Federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro in the 1996 downing of civilian planes operated by Miami-based exiles as the Trump administration escalated pressure on the socialist government.

The indictment was related to Castro’s alleged role in the shootdown of two small planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, now 94, was Cuba's defense minister at the time. The charges included murder and destruction of an airplane.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and other top Justice Department officials made the announcement in Miami at a ceremony to honor those killed in the shootdown.

“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” Blanche said. “They were unarmed civilians and were flying humanitarian missions for the rescue and protection of people fleeing oppression across the Florida straits.”

There was no immediate reaction from the Cuban government.

Marlene Alejandre-Triana, whose father, Armando Alejandre Jr, was among those who died, said the charges were “long overdue.” She said her father only wanted to bring freedom to his Cuban homeland.

Over the years, she spoke to multiple federal investigators about charging Castro. She referred to him as “one of the main architects of the crime.”

President Donald Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba ever since U.S. forces captured the Cuban government’s longtime patron, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. After ousting Maduro, the White House ordered a blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba, leading to severe blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.

Since Maduro's capture, Trump has ratcheted up talk of regime change in Cuba after pledging earlier this year to conduct a “friendly takeover” of the country if its leadership did not open its economy to American investment and kick out U.S. adversaries.

Trump’s first administration indicted Maduro on drug-trafficking charges and used that to justify removing him from power during a surprise military raid in January that whisked the Venezuelan leader to New York to face trial.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday urged the Cuban people to demand a free-market economy with new leadership that he said will chart a new course in relations with the U.S.

“In the U.S., we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people,” Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in a Spanish-language video message. “Currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country.”

Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos F. de Cossío lashed out at Rubio on X, saying he “lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously about Cuba and tries to justify the aggression he inflicts on the Cuban people.” Rubio "knows full well that there is no excuse for such cruel and ruthless aggression.”

Raúl Castro believed to wield power behind the scenes

There’s no indication Castro will be taken into U.S. custody anytime soon.

He took over as president from his ailing older brother Fidel Castro in 2006 before handing power to a trusted loyalist, Díaz-Canel, in 2018.

While he retired in 2021 as head of the Cuban Communist Party, he is widely believed to wield power behind the scenes, underscored by the prominence of his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who previously met secretly with Rubio.

Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for meetings with Cuban officials, including Castro’s grandson. Two other senior State Department officials met with the grandson in April.

“The symbolic nature is absolutely crucial,” said Lindsey Lazopoulos Friedman, a former prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami who handled national security cases and crimes involving Cubans.

“Even though Raúl Castro will likely stay and die in Cuba, you can use the indictment as a pressure point, a tactical advantage, to extract other concessions like the release of prisoners or to keep Russia out,” she added.

The investigation into Castro stretches back to the 1990s

Starting in 1995, planes flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a group founded by Cuban exiles, buzzed over Havana dropping leaflets urging Cubans to rise up against the Castro government.

The Cubans protested to the U.S. government, warning that they would defend their airspace. Federal Aviation Administration officials also opened an investigation and met with the group’s leaders to urge them to ground the flights, according to declassified government records obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive.

“This latest overflight can only be seen as further taunting of the Cuban Government,” an FAA official wrote in an email to her superiors after one intrusion in January 1996. “Worst case scenario is that one of these days the Cubans will shoot down one of these planes.”

But those calls went unheeded and on Feb. 24, 1996, missiles fired by Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets downed two unarmed civilian Cessna planes a short distance north of Havana just beyond Cuba’s airspace. All four men aboard were killed.

Raúl Castro faced earlier indictment

Guy Lewis, who was a federal prosecutor, uncovered evidence linking senior Cuban military officials to cocaine trafficking by Colombia’s Medellin cartel. Following the shootdown, the investigation expanded, and prosecutors pursued charges against Raúl Castro for leading a vast racketeering conspiracy by Cuba’s armed forces.

“The evidence was strong,” Lewis said in an interview.

In the end, the Clinton administration indicted four individuals, including the MiG pilots, the head of the Cuban air force and the head of a Cuban spy network in Miami — the only one to see the inside of a U.S. prison — for providing valuable intelligence about the flights.

The incident led the U.S. to harden its position against Cuba, even though the Cold War had ended and the Castros’ support for revolution across Latin America was a fading memory.

But Castro himself was spared as the Clinton administration — which had quietly sought to expand relations with Cuba prior to the incident — raised foreign policy concerns about such a high-profile indictment.

“Raúl was definitely one who slipped through the noose,” Lewis said. “The crime is notorious. Three U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident were killed in a premeditated orchestrated murder. That should never be forgotten.”

Minnesota will soon have a new top judge on its highest court. Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday that Supreme Court Associate Justice Theodora Gaïtas will be taking over after Chief Justice Natalie Hudson retires at the end of September.

Gaïtas was appointed to the court by Walz in 2024, and she is a notable choice for a couple of reasons: She will be the first former public defender to lead the court and she is the only Minnesota Supreme Court Justice to have served at all three levels of the judicial branch.

Gaïtas said one of the issues she want’s to prioritize is accessibility in courtrooms across the state.

“A significant problem in Minnesota is that there just aren't enough lawyers to represent all of the people who need representation, particularly in rural areas, and I would really like to lead on that issue,” she said.

Listen to the full interview by clicking the player above.

Barney Frank, the liberal icon and gay-rights pioneer who represented Massachusetts in Congress for more than three decades, died Tuesday night at his home, according to a close friend who confirmed his death to member station GBH.

He was 86 years old and had been receiving hospice care for congestive heart failure.

Frank was the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out, and also the first to marry a same-sex partner. He says many of the conventional tactics they took to fight for gay-rights helped make "enormous progress" in a relatively short period of time.

Recently asked by GBH if he wished he could do over any part of his career, Frank replied: "I would have come out earlier."

Read GBH's full remembrance here.

Frank's last message for Democrats

WBUR's Anthony Brooks spoke with Frank while in hospice at his home in Ogunquit, Maine, where he lives with his husband, Jim Ready.

In their conversation, Frank shared an urgent message for Democrats hoping to bounce back from Trump.

He says Democrats have a chance to defeat President Donald Trump's brand of right-wing populism, but only if the party embraces core economic issues instead of polarizing culture fights.

Read more from their conversation here.

This is a developing story.

Copyright 2026, NPR

County workers who administer federal safety net programs such as SNAP and Medicaid are looking forward to a slightly easier work load in the coming months, now that the Minnesota legislature has allocated $90 million to upgrade the outdated technology they use.

State lawmakers struck a budget deal that includes the funding needed to overhaul Minnesota’s social services computer systems that some say are from the “Oregon Trail era.” For those who don’t remember when that game was popular, the MAXIS system that counties use was new at about the time the Minnesota Twins last won the World Series. That was 35 years ago.

The package also includes $15 million to improve technology designed to help state agencies detect fraud in social services programs. The technology funding bill passed during the flurry of action during the Minnesota legislature’s final hours last weekend, receiving broad bipartisan support in both chambers. Gov. Tim Walz is expected to soon sign the bill.

County workers said they’re both relieved and pleased with the deal that was reached.

Emily Mumford, a human services financial supervisor for Blue Earth County, said she hopes that the technology upgrades will make administering benefits more streamlined and efficient.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity from where we’re at now to where we could go in terms of technology,” she said. “Our partners at the state and lawmakers have done a good job listening to what counties are saying and what we need.”

Mulford walked MPR News through the tedious and time-consuming process of entering information to determine if someone qualifies for Medicaid and SNAP food assistance benefits and meets new work requirements imposed by the “One Big Beautiful Bill” act Congressional Republicans passed and President Trump signed into law last summer.

“What I'm doing is updating what someone's job information is,” Mulford said as she painstakingly tapped on her keyboard. “So this would be a place where we record how much they make, how often they get paid, any information that's needed to determine eligibility.”

Mumford showed us how she must mind-numbingly enter and reenter the same data several times into different fields in the antiquated MAXIS system.

“They haven't been able to get this system updated, so every time a worker has to do that, they have to go through an extra set of manual steps to make sure the eligibility is correct. That makes more room for error because the staff have to remember that there's a set of extra steps.”

Employees must double- and triple-check everything they enter; all that extra time laboring over a keyboard and computer screen costs taxpayers more money.

"It's frustrating for workers, it's time-consuming for workers," said State Rep. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, as he advocated in committee for passage of the IT bill last weekend. "And it means that it's hard to keep employees in place. What young person would like to sit down in front of a green screen and watch the wheel of death for a while before they can even enter an address the first time? And in many of these applications, they have to enter the same address three or four times."

The bill lawmakers ultimately passed also establishes an ongoing technology fund for counties and tribes so they don’t have to wait decades for the state to appropriate more dollars to make future upgrades. And the legislation will establish the Human Services Modernization Advisory Council and a legislative commission to lead statewide technology revamps.

Julie Ring, executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties, said that while the funding is welcome, the effort to modernize the technology counties use will take some time.

“Even the fastest short-term stuff, we’re still talking [about] in the scheme of a couple years,” Ring said. “There are some things that we think can be fixed in the system today quickly, but a lot of it is going to take planning.”

Many counties around the state struggled with increased workloads navigating the outdated systems, as the federal government shifted more of the administrative burden onto states and counties while, at the same time, slashing funding for the programs.

Counties said it took more employees and more time to comply with new requirements for safety net programs, so the need to update the antiquated technology was urgent. Some raised concerns about needing to raise property tax rates to cover the increased administrative costs or cut services, such as reducing how often they plow snow and cutting public library hours.

However, Ring said there are lessons to be learned about investing in the infrastructure that helps administer benefits to the residents who rely on them.

“We have to think about how all of us, together — federal, state and local — can be delivering the best services the most efficiently to Minnesotans,” she said. “When there are changes, the ripple effect through all the levels of government and all the workers who touch those things is complicated and messy and something that we struggle to figure out the best way to make policy around.”

MPR politics fellow Cait Kelley contributed reporting for this story.

Gerald and Wally are Black men who live in the suburbs of Atlanta. Both grew up voting for Democrats and voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. Then in 2024, they switched to voting for President Trump.

Gerald, 51, is very happy with the president.

"Listen, I am so pro-Trump, people just don't even understand," said Gerald, sitting at the kitchen table he and his wife share with their blended family after a long day at work as a truck driver. "The dude is amazing because he's not following the script."

He gives Trump an A++ for his performance on the job. When asked the same question, Wally, 44, gave Trump an F.

"Like, what do we have that we can hang our hat on right now?" Wally asked rhetorically. "We have higher gas prices."

Gerald and Wally are among a dozen swing voters in swing states who have agreed to regularly speak with NPR over the next three years as part of a project we are calling Swing Shift. We agreed not to use their full names and commissioned an artist to illustrate portraits in order to allow them to speak more freely about politics, without being concerned facing personal or professional repercussions.

In political reporting, polls provide a snapshot in time. Focus groups and interviews in diners are typically one offs, where we can't delve too deeply into what any one voter is thinking. Swing Shift is an ongoing conversation with a group of voters who could be pivotal in both this year's midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

The participants live in swing states and don't always vote for the same party. Most of them voted for Biden in 2020 and then Trump in 2024. A couple swung in the other direction. At some point in the past decade, they have all voted for Trump.

"How they vote is how America will vote," said pollster Frank Luntz.

