In the News
Social Security is a lifeline for millions. According to a Senior Citizens League survey, nearly three-quarters of seniors (73%) depend on Social Security benefits for more than half of their income, and nearly 40% depend on it for their entire income.
Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee Thursday pressed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on several hot-button issues, including high fuel prices and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), ranking member on the committee, got into a testy back-and-forth with Rollins during the hearing, grilling her on her knowledge of recent farm closures, the SNAP fraud rate, and the surge in diesel and fertilizer prices since the Iran war.
Andrea Pedro-Francisco, a 23-year-old asylum seeker who has been pleading for medical treatment for a large ovarian cyst since being arrested by immigration agents in Minnesota in February, was unexpectedly released from a Texas detention center on Wednesday.
“It was a shock,” Pedro-Francisco said in a statement shared by her attorney. “Suddenly ICE told me that today I was going to be released, and I asked them why, where am I going? They told me I was going home.”
A Burnsville woman from Guatemala who needed surgery for a potentially life-threatening ovarian cyst has been released from ICE custody after nearly three months.
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and Rep. Angie Craig announced Andrea Pedro-Francisco’s release Thursday evening.
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – DFL second-district congresswoman Rep. Angie Craig has reintroduced her bill to hold the United States Postal Service accountable for what she called “unacceptable mail delivery service.”
In a press release, Craig said this was in response to a recent ranking that put the Minnesota-North Dakota region in the bottom ten nationally for on-time mail delivery.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sparred with House Democrats on Thursday over the Trump administration’s deep cuts to federal funding for nutrition assistance programs and the Iran war’s economic squeeze on American farmers, at one point calling a lawmaker “rude.”
Year-round summer E15 is one step closer to reality after the House of Representatives approved a bill authorizing summer sales Wednesday evening. In a bipartisan vote that split members of both parties, lawmakers approved the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act by a margin of 218-203. The bill now heads to the Senate where it faces an uncertain future. President Donald Trump indicated he plans to sign the bill if it gets to his desk.
Key Takeaways
- The bicameral Let Kids Play Act, introduced May 13, 2026, automatically designates any private equity fund invested in youth sports as a “vulture investor” 91 days after enactment unless the firm files a sworn certification of compliance within 60 days.
- Designated firms would have two years to divest.
On Friday, May 8, Mayor Anne Burt and other Woodbury dignitaries participated in a groundbreaking ceremony for the city’s new Public Safety Complex.
The project, expected to cost around $60 million, is a renovation and expansion of the current public safety building on Radio Drive.
The importance of the project, and the help received from Woodbury and Minnesota’s elected leaders, was evident in the range of public representatives present at the event.
Until Woodbury’s Public Safety Campus Project is complete, public safety services will temporarily run out of the former Washington County Service Center, Woodbury City Hall and other EMS and Fire stations in the city.
“It’s just so exciting,” Woodbury Mayor Anne Burt said. “It has taken many years to get to this point.”