CLEVELAND — As the grounds crew emerged to remove the tarp from the field, Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” the perfect song for the occasion, played over the loudspeaker.

Nearly two hours after the Twins-Guardians game was supposed to start, the tarp was taken off the field — for the first time. By that point, rain had fallen for about a minute. As the skies darkened, the grounds crew emerged once again, pulling the tarp back over the field as managers Rocco Baldelli and Stephen Vogt conferred.

This time it actually rained hard — though that lasted for about five or six minutes. The grounds crew was met by Nickelback’s “Hero,” as they removed the covering from the field.

More than three hours after the game was supposed to begin, it finally started. Once it did, the smattering of fans still left in attendance were treated to a pitcher’s duel, which the Guardians took 2-1 on Tuesday night at Progressive field. Kyle Manzardo hit a walk-off home run off Louie Varland in a game that did not start until 9:20 p.m. local time, 3:10 after it was scheduled to begin.

That home run, which snaps the Twins’ four-game winning streak, came after Twins pitchers — Chris Paddack, Brock Stewart, Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran — had combined to keep the Guardians off the board since the third inning.

Paddack threw five innings, giving up just one run. It came on the ninth pitch of a battle with catcher Bo Naylor, who saw four straight fastballs before finally hitting the fifth out of the ballpark to give the Guardians a 1-0 lead in the third inning.

Paddack ran into some trouble an inning later, allowing the first two runners to reach base, but was able to wiggle his way out of it with a perfectly-timed double play ball and then a weakly-hit fly ball to Byron Buxton in center.

That effort meant the Twins were trailing by just one when Ty France stepped to the plate to lead off the fifth inning. The first baseman took the third pitch of his at-bat — a fastball from Tanner Bibee — and sent it out to right-center, tying the game.

It was the only run that Bibee, who started his night by retiring 11 straight hitters, gave up in his seven-inning effort. Bibee allowed just five hits in his effort, two to France. After his second, which led off the seventh, France made an aggressive turn around first base and was thrown out trying to get back to the bag.

France singled in the ninth, too, giving the Twins a glimmer of hope, but DaShawn Keirsey Jr., in to pinch run for him, was thrown out by Naylor trying to steal on the first pitch of Jonah Bride’s at-bat. Bride then popped up and Manzardo’s home run ended the game just moments later.

Minnesota’s 6th Senate District will remain in the Republican column after a Tuesday special election to fill the seat vacated following the arrest and resignation of Sen. Justin Eichorn.

With all 80 precincts reporting in the north-central Minnesota district, Republican Keri Heintzeman defeated Democrat Denise Slipy 60% to 40%.

Heintzeman, a business owner and the wife of House District 6B Rep. Josh Heintzeman, R-Nisswa, easily won an eight-candidate GOP primary on April 15. Slipy, an environmental health and safety professional from Breezy Point, ran unopposed in the DFL primary.

The outcome of Tuesday’s special election won’t affect the balance of power in the Senate, where Democrats currently have a two-vote majority. District 6, which stretches from Brainerd and Baxter north to Grand Rapids, has shifted Republican but Democrats had hoped political winds might be shifting.

Eichorn resigned last month after he was charged with attempting to solicit a minor in what turned out to be an underage sex sting operation in Bloomington.

The Grand Rapids resident recently pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of attempted enticement of a minor for prostitution.

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Community members on Tuesday shared feedback on the St. Paul school district’s cash-strapped 2025-26 budget, with some objecting to proposed cuts to early childhood programming and family resources.

The school board will see a proposed budget at its May 20 meeting, and district officials have been hosting community informational meetings on the budget since late March. Board members have until June 30 to finalize the budget for the 2025-26 school year and will vote on the proposal June 10.

The district estimates $732.1 million in expenses in the coming school year, with an estimated $51.1 million budget shortfall. The board has agreed to use $34.9 million in reserve funds for the shortfall, with the remaining $16.2 million to come from budget cuts and new revenue, according to the district.

Last year’s St. Paul Public Schools budget shortfall was around $108 million.

Cuts

Initial staff reduction letters were distributed Friday for positions eliminated due to budget or non-renewal due to performance.

The district, which as of February had 6,088 full- and part-time staff, attributes the budget shortfall to increased expenses — such as increased employee wages and benefits — rising costs of goods and services and no expected increases to state, federal or local revenue to adjust for inflation, outside of the base funding formula and local operating levy.

Parents and community members at Tuesday night’s meeting spoke against cuts to Early Childhood Family Education, or ECFE — a voluntary program for parents and their children below the age for kindergarten enrollment — and Achievement Plus — a private-public partnership between SPPS and the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation that provides resources to families such as health services and food support.

ECFE is facing proposed budget cuts of $1.46 million in the upcoming budget and a reduction from six sites to four.

