Minnesota News Network

More than 175 airmen from the 934th Airlift Wing along with four C-130 aircraft are scheduled to return to Minnesota Sunday following a four-month deployment to Southwest Asia. They were responsible for transporting people, cargo and supplies throughout the southwest Asian theatre of operations. Personnel included pilots and co-pilots, navigators, crew chiefs, load masters, logistics experts, maintenance crews and others.

A Women’s March in Bemidji today as part of a larger movement across the country, organizers say to “support the recognition and improvement of our basic human rights.” It coincides with the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote through the 19th Amendment to the U-S Constitution.

There’s also a panel discussion after the march entitled “Creating Welcome for Refugees”, in the wake of a recent 3-to-2 vote by the Beltrami County Board of Commissioners *not* to accept refugees for resettlement. It’s prompted by President Trump’s executive order which a federal judge at least temporarily blocked earlier this week — leaving the issue in limbo for over 60 Minnesota counties which have not yet acted.

Supporters of Senator Amy Klobuchar’s bid for president ramp up their efforts in Minnesota on this first day of early voting for the March 3rd “Super Tuesday” presidential primary. Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Mayor Jacob Frey are at a morning (8am) event in Minneapolis, while Mayor Melvin Carter shows his support at an event in Saint Paul. State lawmakers and other elected officials who back Klobuchar will be on hand at courthouses and other venues in Duluth, Moorhead, Saint Cloud, Mankato, Bemidji and Minnetonka. Klobuchar herself is back in Minnesota tonight for a rally and Martin Zellar concert at First Avenue in Minneapolis. She’ll be joined by Governor Tim Walz, Senator Tina Smith and Congresswoman Angie Craig. Zellar and his band headlined a fundraiser for Klobuchar during her first U-S Senate campaign back in 2006.

Meanwhile Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has get-out-the-vote rallies this morning in downtown Minneapolis and at the U-of-M in support of Bernie Sanders.

Early and absentee voters in Minnesota are casting the first ballots in the nation for the “Super Tuesday” presidential primary. Voting is starting here over two weeks before the nation-leading Iowa caucuses. Ballots of course won’t be counted until after the polls close March 3rd.

Reducing or eliminating Minnesota’s estate tax could be back on state lawmakers’ radar screen this year, after Senate Democratic Minority Leader Tom Bakk said in Rochester this week that he supports it to keep older Minnesotans from leaving the state. Senate Republican Majority Leader Paul Gazelka’s response: “If the governor is also open, so that it’s a bipartisan decision that we don’t want to lose these people to other states, then it’s something that I would be open to.” Gazelka adds the only way it would ever happen is, “if we all recognize it as a problem.”

Walz administration officials couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. Those opposed to eliminating the estate tax argue it would mainly benefit wealthy Minnesotans.

Two victims and their parents are suing the Bemidji Area School District, alleging administrators did not take adequate steps to protect students from an assistant principal who solicited sexually explicit photos from them. 37-year-old Brandon Bjerknes is serving a 25-year prison sentence. The Star Tribune reports the plaintiffs allege that in 2016 a parent complained to the school that students were being targeted on-line by a “Brett Larson” — the alias Bjerknes was using — but school officials ignored it. The suit alleges school officials did not properly investigate allegations of sexual exploitation, and punished students for missing classes because of the crimes. Bemidji Area School District officials have not responded to a request for comment.

Police at the U-of-M’s Minneapolis campus are looking for a masked robber who punched a victim outside a residence hall, stole their wallet and fled on foot. It happened just after 10 this morning (Thurs) outside Territorial Hall on the East Bank campus. Officials sent out a campus-wide safety alert.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison contends the state’s consumer protection laws must be updated in the wake of lawsuit settlements with two major telecommunications providers, Comcast and CenturyLink. Ellison says Minnesotans have lived for 40 to 50 years under the ideology that business is self-regulating, but “it’s not. We’ve got to make sure that there is a watchdog, a regulator, somebody minding the store, a cop walking the beat, to make sure that everybody does what they’re supposed to do.”

Ellison says Minnesota has “pretty good” consumer protection laws, but he’s in constant conversation with lawmakers to make sure the state is addressing “the latest trick, the latest scam, the latest slick thing.”