In the last week or so, thousands of St. Paul voters received mail fliers from two “Vote Yes!” campaigns related to the city’s Nov. 4 ballot. The first flier urges a yes vote for a special 10-year school district property tax levy. The second urges a yes vote for a charter amendment that would allow the city council to fashion administrative citations, or non-criminal fine ladders for ordinance violations.

Both are labeled “Supported by: Saint Paul DFL.”

There’s just one problem with that claim, at least in the eyes of ballot question opponents. No such organization effectively exists.

Lacking a chair or vice-chair, with leadership dwindled down to a single board member and short on cash and volunteers, the St. Paul DFL went on hiatus this year. It held no precinct caucuses or ward caucuses or a city convention. It did not endorse candidates for mayor or in a special Ward 4 council election this summer, and in August it rescinded its own constitution, which is being rewritten in light of the city’s upcoming switch to even-year elections.

Officials who had been active with the previously St. Paul DFL and the state party’s central committee have defended the wording on the two campaign fliers, which they say accurately reflects written letters of support and a unanimous vote carried out on the city committee’s behalf in late September, albeit under the auspices of four state Senate district DFL committees and the Ramsey County DFL.

“There’s a lot of overlap between groups. … Technically the unit does exist in the eyes of the state party, even as it goes under this major revision work,” said Quentin Wathum-Ocama, an outreach officer with the Minnesota State DFL, who also chairs the “Vote Yes for Strong Schools” committee.

“I think the confusion is using ‘Saint Paul’ (in the flier), but it certainly has official DFL support in the eyes of the state party,” Wathum-Ocama said.

Complaint filed

Not everyone sees it that way. Over the weekend, former City Hall employee Peter Butler emailed media outlets to point out the irony of attempting to approve administrative citations to hold landlords, business owners and others accountable for rule-breaking, while “blatantly misleading” voters and “claiming support from the defunct DFL.”

Butler on Saturday mailed an official complaint to the Court of Administrative Hearings, citing state statute around campaign practices.

“The Minnesota Fair Campaign Practices Act prohibits making false claims of support,” said Butler, who assembled enough petition signatures this year to force a public ballot over administrative citations, blocking the city council from enacting a charter amendment on their own. “A party unit called ‘St. Paul DFL’ does not exist.”

If the court calls for a judicial panel to look into the matter, a decision would not be issued before the Nov. 4 election, Butler acknowledged.

In 2009, a judicial panel fined the St. Paul Better Ballot campaign — which advocated for ranked-choice voting — $5,000 for claiming support from the St. Paul DFL and other politicians and political groups who had not weighed in on the ballot question. That decision came down in December 2009, about a month after voters went to the polls to approve ranked-choice voting.

‘Letters of support’

In early August, St. Paul DFL treasurer Rick Varco asked the state party to cancel the party unit’s existing constitution and review a new one.

While that process gets underway, the party unit’s reins have been handed to the Ramsey County DFL, which chose to delegate the authority to a member to assemble a “Letter of Support” committee.

The process behind issuing “letters of support” when no local party unit exists is laid out under Article 12 of the state party’s constitution, Varco said.

“The St. Paul DFL party unit has terminated operations under its current constitution and is awaiting approval by the DFL State Central Committee of a new constitution based on even-year precinct caucuses,” reads a call for letters of support, posted on the Congressional District 4 DFL website. “In absence of a St. Paul unit, the Ramsey County DFL holds authority and this Call is issued pursuant to that authority.”

Nobody nominated ‘Vote No’

The Sept. 28 committee gathering, which drew “a couple dozen people” to Carpenters Union Hall on Olive Street, was open to all St. Paul-based members of the four DFL Senate district central committees in the capital city, Varco said.

“There was a mailing, and the call was mailed to everybody who was eligible and emailed out to everybody who was eligible,” he said.

Varco said the group met and “voted unanimously to approve a letter of support for each ballot question. ‘Vote Yes’ is the St. Paul DFL-supported position. … Nobody nominated ‘Vote No.’ Nobody voted for ‘No Position’ on either one.”

The Sept. 28 vote was focused on the narrow matter of whether to support the two ballot questions, and not on any particular candidate or other outside issues, and “no other letters of support or endorsements may be considered,” reads the written call for letters.

Wathum-Ocama said the committee meeting “was pretty quick — we were in and out in an hour. Letters of support, they’re not the same as being endorsed … but they’re pretty common, particularly in our suburbs where they don’t have DFL units.”

Varco, who acknowledged the process was “an unusual situation” for St. Paul, said he was hopeful the new constitution for the St. Paul DFL would make it to the state party’s central committee agenda by their December meeting and receive approval.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced $4 million in state aid for food shelves at The Open Door in Eagan on Monday, Oct. 27, just hours after the USDA said SNAP funding has “run dry” from the shutdown.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz discusses the state’s ability to backfill SNAP funding losses during the federal government shutdown on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, at The Open Door in Eagan. (Mary Murphy / Forum News Service)

Walz said the $4 million boost from the state will not be enough to make up for the loss of federal SNAP funding.

“I want to be very clear: It will not make up and backfill everything that is going to drop off starting on Saturday (Nov. 1). We do not have that capacity,” he said. “We put out about $74 million a month in SNAP benefits, just so you know the scope and the scale of this. Those are Minnesota tax dollars that went to the federal government.”

In a press conference at the beginning of the shutdown, Minnesota Management and Budget Director Ahna Minge warned in early October that the state’s current available SNAP funding would run out by November. The shutdown, which has stretched 27 days as of Monday, is the second-longest in U.S. history.

