The Twins’ potentially crowded rotation suddenly looks a lot less packed.

While the Twins are still expecting ace Pablo López, out since early June with a shoulder injury, to return this weekend, which will give them six starters, they optioned Mick Abel to Triple-A on Monday and on Tuesday announced that David Festa — out with shoulder inflammation — is not expected to return this season.

Festa, who made a rehab start for Triple-A St. Paul on Aug. 28, had symptoms recur during his last bullpen day, Rocco Baldelli said Tuesday. The Twins manager said the team expects Festa to visit Dr. Keith Meister, an orthopedic surgeon based in Texas — likely next week.

It’s a tough setback for the 25-year-old right-hander, who has been dealing with a shoulder injury of some form for most of this season.

Festa began the season in Triple-A but was called up April to join the rotation for when López suffered a hamstring strain. He made three starts before being optioned back to St. Paul. Shortly after, his shoulder started bothering him, keeping him out of action from May 6-23. Festa returned to the majors in early June but by late July, the Twins shut him down.

A magnetic resonance imaging revealed no structural damage but an impingement in the right shoulder, for which he received a pair of injections. That injury, it now turns out, was the end of his major league season. Festa pitched in just one game in the second half.

Vázquez hoping to return

One player for whom the Twins haven’t ruled out a return is catcher Christian Vázquez.

Vázquez has been on the injured list for almost a month as he deals with an infection in his left shoulder that required a procedure. The catcher has been getting antibiotics administered through a PICC line and has been recovering at his home in Florida. But he is due to return to the Twin Cities this week.

“I think he’s doing well,” Baldelli said. “I think Vazky would love to play again this year. I think he has every intention of trying to get back and play again and prove that he’s healthy going into the offseason. And he just likes to play baseball. So, if he can come back and play baseball, I think he would absolutely love to be here.”

Briefly

The Twins will send Zebby Matthews to the mound for the third game of the series against the Chicago White Sox. He is scheduled to face Yoendrys Gómez, who limited the Twins to no runs on two hits in 4⅔ innings pitched in late August.

Diane’s Place, a Minneapolis restaurant helmed by local chef Diane Moua, has been named the Restaurant of the Year by Food & Wine Magazine.

The magazine’s editors scouted more than 100 restaurants across the country to award the title, editor-in-chief Hunter Lewis said in a statement.

“Diane’s Place stood out for its exceptionally high level of service and hospitality, and for the way that Diane Moua and her team share Hmong foodways with their Minneapolis community through the menu and culture of the restaurant,” he said.

Moua, who previously earned acclaim in the Twin Cities food scene as a pastry chef at spots like Spoon and Stable and Bellecour Bakery, opened her solo restaurant in 2024 with a focus on both sweet and savory dishes inspired by her Hmong background and classical culinary training.

Earlier this year, Moua was a finalist for a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest, a title ultimately won by Karyn Tomlinson of St. Paul’s Myriel. She has previously been a finalist twice in the Outstanding Pastry Chef category, a nationally focused award.

Moua and fellow local chef Yia Vang also were both recently featured in a New York Times profile that declared that Diane’s Place and Vang’s Minneapolis restaurant Vinai are making the city “the American capital of Hmong food.”

Diane’s Place: 117 14th Ave. NE, Minneapolis; 612-489-8012; dianesplacemn.com. Open for brunch Thursdays through Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner Thursdays through Sundays from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. (Closed Wednesdays.)

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By MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that a video circulating online that showed items being tossed out of an upstairs window of the White House was created with artificial intelligence, despite his press team seeming to confirm the veracity of it hours earlier.

Trump, who has boasted of being an expert in building design as he takes on remodeling projects at the White House and beyond, told reporters that the video has “got to be fake” because the windows, he said, are heavy and sealed shut.

The video, which circulated Monday, appears to show a small black bag and a long white item being tossed out of a window on the building’s east side.

Trump blamed the video on AI, saying the creation of fake videos was one of the downsides of the technology, but then said, “If something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll have to just blame AI.”

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Hours earlier, the White House seemed to verify that the video was real when it told several news outlets that inquired about the video that it was “a contractor who was doing regular maintenance while the President was gone.”

The White House did not respond to a message later Tuesday about the discrepancy.

