Hopes of state lawmakers passing a more than $60 billion two-year budget on time are fading at the Minnesota Capitol.

Daily marathon negotiation sessions between Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor majority Senate and the House tied 67-67 between the DFL and Republicans, have failed to produce a final budget deal.

On Wednesday, Democratic-Farmer-Labor leaders said it’s increasingly likely lawmakers will have to go into overtime, as it’ll be difficult to beat the May 19 deadline to pass bills. The government shuts down on July 1 if they can’t reach an agreement.

Speaking to reporters outside the governor’s cabinet room Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said it’s important the Legislature gets the budget right and doesn’t push its staff too hard in the final days of the regular session.

Sen. Erin P. Murphy. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Senate)

“I do think it is important to recognize that human beings work here and human beings need sleep,” she said, later stating more plainly: “I think a special session is very, very likely if not inevitable.”

House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman said weeks ago that she expected a special session. Republican leaders say they remain hopeful a deal can be reached before Monday’s midnight legislative deadline, but as of Thursday, there are only five days remaining to pass bills.

Gov. Tim Walz.

“I still think there’s a chance we can get this thing by the time, but I think as the hours go by, it becomes a little more difficult,” Walz said at a Tuesday news conference unrelated to the budget.

He added that the special session may happen soon after next Monday’s adjournment and needn’t drag on for days if he and leaders can reach a deal before officially returning to the Capitol for business. The governor calls a special session.

Taxpayer cost?

State leaders’ inability to finish their work on time will cost Minnesota taxpayers, though exactly how much is hard to pin down. It will depend on the number of days and the amount of work they’ll need to complete. The cost could be more than $17,000 a day.

Senators and representatives earn a yearly salary of $51,750, and they can collect $86 per day per diem for meals and other incidental expenses.

Legislative salaries are fixed, but if all 201 members of the Senate and House collected their full per diem, it will cost the state $17,286 per day.

That’s the maximum, and it’s not likely all lawmakers will claim the full amount. They haven’t in the past. House Public Information Services in 2019 estimated that a special session costs the state anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 per day.

Other costs that are harder to pin down include pay for seasonal legislative staff who will work overtime. Operations at the Capitol also carry costs.

Lengths can vary

The lengths of special sessions can vary greatly.

In 2021, lawmakers returned to the Capitol for 24 days from mid-June to early July to pass the 2021-2023 budget and address an extension of Walz’s COVID-19 peacetime emergency. In 2017, lawmakers convened for three days to complete the budget.

In 2019, lawmakers only returned to the Capitol for one day immediately following the regular session to pass a previously negotiated budget bill, which didn’t have quite enough time to reach the finish line of the regular session.

Walz told reporters this week that his hope is that this year’s special session would be the same if he ends up calling one.

Overtime is more common

This year’s legislative session got off to a slow start as the House DFL, temporarily at a one-seat disadvantage, boycotted the session for three weeks to deny a temporary Republican majority quorum to pass bills and conduct other business.

That ate into the Legislature’s time, but special sessions have become increasingly common in recent history, especially during a budget year.

Often, the governor calls a special session to address emergencies, as Walz did several times during the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve also become the norm for passing a budget under divided government.  The last time a divided government passed a budget without a special session was 2007.

DFL trifectas — where one party controls the governor’s office, Senate and House — passed budgets with no special session in 2013 and 2023. In all other years without one party control, lawmakers had to return to the Capitol for overtime.

In 2011, Minnesota’s government shut down for 20 days after Gov. Mark Dayton and the Republican-controlled Legislature couldn’t reach an agreement on the budget.

Sticking points

The Legislature is working with a $456 million surplus for the next two years, but a $6 billion deficit looms in 2028-2029.

What the state should cut to prepare for that bleaker outlook is central to the debate between DFLers and the GOP. Many Democrats are hesitant to water down new social programs and mandated employer benefits they created in 2023.

Key sticking points include unemployment benefits for hourly public school employees, which Republicans want to end. The DFL budget frameworks lean on funding cuts for nursing homes and long-term disability waivers, which Republicans oppose.

