Star Tribune
Minneapolis named best big city for biking. St. Paul is cruising not too far behind.
Miles of protected bike lanes have earned Minneapolis the top spot in a 2024 ranking of best cities for cycling in the U.S.
It is the second year in a row that Minneapolis claimed first place in PeopleForBikes’ annual City Ratings, which score cities of different sizes on a scale of 0 to 100. Minneapolis scored 71 out of 100, beating out all other big cities.
St. Paul wasn’t too far behind, with a score of 61 out of 100. St. Paul rose from 7th place in 2023 to 4th place this year, demonstrating a joint commitment to bike infrastructure in the Twin Cities, the ranking said.
“High-scoring cities often perform well across six factors captured in the acronym SPRINT: safe speeds, protected bike lanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, intersection treatments, network connections, and trusted data,” according to the ranking.
Minneapolis lowered default speed limits on residential streets from 30 to 20 miles per hour and 25 mph on arterial streets, which contributed to its high ranking.
Bike infrastructure has improved around the country post-pandemic. Still, the average bike score for a U.S. city is 25 out of 100.
Other big cities on the top of the list included Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Philadelphia and New York City.
The contents of a suspicious package that caused an evacuation of the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office has been deemed non-hazardous.
The office was evacuated Friday after a package arrived there with the return address of “United States Traitor Elimination Army.”
The white powder inside the package was tested by the Minnesota Department of Health and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and both concluded it was not hazardous, Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office said Saturday.
In a statement, Simon said: “We are thankful for the quick response by our law enforcement partners to ensure the staff members working in our office were safe. We are also grateful to the Minnesota Department of Health, which completed the initial analysis late into the evening on September 27.”
The Health Department is continuing to run tests, Simon’s office said, and the incident is being investigated by the FBI, postal inspectors and the State Patrol.
Last week, offices in 15 other states received similar packages that also contained a mysterious white powder. Those incidents remain under investigation.
The Secretary of State’s Office has not released details about the size or appearance of the suspect package.
Four Twin Cities residents traveling with a church group, including one who was pregnant, are dead after a four-vehicle crash in central Utah.
A Utah resident riding an all-terrain vehicle was also killed in the chain-reaction accident, which occurred Thursday near the city of Price, according to the Utah Highway Patrol.
The incident began when an SUV pulled into the path of a truck pulling two trailers. The truck driver swerved to avoid the SUV but lost control, crossed the median and hit a Nissan Rogue driving in the opposite lane.
The people in the Nissan were two couples from the Twin Cities, and all four were killed on impact, said Sgt. Chris Pugliese with the Utah Highway Patrol.
“It was a very violent crash,” he said.
The victims were Sang Her, 56, and Lee Thao, 38, both of Brooklyn Center, and Bee Moua, 26, and Mai Lor, 25, both of St. Paul. One of the two women killed was pregnant, Pugliese said.
KSL-TV in Salt Lake City reported that Lor was pregnant and that she and Moua were married earlier this year.
The four Minnesotans were traveling with a church group, which was in another car and escaped the accident. Members of the church group told authorities that the four victims were traveling from Moab to Salt Lake City. Pugliese said they were planning to fly back to the Twin Cities that night.
Two adults and two juveniles were rescued Saturday from a capsized duck hunting boat in west central Minnesota.
All four were able to hold onto the boat after it overturned around 6 a.m. on Bird Lake in Osakis Township, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, which dispatched a water patrol boat and an airboat to scene.
The four were having a difficult time staying afloat because their waders had filled with water, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. They were treated on the scene for hypothermia exposure.
None of the four were wearing life jackets, and there were not enough life jackets on hand for all the boat’s occupants, the sheriff’s office said.