Trump denied that the windows can be opened and said “I know every window up there.” He went on to tell a story in which he said first lady Melania Trump recently complained that she wanted fresh air from an open window in the White House, “But you can’t. They’re bulletproof. And number one, they’re sealed, and number two, each window weighs about 600 pounds. You have to be pretty strong to open them up.”

After Trump viewed the video on the phone of Fox News Channel reporter Peter Doocy, the president again said the windows are sealed and again blamed AI.

“It’s the kind of thing they do,” he said. “And one of the problems we have with AI, it’s both good and bad. If something happens really bad, just blame AI. But also they create things, you know?”

Hany Farid, a digital forensics and misinformation expert at the University of California, Berkeley, who reviewed the video, said he does not detect any digital watermarks that are sometimes inserted into images at the point of AI-generation.

“The shadows in the scene, including the shadow cast by the tossed bag, are all physically consistent. The motion of the waving flags have none of the tell-tale signs that you often see in AI-generated videos. The overall structure of the White House appears to be consistent, including the flying of the American and POW/MIA flag,” Farid said in a statement.

Former first lady Michelle Obama, in a 2015 appearance on the “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” seemed to complain about not being able to open windows in the White House, telling the host that she was looking forward to life after the White House, saying she wanted to take car rides with open windows and said, “The windows in our house don’t open.”

Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed to this report.

Ramsey County officials are proposing increases of 9.75% in 2026 and 7.5% in 2027 to the property tax levy as part of the county’s budget.

The proposed budget totals $929.25 million in 2026 – a 6.57% increase from the 2025 supplemental budget of $848.5 million. The 2027 proposed budget of $968.45 million is a 4.22% increase from 2026.

“County governments cannot operate as if it were business as usual,” said County Manager Ling Becker at Tuesday’s county board meeting. “We are navigating rising costs, limited revenue growth and increasing demand for services, while facing deep uncertainty from federal and state budget pressures. This budget responds directly to those realities.”

About 46% of the county’s proposed budget is funded through property taxes. The rest comes from intergovernmental revenues, charges for services and other sources. The county raised the tax levy 4.75% in 2025, 6.8% in 2024 and 4.5% in 2023.

The average tax increase on a residential median-value home is estimated at a 4.4% increase, or $22 per month according to county officials. The estimated median home value in St. Paul for 2026 is $289,200.

What’s driving this?

The three “drivers” behind the budget are unfunded mandates from the state of Minnesota, employee compensation and “directing resources to our core services and improving our organizational performance,” Becker said.

As part of 2025 supplemental budget discussions, county officials have decided to restructure, with the new system taking effect Jan. 1. This will reduce the size of the county’s Health and Wellness Service Team and sunset the county’s Strategic Team and Information and Public Records Service Team. County departments are currently organized into four Service Teams and a Strategic Team.

Priorities in the proposed budget include Project Bridge which relocates individuals from the Adult Detention Center, which is overcrowded to the Ramsey County Correctional Facility, according to county officials. There’s also the county’s Appropriate Response Initiative, which involves reexamining how it responds to 911 calls, and expanding staffing and training in Child Protection Services.

Staffing positions

The proposed budget includes the reduction of 43 staff positions in areas not considered to have an essential county function, such as its Detox and Withdrawal Management Program which serves around 10 people per day on average. If the proposed budget is approved, the program will be closed as of Jan. 1.

“It’s difficult to hire that type of expertise and there are lots of community providers within the metro area that provide detox and withdrawal management successfully to folks,” said Alexandra Kotze, county director of finance. “As part of this, we’re going to spend the next few months working to close down and make sure that the people who need that service are successfully transitioned.”

Additional staffing will include 110 full-time employees in 2026.

That includes the 80 full-time employees hired to help with backlogs affecting access to Medicaid-funded services, and 30.5 full-time employees in 2027.

More information

County service teams will hold budget presentations throughout September. Community members will be able to provide feedback on the proposed budget during public hearings Sept. 22 and Dec. 11 before its expected approval by the county board on Dec. 16.

For more information on those presentations, visit ramseycounty.us/content/2026-27-budget-presentations.

To learn more about the proposed budget, go to ramseycounty.us/your-government/budget-finance

To learn more about property tax relief, visit revenue.state.mn.us/property-tax-refund.

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