In a polarized country, these are the people who help decide elections. The goal is to really get to know these voters and how the issues dominating the national political conversation are playing out in their daily lives. Their stories are the stories of a critical piece of the electorate.

"This 7 percent of America that goes back and forth and not just back and forth between Republicans and Democrats – they'll vote for an independent candidate and they may not even vote. And that is the margin of success in the states and districts that matter," Luntz added.

So, how are these voters feeling? We will regularly check in with them, asking a baseline set of questions, including how they grade the president's performance (and that of Republicans and Democrats in Congress too). We also asked them one word or phrase to describe the current state of the country.

Gerald and Wally are the first Swing Shift voters we visited at home. Their reasons for supporting Trump and their views of his performance now couldn't be more different.

Wally can't think of a positive line item out of the Trump presidency.

"I think with Trump, we're just trying to weather this guy," Wally said. "We can't get to 2029 fast enough. The problem is what shape will we be in once we get there."

Wally sat in his backyard by a fire pit, near the swing set he said his kids are getting too big for. His family is financially secure, he has a good job in technology, but he wants a better country for his children. And he just can't see it.

"Everyone's drowning, and like we just need to come up for air," Wally said. "No one's really just trying to swim to shore. We're just trying to get our head or our noses above the water."

Is he surprised? Not really. He didn't have high expectations for a second Trump term, but he was fed up with the incremental change Democrats were offering. Trump enjoyed more Black voter support than any Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, according to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University.

In Feb. 2025, 36 percent of Black voters approved of the job Trump was doing as president. Today, that number has dropped to 26 percent. Wally's view of the American political system is dark. He believes the country needs to hit rock bottom, so he voted for maximum chaos. "I feel if people get mad enough, they'll force change," said Wally. "They'll force it somehow."

Wally said his wife was not on board with his political change or his nihilist view of what the country needs. Gerald's wife supported his shift and is right there with him, he said. And Gerald's vote in 2024 was a hopeful one. He swung to Trump after researching and doing more critical thinking.

"And to me critical thinking means, what if I'm wrong about what I've been told?" Gerald asked.

Gerald credits his children, too, with helping him challenge his views, especially as he learned more about history. Now, he said, he's never going back to the Democrats, even as he's lost friends over his pro-Trump social media posts.

He's a big fan of using AI and gets his news from YouTube, TikTok and ABC's World News with David Muir. For him, switching parties was like switching phones.

"I was a [Samsung] Galaxy phone user," he said.

And he was all in on the Galaxy until he picked up an iPhone. He pointed to the phone on the table in front of him.

"This thing is amazing. You know, when I find the truth out, you will not represent it better than I can. It's just how I am," Gerald said.

Gas prices are kicking his butt right now. His personal vehicle is a big dually pickup that takes diesel. But diesel is even more expensive than regular unleaded, so he's been trying to use his wife's car to get around when he can, to save money on fuel. Still, Gerald has faith in Trump, and said the current economic pain will be worth it if the threat from Iran is resolved.

"I just try to do the cutting back to do, to survive, 'til we make it through it," said Gerald. "It's like anything else. It's a season."

He uses apps to find discounts on gas and noted there are other ways to cut back, like not eating out at restaurants all the time. Or even eating less.

"Cook. Fast. I mean me and my wife have been fasting, and there's a lot of benefits, including one of those benefits is saving money on groceries," Gerald said.

The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds 8 in 10 Americans say the high price of gas is causing them economic strain. Nearly two-thirds blame Trump for those higher prices.

But these are sacrifices Gerald is willing to make. It hasn't soured his view of the president.

NPR's Lexie Schapitl and Bria Suggs contributed to this story.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Millions of dollars are on the way to HCMC, Minnesota's largest trauma center, now that the state legislative session has ended and lawmakers approved a healthcare bill.

The safety-net hospital serves more low-income and uninsured patients than any other facility in Minnesota and is expected to lose more than $1 billion in the next decade.

The legislative aid for HCMC includes $205 million in state support this year and access to a $500 million reserve account available through 2031.

Although hospital leaders were hoping for a steady stream of income via a ballpark tax on Target Field, the funding will tide them over until the next legislative session, said Jeffrey Lunde a Hennepin County commissioner and chair of Hennepin Healthcare, which oversees HCMC.

“I think the Legislature is going to take on the fact that healthcare in Minnesota is sick in and of itself, and then there needs to be structural changes, and so this helps us get to that next stage,” Lunde told MPR News.

He said HCMC will continue to try to collect on UCare payments and possibly look to offload some services to other hospitals to help mitigate further deficits.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation's first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state, and in response, the Trump administration has sued, teeing up a legal battle over the most far-reaching crackdown on popular services like Kalshi and Polymarket.

It comes as states confront a growing standoff with the Trump administration over how to regulate the industry, which allows people to bet on virtually anything.

The new state law makes it a crime to host or advertise a prediction market, which it defines as a system that lets consumers place a wager on a future outcome, like sports, elections, live entertainment, someone's word choice and world affairs.

The prohibition extends to services supporting prediction markets, like virtual private networks, that could allow consumers to disguise their location and get around the ban.

It would force prediction market sites like Kalshi and Polymarket to leave the state, or face possible felony charges. The law takes effect in August.

"We as a state should decide how best and what regulations we think should attach to gambling, to protect public safety, to protect our kids," said Minnesota Rep. Emma Greenman, the Democrat who introduced the measure.

The law has a carve-out for event contracts that serve as an insurance policy in the event of "harm, or loss sustained" and for the purchase of securities and other commodities.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's lawsuit seeks to block the law before it starts, arguing the prediction market industry should be exclusively regulated by federal officials.

"This Minnesota law turns lawful operators and participants in prediction markets into felons overnight," said CFTC Chairman Michael Selig. "Minnesota farmers have relied on critical hedging products on weather and crop-related events for decades to mitigate their risks. Governor Walz chose to put special interests first and American farmers and innovators last."

An updated version of the prediction market bill will allow trading on weather, an exception that followed pushback from the agricultural industry, which has historically used futures trading on weather as a hedge against storms and other inclement weather that can affect a harvest. The bill passed over the weekend.

Besides Minnesota, bills cracking down on the prediction market industry have been introduced in seven other states, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. Two of those states, Hawaii and North Carolina, have pending bills seeking to ban the industry statewide.

Experts say the cloud of legal uncertainty hanging over prediction markets apps have not slowed their rapid growth.

"The states are using any tactic they can to go after the prediction market companies," said Melinda Roth, a professor at Washington and Lee University's School of Law, who studies the industry. "But they've embarked on a too big to fail strategy and have become quite mainstream," she said. "It will be hard to put that genie back in the bottle."

A legal fight over the Minnesota ban is expected. Questions over whether states or the federal government should oversee the prediction market industry have already triggered more than 20 lawsuits. One of those cases, in Nevada, led to Kalshi pausing its sports betting in the state after a judge found it "indistinguishable" from state-regulated sports gambling.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed federal lawsuits against five states, including Arizona, Wisconsin and New York, attempting to override state regulators' attempts to rein in the betting sites.

The CFTC has argued it has exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets, even though former CFTC members and legal experts say bets on football games, words President Trump might say during a press conference and whether Ricky Martin will make an appearance at the Super Bowl are matters far outside its traditional scope.

In a statement to NPR, Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana said banning prediction markets is a "blatant violation" of the law.

"Minnesota banning prediction markets is like trying to ban the New York Stock Exchange," said Diana, adding that "this actively harms users because it reduces competition and drives activity offshore."

A Polymarket spokesman told NPR that Minnesota's ban runs counter to the federal government's "established framework" for regulating prediction markets.

Tribal-owned casinos operate in Minnesota, but online gambling and sports betting are not legal in the state.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have given access to sports betting to people in states where the activity is prohibited, since the Trump administration regulates the sites as a type of "event contract," rather than gambling, which typically is overseen by state gaming authorities.

Nonetheless, sports gambling powers the sites. On Kalshi, for instance, more than 85 percent of trading activity is related to a sporting event, some of those trades being "parlays," high-risk wagers that multiple things, points scored, fouls, passes, will all happen.

Bettors on the sites are making billions of dollars in trades every week, even as questions around insider trading and how the markets can create perverse incentives for people to manipulate real world outcomes continue to vex the companies.

Minnesota Public Radio News reporters Dana Ferguson and Peter Cox contributed reporting to this story.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday appointed Associate Justice Theodora Gaïtas to serve as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, following the retirement of current Chief Justice Natalie Hudson in September.

The move leaves an associate seat open on the bench, which Walz said he will fill with the appointment of Ramsey County District Court Judge Reynaldo Aligada Jr. A ceremony announcing the appointment of both justices is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

Gaïtas has previously served on the Minnesota Court of Appeals and the Fourth Judicial District Court. Walz appointed her to the Supreme Court in 2024. The DFL governor said her experience as the only Supreme Court justice to serve at all three levels of the judicial branch, as well as the first former public defender to lead the court, would serve the state well.

“Justice Gaïtas will be an exceptional chief justice, leading the Judicial Branch with wisdom, resolve, and fairness,” Walz said in a news release. “She brings a rare breadth of experience, having served at every level of our state’s judiciary, and will be the first public defender to serve as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. That perspective will be invaluable, guiding her leadership as she takes on this profound responsibility to serve all Minnesotans.”

Gaïtas said she is honored to be appointed to lead the state’s high court.

“I’m committed to a judiciary that all Minnesotans can access, trust, and rely on. These commitments will guide every decision I make as chief justice,” she said. ”I look forward to working alongside the talented judges and court professionals across this state, whose dedication makes justice possible every day.  And I want to recognize and thank Chief Justice Hudson, who has provided outstanding service to the judicial branch and the people of Minnesota.”

Aligada will fill the vacancy left by Gaïtas when she is elevated to the chief justice post. He currently chairs the Minnesota Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Minnesota Rules of Evidence. Prior to serving on the Ramsey County District Court, he worked in the Office of the Federal Defender and as an associate at the firm Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi.

Walz said Aligada “is someone who leaves a lasting impression on everyone he meets, pairing a keen legal mind with genuine humility and compassion.”

“He will be a justice who truly sees and listens to the people who come before him, ensuring every voice is heard and respected,” Walz continued in a news release. “In addition to his outstanding judicial background, he will bring a perspective not yet represented on this court, the voice of Minnesota’s Asian Pacific Islander community, further strengthening the court’s connection to the people it serves.”

Aligada said he’s humbled and honored to join the court.

“I am so grateful to the governor and his team for entrusting me with this great responsibility. I recognize the impact the Court’s decisions have on the lives of Minnesotans, and I will strive to do justice and protect the rule of law,” Aligada said.

Members of the Commission on Judicial Selection and the governor’s administration reviewed seven candidates and recommended that four interview for the associate justice position. And three current associate justices — Gaïtas, Anne McKeig and Paul Thissen — interviewed for the chief justice position.

When Gaïtas is elevated to the chief post and Aligada joins the court, five of the justices will be Walz appointees. And all seven justices on the court will have been appointed by Democratic governors, as is currently the case.

President Donald Trump is moving to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, according to a court filing.

Hours after the announcement, the Department of Justice announced an "anti-weaponization fund" as part of the settlement with Trump. In a statement, the department said the $1.776 billion find will allow the DOJ to settle and pay cases.

