Today is Thursday, April 24, the 114th day of 2025. There are 251 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 24, 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising, a rebellion against British rule in Ireland. Though the rebels surrendered to British forces six days later, the uprising set the stage for republican victories in the Irish general election of 1918 and the establishment of the Irish Free State via the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922.

Also on this date:

In 1915, in what is considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople.

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In 1960, rioting erupted in Biloxi, Mississippi, after Black protesters staging a “wade-in” at a whites-only beach were attacked by a crowd of hostile white people.

In 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his Soyuz 1 spacecraft smashed into the Earth after his parachutes failed to deploy properly during reentry. He was the first human spaceflight fatality.

In 1980, the United States launched Operation Eagle Claw, an unsuccessful attempt to free 53 American hostages in Iran that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. service members.

In 1990, Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.

In 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of the California Forestry Association, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 23 others.)

In 2013, in Bangladesh, a shoddily constructed eight-story commercial building housing garment factories collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people.

In 2018, former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was arrested at his home near Sacramento after DNA linked him to crimes attributed to the Golden State Killer; authorities believed he committed 13 murders and more than 50 rapes in the 1970s and 1980s. (DeAngelo would plead guilty in 2020 to 13 counts of murder and be sentenced to life in prison without parole.)

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Shirley MacLaine is 91.
Actor-singer-filmmaker Barbra Streisand is 83.
Fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier is 73.
Actor Eric Bogosian is 72.
Actor Michael O’Keefe is 70.
Actor-comedian Cedric the Entertainer is 61.
Actor Djimon Hounsou (JEYE’-mihn OHN’-soo) is 61.
Actor Aidan Gillen is 57.
Actor Rory McCann is 56.
Latin pop singer Alejandro Fernandez is 54.
Baseball Hall of Famer Chipper Jones is 53.
Actor Derek Luke is 51.
Singer-TV personality Kelly Clarkson is 43.
Country singer Carly Pearce is 35.
Actor-musician Joe Keery is 33.
Actor Jack Quaid is 33.
Actor Jordan Fisher is 31.
Golfer Lydia Ko is 28.

Two Minnesota Twins greats are recovering from strokes suffered days apart, the team confirmed Wednesday.

Former right fielder and designated hitter Tony Oliva had what the team called “a series of mini strokes” over the past month but is expected to make a full recovery. Former first baseman Kent Hrbek also suffered a minor stroke following knee surgery in early April and is recovering at home.

The 86-year-old Oliva spent his entire 15-year career with the Twins. He was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1964 and won the batting title three times. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 by the Golden Days Era Committee.

Hrbek, 64, who grew up in the area in Bloomington and played his entire 14-year career with his hometown team. He was an integral part of the Twins teams that won the World Series in 1987 and 1991.

Both Oliva and Hrbek have remained around the team and have been regular fixtures at Target Field since the stadium opened in 2010. Their numbers have been retired by the Twins — Oliva’s No. 6 and Hrbek’s No. 14 — and the former players are represented by bronze statues outside the venue.

The team hopes to see both of them back at the ballpark soon.

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The first time the Twins loaded the bases, Carlos Correa rocked a hard line drive right at second baseman Brooks Baldwin, resulting in a double play. The second time they loaded them, Byron Buxton took a pitch looking to end the inning, a questionable call that did not go the Twins’ way. The third time they did it, Harrison Bader was robbed of a hit by center fielder Luis Robert Jr.

Against a better team, all those runners left on base during the first three innings likely would have spelled trouble. Against the Chicago White Sox, it just meant that the Twins broke the game open a little later than they would have otherwise. The Twins pulled away from the White Sox in the later innings on Wednesday night at Target Field, winning 6-3.

Runs in the third and fourth innings on RBI singles from Ty France and Trevor Larnach gave the Twins a 2-0 lead, one which the White Sox erased an inning later.

Starter David Festa, who had worked around traffic for most of his start, issued a walk and allowed a single to lead off the fifth, spelling the end of his night. Three runs ended up scoring in the inning, giving the White Sox a lead they held ever-so-briefly.

But the Twins, who had no problem putting baserunners on on Wednesday punched back, with a France walk and Ryan Jeffers single setting up Brooks Lee’s RBI knock in the fifth.

And then, they kept punching.

Trevor Larnach, who has been heating up at the plate, hit a ball out to right an inning later, giving the Twins the lead once again in the sixth and in an inning later, Byron Buxton’s fifth home run of the season, a two-run shot, opened up a three-run lead for the Twins.

In a speech before a joint session of the Minnesota Legislature on Wednesday night, Gov. Tim Walz defended his proposed cuts to human services and education, and contrasted what he called responsible state government with “chaos” at the federal level under President Donald Trump.

