Happy Friday with more smokey air.
The Twins sold the farm…more from Sport’s Take’s Howard Sinker.
St. Paul’s statue of Olympic gymnast Suni Lee was stolen, and police are seeking tips. MPR: http://fluence-media.co/40NFt7c
Some House DFL members planted trees in honor of Rep. Melissa Hortman’s memory. PHOTOS: http://fluence-media.co/3ITfkxE
An AP News poll finds that less than half of U.S. adults think Black Americans face “quite a bit” of discrimination, down from 60% in 2021 after George Floyd was killed. POLL: https://fluence-media.co/3UEq0CN
Today’s International Mahjong Day…IYKYK
Sunday Take will cover cannabis and hemp, including an interview with Interim OCM Director Eric Taubel. Tune-in Sunday at 9 on WCCO Radio.
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Sunday Take focused on Capitol security concerns and state Sen. Eric Pratt discussing his run for U.S. Rep. Angie Craig’s seat. LISTEN: https://fluence-media.co/4mk2GWV
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On Monday, Fluence Advisory hosted a cannabis forum on the “State of Cannabis in Minnesota including an interview with Executive Director of the Office of Cannabis Management Eric Taubel.
NEW LAWS: via Pioneer Press, VERBATIM: “Among the new batch of Minnesota laws taking effect Friday, Aug. 1 are tougher DWI penalties, new housing protections for service dog trainers and expanded background checks aimed at curbing sex trafficking. Here’s a look at the new laws:
● DWI reform: Minnesota DWI laws are [extending] the look-back period — any prior alcohol-related driving offenses within the past 20 years will be considered when determining whether a person must use an ignition interlock device, instead of 10 years. …
● Adult entertainment: Cities and counties will now be able to perform national criminal background checks on applicants for adult entertainment and massage business licenses. Previously, cities and counties only had access to Minnesota criminal data. …
● Equipment speed limits: The maximum speed limit for implements of husbandry will be increased from 30 to 35 mph. …
● Court fees: The Office of Ombudsperson for American Indian Families will no longer be required to pay court fees in certain cases, including ones related to custody. …
● Service dog trainers: Minnesota law already prohibits housing discrimination against individuals with active service dogs. Now, the law will prevent the same for individuals training service dogs. …
● Confidentiality: A new law will establish a privilege similar to confidentiality protections between attorneys and clients or doctors and patients for communications that take place within restorative justice programs.”
See the full article for more details. READ: http://fluence-media.co/40K7Bbc
SD29: first via news release first this morning, VERBATIM: “President Trump’s Deputy State Director for Minnesota in 2024, conservative business consultant, and Monticello City Councilman, Kip Christianson, announced today that he is running for the Minnesota Senate in District 29, pledging to bring a fighter’s mentality to St. Paul and take on the radical policies driving the state into the ground. WEBSITE: https://fluence-media.co/3U8xpu0
MORE: Via Office of the Sec. of State, four Republicans and one DFLer have filed to run in the Senate District 29 special election to fill the seat of late Sen. Bruce Anderson. The GOP candidates are Rachel Davis, Jason Franzen, Tina Diedrick and Michael Holmstrom Jr. The DFL candidate is Louis McNutt. If at least two of the Republicans stay in the race, there will be a special primary on Aug. 26 to select a single nominee for the special election on Nov. 4. READ: http://fluence-media.co/4mqhP9d
SECURITY: via MPR, VERBATIM: “Gov. Tim Walz met with legislative leaders Wednesday to discuss lawmaker security on and off the Capitol campus. The governor said the leaders were weighing potential security changes within the Capitol building and at lawmakers’ homes. … Walz said he wanted to respect the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. … One of the biggest questions to resolve is how to keep lawmakers safe when they go home or appear in public, he said.” WALZ: “I feel very confident we can handle [the Capitol], and there's security measures we can put in. I'm still deeply concerned about the legislators and their families when they're off campus.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/45d2Mst
MORE: via KSTP, VERBATIM: “Minnesota state lawmakers have freely shared their home addresses on official legislative websites and publications, [but] that information won’t be as easily accessible now. SIMON: ‘We’re just going to redact personal address information for now until the Legislature tells us to do otherwise when they come back in February just to be safe,’ Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon [said]. His office just published the ‘Minnesota Blue Book,’ known as the legislative bible. … It was too late in the publishing process to remove legislative addresses from the biographies of lawmakers who agreed to share them. However, in the online version, all lawmaker addresses have been removed.” READ/WATCH: http://fluence-media.co/40GwLYo
CONGRESS: via Rolling Stone, VERBATIM: “Senators could vote on a bill as soon as today to allow members of Congress and their staff to demand that websites take down information about their houses and details about their travel. … The legislation was introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Republican and Democratic congressional leaders are fast-tracking the bill, according to an internal Senate communication. … The legislation comes as political violence and threats against lawmakers have become increasingly commonplace.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/3U7eAHu
TWINS: via Sports Take’s Howard Sinker on the Twins’ trade-deadline roster destruction. It’s more than about wins and losses.