Ethics watchdogs and Democrats in Congress are trying to intervene.

Trump and the Trump Organization sued the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department in January demanding $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns years ago.

Legal experts described the case as weak, since the leak has been attributed to a federal contractor, not a full-time employee of the U.S. government. That man is currently serving prison time. They also questioned whether the statute of limitations might have expired; the leaks of tax information happened between 2018 and 2020.

But the Justice Department recently told a judge it had entered negotiations to resolve the dispute. That could mean the government Trump leads would be in line to pay him personally.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami is presiding over the case. The judge recently raised her own doubts, citing Trump's own rhetoric that in some ways, he was negotiating with himself as both plaintiff and president.

 "Although President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction," Judge Williams wrote last month. "Indeed, President Trump's own remarks about this matter acknowledge the unique dynamic of this litigation. Accordingly, it is unclear to this Court whether the Parties are sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy Article III's case or controversy requirement."

There's a process in place at the Justice Department for people who say they've been harmed by the federal government.

In the normal course of business, those claims get evaluated by career lawyers. They rarely involve high-profile criminal investigations like Trump's.

"Some of them are run-of-the-mill, right?" said Rupa Bhattacharyya, a former Justice Department lawyer who evaluated these kinds of allegations. "Postal vehicles get into traffic accidents, Veterans Affairs doctors have malpractice claims brought against them, people slip and fall in federal buildings."

Even in the most serious cases, like ones that involved injuries to people cleaning up after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, Bhattacharyya said the payouts almost never amounted to more than $10 million.

Edward Whelan, a prominent conservative lawyer, told NPR it would make sense to pause the litigation until Trump leaves the White House.

"There is a glaring conflict of interest with Trump being on both sides of the claim," said Whelan, a former lawyer at the Justice Department who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. "It is outrageous that he and those answering to him would be deciding how the government responds to these extravagant claims."

Copyright 2026, NPR

Minnesota lawmakers are sharing their goodbyes Monday morning, with the window to pass final bills having closed.

The Legislature concluded a tense session late Sunday by authorizing construction projects, a financial rescue for a safety-net hospital, new safeguards against fraud and price breaks for car and home owners.

There was a flurry of activity right up to the end, with lawmakers trying to scoot items across the finish line. A transportation proposal missed the mark in the Senate while the House failed to advance a bill that would set term limits for future governors.

One of the last bills to pass will have the state borrow $1.2 billion to finance a range of public projects around Minnesota. Those include building repairs on college campuses, drinking and wastewater treatment initiatives, local road repairs and community centers. That bill passed with ease despite only being unveiled on the final day.

Lawmakers were almost evenly split — 101 DFLers and 100 Republicans.

House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Republican, said despite having a tied chamber there were “wins for Minnesota” throughout the two years of that alignment.

“We have clearly not agreed on everything. Sometimes it felt like nothing, and yet we still got the work done well,” she said early Monday. “And we got it done on time.”

House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson hailed what did get done.

“We just had an incredibly productive session at a time when I think walking in, most people were not optimistic about that,” Stephenson said early Monday. “A narrowly divided legislature couldn’t be more divided.”

Lawmakers were dealt challenges outside of their control — from adjusting to new requirements from the federal government for health and food programs to coping with the assassination of their former colleague to an extended federal immigration agent surge. Gun bills roiled the Capitol, too.

“There are lots of disappointments every year. This was a big one, and that’s been festering for so long,” Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said while sitting beside Sen. Zaynab Mohamed outside the chamber as the clock ticked down.

“Gun violence, Metro Surge, horrific things happening to the community, and the House won’t act on them, and it’s a tied House,” Marty said. “We understand partisan politics, but refusal to vote on her gun violence bill, refusal to allow business relief for the businesses hurt by the surge, there are very few things we’ve won on.”

Mohamed, a Minneapolis Democrat, agreed.

“We've had the opportunity to do more to step up to protect our neighbors, to save programs, and instead we're often choosing between a political headline instead of doing the right thing for people,” Mohamed said.

Emotions were high from the start. Lawmakers mourned former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and the two children killed at Annunciation Catholic Church and School.

Republicans zeroed in on fraud, where some changes to firm up defenses did get made.

They also tried to roll back regulations, mostly without success. Lawmakers spent a lot of time talking past one another.

Rep. Danny Nadeau, R-Rogers, said it often felt like lawmakers were talking past one another.

“Very different views, but all of a sudden we come down here and we stand in one place, but it's almost like we’re back to back,” he said. “So we don’t see what the other person is seeing.”

Legislative leaders said they did the best they could with the political layout. They were also trying to limit spending out of concern a deficit is brewing.

A broad package to close out the session included emergency funding to help prevent the closure of HCMC — the Minneapolis safety-net hospital. A first round of $50 million could help stabilize its finances and another $150 million won’t be far behind.

“These are the people that care for us, and they needed us to step up for them, because that is where people had their babies, maybe on their worst day of their life, they were saved by HCMC,” Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, who championed the proposal.

The deal also included property tax assistance that provides a 15 percent bump to those homeowners who qualify for the homestead tax credit. Drivers could also see some relief from one-year decreases in license tab fees. For the owner of a $25,000 vehicle, the savings is about $72. For a $50,000 vehicle, the renewal cost would fall by about $145.

Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, celebrated those elements.

“We’re able to finally get the tab fees reduced by $254 million,” he said. “That's $254 million that’s going to be staying in Minnesotans’ pockets when they come to renew their tab fees.”

Lawmakers also earmarked money for rental assistance funding and school safety. A new anonymous threat reporting system will be established to head off more school tragedies.

They also renamed a highway and garden in honor of Hortman. And they adopted permanent security upgrades at the Capitol. As well as new protections for lawmakers, judges and other office holders when they’re off the complex.

Republican Rep. Greg Davids said while there have been struggles, the narrowly divided Legislature has fostered positive changes.

“I’ve served in the majority, I’ve served in the minority, and I know how each of those works. I’ve never served in a tie before, and you know what’s been interesting is that it has actually made us sit down with the other side and talk,” Davids said. “That's a good thing.”

Lawmakers return today for retirement speeches. Those running for new terms will turn to campaign mode; candidate filing starts Tuesday.

All 201 legislative seats are on November’s ballot. Both parties hope the tie is broken — as long as they’re the ones on top when the 2027 session starts in January.

MPR News fellow Cait Kelley contributed to this story.

Want to get notified with the latest votes from lawmakers?

As candidate filing deadlines near for those who want to run for political office, a Rochester businessman said he will jump into the race for the city's open mayoral seat.

Joe Powers is best known in Rochester for his large restaurant and catering enterprise and close ties to the business community.

In an announcement at a private event on Friday, Powers said, as mayor, he would focus on affordability and public safety.

"I always said in the back of my mind I wanted to be mayor someday of this community,” he told a crowd of roughly 1,000 people at his kick-off event.

Powers has never run for office before but has played an influential role in local politics in the past. In 2024, he brought together members of the Rochester business community to warn them of efforts by the local branch of a Twin Cities-based progressive group to influence city council elections.

Powers joins four others vying for the open office to lead the city, including small business owner Ben Zastrow, health coach and educator Jerrod Lucker, artist Ayub HajiOmar and former school board member Jess Garcia.

Earlier this year, Mayor Kim Norton announced she would not run again after serving the city for seven years.

Her departure comes at a time of significant growth for the city. Rochester is in the middle of a 20-year, $5.6 billion economic development transformation that is meant to make the city more appealing to visitors to Mayo Clinic and to people who live in the community.

At the same time, Mayo Clinic has started building a $5 billion expansion of its downtown campus.

With a population of just under 125,000 residents, Rochester is Minnesota’s third largest city, and it is the biggest outside of the Twin Cities metro area.

Candidates can file for office starting on May 19. The filing period closes on June 2. If more than two candidates successfully file to appear on the ballot, a non-partisan primary will be held on Aug. 11 to narrow the field to two candidates who would face off in the Nov. 3 general election.

Minnesota lawmakers charged toward a deadline for action on bills Sunday, clearing their desks of an array of budget touchup and policy bills.

Earlier in the week, legislative leaders and the governor reached a deal to pass a $1.2 billion public construction projects bill, refund expansion for some property taxpayers, a temporary decrease in license tab fees and new funding for school and lawmaker safety measures.

But broad swaths of those proposals took into the weekend to be readied for action. Despite some frustration about items left out or changed, the bills were all getting through without incident.

Public Construction Projects Bill

The Legislature’s Capital Investment committees finally presented their $1.2 billion public projects bill Sunday afternoon.

The proposal is one of the main priorities of an even-year session. It needs three-fifths majority support in each chamber to pass.

“Today is a good day. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad we have a bonding bill in front of us,” Rep. Mary Franson, R-Alexandria, told the committee. Franson is co-chair of the House Capital Investment Committee.

The proposal will send hundreds of millions of dollars to water projects around the state, road and bridge repairs, state building preservation efforts and public safety buildings. It also includes a proposal to lower vehicle license tab fees for a year.

It needs to path through both chambers to move to the governor’s desk for his signature.

Capitol security

A proposal to keep in place weapons screening and additional security at the Capitol building passed both chambers Saturday and now moves to the governor’s desk for his signature.

The bill also boosts funding for court security measures around the state and creates a new legislative services unit under the State Patrol that will investigate threats to elected officials and help coordinate temporary police security for lawmakers if they face credible threats.

“This bill, as I have said repeatedly, is not just for legislators,” Rep. Kelly Moller, DFL-Shoreview, said Saturday. “It is much broader than that and provides statewide security.”

Lawmakers have said the additional safety measures are needed after they’ve tracked a surge in threats — and after the June assassination of former House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the attempted killings of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Both shootings took place at the lawmakers’ homes.

Details about additional supplemental budget bills and a capital investment bill are expected to come to light as the proposals get hashed out Sunday.

School safety measures advance without gun restrictions

A proposal to boost funding for anonymous threat reporting is also on its way to the governor’s desk after passing both the House and Senate on Saturday.

The package has been a priority for lawmakers from both parties following the August shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School. Two children died and dozens more were injured.

“For mass school shootings where four or more are killed, the shooters are insiders. Shooters are in crisis. Shooters tell others, that’s why we must a layered approach,” said Coon Rapids DFL Rep. Kari Rehrauer. “One of those effective layers is anonymous threat reporting.”

Some lawmakers said the $5 million appropriation for the threat reporting mechanisms wasn’t enough.

“We should be embarrassed, completely embarrassed,” said Rep. Elliott Engen, R-White Bear Township.

Another supplemental budget bill related to health is expected to include additional funding for student mental health programs.

Democrats have also pressed Republicans in the tied House to take up measures restricting ghost guns, assault-style weapons and high capacity magazines. Thus far, those have not picked up support from GOP lawmakers in the chamber. The DFL-led Senate approved them on a party-line vote.

Money for IT upgrades could head to counties

A bill that will give about $90 million to counties and tribes for human services IT upgrades is headed to Gov. Tim Walz, who is expected to sign it.

People access programs like Medicaid and SNAP through their counties or tribal governments, but the technology staff use to get those dollars in people's pockets dates back decades.

“The technology that the counties are forced to use by the state of Minnesota dates back to the late 1980s early 1990s,” bill sponsor Rep. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, said Sunday. Torkelson said the technology is so slow and difficult to navigate it makes it harder for counties to provide services and retain employees.

