Good afternoon, There are 6 days remaining before the Legislature's scheduled adjournment on May 17. I'm not saying it's impossible that the Legislature passes a budget by May 17. It could still happen. I'm just saying, it's not going to happen. Go ahead and prove me wrong, lawmakers. The Star Tribune's political team wrote a nice round up of where the Legislature's biggest issues stand right now. [Read more from Briana Bierschbach, Jessie Van Berkel, Stephen Montemayor and Patrick Condon] Gov. Tim Walz's proposed auto emission rules aren't the only environmental regulation that's spurring pushback from legislative Republicans. The Senate GOP is also taking aim at new regulations governing manure at big feedlots. [Read more from MinnPost's Walker Orenstein] Coming up: Marijuana legalization is up for a debate and vote on the Minnesota House floor on Thursday. Brooklyn Center is moving forward with a drastic overhaul of its police department, after a police officer in the suburb shot and killed motorist Daunte Wright. Mayor Mike Elliott wants to send unarmed responders to respond to mental health crises and nonmoving violations like expired license plates. Members of the city council have expressed support for the general plan but have questions about details. [Read more from Matt Sepic] A senior official with the Vatican is warning U.S. bishops away from a confrontation with Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Some conservative clergy have called to deny communion to "pro-choice" Catholics like President Joe Biden, while other U.S. bishops have been opposed. The Vatican letter said such a "contentious" policy could "become a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger church in the United States." [ Read more from NPR's Sylvia Poggioli] A lot of national political attention later this year might be directed at California, where voters may face a recall election for Gov. Gavin Newsom. Polls suggest Newsom is in much better shape than Gov. Gray Davis was when he got recalled in 2003, but everyone is fixated on one key lesson of the 2003 recall: the way Arnold Schwarzenegger's celebrity helped him rise above a crowded field. It arguably presaged Donald Trump's 2016 primary victory, and now the biggest name entering the fray is Caitlyn Jenner. [ Read more from Hunter Walker at The Uprising] This month has seen both France and Britain deploy their navies to the English Channel in a post-Brexit standoff over fishing rights. As it turns out, this kind of naval standoff isn't unusual for modern democracies. From 1946 to 1992, 43 percent of militarized disputes between democracies revolved around fishing or offshore oil and mineral rights. [Read more from Sara Mitchell in the Washington Post] In Minnesota, 35 percent of municipal officeholders in cities with 10,000 or more people are women. That's 12th-highest in the county, but well behind Hawaii, Alaska and Colorado. [Read more from the Center for American Women and Politics]
Something completely different: You might have seen viral videos of people cooking in extremely gross and unorthodox ways — Spaghetti-O's in a piecrust, ice cream punch in a toilet bowl, nachos made right on a kitchen counter. It turns out that most of these videos are all connected to a single guy, a magician and viral content maker named Rick Lax. [Read more from Ryan Broderick in Eater] Listen: I've been a fan of Iowa roots singer William Elliott Whitmore since seeing him play a coffee shop close to two decades ago, and his early track "Diggin' My Grave" still hits me in just the right spot — the deep growl of his voice, the spare accompaniment, the evocative lyrics simultaneously evoking despair and hope. [Listen]
