I really didn't want to write about stadiums again today, but when both Twin Cities newspapers treat the Vikings new uniforms as front page news, I feel compelled to.

The stadium news happened in the Senate Taxes Committee which is chaired by Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis. MPR's Tom Scheck covered it:

One day after the House approved a plan that would help pay for a downtown Minneapolis ballpark, the Senate author of the bill stopped the Twins momentum with a different funding plan. Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, says he's moving away from a deal between Hennepin County and the Twins that would rely on a countywide sales tax. Instead, he's proposing a half cent sales tax for the seven county metro area to fund ballparks for the Twins, a Blaine stadium for the Vikings and provide $12 billion for transit funding over the next 30 years.

"I think this is a better solution for Minnesota and for taxpayers than the other solutions where you are issuing lots of debt and have all of the interest costs related to that."

The committee also rejected a funding plan for a new Gopher football stadium that would have used a sales tax on sports memorabilia instead of student fees, naming rights and direct general fund payments.

The big question is whether all this maneuvering will result in a new funding plan for stadiums or whether it will kill all the stadiums.

The committee is scheduled to go back to work today. By the way, Perry Finelli and Tim Pugmire think the Vikings new jerseys look like the old L.A. Rams uniforms.

While the Senate committee was talking stadiums the House was taking aim at the state Supreme Court on abortion. The Star Tribune had that story:

If it were to become law, the measure would strike at the heart of the state's equivalent of the landmark Roe vs. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973 legalizing abortion. Like the all-out abortion ban recently passed in South Dakota, the Minnesota measure, if enacted, would almost certainly trigger court action to test anew the constitutionality of abortion rights.

"This strategy in the face of clear law is saying that the state is going to wage battle in the courts," said House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul. "That's not the best way to reduce abortion."

The House sponsor, Rep. Laura Brod, R-New Prague, said it is unfair that Minnesotans who might oppose abortions are required to fund them. Taxpayer-funded abortions now account for 29 percent of the abortions performed in Minnesota, at an estimated cost of $1 million a year. Brod's legislation would prohibit all taxpayer-funded abortions unless the mother's life is in danger or in cases of rape or incest.

The new owner of the St. Paul Pioneer Press visited his new acquisition Thursday and the early reviews are charming and disarming. MPR's Annie Baxter had that story:

Many workers, like Donna Lucas, who works in classifieds, emerged from that meeting amped by [MediaNews Group CEO Dean]Singleton's optimism.

"It was a very positive message. Very positive. I think we'll have a good outlook for the Pioneer Press under his tutelage, and I think it'll all turn out for the best for us. I see it being only a good thing that's happening to the Pioneer Press"

Reporter David Hanners had expressed a wary optimism about Singleton just a day earlier. But after hearing him speak, Hanners said he was warming to the new boss, too.

"It was encouraging he used the word fun, and fun is one of the reasons many of us got into the newspaper business."

Fun? The newspaper business must be different from the radio business.