Minnesota
Family of Minnesota woman sentenced for drug trafficking says she got caught up with cartel after getting stuck in Mexico
ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Several events in Minnesota have had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, including a Minnesota woman who was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison.
“Obviously, she messed up… but she does not deserve to sit that much time,” said Tanja Tilleskjor, mother of Macalla Knot.
Friends and family of Knott, or “Calla,” say she’s not what you think after Knott pleaded guilty to distributing nearly $10 million worth of drugs from Mexico to the upper Midwest.
“I understand there are consequences for her actions, but I have seen people’s lives transformed,” Ashley Schlichting, a longtime friend of Knot, said.
Knott moved south of the border in March 2020 after being laid off. Her family says she tried to come back but didn’t have a passport to do so.
“I think it went dark really fast, went downhill very quickly and was stuck in a situation she couldn’t get out of,” Schlichting said.
Former CIA Agent Jack Rice explained how this can happen.
“Imagine what happens when somebody says, ‘How would you like $100,000?Look how easy this will be. It’s a couple of hours work. It’s nothing.’” Rice said.
Knott’s sentencing happened just days before three were charged in a Cartel-related kidnapping in St. Paul.
“They are much more difficult to actually control than smaller organizations in the Twin Cities and elsewhere. These are powerful multi-national operations with huge resources” Rice said. “The cartel is here to make money. The cartel is here to make profit.”
by Abby Madsen
An air quality alert for central and southern Minnesota continues from Wednesday into Thursday until 11 p.m.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says the area under the alert starts around Alexandria, Brainerd and Hinckley and extends south.
Smoke from Canadian wildfires has been moving into Minnesota behind a cold front, impacting air quality, making it unhealthy for sensitive groups. The alert for northern Minnesota has been canceled.
Rain is expected throughout Minnesota Thursday, with the possibility of reducing the smoke levels in the Twin Cities area. Ground-level smoke is expected to linger throughout Thursday and potentially into Friday and Saturday, with cleaner air moving into northern Minnesota starting Friday.
For sensitive groups, the air and pollution may affect anyone with cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. Symptoms may include chest pain, shortness of breath, coughing or fatigue.
Reducing outdoor physical activities and taking more breaks are a few ways to prevent these symptoms.
Wildfires are also still affecting northern Minnesota; The Jenkins Creek Fire, north of Duluth, Minnesota, which began on May 12, is 94% contained on Thursday.
Crews are continuing to work along Bundle Lake Road with drone units looking for any hotspots in the interior of the fire. For the past three days, there hasn’t been smoke or heat located in the interior.
With a chance of storms moving into Minnesota Friday, they may pass over the fire area, relieving some of the vegetation.
An air quality alert has been issued for parts of Minnesota due to wildfire smoke from Canada.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) issued the alert for central and southern Minnesota, which will run until 11 p.m. on Thursday.
The areas affected include the Twin Cities metro area, Brainerd, Alexandria, Albert Lea, Marshall, Worthington, Hinckley, St. Cloud, Ortonville, Mankato, Moorhead, Duluth, and the Tribal Nations of Upper Sioux, Mille Lacs, Prairie Island, Leech Lake and Fond du Lac.
Fine particle levels are expected to reach the orange AQI (Air Quality Index) category, which is considered unhealthy for people with asthma, breathing conditions, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, pregnant people, children and older adults.
People in these sensitive groups should limit heavy exertion and time spent outside, according to the MPCA.
Click here to stay up to date on the latest air quality updates.
Minnesotans are having trouble filling shopping carts and more importantly, prescriptions.
A cyberattack at food distributor United Natural Foods Incorporated is causing problems for its customers, which includes Cub Foods, Whole Foods, and some co-ops.
UNFI released a statement saying it had taken some systems offline to investigate the breach, adding:
“As soon as we discovered the activity, an investigation was initiated with the help of leading forensics experts and we have notified law enforcement. We are assessing the unauthorized activity and working to restore our systems to safely bring them back online. As we work through this issue, our customers, suppliers, and associates are our highest priority. We are working closely with them to minimize disruption as much as possible.”
The problem isn’t just leading to potentially empty shelves. Pharmacy systems had to be shut down. UNFI released another statement saying in part:
“Currently, half of our pharmacies are fully operational. At pharmacies still experiencing the disruption, we are unable to fill new and refill prescription orders at this time, but if a prescription was filled last week prior to the start of the disruption on Friday afternoon, then the prescription is available for pickup.
For patients seeking to fill a new or refill a prescription today at disrupted pharmacies, we recommend filling them at another local pharmacy retailer. We are continuing to work to restore our systems to safely bring them back online.”
UNFI recommends people check the Cub Pharmacy app or the Cub website to confirm which location to go to before fulfilling a prescription.
WCCO talked with a triage nurse in the Twin Cities. She didn’t want to share her identity, but she did want to share the headache the Cub Foods pharmacy disruption is causing her patients.
“Anytime you transfer a controlled substance to a pharmacy that a pharmacy isn’t familiar with the patient, they need to call us and get all this information on the patient. So, then they’re waiting even longer for their prescriptions. We have one patient who’s been waiting four days to get her prescription filled,” the nurse told WCCO. “And then some of the medications we’re prescribing have shortages on them. So, they were getting them reliably from Cub and now they’re being told that they’ve got to call around everywhere else to find shortages. It’s wild.”
On top of waiting to get their medication, the nurse tells WCCO people are worried that their personal information and medical history was stolen.
‘It’s kind of scary” said customer Otto Megles. “I had a delivery due today. I got a text about 6:30 this morning saying it was canceled. I asked if they could process my order at a later time and date, and they said probably not until the weekend.”
Seward Community Co-Op says it has been impacted by the cyber attack as well.
“UNFI has not been shipping product, though National Cooperative Grocers (NCG) negotiated one or two tiny deliveries to help offset the lack of supply. We don’t expect much product from UNFI until next week,” Seward Community Co-op said in a statement.
WCCO reached out to Cub Foods for a statement to learn how many pharmacies were affected and the company’s message to customers. WCCO is waiting to hear back.
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