Aug. 17, 2020

Refreshing, dry weather to start the week. We’ll see plenty of August sunshine this week across Minnesota. Dew points have dropped from the steamy 70s late last week to the cozy 50s on Monday. But high temperatures will gradually rise through the 80s as this week rolls on. Find more details on the Updraft blog.

President Donald Trump campaigns in Minnesota, hoping to flip the state. Trump is hoping to become the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state in a half-century. First, in Minneapolis, he met with owners of businesses damaged in the protests and unrest following the killing of George Floyd . Then he flew to Mankato, where he delivered about an hour-long speech. He credited his tariff and trade policies with aiding Minnesota farmers, manufacturers and miners on the state’s Iron Range, and defended his performance responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Listen to an analysis of his speech here.

Poll: Most Mpls. voters see Floyd killing as part of racist policing pattern. More than 8 in 10 Minneapolis voters say the killing of George Floyd by police was not an isolated incident, but rather a sign of larger problems in how the city’s Police Department treats Black people, according to a new MPR News/StarTribune/KARE-11 poll.

The latest on COVID-19 in Minnesota: Cases and hospitalizations are climbing.
The Health Department confirmed six new deaths today. Health officials say the outbreak appears relatively stable — but stable at a high level of cases. For context: the total number of active, confirmed cases is near an all-time high, but the outbreak doesn’t appear to be rapidly accelerating — or slowing. Hospitalizations are stable as well. There are now 155 people in intensive care units in Minnesota for COVID-19.

You can get more of the latest news, in less than five minutes, via the Minnesota Today podcast.

~Dan Kraker, MPR News

Live updates: 2020 Democratic National Convention for Monday

The Democratic Party will convene, sort of, amid a pandemic that has upended the usual pomp-and-circumstance of presidential nominating conventions. | Tune in to the convention starting at 8 p.m.

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Politics slows flow of U.S. virus funds to local public health

Congress has allocated trillions of dollars to ease the coronavirus crisis. A joint Kaiser Health News and AP investigation finds that many communities with big outbreaks have spent little of that federal money on local public health departments for work such as testing and contact tracing. Others, like Minnesota, were slow to do so.

As USPS pressure grows, postmaster general to appear for House hearing next week

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has agreed to appear for a U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing next week as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced concern over the direction of the U.S. Postal Service.

Wall Street's big money is betting on Biden and Democrats in 2020

Despite the booming stock market under President Donald Trump, the finance sector is giving a bit more money to Democrats than to Republicans for the first time in more than a decade.

Milwaukee misses Democratic convention: 'It is a gut punch'

The convention was originally to have taken place in July, attracted about 50,000 people to Milwaukee and injected about $250 million into the economy of the key presidential battleground state. It would have been the first time Milwaukee, a metropolitan area of 1.6 million, hosted a presidential nominating convention.

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