MADISON, Wis. – Gov. Scott Walker has appointed a high-powered attorney to serve on the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents. Walker has selected Scott Beightol to serve until May 2023. He replaces Republican Bryan Steil, who resigned last week to focus on his first term in Congress. Beightol is a partner in the Michael Best and Friedrich law…
MADISON, Wis. -Two dozen Wisconsin health care providers, insurance companies and others in the industry are asking legislators to drop changes affecting Medicaid that Republicans offered in a lame-duck session. The letter Monday was signed by the most powerful health care organizations in the state including the Wisconsin Medical Society, the Wisconsin Hospital Association, UW Health and the Medical College…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota health officials are adding Alzheimer’s disease as a qualifying condition to get medical marijuana. The state Health Department announced Monday that the new condition would take effect in August 2019. Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm says there is “some evidence” that marijuana improves the mood, sleep and behavior of people with Alzheimer’s. The department takes public…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is suing an Indiana company over a data breach that exposed information of over 8,000 Minnesotans. Swanson filed the lawsuit Monday against Medical Informatics Engineering Inc. According to Swanson, hackers in 2015 stole protected health information of over 8,000 Minnesotans from MIE, which provides web-based electronic health records services to medical…
MINNEAPOLIS – Environmental groups have gone to court to challenge the state’s decision to grant key permits for the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota. The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and its allies say the permits would allow PolyMet to threaten water quality downstream for centuries, that they fail to address safety concerns about the mine’s proposed waste…
photo courtesy: honortheearth.orgST. PAUL, Minn. – A leading opponent of Enbridge Energy’s planned Line 3 crude oil pipeline replacement across northern Minnesota has applied for a seat on the regulatory panel that approved the project. Winona LaDuke is executive director of Honor the Earth, a tribally rooted environmental group. She announced Monday that she has applied for the Public Utilities…
BEMIDJI, Minn. – The Beltrami County prosecutors say they’ve charged five people in connection with the death of a teen who fell to his death from the seventh floor of a Bemidji State University dormitory. The county attorney’s office says five men have been charged with two gross misdemeanor counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor. Nineteen-year-old Isaac Jon Morris,…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – People across southern Minnesota are digging out from the first major snowstorm of the season. The National Weather Service says the storm dumped 11 inches of snow on Sherburn and near Lakefield as of Sunday morning. Winnebago reports 9 inches of snow, Mankato 8 inches and Caledonia 7. Minneapolis had nearly 3 inches. Meteorologist Chris O’Brien at…
BEMIDJI, Minn. – The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has identified the officer and deputy who fatally shot an armed suspect following a struggle over a gun. Officer Bidal Duran with the Bemidji Police Department and Deputy Brandon Newhouse with the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Officer are both on standard administrative leave following the incident. The deceased armed suspect has also been…
photo courtesy: Twitter/NWSUPDATE: Officials have canceled a tsunami warning for coastal areas of southern Alaska following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that shook Anchorage. National Tsunami Warning Center senior technician Michael Burgy said the tsunami warning was automatically generated, Officials monitored gauges to see if any underwater landslides would generate tsunami waves. Because there were none, the warning was canceled. Police had…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – State officials say Minnesota’s agricultural, mining and manufacturing exports grew 6 percent to $5.7 billion between July and the end of September. It marks the seventh consecutive quarter of growth. The Department of Employment and Economic Development says the state is on track to see an overall increase in exports for 2018. Exports have remained strong…
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – President Donald Trump has joined the leaders of Mexico and Canada to sign a revised North American trade deal. Trump gathered with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on the sidelines of Friday’s meeting of the Group of 20 nations in Buenos Aires. The revamped deal, which Trump calls the…
DETROIT LAKES, Minn. – Prosecutors have charged a hunter with manslaughter for fatally shooting a former police chief in a rural part of northwestern Minnesota. The Becker County Attorney’s office on Thursday charged 54-year-old Morris Silas Dodd Jr. of rural Ogema with one count of second-degree manslaughter. According to the complaint, Dodd acknowledged hunting in the area where 53-year-old former…
BEMIDJI, Minn. – Authorities say law enforcement officers in northern Minnesota have fatally shot an armed suspect following a struggle over a gun. Police in Bemidji say the shooting happened Wednesday about 11 p.m. after an officer made a traffic stop and determined a passenger in the vehicle had a warrant for an arrest on an undisclosed allegation. A Beltrami…
MILWAUKEE – Wisconsin farmers will receive about $10 million in federal money from the farm bailout program. U.S. Department of Agriculture data obtained by the Washington non-profit Environmental Working Group shows the average payment for Wisconsin farmers from the Market Facilitation program is $2,145. The Journal Sentinel reports 11 farms received more than $50,000 each, while 237 farms got less…
(AP Photo/Richard Drew)NEW YORK – Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate project in Russia. Cohen made a surprise appearance Thursday in a New York courtroom to enter the plea. He admitted making false statements in 2017 to a Senate intelligence committee about a…
ST. PAUL, Minn.-Election officials say Minnesota’s voter turnout in the midterm elections was the best in the nation. The State Canvassing Board met Tuesday to certify results of the Nov. 6 general election. Secretary of State Steve Simon says for the second election in a row, Minnesota’s voter participation was the best in the U.S. Simon says the total number…
