A former tire store in Brooklyn Center has been repurposed into the state’s newest vehicle inspection station, where owners of salvage vehicles can get them examined to ensure they have been repaired with proper parts and are safe to drive.

The Department of Vehicle Services (DVS) signed a 10-year lease on the Big-O Tires building on Xerxes Avenue across from the former Brookdale Shopping Center. After spending several months retrofitting the shop, officials held a ribbon-cutting on Friday to mark its official opening.

Motorists who have bought salvage vehicles — those involved in crashes, damaged by weather or for any other reason declared a total loss by insurance companies — and had them repaired can bring them for a checkup at the new station. Under Minnesota law, motorists driving salvage vehicles must have them inspected to ensure their wheels are safe to drive and to renew their license tabs.

That has not been an easy task as the demand for salvage vehicles has ballooned in recent years, said Bob Jacobson, the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, salvage vehicles became popular since new and used car prices shot way up, and people found it cheaper to buy cars that needed major repairs, Jacobson said.

The DVS had only one metro area inspection station, on Starkey Street in St. Paul. And with just two bays for vehicles, availability was limited. By moving to Brooklyn Center and closing the St. Paul location, the DVS will have five bays, and each will be able to handle 18 vehicles a day. That is 90 vehicles on every weekday.

So far this year, the DVS has inspected more than 23,060 salvage vehicles across the state, which represents a 32% increase compared to the same 10-month period last year. In the past two weeks, inspectors in the Twin Cities have looked at 588 vehicles, DVS data shows.

Those numbers reflect the growing number of salvage vehicles on state roads and the need for more inspectors and longer hours at locations to verify vehicles were repaired using legal parts, said Greg Loper, director of the DVS Inspection Program.

Besides Brooklyn Center, which will be open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, the DVS operates eight other inspection sites across Minnesota. But most are overbooked and understaffed. That is changing.

Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.

At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.

A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.

Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.

“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”

Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.

“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.

During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.

After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.

Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.

Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.

Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”

Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.