Good morning, and happy Friday. I hope your snow shovel is handy. Here’s the Digest.
1. Early primary voting set to begin. Minnesota voters will be among the first to cast ballots when election offices begin accepting absentee ballots and open up a limited number of polling locations. It’ll look more like a full-blown election by the time March 3 comes around. The campaigns of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Minnesota’s own Sen. Amy Klobuchar are staging big rallies on the first day to lock in votes and stir up excitement. Other candidates, including Warren, have been blasting out text messages to possible backers. Maple Grove voter Bradley Gangnon has been on the receiving end of many. "Yesterday I received seven text messages and 14 emails -- just about early voting," Gangon said Wednesday. He's planning to cast a day one vote for Klobuchar. He views her agenda as realistic and appreciates her bipartisan manner. "I'm involved enough that if I go vote on Friday the phone calls and texts and all that will lay off for awhile," Gangnon said. President trump is the only candidate listed on the Republican ballot. Since the DFL Party put forward 15 names for its Minnesota ballot, the field shrunk by three. More could be gone by “Super Tuesday,” when the Minnesota votes get counted along with those in more than a dozen other states and U.S. territories. The candidate churn is among the reasons why Secretary of State Steve Simon expects a quieter early vote period than the state has seen of late. “I’m predicting we won’t have the groundswell of absentee activity for that very reason,” Simon said. MPR News
2. Overdoses in public places lead to new prevention policies. On a January morning in Minneapolis two years ago, security officers at the Franklin Library noticed that a man had been in a bathroom stall for an unusually long time. They asked if he was OK. He didn’t respond. When they forced open the stall door, he wasn’t moving. “We didn't know it was an overdose at that point,” security officer Julian Teehan said. “He wasn't breathing. He didn't have a pulse.” The 31-year-old man died of an opioid overdose — one of 163 overdose deaths in Hennepin County that year. The experience spurred Hennepin County officials to reassess what they could do as the opioid epidemic continued to claim tens of thousands of lives each year across the country. The county has since implemented a policy explaining how best to treat overdoses. They have also started training 60 county officers and 80 contract security officers on how to administer naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan — a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose. Last year, security officers revived at least 11 people who overdosed on county property. MPR News
3. PolyMet goes to supreme court. PolyMet, the company trying to open Minnesota's first copper-nickel mine, will ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to review Monday's Court of Appeals decision that reversed several of its key permits. On Monday, the court sent PolyMet's dam safety permits and permit to mine — awarded by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resource to the company in late 2018 — back to the DNR and said the agency must hold a contested-case hearing. In a news release Thursday morning, PolyMet President and CEO Jon Cherry said that decision could harm future projects in the state. “The potential negative consequences of the decision to any industry or business in the state, and the many Iron Range communities and workers who stand to benefit economically from responsible copper-nickel mining, warrant the Minnesota Supreme Court’s attention," Cherry said. The contested-case hearing would require an administrative law judge to examine additional evidence and testimony on the project. Then, with information from the contested-case hearing in hand, the DNR must decide whether to reissue the permits. “The court’s decision greatly diminishes the role of expert state agencies and their commissioners in permitting in favor of administrative law judges. It sets a precedent that subjects the project and any future industrial project in the state to an endless loop of review, contested case hearings and appeals,” Cherry said. Duluth News Tribune
4. DHS hires top staffers. After a period of turmoil last summer, the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) continued to firm up its top leadership roster on Thursday with the announcement of two hires in the key areas of health care and department equity. Matt Anderson, a lawyer and 14-year senior leader at the Minnesota Hospital Association, will become assistant commissioner for health care, overseeing the agency’s largest single program, Medical Assistance, which insures 1.1 million low-income Minnesotans. Karen McKinney, a professor of biblical studies at Bethel University, will become the agency’s chief equity officer, “guiding a departmentwide process of training, examining our own biases, and interpersonal cultural development,” DHS said in a statement. Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead told a Minnesota Senate panel last month that the equity officer would report directly to her as part of an effort to coordinate equity efforts across the agency, which has 7,300 employees. The most recent DHS affirmative action plan noted that the agency would take steps to improve retention of employees who are minorities or persons with disabilities. Anderson will take the helm of Medical Assistance, also known as Medicaid, and MinnesotaCare, programs with $13 billion in spending, as the agency gears up to take new bids on contracts with managed care organizations, which manage the health care of 890,000 enrollees. Star Tribune
5. Minnesotan takes top post in Afghanistan. The Trump administration has tapped a Minnesota native to lead the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan at a critical time as the U.S. negotiates a peace agreement. Ross Wilson, who spent nearly four decades in the U.S. Foreign Service before retiring to the Twin Cities, accepted U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's request this month to lead the U.S. Embassy in Kabul until the Senate confirms a permanent ambassador. "Afghanistan is an extraordinarily challenging, but also very consequential assignment and I am honored by the trust and confidence that Secretary of State Pompeo and the Department of State have placed in me," Wilson said in a statement he issued from Washington, D.C., before heading overseas. It's the third time the veteran diplomat has been called out of retirement to help lead U.S. embassies — most recently, in 2018, when the Trump administration asked Wilson to fill in as the chargé d'affaires in the Asian nation of Georgia. Now, Wilson, who was sworn back into the U.S. Foreign Service last week, replaces John Bass, who spent two years as ambassador in the Afghan capital until Jan. 6. A State Department spokesperson said in a statement that Wilson will arrive in Kabul soon, taking over "one of the world's most challenging diplomatic postings." Star Tribune | 
