State and Local News That Matters
A local high school softball team kneeled for the national anthem at a recent game, earning an understanding explanation from their school which said they were protesting for “social justice.”
Alpha News received a video of the Robbinsdale-Cooper girls softball team kneeling as the Star-Spangled Banner was played before a recent game. Only two of the fourteen players pictured remained standing for the national anthem.
A bar praised for trying to challenge the public’s perception of downtown Minneapolis as dangerous was broken into, early Monday morning.
Ties Lounge & Rooftop is a recent startup that features four floors where people can congregate to drink and enjoy food. “We really want this place to be a place of healing for people, where people can come back and sit back and enjoy themselves and meet new people, network” one of Ties’s five original cofounders said in a March interview with Fox 9. MinnPost has also profiled the establishment, explaining that the founders “were driven to action by the murder of George Floyd,” taking over a space left vacant after the previous tenants were run out of business by “perceptions of crime.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Republican leaders in the legislature reached an agreement to invest $4 billion for education, public safety, and health care and an additional $4 billion for tax cuts.
The group worked together to reach the agreement as the term of the legislative session comes to an end.
The Pledge of Allegiance is preceded by a “land acknowledgement / BLM” statement in at least one Roseville public school.
All Minnesota public and charter schools are required by law to lead students in reciting the pledge at least one time each week. While Roseville schools maintain compliance with this policy, at least one elementary school in the district has inserted politically charged language into what is usually a brief moment of patriotism.
The state of Minnesota will not allow the public to view the materials that underlay a recent report accusing the Minneapolis Police Department of routinely violating human rights.
The report, compiled by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR), concluded that “there is probable cause that the City and MPD engage in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act.”
U.S. drug overdoses increased 15% between December 2020 and December 2021, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The two-year jump established new records for overdose deaths over previous years.
A new poll shows that Minnesotans are practically split down the middle on the question of keeping Roe v. Wade.
According to results of a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, 51% of Minnesotans said the Supreme Court should not overturn Roe. 29% expressed support for its overturn, while the remaining 20% said they weren’t sure.
Around four years prior to preventing a Catholic conservative commentator from speaking on campus, an abortionist from Planned Parenthood spoke at a “workplace inclusion” conference affiliated with the University of St. Thomas.
In April 2018, Dr. Sarah Traxler, the medical director of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which is headquartered in St. Paul, spoke at the 30th annual “Forum on Workplace Inclusion.”
An election integrity law firm has filed a complaint against Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon after discovering that nearly 600 duplicate registrants appear on state voter rolls.
With the assistance of the Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC), the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has requested a hearing on the duplicate registrants at the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings in St. Paul.
The Minnesota Senate passed legislation to approve the terms of an opioid settlement negotiated by various Attorneys General throughout the country.
According to the agreement, major pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors settled on a $26 billion payout over the next 18 years. Minnesota could see up to $337 million of those funds.
“Justin Teigen was brutally beat to death by the St. Paul police here in the state of Minnesota,” Toshira Garraway said at one press conference.
“It happened on Aug. 19, 2009 and he was thrown inside of a trash dumpster,” she said at another.
The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) does not have the resources to investigate a substantial number of crimes that occur in the city.
In response to this dire situation, the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and State Patrol have now launched their own operations in the city. The BCA has already begun helping MPD work through its backlog of cases, decreasing it by 1,200.
“We have to look at President Lincoln every day we’re in this space,” DFL Minnesota Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn recently bemoaned on the House floor.
The progressive lawmaker’s anti-Lincoln position came up during debate on an education bill as she critiqued the way indigenous history is taught in Minnesota schools.
Her specific complaint regarding America’s 16th president centered around a series of executions that saw 38 Dakota men hanged in Mankato under Lincoln’s approval. Becker-Finn retold the story on the House floor, upset that the executions drew a bloodthirsty crowd that reportedly clashed with law enforcement and cheered when the gallows dropped.
Minnesotan entrepreneur, conservative politico, and CEO of My Pillow, Mike Lindell, spoke to The Georgia Star News on Saturday at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he criticized the three most infamous election integrity antagonists in the Peach State when he declared, “you guys have the Triple Crown of Crime down here with Kemp, Raffensperger and Carr and all of them need to go.”
Lindell continued, “I mean, this is our country. Of all the stuff I’ve been out there fighting for with the election crimes. And then you have Republicans, the Republicans have turned on, not just Georgia, but on our country. I mean, you’ve got to get new people and we got to get people that have the people’s back.”
Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing several solar panel companies for lying about the benefits of solar panels in their sales to Minnesotans.
Ellison’s office last week sued four solar panel companies based in Utah for selling expensive solar panels to Minnesota citizens through “deceptive and fraudulent practices,” according to a press release from Ellison’s office.
