What’s likely to stand as the most-attended concert of this year’s Minnesota State Fair Grandstand season saw two guys who last had hits during the Obama administration set a sold-out crowd of 14,005 on fire Tuesday night.

It turns out T-Pain and Ludacris have a lot more smashes between them that one might remember and the pairing proved to be the perfect match for the Great Minnesota Get-Together. The pair offered an evening of breezy, nostalgic bangers that had the well-lubricated audience singing and dancing along.

Best known for his use of Auto-Tune (even though he’s got a great singing voice), Faheem “T-Pain” Najm clearly surprised some fans by starting promptly at 7 p.m. (Unless there are weather issues, Grandstand shows follow a tight schedule.) But he quickly won over the whole place with his playfully goofy stage presence.

Midway through his hour-long show, T-Pain gave a shout-out to a fan in the crowd hoisting an “I (heart) T-Pain” sign and dressed in the rapper’s signature top hat and white sunglasses. With a smile, he then dedicated his 2005 breakthrough “I’m ‘n Luv (Wit a Stripper)” to her. Much of his other banter was far too racy to repeat here, but he did accurately call the crowd and show “fun as hell.”

T-Pain packed in more than 20 songs (both his own and tracks he guested on), even if many were cut down to a verse and chorus. “Chopped ‘n’ Skrewed,” “Can’t Believe It,” “Best Love Song,” “Low,” “Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor),” “5 O’Clock,” “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” and “Welcome to My Hood” all earned cheers from the audience.

Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges followed a similar path, winnowing down his hits (and guest spots) to their essence. And where T-Pain’s staging was sparse at best, Ludacris had more razzle-dazzle to back him including an intro video that featured a nod to his role in the long-running “Fast and Furious” franchise. Later, he asked how many people knew him from the movies and the crowd roared back in response.

While he resorted to some tired concert tricks — “you guys are the loudest crowd we’ve ever had,” that sort of thing — Ludacris chose his set list wisely, with a midsection run of Usher’s “Yeah,” Taio Cruz’s “Break Your Heart,” Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Fergie’s “Glamorous” hitting the crowd hard. His own numbers — “Money Maker,” “How Low,” “Move Bitch,” “Stand Up” — also helped to fashion a fun and memorable evening.

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Ramsey County Manager Johanna Berg and incoming County Manager Ling Becker presented a revised supplemental budget for 2025 on Tuesday with a local levy increase of 4.75 percent in keeping with the 2024-2025 biennial budget approved in December.

The revised budget totals $848.5 million – a five percent increase from the 2024 budget of $808.49 million. The original proposed 2025 supplemental budget of $835 million was a 3.3 percent budget increase from the 2024 supplemental budget.

The revised budget includes more than $13 million in additional spending, but that spending is covered by grants, so no changes were made to the levy increase that the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners approved in December as part of the biennial budget, according to Berg and Becker.

About 45.8 percent of the county’s budget is funded through property taxes. The rest comes from intergovernmental revenues, charges for services and other sources.

The estimated impact on the county’s portion of 2025 property taxes for a median value single-family home in St. Paul will be a 4.2 percent increase, according to county officials. The total impact, including city, school district and other levies, is estimated at a 5.1 percent increase, or $196. The median home value in St. Paul is $275,300.

Market values are up in residential property classes compared to St. Paul commercial, industrial and apartment property classes, causing more of the tax burden to shift this year to residential properties, officials said.

The budget includes more than $13 million in additional spending covered by grants that will not impact the local levy.

Of that, $9.3 million comes from a 2023 legislation grant to Ramsey County to provide treatment homes for youth in the justice system and support and resources for families as part of violence prevention programming.

An additional $2.58 million will go to embedding Basic Sliding Fee Child Care, which helps income-eligible families pay for child care, within Ramsey County Financial Assistance Services.

Budget hearings will be conducted by the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners in September to hear updates on performance measures from county service teams. Community members will be able to provide feedback during public hearings in September and early December on the 2025 supplemental budget before its expected approval Dec. 17.

For more information on those hearings, visit ramseycounty.us/content/public-hearings-2025-supplemental-budget.

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

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A few hours before Tuesday night’s game against the Atlanta Braves, Twins third baseman Royce Lewis was out taking ground balls in the infield — a regular occurrence. But this time, he was stationed on the other side of the infield.

Lewis has begun to take groundballs at second base, something he said he has done just a handful of times. He may see game action there. He may not.

“I would never close a door by saying no, it’s not going to happen,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But it’s also far from a guarantee that we’ll see him in any games at second base this season. I think it’s a possibility. I would say that.”

Lewis has minimal experience at the position. He has worked primarily at shortstop and third base since he was drafted by the Twins in 2017. He also has gotten a taste of the outfield.

He has just one game of minor league experience at second that came in 2019, plus four games there in the Arizona Fall League the same year. So, the experience is pretty new to him.

“(It’s) totally different,” Lewis said. “It’s like if I were to bat righty and then one pitch later, go bat lefty.”

Lewis said learning to turn double plays would be the toughest part of the position, while noting that the shorter throws were a slightly easier element of second base.

Right now, he said, he’s just trying to get comfortable, put in the work and see what happens over there.

“If you take a baby out of its crib where it’s safe, it’s going to feel a little bit scared,” Lewis said. “That’s kind of where I’m at right now.”

But with more reps, he expects to feel more comfortable there. And even if the Twins, who are currently without injured infielders Carlos Correa and Brooks Lee, don’t play him there in a game, they think there’s a benefit to him getting his feet wet at second base.

“Truthfully, I think getting him some work over there can also help him mix up some of his throwing angles and different types of throws he has to make,” Baldelli said. “I think changing your eye line and sight line can sometimes help you with the position that you are playing. I think some of the work he’s putting in, it’s good for him to go over there and get those reps at second base. But also I think it can help him with his work at third, too.”

Ryan out for regular season

Joe Ryan has yet to start throwing a baseball since suffering a Grade 2 teres major strain on Aug. 7.

While the Twins did not say the starter wouldn’t pitch again in the regular season, they did transfer him to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot, which rules him out for a potential return late in the regular season.

Ryan said Tuesday his shoulder feels really good and that he has been “crushing the legs” and “getting good cardio in” so that if he were able to return in the postseason, the rest of his body would be ready.

“I don’t want there to be other things that are wrong or have to take more time to get back into the groove,” Ryan said. “Trying to mentally stay locked in and, yeah, we’ll see where it takes us.”

The good news, Ryan said, is that he has talked to others who have had a similar injury and they’ve suffered no longer-term effects. He received a second opinion on his shoulder, which confirmed the first one. This injury aside, everything else in his shoulder, he was told, looked great.

“I think in the long term, it’s … not really going to be an issue,” he said. “I’m confident in what we’re going to do here.”

Briefly

The Twins claimed reliever Michael Tonkin off of waivers for the second time this season. He is expected to be added to the active roster on Wednesday. … The Twins also selected the contract of Caleb Boushley and designated for assignment reliever Trevor Richards, their only trade deadline acquisition this season. Richards walked 11 batters and threw seven wild pitches in 13 innings after being acquired. “He still can do a lot of good things with the baseball, but he struggled with his command here,” Baldelli said. “It would not be honest to just ignore that point. It’s true. But I think you just sometimes have to make a challenging call.”  … Starting pitchers Simeon Woods Richardson and Spencer Schwellenbach made a unique bit of history on Tuesday. Statistics website Baseball Reference posted on X (formerly Twitter) said the pair formed the longest last name starting pitching matchup in its database.

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