Walz delivered his State of the State address as a divided Legislature works to pass the next two-year state budget with a significantly smaller surplus than in past years, and a multibillion-dollar deficit expected at the end of the decade.

To prepare for a worsening fiscal picture, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor and legislative leaders are proposing billions in cuts, with much of the focus on controlling growth in reimbursements for long-term disability care funding and special education.

“After my budget is passed, we will still be the most generous state in the nation when it comes to these programs and services — and because of the efficiencies we’ve proposed, we’ll be able to continue being the most generous state in the nation for many years to come,” Walz said in a his speech to state officials and lawmakers.

Walz is asking the Senate and House to pass his $66 billion budget proposal, and around $5.5 billion in cuts over the next four years. Most of that would be by controlling costs at the Minnesota Department of Human Services, where state budget officials warn reimbursements for disability services could grow to consume half of the state budget by the 2030s.

The governor’s approach would leave intact new programs created in the 2023 session, such as paid family and medical leave and universal free school meals.

Republican legislative leaders have said they’re skeptical of reimbursement cuts, saying it would place a greater burden on local governments. And this year they have a little more sway over state government than they did two years ago when the DFL had the “trifecta” — the Senate, House and governor’s office. So far, however, they haven’t identified where they’d hope to see cuts big enough to address shortfalls expected in 2028-2029.

Republicans have a tie with the DFL in the House — where both parties have 67 seats — giving them a bigger role in the budget process this year. Walz acknowledged that in his speech, but said his proposal was the best attempt at a compromise to help ensure the state can preserve services.

“This budget wasn’t written to please everyone. It was written to bring everyone to the table. And when we get there, no doubt we’ll have some disagreements,” Walz said, noting progressives might want fewer cuts and that conservatives might want more.

“But that’s how government is supposed to work,” he continued. “It’s not supposed to be one old man sitting in the Oval Office sending out middle-of-the-night tweets that shock markets into freefall.”

Walz contrasted what he said was Minnesota leaders’ ability to cooperate to keep the state functioning with the “great uncertainty” caused by the second Trump administration’s tariffs and sudden government cuts, all of which have been done through executive orders rather than by acts of Congress.

“That isn’t servant leadership. It’s not any kind of leadership,” he said. “It’s small. It’s weak and it’s petty. It takes the awesome power of the federal government and turns it into a crude weapon, wielded by a man who wants to be king.”

Walz’s Wednesday night State of the State speech was his first since his failed bid to become vice president with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris last year. He’s recently held a series of townhalls in other states, including Iowa, to counter Republicans on the national stage.

Walz will soon have to decide whether he will run for a third term as governor. He is also seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

A good portion of Walz’s address focused on federal issues, such as potential cuts to Medicaid under GOP-backed proposals in Congress. House Floor Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, told reporters that while that wasn’t “typical” of the State of the State,

“I think it is clear to all Minnesotans that you can’t talk about the state of the state right now without talking about the impact that the federal chaos is having,” he said, noting issues like tariffs and arrests of foreign college students by immigration authorities are ” so present in people’s lives.”

GOP calls speech ‘finger-pointing’

At a news conference following the speech, legislative Republicans said Walz was engaging in a strategy of deflecting the state’s problems toward the president. House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, described it as “finger-pointing to Washington,” rather than reckoning with the fact that Minnesota significantly grew spending under DFL leadership in 2023.

Back then, the state had a historic $18 billion surplus, and the Legislature grew spending nearly 40% in a $72 billion two-year budget. Some of that spending was one time, but two years later, the state has a bleaker fiscal outlook, something Demuth called “unsustainable.”

“I was very, very pleased to hear, though, that the governor has realized that we are heading toward a deficit and he wants to make cuts,” Demuth said. “What we do know, though, is cuts on the backs of our students, or our seniors, those that are really struggling, those are really off the table.”

One part of the speech where both parties applauded Walz? When the governor called for more efforts to combat waste, fraud and abuse in state government. Minnesota lost hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to fraud schemes, including those taking advantage of pandemic aid, where many of the alleged organizers now face federal prosecution.

“We’ve made strides in catching the bad actors, stopping their schemes. We’ve sent a lot of crooks to prison. But we can do more,” said Walz, calling for a “zero-tolerance policy” when it comes to misuse of state money, and pointing to an executive order he passed earlier this year aimed at strengthening state fraud investigations.

Legislative Republicans praised Walz for railing against fraud and said they think tackling the issue would be one of the best ways for the state to address its looming money trouble. But they also said Walz should have acted sooner.

“After two years, when they run out of money … Then they come to Republicans,” said Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks. “It’s two years too late.”

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