“What young person would like to sit down in front of a green screen and watch the wheel of death for a while before they can even enter an address the first time? And in many of these applications, they have to enter the same address three or four times."

Upgrades will be a multi-year process and the bill establishes an ongoing fund so counties and tribes won’t have to wait another 30 years for the Legislature to appropriate more money. In addition, the bill creates the Human Services Modernization Advisory Council and a legislative commission to guide statewide technology upgrades.

The bill also includes $15 million for technology upgrades to improve fraud detection in state agencies. Torkelson said that money is for the Office of the Inspector General, a new government watchdog agency established by the Legislature this year.

This is a developing story. Please check back later for updates.

With fewer than 48 hours remaining this session, lawmakers are working on Saturday to pass several key bills before the Sunday deadline.

Minnesota legislators hammered out a budget framework late Wednesday that includes a rescue plan for HCMC, education spending, additional fraud investigators and technology upgrades for counties.

They’ve also passed high-profile bills in the past week, including a bill that makes grooming a felony, a housing finance deal and a bill that requires children’s social media accounts to be stripped of addictive features — though that bill needs one more vote from the House.

However, lawmakers still have key votes before the 11:59 p.m. Sunday deadline.

DFL gun measures sit-in comes to an end

House Democrats continued pressuring Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth to let the House vote on a gun violence prevention package passed by the Senate, after their sit-in, which started at 9 p.m. Thursday, came to an end late Saturday morning.

“We are getting texts and live streams and videos and stories as we have for the last 36 hours from people across the state of Minnesota telling us to stand strong and stand firm for gun violence prevention,” Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis said outside the House chamber Saturday morning.

Greenman’s district includes Annunciation Catholic Church and School, the site of the mass shooting in August that resulted in two student deaths.

“We know Minnesotans’ kids are watching what we’re going to do here, and they have been doing their job, asking us to choose them, not guns,” Greenman said. “And it is now our job to fight for them and fight to end this epidemic of gun violence that is so directly impacting them.”

Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, helped organize the sit-in and said if the bill doesn’t pass this session, Republicans will pay at the polls in November.

“After Sunday, we take the tools of democracy out to the people, and we come back in January with a majority that is willing to pass this, and that's how this ends,” Finke said.

Advocates rallied outside the House chambers at 11:30 a.m. asking Demuth to bring the bill to the House floor when they meet Saturday.

“The people of Minnesota and across the country are asking for us to ban these weapons of war in our communities,” said Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, at the 11:30 a.m. rally. She added that included Demuth’s daughter, who is a survivor of gun violence.

Two of Demuth’s children, including her daughter Shelisa, were inside the Rocori High School building during a mass shooting in 2003 and two were in the elementary school building nearby.

“Imagine being the first House Speaker in state history who is also the mother of two school shooting victims and conveniently deferring a gun control bill to the next legislative session,” Shelisa Demuth said in a Thursday post on social media.

Speaker Demuth has pushed back against criticism that she hasn’t allowed a vote on gun measures. Demuth said various individual gun bills have faced votes in the House.

Those votes just happened in committee, she said.

“What you've seen is bills brought forward in committee in March, fully vetted, but they failed in committee,” Demuth said on MPR News’ Politics Friday. They failed without Republican support.

Demuth said she’s not interested in passing legislation in large, catch-all omnibus bills.

“The Senate has chosen to send packages over,” Demuth said. Those packages include the gun violence prevention bill and a bill restricting the power of federal immigration agents in Minnesota.

“We are not doing that,” Demuth said. “We're doing individual bills.”

Egg-cellent news for food banks

The House and Senate repeatedly recessed Saturday to work behind-the-scenes on major bills before they face floor votes. However, the chambers ticked off some smaller items in the meantime.

The House followed the Senate’s lead and unanimously passed a bill that allows poultry eggs to be donated for 30 days after their expiration date, when they are still safe to eat.

As egg prices have risen and more people use food shelves, lawmakers said they wanted to ensure unsold eggs don’t go to waste.

“We're going to see that ability for food waste reduction,” Rep. Andrew Myers, R-Tonka Bay, said.

“We're going to see that ability of thousands of volunteers at local food shelves across the state to get more good protein into those food shelves to help support our neighbors that are in need,” Myers added.

Lawmakers also couldn’t give up an opportunity for a good food pun.

“Let's just whisk this over to the governor,” said DFL Floor Leader Jamie Long of Minneapolis. “I know for one, I'm going to be voting shell yes.”

Anti-grooming bill gets House approval, heads to governor

An anti-grooming bill making it a felony for an adult to groom — or seduce — a child is headed to the governor’s desk.

It was sent back to the House on Saturday after the Senate passed an amended version.

The bill would establish new training for mandatory reporters and expand the education department’s authority to investigate allegations of misconduct beyond three years.

Rep. Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, urged her colleagues to pass the bill.

“It’s been a great process — bipartisan,” she said. “Let's just vote green to protect our kids from sexual predators and grooming in schools.”

The bill easily passed the House unanimously Saturday after passing the Senate unanimously Friday. It now heads to Gov. Tim Walz to sign.

Meat raffle bill clears the Senate

The Minnesota Senate passed a bill allowing larger maximum prizes in meat raffles. Currently state law limits meat raffle prizes to a maximum of $70.

But as the cost of meat has risen, the cuts available at raffles have shrunken. The meat raffle bill increases the prize limit — which hasn't been raised in 40 years — to $200.

Sen. Zach Duckworth, R-Lakeville, praised his colleagues for their rare bipartisan work on his bill.

“It’s going to do a lot of good for local charities. In all seriousness, youth sports, a lot of great civic organizations, they're going to be able to raise even more money if this becomes law for a whole lot of really good causes out there. So, thanks everybody,” he said.

The bill still needs House passage and the governor's signature.

Social media companies would have new guardrails around accounts for minors, under a bill that passed the Minnesota Senate Friday.

The bill requires parental approval for children under 16 to open a social media account and bans some features that the bill’s authors say make these sites addictive, such as infinite scrolling, push notifications, autoplay videos and targeted advertising.

Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, said the bill also requires that these accounts have the strictest privacy settings and aims to limit the amount of data that these companies can collect about children using these apps.

The bill had bipartisan authorship and easily passed the Senate 66-0.

“Our partisan differences fall away when we're talking about Big Tech and AI regulation, because the devastation, the harm, the addictive features are visible in every kind of community, and it's not a red or blue thing, it is a human thing,” Maye Quade said. “So we have come together as legislators, regardless of party, to say it has got to stop, and we need to do something.”

Sen. Michael Kreun, R-Blaine, an author of the bill, said in a statement that this legislation will protect children.

“We are in the midst of a public health crisis that is affecting the mental and physical health of so many kids across the state, and it’s something we must address for the safety of everyone,” Kreun said. “I authored this bill because I believe it’s very important that we address this problem with commonsense safeguards that keep our kids safe when engaging with addictive social media.”

The bill had already passed the House, but an amendment on the Senate floor means it has to go back to the House for a concurrence vote before it heads to the governor’s office.

If signed into law, Minnesota would join about 20 other states that have enacted laws that regulate social media access for minors. Companies have filed lawsuits challenging some of those laws.

Maye Quade said the authors of the Minnesota bill studied the legal pitfalls used in lawsuits against those states.

The Minnesota Senate on Friday voted unanimously to pass a bill to make the sexual grooming of children a felony.

It would require the Minnesota Department of Education to develop new mandatory reporter training to help school staff identify grooming.

The bill has already passed the House. Senate lawmakers on Friday added an amendment that would add additional funding. It will now go back to the House where lawmakers are expected to sign off and send to Gov. Tim Walz.

The measure gained traction following an MPR News investigation last fall that found police had concluded an Eagan High School band teacher had a “pattern of predatory grooming” in two districts for more than a decade.

Hannah LoPresto, the person at the center of that story, testified repeatedly at the Capitol this session about the need to strengthen state laws. Her concerns brought a rare bipartisan response from lawmakers, with several sharing their own stories.

“I was 9 years old the first time a grown man said something sexual about my body,” said state Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL- Apple Valley who sponsored the bill in the Senate.

“When I was 14 years old, my best friend was in a relationship for years with a 24 year old man. It was not uncommon for girls as young as 13 and 14 to have boyfriends who are in their 20s,” she told colleagues on the Senate floor.

“What is happening to young girls and women in this world is truly, truly awful, and our statutory construction often ignores that reality that far too many of us experience,” she added.

Emphasizing how important the measure was to her, House bill sponsor Rep. Peggy Bennett-R Albert Lea, told colleagues her story of being groomed by a band director when she was in 10th grade.

Both lawmakers credited the courage of LoPresto in helping shape the bill.

“Just watching Hannah’s courage and her bravery and speaking out … I don’t know that we would have gotten to this point right now without them,” Bennett said.

Bennett believes the bill will prevent similar abuse from happening to other students and hopes that by telling her story along with Hannah, Maye Quade and others, survivors will find the courage to come forward.

“That’s where victims, I think, are empowered, when they can speak out. That’s when the shame is lifted, and you can say, ‘You know what? This wasn’t my fault. This was that perpetrator’s fault,’” she said.

“I do want this bill to be a statement to those sexual predators that go after our kids, that go into our schools … to just say we’re coming after you, and I mean that,” she added. “We’re watching. Leave our kids alone.”

Bennett and Maye Quade say their work on the bill has led community members and colleagues to share similar stories of abuse.

“It’s notable that so many legislators connected with (Hannah’s) story and had similar stories,” Maye Quade said. “One of the experiences of this bill is having a lot of staff in this building come up to me and say, ‘Oh, let me tell you about a thing that happened to me when I was in school, or like my classmate.’ It is long past time.”

For LoPresto, seeing the bill move forward and hearing lawmakers applaud her effort has been meaningful.

“Something that I’ve learned through this process is just how common it (grooming) is, unfortunately,” LoPresto said in April after the bill passed the House. “But actually learning that made me feel less alone. And I think it can be comforting for other people who've experienced it to know just how many other people have experienced it too.”

Maye Quade said she is working on more legislation to raise the age of consent in Minnesota to 18 and increase penalties for failures in mandatory reporting as well as removing the statute of limitations for victims to pursue civil penalties.

Correction (May 16, 2026): A previous version of this story incorrectly described a portion of the Senate bill. It has been updated.

An agreement between Minnesota lawmakers clears a path for the Legislature’s session to finish on time, for now. The deal includes help for a Minneapolis hospital, cuts to vehicle registration fees and property tax relief for homeowners.

All Things Considered host Clay Masters and the MPR News politics team break down the legislative deal that was reached midweek and recap the final days of the session as it nears it conclusion.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation and subscribe to the Politics Friday podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS, for a deeper dive into state politics.

Guests:

• Brian Bakst is politics editor for MPR News and host of Politics Friday.

• Dana Ferguson is a political correspondent for MPR News. 

• Peter Cox is a political correspondent for MPR News. 

Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota lawmakers reached a bipartisan budget agreement late Wednesday that paves the way for the conclusion of the Minnesota Legislature’s session. The deal includes support for a key Minneapolis hospital, cuts to vehicle registration fees and property tax relief for homeowners.

The pact between Gov. Tim Walz and top lawmakers will still need some massaging before bills are ready for final votes, which must take place by midnight on Sunday.

