Minnesota’s largest school district is planning to close its elementary schools as a growing number of coronavirus cases has left it short on staff and bus drivers.

The Anoka-Hennepin district, which serves 13 communities, will be transitioning to distance learning. Elementary students have been attending in-person classes two days a week since Sept. 15.

State guidelines recommend districts consider closing all schools when new case rates in the county exceed 50 per 10,000.

The district hasn’t set a date for closing the elementary schools, but parents were told they’d receive as much advance notice as possible.

During a Pennsylvania court hearing this week on one of the many election lawsuits brought by President Donald Trump, a judge asked a campaign lawyer whether he had found any signs of fraud from among the 592 ballots challenged. The answer was no.

On Wednesday, Trump took aim at Philadelphia, the Democratic stronghold that helped push President-elect Joe Biden over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the race. The president accused a local Republican election official, Al Schmidt, of ignoring “a mountain of corruption & dishonesty.” Twitter added a label that said the election fraud claim is disputed.

Trump loyalists have filed at least 15 legal challenges in Pennsylvania alone in an effort to reclaim the state’s 20 electoral votes. There is action, too, in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Michigan.

Either way, experts doubt the suits can reverse the outcome in a single state, let alone the election.

St. Thomas athletics welcomed 50 student-athletes in its first class of Division I signees to sports other than football during the university’s first National Signing Day Wednesday, with more decisions expected in the coming days and weeks. These commits represent 12 states and collectively average a 3.75 high school GPA on a 4.00 scale.

The Tommies anticipate that more than a dozen varsity sports will be represented in the first round of signings and more than 60 high school graduates from the 2021 class are expected to sign in November, according to an article on Tommie Sports.

“Historically, as a Division III school, we would operate almost a year behind Division I in terms of commits,” Baseball coach Chris Olean said. “We would now just be getting started with getting serious commits from class of ‘21 kids instead of being done.”

Libby Simpson can be reached at libby.simpson@stthomas.edu.