The 3M Open date remains unchanged, again scheduled for the second-to-last weekend in July in 2026.

Its spot within the PGA Tour schedule, however, was adjusted by a week.

There lies the problem.

The Tour’s schedule weas bumped back a week this year, which pushes next year’s Tour Championship to the last weekend in August. So how is the TPC Twin Cities stop still on the same spot on the calendar?

One event – the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Michigan – was moved to the last weekend in July and will be played the week following the 3M Open, with the Wyndham Championship still being the final event of the regular season.

That could cause fewer big-name players to make the transcontinental flight to the Twin Cities.

The 3M Open has long been in the disadvantageous spot of taking place the week after the final major of the year – The Open Championship.

But Minnesota’s PGA Tour stop had one thing going for it as the second-to-last event pre-playoffs – guys sometimes had no choice but to play in Blaine in the pursuit of points if they had goals on getting into the top 70 to reach the postseason or trying to secure a top-50 spot to clinch their position in the following year’s high-payout, no-cut signature events.

That’s one of the reasons the likes of Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott and Wyndham Clark were in the 2025 field.

Now, with two more point-earning possibilities between the 3M Open and the playoff, it will be easier for players to justify taking a week off following their overseas competition(s) to recharge for a potential playoff push.

Because anyone playing in the 3M Open in an attempt to qualify for the playoffs could be setting themselves up to play six or seven events in a row, which is uncommon for players.

The tournament has done a good job attracting relatively appealing fields with a deck stacked against it in recent years, the challenge did appear to just get a bit more difficult.

Other 2026 schedule notes

Trump National Doral is back on the PGA Tour schedule next year as a signature event that is sure to test how often the top golfers want to play during an extraordinary spring of five big tournaments in a six-week stretch.

Doral long was considered the start of the Florida swing, a can’t-miss event as the PGA Tour began attracting international stars.

Next year it will be a $20 million signature event the first weekend in May, part of a stretch that starts with the Masters, ends with the PGA Championship and has three signature events in the four weeks in between.

That also means players not eligible for those big events would have only two tournaments to play — one of them with a minimal purse — in that six-week stretch.

“We’re excited to showcase the game’s greatest players competing at golf’s most iconic venues,” said Brian Rolapp, the tour’s new CEO.

There’s virtually no change from the 2025 schedule except for a few tournaments changing dates, the Mexico Open moving to the fall and moving the opposite-field event in the Dominican Republic from March (against Bay Hill) to July (against the British Open).

The PGA Tour lost the Barracuda Championship in Truckee, Calif., that had been opposite the British Open. It was the only tournament that used the modified Stableford scoring system.

Still to be determined is a title sponsor for what now is called the Miami Championship.

Doral first became part of the PGA Tour schedule in 1962. It became a World Golf Championship event in 2007, and then the PGA Tour struggled to find a title sponsor when President Donald Trump bought the resort.

It moved away from Trump Doral to Mexico City after 2016, prompting Trump — the presumed Republican nominee at the time — to say, “I hope they have kidnapping insurance.”

The famed “Blue Monster” at Trump Doral then became a site for Saudi-funded LIV Golf each of the past four years. Miami is not part of the LIV schedule for 2026, although his Trump National outside Washington will be used.

The spring stretch isn’t the only busy part of the schedule.

The PGA Tour season begins a week later on Jan. 8 at Kapalua, giving players a little more time after the holidays to get ready.

That means the WM Phoenix Open, which prefers to end on Super Bowl Sunday, will be Feb. 5-8. The AT&T Pebble Beach moves back a week followed by the Genesis Invitational, both $20 million signature events.

Previously, the Mexico Open was after the West Coast Swing, a week before the start of the Florida Swing. Now the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., will follow two signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera, and precede two more big events in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

After closing in January, Burnsville’s former Macy’s store has a new owner.

The Burnsville Center store recently sold for $4 million to Burnsville Commercial Partners LLC, according to July filings with the Minnesota Department of Revenue.

