Minnesota is getting billions of dollars as part of the recently passed American Rescue Plan stimulus bill, which means it's time for a favorite political pastime: fighting over how to spend it. Complicating matters: many people don't want to fund ongoing programs with with one-time money. And if lawmakers don't agree on how to spend the money in the next six weeks, Gov. Tim Walz might be able to direct the money himself. [Read more from Brian Bakst]
President Joe Biden's proposed infrastructure bill has Amtrak proposing expanding its passenger rail service — including a return of trains running between Minneapolis and Duluth. The "Northern Lights Express" has officials in St. Louis County excited, though the plan has plenty of skeptics. [Read more from Dan Kraker]
Left out: Rochester mayor Kim Norton wants passenger rail to Med City, too. [Read more]
Major League Baseball's decision to move the 2021 All Star Game out of Atlanta in protest of Georgia's new voting law is reverberating politically, with former president Donald Trump criticizing the move, former president Barack Obama praising it, and Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina drafting legislation (which of course won't be passing) to strip Major League Baseball of its antitrust exemption. [Read more from The Associated Press]
The term "fake news" originated as an attempt to describe right-wing misinformation from sketchy websites and social media accounts, but President Donald Trump and his followers swiftly commandeered the term as a pejorative for the allegedly mendacious "mainstream media" — an impressive linguistic victory, whatever you think about Trump or the media. Now there's a similar tug-of-war going on over another phrase, "the big lie," which started out (in this context) as a term critics used for Trump's claims that fraud stole the 2020 election from him. Now people like Sen. Mitch McConnell are trying to redirect "the big lie" to instead refer to allegedly false criticism of voting laws like Georgia's. [Read more from the Washington Post's Aaron Blake]
Dive deeper: What motivates people to share fake news on social media? A new study tests several theories why — that users are ignorant as to the truth, that they choose what to believe based in part on partisanship, or that some people just enjoy trolling. A survey of 2,337 Twitter users found that "1 percent of the panelists are responsible for sharing about 75 percent of all links to fake news publishers" — even more lopsided than "supersharers" of real news sites, who were responsible for about 30 percent of links. These fake-news sharers were most distinctive not for their ignorance or trollishness but for their dislike of the other party. Finally, the presence of fake news was asymmetric, with "fake news" links more prevalent in pro-Republican news feeds than pro-Democratic ones. (As with all these studies, of course, you'll want to check out their definitions and assumptions.) [Read more]
Something completely different: Metronomes on the same platform bring themselves into sync. Fireflies blink at the same rate. People walking across a bridge naturally start walking in step. Here's a fascinating video on the "Secret of Synchronization." [Watch]
Listen: I love both classical music and pedantry, so the Easter holiday is a perfect opportunity to remind everyone that Handel's Messiah was written to be performed at Easter, not Christmas. The famous "Hallelujah Chorus," set near the end of the oratorio's Part II, is giving praise not for the birth of Jesus, but for his resurrection and ascension. And, of course, Handel's brilliant music can be appreciated even if you're not Christian at all. [Watch]
