Today is Saturday, May 24, the 144th day of 2025. There are 221 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 24,1883, New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, at the time the world’s longest suspension bridge, opened to traffic.

Also on this date:

In 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the message “What hath God wrought” from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened America’s first telegraph line.

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In 1935, the first Major League Baseball game to be played at night took place at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1.

In 1937, in a pair of rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Social Security Act of 1935.

In 1941, during World War II, the German battleship Bismarck sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood in the North Atlantic, killing all but three of the 1,418 men on board. (The Bismarck would be sunk by British battleships three days later.)

In 1962, astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard the Aurora 7 spacecraft.

In 1974, American jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington, 75, died in New York.

In 1994, four Islamic extremists convicted of bombing New York’s World Trade Center in 1993 were each sentenced to 240 years in prison.

In 2022, an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers. The gunman, Salvador Ramos, a former student at the school, was also killed. It was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. elementary school since the 2012 attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Today’s Birthdays:

Comedian Tommy Chong is 87.
Musician Bob Dylan is 84.
Actor Gary Burghoff (M*A*S*H) is 82.
Singer Patti LaBelle is 81.
Actor Priscilla Presley is 80.
Actor Jim Broadbent is 76.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins is 76.
Actor Alfred Molina is 72.
Musician Rosanne Cash is 70.
Actor Kristin Scott Thomas is 65.
Author Michael Chabon is 62.
Basketball Hall of Famer Joe Dumars is 62.
Actor John C. Reilly is 60.
Basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady is 46.
Dancer-choreographer Mark Ballas is 39.
Country singer Billy Gilman is 37.
Rapper G-Eazy is 36.
Actor Brianne Howey is 36.
Actor Daisy Edgar-Jones is 27.

In a matchup between two of the American League’s top pitching staffs, it’s no surprise that runs were hard to come by on Friday night.

After each scoring early, the two pitching staffs put up zeros throughout the middle and late innings of the game before Ty France hit a walk-off home run inning to send the Twins to a 3-1 win over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night at Target Field.

France unleashed on a first-pitch slider from Lucas Erceg, sending the ball deep into the night. It was France’s second-walk off hit as a Twin this season and first career walk-off home run.

The Twins’ only run prior to that point came in the second inning when Carlos Correa hammered a Noah Cameron pitch to center field. The ball, which traveled 429 feet, left the bat at 107.2 miles per hour and tied the game up at the time. It was Correa’s first at-bat since returning from the seven-day concussion injured list after colliding with teammate Byron Buxton last Thursday in Baltimore.

Correa said he experienced dizziness, headaches and brain fog in the days after suffering the concussion, but he looked good in his return, sending another fly ball deep to right field in his second at-bat of the night. He also collected an infield single in the ninth inning and scored on France’s home run.

While the Twins didn’t have that many opportunities to begin with in the game — they finished the day with just six hits — the Royals had a chance in almost every inning. And yet, Twins pitchers made sure those chances didn’t amount to anything.

Though Pablo López did not throw a 1-2-3 inning in his outing, he was able to pitch around traffic for the most part, after giving up a run in the first inning. López allowed seven hits in his outing, but each time he did, he maneuvered himself out of it. He departed with two outs in the sixth inning in favor of Brock Stewart, who got Kyle Isbel to pop up for the final out of the inning.

In the seventh, Louie Varland allowed a four-pitch walk to begin his outing but a key double play helped him out of the situation. And an inning later, after Maikel Garcia reached on a leadoff single, Griffin Jax picked him off before recording the next two outs of the inning. With a scoreless ninth, Cole Sands picked up the win for the Twins.

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The looks were there, but the shots did not fall Friday for the Minnesota Lynx until they absolutely had to fall.

Natisha Hiedeman swished home a 3-pointer with 1:04 remaining to cap a 18-0 run for the first Lynx lead of the game and Minnesota rallied to beat Connecticut 76-70.

“Coming out of the huddle we just said everybody needs to be aggressive,” said Hiedeman. “… Just taking what the defense give me.”

By scoring 23 of the game’s final 25 points, Minnesota is off to its first 4-0 start since beginning its 2017 championship season 9-0.

Marina Mabrey got the 0-3 Sun within one, but Hiedeman split four Connecticut defenders on a drive to the hoop and a 73-70 lead with 31.3 seconds left in a headache-inducing, raucous Target Center. The noise got even louder with a Bridget Carleton steal with 23 seconds left.

