Gov. Mark Dayton issued his veto letter less than two hours before the midnight deadline on Saturday, citing hazard concerns stressed by hospital and public safety officials.

House and Senate races across the state are rapidly shaking out following the release of new legislative maps.

Republican Sen. Michael Jungbauer was released from Regions Hospital Thursday after being hit by a car a day earlier while jogging in St. Paul.

On the first day of the legislative session on Tuesday, many of the Senate's new Republican committee administrators were still receiving the keys to their offices and waiting for their phones to be set up. But for the most part, the top committee staffers who will help Senate Republicans govern in the majority for the first time since 1972 are hardly strangers to the Capitol.

The restructuring of the caucus and its chairs by a new leadership team is widely expected to produce a decidedly conservative shift on the part of Senate Republicans, who in recent years have built a more centrist track record than their increasingly conservative House colleagues.

Around convention time in the spring, Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, boasted that his caucus would retake the chamber’s majority in November. Considering Senate Republicans’ 38-year stranglehold on minority status, and the 13 seats that his troops will need to gain to make good on the pledge, it amounts to a tall order.

Five more challengers have filed papers to take on incumbent state legislators. There are now 40 House challengers in 35 districts, with 31 Republicans and nine Democrats. On the senate side, 32 challengers have formed campaign committees, roughly two thirds of them Republicans.