Minneapolis, MN
Substance Spilled On Mississippi River In Twin Cities Identified
TWIN CITIES, MN — The two-mile-long sheen spotted on the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities metro earlier this week was identified Friday as a lubricant used in the hydraulic system at the Coon Rapids Dam.
The lubricant is classified as “suitable for incidental food contact,” meaning it can come into contact with food and not cause harm, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) told Patch. “Drinking water supplies remain safe.”
About 30 gallons of lubricant spilled into the river Tuesday when a valve malfunctioned during the adjustment of a dam gate, according to Three Rivers Park District, which operates the dam.
Crews deployed booms this week to divert the sheen away from city water intakes in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
The cities also temporarily closed their water treatment facilities intakes as a precaution, MPR News reported.
The Fridley Fire Department first reported a sheen on the river at about 1 p.m. Tuesday. The sheen was under the Highway 610 Bridge in Coon Rapids and traveled downstream, officials said.
At about 8:10 a.m. Wednesday morning, a smaller sheen was reported near the west shore of the river near West Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park, according to authorities.
“Additional drinking water samples have been taken and are being processed, but we do not expect them to indicate a concern for the safety of drinking water,” the MPCA said.
A three-judge panel has agreed to hear an appeal from the city of Minneapolis in the defamation lawsuit against police Chief Brian O’Hara.
Former police officer Tyler Timberlake sued O’Hara and the city last year alleging the chief defamed and wrongfully fired him. Timberlake was let go after details surfaced about a use-of-force incident he was involved in at a previous job.
The city says O’Hara is protected under a concept called absolute privilege because he made his statements in his official capacity as chief.
District court Judge Karen Janisch wasn’t convinced. In a ruling issued in July, Janisch said O’Hara is not an elected official and denied the city’s request to dismiss the suit on those grounds.
Written arguments are due next month.
When breaking news happens, MPR News provides the context you need. Help us meet the significant demands of these newsgathering efforts.
A burgeoning Minneapolis had just incorporated as a city in 1867 when the first edition of the Minneapolis Tribune rolled off the presses. The new broadsheet began with an apology.
“The lines being down most all day yesterday, we are without the greater part of our dispatches,” the newspaper reported atop its front page. “No one can regret this accident more than ourselves.”
It was (mostly) all up from there. As the company marks a new era as the Minnesota Star Tribune, it was the perfect time to tackle a question about its history. Curious Minnesota superfan Sharon Carlson asked the Strib’s reader-powered reporting project: “How did the Star Tribune get its start?”
Carlson, who lives in Andover, remembers getting angry as a kid because her parents would read the paper “all day long” on Sundays. She now does the same thing, and thinks of the newspaper as “a rare form of education and entertainment.”
There isn’t one origin story, but several. The Minnesota Star Tribune is the result of many newspaper mergers over the decades. Its primary forbears are the Tribune, the Minneapolis Journal (founded in 1878) and the Minneapolis Star (founded in 1920).
From the early days covering a plague of locusts to the “romance” of Minneapolis’ Newspaper Row, these papers bore witness to the biggest events in Minnesota history.
Minneapolis was home to about 7,000 people when the Tribune launched. The streets were unpaved, the sidewalks were wood planks, and there was “no fire department, no sanitary system, no trained nurses, no city water supply,” wrote former editor Bradley L. Morison in “Sunlight on Your Doorstep: The Minneapolis Tribune’s First Hundred Years.”
Car insurance rates skyrocket in MN
Car insurance rates in Minnesota jumped 55 percent over the last year, a dramatic hike higher than those in every other state, according to a report by insurance website Insurify.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Car insurance rates in Minnesota jumped 55 percent over the last year, a dramatic hike higher than those in every other state, according to a report by insurance website Insurify.
The rise is nearly twice the national average, which was 28 percent, according to the report. The average annual cost of full coverage is $2,315, up from $1,492. The report measured a period between June 2023 and June 2024.
The report blamed severe weather for the surge in rates, pointing out the hailstorms in August 2023 that dropped golf- and baseball-size hail on the Twin Cities. Those storms caused 1.8 billion worth of damage, the report said. The uptick in claims cost the insurance companies, which then pass the cost to consumers.
But Andrew Whitman, a former deputy insurance commissioner and professor at the University of Minnesota, said drivers also share the blame.
“People are driving way over the speed limit, and when they crash it totals the car,” he said.
Only one other state, Missouri, saw a spike of more than 50 percent.
Whitman said consumers have more options than in years past if they want to switch carriers. He also noted that insurers don’t raise rates higher than necessary to avoid losing business.
“They can go to the market on the web in a way that they couldn’t do a few years ago, and that creates competition,” he said. “The insurance companies are not going to increase their premiums any more than they have to because they want to keep their market.”
Another way to save money, he said, is to keep your car, since insuring a new one is always more expensive.
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