From yesterday’s Sport Take…hours before the Twins “strip-mined the roster” VERBATIM: “It’s a huge stain on the organization — from the front office to the field — that the current roster leaves so much to be desired. The Twins are a sloppy mess on the field, where individual achievements are overwhelmed by fundamental failures. The best things that can happen right now are pretty drastic: Tear down the roster and rebuild under new ownership.”
NOW: This wasn’t a baseball move. It was a move to get rid of assets – underperforming and otherwise – to better position the Pohlad family to sell the team. For the rest of this season, it means saving about $26 million, minus whatever they need to pay the replacement players on the roster for the final 54 games of the season. For the next three to seven years, it means saving a new owner from $96 million to $166 million on Carlos Correa’s contract, minus whatever portion of his future salary the Twins agreed to pay in return for Houston making the deal, which the Star Tribune’s Phil Miller reported is $33 million.
Correa was having a substandard season. He is on pace to have about 45 RBI, a career worst (not including the 2020 COVID-shortened season). His slugging percentage is 79 points below his career figure. His OPS+ is 92 (100 is average). His advanced defensive metrics are average. That’s not what the Twins were expecting when he signed a six-year deal that has as many as four option seasons tacked on if he meets certain criteria.
A friend with a background in finance said the Twins “were proactively making a decision to impact the financials for a buyer.” Another said wiping out future financial obligations was “the first thing that crossed my mind” as the trading pace picked up Thursday afternoon.
The rest of the season will be a jumble of holdovers, unfamiliar faces and annoyed fans. The 2025 Twins 2.0 will be a makeshift makeover after the original version flopped their way out of playoff contention.
For the Pohlad’s, whatever animosity they’ll feel from fans is secondary to getting out from under obligations that were making it harder to find a buyer. The family surprised fans by announcing its intention to see last October and, based on the hope of having new owners by Opening Day, must be surprised to still be in charge 10 months later. And it sets the stage for new owners to make promises to those fans about restoring the Twins to where they should be.
WINNER OR LOSER. Via ESPN. VERBATIM: “It's possible the Twins -- if they spend some of the savings on trading Correa's contract -- can reallocate their resources to build a more competitive, well-rounded team. It's also possible, with the team for sale, that the Twins are entering a Rays- or Pirates-like era of frugality, pocketing more profits while the losses pile up. This Twins era began with a 101-win team in 2019. They signed Correa in 2022, but the Correa era will have produced just one playoff season in four years. It might be a few years before the Twins are even thinking of the playoffs again. Twins fans can only hope that assessment is wrong.” MORE: https://fluence-media.co/45dVtR1
BROADBAND: Comcast is rewriting the broadband playbook in the Twin Cities. From neighborhood networks to next-gen tech, we’re delivering community-first internet connectivity with no contracts, no surprises. The new Xfinity package means unlimited data, blazing-fast, reliable speeds and a 5-year price guarantee, plus free mobile for a year. It’s not the old Comcast — it’s a bold new era of connection. Let’s power the future, together. LEARN MORE: https://fluence-media.co/Comcast2025-1 (SPONSORED: Comcast)
PFAS: via FOX 9, VERBATIM: “A new law in Minnesota that seeks to ban the use of ‘forever chemicals’ – also known as PFAS – in products intended for young people has now been loosened after powersports enthusiasts argued the restrictions went too far. Since Jan. 1, 2025, it has been illegal in Minnesota to sell PFAS-containing products in 11 categories. … But this summer, the Minnesota Legislature created an exemption for recreational vehicles. … However, the products will still face a prohibition on ‘avoidable uses’ by 2032. The law tweak also extended a PFAS reporting deadline by six months, allowing manufacturers until July 1, 2026, to submit an initial report on the purpose and amount of PFAS in their products.” READ/WATCH: http://fluence-media.co/45tM49k
CYBERATTACK: via Bring Me The News, VERBATIM: “Most people in St. Paul don't need to worry about their personal information being stolen as a result of the cyberattack identified by the city on its information systems late last week, according to Mayor Melvin Carter. During a press conference on Thursday, the mayor said the risk of average residents being impacted from a cybersecurity standpoint ‘is very low.’ That said, the breach remains under investigation, and it's still unclear whether city employee information related to payroll has been accessed illegally.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/3UClip8
