MPR says, “Weak El Nino conditions favor relatively mild winter temperatures across Minnesota, the Upper Midwest and much of the rest of the country, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday in its annual winter outlook. The tropical Pacific has gradually warmed recently, leading to the expectation that an El Nino will develop and affect weather during December, January and February, the federal agency said.”

The Star Tribune’s Liz Sawyer writes: “Amid a startling surge in violence inside Minnesota state prisons, the corrections officers’ union demanded Thursday that the Legislature fund hiring of an additional 327 uniformed staffers to bolster security. ‘Every prison is dealing with staffing shortages that have put workers in danger,’ said Tim Henderson, associate director of AFSCME Council 5, the labor union representing 2,500 corrections officers in Minnesota. Henderson said recruiting on such a scale will increase safety for “staff and the public, which is one of our most fundamental responsibilities.’”

Says Laura Yuen for MPR, “A former FBI agent will serve four years in prison for leaking classified information to the press. Terry Albury, 39, spent his entire career with the FBI and worked most recently on counterterrorism for the Minneapolis division. In 2016, he shared internal documents with a reporter after becoming increasingly troubled by investigative practices that he believed targeted and intimidated Minnesota’s Somali-American community. U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright said Thursday she believed Albury, who was one of the few African-American field agents in the region, struggled with a sincere moral conflict.”

KSTP-TV reports: “Discrimination complaints coming into the city of Minneapolis are way up compared to this time last year. The city started a specific effort to take discrimination and hate crime calls last June. City data shows 65 actionable discrimination reports have come in so far in 2018, tripling the number received last year at this time. The majority of discrimination complaints are based on race. The second leading reason people in Minneapolis call in has to do with disability discrimination.”

Also in the Strib, Jessie Van Berkel writes: “A group of faith leaders on Thursday condemned mailers sent out by Republican attorney general candidate Doug Wardlow as Islamophobic and intended to spread fear. … Wardlow’s mailers ‘are a significant departure from what America is all about. He has chosen to attack his opponent’s religion and he has chosen to attack religious institutions,’ said Imam Asad Zaman, who spoke at a news conference along with two Lutheran pastors and a rabbi.”

A story by Matthew DeFour at Madison.com says, “A fourth former secretary for Gov. Scott Walker has come forward to criticize the Republican governor after resigning from his job leading Madison’s economic development agency in order to speak more freely. … In their letter, the three former secretaries say they joined his administration with a ‘fervent belief’ that Walker shared their desire to improve the state. But over time, they said, ‘it became clear that his focus was not on meeting his obligations to the public but to advancing his own political career at a tremendous cost to taxpayers and families.’”

A Strib piece by Michael Rand notes, “On a recent episode of Vikings Connected, hosts Chris Hawkey and Erin Newburg had Vikings players read actual tweets that were sent to them. But instead of having them read MEAN TWEETS, as has become the custom on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Vikings players were instead asked to read positive tweets that they received. Not every one is a gold mine, but there are enough good ones to make watching it very much worth your while.”

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Also at MPR, this from Martin Moylan. “Sun Country is establishing a partnership with Minnesota State Mankato to turn the school’s flight school graduates into pilots with the airline. The Eagan-based carrier will promise jobs to some students once they graduate and have accumulated 1,450 hours of flight time. Sun Country will then enroll the graduates in its pilot training program. Airline spokesperson Jessica Wheeler said competition for pilots is keen and Sun Country wants to grow its cockpit workforce.”

Says Molly Guthrey at the PiPress, “On the last day he could speak, Little Free Library founder Todd Bol had a message for the world: ‘I really believe in a Little Free Library on every block and a book in every hand,’ he said from hospice in Oakdale. ‘I believe people can fix their neighborhoods, fix their communities, develop systems of sharing, learn from each other, and see that they have a better place on this planet to live.’ Bol, who lived in Hudson, Wis., spent the last nine years putting little libraries on neighborhood blocks and books in people’s hands, died Thursday of complication from pancreatic cancer. He was 62.”