MN News

WINTER WEATHER        Minn. State Patrol reports hundreds of accidents        MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The State Patrol is reporting hundreds of crashes and spinouts as a mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow make travel difficult across much of southern Minnesota.        Lieutenant Eric Roeske says 367 crashes were reported between noon and 8:30 p.m. Sunday, with 48 injuries, though none seriousl. He says another 299 vehicles went off the roads or spun out, and three semis jackknifed.        A National Weather Service spotter reported 2 inches of snow on top of a tenth of an inch of ice in St. Paul.        The Minnesota Department of Transportation recommended no travel across a large part of southeastern Minnesota, including portions of Interstates 35 and 90. MnDOT also reported difficult driving conditions throughout the Twin Cities and along I-94 and I-35 west and north of the metro area.

MINNESOTA SENATE AFFAIR-KOCH        Ex-Minn. Senate leader Koch speaks out on downfall        MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch is striking back at top Republicans over her 2011 resignation after an affair with a staff member. She’s accusing them of pledging to give her time to talk to her family and then promptly leaking word of the affair to media.        Koch confirmed her account, first reported by the Star Tribune on Sunday, that she believed she was the victim of a power grab by other Senate GOP leaders.        Koch, who did not seek re-election, tells the Associated Press she decided the time was finally right to tell her side of what happened during her downfall after more than a year of saying little.        Koch also confirms she’s divorced. She refused to say whether she and ex-staffer Michael Brodkorb are still involved.

HEALTH OVERHAUL-MINNESOTA        Minn. building new health insurance marketplace        ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Big changes are coming in how a fourth of all Minnesotans get health insurance as the state rushes to build a new kind of marketplace that will help about 1.3 million people choose their best coverage options.        It’s called a health care exchange, a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s health care overhaul. If it lives up to advance billing, consumers will go to a web site similar to Expedia where they can get the information they need to choose a plan, learn if they qualify for help and sign up – all in less than an hour.        The project faces tight deadlines so that coverage can begin January 1st. Open enrollment begins October 1st.        The executive director of the exchange, April Todd-Malmlov, vows it will be ready by then.

LAKE SUPERIOR-OIL SHIPPING        Refiner considers shipping oil via Great Lakes        (Information in the following story is from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com)        MILWAUKEE (AP) – A petroleum refiner is exploring whether to build a crude oil loading dock on Lake Superior, near its refinery in Superior, Wis., to ship crude oil on the Great Lakes.        Jennifer Straumins, president of Calumet Specialty Product Partners, says the project would provide refineries more access to heavy crude oil from Canada as well as light crude from western North Dakota and eastern Montana.        Todd Borgmann, a vice president at Indianapolis-based Calumet, said in the same statement Friday that they would expect to have the project fully operational during the 2015 shipping season.        The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that environmental groups already are fighting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would bring more crude from Canada into the U.S. It reports they’re not thrilled about shipping oil via the Great Lakes.

TROOPER INJURED        Trooper injured when drunk driver hits squad car        RICHFIELD, Minn. (AP) – The State Patrol says one of its troopers was injured by a drunk driver who hit his squad car.        It happened Saturday night in Richfield on the exit ramp from westbound Interstate 494 to northbound Interstate 35W.        The Patrol says two squad cars were at the scene of an unrelated crash. Both had their emergency lights activated, and flares were lit to alert drivers. The Patrol says that’s when a drunk driver sideswiped the first squad car and then rear-ended the second.        The trooper in the first squad was not injured. The trooper in the second, Allen Thill, was taken to a hospital, treated and released.        Lieutenant Eric Roeske says the driver failed a preliminary alcohol test and was arrested, while a passenger in his car suffered minor injuries.

MINNESOTA CLIMBER        Cold halts Minn. man’s Mt. McKinley solo climb        (Information in the following story is from: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, http://www.adn.com)        ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Extreme cold has thwarted a Minnesota climber’s third attempt to become the first person to summit Alaska’s Mount McKinley solo in the dead of winter.        Fifty-one-year-old Lonnie Dupre told his support crew early Sunday that it was 35 below zero in a snow cave he had built at the 17,200-foot level of the 20,320-foot mountain, North America’s tallest peak.        His support crew says Dupre is making his way down and will proceed as the weather permits.        Dupre – of grand Marais (mur-RAY’), Minnesota – also failed in his winter attempts to summit McKinley last year and in 2011.        Only two people have completed a McKinley summit in the dead of winter – December or January – but no one has done it alone.

VIKINGS STADIUM        Baseball dispute could delay Vikings’ stadium        (Information in the following story is from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com)        MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Minnesota Vikings officials and public authorities are at odds over how to squeeze a baseball field into a stadium designed primarily for football.        The Star Tribune reports the impasse threatens to delay a project already facing tight deadlines. The newspaper says it also appears to be an early test of just how accommodating the Vikings will prove to be.        The Gophers and other college and prep baseball teams hope to play early-season games in the shelter of the new stadium.        But the Vikings hope to put seats as close to the field as possible as they wedge a baseball diamond into a gridiron rectangle.        Baseball coaches say the biggest problem is the plan puts the right field foul line and power alley about 20 feet too close to home plate.

 

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