Minnesota
Vikings vs. Lions score, live updates: Detroit, Minnesota face off for the NFC's No. 1 seed in 2024 NFL finale
Game 272 of the 2024 NFL regular season is a special one. In a year where so much of the playoff dust settled early, one Week 18 game stands out, not just for this season but in the history of the league, with the 14-2 Minnesota Vikings taking on the 14-2 Detroit Lions in the first regular-season game between two teams with 14 wins. The stakes are simple but extremely high: the winner is the NFC North champion and the No. 1 seed, with a first-round bye in the loaded NFC; while the loser is the No. 5 seed and will open the playoffs on the road during wild-card weekend. If the game should end in a tie, Detroit would win the division and be the 1-seed, thanks to winning the first matchup between the teams back in Week 7.
No matter how the game ends, this will be the first time in league history a wild-card team will have 14 wins. The only time a wild-card team had 13 wins in a season was 1999, when the 13-3 Tennessee Titans finished second in the AFC Central to the 14-2 Jacksonville Jaguars. Tennessee won the AFC championship game in Jacksonville that season before losing to the Rams in Super Bowl 34.
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On a pristine Saturday afternoon, there was a Blackhawk helicopter flyover, and American flags were everywhere.
“It was hard today in some ways,” Scott Torpey said quietly. “But it was also a joyous occasion that we got to bring him home.”
At the New Ulm City Cemetery, it was a long-awaited homecoming as U.S. Army Captain Willibald Bianchi — ‘Uncle Bill’ to his family — was laid to rest with full military honors.
“You know, the sense of closure,” says Steve Marti, one of Bianchi’s nephews. “Who would have thought, after all these years, we get the call that guess what? They’ve identified his remains.”
Bianchi, 29 years old, previously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, was killed on a POW transport ship when it was bombed and sunk by an American plane in January 1945.
His remains were buried in a mass grave in a military cemetery in Hawaii.
For decades, Bianchi’s family didn’t know if he would ever be formally identified.
“He was lost to the war,” explains Joseph Marti, another nephew. “He was Uncle Bill, who left and never came back.”
Until a phone call last September: the Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency had painstakingly searched through remains in the cemetery and used family DNA samples for a match.
“My cousin Scott, my Aunt Mary Louise, his sister and another cousin donated DNA, and they used that to use some of his bones to extract mitochondrial DNA and get the match,” Joseph Marti explains.
After a dignified transfer at MSP, Bianchi’s remains were brought to New Ulm.
Dozens and dozens of people from across the country — brothers, sisters and cousins attended the burial ceremony.
The American flag on Bianchi’s coffin was given to his family.
“They gave it to my sister Sue, who was so deserving,” Steve Marti says. “She’s done so much to keep Uncle Bill’s legacy alive in our home, here in her home.”
For years, family members had passed down Bianchi’s story.
Now, they say, it has an ending befitting his service, and after an 80-year journey, Bianchi is now at honored rest.
His family says their hearts, once empty, are now full.
“So, to have him back home, I think, is so special for everybody associated,” Joseph Marti exclaims. “We’re overwhelmed and humbled.”
The Kids in Need Foundation gifted $1 million worth of school supplies to teachers in need.
Taking place at the Kids in Need Foundation’s headquarters in Little Canada, the “Thanks a Million” event brought together teachers from across the state, who were each gifted around $1,000 in school supplies to take back to their classrooms.
The group said the supplies went to teachers at higher-needs schools, districts where 50 percent or more of students would qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
Rachelle Oxborough, the foundation’s director of public relations, said school supplies can make a major difference for students, some of whom do not begin classes with the materials they need.
“School supplies can be completely transformative for a child and their education, when a student can walk in on that first day of school,” Oxborough said. “A majority of students in these schools do not start the school year with school supplies, so when they can start with everything they need, they can step into their education in a totally different way.”
Sabrina Jones, a social worker at Harambee Elementary School in Maplewood, came to pick up supplies for teachers at her school on Saturday.
“But a lot of just writing materials, from the markers to the crayons to just the writing pads, which is just amazing…and also cleaning supplies, because you can’t have enough cleaning supplies for all seasons,” Jones said.
Programs like “Thanks a Million” support teachers financially by providing free classroom materials, rather than having teachers pay out of pocket for their students.
The National Education Association said teachers spend an average of $500 to $900 a year out of pocket on classroom supplies.
“I mean it’s one in a million, this really shows the support that Kids in Need have for teachers in general, school, everything…you can’t like buy this….this is just amazing,” Jones said.
Minnesota
Large police presence in south Minneapolis after apparent crash involving Minnesota State Patrol vehicle
There was a large police presence in south Minneapolis late Friday after what appeared to be a crash involving a Minnesota State Patrol vehicle.
WCCO saw the law enforcement car and a heavily damaged vehicle in the area of West 46th Street and Aldrich Avenue South around 10:45 p.m.
Firefighters worked to remove the trooper from the state patrol vehicle and put him in an ambulance. A law enforcement officer told WCCO the trooper hurt their shoulder and suffered cuts, but was otherwise okay. It hasn’t been disclosed whether they were taken to the hospital.
There were over a dozen law enforcement personnel, including members of the Minneapolis Police Department and Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, and several emergency vehicles at the scene.
WCCO has reached out to officials for more information regarding the incident.
This story will be updated.
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