ST. PAUL, Minn.-A state task force studying how sexual assault cases are handled in Minnesota says there are serious shortcomings in the investigation and prosecution of the cases. A draft report recommending legislative reforms obtained by the Star Tribune says Minnesota suffers from “systemic and complex” deficiencies in how police and prosecutors process sexual assault cases. State Attorney General Lori…
VIRGINIA, Minn.-State officials say one person has died after being shot by a law enforcement officer in northeastern Minnesota. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says the shooting happened Tuesday in Virginia. Local police and St. Louis County sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of suspicious activity and found someone in the street. The BCA hasn’t said what prompted an officer…
RICE LAKE, Minn. – Authorities in northeastern Minnesota say there is no evidence that someone is poisoning dogs in Rice Lake. St. Louis County sheriff’s Sgt. Wade Rasch spoke to about a dozen people at the Rice Lake City Council meeting Monday night. Rasch says deputies are not looking for “a mean, suspicious dude who is poisoning our pets.” Rasch…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Election officials say Minnesota’s voter turnout in the midterm elections was the best in the nation. The State Canvassing Board met Tuesday to certify results of the Nov. 6 general election. Secretary of State Steve Simon says for the second election in a row, Minnesota’s voter participation was the best in the U.S. Simon says the…
courtesy: Fox NewsBETHESDA, Md. – Officials say they’ve seen “no indication” of an active shooter after clearing the basement of a building at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington. Naval Support Activity Bethesda tweeted Tuesday afternoon that an active shooter had been reported in the basement of a building at the Maryland base. About 40 minutes later, NSAB…
MINNEAPOLIS – The number of farms filing for bankruptcy is increasing across the Upper Midwest. A new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis shows 84 farms filed for bankruptcy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana in the 12 months that ended in June. That’s more than double the number over the same period in 2013…
(AP) – The US Postal Service says it’s fixed a security flaw on its website which may have exposed the personal information of more than 60 million customers. The flaw affected usps.com and allowed anyone to see, and even possibly change, the personal account information of its users. According to ‘Krebs on Security’, an anonymous researcher says he told USPS…
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. – A man accused of threatening some teenagers with a gun inside a McDonald’s in Eden Prairie has been released from jail. Prosecutors say they’re still weighing possible charges against the 55-year-old Lloyd Edward Johnson who has been in the Hennepin County Jail since last week. A Somali teenager told the Star Tribune that she confronted a…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system officials are seeking more state funding to make the schools more accessible and affordable, as the state is seeing a surge in skilled trades training. Chancellor Devinder Malhotram tells Minnesota Public Radio that while the system has about 38,000 graduates a year, officials feel the need to scale up operations….
NEW YORK – U.S. health officials say it’s OK to eat some romaine lettuce again. Just check the label. The Food and Drug Administration is narrowing its blanket warning from last week, when it said people shouldn’t eat any type of romaine because of an E. coli outbreak. The agency on Monday said romaine recently harvested in Arizona, Florida, Mexico…
MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says this year’s gun deer season set a record for hunter safety. Three hunters suffered non-fatal shooting injuries during the hunt that began Nov. 17 and ended Sunday. DNR conservation warden Jon King says that make it the state’s safest gun deer season ever. Prior to this year, the DNR considered…
ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Police in St. Cloud are looking for the suspect who shot and wounded a 34-year-old man during a fight outside a house party. Officers were sent to the shooting around 4 a.m. Sunday. Police say the victim was shot in the stomach and left before officers arrived. He was taken by ambulance to St. Cloud Hospital…
MADISON, Wis. – Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel says private events in public spaces need liquor licenses. Schimel quietly issued an informal opinion Nov. 16 at the request of state Rep. Rob Swearingen, a member of the Assembly tourism committee. Swearingen asked Schimel to interpret statutes that prohibit owners of public places from allowing alcohol without a license. The statutes…
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A NASA spacecraft has landed on Mars to explore the planet’s interior. Flight controllers announced that the spacecraft InSight touched down Monday, after a perilous supersonic descent through the red Martian skies. Confirmation came via radio signals that took more than eight minutes to cross the nearly 100 million miles between Mars and Earth. There was…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Minnesota corrections officials say they’re looking for a convicted killer who is on supervised release. The Department of Corrections says 40-year-old Joshua Hendrickson was released from the St. Cloud prison last year after serving about 18 years for fatally stabbing Christopher Nelson and injuring a second man. The stabbings happened at a house party in Halma. The…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Police say a motorist accused of crashing his SUV through the front gate of the Minnesota governor’s residence in St. Paul has been jailed. State Patrol Lt. Gordon Shank says nobody was injured in the incident around 9:30 p.m. Sunday. Shank says the vehicle, driven by a 59-year-old Clinton Fouquette, of Center City, came to a…
DETROIT – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will spend $32.4 million in the coming year for a channel deepening project that will be an important step toward construction of a new Great Lakes shipping lock. The funds will be used to finish design and begin construction work on the upstream approach channel of the Soo Locks complex…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota wildlife officials and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar are pressing Congress for more funding to monitor chronic wasting disease in the deer herd. Minnesota Public Radio News reports they’re also urging the federal Department of Agriculture to develop a national tracking system for the deer disease as well as standards for transporting deer across state lines….
(Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP, File)DETROIT – General Motors will lay off 14,700 factory and white-collar workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it restructures to cut costs and focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles. The reduction includes 8,100 white-collar workers, some of whom will take buyouts and others who will be…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Gov. Mark Dayton is back home in St. Paul after an unexpectedly long hospitalization following back surgeries. Dayton returned to the governor’s residence Wednesday. In a statement, the 71-year-old said he was looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with family. Dayton said he would continue therapy at the residence. He said earlier that he suffered some lung…
MILWAUKEE – Wisconsin investigators looking for a 13-year-old girl missing since her parents’ slayings remain haunted by her disappearance more than a month after the search for her began. Detectives have pursued more than 2,300 tips, watched dozens of surveillance videos and spent countless hours searching for Jayme Closs, but their efforts haven’t yielded any suspects. Investigators believe Jayme was…
DULUTH, Minn. – According to the Duluth Police Department officers were dispatched to the 100 Block of 56th Avenue West for a medical emergency on Saturday. When officers arrived on scene they located a 2-year-old male not breathing. Officers immediately began life saving efforts on the child, but their efforts failed to revive the boy. He was pronounced dead at…
MINNEAPOLIS – Few activities are as Minnesotan as ice fishing, and some anglers are already venturing out onto the ice. If that sounds dangerous, it is, especially with a Thanksgiving warmup in the forecast. Authorities already have had to rescue some anglers. And conversation officers are still urging “extreme caution” on many lakes. The Department of Natural Resources likes to…
RICE LAKE, Wis. – Authorities in western Wisconsin say the driver of a car has died after crashing into a school bus carrying the Amery girls’ basketball team. Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald says the crash happened around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on Highway 48 just west of Rice Lake. An initial investigation finds a car driven by 55-year-old Joy Tew…
MADISON, Wis.- A legislator is ripping the state Department of Natural Resources for allegedly forcing firefighters to rescue a deer stranded on a frozen lake. Republican Rep. Adam Jarchow tweeted Tuesday that a DNR warden “harassed” firefighters into rescuing a deer that had wandered out onto Balsam Lake. He said he would fire the warden for “being complicit in putting…
STILLWATER, Minn. – A man is dead after a confrontation with police in Stillwater. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office says officers from Stillwater, Bayport and Oak Park Heights responded to a call about 1 a.m. Wednesday involving a suicidal man armed with a knife. Authorities say one officer fired a gun and another officer discharged a stun gun. They did…
MADISON, Wis. – Incoming Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will need to find about $1.1 billion to give state agencies all they requested to pay for schools, prisons, Medicaid and other government operations over the next two years. That’s according to a new report from Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s administration. The report released Tuesday analyzes state agency budget requests and revises…
DETROIT – A federal judge in Detroit says regulating female genital mutilation is up to states and that Congress had no authority to pass the 1996 law banning it. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman dismissed mutilation and conspiracy charges Tuesday against two doctors and others involved in the procedure on nine girls at a suburban Detroit clinic. Jumana Nagarwala says…
NEW YORK – U.S. health officials are telling people to avoid eating romaine lettuce because of an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 32 people in 11 states. The Food and Drug Administration says it’s working with officials in Canada, where people are also being warned to stay away from romaine lettuce. The strain identified is different than the one…
MADISON, Wis. – Outgoing Gov. Scott Walker is giving outgoing Attorney General Brad Schimel a job as a judge. Walker announced Tuesday that he appointed Schimel as a Waukesha County circuit judge. Walker said Schimel has shown a commitment to the rule of law and will faithfully serve the state as a judge. Schimel is a former Waukesha County district…
MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says he expects to be home before Thanksgiving after complications from back surgery required more than a month of hospitalization. The 71-year-old Democrat tells Minnesota Public Radio News that his two back surgeries at Mayo Clinic were successful and he feels much better thanks to physical therapy. Dayton said last week that post-surgery complications…
CHICAGO – Police say the suspected gunman is dead and four people are in critical condition following a shooting at a Chicago hospital. Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says a police officer and at least one hospital employee are among those hospitalized in critical condition following the Monday afternoon shooting at Mercy Hospital. Guglielmi says the gunman was killed, but…
?????????????????????????????????????????DENVER – Prosecutors say a Colorado man strangled his pregnant wife and smothered their two young daughters. Christopher Watts received three consecutive life sentences without a chance at parole on Monday, nearly two weeks after pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty. Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke’s comments on how Watts killed his family are the first time authorities…
