Star Tribune
Birkie ski race plans around weather as big 50th event approaches
Add the nation’s largest cross-country ski race just across the Minnesota border to the list of threatened events if the extended forecast of above-average warmth and below-normal precipitation holds true.
The American Birkebeiner, best known as the Birkie, is a weekend of races in the Hayward area of northwestern Wisconsin, headlined by its skate and classic cross-country ski marathons Feb. 24. Thousands of Minnesotans ski the Birkie trails each winter and anticipate the main event, which is marking its 50th year.
Olympic gold medalist Jessie Diggins, an Afton native, is scheduled to race, coming off events a week earlier at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis. The World Cup skiing circuit will stop there for 10-kilometer and sprint races Feb. 17-18.
Birkie organizers announced “potential contingencies” Monday night on Facebook live, including lap races on a 10-kilometer course of artificial snow that could still accommodate thousands of skiers, on different schedules, beginning at the Birkie trailhead in Cable.
The Birkie also could be canceled, which has happened twice in the event’s history. The Birkie was last called off in 2017 after a burst of springlike weather. The race also has been altered more than once, owing to unseasonable weather. Still, organizers Monday remained upbeat and said they’ve become conditioned to adapting. =More than 250,000 skiers have participated since the first race in 1973.
Ben Popp, American Birkebeiner executive director, said he knows the weather is topic No. 1.
“I think all the things that organization has learned through the last 49 years has prepped us for what is going to happen in the 50th,” said Popp, who appeared with race director Kristy Maki.
Final Birkie plans will be announced Feb. 12, Maki added.
Get more details and look for updates at birkie.com/50.
Transforming the heart of both downtowns, which have much larger buildings than old warehouses, is going to take a lot more money, creativity and time. Josh Talberg, managing director at downtown Minneapolis brokerage JLL, said with no major apartment buildings on the drawing board in either downtown, the fleet of empty office buildings present a golden opportunity to create more housing and lead both cities in a new direction.
“You can can certainly see the fundamentals improving, and you can feel that vibrancy, and that’s ultimately the foundation that’s needed to get investors to reinvest in the city,” he said. “But it’s not as if these 18-wheelers can turn on a dime.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
