As thousands of hockey players, fans, scouts, press and vendors from around the world descend on downtown St. Paul this month for the 11-day World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, how will the capital city greet them?

Visit St. Paul, the city’s official convention and tourism bureau, has skated out a plan to assemble the world’s largest hockey puck — a 5,000-pound testament to the excitement around the international round-robin style tournament.

The puck will anchor Rice Park’s outdoor “Fan Fest” activity zone for all 11 days, serving as a photo opportunity throughout the World Juniors, which are bringing together the best hockey players ages 17-19 from 10 countries.

Made in St. Paul, Oakdale

The puck, which is being made at the Wonder Studio fabrication shop on St. Paul’s old Hamm’s Brewery campus and at TC Rigging/Allied Productions in Oakdale, will be displayed as part of the Bold North Breakaway Fan Fest from Dec. 26 to Jan 5.

Visit St. Paul is asking sponsors, including everyday residents and small businessowners, to donate between $25 and $5,000 to help roll out the giant puck, which will be, in a word, large. Donations of any amount will be accepted, and sponsors will be recognized on a webpage “Hall of Fame,” which is coming soon. The webpage will include an option to donate $25 on behalf of a youth hockey player, which earns the player a commemorative vinyl sticker.

“The puck does not already exist,” said Jaimee Lucke Hendrikson, president and chief executive officer of Visit St. Paul, in an email on Tuesday. “It’s being built right here in St. Paul! … This is a community pride project and we welcome support at any level.”

For now, donations are being accepted at TinyUrl.com/StpPuck.

When completed, the 5,000 lb.-puck composed of aluminum, wood, steel and vinyl will measure 22.2 feet across and 7.5 feet in height.

For reference, the typical hockey puck is 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick and weighs about 5 1/2 ounces. This one will be a lot bigger.

Previous title holders

That’s a hip check to the current record-holder, a hockey puck with a 20-foot diameter, weighing more than 1,000 pounds, that was created in December 2022 for the New Year’s Eve celebration in Allentown, Penn., the home of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms hockey team, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers.

Prior to that, the puck attached to the world’s largest hockey stick — which was measured at 205 feet long, according to the Guinness World Record — held the title in Duncan, British Columbia. Composed of steel-reinforced Douglas Fir wood beams, the combined structure of stick and puck weighed about 62,000 lbs., but Cowichan Valley Regional District announced last year that the poorly-aging installation would be transferred to a sports memorabilia company, which planned to cut it up and convert the pieces into keychains.

Eveleth, Minn., claims to be home to the world’s largest free-standing hockey stick, known as “The Big Stick,” which is 110 feet long and weighs 10,000 lbs., according to Eveleth.gov. It stands next to a puck that is 5 feet in diameter and weighs 700 pounds.

What happens to the St. Paul puck once the World Juniors skate to a close?

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Hendrikson said there’s no plans “at this time” to make the puck a permanent part of the downtown landscape, but she didn’t say that Visit St. Paul couldn’t be lobbied to change its mind.

From Dec. 26 through Jan. 5, the round robin-style World Juniors tournament will feature 29 games, showcasing the best players ages under age 20 from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Latvia and Slovakia. Practices will not be open to the public.

It has been a turbulent couple of weeks in national security, highlighted by continuing strikes on high-speed boats in the Caribbean that are, according to the Trump administration, carrying drugs headed to the U.S. Whether that doctrine of “shoot-to-kill,” carried out without warning or any opportunity for surrender, stands up under congressional and judicial scrutiny over time remains to be seen.

But what has really struck a nerve is the so-called double-tap strike that killed two alleged drug runners while they were clinging to the wreckage of their boat. Very few analysts have seen the video of that second strike, and hopefully it will come out soon so that a wider group of observers can provide a more informed judgment on whether it was justified.

