KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An MRI confirmed Wednesday that Twins right-hander Pablo López has a mild strain of his right hamstring.

López made it through 4 2/3 innings on Tuesday before pain in his right leg forced him off the mound. A day later, López walked around the visitors clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium with a cheery disposition and without a limp, his right leg covered in a sleeve for apparent warmth.

López did not get an immediate chance to talk with reporters about a pitching plan going forward, but he was optimistic before the imaging that he would not miss his next turn in the rotation. It would come this weekend against the Tigers at Target Field. López has never missed a start with the Twins.

Manager Rocco Baldelli said the club has an open mind and will watch López closely over the next few days.

If the Twins go conservative and put López on the injured list, they could look to right-hander Zebby Matthews at Triple-A. Matthews tantalized in Spring Training and has made two strong starts for St. Paul, allowing a combined two runs, five hits and a walk while striking out 13 in 10 innings.

Twins mourn Cruz’s sister

Baldelli said the team feels for former Twins slugger Nelson Cruz, who lost his sister Nelsy Cruz in the Jet Set club disaster in the Dominican Republic early Tuesday morning.

“On behalf of the organization, I would like to send our heartfelt condolences to him and his family,” Baldelli said of Cruz, a popular player who hit 76 home runs for the Twins from 2019-2021.

At least 124 people have died, and hundreds more were injured when the roof collapsed at the iconic club in the Dominican Republic’s capital city of Santiago.

Among the dead was Nelsy Cruz, who was the governor of the Montecristi province in the northwest. Also killed were former major leaguers Octavio Dotel and Tony Blanco. Dominican-born Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martínez said Wednesday he has family members who are unaccounted for that were inside the club at the time.

“We are all affected,” Martinez said. “I still have family members who are still in the rubbles and we don’t know what happened to them. But we just want to be strong, like we have always been. We’re a country that prays a lot and remains united all the time, so I just hope everybody has the same courage.”

Dozens of people paid their respects to Dotel, who pitched for 13 teams over 15 seasons until 2013 at a funeral home on Wednesday.

“He was a person whom everyone loved. It’s very hard, very hard, truly,” said Hall of Famer David Ortiz, who was at the memorial and recalled how he spoke with Dotel almost every day. “He was very funny. Octavio was a guy who was a fighter.”

Mauer ready for bronze age

Twin Cities native Joe Mauer cut a statuesque profile playing catcher for the Twins on his way to induction in baseball’s Hall of Fame in 2024.

This weekend, his hometown team plans to immortalize Mauer with a statue outside of gate 34 at Target Plaza. Mauer’s will be the ninth statue unveiled at Target Field and the first since 2017, when manager Tom Kelly had the honor.

Mauer is set to join Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew, Kirby Puckett, Carl and Eloise Pohlad, Tony Oliva, Kent Hrbek and Kelly in statue form. All of the Twins statues, which are slightly larger than life, were created by Minnesota-based artist Bill Mack.

Mack has promised to get the sideburns right.

In addition to Mauer, the Twins said in a press release that teammates Justin Morneau, Corey Koskie and Glen Perkins are scheduled to attend the ceremony. Paul Molitor, a fellow Hall of Famer, Twin Cities’ son and Mauer’s final manager also is scheduled to be there. So will Oliva, Kelly and the artist himself, Mack.

The ceremony is scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

Jenkins bad ankle returns

The Twins’ Double-A team at Wichita placed top prospect Walker Jenkins on the seven-day injured list because of a left ankle sprain. It’s the same ankle he sprained before spring training that sidelined him for much of February and March.

Ober ready for Missouri challenge

One of right-hander Bailey Ober’s best career starts came late in 2024, when he shut out the Royals at Kauffman Stadium for seven innings. The Twins blew a two-run lead and lost after he exited, but Ober was splendid.

Ober’s performance showed he could pitch in the state of Missouri, where he has a 7.63 ERA in eight career starts. Much of his ERA in Mizzou is because of two starts, his first of the season in ’24 at Kauffman, and his opening start this season at Busch. Ober insisted there’s nothing odd that happens to him in Missouri.

“No, it’s just how baseball is,” Ober said. “It’s a weird game. You never know what’s going to happen. You just got to go out there and control what you can control. And there’s certain days where you can will yourself to a victory, or will yourself into a good outing. For the most part, you just got to go out there and do your part, execute and compete.”

— This report includes information from the Associated Press.

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U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., has introduced a bill to ban copper-nickel mining on nearly a quarter-million acres of federal land in the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The bill would make permanent a 20-year ban on that type of mining on 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest land in the Rainy River Watershed, which is shared with the BWCAW.

The status of mining in that watershed and Twin Metals, which wants to build an underground mine, tailings storage facility and processing plant upstream of the BWCAW along Birch Lake, has bounced back and forth depending on who is in the White House. The mineral withdrawal, or pause, would expire in 2043, but Republican President Donald Trump has vowed to reverse it.

