NEWS DAY | Murder in Minneapolis / What would Emmer cut? / Bring on the drones / more

With three murders in the last week pushing the year’s toll to 24, Minneapolis crime is in the news. The latest three: a shooting on the Northside on Thursday, and two shootings in south Minneapolis on Saturday and Sunday. The Daily Planet explains how to find the statistics, and has a chart of the past ten years.

What would Emmer cut? After Tom Emmer refused to say what his budget plans are, when appearing on MPR’s Midday show last week, MPR dug through his previous statements. Tom Scheck reports previous Emmer statements indicating that he would abolish five agencies: the Department of Human Rights, the Bureau of Mediation Services, the Housing Finance Agency, the Office of Enterprise Technology and the Metropolitan Council. Emmer has also said he would eliminate or merge agencies dealing with water, and merge the Department of Corrections with the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Health with the Department of Human Services.

Aside from the fact that eliminating the agencies wouldn’t come close to solving state budget woes, his statements indicate a certain lack of understanding. For example, he said the federal EEOC could do everything the Department of Human Rights does – but the EEOC deals only with employment, while DHR also addresses public accommodations, housing, education, credit and more.

Bring on the drones! Since drones have worked so well in Afghanistan, the FAA is working on a plan to let them fly in U.S. air space for “civilian and law-enforcement functions,” reports AP.

Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, have been leaning on the FAA to approve requests to use unmanned aircraft along the Texas-Mexico border.

Remember the recent reports on drones in Afghanistan?

The military also disciplined six officers and called for improvements in counter-intelligence training to avoid civilian deaths in combat, which have undermined the credibility of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan and the Afghan government.

Of course, in the U.S., civilian drones would be controlled by well-trained civilian crews. Like, perhaps, the ones that put two twelve-year-olds on the wrong planes last week.

Guerrilla gardeners in St. Paul are illegally beautifying the landscape, reports the Pioneer Press.

Many people have seen the work of guerilla gardeners but don’t know it. The eco-outlaws sneak flowers into land by freeway exits, abandoned city gardens or vacant lots.

Krgyztan is exploding in ethnic conflict that has 117 people dead and tens of thousands of Uzbeks fleeing the country. Democracy Now has a video report.