In the final weekend of the legislative session, lawmakers still need to resolve several major budget items. One of these items includes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for HCMC, the state’s busiest Level 1 trauma center.

HCMC has struggled with budget constraints for years and is expected to incur $1.7 billion in losses over the next decade due to rising uninsured rates and changes to federal policy, including Medicaid cuts.

Operated by Hennepin Healthcare, the safety-net hospital serves more low-income and uninsured patients than any other facility in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Nurses Association hailed the new state funding agreement as a victory for both the hospital and its patients.

“When nurses leave the bedside, patients lose access. This keeps care in place for Minnesotans who depend on this hospital,” said Janell Johnson Thiele, RN and HCMC Tri-Chair. “We must continue to seek permanent funding solutions.”

DFL Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy said the caucus supported healthcare throughout the session, calling the negotiations “hard-fought.”

Immediate state support

Lawmakers are finalizing the agreement’s details, but they plan to direct $205 million from the state's general fund to stabilize HCMC for this year.

Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis and co-lead author of the bill, said in an interview with MPR News that there was broad consensus on the importance of the hospital.

“We must save it,” Agbaje said. “While it took some time to get people to understand the gravity of the situation and understand the meaningfulness of our response, I'm glad we got there.”

The deal also allocates $500 million over five years for healthcare systems and hospitals at risk of closure. An additional $30 million will be set aside for distressed hospitals across Minnesota. During a press conference, Agbaje said that healthcare facilities must meet certain criteria to receive state funding, including the amount of medical assistance provided as well as the amount spent on uncompensated care for patients who are unable to pay for services.

HCMC accounts for 20 percent of all uncompensated care in Minnesota, according to Hennepin Healthcare. Agbaje said that while the $30 million is insufficient, she assured that lawmakers are committed to addressing hospital funding needs

“We want to come back in future legislatures to make sure that we're providing the resources that hospitals, not only HCMC, need to really survive in this coming era,” she said.

Hennepin Healthcare Board Chair Jeffrey Lunde said in a statement that the agreement represents progress in stabilizing the hospital and safeguarding access to services for years to come.

Lawmakers emphasize oversight

Leaders from both political parties have agreed to establish a working group focused on financial oversight and creating a new governance structure for HCMC. Agbaje noted that the county board will transition to a professional board tasked with overseeing the hospital. Board members will have expertise in finance, public health and administration, all critical for managing a hospital she said.

Agbaje also said that hospitals will need to fulfill reporting requirements for the public funds they seek, and lawmakers will receive updates on how the initial $205 million is spent. At the same time, a legislative committee will determine whether to distribute additional funds from reserves in upcoming years.

On Wednesday evening, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison held a public forum about the future of HCMC. Community members in attendance asked about the oversight measures in place.

"It's not that the hospital needs oversight because they haven't done what their job is; they have," Ellison said. "When you get more resources, you're going to get more oversight. That's totally appropriate.”

Ballpark tax debate ends

Bipartisan proposals to support HCMC included increasing Hennepin County sales tax revenue to fund the hospital. One plan suggested repurposing the county’s existing 0.15 percent sales tax, which is used to pay off bonds for Target Field’s construction, into a 1 percent sales tax. The change could have generated about $340 million annually for HCMC, with the remaining funds allocated for ballpark-related investments.

Hennepin County requires legislative approval to reallocate these funds as a healthcare tax to cover ongoing expenses. Instead, Wednesday’s agreement uses money from the state’s general fund.

Agbaje said that legislators were reluctant to use tax dollars for the hospital. GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth added that the agreement was reached without extending the Hennepin County ballpark tax or increasing Minnesotans taxes.

“Our caucus has fought all session long for car tab relief, property tax cuts, and meaningful anti-fraud measures,” Demuth said. “This budget delivers that, along with help for rural and critical access hospitals across the state and relief for our counties.”

Walz described the HCMC agreement as a “historic, bipartisan investment”. “I'm proud of what we did, but I want to be very cautious on this,” he said. “This is only the beginning of the health and the hospital crisis across the country.”

Lawmakers anticipate that healthcare and hospitals will be a major focus during the 2027 legislative session. But attention now turns to finalizing the bill language related to Wednesday night’s budget deal and to advance the measures through both chambers before the session ends on May 18.

MPR News political correspondent Dana Ferguson contributed to this story.

Minnesota lawmakers are filling in the details of a legislative budget agreement struck this week and will have to hustle to pass the bills needed to enact it.

If they do, Minnesotans will see reductions in their vehicle registration, help with rising property taxes, continuation of a lead pipe replacement push and more. A key hospital in Minneapolis would get a lifeline and counties would get money to replace old technology that makes running programs difficult and fraud more of a risk.

The Legislature was tasked with a compact agenda and it looks like that is what will result. Items that were seen as politically problematic were kept to the side in favor of proposals that could get bipartisan buy-in.

MPR News politics editor Brian Bakst talks with the Minnesota’s four caucus leaders about how a session-ending agreement came together — two DFLers and two Republicans.

Then, a check-in with our state Capitol team, and what they’re picking up on, as the Legislature inches closer to its conclusion.

Guests:

• Rep. Lisa Demuth, of Cold Spring, is a Republican and the speaker of the Minnesota House.

• Rep. Zack Stephenson, of Coon Rapids, is the DFL caucus leader for the Minnesota House.

• Sen. Erin Murphy, of St. Paul, is the DFL Senate majority leader.

• Sen. Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks, is the Republican Senate minority leader.

• Dana Ferguson is a political correspondent for MPR News.

• Peter Cox is a politics reporter for MPR News.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation or subscribe to the Politics Friday podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.

Minnesota House Democrats staged a sit-in protest Friday in an effort to force a vote on gun restrictions and school safety measures, leaving final action on major aspects of a session-ending deal on hold until the weekend.

About a dozen DFLers remained in the chamber overnight following a failed effort to bring the bill up on Thursday night. They said the protest would continue through Saturday, when the House is set to resume its work on the floor.

The lawmakers said they want to put public pressure on GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth with just a few days remaining in the legislative session. The proposal passed the DFL-led Senate but hasn’t advanced in the Minnesota House, where there is a 67-67 tie between Republicans and Democrats.

“We're going to go right until the House gavels back in (on Saturday),” Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul, said Friday morning. “That bill's being held back, being hidden somewhere. And so we're going to stay right on through until the House gavels us back in and again, say ‘We want to see the bill and get the bill moving through the process.’”

As Thursday’s session ended, there was a shouting match between DFL and Republican lawmakers, who traded accusations over what was said and posted on social media about their version of events.

Members of the press and public were unable to see the sit-in as the chamber was locked while the House was out of session. DFL members livestreamed their prolonged time on the floor. They discussed their motivation for the action and had gun violence advocates call in to share their support.

Asked about the lack of a vote on the gun measure, Demuth said the bill hadn’t moved through the appropriate committees.

“We have taken bills up already on the same topics, individually within committee, that have failed on a party line vote,” Demuth said Thursday. “We have absolutely taken votes. They just haven't turned in the way that we're hearing some people want.”

Family members of children hurt or killed in an August shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School have been a frequent fixture at the Capitol this session and have urged lawmakers to add the gun restrictions.

Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis said lawmakers need to heed their calls for change.

“The public and these families and these students did their job. They have been sharing their stories for months. They brought their beautiful kids, brought their beautiful voices, to the rotunda to sing and hold us in hope,” Greenman said. “It is time for us to do our job, and what we and our colleagues have said is, ‘We will use all the power we have.’”

It would take a motion to suspend House rules, which requires a two-thirds vote to pass, to enable a quick vote.

Demuth told MPR News’ “Politics Friday” host Brian Bakst that she’d spoken with Annunciation families after the shooting and agreed to move school safety funding but not gun restrictions.

“What I didn't promise in that room is that there would be a gun ban vote and passage, because I don't have that authority,” Demuth said. “What you've seen is bills brought forward in committee in March, fully vetted, but they failed in committee.”

Multiple attempts to pull it up to the House also fell short this year. “They were put up for a vote, and they failed,” Demuth said.

Mike Moyski and Jackie Flavin, whose daughter Harper was killed in the shooting, have said Demuth committed to bringing the gun bill to a vote but has since walked that back.

Mike Moyski said the couple met with Demuth in their living room on Sept. 26, about a month after the shooting, and asked if she would allow a bill related to AR-15 rifles and high-capacity magazines go to a vote. Her answer was yes, according to Moyski.

He pushed back against Demuth’s comment that gun bills have failed to get through the House committee process, noting the comprehensive package passed by the Senate featured amendments reflecting months of work.

“That's the bill that we're talking about right now. We can't keep deflecting to other bills that are not the same as the one we're referencing. That would be my feedback there,” Moyski said.

At the Capitol on Friday, committee hearings and votes in the Senate were scheduled to continue.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz reached a framework to end the legislative session on time. It includes a $1.2 billion public construction projects bill, license tab fee reductions and property tax relief.

It’s not clear whether the sit-in will bog that down.

Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, said she didn’t expect the protest would interfere with the package of legislation getting through on time.

“The grand bargain is done. It is signed, and I don't expect there to be any reason that this would impact that we are making it very clear what we're asking for,” Finke said. “If there is some interference between this and the business that has been done that will be on the Republican side.”

Legislative leaders said they remain confident that the contents of that package are on track to pass.

“Our conference committees are doing good work, and we are on track for a good finish for Minnesotans,” Demuth said.

House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, agreed.

“I think that there's a lot of great things in that agreement, and we are excited to get it into law,” he said.

MPR News Reporter Feven Gerezgiher contributed to this story

The head of U.S. Border Patrol, the agency tasked with securing the nation's frontiers and increasingly tapped by the Trump administration for immigration operations in American cities, announced his resignation Thursday.

Michael Banks' decision, announced in a Fox News interview and later confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security, is the latest leadership shake-up of officials implementing President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown and comes as the Republican administration appears to be recalibrating its approach to its centerpiece policy of mass deportations.

“It’s just time,” Banks was quoted as saying in a report on the Fox News website, which said the resignation was effective immediately. “I feel like I got the ship back on course," he said, referring to what he described as previous chaos at the southern border. Banks said it was “time to enjoy the family and life."

In a statement, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, Rodney Scott, thanked Banks for his service “during one of the most challenging periods for border security.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was not clear who will replace Banks. He led an agency at the forefront of Trump's high-profile immigration enforcement efforts but kept a lower profile than some other officials such as Gregory Bovino, a now-retired commander who became a public face of the immigration crackdown.

Border Patrol participated in immigration enforcement operation in U.S. cities

CBP is one of the federal agencies that participated since last year in a series of immigration enforcement operations, carried out primarily in cities governed by Democrats — an effort that triggered a spike in arrests and led to the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis this year at the hands of federal immigration officers.

Banks' resignation takes place two months after Markwayne Mullin, a former Republican senator from Oklahoma, became homeland security secretary. DHS oversees CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE.

Banks is stepping down at the same time that ICE is also going through a leadership transition. Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, is leaving later this month and will be replaced by David Venturella, who worked for years for private contractors before returning to government service.

CBP was established in 2003 and handles customs, immigration, and agricultural regulations to secure U.S. borders. It has a workforce of over 20,000 agents assigned to patrol the more than 6,000 miles of land borders, and an operating budget of $1.4 billion, according to information from its website.