Smith’s legislation is similar to a bill introduced in the U.S. House by Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat from St. Paul, but both bills are unlikely to pass as a Republican majority controls each chamber.

“The Boundary Waters must be protected for today, and future generations,” Smith said in a news release Wednesday. “The impartial science and data show unequivocally that copper-nickel sulfide mining poses an unacceptable risk to the Boundary Waters.”

The mineral withdrawal and rejection of Twin Metals leases were first enacted in the final days of the Obama administration. The Trump administration then reversed those moves, but they were later reinstated by the Biden administration, which also released an accompanying U.S. Forest Service study that said hard-rock mining in the Rainy River Watershed could pose an environmental threat to the BWCAW.

According to Save the Boundary Waters, Smith’s bill is the first in the U.S. Senate that would offer additional protections to the BWCAW in nearly 50 years. The last was the 1978 Boundary Waters Act, which was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.

“Former Vice President Walter Mondale remained devoted to permanently protecting the Boundary Waters, calling it ‘the obligation of each generation,’” Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, said in a news release. “Today, Senator Smith is building upon this legacy.”

The bill specifically targets sulfide ore mining, Smith said. That means the mining of metals like copper, nickel, gold and cobalt found in sulfide-bearing rock. Opponents fear pollution from this type of mining could leach out and pollute water downstream.

The bill exempts the mining of taconite, iron ore, gravel, sand and gravel from the ban, Smith said.

“Mining is an important driver of Minnesota’s economy and the pride of every Iron Ranger. I support mining, but not this mine in this precious place,” Smith said.

Smith’s bill is slightly less restrictive than the current mineral withdrawal, which bans all hard-rock mining, including the mining of iron ore and taconite, which is a type of iron ore, on those quarter-million acres; however, as the Duluth News Tribune previously reported, there are no known taconite deposits on the withdrawn land and only two parcels contain any sort of iron formation — a small amount of native iron ore, which hasn’t been mined in the state for almost 60 years.

U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, a Republican from Hermantown who has reintroduced a bill to reverse the mineral withdrawal, said in a news release Wednesday that Smith was “an out of touch Democrat trying to prevent the responsible development of the Duluth Complex.”

The Duluth Complex in northeastern Minnesota formed 1.1 billion years ago when the Midcontinent Rift tried to pull North America apart, sending magma up and leaving behind deposits of copper, nickel and other metals.

“With the introduction of this legislation, Senator Smith has once again proven herself to be anti-union,” Stauber said. “Fortunately, Senator Smith is in the minority and retiring soon, so any chance of this legislation becoming law is virtually impossible.”

Smith will be retiring at the end of her six-year term in 2027.

The office of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., did not respond to the News Tribune on whether she would sign on as a co-sponsor to Smith’s bill or if she supported or opposed the mineral withdrawal continuing.

In a statement, Twin Metals spokesperson Kathy Graul said the company opposed any ban on mining in the region.

“Any attempt to permanently ban mining across a significant area in northeast Minnesota runs contrary to both our nation’s goals of bolstering mineral supply chains and the state of Minnesota’s decarbonization efforts,” Graul said. “This region sits on top of one of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of critical minerals that are vital in building clean energy technologies, creating American jobs, and bolstering our national security.”

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Minnesota legislators are weighing a new tax on social media platforms that could raise $334 million in the next four years as the state faces a multibillion-dollar deficit later this decade and uncertainty surrounding federal funding.

Under a proposal introduced by Senate Taxes Committee Chair Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, large social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X would pay a tax on the collection of user data, which they sell to advertisers.

What lawmakers said is a first-of-its-kind state tax would be based on usership for platforms with 100,000 or more monthly users in Minnesota. It would scale up depending on the number of users on the platform, with the top bracket applying to platforms with 1 million or more users.

“For many years now, social media platforms and businesses have taken our information, our identifying information, and used it to make millions and millions of dollars,” Rest told the Senate Taxes Committee as she presented her bill on Wednesday. “We hope we can modernize the way in which our tax systems work, recognizing the world has greatly changed.”

Revenue expected to grow

Undated courtesy photo of Minnesota Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Senate.

If the new social media tax were to take effect as a part of this year’s two-year state budget, it would raise about $46 million in its first year. That amount is expected to grow to more than $90 million annually in the following three years, according to an analysis by the Minnesota Department of Revenue.

The Senate and House tax committees heard versions of the bill Wednesday and held it over for possible inclusion in a larger tax package bill later in the session. It could face a tough path forward in the House, where Republicans and Democrats both have 67 seats. GOP lawmakers say the state shouldn’t pass any new taxes and should focus on rolling back the large expansion of spending that happened under Democratic-Farmer-Labor controlled government in 2023.

