By MATT BROWN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans have made changes to their party’s sweeping tax bill in hopes of preserving a new policy that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade.

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In legislative text unveiled Thursday night, Senate Republicans proposed denying states federal funding for broadband projects if they regulate AI. That’s a change from a provision in the House-passed version of the tax overhaul that simply banned any current or future AI regulations by the states for 10 years.

“These provisions fulfill the mandate given to President Trump and Congressional Republicans by the voters: to unleash America’s full economic potential and keep her safe from enemies,” Sen. Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement announcing the changes.

The proposed ban has angered state lawmakers in Democratic and Republican-led states and alarmed some digital safety advocates concerned about how AI will develop as the technology rapidly advances. But leading AI executives, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, have made the case to senators that a “patchwork” of state AI regulations would cripple innovation.

Some House Republicans are also uneasy with the provision. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., came out against the AI regulatory moratorium in the House bill after voting for it. She said she had not read that section of the bill.

“We should be reducing federal power and preserving state power. Not the other way around,” Greene wrote on social media.

Senate Republicans made their change in an attempt to follow the special process being used to pass the tax bill with a simple majority vote. To comply with those rules, any provision needs to deal primarily with the federal budget and not government policy. Republican leaders argue, essentially, that by setting conditions for states to receive certain federal appropriations — in this instance, funding for broadband internet infrastructure — they would meet the Senate’s standard for using a majority vote.

Cruz told reporters Thursday that he will make his case next week to Senate parliamentarian on why the revised ban satisfies the rules. The parliamentarian is the chamber’s advisor on its proper rules and procedures. While the parliamentarian’s ruling are not binding, senators of both parties have adhered to their findings in the past.

Senators generally argue that Congress should take the lead on regulating AI but so far the two parties have been unable to broker a deal that is acceptable to Republicans’ and Democrats’ divergent concerns.

The GOP legislation also includes significant changes to how the federal government auctions commercial spectrum ranges. Those new provisions expand the range of spectrum available for commercial use, an issue that has divided lawmakers over how to balance questions of national security alongside providing telecommunications firms access to more frequencies for commercial wireless use.

Senators are aiming to pass the tax package, which extends the 2017 rate cuts and other breaks from President Donald Trump’s first term along with new tax breaks and steep cuts to social programs, later this month.

Gov. Tim Walz announced Friday that he has called for a special session for the Legislature after reaching a budget agreement with Republican and Democratic legislative leaders.

The special session will begin at 10 a.m. Monday.

Last month state leaders announced they had reached a budget framework that called for a two-year budget of $66 billion to $67 billion but agreeing on details hasn’t been easy. Leaders have been meeting behind closed doors after the end of the regular session to hammer out details. Lawmakers will return to vote on the final agreement.

“This bipartisan budget agreement makes thoughtful reductions in state spending while keeping us on track to make Minnesota the best state in the country to raise a child,” Walz said in a statement. “It is the result of hundreds of hours of good-faith, bipartisan debate on the best ways to improve the health, safety, and wellbeing of Minnesotans. While all sides had to make concessions in order to reach a compromise, I’m grateful to our legislative partners for their collaboration and dedication to moving Minnesota forward.”

House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said that despite the delay to the session Minnesota want lawmakers to finish work on the state’s two-year budget.

“I look forward to finishing the state budget with the largest cut to state spending in history, important reforms to Earned Sick and Safe Time and Paid Family Leave, and other important wins for Minnesotans across the state,” Demuth said in a statement.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said the budget agreement indicates lawmakers can work through difficult issues to fond common ground.

“That means protecting generational gains made for workers, schools, healthcare, care givers, kids, seniors, and parents, and taking important action in addressing our future budget challenges,” Murphy said in a statement.” We are passing a stable budget before we reach the brink of a damaging government shutdown that would have punished people living in every county of our state.”

This story will update later today.

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By Sara Rathner, NerdWallet

If you’re using your credit card issuer’s app or website just to pay your bills and check in on some recent transactions, you’re only tapping into a fraction of the features available to you.

We’ve been able to pay bills online for more than 25 years, but that’s table stakes now. Banks are competing with each other to roll out tools that can help customers see spending trends, set their budget, manage recurring charges and improve account security.

“We started looking at the online experience as the new battleground,” says Adam Winchester, head of experience for consumer and small business payments at U.S. Bank. “If we can win there, we can win market share.”

Get data on spending and tips to save more

Your banking app and website can translate your individual purchases into a longer-term look at your spending trends. Some provide virtual assistants, like Capital One’s Eno, the U.S. Bank Smart Assistant, and Bank of America®’s Erica, that can make suggestions on ways you can save money, including reviewing recurring charges to make sure you’re not spending without realizing it. Your spending can be displayed in helpful graphs that make data on your expenses clearer, so you can make adjustments to your budget if needed.

This works well if all of your accounts and credit cards are from one bank, but that’s not the case for many people. According to Winchester, a limitation of some banking apps is the inability to link accounts from other financial institutions. If you juggle multiple cards and have accounts elsewhere, what you see when logged into your account at one bank isn’t going to give you your full financial picture.

Some apps have solved this issue by allowing you to link outside accounts. Chase, for example, can show you information from your other credit cards, banking and investment accounts within its app.

If you have multiple apps with this capability, pick the one with the user experience you find the easiest to navigate and understand, says Beth Robertson, managing director of Keynova Group, a financial services intelligence firm. “You have to set it up one time, but from there on out, you can get a really good compilation of information.”

Keep your card secure

You can regularly check your card activity for suspicious purchases, and also set up alerts that will notify you of any charges over a certain amount. You can even freeze or lock your account if your physical card is missing to prevent someone else from using it (unfreezing also takes mere seconds, in case you realize your card was safe the whole time).

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But account security isn’t just about knowing where your physical card is. It’s also important to know who else has access to your account data, such as merchants storing your card information for later purchases, or businesses where you have a recurring membership payment, like gyms. Many banking apps let you see who has access to your data, and some allow you to revoke that access from within the app.

Robertson recently granted data access to a company that determined her eligibility for a mortgage. Once the approval process was complete, she took away that company’s ability to see her financial information.

Bank of America® offers a security meter on its website and app that shows your account security level and suggests steps you can take to protect your accounts even more. This includes actions like updating your password and setting up two-factor authentication.

Check in on your credit scores

Many banks offer customers the ability to not just see their credit scores, but also learn about how different actions can raise or lower those scores. This can provide important context for anyone who experienced a recent score change, or who is hoping to grow their credit before applying for a loan. Your app can also generate an action plan if you’d like to build your credit.

Nerdy Tip Different banks show scores from a variety of credit scoring companies and scoring models, so the credit scores you see on your banking apps may vary.

Sara Rathner writes for NerdWallet. Email: srathner@nerdwallet.com.

The article The Credit Card Tools Hiding in Your Banking App originally appeared on NerdWallet.

A year-long construction project on Snelling and St. Clair avenues wrapped up this week and the intersection now hosts two-lane traffic again, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

The project, which began in May 2024, included resurfacing a half-mile of Snelling Avenue between St. Clair and Grand avenues and replacing the signal system. MnDOT also installed pedestrian bump-outs and ADA-compliant crossings at each intersection from St. Clair to Grand Avenue.

After intermittent closures last week, the intersection opened and the new signal system turned on Thursday. Minor construction activities, such as replacing the boulevard’s trees and sod, will continue throughout the summer.

For more information, go to mndot.gov/metro/projects/snellingave-stpaul.

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