There are also debates over whether the state should continue offering MinnesotaCare coverage to people without legal immigration status. Republicans claim that it will cost the state a significant amount in the future based on higher-than-expected enrollment, but so far, the costs they predict have not materialized.

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It’s become an annual spectacle across the NFL.

Every team trying to come up with the most creative way possible to announce their schedule.

This time around the Vikings convinced various fans to get tattoos to help them make their announcement.

Here’s a look at the full schedule for the Vikings:

Week 1: Vikings at Bears, Monday, Sept. 8, 7:15 p.m. (ESPN)

Week 2: Vikings vs. Falcons, Sunday, Sept. 14, 7:20 p.m. (NBC)

Week 3: Vikings vs. Bengals, Sunday, Sept. 21, Noon (CBS)

Week 4: Vikings at Steelers (Dublin, Ireland), Sunday, Sept. 28, 8:30 a.m. (NFL Network)

Week 5: Vikings at Browns (London, England), Sunday, Oct. 5, 8:30 a.m. (NFL Network)

Week 6: Bye

Week 7: Vikings vs. Eagles, Sunday, Oct. 19, Noon (Fox)

Week 8: Vikings at Chargers, Thursday Oct. 23, 7:15 p.m. (Amazon Prime)

Week 9: Vikings at Lions, Sunday, Nov. 2, Noon (Fox)

Week 10: Vikings vs. Ravens, Sunday, Nov. 9, Noon (Fox)

Week 11: Vikings vs. Bears, Sunday, Nov. 16, Noon (Fox)

Week 12: Vikings at Packers, Sunday, Nov. 23, Noon (Fox)

Week 13: Vikings at Seahawks, Sunday, Nov. 30, 3:05 p.m. (Fox)

Week 14: Vikings vs. Commanders, Sunday, Dec. 7, Noon (Fox)

Week 15: Vikings at Cowboys, Sunday, Dec. 14, 7:20 p.m. (NBC)

Week 16: Vikings at Giants, Sunday, Dec. 21, Noon (Fox)

Week 17: Vikings vs. Lions, Thursday, Dec. 25, 3:30 p.m. (Netflix)

Week 18: Vikings vs. Packers, Sunday, Jan. 4, TBD (TBD)

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By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A former model reproached one of Harvey Weinstein ’s lawyers for suggesting that her sexual abuse allegations against the ex-studio boss are lies.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Kaja Sokola retorted. In her fifth and final day of testimony at Weinstein’s sex crimes retrial, she maintained that she was telling the truth and that Weinstein’s alleged conduct in her teens had changed the course of her life.

“It changed the course of your life in that you got $3.5 million from false accusations?” defense lawyer Mike Cibella pressed, referring to compensation she was awarded through civil proceedings in recent years.

“No. That’s very unfair,” Sokola said softly. “That’s not true.”

Kaja Sokola appears state court in Manhattan to testify in the sex assault case against Harvey Weinstein, Wednesday, May 14, 2025 in New York. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)

During her days on the witness stand, she said Weinstein repeatedly offered to foster her acting ambitions but then made unwanted physical advances, beginning when she was 16 in 2002.

Weinstein, 73, faces a sexual assault charge related solely to her allegation that he forced oral sex on her when she was 19. He also faces charges based on two other women’s claims. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, and his attorneys assert that his accusers had consensual sexual encounters with the Oscar-winning producer because they wanted movie and TV work.

Weinstein’s lawyers grilled Sokola about her requests for career help from him after the alleged assault, her motives for her civil lawsuits and criminal trial testimony, as well as her personal struggles, and even a private journal she kept for an alcohol-abuse program in her native Poland.

After apparently getting the decade-old writings via the witness’ sister, the defense was allowed to bring up portions in which Sokola said two other men had sexually assaulted her over the years but didn’t say the same about Weinstein. Instead, she wrote that he promised her help but didn’t deliver.

Harvey Weinstein appears in state court in Manhattan for his retrial on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 in New York. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)

Sokola testified Wednesday that she had left out Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse partly because she couldn’t come to terms with it at the time. Also, she said, her sponsor was in the film business in Poland and knew who Weinstein was.

