Today is the funeral for Daunte Wright, who was shot and killed by a Brooklyn Center police officer a week and a half ago. Gov. Tim Walz has requested a statewide two minutes of silence at noon "to honor Daunte Wright's life." [Read more from Peter Cox]
Around 1 a.m. last night, the Minnesota House passed a public safety budget including a range of new laws governing policing. Among its provisions: limiting no-knock warrants and the ability of police to pull people over for minor violations such as a broken tail light, out-of-date tabs, or an air freshener on the rearview mirror. It also releases police body camera footage more quickly. The bill passed on a nearly party-line vote with just one Republican in support. It now heads for negotiations with the Republican-controlled Senate, whose own public safety budget lacks major policing overhauls. [ Read more from Brian Bakst]
Behind the journalism: The above description was perhaps wordier than it needed to be. The reason? The word "reform" is a nice, concise way to describe proposed changes to a topic — but because it has connotations of making things better, which is subjective, I and many other journalists try to avoid using it outside of direct quotes. Which is fine and dandy, but it's such a useful word without any direct, neutral-valance replacement, so avoiding it can lead to some awkward sentence constructions. "A range of new laws governing policing" vs. "a police reform package."
An inspector general report has faulted the Environmental Protection Agency for providing comments on PolyMet's proposed copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota over the phone rather than in writing, which prevented EPA staff concerns from entering the written record. Minnesota's Pollution Control Agency had asked for the oral feedback, and issued a permit to PolyMet in December 2018. [Read more from the Duluth News Tribune's Jimmy Lovrien]
A racist, conspiratory crank from Minneapolis a century ago helped lay the foundation for Derek Chauvin's conviction. Newspaper publisher Jay Near believed a Jewish cabal was controlling 1920s Minneapolis, but The Saturday Press was shut down by authorities for violating Minnesota's "Public Nuisance Law," which barred the publication of "obscene" or "malicious, scandalous and defamatory" materials. Near sued, and the Supreme Court in Near v. Minnesotastruck down the Public Nuisance Law as a violation of the First Amendment. Without that context, media historian Michael J. Socolow suggests, Darnella Frazier's famous video of Floyd's death might have been legally suppressed as obscene or inflammatory. [Read more in The Conversation]
A Ramsey County judge has overruled a century-old Minnesota law requiring pardon-seekers to get unanimous consent from the state Board of Pardons. A woman sued being denied a pardon despite support from a majority of the three-person board, with Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison supporting the pardon but Chief Justice Lorie Gildea opposing it. The ruling, which might be appealed, does not explain how pardon power should be divided between the governor and Board of Pardons. [ Read more from the Star Tribune's Stephen Montemayor]
Minnesota National Guard troops are headed down and security barriers are being scaled back, after the riots authorities feared might erupt after the Chauvin trial didn't happen. Some enhanced security will remain, however. [Read more from Matt Sepic]
President Joe Biden is pledging to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half in less than a decade, but it's unclear how attainable that goal is, especially with passage of Biden's hoped for green infrastructure plan uncertain. [Read more from Politico's Zack Colman and Eric Wolff]
Former Minnesota senators Paul Anderson and Jeffrey Hayden have both become lobbyists, less than a year after leaving office. Minnesota has no "revolving door" restriction on ex-lawmakers lobbying.
Kamala Harris's presidential campaign called her husband "Doug Emhoff." So did Bien's presidential campaign. But since he became America's first Second Gentleman, Emhoff has quietly rebranded himself as "Douglas." [Read more from Politico]
Something completely different: An unlikely fast-food has taken France by storm over the past few decades: "French tacos," which are questionably French and definitely not tacos. They're more of a mix between a panini, a kebab, and a burrito, and are raising all sorts of questions about both cuisine and cultural appropriation. [Read more from the New Yorker's Lauren Collins]
Listen: For Earth Day, let's dig up America's 70s hit about riding out where "there ain't no one to give you no pain" — "A Horse With No Name." [Listen]
