Good morning, and welcome to another Monday. 

A week from tomorrow marijuana use becomes legal for adults 21 and older in Minnesota. And law enforcement agencies are getting ready for more impaired drivers on the roads. MPR’s Brian Bakst reports : With the shift in state drug policy comes a stepped-up awareness campaign to advise people that not everything goes and that law enforcement will be on alert for drug-impaired drivers. There are some important rules of the road to consider: Ingesting cannabis products while driving remains illegal. So does having marijuana easily accessible in a moving vehicle. And as Minnesota State Patrol chief Colonel Matt Langer says, “It's illegal to drive impaired, regardless of what substance you're on.” State officials predict marijuana use will go up as its legal status changes and as more forms of cannabis become readily available. Widespread retail sales are still many months away, but homegrown marijuana will be allowed immediately. Long before legalization, Minnesota officers encountered drivers they believed were impaired by marijuana. Cottage Grove police officer Matt Sorgaard has been involved in dozens of stops for suspected drug impairment, sometimes called in as backup given his prior training as a drug recognition evaluator or DRE. He said common patterns are drivers struggling to maintain a steady speed, straying in a lane, getting too close to a car ahead or rolling beyond a stop sign — all signs of slowed reaction time. 

And although legal pot sales are for the most part many months away, MPR’s Catharine Richert reports many local governments want clear direction from the state before they give the green light to sales in their cities: Rochester is poised to join a growing number of Minnesota cities adopting ordinances that temporarily prohibit retail sales of cannabis until state regulations are sorted out. If approved by the Rochester City Council, the prohibition would last until January 2025. The city would join at least 10 others that have adopted or are considering adopting similar measures. The action gives city officials time to figure out what, if any, local control Rochester wants to exert over sales, such as limiting the number of retailers that can operate in the city, said City Clerk Kelly Geistler. “We're really just trying to preserve the space to get our ordinance in order so that we can be in lockstep with the state when they kick off their function, which they don't have a prescribed date. But they have indicated that that's likely to be January 2025,” Geistler said. 

Thousands of law enforcement officers, friends, family and community members gathered Saturday to remember Jake Wallin, the Fargo police officer who was shot and killed on July 14 after responding to a car crash in Fargo. MPR’s Kirsti Marohn reports: On Saturday morning, a long line of law enforcement vehicles escorted Wallin from Fargo to Pequot Lakes. People stood along the highways, holding flags and signs with messages of support. Mourners filled the Pequot Lakes High School gymnasium, including law enforcement officers and military members clad in dark dress uniforms. They remembered a young man who was a dedicated soldier and law enforcement officer, a team player who maintained a positive attitude and always had a smile on his face. Wallin was born in South Carolina, but grew up in St. Michael, and graduated from St. Michael-Albertville High School in 2018.

And MPR News reports: Law enforcement officials painted a chilling picture of the suspect in the attack in Fargo as a man who studied mass killings online and armed himself with guns and explosives in preparation for doing it himself.  “This individual was a calculated insidious murderous individual dead set on hurting and killing as many people as possible,” said Fargo Police Chief David Zibolski at a news conference Friday. “He had the intent, he had the commitment, he had the means.” The gunman, identified as 37-year-old Mohamad Barakat, had moved to the U.S. from Syria in 2012 and became a citizen in 2019, investigators said. He worked off and on and off for odd jobs. In the days leading up to the shooting, Barakat was looking “specifically for large crowd events in the region,” said North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley at the press conference. “He was either likely to be going downtown or going out to the fairgrounds. Those were the two large events going on at that time.”

More on the money problems at the Republican Party of Minnesota that we reported on last week. The Star Tribune adds some context: Filings show that some other state Republican parties in the Midwest have healthier federal campaign account balances than the Minnesota GOP. The Illinois Republican Party boasted close to $413,000 in cash on hand without any debt through the end of last month, while the Wisconsin GOP filing shows around $940,000 in cash with no debt. In North Dakota, the state GOP reported nearly $169,000 in its federal account at the end of last month, and also didn't have any debt.