Daily Digest: TGIF edition

Good morning and welcome to Friday, the end of another summer week. Here's the Digest.

1. Despite a recommendation by Gov. Mark Dayton, the state police licensing board declined to name a new $12 million law enforcement training fund after Philando Castile. The board voted 8-2 to keep the fund's original name. The two members who opposed that motion are the board's public members, one is Castile's uncle, Clarence Castile. Philando Castile was shot and killed by St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights on July 6, 2016. A Ramsey County jury acquitted Yanez on all charges last month. He's since agreed to leave the police force. (MPR News)

2. The next election is more than 15 months away, but the first campaign field office is already open and buzzing with activity in the politically high-priority Third Congressional District of Minnesota. It wasn’t opened by any of the candidates. The Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a deep-pocketed national super PAC that has poured millions into Republican races already this year, recently opened a Minnesota outpost at a nondescript strip mall in southwest Bloomington. It’s home base for teen volunteers who make calls and knock on doors across the district’s suburban neighborhoods, urging voters to send U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen back for a sixth term next year. (Star Tribune)

3. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has closed to traffic a bridge over the St. Croix River that the agency says has suffered damage to its deck. MnDOT offered few details about the nature of the damage, other than a brief posting on its traveler information site saying there is a hole in the deck of the bridge. "The hole is about 2 foot by 3 foot, and there's still rebar and stuff in it, so it looks like the concrete has kind of crumbled and through," said MnDOT spokesperson Kent Barnard, "but I can't tell you exactly what caused it." The bridge crosses the St. Croix River north of Marine on St. Croix, and connects Highway 95 on the Minnesota side to the Wisconsin city of Osceola.(MPR News)

4. While Congress debates the future of Obamacare and Medicaid, Minnesota’s safety net clinics worry that they will lose $27 million in federal aid that helps pay for health care of the uninsured. Unless Congress acts by October to renew the funding, Minnesota’s 17 safety net providers would have to cut services and possibly close some of the more than 70 clinics across the state. That would create repercussions throughout the health care system, but especially in some rural parts of the state where safety net clinics are the sole health care provider. In some instances, patients are already traveling more than 50 miles for care. (Star Tribune)

5. In a moment of unexpected high drama, Republicans were stymied once again in their effort to repeal Obamacare — and they have John McCain to thank for it. The senator who earned the nickname "Maverick" over his long tenure showed why in the early morning hours Friday. McCain, who was diagnosed with brain cancer and returned to Washington to advance the health care bill, turned around and bucked his party's leadership — and President Trump — by joining two moderate Republicans and every Democrat in voting against the so-called "skinny repeal" of the Affordable Care Act. The defeat ends — for now — the health care debate in Congress. The chamber adjourned following the defeat and there are no further Senate votes this week. (NPR)

I am off for the next two weeks. At this point so is the Digest, unless I can find someone to do it. So thanks for reading, and if you don't get the email for a few days, don't worry. It will return.

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