Perhaps predictably, among the congressional leaders who have seen the footage of the second strike, there is sharp disagreement. Democrats say it is deeply troubling and a possible war crime that requires a fulsome investigation. Senior Republicans are adopting a “nothing to see here” view that it was entirely justified because the two survivors were still somehow “in the fight,” despite having no weapons, radios or serviceable craft. It is a Rorschach test in every way.

Hopefully, we will see a bipartisan approach from the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, which are the principal oversight bodies for the military. In particular, I look to the leaders of the Senate committee, Roger Wicker (a former Air Force Judge Advocate General and retired lieutenant colonel) and Jack Reed (a West Point graduate and former Army officer), to conduct a full investigation, including the video of the second strike, audio from both strikes, and supporting advice from the commanders and JAGs involved, under oath.

But it is worth backing up to remember why all of this is so important for our nation. It is something I wrestled with throughout my own 37-year career in the Navy, including my time in that theater as head of U.S. Southern Command for three years, overseeing many counter-narcotic operations in which we routinely stopped, searched and apprehended tons of cocaine coming toward the U.S.

Additionally, during my time as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, I was likewise deeply concerned about issues of collateral damage, the treatment of prisoners (both at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan’s Bagram facility), and the general conduct of war.

Allow surrender

First and foremost, the idea of allowing an enemy — no matter how despicable — to surrender is a moral and ethical imperative.

We all grow up knowing we don’t continue to strike an opponent when they are knocked down on the ground. In war, this means we don’t machine-gun survivors in the water after their warship is sunk, shoot and kill pilots parachuting from an aircraft we’ve hit with anti-air missiles, or “double tap” an opponent on the ground with a bullet to the chest and another to the head when they are already knocked out by a concussive grenade.

Follow the law

Second, we follow the law.

War — although inherently vicious and full of chaos — is governed by an extensive set of laws (both domestic and international); treaties to which our nation is a signatory (e.g., the Geneva Conventions); our own policies on the treatment of enemy combatants; and our standing and promulgated rules of engagement. In other words, there are laws and rules governing war, and when we appear to violate them, we need to investigate and determine whether we did the right thing — or not.

Pragmatic intelligence

A third and frequently overlooked aspect of why we give quarter is pragmatic: intelligence.

By capturing our downed opponents, we can interrogate them (where rules again apply) and glean much-needed and often highly useful intelligence. The drug runners floating in the water in September knew things: locations of logistics centers, routes, fueling stops, the next ship they were going to rendezvous with, the people who paid them and much more. By capturing instead of killing them, we can harvest that intelligence about the whole rotten network, reverse-engineer it, and dismantle it.

Reciprocity

Fourth, there is the question of reciprocity.

If those were two Navy SEALs floating on the wreckage of their small boat or recovered from their submersible by North Koreans, we would want them to receive humane treatment and be captured, not shot to death when they had no means to resist. While there is never any guarantee that our adversaries will follow our lead, it seems to me that we are in a better position to ensure the safety of our own people if we take the high road and capture instead of kill whenever we can.

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Global optics matter

Finally, the global optics of all of this matter.

When the U.S. has been involved in war crimes — e.g., the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, or the Haditha killings in Iraq — the world watched closely. We investigated each of those scenarios and found varying degrees of culpability, with some participants exonerated and others sanctioned. But the point is that we were unafraid to fully investigate and assign accountability, without fear or favor. We need to model the behavior we hope for from a global audience, including our allies, partners and friends.

I hope Congress, notably the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, will fully investigate this incident. If it needs to be done behind closed doors for security and to protect sensitive sources and tactics, so be it. But the reasons for further investigation seem clear: We must be a nation that follows and respects the rule of law — even when it applies to the worst of our enemies and hardened criminals.

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and vice chairman of global affairs at the Carlyle Group.

Seven candidates are vying for the state House seat left vacant by former St. Paul Rep. Kaohly Her, who resigned from the Minnesota Legislature last month after winning the St. Paul mayoral race.

Six of those candidates are seeking the DFL Party nomination and are headed to a special primary election on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Early voting started this week.