MORE: via Pioneer Press, VERBATIM: “St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter told a group of news crews that 911 calls will get through, police and fire will respond to calls for service, and municipal pools, beaches and libraries will remain open. … What the mayor was not able to confirm is when the security breach, which was first detected last Friday, would be fully contained. Carter said he was unaware of any personnel data that had been obtained by the unidentified cyberattackers or of a request for ransom.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/3UClGUC
NATL GUARD: KARE 11 has a profile on the Minnesota National Guard’s Cyber Protection Team as they assist with St. Paul’s cyberattack. Minnesota is one of the few states with a fully operational cybersecurity team of this kind, but this is the first time its members have been deployed for an incident within state boundaries. READ/WATCH: http://fluence-media.co/458USAg
GUN DEATHS: via WCCO Radio, VERBATIM: “Minnesota guns resulted in 564 deaths in 2024, a number that is concerning to Maggiy Emery with the gun violence protection group Protect Minnesota. ‘We are up 6%, [and] we are one of the only states in the entire nation where gun deaths increased instead of decreased last year,’ says Emery. … But here's the caveat: The majority of these deaths [are] not homicides. ‘Of those 564 deaths last year, 406 — or 72% — of them were firearms suicides,’ she said. … Emery said that 61% of those who committed suicide were over the age of 45, with 87% of those being male.” READ/LISTEN: http://fluence-media.co/4fdlcO6
EPSTEIN: via Star Tribune, VERBATIM: “House Republicans have headed home for August recess, but the drama around deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein may still be waiting for them when they return to Washington. Minnesota’s four Republicans in Congress may have to make their vote known on the matter once they return in early September. … For now, they’re either staying quiet or blaming Democrats for not releasing the files under former President Joe Biden’s watch. … Asked if he would support the Democrat-led petition to release the government’s files on Epstein or the Republican-backed nonbinding resolution from the House Rules Committee that also calls for the release of the files, [Rep. Pete Stauber] said: ‘We’ll see. But it’s interesting because for four years, there was an opportunity by some of these same Democrats.’” READ: http://fluence-media.co/4lVnvrG
REFUGEES: via MinnPost, VERBATIM: “As the One Big Beautiful Bill ricocheted from proposal to signed law by President Donald Trump, Minnesota immigration advocates kept a close eye on how the giant measure would expand detention and deportation programs. … But the One Big Beautiful Bill also enacts something else on immigration, a measure that has caught advocates and also Minnesota health care officials off guard. The bill stipulates that refugees and those granted asylum status can no longer access Medicaid. These immigrants also can no longer get Medicare. And they cannot get a tax credit for joining a private health care plan, or qualify for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). These measures go into effect in October 2026.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/4l4hO9G
STUDENT LOANS: via a Rep. Ilhan Omar press release, VERBATIM: “Today, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) led a letter with nearly 50 House Democrats calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to immediately reverse the Department of Education’s decision to resume charging interest for nearly 8 million borrowers enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, beginning August 1. … In the letter, the lawmakers emphasize that no court has deemed the SAVE plan illegal, nor required the Department to resume charging interest. Despite this, the Trump Administration is moving forward with the change, falsely claiming legal obligation and attempting to deflect accountability. … The letter was signed by Representatives [including] Betty McCollum.” LETTER: http://fluence-media.co/3UGXOz6
BIOFUEL: via a Sen. Amy Klobuchar press release, VERBATIM: “U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced bipartisan legislation to enhance the ability of the Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical, and Biobased Products Assistance program to support the development of advanced biofuels, renewable chemicals, and biobased products. The Agricultural Biorefinery Innovation and Opportunity (Ag BIO) Act will update the underlying loan guarantee program and restore a grant program to support public-private partnership investment in pilot and demonstration-scale facility development.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/4mi1FOR
SOIL: via a Sen. Tina Smith press release, VERBATIM: “Today, U.S. Senators Tina Smith (D-MN) and Todd Young (R-IN) reintroduced bipartisan legislation that will help bolster soil research and improve agricultural resilience and productivity. … Current technology cannot accurately measure soil carbon levels, impacting our ability to track soil health improvements, correlate those improvements with on-farm benefits, and reward farmers for their contributions to environmental health and resilience. … The Advancing Research on Agricultural Soil Health Act will allow strategic investment in technologies to measure and monitor soil carbon.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/4om6BEy