Cibella questioned that explanation, noting that the text mentioned only “Harvey W” and nothing about his profession. Sokola said her sponsor nonetheless knew his identity because they talked about it.

Tearing up as she spoke, she said she hadn’t seen the black notebook for 10 years, never gave anyone permission to share it and was stunned and appalled to be confronted with it in court.

“I felt very violated,” said Sokola, now 39 and a psychotherapist.

She was the second of Weinstein’s accusers to testify at the retrial, and the only one who wasn’t involved in his first trial in 2020. That proceeding led to a landmark #MeToo-era conviction that was subsequently overturned, setting up the retrial. Prosecutors decided to add Sokola’s allegations to it.

Another woman, Miriam Haley, already has told jurors at the retrial that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006. The third accuser, Jessica Mann, is expected to testify in the coming days or weeks. She alleges that Weinstein raped her in 2013.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who allege they have been sexually assaulted unless they give permission to be identified. Haley, Mann and Sokola have done so.

By GERALD IMRAY and DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa are scheduled to meet at the White House next week following allegations by Trump — and denied by South Africa — that “genocide” is being committed against white farmers in the majority Black country.

The meeting, announced Wednesday by the South African government and set for May 21, also comes after the U.S. welcomed 59 white South Africans as refugees this Monday, the start of what the Trump administration said is a larger relocation plan for minority Afrikaner farmers who Trump has claimed are being persecuted in their homeland because of their race. South Africa denies the allegations and says whites in the majority Black country are not being singled out for persecution.

Ramaphosa’s office said he will be in the U.S. from Monday to Thursday of next week, and will meet with Trump on Wednesday at the White House. Ramaphosa’s trip would aim to “reset the strategic relationship between the two countries,” his office said.

The White House had no immediate comment on the meeting, which would be Trump’s first with the leader of a nation in Africa since he returned to office in January.

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Trump has criticized South Africa’s Black-led government on multiple fronts and issued an executive order Feb. 7 cutting all U.S. funding to the country as punishment for what he said were its anti-white policies at home and anti-American foreign policy.

The Republican president has singled out South Africa over what the U.S. calls racist laws against whites and has accused the government of “fueling” violence against white farmers. The South African government says the relatively small number of killings of white farmers should be condemned but are part of the country’s problems with violent crime and are not racially motivated.

Trump said Monday — the same day that the first batch of Afrikaner refugees arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia — that there was “a genocide taking place” against white farmers that was being ignored by international media.

The U.S. criticism of what it calls South Africa’s racist, anti-white laws appears to refer to South Africa’s affirmative action laws that advance opportunities for Black people, and a new land expropriation law that gives the government power to take private land without compensation. Although the government says the land law is not a confiscation tool and refers to unused land that can be redistributed for the public good, some Afrikaner groups say it could allow their land to be seized and redistributed to some of the country’s Black majority.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has issued orders to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government. The administration has also threatened nongovernmental institutions like colleges and universities with the loss of financial aid unless they do the same.

Trump also required government contractors and other recipients of federal funds to certify, under threat of severe financial penalties, that they do not operate DEI programs that violate anti-discrimination laws.

Afrikaners are descendants of mainly Dutch, French and German colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. They were the leaders of the country’s previous apartheid system of racial segregation. There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners among South Africa’s population of 62 million, which is more than 80% Black. There are also nearly 2 million other whites of British and other descent.

Trump has also accused South Africa of taking “aggressive positions towards the U.S. and its allies” in its foreign policy and of being a supporter of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, and Iran.

Trump’s executive order cited South Africa’s decision to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide in Gaza in an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice as an example of its anti-American stance. Israel opened a military offensive in Gaza after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in an October 2023 intrusion into southern Israel.

The Israeli operation has killed over 52,928 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. Almost 3,000 have been killed since Israel broke a ceasefire on March 18, the ministry said.

Israel has resumed blocking food, fuel, medicine and all other supplies from entering Gaza for weeks, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians

Ramaphosa has spoken repeatedly of his desire to engage with Trump diplomatically and improve the relationship. He says Trump’s criticism is based on false information he’s being given about South Africa’s laws and the attacks on farmers.

Superville reported from Washington.