A new day for baseball in St. Paul

The Saints win their ballpark funding quest. Polling shows the voter ID constitutional amendment with strong support across the state, but how much would it cost or save to implement the change? We look at why the US House voted to swap Boundary Waters land with land in the Superior National Forest. Concordia College cuts its tuition costs. An infamous cold case is cracked. And we have the latest on unrest in the Middle East and its impact on the presidential race. First up: Play ball!

Saints score funding home run
Details are still coming in, but we can report as we post this that the St. Paul Saints are among the winners of state economic development funding grants today, which means they can move ahead with plans to build a new ballpark in Lowertown.

Ballpark's economic benefit disputed
In a related story: When the city of St. Paul applied for $27 million to build a new ballpark for the Saints, it estimated the economic benefit at $10 million per year. But an analysis buried in the city's 500-page application to the state disputes that economic impact.

What will Voter ID cost?
Many government officials say if passed, the voter ID amendment will come with a multi-million dollar price tag that will ultimately fall to taxpayers. But another new report downplays the financial effect of the amendment, and even suggests possible long-term savings.

BWCA land swap passes U.S. House
Before the state of Minnesota was even founded, thousands of acres of land were set aside to generate money for public schools. Many of those lands were eventually sold off, but a large chunk of the remaining land is locked inside the federally-protected Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. For years, state and local officials have discussed the possibility of selling or swapping those lands. On Wednesday, the U.S. House passed a bill that would make a swap official.

Going after Cravaack
House Majority PAC, a political fund aimed at putting more Democrats in the U.S. House, has launched a new ad targeting 8th Congressional District GOP Rep. Chip Cravaack. The ad , which will air in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market for two weeks, makes the case that Cravaack went to Washington and abandoned his Minnesota values.

Protesters storm US embassy in Yemen
Chanting "death to America," hundreds of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen's capital and burned the American flag on Thursday, the latest in a series of attacks on American diplomatic missions in the Middle East.

Romney: White House sent 'mixed signals'
In the midst of an international crisis, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama's administration of apologizing for American values when it should have been voicing outrage, as he looked for political advantage in the deadly protests that caused a breach of the U.S. embassy in Egypt and left four Americans dead in Libya.

Obama: Romney tends to 'shoot first and aim later'
In an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" later in the day, Obama said the episode showed Romney's penchant for having "a tendency to shoot first and aim later," adding that, "It appears that Gov. Romney didn't have his facts right."

Fact-checking Romney
The AP writes: The gunfire at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had barely ceased when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seriously mischaracterized what had happened in a statement accusing President Barack Obama of "disgraceful" handling of violence there and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

Californian admits role in anti-Islam film
The anti-Muslim film implicated in mob protests against U.S. diplomatic missions in the Mideast received logistical help from a man once convicted of financial crimes and featured actors who complained that their inflammatory dialogue was dubbed in after filming.

Entrenched rural poverty
When Alvin Clark needs a meal, he sometimes comes to the basement of the People's Church, where poor people in Beltrami County know they can find help. He's not alone. According to 2010 Census data, Beltrami County's poverty rate is about 20 percent, or about double the statewide rate.

Uptown Theatre to reopen after facelift
Minneapolis' iconic Uptown Theatre is about to reopen after a $2 million, six-month renovation, bucking a trend that's shuttering small art theaters with a renovation that blends historic preservation and updated amenities. Now, a digital projector shows movies on a bigger movie screen, and viewers can watch from a sofa on the balcony.

Concordia University cuts annual tuition by $10K
After decades of college tuition costs that outpaced inflation across the country, an unusual announcement has come out of Concordia University. The private college in St. Paul is cutting its stated tuition price by a third, beginning next fall. Dozens of private colleges across the country are trying similar cuts.

Whooping cough vaccine loses punch too fast
As the U.S. wrestles with its biggest whooping cough outbreak in decades, researchers appear to have zeroed in on the main reason: The safer vaccine that has been in use since the 1990s loses effectiveness much faster than previously thought. A study published in Wednesday's New England Journal of Medicine found that the protective effect weakens dramatically soon after a youngster gets the last of the five recommended shots around age 6.

Isaac drives up jobless benefits claims
Isaac made landfall as Category 1 hurricane on Aug. 28 in southeastern Louisiana and was later downgraded to a tropical storm. It disrupted work in nine states and boosted applications by roughly 9,000, Labor officials said.

Dayton renews call for higher taxes on higher earners
The governor told a group at the University of Minnesota that his administration is coming up with a plan to overhaul the entire tax code to make the tax system fairer to lower and middle income people. He didn't offer specifics but said his plan would continue to include an income tax hike on the state's top 2 percent of earners.

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