Star Tribune
Trump wants debt ceiling in the budget deal. If not, he says let the government shutdown start now
WASHINGTON — Hours before the start of a federal government shutdown, President-elect Donald Trump doubled-down Friday on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — and if not, let the closures ‘’start now.’’
Trump, who is not yet even sworn into the White House, issued his latest demand as House Speaker Mike Johnson arrived early at the Capitol, instantly holing up with some of the most conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus who helped sink Trump’s bill in a spectacular Thursday evening flop. The clock is now racing toward the midnight deadline to fund government operations.
”ff there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump does not fear government shutdowns the way Johnson and the lawmakers see federal closures as political losers that harm the livelihoods of Americans. The incoming Trump administration vows to slash the federal budget and fire thousands of employees. Trump himself sparked the longest government shutdown in history in his first term at the White House, the monthlong closures over the 2018-19 Christmas holiday and New Year period.
More importantly for the president-elect is his demand for pushing the thorny debt ceiling debate off the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt limit expires Jan. 1, and Trump doesn’t want the first months of his new administration saddled with tough negotiations in Congress to lift the nation’s borrowing capacity. It gives Democrats, who will be in the minority next year, leverage.
”Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted — increasing his demand for a now five-year debt limit increase. “Without this, we should never make a deal.”
Johnson is racing behind closed doors to prevent a shutdown, but his influence has its limits. Trump, and billionaire ally Elon Musk, unleashed their opposition — and social media army — on the first plan Johnson presented, which was a 1,500-page bipartisan compromise he struck with Democrats that included $100 billion in disaster aid for hard hit states, but did not address the debt ceiling situation.
A Trump-backed second plan, Thursday’s slimmed down 116-page bill with his preferred two-year debt limit increase into 2027, failed in a monumental defeat, rejected in an evening vote by most Democrats as an unserious effort — but also some three dozen Republicans who refuse to pile on the nation’s red ink.
Talon Metals, the company proposing an underground nickel mine near Tamarack, Minn., has backed away from a novel plan that would have used a subway-digging machine to carve an underground loop to reach the ore.
Instead, Talon, which hopes to one day supply the materials for Tesla’s electric vehicle batteries, will dig a straight path down to those minerals. The revised environmental assessment worksheet filed Dec. 12 incorporated public, state and tribal feedback, said Jessica Johnson, the vice president of external affairs for Talon.
“We’re reducing the amount of ground disturbance and the amount of rock that we need to handle and manage,” Johnson said.
By no longer using a tunnel boring machine, Talon has sidestepped early concerns from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources about waste rock, potential contamination of water and an untested technology for mining. But building a single, diagonal shaft underground also means that Talon will be blasting rock closer to the surface, at 100 feet below as opposed to 300 feet below.
Talon is still studying how many sulfides will be in the waste rock between the surface and the nickel it is seeking, the company said in filings. Sulfide minerals that can interact with air and water to create acid mine drainage, or release sulfates that are toxic to wild rice.
The company also abandoned a proposal to pile waste rock outside on top of liners, and now says it will store excess rock inside a central building — or ship it along with ore to a processing plant it intends to build in North Dakota.
Several parts of the facility have been moved inside this building, and the central mine shaft will also reach the surface indoors. Johnson described the concept as a “mine in a box.”
But the new design also introduces new questions, said Paula Maccabee of the environmental group WaterLegacy. She questioned how Talon would be able to supply enough fresh air for workers in the mine when the main opening is enclosed. Previously, the loop design had two openings at the surface of the ground.
The St. Paul school board on Thursday agreed to take the district’s property tax levy to the limit once again — this time to the tune of a 7.9% increase in 2025.
The action came at the tail end of a spirited truth-in-taxation season that found homeowners venting at hearings about the high cost of government in St. Paul, and a week after the City Council voted to lower Mayor Melvin Carter’s proposed increase in the city’s share of the tax bill to 5.9%.
Jane Prince, a former City Council member, appeared before the school board earlier this month to ask members to ease the bite on homeowners. Between 2015 and 2024, she said, St. Paul Public Schools raised its levies by 50%, compared with a 39% hike in Minneapolis.
On Thursday, Tom Sager, the district’s executive chief of financial services, cautioned that a move by the board to levy taxes in an amount less than that allowed by the state Department of Education could lead to a corresponding decrease in the amount of state aid it receives in some funding categories.
Board Member Carlo Franco said Thursday he hoped that the district could one day get to the point of lowering its levy increases in response to homeowners decrying “big taxes” in St. Paul.
“Our commitment is to make sure that those ‘big taxes’ translate into big outcomes and big successes for our kids,” Franco said.
The owner of a city’s $275,300 median-valued home will see a $142 increase in the district’s share of the property tax bill, or 11.5%. Changes in individual property values, as well as levies set by the county, city and other tax bodies, are among the other factors determining one’s final overall tax bill.
Star Tribune
18-year-old from North Dakota charged in north Minneapolis shooting that killed teen girl
An 18-year-old from West Fargo, N.D., has been charged with killing a 17-year-old girl this summer in a shooting at a north Minneapolis gas station that injured another person.
Erick Corday Scott was charged Thursday in Hennepin County District Court with second-degree murder for the death of Lonnaya I’zanay Warren-Lloyd, of Minneapolis. Scott has no criminal history in Minnesota but, since turning 18 in April, he has been charged with three different crimes in North Dakota: felony conspiracy to commit robbery with a firearm; misdemeanor fleeing a police officer on foot; and unlawful possession of a firearm as a violent felon.
The firearm possession charge was filed on Dec. 12 and Scott is in custody at the Cass County jail.
Katie Nechiporenko, an assistant Cass County state’s attorney for North Dakota, said that while Scott hasn’t been convicted of a felony as an adult, he has a juvenile record that can be used to enhance adult sentencing on the most recent firearm charge.
“It’s just for certain crimes as they relate to guns,” she said. “It’s North Dakota’s carveout.” Nechiporenko said she has not been contacted by Hennepin County about the murder charge against Scott.
Messages were left with Scott’s lawyer in North Dakota. No attorney was listed for him in Hennepin County.
According to court and police documents:
Police responded to the Super USA gas station around 11 p.m. on July 7 after reports of a shooting. They found Warren-Lloyd in the front passenger seat of a parked car with multiple gunshot wounds. She was transported to North Memorial Hospital where she died.
