Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowaler said the Legislature and the administration should use a projected surplus to build up the state's reserve accounts.

Over the years, DFL campaigns for high-profile offices have had a tendency to blow past party endorsing conventions and end in contested primaries.

While the gubernatorial campaigns and the legislative caucuses are attracting most of the money and attention in the current election cycle, legislative candidates in competitive districts are also getting some measure of love from the PAC donors who have weighed in with their first finance reports of 2010.

When Kathy Lantry’s mom was growing up in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul in the 1940s, the Sacred Heart Church held Masses in both English and German. Today the Roman Catholic parish still conducts Mass in a pair of languages, but the non-English service has changed to Spanish.

George Latimer spent nearly 14 years as mayor of St. Paul, making him the longest-serving mayor in the 155-year history of the city.

George Latimer spent nearly 14 years as mayor of St. Paul, making him the longest-serving mayor in the 155-year history of the city.