Rest and other supporters who testified in favor of the new tax said it would ensure that large companies profiting off user data — which they get by providing otherwise free services — are paying their fair share in Minnesota.

“This bill proceeds from the very reasonable premise that this extraction of value should be taxed the way the extraction of many other valuable natural resources are taxed,” said University of California — Davis law professor Darien Shanske, whose work focuses on state and local tax policy.

Economic disruptions and federal budget cuts caused by President Donald Trump also could mean more stress on state resources in the months and years ahead, supporters said.

“This bill is badly needed because it provides revenue that could be used to help those that will be hurt if the social safety net is shredded,” said Phillip Sandro, a retiree with health issues living on a fixed income who spoke for the progressive faith group Isaiah.

Supporters also argued that negative social consequences from social media platforms, such as potential harm to younger users’ mental health, warrant taxation because of the cost they pose to society. Politicians have targeted companies like Facebook parent Meta in recent years after studies showed that excessive teen social media use was tied to psychological distress.

GOP says state should curb spending

Minnesota is set to have a $456 million budget surplus in 2026-2027, but as lawmakers put together a two-year state budget this spring, a $6 billion deficit looms in the following 2028-2029 fiscal year. Early proposals from the Governor’s Office, House and Senate have largely centered around billions in cuts, but Democratic-Farmer-Labor senators and representatives have left new taxes on the table.

Republican Senators questioned the need for any new taxes when the state grew spending by 40% in the last budget passed in 2023, which saw state spending top $70 billion and used most of a record $18 billion budget surplus.

“The reason why the state of Minnesota is facing a $6 billion structural deficit is because of the overspending, the unsustainable spending over the last two years,”  said Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona. “When you spend more than the revenue coming in, it’s unsustainable; it’s simple math.”

Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona. (Dana Ferguson / Forum News Service)

Opponents also said a tax on social media platforms will hurt small businesses in the state who rely on targeted advertising to reach local and regional customers. New social media taxes would mean big companies would pass the cost along to smaller business customers, argued it would limit access to targeted ads.

“Minnesota’s consumers, small businesses, retailers, family farms and even newspapers that would feel this squeeze,” said Deb Peters, a lobbyist with Americans for Digital Opportunity and the Association of National Advertisers. “Taxing advertising, especially online, raises prices for everyone.”

Business interests also noted that passing a law targeting social media with a new tax could attract legal action. The Internet Tax Freedom Act, originally passed in 1998, protects online businesses from state and local government taxes that apply only to digital commerce, wrote the Midwest branch of TechNet, a group representing technology executives.

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The St. Paul City Council approved the creation on Wednesday of a new committee, internal to the council, that will meet regularly to discuss financial matters related to police, fire, code enforcement and other public safety spending.

The effort to create a new regularly standing committee within the council was approved 5-2 and led by Council Member Anika Bowie, who said greater oversight will allow elected officials and the general public a forum to better understand how tax dollars are spent.

St. Paul City Council member Anika Bowie. (Courtesy of the City of St. Paul)

Bowie said council committees already meet monthly to discuss the city’s libraries, water department or general budget. Following the approval of the city charter in 1970, the city council maintained a public safety committee as part of its early subcommittee structure from 1972 to 1978, though it was later merged with a licensing committee and then repealed entirely.

“I think public safety deserves that same attention,” said Bowie, who was announced in January as the future committee chair. “Public safety is no less important. … This vote is about managing our council business better … (and) making sure we have adequate time to hear from our department heads. … It’s about giving our public a transparent space to understand and engage.”

Following extensive back-and-forth with the mayor’s office last year over heavy police overtime spending, Council Member Nelsie Yang was announced in January as the future vice-chair of the committee under Bowie. On Wednesday, Yang said she had withdrawn her support for the effort she once planned to help lead.

Council Member Matt Privratsky joined Yang in casting the sole “no” votes, with Yang expressing concern the committee would be duplicative to the work of the council’s existing budget committee, among other efforts. The city, for instance, already has a 15-member Neighborhood Safety Community Council, which works the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety to evaluate public safety outreach grants and develop annual priorities for the department.

St. Paul City Council member Matt Privratsky. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“There’s already questions being referred over to me about whether something that is going to be referred over to the council is going to be in the budget and finance committee, or the public safety committee,” Yang said.

Bowie was supported in her vote by Council Member Cheniqua Johnson, who had voiced some skepticism last month based on a lack of outreach at the time to the Office of Neighborhood Safety, as well as police and fire officials. Johnson on Wednesday said Bowie took that feedback to heart and done her due diligence, and the latest version of the resolution was worded in a manner that had swayed her vote.

“I think it’s important that if we’re establishing any committee, that we’re doing so in partnership with the same departments,” Johnson said. “You did take a lot of the feedback into consideration. … The things that are listed here are within the scope of the council and what the council is (assigned) to do.”

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