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Accessibility in the courtroom

Opening statements are scheduled today in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers who were involved in the killing of George Floyd. The interest in this trial is just as ramped up as it was for Derek Chauvin, the former officer convicted of killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he gasped his life out. Tou Thao, J. Kueng and Thomas Lane were on the scene of the incident. Two helped hold Floyd down, while the third kept the concerned crowd at bay. Like Chauvin’s trial, COVID-19 concerns are keeping crowds from filling the ...

Contactless caucus?

The Minnesota DFL is trying something new this caucus season. Due to fears of spreading COVID-19, the DFL is holding what it calls contactless caucuses on Feb. 1. Instead of DFLers gathering with their neighbors at some neighborhood church hall or school cafeteria to discuss issues, debate resolutions and vote for delegates, they will be logging in to a web site, downloading forms to submit resolutions or sign up as possible delegates, and then dropping them off via email to local party officials, or put them in a drop box set up at what would have been the normal caucus site. We ...

COVID roller coaster?

Minnesota is experiencing a steep rise in COVID-19 cases, due most likely to the omicron variant of the disease. The number of cases, the percentage of positive test results, the number of hospitalizations all indicate that we are in a peak period for the disease. Lyon County is mirroring the state’s experience. We have seen a sharp rise in local cases, with 106 new cases reported Wednesday. While hospitalizations are rising, the good news is that the number of intensive care cases is starting to drop More good news comes from the Mayo Clinic, which has developed a model tracking ...

Money and spending

Gov. Tim Walz announced his plan for a $2.7 billion bonding bill, which would be a new record for the state. The governor said more than a billion is for asset preservation — maintenance and preservation of existing public buildings. “These are assets that belong to the people of Minnesota.” There’s more for bridge replacement and road improvements, $450 million for housing, including homelessness projects, and money for the environment. In addition to general obligation bonds, Walz would finance this collection with $276 million from the state’s record surplus fund. ...

Small businesses in need of help

Most economists will agree that small businesses are the backbone of the nation’s economy. They create more news jobs, provide goods and services that bigger businesses may see as not worth their while, and support their local communities. But small businesses have been struggling since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when the government mandated lockdowns and shutdowns, limited their capacity for service and created more regulations for them to deal with. Now small businesses are being hit by another factor. Economic inflation is driving up the cost of doing ...

Vaccine mandate struck down

The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t take long to strike down the Biden Administration’s mandate that large employers must require their workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, or wear masks, or undergo weekly testing. The conservative members of the court ruled that OSHA lacks the authority to make such a sweeping order, though it did allow the rules applying to health care workers to stand. A lot of larger corporations were cautious in their response to the news, saying they’d have to “examine” the ruling to see what kind of impact it would have. The ruling doesn’t say ...