I've been gone doing Midday for a few days, so it's time to cactch up. Let's start at the Capitol. One year after it was due, lawmakers say they've reached an agreement on a bonding bill. Better late than never says MPR's Laura McCallum:

The governor and legislative leaders were all smiles as they announced the deal. The package of construction projects would total nearly $945 million, with about $886 million in state borrowing. Gov. Pawlenty says negotiators met for several hours, going through the bill line by line.

"Even though there were some pointed differences at times, the tone and the attitude was one of 'let's get this done, we need it for the state of Minnesota,'" Pawlenty said.

The deal appears to have found middle ground between the House and Senate positions in many areas. The agreement contains nearly $322 million for higher education, and nearly $100 million for environmental projects.

Gov. Pawlenty got most of his key projects in the deal. The proposed Northstar commuter rail line between Minneapolis and Big Lake would receive $37 million, the amount needed to match federal money. Lawmakers agreed to renovate the Faribault prison at a cost of $85 million, and improve the Minnesota Zoo at a cost of nearly $25 million.

Now that they've found bipartisan agreement on something, how's that state casino plan doing? Uh oh. Bipartisan disagreement. DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch says a casino would require a constitutional amendment, which means a public vote. GOP Gov. Pawlenty's office is not happy. The Star Tribune has more:

The opinion comes one day after the state-tribal casino plan cleared a Republican-controlled House committee on a narrow party-line vote and is sure to give casino opponents fodder in their quest to stop the plan in the DFL-led Senate.

Pawlenty said the opinion would not prevent him from proceeding with his plan. "We disagree with the opinion," he said Wednesday. Similar issues had been litigated in several other states, he said, "and all of those states have won."

But Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, said that Pawlenty's plan "was in the refrigerator yesterday. It just got put into the freezer."

If a casino at a racetrack is a racino, I guess a casino in the freezer is a cafreezo.

Could all the initial reports about the Red Lake shooting have been wrong? In the week following the tragedy Jeff Weise was portrayed as a depressed loner. Now that Louis Jourdain has been arrested and reportedly charged with conspiracy it comes out that Weise hung out with a group of friends other students called the "Darkers." The Associated Press today has horrifying look at the sequence of events during the shootings based on an e-mail sent by a sheriff's deputy:

Wounded in the leg and hip, Jeff Weise retreated to the classroom where he had done most of his killing. In this room of horror, where his victims still lay, Weise tucked his slain grandfather's shotgun under his chin and fired.

There's a lot more detail that I won't excerpt here.

Thursday the House is scheduled to debate the constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage. I'll have more on that tomorrow.