The ways and means committee of the Minneapolis City Council voted to toughen up the city's living wage ordinance this afternoon. The measure passed 4-2, with council members Barret Lane and Dan Niziolek in opposition.

Under the new ordinance companies that contract with the city to provide services or that receive financial subsidies from the city will be required to pay 130 percent of the federal poverty level. In current dollars that works out to $12.09 per hour--or just over $25,000 a year. If the company provides health insurance, the wage requirement drops to 110 percent of the poverty level, or $10.23 an hour.

The ordinance will come before the full council for a vote on Friday, but passage is already assured. Nine council members have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, a veto-proof margin.

More >>

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Elaine Cassel discusses the importance of Scooter Libby's indictments at Civil Liberties Watch.

Jim Walsh has this week's must-have songs at The Walsh Files.

THESE DAYS

House Republicans voted to cut student loan subsidies, child support enforcement and aid to firms hurt by unfair trade practices as various committees scrambled to piece together $50 billion in budget cuts.

Toddlers who are skinny at age two, and then rapidly put on weight, are up to three times more likely to develop coronary heart disease as adults than their chubbier playmates, a new study suggests.

Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, vowed to defeat President Bush's choice for chief Pentagon spokesman, citing an op-ed article the nominee wrote in April accusing American television networks of aiding Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Tucker is back in Minneapolis after spending a bit of time in Canterbury. Read about his efforts to retrieve his bride from Scotland, using words like "lorry" and "arse-hole" at The Life and Times of an Ex²-Pat Yank.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman plays Stanley, a conservative trans-sexual who's about to take the final step to becoming the woman he always wanted to be, until he finds out that he is the parent of a long-lost 17 year old son in TransAmerica.

The classic Match Game nipple slip-up

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"You know you are really famous when becoming a comic character."

-- 87-year-old anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, on a new series of comic books chronicling his life created to get more young South Africans to read

A federal trial taking place in Iowa this week could determine the future of faith-based initiatives, or at the very least, the future of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, a Bible-based prison reform program offered at prisons in Iowa, Texas, Kansas, and Minnesota. The IFI program has been offered at Lino Lakes Correctional Facility, just north of the Twin Cities, since July 2002.

The lawsuit filed against Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility by the D.C.-based organization Americans United for the Separation of Church and State contends that IFI is unconstitutional because it uses state and local tax dollars to promote Christianity. The Iowa Legislature has appropriated $310,000 from the Healthy Iowans Tobacco Trust for a value-based program at Newton. In Minnesota, 22 percent of IFI's funding comes from the state.

The lawyer for Americans United told the AP that the program has turned an entire unit of a state prison into an evangelical church. The lawsuit also claims that prisoners who sign up for the program get preferential treatment such as separate living quarters, special visits from family members, and access to computers. And according to prisoners who have testified, in order to be adopted into the program they must sign an agreement that they will subscribe to the teachings of InnerChange, which only promotes Christianity. In other words, Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who isn't Christian must convert in order to be a part of the reform program. The trial is expected to continue through next week.

County commish, er, clarifies position *cough, cough*

For some folks, the biggest issue in a rather indistinctive Minneapolis mayoral race is the smoking ban. There are actually two of them: One banning smoking just about anywhere indoors in Minneapolis, and one banning smoking just about anywhere indoors in Hennepin County.

Much ado was made over the summer when Hennepin County decided to "review" the ban after bar owners suffering from a deep downturn in business intensely lobbied the seven county commissioners. All eyes were on Peter McLaughlin, likely the swing vote for any kind of repeal, and a mayoral candidate who had sought to distinguish himself from his foe, incumbent R.T. Rybak.

More >>

Anyone who's spent a decent amount of time hanging out in the West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis knows Patrick Ashang. For years the 47-year-old Nigerian-born flower salesman has been a fixture in area watering holes like the Viking Bar, the Red Sea, and Palmer's Bar, notable for his ever-present grin.

"He's a West Bank-er," says Russon Solomon, co-owner of the Red Sea. "He came here at least twice a day. He would take a rest here. It's very sad what happened to him."

On October 18th, Ashang was peddling flowers on Cedar Avenue when he was accosted by a 29-year-old man named Zaki Mohamed Sugule. According to a criminal complaint subsequently filed in Hennepin County District Court, Sugule demanded that Ashang sell him a rose for less than the standard price. When Ashang refused, Sugule allegedly picked up a large rock and threw it at the flower salesman's head, knocking him unconscious.

