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St. Paul school budget plan calls for more spending than revenue

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

Even with a big increase in state aid coming, St. Paul Public Schools plans to spend more than it takes in next year.The second round of federal coronavirus relief grants expires in September, and district leaders aren’t ready to eliminate promising grant-funded initiatives like elementary reading specialists. They’re proposing to spend $23 million in general fund reserves next year to maintain that program and others.A preliminary budget outline presented to the school board Tuesday projected $51.8 million in new money from the state, thanks largely to legislative efforts to reduce cross-subsidies for English learners and special education and a 4 percent increase to the per-pupil formula; the actual number should be a bit higher as the district didn’t account for new state money to cover summer unemployment insurance payments to hourly workers.However, the district also calculated $76.4 million in line items that will hurt the budget, including a $12.8 million revenue loss due to ...

81-year-old suspect in Willmar cold-case homicide dies in custody

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

WILLMAR, Minn. — The 81-year-old former Willmar man charged with murder in a 1974 stabbing death in the west-central Minnesota community has died.Algene Leeland Vossen was charged in 2020 with second-degree murder after a cold-case homicide investigation into the killing of 74-year-old Mae Herman in her Willmar home identified him as a suspect. The criminal case has now been dismissed.First Assistant Kandiyohi County Attorney Kristen Pierce notified the court Monday.Vossen had been a patient at Unity Point Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa, and under 24-hour electronic monitoring by caretakers and staff since June of 2022. According to court documents, Vossen died there May 15.Algene Vossen. (Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office)The Kandiyohi County attorney’s office filed a petition in August 2022 to have Vossen committed as mentally ill and dangerous. In that separate civil commitment proceeding, Kandiyohi County District Judge Stephen Wentzell in February had ordered a six-month co...

Franklin, Weinstein: Ventilators and the learning curve of COVID-19 treatment

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

An axiom in medicine is that good judgment depends on experience, and experience depends on bad judgment. Basically, one way doctors refine their care is through a learning curve resulting from inexperience and lack of judgment.A fitting example during the COVID-19 pandemic was the worldwide experience with ventilators, which are used to support lung function in patients with serious COVID-19 pneumonia.Viruses or bacteria that invade the lungs and cause pneumonia impair the body’s ability to take in oxygen. When this becomes severe, it is known as hypoxemia (this is what those finger oximeters measure.) In advanced hypoxemia, patients experience shortness of breath. If it worsens they will be unable to breathe. At that point, doctors will insert a tube in the windpipe and attach the tube to a ventilator, which takes over a patient’s breathing until the lungs heal.In March 2020, with COVID-19 ravaging Italy, western Europe and New York City, deaths from COVID-19 pneumonia...

Farhad Manjoo: A.I. Photoshopping is about to get very easy. Maybe too easy.

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

Photoshop is the granddaddy of image-editing apps, the O.G. of our airbrushed, Facetuned media ecosystem and a product so enmeshed in the culture that it’s a verb, an adjective and a frequent lament of rappers. Photoshop is also widely used. More than 30 years since the first version was released, professional photographers, graphic designers and other visual artists the world over reach for the app to edit much of the imagery you see online, in print and on billboards, bus stops, posters, product packaging and anything else the light touches.So what does it mean that Photoshop is diving into generative artificial intelligence — that a just-released beta feature called Generative Fill will allow you to photorealistically render just about any imagery you ask of it? (Subject, of course, to terms of service.)Merging reality and digital artifaceNot just that, actually: So many AI image generators have been released over the past year or so that the idea of prompting a computer to creat...

