relinquishing of control. Zero,” Simon said Friday. “Anyone who talked to someone who administered an election would know that.” He termed the idea that either occurred “a paranoid fantasy.” “It is part of a broader campaign of disinformation to corrode confidence in the election system,” Simon said. “I see that as related to the big cloud of disinformation out there. This part of that whole narrative out there.” | 