An air quality alert has been issued for parts of Minnesota due to wildfire smoke from Canada.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) issued the alert for central and southern Minnesota, which will run until 11 p.m. on Thursday.

The areas affected include the Twin Cities metro area, Brainerd, Alexandria, Albert Lea, Marshall, Worthington, Hinckley, St. Cloud, Ortonville, Mankato, Moorhead, Duluth, and the Tribal Nations of Upper Sioux, Mille Lacs, Prairie Island, Leech Lake and Fond du Lac.

Fine particle levels are expected to reach the orange AQI (Air Quality Index) category, which is considered unhealthy for people with asthma, breathing conditions, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, pregnant people, children and older adults.

People in these sensitive groups should limit heavy exertion and time spent outside, according to the MPCA.

Click here to stay up to date on the latest air quality updates.

Minnesotans are having trouble filling shopping carts and more importantly, prescriptions.

A cyberattack at food distributor United Natural Foods Incorporated is causing problems for its customers, which includes Cub Foods, Whole Foods, and some co-ops.

UNFI released a statement saying it had taken some systems offline to investigate the breach, adding:

“As soon as we discovered the activity, an investigation was initiated with the help of leading forensics experts and we have notified law enforcement. We are assessing the unauthorized activity and working to restore our systems to safely bring them back online. As we work through this issue, our customers, suppliers, and associates are our highest priority. We are working closely with them to minimize disruption as much as possible.”

The problem isn’t just leading to potentially empty shelves. Pharmacy systems had to be shut down. UNFI released another statement saying in part:

“Currently, half of our pharmacies are fully operational. At pharmacies still experiencing the disruption, we are unable to fill new and refill prescription orders at this time, but if a prescription was filled last week prior to the start of the disruption on Friday afternoon, then the prescription is available for pickup. 

For patients seeking to fill a new or refill a prescription today at disrupted pharmacies, we recommend filling them at another local pharmacy retailer. We are continuing to work to restore our systems to safely bring them back online.”

UNFI recommends people check the Cub Pharmacy app or the Cub website to confirm which location to go to before fulfilling a prescription.

WCCO talked with a triage nurse in the Twin Cities. She didn’t want to share her identity, but she did want to share the headache the Cub Foods pharmacy disruption is causing her patients.

“Anytime you transfer a controlled substance to a pharmacy that a pharmacy isn’t familiar with the patient, they need to call us and get all this information on the patient. So, then they’re waiting even longer for their prescriptions. We have one patient who’s been waiting four days to get her prescription filled,” the nurse told WCCO. “And then some of the medications we’re prescribing have shortages on them. So, they were getting them reliably from Cub and now they’re being told that they’ve got to call around everywhere else to find shortages. It’s wild.”

On top of waiting to get their medication, the nurse tells WCCO people are worried that their personal information and medical history was stolen.

‘It’s kind of scary” said customer Otto Megles. “I had a delivery due today. I got a text about 6:30 this morning saying it was canceled. I asked if they could process my order at a later time and date, and they said probably not until the weekend.”

Seward Community Co-Op says it has been impacted by the cyber attack as well.

“UNFI has not been shipping product, though National Cooperative Grocers (NCG) negotiated one or two tiny deliveries to help offset the lack of supply. We don’t expect much product from UNFI until next week,” Seward Community Co-op said in a statement.

WCCO reached out to Cub Foods for a statement to learn how many pharmacies were affected and the company’s message to customers. WCCO is waiting to hear back.

The Minnesota Legislature approved the remaining pieces of the next state budget on Monday during a special session, after lawmakers failed to complete their work in May.

The House adjourned around 10:40 p.m., and the Senate was on track to do the same around midnight or early on Tuesday. They had 14 bills on their to-do list; most were spending plans that made up the roughly $66 billion budget for the next two years.

The political make-up of the Capitol is unique, with a tied House for only the second time in state history, and is as closely divided as a Legislature can be in Minnesota, with 100 Republicans and 101 Democrats. That made negotiations challenging and forced compromise.

“The tie forced us to work together, and I think that’s something that people outside of the bubble here in St. Paul are looking for people to do,” said House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring. “They want representation in the state that can work together and do the best things for our state.”

A delayed start in the House, after DFL lawmakers boycotted the first few weeks over a power dispute, ended in overtime. But a divided Legislature is not unique in Minnesota. Four of the last five budget-writing sessions, including this one, have ended with special sessions because they didn’t finish the budget on time when Republicans and Democrats shared power.

“We prevented a duly elected member of the Minnesota House from being kicked out for no reason whatsoever other than political expediency. And I think in the end, fighting for that equal shared power made this a better session,” said former DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman. “And I think the way that today unfolded was about cooperation and collaboration, we could have had that from the word go. I’m really happy that we did finally get there.”

Finishing their work on Monday prevented nearly 30,000 state workers from getting layoff notices on Tuesday in advance of a partial government shutdown on July 1 if they failed to approve a budget.

As of 11:30 p.m. Monday, the Senate had to pass a tax bill and a bonding proposal funding infrastructure projects before they adjourned, but had approved the budget bills. The legislation made significant cuts to stave off a projected $6 billion deficit in future years.

Most of the day was smooth sailing after lawmakers in the House began by passing the most contentious bill of the year that will remove undocumented immigrant adults from MinnesotaCare, a state health care coverage program, by the year’s end.

The debate in that chamber lasted for four hours and at times was emotional. The change was a top priority for Republicans who are concerned that growing enrollment would balloon costs in an unsustainable way.

Democrats in both chambers are deeply opposed to the measure, which will preserve coverage for children despite the rollback for adults.

Through tears, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said approving it, which she agreed to in a larger budget compromise among legislative leaders, was among the most “painful” votes she ever had to take.

She and three other Democrats supported it in the Senate. Hortman was the sole DFL vote alongside Republicans in the House.

Hortman was similarly emotional when reflecting on that moment.

“What I worry about is the people who will lose their health insurance. I know that people will be hurt by that vote,” she said. “We worked very hard to try to get a budget deal that wouldn’t include that provision, and we tried any other way we could to come to a budget agreement with Republicans, and they wouldn’t have it. So I did what leaders do, I stepped up and I got the job done for the people of Minnesota.”

This story will be updated.