News

Strong to Severe Thunderstorms moved across north-central Minnesota Tuesday with heavy rains, large hail and damaging winds in Brainerd, Merrifield, Crosby, Aitkin to Pine City. Some parts of Cass and Crow Wing County reported 3 to 3.5 inches of rain yesterday afternoon into evening. The storms drifted southwards but with not a lot of rain, some sprinkles and some wind in the early evening in Morrison County and then gone.

A woman is seriously hurt after falling out of an ATV. The Morrison County Sheriff's Office says the incident happened on Saturday at about 1:20pm on Sage Road, about five miles southeast of Hillman. Nineteen-year-old Dylan Batien of Milaca was diving a side-by-side on Sage Road, traveling about 40 miles an hour.  Nineteen-year-old passenger Izabella Roffe of Milaca fell out of the side-by-side while it was moving and suffered severe injuries.  Roffe was not wearing a seatbelt or helmet. She was airlifted to North Memorial Hospital by North Air Care.

A traffic accident in Sartell has caused widespread service outages across the city. According to a Facebook post from the Sartell Public Safety Department, the crash occurred earlier this afternoon at the intersection of 2nd Street South and County Road 78. Reports indicate the intersection’s stoplight was struck, rendering it nonfunctional. The department said it may take a while to fix because the signal is county-operated. The collision has also disrupted phone and internet services throughout the city, including in the Sartell school district, which reported its phone lines are down. Utility crews worked to restore the issues by the end of the school day or last night. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

A homeless man from St. Cloud has pleaded guilty and was immediately sentenced for having child sexual abuse material. A Stearns County judge sentenced 45-year-old Matthew Monson to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing child sexual abuse material while being a registered predatory offender. Nine other counts were dismissed at the settlement conference and sentencing. Monson also pleaded guilty to a different charge for failing to fulfill registration requirements as a predatory offender. His sentence on that charge will be served at the same time as his child pornography sentence. According to the charges, Google flagged several images and videos of child sexual abuse material coming from two IP addresses at a Holdingford rehabilitation center. Court records show Monson lived at the facility and is linked to a customer "cloud storage" account where the images were stored. An investigator with the Stearns County Sheriff's Office met with Monson in January and confiscated his phone. The officer conducted an extraction on Monson's phone and allegedly found more than 1000 images and videos involving the sexual exploitation of children.

Xcel Energy, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota (CUB), the Suburban Rate Authority, and the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) filed a settlement stipulation in Xcel’s gas rate case.  Last fall, Xcel Energy filed a petition to increase gas rates by 8.2%, or $63 million per year. This filing kicked off a Public Utilities Commission proceeding to determine what rate increase amount is justified. Today’s settlement resolves all issues for the signatories. The Office of the Attorney General did not join the settlement and will continue to litigate the case. If approved, the settlement would result in: An overall rate increase of 4.88%, compared with Xcel’s initial ask of 8.2%, and a lower increase of 4.1% for residential customers. Ratepayers, who have been paying an interim rate increase of 6.8% since January, would receive refunds with interest.  A reduction in Xcel’s implied return on equity (ROE). ROE is a key determinant of company profits. Xcel initially requested a substantial ROE increase, from its currently authorized level of 9.6% to 10.65%. The settlement does not specify an ROE. However, settlement terms discussing Xcel’s weighted average cost of capital allow us to calculate an implied ROE of 9.55%.  “While any increase in utility costs is going to be difficult for many people, this settlement is a fair outcome,” said Annie Levenson-Falk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota. “If it’s approved, customer contributions to shareholder profits will go down, and ratepayers will receive refunds.” 

A reminder that area school buses are back out this morning as many students still have a few days left of school this week with most of the public schools...

Today is Memorial Day, Monday May 25th a Federal holiday with many offices closed including all federal agencies, government centers, city halls, court houses, banks, financial institutions, post offices (no...

A 15-year-old girl from Rice was hurt when she crashed her dirt bike on Wednesday. The incident happened just after 5:30 p.m. on 450th Street in Two Rivers Township, about...

Authorities in Crow Wing County have contained the large wildfire around Crosslake but are asking the public for help gathering evidence in the Flanders Fire. The fire was reported on Saturday,...