The former storefront, located at 14251 Burnhaven Drive, was closed as part of the retailer’s “Bold New Chapter” strategy that aimed to close underproductive stores over a three-year period while investing in other locations, according to a news release from the retailer.

More than 60 locations were closed earlier this year, including the Burnsville Macy’s and another at the Maplewood Mall.

What will come of the Burnsville facility is still unknown as representatives from Burnsville Commercial Partners LLC did not immediately return a Pioneer Press request for comment.

According to Dakota County property records, the roughly 17-acre lot includes the 222,000-square-foot department store building that was constructed in 1977.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The seasonably adjusted unemployment rate in Washington, D.C., was the highest in the nation for the third straight month, according to new data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

D.C.’s jobless rate reached 6% in July, a reflection of the mass layoffs of federal workers, ushered in by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, earlier this year. An overall decline in international tourism — which is a main driver of D.C.’s income — is also expected to have an impact on the climbing unemployment rate in the District.

Neighboring states also saw an uptick in unemployment rates in July — with Maryland at 3.4% (up from 3.3%) and Virginia at 3.6% (up from 3.5%), according to the state-by-state jobless figures.

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Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, federal workers across government agencies have been either laid off or asked to voluntarily resign from their positions. Those actions have drawn litigation across the federal government by labor unions and advocacy groups.

In July, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump administration plans to downsize the federal workforce further, despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.

The latest D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis figures show that payments made to unemployed federal workers have been climbing month-over-month. In April, unemployed workers received $2.01 million in unemployment payments. By June, that figure reached $2.57 million.

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute argues that the federal worker layoffs will exacerbate D.C.’s Black-white unemployment ratio. The latest nationwide unemployment rate according to the BLS is 4.2% — South Dakota had the lowest jobless rate in July at 1.9%.

In addition, international tourism, a major source of D.C., to the U.S. is declining. Angered by Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric, and alarmed by reports of tourists being arrested at the border, some citizens of other countries are staying away from the U.S. and choosing to travel elsewhere — notably British, German and South American tourists, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.

A May report from the organization states that international visitor spending to the U.S. is projected to fall to just under $169 billion this year, down from $181 billion in 2024 — which is a 22.5% decline compared to the previous peak.

The latest jobs numbers come after the Republican president and a group of GOP governors have deployed National Guard troops to D.C. in the hopes of reducing crime and boosting immigration enforcement.

City officials say crime is already falling in the nation’s capital.

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Behold the power of the humble hot mic.

The magnifier of sound, a descendant of 150-year-old technology, on Monday added to its long history of cutting through the most scripted political spectacles when it captured more than two minutes of U.S. President Donald Trump and eight European leaders chit-chatting around a White House news conference on their talks to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The standout quote came from Trump himself to French President Emmanuel Macron even before anyone sat down. The American president, reflecting his comments after meeting in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand, as crazy as it sounds.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron, left, and President Donald Trump speak during a meeting in the East Room of the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

How politics and diplomacy sound when the principals think no one is listening can reveal much about the character, humor and humanity of our leaders — for better and sometimes for worse. As public figures, they’ve long known what the rest of us are increasingly learning in the age of CCTV, Coldplay kiss cams and social media: In public, no one can realistically expect privacy.

“Whenever I hear about a hot mic moment, my first reaction is that this is what they really think, that it’s not gone through the external communications filter,” said Bill McGowan, founder and CEO of Clarity Media Group in New York. “That’s why people love it so much: There is nothing more authentic than what people say on a hot mic.”

Always assume the microphone — or camera — is turned on

Hot mics, often leavened with video, have bedeviled aspiring and actual leaders long before social media. During a sound check for his weekly radio address in 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously joked about attacking the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

“My fellow Americans,” Reagan quipped, not realizing the practice run was being recorded. “I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” The Soviet Union didn’t find it funny and condemned it given the consequential subject at hand.

