The short, strange saga of “Ady Mill Rd” has come to an end. Late last week, drivers on Interstate 35E north in St. Paul noticed that a new highway sign beckoning them to exit onto Ayd Mill Road at exit 104B, near Randolph Avenue, had been misspelled, the latest unintended slight in the city’s sometimes-offbeat experience with road signage.

Minnesota Department of Transportation crews corrected the transposition of letters with a temporary patch overnight Monday into Tuesday, and have promised to follow up with a permanent fix. Officials blamed the error on new contractors.

“We have a sign replacement project going on between Highway 62 and University Avenue,” explained Kent Barnard, a MnDOT spokesman, on Tuesday, who noted that typos on highway signage are not unprecedented. “That’s not the first time, unfortunately. That’s why they put pencils on erasers — because people do make mistakes once in a while.”

Other highway signs immediately surrounding the “Ady Mill Rd” exit were spelled correctly, so it’s doubtful the odd spelling caused much confusion. It did lend itself to some snickers, as well as an offer to purchase the sign from a woman of the same last name. MnDOT politely declined, citing legal complications around the sale of public property and other practical difficulties.

“It would take up a wall in her living room,” Barnard said. “They don’t look quite so big when you’re standing looking down on them.”

St. Paul, which has spawned longstanding anti-billboard advocates in the form of Scenic St. Paul, has a colorful history of agonizing over billboards and signage.

In 2021, when Huntington Bank entered the Twin Cities market by acquiring TCF Bank, it proclaimed its arrival to drivers on the Lafayette Bridge in downtown St. Paul with a billboard sporting the ultimate faux pas: “Hello, Minneapolis!”

In August 2012, two McDonald’s billboards erected on Lexington Parkway and Payne Avenue in St. Paul made an effort at enticing Hmong customers in the Hmong language, but the giant ads left out nine spaces between words, creating a long string of gibberish. During Green Line construction the following year, street signs at University Avenue and Galtier Street briefly welcomed visitors to “Unversity Avenue.” Following sometimes tongue-in-cheek media coverage, all four signs were quickly corrected.

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By Sara Rathner | NerdWallet

A lot of work goes into making a household run smoothly, and the thread that runs through all the labor is money. It’s money that makes it possible to fix a broken appliance, enroll the kids in summer camp and save up to replace the aging car. The mental load of money can be heavy. It’s made up of those endless invisible tasks we engage in, and the future tasks we lie awake at night thinking about.

“I think it is important to mention the emotional weight that comes with worrying about money. Do we have enough for rent next month? Are we saving enough for college?” Kate Mangino, author of “Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home,” said in an email. “Those kinds of worries tend to chip away at our emotional health, especially if we think our partner doesn’t share this worry, and we’re alone in carrying that weight.”

When it comes to the mental load of managing financial responsibilities, couples can fall into unproductive patterns that can lead to conflict, resentment and even willful ignorance. If money management feels unbalanced in your relationship, here are some ways to rethink your routine.

Approach money as equals

If one person takes on most or all money tasks, there can be a tendency to fall into a manager/follower dynamic, which can create a power imbalance in your relationship.

Additionally, when one person is in charge and the other does tasks as assigned without understanding the full picture, it can leave that second person in the dark. “The person who is ‘spared’ having to think about this stuff will become less financially literate over time,” Scott Rick, author of “Tightwads and Spendthrifts: Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships,” said in an email. “This will leave them especially vulnerable if the relationship ends, either through divorce or the death of their partner.”

Equality doesn’t mean each person must be 50% responsible for every task, or even that you each take on 50% of tasks, but rather that you acknowledge that you have an equal stake in your shared success.

List and assign money tasks

Schedule a money date or two to make a comprehensive financial to-do list. Who is responsible for which task currently, and how did it become their responsibility? Should any of these tasks be switched to the other person? Is anything not getting done?

Break down each task into a list of subtasks. Let’s say you both want to work with a financial planner, and one of you takes responsibility for finding one. Those subtasks can be:

Get three names of financial planners that meet your shared requirements (such as a fee-only planner, or someone with specific professional credentials).
Contact those planners to inquire whether they’re taking on new clients.
Schedule consultations at a time that’s also convenient for your spouse or partner, and prepare any needed financial documents in advance of those meetings.

