Happy Lunar New Year's Day! The best outdoor plan for this weekend? Bundle up for the dangerous wind chills, otherwise stay indoors. Daytime highs today and the weekend remain below zero across Minnesota, with wind chills approaching 30 to 50 below. At those wind chill levels, your skin can freeze in just 5 minutes! It'll be mostly sunny today with highs ranging from 6 below to 12 below zero. Get the latest from Updraft. Today, Gov. Tim Walz is expected to raise the cap on gatherings to 50 people. That's great news for many Minnesotans who are planning their weddings or other group celebrations soon, and businesses depending on such events since there have been strict limits on the number of attendees at private gatherings. The current cap is10 people indoors or 15 people outdoors. Some people had to move their events to somewhere outside Minnesota due to the restrictions. “I am a COVID bride trying to get married,” says Meghan Everett. who is now planning to hold her wedding reception in Wisconsin after rescheduling the event twice in Minnesota. Read more about the restriction changes here. Walz's announcement comes as the state continues to be "in a better place" in the pandemic. “We’re closer than ever to the end,” said state infectious disease director Kris Ehresmann, who sounded perhaps more positive as she briefed reporters yesterday than she's been in months about Minnesota’s location on the pandemic arc. Ehresmann’s positive remarks sync up with the latest data showing Minnesota’s COVID-19 metrics improving or at least trending in the right direction, along with an uptick in vaccinations. Here are Minnesota’s latest COVID-19 statistics: 6,343 deaths (24 new)470,803 positive cases (907 new), 456,849 off isolation (97 percent)6.9 million tests, 3.4 million Minnesotans tested (about 59 percent of the population)10.8 percent of Minnesotans vaccinated with at least one doseTrump's team insists the former president's speech on Jan. 6 was protected under the First Amendment. Democrats rebut it: "First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment.” Over two days of testimony, Democrats asserted that Donald Trump deliberately ordered his supporters to "fight like hell" and “go by very different rules” or they “wouldn't have a country anymore" during his speech ahead of the Capitol insurrection. “If you don’t find this a high crime and misdemeanor today, you have set a new terrible standard for presidential misconduct,” lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin pleaded with senators as he and other Democrats wrapped up their opening arguments in the trial.
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