Good morning. Today and tomorrow, most of Minnesota will be under a risk of storms -- some severe. More on weather, and the latest news on COVID-19 and Minnesota politics next: Keep your eye on radars: T-storms on their way. An enhanced risk for severe storms covers the Red River Valley and northwest Minnesota Thursday. By Friday, most of Minnesota will fall under a slight risk for severe storms. The best chances for storms in the Twin Cities appear late Thursday night and again Friday early evening. Highs today near 80 degrees in northeastern Minnesota, to around 90 west. Minnesota Senate Republicans ousted a Walz Cabinet member. While their attempt to end Gov. Walz’s peacetime emergency order failed in the third special session of the summer, Republicans in the Senate voted to fire one of the governor’s commissioners, Labor Commissioner Nancy Leppink. Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka accused Leppink of being hostile to businesses with regulation. Walz said Leppink did not deserve what Republicans did to her. Round 2 of pandemic election is coming: Will voting be safer in November? A global health pandemic means it’s a challenging time to be a voter. On top of public health concerns over the virus’ spread, President Trump has made false allegations about mail-in ballots , and his campaign is trying to stop expanding mail-in voting ahead of the November election. At 9 a.m. today on MPR News, host Kerri Miller will be joined by two voting experts to talk about voting by mail, voter safety in a pandemic and voter suppression efforts. Some college courses have to be taught in-person. But there may be some alternative ways. Courses for some majors and skills, like dental hygiene work, welding or auto repair, have traditionally been taught mostly in person, but the pandemic has upended that. As schools prepare for the upcoming semester, faculty and instructors are seeking some creative ways to minimize the health risk when in-person classes are resumed -- like installing plexiglass behind a podium or sending students home kids to supplement in-person labs. New daily case count remained low for a second day -- so did the testing number. Wednesday offered a second day of moderate increases in the count of new confirmed cases. Testing levels, however, were low, making it hard to judge if there’s evidence of a change in the disease’s path or simply a statistical blip. Health officials haven’t clarified what’s behind the low testing numbers. Today’s data may offer more clues. Here are the latest coronavirus statistics in Minnesota: 62,303 cases confirmed (470 new) via 1,188,288 tests 1,678 deaths (12 new) -
5,711 cases requiring hospitalization 335 people remain hospitalized; 154 in intensive care 55,855 patients no longer needing isolation
— Jiwon Choi, MPR News | @ChoiGEE1 | 