“It is important to recognize that managing money is only one of many tasks required to run a household, so these types of conversations should not happen in isolation,” Brian Page, founder of Modern Husbands, a community that shares ideas to manage money and the home as a team, said in an email. “Be considerate of the other household burdens you each tackle.”

Own your tasks from start to finish

As you list your tasks, discuss what “done” looks like for each. Set parameters, a budget and other expectations. Then, you each select tasks to accomplish on your own, with periodic check-ins.

Some tasks are complicated, but take them one step at a time. This is not the time for weaponized incompetence (though, in a partnership, it’s never a good move to feign incompetence to get out of a responsibility). If you’re stuck on a subtask, you can talk about it when you check in with each other.

“Remember — everything money related is a skill, and skills can be learned. There’s no ‘I’m just bad with money’ excuse,” Mangino said. “You just need to prioritize learning that skill, and practice. And practice. And in time, you get better.”

This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by The Associated Press.

The article How Couples Can Share the Mental Load of Money Management originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By LOLITA C. BALDOR and AAMER MADHANI (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is poised to send an initial $1 billion package of military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Tuesday as the Senate began debate on long-awaited legislation to fund the weapons Kyiv desperately needs to stall gains being made by Russian forces in the war.

The decision comes after months of frustration, as bitterly divided members of Congress deadlocked over the funding, forcing House Speaker Mike Johnson to cobble together a dramatic bipartisan coalition to pass the bill. The $95 billion foreign aid package including billions for Israel and Taiwan, passed the House on Saturday and the Senate approval was expected either Tuesday or Wednesday.

The votes are the result of weeks of high-voltage debate, including threats from Johnson’s hard right faction to oust him as speaker. About $61 billion of the aid is for Ukraine.

The package includes an array of ammunition, including air defense munitions and large amounts of artillery rounds that are much in demand by Ukrainian forces, as well as armored vehicles and other weapons. The U.S. officials said some of the weapons will be delivered very quickly to the battlefront — at times within days — but it could take longer for other items to arrive. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the initial aid had not yet been publicly announced.

America’s infusion of weapons comes on the heels of an announcement by the U.K. on Tuesday, pledging an additional $620 million in new military supplies for Ukraine, including long-range missiles and four million rounds of ammunition.

The announcement reflects President Joe Biden’s promise Monday in a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that the U.S. would send the badly needed air defense weapons once the Senate approved the bill. Zelensky said in a posting on X, formerly Twitter, that Biden also assured him that a coming package of aid would include long-range and artillery capabilities.

The latest tranche of weapons will be provided through presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, which pulls systems and munitions from existing U.S. stockpiles and sends them quickly to the war front. Some of the munitions are already in Europe, so could move within days to Ukrainian forces.

Last week, an array of U.S. leaders described how urgently Ukraine needs the infusion of aid. Without it, said CIA Director Bill Burns, Ukraine could lose the war to Russia by the end of this year. And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told House members that conditions on the battlefield were shifting and Russian forces were making incremental gains.

Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly describe the situation to the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee:, saying Ukraine is facing ” dire battlefield conditions.” Desperate Ukrainian troops rationing or running out of ammunition on the front lines.

During a virtual meeting last Friday of defense ministers in the NATO-Ukraine Council, Austin underscored the need for “immediate, concerted action” on air defense weapons for Kyiv, the Pentagon said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Zelenskyy attended the meeting, along with other NATO allies.

The U.S. move to finally send the much-needed weapons comes as Pentagon leaders prepare to meet with defense officials from Europe and around the world on Friday to discuss international aid for Ukraine. The gathering – created by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group – has been meeting about monthly for the past two years, but in recent sessions officials have expressed growing consternation over the U.S. gridlock.

More than $20 billion in the aid bill is earmarked to replenish U.S. military stocks that have been depleted because they were sent to Ukraine.

Ever since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the U.S. has sent more than $44 billion worth of weapons, maintenance, training and spare parts to Ukraine. For the bulk of that time, the aid packages were moving routinely every few weeks. But the money was drying up by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. And by mid-December, the Pentagon said it had run out of money and had to stop sending weapons because – without the funding package stalled in Congress — it could no longer afford to replace them.

The $1 billion package was first reported by Reuters.