Top issues in the race include addressing rising St. Paul property taxes and the growing cost of health care and housing.

Candidates say the Legislature should do more to help the city handle costs as declining commercial property values place a greater burden on residential property owners.

St. Paul has many colleges, government buildings and places of worship that don’t pay property taxes. That poses a further challenge.

DFL candidates also say they hope to push back against the administration of President Donald Trump, who they say is “terrorizing” immigrant communities of the state.

House District 64A

The winner of the Jan. 27 special election will represent House District 64A, which includes the Union Park, Macalester-Groveland and Summit-University neighborhoods. The district heavily favors Democrats and has attracted a competitive primary contest.

Candidates had to pull their campaigns together fairly quickly: Her resigned Nov. 17, and the deadline to file paperwork to run was Nov. 25.

Registered candidates seeking the DFL endorsement include: former Deputy Secretary of State Beth Fraser; Ramsey County civil servant Matt Hill; labor lawyer Meg Luger-Nikolai; progressive organizer Dan McGrath; health care executive Lois Quam and assistant attorney general John Zwier.

Business owner Dan Walsh is the only Republican. His message is largely focused on combating fraud in state government programs.

Beth Fraser

Beth Fraser. (Courtesy of the candidate)

Beth Fraser is a former deputy secretary of state under Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and a current legislative staffer. She helped create and oversee the Safe At Home Program, an initiative at the Secretary of State’s Office that allows victims of domestic violence to hide their addresses.

Fraser said she would help Minnesota resist federal immigration enforcement under the Trump administration by backing measures barring state and local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. She hopes to address the growing cost of living by pushing for state programs that help with health care, child care and housing.

During a League of Women Voters candidate forum on Tuesday in St. Paul, Fraser said the state needs to fund programs by creating a fifth-tier income tax for the highest earners and “closing corporate income tax loopholes.”

Fraser has the endorsement of the former secretary of state she served under. Others include St. Paul City Council Vice President Hwa Jeong Kim, St. Paul Ward 1 Councilmember Anika Bowie, state Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Champlin, and state Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis.

Matt Hill

Matt Hill. (Courtesy of the candidate)

Matt Hill has worked as an aide for Ramsey County commissioners in various capacities, including on pandemic policy and the justice system. He says his top priorities are improving community safety, affordability, and trust in government.

A central feature of Hill’s campaign message is his call to do more to fight fraud in state programs.

“I think people are just sick and tired of just another story and another headline of mismanagement,” he said.

On the community safety side, Hill says he would support “fully funded, well-trained public safety professionals” and “community-centered safety strategies, including mental health response teams, youth outreach, and violence prevention programs.”

Meg Luger-Nikolai

Meg Luger-Nikolai. (Courtesy of the candidate)

Like many candidates seeking the DFL nomination, labor lawyer Meg Luger-Nikolai says rising property taxes are at the top of the mind for voters.

She supports boosting local government aid from the state and adjusting the state’s education funding formula to provide more money to St. Paul Public Schools.

“I think the possibility of having some equalization aid to make up for that lack of tax base would be really helpful,” she said. “That would take some burden off of taxpayers overall.”

Luger-Nikolai supports creating a statewide health insurance system that guarantees affordable and accessible care, increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Minnesotans.

She says state leaders need to do a better job explaining to voters how they’ve fought government fraud in recent years, such as creating a dedicated office of inspector general at the Minnesota Department of Education.

Luger-Nikolai has the DFL endorsement. She is also backed by several labor groups, including the St. Paul Federation of Educators, and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, which represents government workers.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, former representative Her, and State Auditor Julie Blaha are among the DFL elected leaders who have endorsed Luger-Nikolai.

Dan McGrath

Dan McGrath. (Courtesy of the candidate)

Progressive organizer Dan McGrath says his background as a “coalition builder” will help him achieve the goals he and other DFL candidates share, like addressing the affordability of health care and housing.