The Achievement Plus Initiative is set to end June 30, according to Achievement Plus director Rick Gibson in a March statement.

The end of Achievement Plus and its liaison role is a loss of a connection between schools and critical services, such as housing assistance, in-school dental care and summer programs, SPPS parent Amber Rae Bernhardt said at Tuesday meeting.

“Cutting this program is not a cost-saving measure, it’s a cost-shifting measure — shifting the burden onto the backs of struggling families and underresourced schools,” Bernhardt said.

Other parents urged the school board to consider the community and support that ECFE has provided parents. ECFE programming includes parent discussion groups, early health and developmental screenings for children and home visits, among other resources.

“I am sure you will have better students and citizens with more involved, more prepared and more sound parents. Do whatever it takes to find a budget, even if it is asking for our help,” said SPPS parent Liliana Sanchez.

Guidelines and next steps

The overall budget amount allocated to schools will increase by approximately 6%, or $26.2 million, in 2025-26. This is primarily due to increased enrollment, more students in special education and expanded middle school options, according to the district. SPPS saw an increase in enrollment for the 2024-25 school year compared with last, the first year in a decade it had higher enrollment than the year before. Nearly all district revenue — such as state aid and local property taxes — is tied to enrollment.

The board has three guidelines for the budget, which include sustaining funding for early education in order to retain and prepare students for elementary school; sustaining funding for enrollment efforts; and sustaining expenditures for increasing student engagement and decreasing absenteeism.

The board will address Tuesday’s community feedback at its May 6 meeting. The proposed budget will continue to be updated until its approval in June.

Feedback can be also shared on the district’s website at tinyurl.com/2exswt7s.

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By MORIAH BALINGIT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has begun shedding new light on a crackdown on international students, spelling out how it targeted thousands of people and laying out the grounds for terminating their legal status.

The new details emerged in lawsuits filed by some of the students who suddenly had their status canceled in recent weeks with little explanation.

In the past month, foreign students around the U.S. have been rattled to learn their records had been removed from a student database maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some went into hiding for fear of being picked up by immigration authorities or abandoned their studies to return home.

On Friday, after mounting court challenges, federal officials said the government was restoring international students’ legal status while it developed a framework to guide future terminations. In a court filing Monday, it shared the new policy: a document issued over the weekend with guidance on a range of reasons students’ status can be canceled, including the revocation of the visas they used to enter the U.S.

Brad Banias, an immigration attorney representing a student whose status was terminated, said the new guidelines vastly expand ICE’s authority beyond previous policy, which did not count visa revocation as grounds for losing legal status.

“This just gave them carte blanche to have the State Department revoke a visa and then deport those students even if they’ve done nothing wrong,” Banias said.

Many of the students who had visas revoked or lost their legal status said they had only minor infractions on their record, including driving infractions. Some did not know why they were targeted at all.

Lawyers for the government provided some explanation at a hearing Tuesday in the case of Banias’ client Akshar Patel, an international student studying information systems in Texas. Patel’s status was terminated — and then reinstated — this month, and he is seeking a preliminary court ruling to keep him from being deported.

In court filings and in the hearing, Department of Homeland Security officials said they ran the names of student visa holders through the National Crime Information Center, an FBI-run database that contains reams of information related to crimes. It includes the names of suspects, missing persons and people who have been arrested, even if they have never been charged with a crime or had charges dropped.

In total, about 6,400 students were identified in the database search, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said in the hearing Tuesday. One of the students was Patel, who had been pulled over and charged with reckless driving in 2018. The charge was ultimately dropped — information that is also in NCIC.

Patel appears in a spreadsheet with 734 students whose names had come up in NCIC. That spreadsheet was forwarded to a Homeland Security official, who, within 24 hours of receiving it, replied: “Please terminate all in SEVIS.” That’s a different database listing foreigners who have legal status as students in the U.S.

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Reyes said the short time frame suggested that no one had reviewed the records individually to find out why the students’ names came up in NCIC.

“All of this could have been avoided if someone had taken a beat,” said Reyes, who was appointed by President Joe Biden. She said the government had demonstrated “an utter lack of concern for individuals who have come into this country.”

When colleges discovered the students no longer had legal status, it prompted chaos and confusion. In the past, college officials say, legal statuses typically were updated after colleges told the government the students were no longer studying at the school. In some cases, colleges told students to stop working or taking classes and warned them they could be deported.

Still, government attorneys said the change in the database did not mean the students actually lost legal status, even though some of the students were labeled “failure to maintain status.” Instead, lawyers said, it was intended to be an “investigative red flag.”

“Mr. Patel is lawfully present in the U.S.,” Andre Watson of the Department of Homeland Security said. “He is not subject to immediate detention or removal.”

Reyes declined to issue a preliminary injunction and urged lawyers from both sides to come to a settlement to ensure Patel could stay in the U.S.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.