In this very bad year, some very good news you shared with us

Welcome to the last week of the year 2020, finally!

Sunday's snow may linger in some parts of Minnesota today, but it won't be much more than just some flurries during the day. Monday highs will be mainly in the teens, with some lower 20s in far southern Minnesota. Get the latest on the Updraft weather blog.

Tomorrow we'll likely see the last winter storm of 2020, with another plowable snow event expected in the state.

Some spots could see 8 to 10 inches of snow. Most of southern Minnesota has a good chance of getting 4 inches or more of snow Tuesday into Wednesday morning.

What brought you joy in this very bad, socially distanced year? Some of you may have fallen in love, said hello to new family members, or spent a lot of quality time with your loved ones in 2020. Before we say goodbye to 2020, and hopefully to the pandemic soon, we asked Minnesotans to tell us something that brought them joy this year. Here's some of the very good news you shared.

Can’t get enough good news? MPR News with Angela Davis will feature more joyful stories in an upcoming episode. Stay tuned.

Some more good news from Capitol Hill this weekend: President Trump signed a $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill.

“I will sign the Omnibus and COVID package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed,” President Trump said in a statement upon signing the legislation. While the president insisted he would send Congress “a redlined version” with items to be removed under the rescission process, those are merely suggestions to Congress. The bill, as signed, would not necessarily be changed.

And in Minnesota, we're seeing some encouraging signs in the pandemic.

Minnesota enters the last week of 2020 carrying a heavy burden of more than 400,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 5,100 deaths from the disease. But as a new year approaches, there are signs of hope: COVID-19 vaccination will ramp up this week for residents and staff at long-term care facilities.

And there is continued improvement in key metrics, too. The average numbers of new cases and hospital admissions each day over the past week are at their lowest levels in nearly two months. And the average test positivity rate has dropped below 5 percent.

More than half of homicides in Minneapolis this year have been left unsolved.

As homicides have skyrocketed this year — the city recorded its 80th last week — the clearance rate has dropped to about 41 percent. Police officials say the high number of killings combined with dwindling numbers of investigators has made it particularly difficult to find and arrest murder suspects. This year’s low homicide solve rate poses another challenge to the department’s legitimacy in communities most impacted by crime and violence.