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS TO CELEBRATE: Flint Hills Resources and its employees are proud of the company they keep, including many community partners that help make Minnesota a better place to live and learn. Not only is the Pine Bend refinery celebrating 70 years, many of the company’s long-time partnerships have milestones in 2025 — 25 years of the Flint Hills Family Festival in partnership with the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, 25 years with Friends of the Mississippi River to restore critical habitat, 30 years with the Minnesota Zoo, and 40 years with Ducks Unlimited. WATCH: https://fluence-media.co/3ZfDkjY (SPONSORED: Flint Hills Resources)
MAYOR: via Sahan Journal, VERBATIM: “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was elected twice to the city’s top office with strong support from the city’s Somali voters, but this year, he faces a strong challenger who could pull significant votes from that base. State Senator Omar Fateh’s…prominence in the Somali community and his DFL endorsement make him the most serious Somali candidate to ever run for Minneapolis mayor, said Graham Faulkner, a co-campaign manager for Fateh’s mayoral campaign. [But] Faulkner acknowledged that Frey has ‘put in a lot of work to build his support in the Somali community’ over the years. ‘Whether that means folks stay loyal to him, I can’t speak to that,’ Faulkner said.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/3Hg7lKt
MPLS: via Star Tribune, VERBATIM: “Minneapolis City Council candidate Becka Thompson has suggested for a second time that a current council member was elected based on the color of their skin or ethnicity. On Wednesday, Thompson posted a video in which she said people voted for Ward 10 Council Member Aisha Chughtai in 2021 because she’s a ‘nice, young, you know, ethnic woman’ who pretended to be a moderate. Thompson came under fire in May for saying in a campaign email that she might not have ‘the desired amount of melanin’ in a clear shot at Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who is Bengali American. Thompson, who is white, is running against Chowdhury in Ward 12.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/4lVjh3n
ST CLOUD: via St. Cloud Live, VERBATIM: “The sale of SCSU's Selke Field is being finalized. St. Cloud State University interim President Larry Dietz on Thursday, July 31, told St. Cloud LIVE that Minnesota State Colleges and Universities is in the process of closing the deal. Though he said that he could not disclose the bidder, ‘I think people are going to be happy with the choice,’ Dietz said. … The money will be invested back in SCSU campus facilities. More information about the deal should be announced sometime in August, Dietz said.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/4l4mf4k
BEMIDJI: via Bemidji Pioneer, VERBATIM: “The trial between Northern Township and Bemidji to decide if the township will incorporate or see a portion of land along Lake Bemidji get annexed has begun, and hearing dates are fast approaching. The trial was formally opened by Judge Jessica Palmer-Denig on July 15. Currently on recess, the trial will reconvene on Monday, Sept. 29, and requires two full weeks of dedicated court time. Northern Township will present its case for incorporation between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3 at Northern Town Hall. Then, between Oct. 6 and 10, Bemidji will present its case for annexation.” READ: http://fluence-media.co/4fiiasa
JOY: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and wife Sarah Clarke had a second daughter this week. PHOTO: http://fluence-media.co/46x6saI
TODAY-TMRW: Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan announced that the next stops on her “Kitchen Table Conversations Tour” will be in southwest Minnesota. On Friday, Flanagan will visit Willmar at 1:15 p.m., Montevideo at 3:30 p.m. and Madison at 5:15 p.m. On Saturday, she’ll visit Marshall at 9:45 a.m.
TOMORROW: MN 50501 will host the protest event “Rage Against the Regime” in St. Paul on Saturday, described in a release as “a gathering of protestors and activists to safely let out their rage at the current administration. Old electronics and other objects will be smashed in a controlled area. There will also be music, food, and a satirical puppet show.” The event is at 11:00 a.m.
BDAYS: civic leader Ellen Perrault, golfer Blake Smith, advocate Tim Stanley, fmr. Sen. Terri Bonoff, Central Liquor’s Scott McCleary. SAT: Retail leader Lonnie Hartley, General Mills’ Lee Anderson, real estate guy Stu Ackerberg, govt. affairs pro Becca Martin, Washington Cty. Atty. Kevin Magnuson, MN Turkey’s Ashley Kohls. SUN: CBS journalist Jamie Yuccas, lobbyist Grace Keliher, GOP operative Kevin Poindexter
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