Star Tribune
Minnesota workers brave cold, blizzard conditions
Ayane Jarso walked to work at 5:30 a.m. Friday and almost turned around.
“It felt like little shards of glass were hitting my face,” she said of her early-morning slog.
But people need their coffee — and with the early-morning temperature at 12 below, they needed it more than ever. So Jarso, a barista at a Caribou Coffee on W. 7th Street in St. Paul, kept on walking and opened the shop.
In Edina, Tyler Clendenen set out on another long, cold day delivering holiday mail for the U.S. Postal Service.
“I’ve got hand warmers, two pairs of gloves and two pairs of sweatpants,” he said. The key, is to “keep moving. Keep your legs moving, keep your heart pumping.”
While many Minnesotans curled up inside as the holiday weekend approached, Jarso and Clendenen were among the many who were on the job in this winter’s most bitter cold so far, with gusty winds and blowing snow hobbling swaths of the state.
“I love Minnesota,” said Guy Beaulieu, shifting boxes and bags of donations in the alley behind Arc’s Value Village in Richfield. “I haven’t even broken out my cold-weather gear yet.”
In Duluth, the Lake Superior Zoo was open, despite wind gusts up to 50 mph and a 25-below windchill. Zookeepers were kept company by hardy visitors and a menagerie of arctic blast-loving creatures, said Lizzy Larson, director of animal management.
Taj, the Amur tiger and Kiran, the snow leopard, both hail from cold climates and “absolutely love this weather,” Larson said.
And when they’ve had enough, the animals can retreat to indoor areas or heated rocks to warm their paws. But zookeepers were cycling through hand and toe warmers.
“And we might move ourselves a little faster,” Larson said.
In the Twin Cities, Metro Transit maintained 99% of its service operations Friday, according to spokesman Drew Kerr. “It’s been a typical day for us; we’ve not reduced service at all,” he said.
On the Route 63 bus, driver Judy Jackson expertly maneuvered her rig along Grand Avenue among darting pedestrians, idling UPS trucks, motorists attempting to parallel park and pavement as slick as newly waxed linoleum.
“The roads aren’t great,” said Jackson. “The smallest incline sets you back.”
Ryan Haugen of Good Stuff Moving was hustling a hand truck down the sidewalk on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul.
“On a day like this, you almost feel like nobody should be working,” he said. “But you have to make a living.”
The North Shore’s Lutsen Mountain operated just one run Friday, on the leeward side. At least 200 people skied, said General Manager Jim Vick, taking advantage of the 7 feet of snow the mountain has gotten already this season. Lift operators and groomers worked shorter shifts to account for the numbing wind.
“We have a number of guests, this is maybe the one time a year they go skiing,” Vick said. “So we are able to operate and they are out.”
State troopers were among those who didn’t get a work break amid the subzero temps and blizzard-like conditions. Many were patrolling roads across the state as drifting snow worsened visibility.
“Fortunately or unfortunately, we’re kind of used to this type of weather,” said Sgt. Troy Christianson, whose morning commute from Preston to Rochester took 15 minutes longer than usual. “We’re bundled up pretty good to stay warm, of course.”
Hennepin Healthcare workers continued to serve patients at clinics and the hospital. Since Sunday, the emergency department had treated 45 patients with “cold weather exposure concerns, including frostbite and hypothermia,” spokeswoman Christine Hill said.
“Our staff are committed to making sure they get in to care for patients,” she said. “We’re so appreciative of anyone getting to work in this challenging weather.”
And some things are worth the trip, no matter the weather.
At Perrier Wine & Liquors on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue, clerk Yuki Chavez said business had been steady. Wine has been a brisk seller, as well as liquor for holiday gifts and tiny bottles of spirits for stocking stuffers.
“Despite the weather, people will still make the trek to the liquor store,” she said.
Staff writers Jana Hollingsworth, Janet Moore and Ryan Faircloth contributed to this report.
The Pentagon would not go into detail about how American trainers are helping Taiwan build defenses. But making clear to the Chinese that an amphibious assault would be fraught is part of the U.S. military’s deterrence plan.
Army officials also say they hope joint exercises with Pacific partners will show Chinese military officials all the capabilities that the United States has and can bring to bear.
The officials point out that more than a quarter of the service’s 450,000 active-duty troops are already tasked to the Pacific. But they define that region liberally, to encompass troops not only in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines but also in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and California. Taiwan is more than 6,000 miles from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, a separation the Army refers to as “the tyranny of distance.”
Docked in Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army vessel Maj. Gen. Robert Smalls will be critical to getting all the apparatuses of the Army into the Pacific theater. The 300-foot-long ship, which recently arrived from Norfolk, Virginia, via the Panama Canal for the exercises, can beach itself, discharging 900 tons of vehicles and cargo — and, if necessary, troops — onto islands.
Capt. Ander Thompson, the commander of the 7th Engineer Dive Detachment out of Pearl Harbor, was part of a detachment that spent several weeks this past summer with Filipino military divers clearing debris from a strategic port in the northern Philippine island of Batan, about 120 miles south of Taiwan.
The operation, which also deepened the harbor, will give Army and Navy ships better access to the port should conflict break out. Batan is near the Bashi Channel, a potential transit point for American forces headed to the Taiwan Strait.
For a handful of school board candidates across the state, the final weeks of campaigning have included an effort to lose support — or at least distance themselves ― from an organization known for backing conservative candidates and wading into local culture wars.
At least four candidates have stated publicly that they had not connected with or sought support from the Minnesota Parents Alliance before seeing their name appear on the group’s online voters guide. Some candidates said they were not aware of such an endorsement until voters reached out to them with questions about it.
“Without my knowledge or consent, I was added to the Minnesota Parents Alliance recommended candidate list,” Todd Haugen, a candidate for the Bemidji school board, wrote on his campaign’s Facebook page. “I did not seek this endorsement, and I have now requested more than once to be taken off of the list.”
The Minnesota Parents Alliance bills its voters guide as a nonpartisan resource, though the group lists several conservative groups, including the think tank Center of the American Experiment, on its list of resources for candidates.
The organization’s executive director, Cristine Trooien, said the voter guide recommendations are based on an independent evaluation of candidates’ campaigns, public engagement, and input received from parents and community members. Trooien launched the group in 2022 as a response to equity efforts in schools. Its initial goal included recruiting and supporting school board candidates who would champion ‘parents’ rights’ in education.
The group, and several others like it — on both sides of the political spectrum — cropped up during the pandemic, when tensions flared in school board rooms across the country as parents fought over mask mandates, curriculum and policies involving gender and race. Increasingly, school board races are drawing more money than ever — largely a result of outside groups lobbying amid those ongoing culture wars.
In general, endorsements aren’t new to school board races. Political parties, teachers unions and other educational organizations have long declared their support for candidates that align with their missions.
Minnesota Parents Alliance, Trooien said, does not coordinate its voter guide recommendations with candidates or require them to pledge their allegiance to the organization. She sees that as the antidote to what she called a “quid pro quo endorsement process” by teachers unions and interest groups, which offer support in “exchange for prioritizing that organization’s agenda at the board table,” she said.
Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was arrested in New York City on Tuesday for alleged parole violations that were set when he was sentenced several years ago to two years in prison in a racketeering case.
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