St. Paul entrepreneur’s lease app among Carlson School’s MN Cup 89 semi-finalists for start-up competition

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

At a time when many housing advocates are focused on stabilizing renters in precarious living situations, Abu Nayeem is thinking differently. His new web-based service, GetPreLease.com, aims to help renters evaluate themselves — by credit history, by criminal history and more — so they understand their own red flags and can better negotiate new leases in even better apartments.“We hear about housing stability, which means you can only afford your current home,” said Nayeem, a co-founder and chief executive officer of the web start-up Pre-Lease SBC, which is based in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood. “We want to create mobility for renters.”For the second year in a row, GetPreLease.com has caught the attention of the MN Cup, a statewide start-up competition hosted for the past 19 years by the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, as have a host of other east metro companies just beginning to get off the ground.Nearly 90 ...

Teen struck by car on Washington Avenue in Albany

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- A teenager was sent to the hospital after he was hit by a car in Albany on Thursday. The 14-year-old boy was struck on Washington Avenue between North Main Avenue and Partridge Street. Get the latest, news, weather, sports and community events delivered right to your inbox! Police said the boy was conscious but sustained serious, non-life threatening injuries. He was taken to Albany Medical Center.The driver stayed at the scene and has been cooperating with police.

Boat safety reminders ahead of Memorial Day weekend

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

(NEWS10) -- Law enforcement officials are partnering with advocates to highlight boat safety measures ahead of Memorial Day Weekend.Experts said it's important to be equipped with safety tools, including life jackets and devices that shut off boat engines if a boater falls into the water. One woman whose son drowned in 2016 said open water activities can be dangerous even for avid swimmers. Get the latest, news, weather, sports and community events delivered right to your inbox! "Expect the unexpected," Teresa Dabiere-Craig said. "Anything can happen out there. Open water is very different than swimming in a pool."The U.S. Coast Guard said more than 80 percent of those who drown in open water were not wearing life jackets.

Why Gov. Mike Parson picked Gabe Gore as the next St. Louis Circuit Attorney

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - After weeks of drama that put St. Louis in the national spotlight, Gabe Gore will be sworn on Tuesday as the city's new top prosecutor.Governor Mike Parson's legal counsel Evan Rodriguez has been serving as interim circuit attorney since Kim Gardner abruptly resigned last week, discovering 4,800 warrant applications that have not been reviewed.In an exclusive interview with our Missouri Chief Capitol Bureau Reporter Emily Manley, Parson said he tried to reach out to Gardner after she announced her resignation, but said he never heard back."I don't know if I was expecting her too, it would have been nice to have a conversation to say, 'How do we move forward to help the people of St. Louis, but that didn't occur,'" Parson said. Franklin County man added to FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list With a backlog of thousands of cases, Gabe Gore will have his hands full. Gore lives and works, and has raised his family in St. Louis, all reasons why Parson said he appointed the...

Remains of World War II airman to be buried in Chester, Illinois

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

CHESTER, Ill. - The remains of a Chester, Illinois, native killed in combat during World War II will be interred in his hometown next month.U.S. Army Air Forces Tech Sgt. James Howie was a radio operator assigned to the 345th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 98th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 9th Air Force. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Howie was serving aboard a B-24 bomber on Aug. 1, 1943, on a mission to destroy oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, in Nazi-controlled Romania. Howie's plane was struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire and went down.Howie was 24. His remains could not be identified following the war.Unidentified remains were then buried as unknowns in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania.In the aftermath of World War II, the American Graves Registration Command disinterred the remains from the cemetery, so they could be identified. More than 80 sets of remains could not be identified. As a result,...

Missouri man, 80, killed in boating accident on Table Rock Lake

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:25 GMT

TANEY COUNTY, Mo. - An elderly man died Thursday afternoon on Table Rock Lake after being ejected from the boat he was piloting.According to a crash report filed by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the accident occurred at 1:30 p.m. at Martin's Point.Investigators said Thomas Crain, of Chadwick, was piloting a 1998 Tracker bass boat when he lost control and was tossed from the craft. Crain was rushed to Cox Medical Center Branson, and pronounced dead shortly after 3:10 p.m. He was 80.This is the first boating fatality of the year in the state patrol's Troop D region.