>>Glamour Magazine Names St. Paul’s Suni Lee Woman of the Year
(St. Paul, MN) — Olympic gold medal winner and St. Paul native Suni Lee has been named one of Glamour Magazine’s Woman of the Year. A social media post shows the gymnast dazzling in gold and black on a balance beam. Glamour has honored female “trailblazers, rule breakers, visionaries, and champions who have defined” each year since 1990. The article talks about Lee’s battle with kidney disease that ended her college career, winning three medals at the Paris Olympics this year, and what she plans to do next.
>>AG Ellison Settles with Evergreen Acres Dairy, Operation to Pay $250K in Back Wages
(St. Paul, MN) — Attorney General Keith Ellison announced today (THURS) that his Office has won protections for dairy workers in a major wage theft lawsuit involving Evergreen Acres Dairy, Evergreen Estates, Morgan Feedlots, and the dairy operation’s owners. The settlement ensures Evergreen complies with Minnesota housing-habitability and employment law after dozens of workers complained of wage theft and abysmal housing. Evergreen will pay $250,000 in back wages and will be monitored by Ellison for three years, subject to employee housing inspections.
>>Rochester Man Killed in Alcohol-Related Motorcycle Crash in Winona County
(Saratoga, MN) — State troopers believe alcohol was a factor in a deadly motorcycle crash Thursday night in Winona County. The report says a cycle driven by 61-year-old Ross Stensrud of Rochester left Highway 74 about a mile south of Interstate 90 and crashed. He died at the scene. The State Patrol says alcohol was involved, and Stensrud wasn’t wearing a helmet.
>>Minnesota Lineworkers Eager to Local Co-Ops in South Carolina
(Maple Grove, MN) — Eighty Minnesota lineworkers are in a mountainous region of South Carolina where Hurricane Helene caused a lot of power outages. Joe Miller of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association says 18 Minnesota co-ops responded immediately to the request for assistance. He says, “We got the call on Tuesday, and I will tell you what: trucks were rolling by Wednesday morning. So, they got going really quickly, and..it continued to grow throughout the day.” Miller says the Minnesota crews will fix broken power poles, put on a brand new wire, and restore power for about a week in northwest South Carolina.
>>Owatonna Man Sentenced to 30 Years for Producing Child Pornography, Sending Graphic Murder Threats to Minor Victim
(Minneapolis, MN) — An Owatonna man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for producing child pornography and sending graphic murder threats to his former victim’s family. 31-year-old Michael Kurkowski pleaded guilty on February 26th to one count of threatening interstate communication and one count of production of child pornography. Kurkowski spent five months in a Pennsylvania prison in 2021 after being convicted of corruption of a minor and sexually exploiting a boy. He had come to the state to continue his relationship with the boy before his arrest. Kurkowski was released and ordered not to contact the victim. Later that year, investigators found several messages from Kurkowski describing a plan to another minor, where he would come to Pennsylvania, murder the victim’s parents, rape the victim’s sister, and then kill her in front of him. Kurkowski was arrested at a bus stop in Toledo, Ohio, after he bought a bus ticket to Harrisburg, PA, where the first victim lived. Officials seized handcuffs, tape, a taser, a knife, rubber gloves, and facemasks from Kurkowski. His phone had Google search terms including “man kills family of five,” “countries that don’t extradite to the U.S.,” “how to subdue a person,” “best knives to kill,” and murder penalties in Pennsylvania.
>>Man Charged in Connection with Attack on St. Anne’s Place in Minneapolis
(Minneapolis, MN) — A 30-year-old man faces assault and riot charges in the September 5th attack on St. Anne’s Place. Travin Merritt was arrested Tuesday in connection with the attack on the Minneapolis shelter for unhoused families. This comes after police mistakenly arrested another man with a description similar to Merrit’s, who was let go. Police say surveillance video of the night shows Merritt pointing a firearm at the front door where two shelter residents, one holding a baby, were standing inside. He then fired at an unoccupied car owned by one of the victims. A victim told officers Merritt hit one of them in the face and back of the head with a black handgun during an earlier altercation that night with a group of women from across the street. Merritt has a known relationship with his co-defendant, Eureka Riser.