The additional state funding also comes as Minnesota’s food shelves are seeing record visits, with 9 million in 2024 alone — a number that tops the early pandemic years. Walz said 440,000 Minnesotans are on SNAP benefits, 38% of them children and 18% seniors.

Jason Viana, Open Door executive director, said that before the shutdown began Oct. 1, the pantry was already helping about 30% more people than last year.

Jason Viana, director of The Open Door in Eagan, talks about the increasing need for food shelves and food pantries amid the federal government shutdown on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (Mary Murphy / Forum News Service)

“This shutdown and reducing benefits that are available to our clients are absolutely a step back that are going to be felt in households across the state of Minnesota. I will tell you that in our footprint, we have heard increased concern, anxiety from our families, and we are seeing more families than we’ve seen since 2020,” he said.

Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families, said Monday the state tapped into existing funds from the Family First Prevention Services Act and emergency Department of Human Services funds to come up with the $4 million.

Brown said the money will be distributed to The Food Group, which will be tasked with distributing the funds throughout Minnesota’s roughly 300 food shelves, with the aim of prioritizing SNAP recipients.

Walz said most of the state’s money is not fungible and has already been appropriated for other reasons. He said he probably wouldn’t want to tap into the state’s rainy day fund — which has roughly $3 billion in untouched funds — and added that the Legislature would need to be called back to appropriate that money.

Brown said she received word from the USDA that any state funding disbursed to make up for SNAP funding losses would not be reimbursed.

“It’s Day 27. Doesn’t appear like there’s really any sense of urgency out of the folks in D.C.,” Walz said. “As this continues to go on, it will become much more of a crisis. And it may not feel like a crisis for some folks … but it will eventually all start to come home.”

Will you lose food benefits in November? Please contact reporter Molly Guthrey at mguthrey@pioneerpress.com to be interviewed for a story.

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Anthony Edwards has been one of the most durable superstars in the NBA since entering the league in 2020. So you’ll have to excuse teammate Naz Reid for assuming the guard would be ready to go for Monday’s game against Denver after Edwards left the first quarter of Sunday’s home opener against Indiana.

But the All-NBA guard is indeed mortal, and Minnesota will have to play without its lead man for an extended period of time.

Minnesota announced Monday an MRI scan revealed a right hamstring strain, adding the guard will be re-evaluated in a week. A one-week absence would result in three to four missed games.

ESPN reported earlier in the day that Edwards is set to miss two weeks with the injury.

That’s an absence that would cause him to miss the next eight games. The Wolves play Monday, Nov. 10 in Utah, the end of the two-week period, then have three days off before a Nov. 14 home bout with Sacramento.

That return date would give Edwards more than two and a half weeks to recover.

If it’s a Grade 1 strain, that would be a conservative amount of time to heal and give him the best chance to potentially resolve the issue for the final 65-plus games of the season.

Minnesota will have to at least tread water without its best player. You don’t want to give up much ground at any point in the season in the hyper-competitive Western Conference.

But past history suggests the Wolves aren’t doomed by any stretch. Heading into this season, Edwards had missed 19 career games. The Timberwolves are 12-7 in those contests.

The reality is most teams play without top guys for extended periods for various portions of every season. Minnesota has been fortunate enough to avoid such a fate for this long.

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III on Monday dedicated Britain’s first national memorial to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender troops, 25 years after the U.K. ended a ban on homosexuality in the armed forces.

The king, who is the ceremonial head of the armed forces, laid flowers at the monument in the National Memorial Arboretum in central England at a service attended by scores of serving troops and veterans. The sculpture takes the form of a crumpled bronze letter bearing words from personnel who were affected by the ban.

Between 1967 and 2000, soldiers, sailors and air force personnel who were — or were thought to be — gay or transgender were labeled unfit to serve and dismissed or discharged from the forces. Some were stripped of medals or lost their pension rights, and many struggled with the stigma for decades.

The government lifted the ban after a 1999 ruling from the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2023 then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak formally apologized for what he called “an appalling failure of the British state.” A compensation program was established, with veterans who were dismissed from the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity receiving up to 70,000 pounds ($93,000) each.

LGBTQ+ military charity Fighting with Pride said the new monument represents a “powerful step forward in recognizing and honoring the service and sacrifices” of the gay and transgender troops.

Claire Ashton, who was forced to leave the Royal Artillery in 1972, when she was 21, said it was “a moment I never believed would happen, a moment full of meaning and, finally, of pride.”

“I’m in my 70s now and have forever lived with the psychological scars of being kicked out – ‘medically discharged,’ as it was labeled on my records,” she said. “It means so much to be with others who’ve been through similar nightmares to me and, like me, are making peace with the past.”

Brig. Clare Phillips told the ceremony that as “a gay woman who has served in the British Army for 30 years … my career has taken me from a life of secrecy, fear and darkness to a career of pride, openness and joy.

“For the serving community, today’s unveiling of this incredible memorial is about remembering that we stand on the shoulders of giants – those people who fought discrimination and persecution so we can now serve openly and proudly,” she said.

The event followed an appearance by the king at Lichfield Cathedral, where he was heckled about Prince Andrew’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

A heckler asked the king how long he had known about Andrew and Epstein, and if he asked police to cover up for his brother.

The king did not answer and the man was shouted down and pulled out of sight. Some in the crowd then chanted “God Save the King.”

Andrew recently agreed to stop using titles including Duke of York, but Buckingham Palace and the British government have been under pressure to formally strip him of his princely title and royal mansion after new revelations about his relationship with Epstein.