Welcome to Friday! Here is what you should know to get your weekend started. A classic summer recipe this weekend: sticky, hot, stormy. Highs this weekend mostly hover over the 80s across Minnesota, besides southern parts of the state where highs may reach 90. Plus, there is a chance of spotty showers and thunderstorms statewide this weekend, starting early Friday morning. More on the Updraft weather blog. After Charter Commission blocked a Nov. vote on the issue, City Council is eyeing deeper cuts to the police budget. Council President Lisa Benson talked with All Things Considered host Tom Crann a day after the Charter Commission vote, which dismissed the possibility of putting a question on replacing the police on the November ballot. She said while some members still want to have the question on next year’s ballot, the council will look at cutting more from the police budget and keep pushing Mayor Jacob Frey to start sending nonviolent 911 calls to city staff outside the Police Department. “I can’t teach my students if we’re deathly afraid of making each other sick.” As many school districts in Minnesota are weighing their plans to have their students back in classrooms, some teachers are afraid and wary of returning to schools. Despite Gov. Tim Walz’s back-to-school guidelines, many educators say there is too much uncertainty around classroom teaching in the middle of the pandemic. It’s not only Minnesota teachers wary of in-person classes. 2 in 3 teachers in the country want to start the year online. According to a recent NPR/Ipsos poll, 82 percent of K-12 teachers say they are concerned about returning to in-person teaching this fall, and two-thirds prefer to teach primarily remotely. Another recent poll also found two-thirds of respondents thought schools in their area should be primarily remote, including 62 percent of parents of children under 18. On the other hand, for some families seeking in-person learning this fall, popularity of private schools is on the rise. Kevin Breen, the head of school for the Marshall School in Duluth, said applications from prospective students in July have tripled this year. And the school’s website, which averages 182 hits in July, had 996 unique visitors last month, he said. Breen said he believes the families looking into Marshall now are drawn to its commitment to in-person classes this year among other reasons. New daily case trend remains high; 867 new cases confirmed Thursday. New confirmed cases of COVID-19 are back on the march after several days of plateauing. The Health Department Thursday reported 867 new cases — one of the highest daily counts in the pandemic. The number of people currently hospitalized and the subset needing intensive care also rose. It was the seventh straight day with more than 300 people still hospitalized, the first time that’s happened since late June. Here are the latest coronavirus statistics in Minnesota: 58,640 cases confirmed (867 new) via 1,105,094 tests 1,636 deaths (seven new) 5,421 cases requiring hospitalization 319 people remain hospitalized; 153 in intensive care 51,604 patients no longer needing isolation
— Jiwon Choi, MPR News | @ChoiGEE1 | 