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Putin, too, has fallen prey to the perils of a live mic. In 2006, he was quoted in Russian media joking about Israel’s president, who had been charged with and later was convicted of rape. The Kremlin said Putin was not joking about rape and his meaning had been lost in translation.

Sometimes a hot mic moment involves no words at all. Presidential candidate Al Gore was widely parodied for issuing exasperated and very audible sighs during his debate with George W. Bush in 2000. In others, the words uttered for all to hear are profane.

Bush was caught telling running mate Dick Cheney that a reporter for The New York Times was a “major-league a–hole.”

“This is a big f———- deal,” then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden famously said, loudly enough to be picked up on a microphone, as President Barack Obama prepared to sign his signature Affordable Care Act in 2010.

FILE – U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev chat during a bilateral meeting at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March, 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, file)

Obama was caught on camera in South Korea telling Dmitri Medvedev, then the Russian president, that he’ll have “more flexibility” to resolve sensitive issues — “particularly with missile defense” — after the 2012 presidential election, his last. Republican Mitt Romney, Obama’s rival that year, called the exchange “bowing to the Kremlin.”

“Sometimes it’s the unguarded moments that are the most revealing of all,” Romney said in a statement, dubbing the incident “hot mic diplomacy.”

Live mics have picked up name-calling and gossip aplenty even in the most mannerly circles.

In 2022, Jacinda Ardern, then New Zealand’s prime minister, known for her skill at debating and calm, measured responses, was caught on a hot mic tossing an aside in which she referred to a rival politician as “such an arrogant pr—-” during Parliament Question Time.

In 2005, Jacques Chirac, then president of France, was recorded airing his distaste for British food during a visit to Russia. Speaking to Putin and Gerhard Schroder, he was heard saying that worse food could only be found in Finland, according to widely reported accounts.

FILE – Britain’s King Charles III signs an oath to uphold the security of the Church in Scotland during the Accession Council at St James’s Palace, London, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022, where he was formally proclaimed monarch. (Victoria Jones/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Britain’s King Charles III chose to deal with his hot mic moment with humor. In 2022, shortly after his coronation, Charles lost his patience with a leaky pen while signing a document on a live feed. He can be heard grousing: “Oh, God, I hate this!” and muttering, “I can’t bear this bloody thing … every stinking time.”

It wasn’t the first pen that had troubled him. The British ability to poke fun at oneself, he said in a speech the next year, is well known: “Just as well, you may say, given some of the vicissitudes I have faced with frustratingly failing fountain pens this past year.”

Trump owns perhaps the ultimate hot mic moment

The American president is famously uncontrolled in public with a penchant for “saying it like it is,” sometimes with profanity. That makes him popular among some supporters.

But even he had trouble putting a lid on comments he made before he was a candidate to “Access Hollywood” in tapes that jeopardized his campaign in the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race. Trump did not appear to know the microphone was recording.

Trump bragged about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women who were not his wife on recordings obtained by The Washington Post and NBC News and aired just two days before his debate with Hillary Clinton. The celebrity businessman boasted “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” in a conversation with Billy Bush, then a host of the television show.

With major supporters balking, Trump issued an apology “if anyone was offended,” and his campaign dismissed the comments as “locker room banter.”

On Monday, though, the chatter on both ends of the East Room press conference gave observers a glimpse of the diplomatic game.

Dismissed unceremoniously from the White House in March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy now sat at the table with Trump and seven of his European peers: Macron, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Trump complimented Macron’s tan. He said Stubb is a good golfer. He asked if anyone wanted to ask the press questions when the White House pool was admitted to the room — before it galloped inside. The European leaders smiled at the shouting and shuffling.

Stubb asked Trump if he’s “been through this every day?”

Trump replied, “All the time.”

Meloni said she doesn’t want to talk to the Italian press. But Trump, she noted, is game.

“He loves it. He loves it, eh?” she said.