The Minnesota Twins beat the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon, 5-1, at Rogers Centre in Toronto.

With the win, the red-hot Twins are 24-16 and just 0.5 games back of first place in the American League Central. They’ve also put themselves in the franchise record books with this recent 20-game stretch.

Per Sarah Langs of MLB.com:

seasons with at least 1 20-game span with 17+ wins, Twins since move to MN:

2024
2008
2006
2003
2002
1991
1969

The last time the Twins put together a stretch like this was in July of 2008. Sunday’s win was punctuated by solid pitching from Bailey Ober, who went 6.1 innings and allowed just one hit while striking out 10. Offensively, veteran Carlos Santana hit his seventh home run of the season and Max Kepler stayed hot with his ninth double.

The Twins entered the season with question marks in their starting rotation after losing Sonny Gray in free agency and Anthony DeSclafani to injury, but they’ve held it together on the pitching front. They’ve also overcome early-season injuries to the trio of closer Jhoan Duran, shortstop Carlos Correa and power hitter Royce Lewis. Duran and Correa are now back and contributing, with Duran not having allowed a run yet this season.

The Twins will be off on Monday but they will try to remain hot on Tuesday as they host the New York Yankees at Target Field. First pitch is scheduled for 7:40 p.m. ET as Carlos Rodon (NYY) pitches against Chris Paddack (MIN).

Paddack is 4-1 with a 4.34 ERA.

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MINNEAPOLIS — In 2020 President Donald Trump said if he lost Minnesota he would never come back to the state.

“What we’ve done for Minnesota — I lose Minnesota, I’m never coming back,” Trump said. “I don’t care. I’m never coming back.”

Trump did lose, but is coming back for a GOP fundraiser this Friday in St. Paul.

Trump made several campaign visits to Minnesota in 2020, repeatedly saying Minnesota was the state that got away from him in 2016.

That year, despite only one last-minute campaign appearance here, Trump almost pulled off a shocking upset. He lost to Hillary Clinton here by less than 2%.

Minnesota has the longest-running streak of voting for Democrats in the presidential race in the nation. The last time Minnesota voted Republican was 1972 when the state voted for Richard Nixon. 

Despite campaigning here several times in 2020, Trump lost by a decisive margin of 7 percentage points to Joe Biden. 

Despite saying he would never come back, Trump will be here this Friday night for the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner, one of the party’s biggest fundraisers. Internal party polling reportedly shows Trump and Biden are closer than expected in Minnesota. 

The chair of the Minnesota GOP, David Hann, was a guest on WCCO Sunday Morning at 10:30 a.m.

“The Trump campaign believes that Minnesota is a winnable state and they have begun to focus on winning Minnesota for the Republicans, and I think they are right, I think it is winnable,” Hann said.

In the end, this presidential race will likely come down to the Electoral College. Another critical state for both candidates is Wisconsin, which like Minnesota, has 10 electoral college votes. Both Biden and Trump have already campaigned in Wisconsin, something you can expect to see more of in the five-and-a-half months left until the November election.

You can watch WCCO Sunday Morning with Esme Murphy and Adam Del Rossso every Sunday at 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Legislation under consideration in Minnesota that would require any website that may “reasonably likely be accessed” by minors to take certain steps to protect them would actually have severe unintended consequences affecting the privacy and security of both kids and adults.

While the authors’ goal is admirable, the reality of this legislation is troubling and falls short for a number of reasons.

Under the proposal, billed as the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (HF 2257/SF 2810), companies with websites “likely to be accessed” by a minor (aka every website) will be forced to require proof of age. This may include a wide range of personal information such as birth dates, addresses, pictures and government IDs.

In practice, this legislation will result in every website amassing a massive trove of data on every one of its users — be they adults or children. This will be a ripe target for hackers and criminals. The fact that every website will have to comply means that the protection of users’ data is only as good as the weakest security of any single website they visit.

Data breaches have become more and more common. According to Flashpoint National Security Solutions’ 2024 Global Threat Intelligence Report, cyberattacks in 2023 resulted in the exposure of more than 17 billion personal records. What’s more, according to Javelin Strategy & Research, approximately 1.7 million children were affected by data breaches in 2022. With these cybercrimes on the rise, we must be cautious about collecting any more of our children’s personal information.

Besides the obvious risk to kids’ privacy and security, this bill has serious issues handing the power over what our children consume online over to company executives in boardrooms instead of parents. The broad language of the legislation will force companies to make wide-ranging, subjective determinations for what is in the “best interests of children,” as the bill mandates, raising significant First Amendment concerns.

This could restrict young people’s access to perfectly age-appropriate content based on the opinion of that individual company.

Parents are in the best position to decide what is best for their children. It should be up to each family’s discretion to decide what kids see and post online to ensure the best outcomes for their education and overall well-being. To do this, platforms should enable tools to help parents manage this. Companies should perform risk-based impact assessments to ensure they are protecting young people’s data. And, we should empower the proper regulatory agencies to enforce legislation and ensure compliance.

Companies focused on their bottom lines will not be able or willing to protect kids from their own corporate biases, potentially empowering a slew of politically driven misinformation.

Notably, California recently passed its own version of legislation like this, which was swiftly blocked by a federal judge over concerns of First Amendment violations. Minnesota’s effort is sure to share a similar fate.

We all believe that protecting children is the highest priority, but this legislation is not a magic wand that will shield kids from harm. The Age-Appropriate Design Code Act would require companies to collect more of every Minnesotan’s personal information, putting their security at perilous risk in the ever more likely event of a cyberattack.

Instead, we should encourage and equip every parent to be active in their children’s online presence to ensure safe use of the internet that allows the maximum freedom to enrich a child’s education and development. Minnesota lawmakers must carefully consider how this legislation would be implemented in reality and the unintended consequences that could arise across the internet as a result.

Jeremy Brookins, a nurse anesthetist, lives in Hugo with his wife and their three children ages 6, 9 and 11.