McGrath is the former director of TakeAction Minnesota, where he advocated for expanding MinnesotaCare, raising the minimum wage, legalizing same-sex marriage and stopping a 2012 voter identification ballot measure.

“In this political climate, what we need are people who can bring people together in order to get big things done,” he said, pointing to his experience working in farming and rural communities and with labor groups.

McGrath supports the Minnesota Health Plan — a single statewide health insurance program. It would push private insurers out of MinnesotaCare — a move he says could save money and make the health care system “more publicly accountable.”

Like the other DFL candidates, McGrath wants more local government aid for St. Paul.

Lois Quam

Lois Quam. (Courtesy of the candidate)

Lois Quam is a health care executive with long ties to DFL politics who chaired the commission that led to the creation of MinnesotaCare, the state’s public health insurance program. She also is involved in negotiations between the University of Minnesota, Fairview Health Services and M Physicians over funding the state’s medical school.

She later advised Hillary Clinton on national health care reform and served in the Obama Administration State Department as a lead on global health initiatives.

Quam says her business and nonprofit leadership — as well as her experience at local, state and national levels of government — equip her to be an effective legislator.

A top concern in District 64A, she said, is that the city of St. Paul gets the “attention it needs” from the Legislature, Quam said. Quam also says attracting businesses back to downtown St. Paul will be key to growing the tax base.

Like other DFL candidates, she says raising taxes on higher earners and corporations is the best way to fund services.

Quam has endorsements from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, St. Paul Ward 3 Councilmember Saura Jost and St. Paul Ward 4 Councilmember Molly Coleman.

Dan Walsh

Dan Walsh. (Courtesy of the candidate)

Dan Walsh, a St. Paul small business owner, is the sole Republican candidate. It’s not the first time he’s run in House District 64A. Walsh ran against Her in 2022 and 2024. In both years, Her had more than 80% of the vote.

Fighting government fraud is a top issue for Walsh, who said he thought DFLers were downplaying the problem, which has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years.

“How could you even talk about anything else?” Walsh said. “Where should the buck fall? Someone’s got to be held accountable.”

In a candidate questionnaire with the St. Paul Area Chamber, he said his top three priorities were “public safety, public safety, and public safety.”

“We can get into many different topics, such as education, economic development, but if we do not have the ability to operate and live in a safe community all these other issues are irrelevant,” he said.

On his campaign website, Walsh said he wants Republicans to break the partisan tie and gain a majority in the House so they can more aggressively investigate government fraud. Walsh says he also hopes to lower taxes and improve outcomes in education.

John Zwier

John Zwier. (Courtesy of the candidate)

John Zwier, an assistant attorney general for the State of Minnesota, said he decided to run after this summer’s assassination of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, which took the lives of two young children and injured 30.

“There was a lot of frustration with government,” he said. “Even with a summer like we just had, and with the tragedy at Annunciation, that still we couldn’t get a special legislative session together to make some common sense gun laws that would help reduce gun violence.”

Before joining the Attorney General’s Office, Zwier worked at the forfeiture section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where his work involved returning money and assets to victims of crime. He also served as a judge advocate in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Zwier shares many viewpoints with the other DFL candidates on local government aid and affordability. His overall message focuses on advancing gun control legislation. In November, he wrote an opinion piece in the StarTribune advocating for a law requiring firearms in public to have visible trigger locks.

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Ramsey County is poised to increase its property tax levy by 9.75% for taxes payable in 2026 and residents can learn more and give input on the proposed budget at a truth in taxation hearing Thursday.

The proposed budget totals $929.25 million in 2026 — a 6.57% increase from the 2025 supplemental budget of $848.5 million. The 2027 proposed budget of $968.45 million is a 4.22% increase from 2026.

The county develops a main budget for the coming year and then a supplemental one for the year after.

About 46% of the county’s proposed budget is funded through property taxes and county officials have cited rising costs, limited revenue growth, increasing demand for services, as well as uncertainty on the federal and state level as budget pressures.

