Too cold for mail: postal service suspends deliveries in Minnesota

This from WCCO-TV: “According to the United States Postal Services’ creed, ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’ Notice how they left out any reference of a polar vortex? USPS announced Tuesday afternoon they are suspending mail deliveries Wednesday in Minnesota, western Wisconsin, Iowa and western Illinois. Pickups from businesses, residences and collection boxes are also suspended.”

From the PiPress: “It isn’t just area schools that are closing due to the cold; a number of businesses, restaurants, museums and government offices have announced they too will close for safety reasons.”

MPR’s Cody Nelson writes: “Thousands of Xcel Energy customers in the Twin Cities metro area were without electricity Tuesday night, presumably leaving many without heat as temperatures dropped to lower than minus 20. Xcel received multiple calls over a specific outage near Savage, Minn., spokesperson Matt Lindstrom said. That problem was related to the cold weather, he said, but he didn’t have specifics.”

For Talking Points Memo, Kate Riga says, “Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) continues to hedge on the 2020 question, describing to CNN’s John Berman the ideal Democratic candidate — which sounds an awful lot like herself — but kicking the can down the road, saying she would make a decision ‘shortly.’ ‘[It’s about] who captures our imagination and will have ideas to bring us forward on a positive optimistic agenda for the country,’ she said of the ideal candidate on Tuesday. ‘It is not about spending your day going down the rabbit holes with Donald Trump. It is also about talking about things that matter to people and being willing to reach out to people to find common ground…and that’s what I’ve done in the last election.’”

Says Chris Serres in the Star Tribune, “The state’s unusually swift and vigorous discipline of a northern Minnesota care facility where a vulnerable adult is believed to have been subjected to a fatal beating signals a larger effort by the Minnesota Department of Health to follow through on promises of tighter scrutiny over the senior care industry. … The episode reflects a broader shift at the agency, which came under sharp criticism a year ago for insufficient efforts to protect tens of thousands of vulnerable adults in senior care facilities across the state.”

From Marie Johnson of the Forum News Service, “A bird that’s very rarely seen in Minnesota has been hanging out around a home north of Detroit Lakes, and birders are flocking in from all over to see it. A brambling (of the finch family Fringillidae, formal name Fringilla montifringilla) has been making daily appearances at the Shroyer family home just east of Richwood since Friday, Jan. 25. Beau Shroyer, a Detroit Lakes realtor, birder, and owner of the home, said this is only the eighth brambling ever recorded in Minnesota, and the fourth one to stick around for any longer than a day. Bramblings are not rare in the world, but they’re uncommon in North America, and hardly ever make it to the Midwest.”

Also from the Forum folks, “A Fosston man is facing charges after he allegedly stole a dog and left it outside in dangerously cold weather Saturday, Jan. 26, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said. Brady Kevin Hanson, 26, was brought to the Northwest Regional Corrections Center and is facing charges of burglary, theft, stalking and animal cruelty, a news release said. A woman reported Saturday just before 2 a.m. that Hanson was following her in his car and she believed he went into her home and stole her dog, the release said. Investigators found the dog and it was reunited with its owner around noon, the release said.”

In the Strib Paul Walsh reports, “Raw turkey pet food sold for cats and dogs at three Woody’s Pet Food Deli outlets in the Twin Cities is suspected of carrying salmonella, and state health officials who announced a recall revealed that one person has fallen ill. The recall, announced Monday, comes after samples collected by the Minnesota Health Department tested positive for salmonella and after the person fell ill from handling the pet food. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discourages feeding a raw meat diet to pets because of the risk of making animals and people sick.”

In City Pages, Mike Mullen writes, “Charles Frye, one of two men implicated in the 2017 murder of Carlos Rogers outside Born’s Bar in St. Paul, was shot and killed at a party in east St. Paul over the weekend. Frye and another man were shot early Saturday morning, police confirmed Monday, with cops describing a ‘chaotic scene involving more than 20 people.’ Frye was pronounced dead at the scene, and police vehicles transported party attendees to police headquarters for questioning as potential witnesses. Frye was 39. He and a friend, Justin Reynolds, were captured on surveillance tape outside Rogers’ car moments before the shooting, though it was unclear who pulled the trigger. Witnesses to the crime also would not identify who actually shot Rogers. A messy criminal trial ensued, as told in a recent City Pages cover story.”

from MinnPost http://bit.ly/2UtJx7X
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