Good morning, and happy Thursday. I’ve been having terrible internet problems ever since that storm blew through yesterday morning. Let’s see if I can get through the Digest.
1.The Minneapolis City Council on Wednesday took a big step toward approving a $15 an hour minimum wage requirement for city businesses. Council members amended the proposed ordinance to extend the phase-in time for small businesses from five to seven years. It appears to have enough votes for passage on Friday. Only one council member, Blong Yang, has voiced opposition.Instead of easing up to the $15 an hour starting wage for workers in five years, companies with fewer than 100 employees will get seven. Large businesses will start paying a $10 an hour minimum wage, 50 cents above the state’s minimum wage, starting next January. The first increase for small businesses would not go into effect until next July. (MPR News)
2.The job security shielding veteran teachers makes it difficult to kick out the lousy ones, a group of parents from around Minnesota argues, and they are fighting to have their lawsuit against the state heard after a lower court threw it out last fall. The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Wednesday heard oral arguments in the case, the third of its kind nationally. An attorney for the parents told the appeals court that students’ right to an adequate education calls for dismantling the state’s long-standing tenure laws that can make it difficult to fire bad teachers. Defense attorneys for the state said that teacher quality is an issue that falls squarely to the Legislature, not the courts, and that previous cases make the arguments worthless. (Star Tribune)
3. The few remaining residents of the Lowry Grove mobile home park in St. Anthony have to be out on Friday. They had argued that Minnesota law gave them the right to buy Lowry Grove and keep it open. The state’s attorney general weighed in and agreed, calling a sale of the park to another buyer illegal and saying the new owners should have to continue to operate the park. But the residents’ case is still working its way through the courts. There are no remaining legal options to keep Lowry Grove open. The park was originally scheduled to close in March, but the new owners pushed the closure date to June 30, 2017, to let the children in the park finish out the school year. (MPR News)
4. St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell gave the city council an update Wednesday on crimes involving guns in the city this year.There have been 701 reports of shots fired in St. Paul this year, compared with 433 at the same period last year - an increase of about 62 percent. More than 80 people have been injured by gunfire and the homicide tally is at 13, with 11 of them involving guns.Officers are handling all the gun calls while responding to a historic level of 911 calls - they have been steadily increasing and are up 6 percent this year. Overall, major crime in St. Paul this year rose nearly 17 percent through the first half of June, compared with the same period last year. (Pioneer Press)
5.Refugees and Twin Cities attorneys are preparing for the impact of the Trump administration’s revised travel ban that could take effect Thursday. The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated part of President Trump’s executive order, allowing for a ban on travelers and refugees from six majority-Muslim countries from coming to the U.S. who lack a “a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” (MPR News)