What’s driving the increase?

The biggest drivers of expenses in the county are unfunded state mandates, employee compensation and core services, according to County Manager Ling Becker.

Ramsey also has limited opportunity for property tax base growth compared to some other counties, according to Matt Hilgart, a lobbyist with the Association of Minnesota Counties. It also has high social services costs.

The rest of the county’s budget comes from intergovernmental revenues, charges for services and other sources. The county raised the tax levy 4.75% in 2025, 6.8% in 2024 and 4.5% in 2023.

The average tax increase on a residential median-value home is estimated at a 4.4% increase, or $22 per month according to county officials. The estimated median home value in St. Paul for 2026 is $289,200. The estimated median-value home in Ramsey County for 2026 is $394,700 and the county portion of the average homeowner’s property tax bill would be $1,951.

Based on the proposed tax levy approved by the board in September, Ramsey County would have a total tax levy of $434,565,563. It would have a total operating budget of $929,256,728. Commissioners are expected to set the final levy on Dec. 16 and could reduce the overall levy and operating budget. The proposed levy could not be increased.

How does Ramsey County compare to other metro counties?

Statewide, counties are proposing to raise their levies by an average of 8.1% for this coming year, according to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. That’s an increase from previous years when the average generally was around 5% to 6%. Cities are raising levies by a projected average maximum of 8.7% and schools by a projected average maximum of 5.8%.

A levy increase doesn’t necessarily mean each property’s tax bill will go up by that percentage.  New developments in communities, such as businesses or homes, for example, can offset some of a levy’s effect on tax bills. Other factors such as property valuation also play a role in final property taxes.

While some counties, such as Anoka County, have already approved their 2026 property tax levy increase, most will vote on their budgets and levy Dec. 16.

Estimated price of a median-value home for 2026

• Anoka: $338,800.

• Dakota: $384,800.

• Hennepin: $400,900.

• Ramsey: $394,700.

• Washington: $420,900.

Proposed or approved tax levy increases by percentage for 2026

• Anoka: 9.4% (down from a preliminary 9.9% figure).

• Dakota: 9.9%.

• Hennepin: 7.79%.

• Ramsey: 9.75%.

• Washington: 6.95%.

County portion of property taxes for the owner of a median-value home in 2026

• Anoka: $1,023.

• Dakota: $784.

• Hennepin: $1,530.

• Ramsey: $1,951.

• Washington: $1,020.

How the levy process works

Local governments are required to adopt a proposed levy in September for the upcoming year. That includes cities with a population of more than 500 residents, counties, school districts, the Metropolitan Council, the Metropolitan Airports Commission, the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District and certain fire protection and emergency medical services special taxing districts and regional library authorities.

The final adopted levy may not exceed the proposed levy, except in cases of levies approved by voters in referendum elections. Local governments are required to hold a public meeting on their budget and taxes after notices to residents are sent out and before the final levy can be adopted.

Other levies

Meanwhile, the total proposed levy for taxes payable in 2026 for St. Paul Public Schools is expected to be certified by the district board Dec. 16 at their regular meeting. With a special levy increase approved by voters in November, the proposed tax levy is now $253.73 million or 14.89% more than the previous year. The owner of a median-value home of $289,200 in St. Paul would see a $291 per year property tax increase — around $24 a month.

The St. Paul city council last week adopted the city’s 2026 spending plan, including a 5.3% property tax levy. For a median-value St. Paul home of $289,000, the levy will add an estimated $107 to property taxes next year, depending on factors such as neighborhood and property type.

How to learn more

The Ramsey County truth in taxation hearing will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday in the St. Paul City Hall–Ramsey County Courthouse council chambers on the third floor of 15 W. Kellogg Blvd in St. Paul. The meeting also will be live-streamed.

To learn more about Ramsey County’s proposed budget, go to ramseycounty.us/your-government/budget-finance

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

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