Good morning. I'm Michael Olson with a look at today's news around Minnesota and what's coming up today on MPR News.
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Gwen Walz and close advisers had it all mapped out: Promote a PBS documentary about rigorous college coursework for prison inmates — a concept they want to replicate in Minnesota — and let the first lady step out as a leader on criminal justice issues.
By multiple accounts, panels that coincided with screening clips from the documentary turned tense when the moderator pressed participants about race before a restless audience. Later, a top aide to DFL Gov. Tim Walz sought to make sure a video made of the forum didn’t get circulated.
The footage wound up being deleted by the event’s public television station hosts, who acknowledged trying “to smooth out ruffled feathers” and who also delivered an apology to the first lady over the questions posed. In interviews with MPR News, officials at Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) firmly defended how the matter was handled. After initially taking a similar posture, the Walz administration now expresses regret for an “overreaction” on its part. What happened around that May evening is just a glimpse at the role Gwen Walz has built up inside her husband’s administration, particularly in the area of corrections.
In St. Paul police say a man is dead after being shot by a police officer following a vehicle crash Sunday evening in the city's Midway neighborhood.
Authorities in Duluth announced Sunday that a 36-year-old man faces charges of first-degree arson in the fire that destroyed a synagogue last week, and that there is no indication that the fire was a hate crime.
The nearly 120-year-old Adas Israel Congregation synagogue in downtown Duluth was destroyed in an early morning fire on Monday, Sept. 9.
A warm start to the week. Mostly sunny then a bit muggy with highs in the 80s for much of the state. Check your local Forecast | 