First Special Session Deadline Missed

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Lawmakers are still negotiating Minnesota’s next two-year budget and won’t meet the goal of Friday set by their leaders for agreeing on the final numbers that will go into the big-spending bills that lawmakers must pass in the coming weeks.

But Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman says negotiators are still driving as hard as they can to get everything ready to pass in a special session on June 14, which they hope to hold to one day.

Hortman says numbers have been agreed to for the commerce and energy budgets. And she says negotiators were close Friday afternoon on the higher education funding and tax bills.