As head of CBP, Banks became a pivotal figure in the Trump administration’s hardline policy to reconfigure immigration law enforcement in the United States. He oversaw the expansion of prosecutions for illegal border crossings, intensified coordination between the Border Patrol and ICE, and supervised the implementation of broader internal enforcement operations within the country’s borders.

Banks had a long career at Border Patrol

Banks returned to the Border Patrol last year after a long agency career that had never landed him in its senior ranks. His star had risen as border czar to Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, during a period when illegal crossings reached record highs and the state launched a multibillion-dollar enforcement surge that led to turf battles with the Biden administration.

Banks kept a relatively low public profile as arrests for illegal crossings that have plunged to their lowest levels since the mid-1960s, a trend that began toward the end of that Democratic administration.

Banks did not appear publicly at the Border Security Expo this month in Phoenix, an annual conference at which government officials update contractors on the state of the border. Scott, who was Banks’ supervisor, is a close ally of Trump border czar Tom Homan and has acted more as the agency’s public face.

Banks, who grew up in a small town in Warner Robins, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta, Georgia, has said his first job was picking peaches at an orchard when he was 14 years old. He worked with migrant farm workers and learned “compassion and humility,” he said, in an interview published last year on the CBP website.

Banks, in the interview, said he was “honored” to have returned to the agency.

“The United States Border Patrol will be unapologetic in its enforcement of our nation’s laws,” he said.

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a man to sue a major logistics company after he lost part of his leg in a semi tractor-trailer crash, a decision that could have big ripple effects across the trucking industry.

The justices ruled unanimously in favor of Shawn Montgomery, whose parked vehicle was hit by a speeding truck driver on an Illinois highway in 2017. He wants to sue C.H. Robinson, the country’s largest freight broker by size, over its role in putting the driver on the road despite what he called “serious red flags.”

The decision does not mean Montgomery will necessarily win the lawsuit, which the company is contesting. But the ruling opens the door to increased liability for freight brokers, a key part of the industry.

The Trump administration and companies such as Amazon had argued that letting the suit go forward would expose logistics companies to liability under a “patchwork” of state laws.

The Transportation Intermediaries Association, an industry group, said the decision was “deeply disappointing.”

“This is like asking travel agents to evaluate the safety of a given airline despite the fact that the airline has been licensed to fly by the federal government,” said Chris Burroughs, the group's president and CEO. “We are working with our members to assess potential next steps to mitigate the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision."

Montgomery's lawyers say the trucker had been cited for careless driving in another crash months earlier and that the carrier he worked for had been involved with at least three crashes in a span of about five months. Montgomery's lawsuit said C.H. Robinson should share liability because it hired the carrier despite those problems.

Montgomery's appeal was backed by more than two dozen states. They said a win for him would help bolster safety in an industry that moves billions of tons of goods across billions of miles every year.

The company argued the suit, filed under state law, must be tossed out because brokers rely on the federal government to regulate carriers and federal law trumps state law.

But in an opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court disagreed. The justices found Montgomery's claims can move forward because they fall under an exception for safety regulations. The high court overturned a lower-court ruling in the company's favor.

The decision could increase insurance costs for freight brokers that eventually “cascade through the economy" and result in higher prices for consumers, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurrence joined by Justice Samuel Alito.

Still, “truck safety is a matter of life and death," Kavanaugh wrote.

C.H. Robinson, which is based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, pointed to another part of his concurrence, where he said the decision does not mean brokers will be “routinely subject” to lawsuits.

“We will keep working with policymakers, advocates, carriers, our customers, and others across the industry to strengthen the national safety system and advance practices that reduce accidents on America’s roads," said Dorothy Capers, the company's chief legal officer.

The ruling could have far reaching effects if brokers can be held liable for the actions of the trucking companies they hire, said Brian Watt, who runs a freight logistics company in Florida.

Brokers will now have to focus more on the safety records of the truckers they contract with to haul all kinds of goods, including hazardous materials, instead of just looking for the cheapest and fastest option.

“More than 28,000 federally licensed brokers currently operate in the United States with virtually no meaningful federal safety oversight regarding how they select carriers,” Watt said in a post on LinkedIn. He said there are tougher standards for brokers that arrange shipments out of ports and on railroads, but that highway shipments face fewer restrictions.

The Transportation Department has been cracking down on the trucking industry over the past year by trying to force unqualified drivers, trucking companies and schools out of the industry.

For America's 250th birthday, the U.S. Postal Service is releasing special edition stamps featuring one of the nation's icons: the bald eagle.

The stamps unveiled Thursday at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota, showcase the bird across five major life stages, from a fuzzy hatchling to the iconic white-headed adult depicted on the country's seal. They were available for immediate purchase across the United States.

“The fact that we’re seeing the eagles in all different stages of its life, it’s sort of making us look back at the stages of the life of our country,” said Steve Kochersperger, a historian at the Postal Service. “At one time, we were just fuzzy little hatchlings, too.”

The bald eagle has been a national emblem since Congress adopted the Great Seal in 1782, though it wasn't designated the national bird until 2024.

The bird has long symbolized American values like strength, freedom and independence, said Kochersperger. At the top of the food chain, the bald eagle dominates in the sky alone with its impressive wingspan and sharp talons.

Some believe Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the national bird because the eagle steals food from other birds, but Kochersperger said that's a myth.

There's another reason why it makes a strong American symbol: the bald eagle is a major conservation success story. In the 1960s, eagles became a rare sight in the U.S. because of poisoning by the pesticide DDT.

But that decline was reversed, thanks to a 1972 DDT ban and the bald eagles' listing as an endangered species in 1978.

“The public relations campaign brought greater awareness that, ‘Hey, this is our national symbol, but they may all be gone if we don’t change our ways,’” Kochersperger said. “And that turned out to be very effective.”

In 2007, the bald eagle was removed from the endangered list, and there are now more than 300,000 eagles in the continental United States, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

David Sibley, the Massachusetts-based artist and bird watcher behind the stamp collection, said the conservation story is part of what makes him think of the bald eagle as a symbol.

“Maybe seeing a bald eagle on the stamp as a bird, living its life from nestling to adult, will hopefully make people think about the natural world and how important things like eagles are, not as a symbol but as part of the ecosystem around us,” he said.

Sibley spent nearly a year working on the digital illustrations for the collection. As someone who usually draws life-sized birds, the tiny stamp size was perhaps the biggest challenge, so he chose to focus on the bald eagle’s head to show as much detail as possible.

Postage stamps have long served as a way to celebrate holidays and highlight American culture, but they can also be educational, if you look closely.

“A stamp does not demand your attention, but it rewards it,” Kochersperger said. “A tremendous amount of planning and effort went into producing that tiny little piece of paper.”

An agreement that paves the way to the Minnesota Legislature’s session finish includes help for a key Minneapolis hospital, cuts to vehicle registration fees and property tax relief for homeowners, according to terms released late Wednesday.

The pact between Gov. Tim Walz and top lawmakers will still need some massaging before bills are ready for final votes. Those must come by midnight on Sunday.

The outline calls for additional spending on education, debt service for infrastructure, technology upgrades for counties, a safety and security package and additional fraud investigators. It would leave available money from a projected surplus partly unspent to avoid budget problems later.

There will also be a rescue package for HCMC, a vital safety-net hospital in Minneapolis that is on shaky financial ground.

“I’m just incredibly proud how we were able to continue to make the investments we know we need to make, whether it's roads and bridges, education, Hennepin County Medical Center — that critical level one trauma center, dealing with the (federal) bill that came out of Congress that threw so much chaos into how we deal with Medicaid, food stamps and other things," Walz said Thursday.

"Then to deal with some of the issues that have been out there that we needed to get done, giving the tools necessary to fight fraud,” he continued.

GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a candidate for governor, said the budget deal delivers cuts to vehicle registration fees and property tax aid. She said accountability for fraud and affordability were top concerns for lawmakers.

“These are good things that have come forward. Affordability for Minnesotans, fraud protection that is so desperately needed and investment going forward,” Demuth said.

DFL Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy and House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson also lauded the package, with Murphy calling it a “hard-fought negotiation.”

Murphy said the state was responding to a number of difficult issues, from the implementation of a federal tax and spending bill that will affect public programs to the killing of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman.

“We're wanting to make sure that Minnesotans, to the best of our ability, get some support and relief from the things that they're experiencing because of so much that has happened that is outside of our control,” Murphy said.

Stephenson focused on the HCMC element as a key component.

“On the worst day of your life, you're very likely to end up at HCMC. And we want to make sure that that hospital is viable and sustainable in the long term future,” he said on Thursday. “And we took a very important step in that process yesterday.”

HCMC, other hospital stabilization

The assistance for HCMC includes $205 million in state support this year — and beyond that a $500 million reserve account available through 2031 to help ensure that the Minneapolis hospital remains open.

Another $30 million will be set aside to help stabilize other hospitals facing financial challenges.

Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, said the agreement would also include additional oversight measures for the hospital, including a new task force to oversee funding sources for HCMC and sustainability moving forward.

“I think it will do a lot to stabilize them. What they’ve been telling us is that they need a lot of funding, especially with everything happening with uncompensated care, those costs exploding, UCare falling through, and also the incoming effects of HR 1,” Agbaje said, referencing the federal law passed last year that includes cuts to Medicaid. “We hope that this helps put them on a stable ground, level a runway for them to be able to then take off into the future.”

Gov. Tim Walz said the HCMC agreement is imperative.

“I'm proud of what we did, but I want to be very cautious on this,” he said. “This is only the beginning of the health and the hospital crisis across the country.”

Property tax relief

Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, who is vice chair of the Senate Taxes Committee, said in a statement that the agreement’s property tax relief component will total $125 million.

He said that “will deliver real help for approximately 600,000 Minnesotans who are struggling with rising property taxes and higher costs.”

The deal announced Wednesday night also includes agreement on a $1.2 billion bonding bill.

Missing from the joint statement and a signed offer sheet was Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, whose caucus is essential for passing a construction projects bill given a higher vote threshold.

But Johnson issued a separate announcement heralding the cut to vehicle tab fees, which he said amounts to $250 million for a single year.

Gun debate and school safety

Something not in the deal is any action on gun restrictions.

A gun measure package passed in the Senate without Republican support May 4, but so far Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, hasn’t allowed the bill to come to a floor vote.

The bill includes funding for school safety initiatives and mental health programs. It also would require owners of certain high-capacity, military-style guns to register them with the state and it restricts the sale of those guns.

Advocates, including members of Students Demand Action and Moms Demand Action, delivered a foot-high stack of letters signed by thousands demanding Demuth permit a floor vote.

The letter reads, in part: “No single law will prevent the rampant and excessive gun violence that has plagued countless Minnesota families. We recognize there is no singular solution that will save every life, but that reality does not excuse inaction.”

“Speaker Demuth, how many more Minnesotans need to beg for action before you allow this bill to come to a vote?” Timberlyn Mazeikis said before wheeling the stack of petitions into the House chamber.

Mazeikis survived the school shooting at Michigan State University in 2023 and is a Students Demand Action volunteer at the University of Minnesota.

“How many more communities have to experience tragedy? How many more students need to grow up afraid? How many more parents have to bury their children?” Mazeikis said.

