Star Tribune
$10K reward posted in hopes of finding driver who fatally struck doctor as she walked her dogs
Family members joined the Minnesota State Patrol and the Mille Lacs County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday to announce a $10,000 reward in hopes the money will lead to the discovery of the driver who hit and killed a longtime family doctor one month ago.
The hit-and-run crash occurred about 4:50 p.m. Nov. 13 on northbound Hwy. 169 about halfway between Vineland and Onamia near the southern shore of Lake Mille Lacs, while Cathy Ann Donovan, 56, and her dogs were out for a walk.
Donovan died at the scene. One of her dogs did not survive the crash; the other was not hurt, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Donovan was a doctor for the past 27 years in Onamia with Mille Lacs Health System, where she served as vice chief of staff for the health system and as medical director of its clinics.
“Mom was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Donovan’s 23-year-old son, Shan Donovan, said during a news conference in St. Paul announcing the reward.
“I started out my life [at] a little bit of a disadvantage,” he said, explaining that he was born in China with one arm, abandoned as a 1-year-old and placed in an orphanage with thousands of other kids.
“And then along came my mom,” he said. “She adopted me. She showed me what it was like to be loved, and accepted and what a family was.”
On the day he learned of his mother’s death, Shan Donovan revealed, he quit his job that night as a Fargo emergency medical technician and gave up his dream of working in health care beside his mother. He said the grief was more than he could bear.
“I’m struggling a lot right now,” he said at the one-month mark of his mother’s death.
Mille Lacs County Sheriff Kyle Burton said Donovan was well known in the community of 27,000, and served many through her practice, including himself.
“This has been a huge hit to our community, almost every single first responder that came to the scene personally knew her, so that was very difficult for them,” Burton said.
“I guess my ask for the community, as we move into the holidays,” the sheriff continued, “is somebody’s been keeping a secret since the 13th of November; somebody knows something, Dr. Donovan’s family is going to have to spend their first Christmas without her, and think about that as you spend time with your loved ones this Christmas season.”
Donovan’s father, George Donovan, attempted to read a statement before he was overcome with emotion.
“I’m having a hard time accepting the fact that Cathy is dead,” he said before her twin sister, Dr. Robin Councilman, took over reading his statement. “She’ll never be on the other end of the phone again, never at our weekly Zoom get togethers or family events.
“I cannot get my head around how anybody can drive off and leave someone in the road to die. I know Cathy cannot be replaced, but knowing why might help.”
In late November, the patrol released on social media a fuzzy image of the vehicle it has been looking for and described it as darker in color, either blue or metallic gray, with full-width taillights.
The patrol’s chief, Col. Matt Langer, followed Donovan’s son to the podium and said, “Someone out there knows something. … If it was you who was driving, and you were involved, the right thing to do is get this off your chest and come forward.”
Langer also directed his plea to anyone with an inkling of the driver responsible for Donovan’s death.
“So, if doing the right thing doesn’t motivate you, and money motivates you on top of it,” Langer continued, “thanks to the generosity of the family and others, there’s a $10,000 reward available if it puts us on the path to finding out who is responsible.”
The patrol said its contact on the case, Sgt. Jason Brown, who is standing by and can be reached at (218) 316-3026 or jason.brown@state.mn.us.
“Cathy lived a life of compassion and integrity,” Councilman said, “and we are asking that the public demonstrate that same compassion and integrity as we seek the person who killed her.”
Star Tribune staff writer Abby Simons contributed to this report.
Star Tribune
Biden calls out Musk over a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked in the US illegally
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk for hypocrisy on immigration after a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked illegally in the United States. The South Africa-born Musk denies the allegation.
”That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here. No, I’m serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn’t in school. He was violating the law. And he’s talking about all these illegals coming our way?” Biden said while campaigning on Saturday in Pittsburgh at a union hall.
The Washington Post reported that Musk worked illegally in the country while on a student visa. The newspaper, citing company documents, former business associates and court documents, said Musk arrived in Palo Alto, California in 1995 for a graduate program at Stanford University “but never enrolled in courses, working instead on his startup. ”
Musk wrote on X in reply to a video post of Biden’s comments: ”I was in fact allowed to work in the US.” Musk added, ”The Biden puppet is lying.”
Investors in Musk’s company, Zip2, were concerned about the possibility of their founder being deported, according to the report, and gave him a deadline for obtaining a work visa. The newspaper also cited a 2005 email from Musk to his Tesla co-founders acknowledging that he did not have authorization to be in the U.S. when he started Zip2.
According to the account, that email was submitted as evidence in a now-closed California defamation lawsuit and said that Musk had apllied to Stanford so he could stay in the country legally.
Musk is today the world’s richest man. He has committed more than $70 million to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other GOP candidates win on Nov. 5, and is one of the party’s biggest donors this campaign season. He has been headlining events in the White House race’s final stretch, often echoing Trump’s dark rhetoric against immigration.
Trump has pledged to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.
The only debate between DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and GOP challenger Royce White started Sunday on the street outside WCCO Radio.
As White approached the building, he loudly called some two dozen flag-waving and cheering Klobuchar supporters a “whole lot of commies.” The 33-year-old provocateur and podcaster also told them to thank Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney — who endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris — because there was “no chance in hell” that Harris would defeat Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.
Klobuchar, 64, had arrived moments earlier, smiling and wishing “good morning” to her supporters. Once inside, the two took questions for an hour from moderator Blois Olson. Their tone was generally polite with White often interrupting a Klobuchar response with, “rebuttal,” indicated he wanted to respond.
The senator repeatedly raised White’s claims on X, formerly Twitter, that “The bad guys won in World War II” and that there were “no good guys in that war.” She called that stance offensive to veterans.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar arrives at WCCO Radio for a debate with Royce White in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 27. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii)
Klobuchar, who is seeking a fourth six-year term, portrayed herself as a pragmatist. She opened by saying that we live in “incredibly divisive times politically” but that she has listened and worked with Republicans to bring down shipping costs, drug prices for seniors and to help veterans and push for more housing and child care.
“Courage in this next few years is not going to be standing by yourself yelling at people,” she said, her opening allusion to White’s rhetoric, which she said is often vulgar.
White, a former NBA player, is a political novice, but a close ally of Steve Bannon, the jailed former chief strategist for Trump and right wing media executive. Last summer, White won the state GOP endorsement to run against Klobuchar.
“Our country’s coming undone at the seams. I think we can change that,” White said in his opening statement. He said he threatens the status quo, decried the “permanent political class” and referred to the two major parties as the “uniparty.”
Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely included buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its extensive ballistic missile arsenal, Eveleth said.
In a statement issued immediately after the attack Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted ”missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.”
Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has been silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles unable to reach Israel, was estimated to be ”over 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2022. In the time since, Iran has fired hundreds of the missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted to social media of missile parts or damage in civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack — suggesting that the Israeli strikes were far more accurate that Iran’s ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles during its attack.
However, one factory appeared to have been hit in Shamsabad Industrial City, just south of Tehran near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world. Online videos of the damaged building corresponded to an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
