May 17, 2021 🌺Enjoy the spring beauty! Tonight will be clear with lows in the 50s. Tomorrow will be mostly sunny, with highs in the lower 70s to lower 80s. Get the latest from Updraft. City leaders in Minneapolis are calling for additional police resources to battle a recent wave of gun violence. The most recent is Trinity Ottson-Smith, the 9-year-old who was shot in the head by someone in a passing car Saturday night as she was jumping on a trampoline at a north Minneapolis home. "This violence cannot continue. I refuse to have to call the mayor at a late hour to tell him one of our children has been shot and wounded. That should not happen," said Police Chief Medaria Arradondo. Mayor Jacob Frey, flanked by a handful of city council members, laid out a four-point plan to step up public safety, including a focus on gun violence, requests for funding from the federal government, police accountability and what he called cultural and community shifts. On the last day of the regular session, Gov. Tim Walz and top legislative leaders have reached a broad agreement on a new two-year budget. The bipartisan deal is strictly numbers and many contentious policy provisions remain unresolved. The announcement came on the final day of the 2021 session, which means a special session is needed, likely in mid-June, to complete the work and pass the budget bills. In COVID-19 news today, state health officials reported no additional COVID-19 deaths, the second time this month. The latest data shows some hopeful signs in recent days. Like last Monday, the state reported no new deaths, and active cases have fallen below 10,000 for the first time since March. Also, the weekend total of new cases — a number that often reflects a rise as people get tested late in the work week — fell to the lowest point in Minnesota since the week after Labor Day. Subscribe to our Minnesota Today podcast to get the up-to-date Minnesota news twice daily. — Tim Nelson | MPR News |