“I think we all know it. If this bill comes to the House floor, it will pass,” Gov. Tim Walz said Thursday. “That's clearly why it's not coming to the House floor.”

Demuth said the gun restriction bills have failed in tied committees, which is why they didn’t come to a floor vote.

“We have taken bills up already on the same topics, individually within committee, that have failed on a party line vote,” Demuth said. “So we have absolutely taken votes. They just haven't turned in the way that we're hearing some people want.”

As part of the broader deal, lawmakers approved new funding for school-based mental health programs and anonymous threat reporting.

“We've been very clear since September that we are interested in finding bipartisan solutions to school safety as well as public official safety, that has been a high priority of the Republican Caucus,” House GOP Leader Harry Niska, of Ramsey, said. “We are in a tied House, and so we need bipartisan solutions to be able to go forward.”

DFL lawmakers pledged to stage a sit-in on the House floor Thursday night if the bill remains bottled up.

Advocates of the legislation rallied outside the House chambers Thursday evening as the House debated whether to let the bill face a vote or not. Some even brought snacks to fortify DFL lawmakers for the long night expected ahead.

“We know that they're planning to be here all night, we brought them snacks, we bought some things to drink. We want to support them any way we can,” said Kate Havelin, with Indivisible Twin Cities.

Demonstrators rally inside the Capitol for a vote on a gun safety bill

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Wild arena complex

On the heels of losing a heartbreaking, season-ending loss to the Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Minnesota Wild got at least one small victory from legislative leaders Wednesday night.

The leader agreement includes $50 million in funding for renovations at Roy Wilkins Auditorium and Grand Casino Arena.

State officials say the agreement includes $40 million in bonding for Roy Wilkins Auditorium upgrades and $10 million in cash for Grand Casino Arena upgrades. Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Erin Campbell confirmed the details.

That doesn’t cover the request that the team and city of St. Paul made earlier this session. They jointly sought $200 million from the state — $125 million toward arena renovations and $75 million toward Roy Wilkins updates.

In total, the arena and auditorium upgrade plan is expected to cost around $525 million. The aim is to modernize both facilities.

Sen. Sandy Pappas, who heads the committee crafting the bill, issued a statement.

“As a St. Paulite, I am happy to see funds for the 100-year-old Roy Wilkins Auditorium and thank the Governor for his commitment to our historic treasure. Roy Wilkins serves the whole state — it plays host to high school basketball tournaments, college and high school graduation ceremonies, roller derby games, dance competitions, dogs shows and more.”

In a statement, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her said, “I remain always cautiously optimistic, and I trust the talented legislators, leaders, and staff to get this commitment across the finish line. We are grateful for their investment.”

The Minnesota Wild have yet to publicly weigh in.

Capitol and lawmaker security

The proposal also includes funding to maintain weapons-detection technology at the Capitol, along with additional security staffing beyond of the legislative session. The extra measures would run out next week without additional funding.

Legislative leaders also approved a proposal to allow for law enforcement to offer security for elected officials outside the Capitol complex if they face threats to their health or safety. Such threats have become increasingly common in recent years.

Public construction projects bill

Legislative leaders and the governor approved a $1.2 billion capital investment bill that will fund state and local construction projects. They didn’t spell out exactly what would be included in the package but said chairs of the capital investment committees would be tasked with hashing that out in coming days.

The committees fielded more than $7 billion in requests coming into the legislative session.

The bill is one of the tricker ones to pass because it requires three-fifths votes in both chambers to go forward. That means support from both parties is essential.

Johnson, the Senate GOP leader, said enough Republicans would vote for the bonding bill to pass it.

“We were very reluctant to go up to $1.2 billion unless we had a deal that was something that we thought our caucus could get behind and Minnesotans would agree with at the end of the day,” Johnson said. “And I think what we're looking at right now is a good package.”

Around the start of May, as rent again came due, Pastor Miguel Aviles’s phone rang nearly every hour. Each call weighed heavily on him, as he listened to the desperation on the other end of the line.

More people have called La Viña church in Burnsville about rent help in the past two weeks than at any other point this year — including during the peak of the ICE surge.

And more and more callers, he said, have been reporting eviction notices.

“Seeing this level of need, month after month, has been heartbreaking,” said Aviles, who has helped raise and distribute more than $800,000 in rent relief to those impacted by ICE since January. “We want to do even more for these families, but we need the financial resources to keep helping at the level this moment requires.”

That’s a common sentiment among those who created community rent funds in response to Operation Metro Surge — especially as statewide eviction filings tick up compared to last year, when the state already hit a record for its most filings.

At the peak of the ICE surge, Minnesotans raised and distributed millions of dollars in quick, low-barrier rent aid. This grassroots movement shielded hundreds of households from facing eviction, allowing immigrants to stay indoors while armed agents patrolled outside schools and bus stops.

But as public attention has waned and smaller, individual donations have slowed down, the landscape has shifted. Some rent funds can no longer operate and are having to direct those seeking aid to other groups. Some of the most visible funds that have received boosts from charitable foundations are shouldering more rent requests, said Yusra Murad, a rent relief organizer with Keep Minnesota Housed.

Murad meets weekly with dozens of rent organizers who are now confronting a crisis that existed even before thousands of federal agents came to Minnesota and caused an estimated $47 million in lost wages per month, according to the city of Minneapolis.

She said with “hundreds more people who have been doing rent relief organizing there’s that feeling of accountability and wanting to support everybody who is living in unaffordable rental housing,” she said. But the question is now: “can we keep this going?”

Many rent relief funds are now relying on donations from charitable foundations to stay afloat, largely from the Wilson Foundation, which has thus far distributed about $14 million to different community groups for rent relief, according to biotech entrepreneur John Wilson.

In Minneapolis, the city council has allocated $3.8 million for emergency rental assistance and the first $2 million was made available for residents late April. That support is only accessible to those who make below 30 percent of the area median income and who have a pre-eviction notice — a departure from the usual eviction filing requirement.

Help from the state appears to be on the way. On Wednesday, legislators passed a housing bill that includes $40 million for emergency rental assistance. That bill will now head to Gov. Walz.

Those on the front lines of rent relief say additional funding is crucial.

At Shir Tikvah synagogue, the Yesod fund received a record number of requests for rent help around the turn of May — more than at any other point since the fund’s creation in January.

“We lack the resources to cover the current level of need,” said Raena Barrios, the director of operations for Shir Tikvah, whose usual job responsibilities have taken a back seat to triaging the aftermath of the ICE surge.

749 people requested help in the first week of May, totaling $2.2 million in requests, Barrios said. That’s more than double the amount of requests they received during the first week of April.

Barrios said as other rent funds have slowed down or closed, and as word has spread that the Yesod fund is still running, more neighbors have turned to them for help.

The vast majority of requests continue to come from people impacted by ICE, usually households that lost work or are scrambling to make ends meet after a family member was deported.

The fund has had to prioritize people faced with an eviction notice and those with more than two months of rent debt — and has thus far been able to support all of the folks who have reached that point — but the need is far greater than any rent fund can cover.

The “basically constant” support from smaller, individual donations the Yesod fund once received has “come to a trickle,” Barrios said, and they are now relying on a few beefier donations from charitable foundations.

In total, the Yesod Fund has raised and distributed $4.5 million in rental assistance since January. The goal is to keep up the fund, especially as she predicts new needs emerging during this presidential administration, Barrios said.

The Yesod fund is just one of dozens of community rent aid funds that emerged in response to ICE, and whose organizers are navigating the road ahead as attention wanes but need persists.

“I sometimes wish that our politicians and organizations with wealth in our neighborhoods could see what a day in running a mutual aid fund looks like and feels like,” she said. “Because I think it would really change some hearts and minds of the ways that we take care of our people.”

Websites like Kalshi and Polymarket have unleashed a new era of betting on sports and current events. Minnesota lawmakers Tuesday passed a bill banning these prediction markets from the state. To become law, it will need to be signed by Gov. Tim Walz.

The bill is the latest move by states and tribal nations that want to reign in these platforms. If what’s happened elsewhere in the country is any guide, the bill will likely attract lawsuits. A federal agency has sued five states for their attempts to regulate prediction markets. The platforms themselves have also filed lawsuits.

Todd Phillips has been surveying this legal landscape. He’s an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, where he specializes on financial regulation. He joined MPR News host Nina Moini to explain.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Capitol leaders struck an agreement late Wednesday on a range of lingering issues, from tools to combat fraud to construction borrowing to a package of tax cuts.

Precise details would still need to be sketched in and then the sprint to a Sunday midnight deadline for ratification will begin.

The outline released by Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders calls for additional spending on education, debt service for infrastructure, technology upgrades for counties, a safety and security package and additional fraud investigators. It would leave available money from a projected surplus partly unspent to avoid budget problems later.

There will also be a rescue package for HCMC.

“This agreement reflects the disciplined, fiscally responsible approach Minnesotans expect,” Walz said in a written statement. “We are keeping a balanced budget, making targeted reductions, and focusing every dollar on core priorities: fiscal sustainability, critical infrastructure, and the health and wellbeing of our communities.”

GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a candidate for governor, said the budget deal delivers cuts to vehicle registration fees and property tax aid.

“With this budget, we’re delivering on affordability for communities across the state,” she said in a written statement. “This will help Minnesotans statewide afford their lives for years to come.”

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy and House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson also issued statements of support, with Murphy calling it a “hard-fought negotiation.”

Missing from the joint statement and a signed offer sheet was Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, whose caucus is essential for passing a construction projects bill given a higher vote threshold.

Johnson issued a separate announcement heralding the cut to vehicle tab fees, which he said amounts to $250 million for a single year. He also said enough Republicans would vote for the bonding bill to pass it.

On Wednesday, House and Senate lawmakers moved other items ahead while the top-level talks continued.

Lawmaker security

Both chambers of the Legislature have approved bills extending weapons screening at the state Capitol and adding new police protections for lawmakers and other state leaders when they’re away from the Capitol complex.

A conference committee has convened to talk through what should be included in the final bill.

The issue is a top priority for lawmakers who returned this legislative session after the assassination of former House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the nonfatal shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Champlin, and his wife, Yvette. Lawmakers have to pass legislation before the legislative session comes to a close Monday.

Gov. Tim Walz’s administration implemented new weapons screening technology at the Capitol ahead of the legislative session but that’s set to run out next week. The Legislature is considering an extension and additional funding as part of a Capitol security and lawmaker safety measure.

Proposals that emerged from the House and Senate vary in terms of how to provide police security to lawmakers, constitutional officers and judges who face credible threats either at public buildings or when they’re in their home communities.

Conversations about a final proposal are expected to continue this week.

Ramsey County District Court Judge Richard Kyle, Jr., the president of the Minnesota District Judges Association, told the committee that judges and justices could use additional security safeguards as well.

“Colleagues from across the state have experienced a significant uptick in threatening behavior toward judges in recent years,” Kyle said.

Negotiators agreed there is a need to improve safety of lawmakers, judges and other state officials amid a heightened threat environment. But they noted they couldn’t advance a plan until they got a budget target from legislative leaders.

Leaders and Gov. Tim Walz have been meeting privately to reach a broader agreement on end-of-session priorities.

“I think throughout society we are experiencing, obviously, a really elevated level of threat. The sort of norms around people's behavior have really shifted, and it is very concerning,” Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, said. “We do have limited resources, and we want to deploy them in the most effective way and where the need really is. And so this issue of teasing out who needs what is really important.”