“It was so amazing. It was so fun, so loud. They were like our sixth man out there,” Napheesa Collier said.

With chants of “MVP” echoing in the arena, Collier calmly made two free throws to all but ice the win.

Collier did her usual thing with 33 points, and Jessica Shepard added 13 and Hiedeman 11 – both off the bench. Collier added 11 rebounds, her first double-figure mark this season.

“Phee is the most consistent player in the league,” Shepard said. “Every night you know what you’re going to get from here. Our team was really struggling tonight and she just kept putting the ball in the basket when we needed baskets and just kept us in the game.”

Not one to regularly express displeasure with officials, Collier more than once had words for someone with a whistle after being hacked on the way to the hoop and no foul being called. Reeve said that’s something the Lynx superstar should not have to go through.

“You put on another game tonight, and you see a post player doing that very same thing … they’re going to be immediately called a foul, immediately. Phee should not have to accept the level of contact she accepted tonight. I thought that was just egregious.”

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State lawmakers plan to work through the Memorial Day weekend to finalize Minnesota’s next $66 billion, two-year budget, which they failed to pass by Monday’s legislative deadline.

Republican Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, right, and House Democratic-Farmer-Labor Leader Melissa Hortman, left, address reporters during a news conference at the state Capitol in St. Paul on Thursday, May 22, 2025. (Alex Derosier / Pioneer Press)

Leaders hope they can wrap up negotiations between the House — evenly split between Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor members — and the DFL-led Senate by early next week, so that Gov. Tim Walz can call them back for a special session to pass a budget before the end of the month.

If they don’t, state employees will get layoff notices starting June 1 warning of a potential government shutdown in July. The fiscal year ends June 30, and the Legislature has to authorize new spending before then in order to keep the state running.

“Working groups” have been meeting since Tuesday, mostly in private, to finalize details on big spending areas like K-12 education and health and human services, which account for two-thirds of state general fund spending.

“Even though it’s slower than we would like, things are going well. It doesn’t appear that anyone has quit or given up, and that is a very good sign,” Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring told reporters Thursday. “Our expectation is they’ll be here working until they can come up with an agreement and move it forward.”

There’s been progress on a handful of bills, but as of Friday evening, there was no public information on final deals for taxes or the biggest parts of state spending. A controversial provision in the budget deal reached by legislative leaders and the governor last week may be slowing progress on the health bill.

DFLers and Republicans agreed to end state-funded MinnesotaCare health insurance for adults in the U.S. without legal immigration status, a benefit DFLers created while in control of state government in 2023. Republicans agreed to preserve care for children, but many Democrats remain strongly opposed.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy of St. Paul wants MinnesotaCare cuts to travel as a separate bill, but Republicans want it to run with the overall health package. At a Thursday joint news conference with Demuth, House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park said they hadn’t resolved the matter.

Both the DFL and Republican House leaders said they’re confident Walz will sign all parts of the budget deal into law and still would approve cuts to immigrant care even if it traveled separately from a broader health bill.

Further complicating matters are the unique dynamics of co-leaders from both parties in the House working with the DFL majority in the Senate. The last time the House was tied was in 1979. Murphy called the House a “two-headed monster.”

“It’s been more challenging than usual to sew this all together,” she told reporters on Thursday.

Working groups have already passed their leadership-imposed Wednesday deadline to finish work on bills, so leaders from both parties said they are getting more closely involved. They haven’t moved to take over the bills for committee chairs yet, but the option remains on the table.

Murphy said she was skipping cabin plans for the weekend to make sure work gets done.

As of Friday, most negotiations have taken place in hearings that are not publicly posted or open to the general public.

A few key budget pieces had public hearings on Thursday — K-12 and human services — though the tax bill has been the only part that has had daily public hearings since the working group process started. The Legislature only passed a handful of the 20 or so budget bills in the regular session.

On Thursday, Hortman said the commerce, workforce and human services bills were close to completion. While there had been some trouble with energy and K-12 education, most of the budget deals were approaching completion.

House leadership sent Reps. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, and Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, to help mediate. As of Friday, it was unclear if they were any closer to a deal.

“The only ones that are very far from having a fully formed bill ready to post is probably taxes and maybe health,” Hortman said Thursday. “The rest of them I think you are going to see posted spreadsheets soon and posted language not too long after that.”

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