When you don’t know a hawk from a hawkeye

Your daily Minnesota news roundup starts … NOW.

Looks like cuffing season is also for healthcare mega-conglomerates now as the boards of HealthPartners and Essentia Health have agreed to a merger between the two companies under the HealthPartners name. This follows the merger in September of North Memorial Health with Sanford Health, and a proposed merger between Allina Health and California-based Sutter Health.

On Tuesday afternoon, Attorney General Keith Ellison announced charges against nine providers who allegedly defrauded Medicaid of $3 million. One of the defendants is accused of submitting an eye-watering 27,000 false claims. Guess we’re now 1/3000th closer to that oft-repeated claim of $9 billion in fraud in Minnesota.

Republican candidate for Attorney General and John Waters impersonator Ron Schutz boasts a stock portfolio with a potential 174 conflicts of interest, including companies currently being sued by the state of Minnesota, the Minnesota Reformer reports. 

“Schutz, if elected, would decide how to proceed with cases Ellison is pursuing against Amazon for monopolistic practices that stifle competition; Uber for making it exceedingly difficult for customers to cancel subscriptions; and Exxon Mobil for deceiving the public about the causes and costs of climate change. Schutz owns more than $10,000 of stock in all of them, along with Apple, Alphabet and Pfizer, which are also defendants in suits brought by Minnesota and other states.”

There’s been an ongoing fight in Detroit Lakes over the last several months as the school board has endeavored to ban teachers from displaying rainbow stickers or signs that indicate their classrooms are safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students. The board met again on Monday with a new resolution that prescribes “viewpoint neutrality.” 

Related: Let’s fly the new Minnesota flag. Or not. Or the old one, too.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, appeared to be relishing his chance on Tuesday to drag former U.S. Department of Justice special prosecutor Jack Smith over the coals with incriminating evidence that Smith had colluded with Fulton County Attorney Fanni Willis. The receipts? Texts showing that Smith had attended an NBA game between the Hawks and Golden State Warriors in Atlanta in February of 2024. The problem? He was actually at a women’s game at the University of Maryland against the Iowa Hawkeyes, and Minnesota’s own Amy Klobuchar helped clear it up. 

“Could it then be that the University of Iowa is the Hawkeyes?” she asked. “Could that be it? That might be the confusion over the names of the team.

“I think people should have their facts right before they call someone a dirtbag and not get the teams wrong. You have the teams wrong, sir,” she concluded.

Word came through on social media Tuesday that the French Meadow location in Uptown — where it’s been for the last 41 years — had closed permanently, but the saga is much more involved than you might know. The cafe’s location on Grand Avenue remains open.

And finally in your Minnesota news roundup: With the help of a drone, St. Louis County was able to locate a pair of hunters lost in a deeply wooded area near Hibbing. Unclear if they threw away their map and found rough-hewn wooden figures hanging from trees near an abandoned house with creepy handprints along the walls.

The post When you don’t know a hawk from a hawkeye appeared first on MinnPost.

Originally reported by MinnPost by Steve McPherson. Read the full story at the source.