Tougher penalties for impersonating police

A proposal to toughen penalties for impersonating a police officer is on its way to the governor's desk for a signature.

The Minnesota Senate unanimously approved the bill on Wednesday. The vote comes after House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman was killed by a man disguised as an officer. DFL state Sen. John Hoffman was targeted by the same suspect.

“This bill helps reinforce trust in legitimate law enforcement officers in our state, and it sends a clear signal to people that will face stiff and severe consequences if they violate that trust,” Hoffman said. “When I answered the door on June 14, I did so because of the trust, and I never want another person in the state to have that trust shattered.”

Republican Sen. Jeff Howe, of Rockville, said it's important that lawmakers act.

"We need to make sure that others have that reassurance when they look out and see that vehicle or see that officer, that pro train themselves as that we are assured that they are that and we have trust,” Howe said.

Convictions under the policy could lead to prison time. Gov. Tim Walz is expected to sign the bill into law.

Housing funds

A housing finance deal is buttoned up and headed for the governor’s desk.

The deal, which was hammered out late Tuesday night by DFL and Republican members of the House and Senate, dedicates about $165 million to housing programs.

The price tag might look high, but the bill is budget neutral which earned it support from some Republicans.

The House passed it Wednesday on a vote of 105 to 28. Senators quickly followed with a 42-25 vote.

Among other measures, the bill appropriates $9 million for grants to organizations working to address homelessness in the state. It also contains money for bonds to build thousands of new housing units and a statewide tenant legal hotline.

“I am thrilled with this bill,” Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, said on the House floor.

“I have no notes,” Nolan added.

The final deal includes $4 million for the manufactured home park infrastructure grant and loan program to update aging manufactured home communities. However, legislation that manufactured home residents have been pushing for for years to limit lot rent increases and curb the influence of corporate mobile home park owners was not part of the final deal.

Rep. Liish Kozlowski, DFL-Duluth, was among the lawmakers who negotiated the deal. Kozlowski expressed disappointment Wednesday over the lack of a measure dubbed by advocates the “Manufactured Home Residents Bill of Rights.”

Residents testifying this session have described being priced out of their homes. Current law allows park owners to increase lot rent twice a year by any amount. Lot rent is the monthly rent paid for the land underneath a mobile home even if the resident owns the home.

“One resident we heard in testimony in conference committee said, ‘This used to be a place I love, and now it's just a place I live and feel trapped,’” Kozlowski said.

Kozlowski otherwise praised the bill, specifically lauding money to prevent homelessness by listing names of Minnesotans who have died while experiencing homelessness, including Kozlowski’s older brother.

“This bill is going to mean that less Minnesotans are sleeping in cars and out in the cold,” Kozlowski said.

“If you would have told us that a $165 million housing bill was going to be coming to agreement here at the waning days of session when we started this year, no one would have believed it,” Rep. Spencer Igo, R-Wabana Township, said during the Tuesday conference committee meeting.

Igo said he’s proud that the bill “doesn’t pick one group of people.”

“There's money in here to build single family homes, multi-family homes, manufactured housing. We've covered it all.”

Exoneration payment

A Minnesota man is one step closer to getting a settlement the largest exoneration claim ever given by the state after he spent more than 19 years of his life for a murder conviction that was overturned.

Marvin Haynes' was freed in 2023. He was convicted at 16 years old and spent nearly two decades in a state prison.

The Minnesota House voted unanimously on Wednesday for the biggest-of-its-kind exoneration award yet in Minnesota. Rep. Luke Frederick, DFL-Mankato, explained why.

“We cannot give him those years back, but we are able to put a financial recompense for that time that was taken away, which is why this year, this is the largest claims bill that we've had,” he said. “Four and a half million dollars will be going to him for the years that were unjustly taken.”

The Senate is expected to vote on a companion bill soon.

Egg expiration bill

The sell by date on eggs would no longer dictate when that staple can be donated under a bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday.

Senators gave unanimous approval to the bill after one of the more pun-filled floor debates this session.

"Let's not scramble it up,” said Republican Sen. Torrey Westrom of Elbow Lake. “This is no yolk."

The bill would allow chicken eggs to be donated up to 30 days past their quality assurance date, when they are still safe to eat. Several other states allow the same thing.

DFL Sen. Erin Maye Quade of Apple Valley also cooked up some zingers

"This bill is eggs-actly the type of legislation we should be doing,” she said. “We should scramble to our desks to vote green."

Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, couldn’t resist his chance.

"Although this bill is not all it's cracked up to be, if you vote green, you will experience a moment of egg-stasy."

The egg bill still needs approval in the House.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Nebraska's second congressional district remains one of the few places in the country with competitive races where persuading voters across party lines could still make the difference in a candidate's success this November.

The Republican nominee, Brinker Harding, who was endorsed by President Trump, ran unopposed in Tuesday's primary.

Yet the Democratic primary remains too close to call with Denise Powell holding a narrow lead over Nebraska State Sen. John Cavanaugh, according to the latest results by The Associated Press.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon has held the seat since 2017 but announced his retirement last year. The city of Omaha, which makes up much of the state's second congressional district, is known for not leaning as far right when compared to Nebraska as a whole.

While Republicans in this congressional district have the most registered voters, Democrats and independent voters combined outnumber them, according to recent data from the Nebraska Secretary of State.

A race that could have consequences for Nebraska's 'blue dot'

Omaha is also known as the blue dot when it comes to electoral politics.

The Democratic primary attracted large amounts of outside spending spurred in part by Democratic aligned donors and groups who were concerned that a Cavanaugh win would solidify a Republican supermajority in the state legislature.

Cavanaugh currently serves as a Nebraska State Senator representing a safely Democratic district in central Omaha. If Cavanaugh heads to Washington, Nebraska's Republican governor would get to appoint a replacement to finish out his term, which ends in 2028.

Even though Republicans already have a supermajority in the officially nonpartisan legislature, some Democrats worry losing a seat in a reliable district could have consequences at the statehouse, including changing how the state votes for president to eliminate the blue dot.

Cavanaugh and his supporters have said they are confident in the ability of Democratic legislative candidates to flip at least one seat to offset the potential loss.

Nebraska is one of two states, the other being Maine, that does not use a winner-take-all approach to awarding electoral votes. Two electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote, and one vote is awarded to the winner of the popular vote in each of the state's three congressional districts.

Will Democrats flip an open U.S. House seat?

That helped Democratic presidential candidates, like Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, who picked up one electoral vote here even as many voters in the second Congressional district split their ballot, choosing Bacon for reelection the same year.

"I think I've been able to show that I'm not a Republican first," Bacon told ABC's KETV when he announced his retirement last year. "I'm a Christian American, somewhere over here I'm Republican, but I've been willing to take tough votes."

During that interview, Bacon also highlighted his 2021 vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Harding has received President Trump's "total endorsement" in this race. Even if Harding solidifies his Republicans behind him, he would need to pick up some voters who identify as independents or even Democrats.

Democrats, meanwhile, think Bacon's retirement gives them one of the best chances this year to flip a district.

Last year, Mayor John Ewing Jr., a Democrat and the city's first Black mayor, defeated three-term incumbent Republican Jean Stothert last year in the officially nonpartisan race by nearly 14 points.

Ewing has been a familiar name in Omaha for years; he was a Deputy Chief with the Omaha Police Department and served as Douglas County Treasurer.

Ewing said he sees himself as a public servant, not a politician and that voters in Omaha are not so polarized.

"I believe that the vast majority of voters are somewhere in the middle," Ewing said in a recent interview.

Ewing has advice for those seeking office.

"If you appeal to them, and you give them that message, and you show them that you can do it based on what you've done in the past, and your willingness to partner across party lines and all of the other artificial things that divide us, you can win," Ewing said.

Nebraska Public Media's Molly Ashford contributed to this report

Copyright 2026, NPR

The Trump administration on Wednesday pursued new efforts in a sweeping initiative to root out fraud in federal health programs, including announcing a nationwide six-month freeze on some new Medicare enrollments and warning states to actively investigate Medicaid fraud or risk losing funding.

The moves are related to Vice President JD Vance's anti-fraud task force, which has been accelerating its messaging before the November elections. The panel set up by Republican President Donald Trump seeks to crack down on potential misuse of public money.

The most significant step Wednesday came from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with a nationwide six-month moratorium on all new Medicare enrollments by providers of hospice and home care.

“We’ve seen systemic and deeply troubling fraud in the hospice and home health space, with bad actors exploiting some of our most vulnerable Medicare patients and stealing money from the American taxpayer,” the agency's administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, said in a statement. “Today we’re shutting the door on fraud — preventing new bad actors from entering Medicare while we aggressively identify, investigate, and remove those already exploiting them.”

The Department of Health and Human Services' internal watchdog has sent letters to state attorneys general warning them to vigorously investigate possible fraud or risk losing federal money.

People across the United States have raised concerns about rising health costs and barriers to access, sometimes from the federal government's own actions. New work requirements in Medicaid, for example, are expected to strain hospitals around the country and result in millions of enrollees losing their health coverage.

Several alleged fraud schemes have been prosecuted in the hospice and home health care categories, and states have acknowledged that it is a legitimate concern. But some have pushed back on the administration's aggressive tactics and raised concerns that the catchall efforts could needlessly punish law-abiding providers that are trying to serve patients.

What the freeze does

The administration contends the enrollment freeze and other actions it is taking will help prevent potential fraud in Medicaid and Medicare and preserve funding and resources for people most in need. Under the six-month pause, existing hospice and home health care providers will continue to operate as usual. But CMS said it will “intensify targeted investigations, deploy advanced data analytics, and accelerate the removal” of providers in the category that are suspected of fraudulent activity.

Such a freeze is not unprecedented, said Tricia Neumann, a senior vice president and executive director for the program on Medicare policy at the health care research nonprofit KFF. She said President Bill Clinton's Democratic administration also imposed a temporary moratorium on home health agencies.

“A brief moratorium gives the administration time to crack down on true fraud and prevent new fraudulent entities from popping up,” she said.

Maine becomes a focus

Vance, a potential 2028 White House hopeful, has used the high-profile assignment from Trump to remind Americans struggling with high costs that he is trying to claw back taxpayer dollars. Vance has promoted the task force's work during campaign stops for Republican candidates and is expected to focus on the effort Thursday in Maine, where they are closely watched primary races on June 9.

Oz said earlier in the year that he was calling for corrective action on alleged fraud in government health programs in Maine, a request characterized by the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, as a “political attack.”

Federal investigations and oversight

In recent months, CMS has suspended payments to hundreds of hospice and home care agencies in Los Angeles over alleged fraud and issued another six-month moratorium on suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and certain other supplies in Medicare.

The administration also has approached at least five states with investigations into potential health care fraud and halted some $243 million in Medicaid payments to one of them, Minnesota, over fraud concerns. Last month, Oz announced CMS would add to that oversight by requiring all 50 states to share how they planned to revalidate some of their Medicaid providers.

In at least one case, the administration has erred in its accusations against states. In April, CMS acknowledged to The Associated Press that it made a significant error in figures it used to help justify a fraud probe in New York. The acknowledgment deepened doubts in the administration’s methods and raised a common criticism that has been made about the second Trump administration — that it tends to attack first and confirm the facts later.