More Headlines…
A Democratic candidate for Minnesota’s First Congressional District said critical race theory (CRT) is “made up” and “not taught in schools.”
Jeff Ettinger, the former CEO of Hormel Foods Corp., is in a crowded field of candidates seeking to win the First District congressional seat left vacant by the death of Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn.
Michael Knowles, a conservative commentator and practicing Catholic, has been barred from speaking at the University of St. Thomas (UST) in St. Paul, Minn., for his views on transgender ideology.
In March the UST College Republicans had sought to invite Knowles for a speaking engagement on campus, but the group says university administrators explicitly prevented them from hosting the event.
State leaders in Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis reached an agreement to send state police forces to assist with law enforcement staffing issues in the city.
The “joint powers agreements” will allow state forces to “provide high visibility patrol in agreed upon areas and during agreed upon times to help deter crime”
U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson has accepted Derek Chauvin’s plea agreement and will sentence him to 20 to 25 years in prison, according to a one-page order issued Wednesday.
“At the change-of-plea hearing, the Court deferred accepting Defendant’s plea pending issuance of the preliminary presentence investigation report,” Magnuson said. “That report has now issued, and acceptance of the plea is appropriate.”
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that a Buffalo construction company owner is not violating city ordinances by flying a large Trump flag from a crane.
The Monday ruling reverses the city of Buffalo’s determination that Jay Johnson’s 30-by-50 foot flag reading “TRUMP 2020 Keep America Great” violated its ordinances on size restrictions and the attaching of signs to equipment.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is launching a new effort to combat a spike in violent crime, specifically targeting the Twin Cities area.
The new changes will allow all federal prosecutors in the office to take on and try violent crime cases. Additionally, the law enforcement agency is hiring more persecutors to assist with the workload.
Rep. Ilhan Omar and her communications director both made radical calls to upend the Supreme Court after a leaked decision indicated that the court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The leak, obtained by Politico, is the initial draft of the majority opinion of the court which holds “that Roe and Casey must be overruled.” This decision would end federal protection of abortion, although states like Minnesota, which have legally guaranteed it locally, can continue the practice.
A far-left group is calling for terror after Tuesday night’s leak of the Supreme Court of the United States’ (SCOTUS) draft opinions showing that the Court could overturn Roe v. Wade.
After cursing SCOTUS, and particularly Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito, a group called MNUprising instructed its followers to “terrorize [their] oppressor.”
Minnesota is spending untold millions in COVID-relief funds on controversial education initiatives, like implementing ethnic studies in schools and recruiting teachers on the basis of race.
President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package included $122 billion for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund. Minnesota received a total of $8.5 billion in American Rescue Plan funds, $1.3 billion of which came from ESSER.
The head of the Minneapolis police union fired back at a recent report that accuses the city’s police of racism. She is not alone.
The report, compiled by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR), concluded that “there is probable cause that the City and MPD engage in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act.” Specifically, the report says MPD officers take harsher action against black people than white people in similar circumstances, use offensive language, and maintain anonymous social media accounts “to surveil black individuals and organizations.”
It will cost Minnesota taxpayers $25 million in fiscal year 2023 to expand high-speed broadband access across the state if the governor signs a bill both legislative houses passed this week.
HF 4366, an omnibus agriculture and housing bill, includes increasing availability of grant funding for broadband from 50% to 75% of the total cost of a project, or up to $10 million, rather than a $5 million limit. Under the bill, the Office of Broadband Development must report to broadband policy and finance committees’ leaders by the end of 2022 how the bill changes the number and amounts of grants awarded.
City health officials are “strongly” encouraging Minneapolis residents to put their face masks back on, regardless of vaccination status.
The Minneapolis Health Department said in a Thursday news release that residents should “wear masks in indoor public settings and businesses,” citing an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
Hopkins Public Schools parents expressed outrage after learning elementary students will participate in a “gender, sexuality, LGBTQ+” lesson next week.
According to an email screenshot provided to Alpha News, the lesson will be led by MyHealth on May 6 and is an “introduction to gender and sexuality.”
The Minnesota Senate passed legislation on Wednesday to expand access to broadband internet for residents throughout the state.
The bill, SF 4019, will send $210 million from the federal government to improve services in the state.
Minnesota’s electricity prices are lower than just one state in the Midwest, according to data reported by the Center of the American Experiment.
Second only to Michigan, Minnesota’s electricity prices increased 22% from 2011 to 2021, reaching 11.12 cents per kilowatt-hour. This makes Minnesota’s electricity prices the 14th highest in the country — compared to 2001, when Minnesota held the position for 14th lowest in the country.