Closing the “skills gap” was the issue that brought U.S. Sen. Al Franken to meet with local industrial owners April 2 at Wyoming Machine in Stacy.

Franken, D-Minn., began with a tour of the business at 30680 Forest Blvd., where he met with laborers including metal finisher Laura Feaski of North Branch and Jerry Larson, a Class A welder who lives outside of Rush City. The visit concluded with a roundtable discussion with a number of other industrial leaders, including the president of Pine Technical College.

The senator said he’s seeing a pattern in Minnesota and across the country where manufacturers have jobs open but can’t find people with the right skills to fill the vacancies. As a result, Franken looks to build on and create new partnerships between schools and industries to help close this “skills gap”.

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Congressman Tim Walz has been a teacher, football coach and longtime member of the Minnesota National Guard.

Now he can add hotdish master to his resume.

Walz’s “Hermann the German” hotdish took first place Wednesday at Sen. Al Franken’s third annual hotdish competition for the Minnesota congressional delegation.

No joke.

Franken started the event three years ago as a way to build cooperation among the delegates.

“It’s a great day when the Minnesota delegation is able to put our differences aside and focus on what really matters — hotdish,” Franken said in a statement.

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They are the faces of Minnesota’s future, Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Sen. Al Franken told the nine impressive students assembled around a table at St. Paul College on Tuesday. They’re high academic achievers, campus leaders, community volunteers — and debtors.

Despite those efforts, each of them is racking up debts that will run into five figures when their college careers end. A University of Minnesota pharmacy student said six-figure debt is common in her graduate school cohort.

Their drive to achieve is inspiring, Franken said. But so much student debt is “not good for America, and it’s certainly not good for the young people who will be saddled” with it for years to come.

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Minnesota Sen. Al Franken anticipates the federal immigration overhaul will contain the so-called DREAM Act that’s geared toward speeding citizenship for young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

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As lawmakers in St. Paul and Washington, D.C. try to tackle deficits and debt, they’re keeping a close eye on the debt college graduates are racking up.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Sen. Al Franken wanted to hear directly from students about the issue at a roundtable at St. Paul College on Tuesday.

Americans now owe $1 trillion on their student loans, eclipsing the amount they owe on their credit cards.

“This is a trend we’re seeing and it’s not good. I don’t think it’s good for America and it’s certainly not good for our young people,” Franken remarked.

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Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) has endorsed marriage equality, making him the second Republican in the Senate to do so. With Vice President Joe Biden the tie-breaker, this marks the first time that a majority in the U.S. Senate has endorsed same-sex marriage.

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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Monday said he’s still not satisfied with Euclid Analytics’ privacy practices because the company requires a person to opt out of its tracking technology.

Euclid’s technology is geared towards helping retailers gather data about shoppers’ behavior, such as how many people walk by their storefronts, how many new customers entered their stores on a given week, or how long they stay to shop in the store and which aisles they walked down. The company culls this data by using sensors to pick up the Wi-Fi signal on a consumer’s smart phone.

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U.S. Sen. Al Franken and Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau on Monday highlighted the recent reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act during a Minneapolis news conference.

The bill provides funding to help local law enforcement respond to and prosecute domestic violence crimes.

Franken said the new act also improves protections for Native American, LGBT and immigrant victims.

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U.S. Senator Al Franken was in Rochester Thursday, to take a tour of Rochester’s Federal Medical Center, and to listen to the concerns the prison is facing.

Franken spoke to the Warden Jett about the growing concerns regarding over-crowding and the lack of funding.

The senator is pushing his bill that would aim to ease some of the overcrowding concerns by having the inmates examined by the arresting officer, the prosecutor, and judge to determine if the person belongs in a mental health court instead of federal prison, and then diverting them if need be.

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Democratic Sen. Al Franken is calling for a new five-year Farm Bill, more funding for infrastructure and a repeal of the medical device tax.

Franken held a press conference at the state Capitol Monday to discuss how Minnesota could be affected by the Senate budget resolution, which passed over the weekend.

Franken also called for increasing access to high-speed Internet service for rural Minnesota and more spending on workforce development.

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