More >>

Okay, just short strokes this morning:

Raw Story reports that Patrick Fitzgerald will hold a press conference today at 1 pm central time. It's a foregone conclusion that Scooter Libby will be indicted.

Not Rove, however. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the investigation will be extended--and that Rove's lawyers have been advised he won't be indicted today, but "remains in legal jeopardy."

The NYT and WashPost, meanwhile, are diametrically opposed as to whether the Fitzgerald investigation will be extended. Times says yes; WashPost says no.

I'm betting the confusion stems from the matter of whether this grand jury will be extended (maybe not, since it has already been extended before) or a new one impaneled.

(Fitzmas card graphic from azstarnet.)

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Steve Monaco at Couch Pundit has some great vintage comic book covers in honor of Halloween.

A local country station has won the CMA Award for Best Major Market Country Station, and that gives Jack Sparks something to chew on at the Other Side of Country.

THESE DAYS

The Washington Post reports the NFL will consider relocating the Saints to Los Angeles if New Orleans is unable to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday high oil and natural-gas prices helped its third-quarter profit surge almost 75 percent to $9.92 billion, the largest quarterly profit for a U.S. company ever, and it was the first to ring up more than $100 billion in quarterly sales.

The Wyrd Sisters, a little-known Winnipeg folk group, allege that Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire contains a scene with a musical group bearing their name, and have secured a Nov. 4 court date to apply for an injunction barring distribution of the film.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Bruce Scroggins is a Virgo who proudly calls himself a simple man who loves Jesus. Visit this Minneapolitan's political and religious blog at The Truth in LOVE.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

The Village Voice: 50 Covers/50 years gallery

Yes But No But Yes ranks the Top Ten Female Streakers of all time. [NSFW]

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right. I don't think that this is a permanent condition, but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country."

-- Former Sen. John Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, after meeting with students at the Bill Clinton School of Public Service, a graduate branch of the University of Arkansas on the grounds of the Clinton presidential library

"Messed-up teeth are so sexy."

-- Elizabethtown actress Kirsten Dunst

At around 3:15 on Tuesday afternoon a guy who seemed to appear from the cracks in the pavement darted across Nicollet from 27th Street. It looked like he was attempting to evade two oncoming cop cars, and another that was stopped on 27th. One cop car, going north on Nicollet, screeched to a rolling stop before hitting the black late-teen/early-twentysomething male. There was a thud, the suspect rolled to the ground, and then wobbled on bent ankles as he tried to pick himself up and run again.

A few staggering half-steps later, he again was brought to the ground by the cop who struck him with his car, though by this time the cop was out of the car and using his hands to wrap the man's arms around his back. The suspect lay face-first on Nicollet as the cop cuffed him, picked up something that had fallen from the young man's pocket, and then placed him in the back of the cop car and drove off, two other cop cars in tow. So why was this guy sprinting from the cops, only to literally run into them? According to the 5th Precinct, there is no record of the incident or the arrest.

Ward rejiggering still taints council races

With less than two weeks to go before a citywide election cycle culminates in Minneapolis, it's clear that the new ward boundaries that go into effect in January still loom large in this year's campaigns.

While much has been written in City Pages about the practical effects of the redrawing of electoral maps based on 2000 Census data--the pitting of two lefty incumbents against each other in the new Sixth Ward, and two black incumbents having to square off in the new Fifth--no one has spoken candidly about the intent behind the process.

(A prescient primer by CP's Britt Robson--from three and a half years ago--is here.)

But one source with close knowledge of the the backroom wheeling and dealing recently spoke with City Pages about what politicos involved hoped to gain from it.

More >>

What do these three stories about health insurance add up to?

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Wal-Mart is pondering ways to cut its benefits costs by hiring healthier workers and imposing policies that make working for Wal-Mart less attractive to people who can't get or stay healthy. The Journal's site is subscription-only, but here's a taste:

The Wal-Mart memo to the company's board of directors proposes incorporating physical activity in all jobs to discourage the infirm from applying. For example, the memo suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all cashiers to do some cart gathering." The memo also promotes health-savings accounts, which are funded by workers' pretax dollars and can be diverted to retirement accounts or rolled over to pay for health care the following year. Health-benefits specialists say these accounts are most appealing to younger, healthier workers. "It will be far easier to attract and retain a healthier work force than it will be to change behavior in an existing one," says the memo, which was previously disclosed in the New York Times yesterday. "These moves would also dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart."

More >>