Star Tribune
Government funding plan collapses as Trump makes new demands days before shutdown
The stopgap measure is needed because Congress has failed to pass its annual appropriations bills to fund all the various agencies in the federal government, from the Pentagon and national security apparats, to the health, welfare, transportation and other routine domestic services. When the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, Congress simply punted the problem by passing a temporary funding bill that expires Friday.
But the inches-thick bill goes beyond routine funding and tacks on several other measures that lawmakers are trying to push through to passage before the end of this congressional session, especially as some elected officials will not be returning in the new year.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a called it essentially a junk sandwich, using a swear word. The chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said a lot of lawmakers “are a little disappointed at how this last week has worked out.”
And then there’s the pay-raise.
Some lawmakers expressed concern that the bill turns off a pay freeze provision that was included in the previous short-term spending measure. That change could allow a maximum pay adjustment of 3.8% or $6,600 in 2025, bringing their annual pay to $180,600, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Members of Congress last got a raise in 2009, when the salary was increased 2.8% to $174,000 annually. If member pay had not been frozen since 2009, salaries would be about $217,900.
A 59-year-old utility worker died Tuesday after falling from the bucket of a boom truck at a job site north of Big Lake, according to Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Ben Zawacki.
Thomas L. Stewart of Dayton fell about six to eight feet and suffered significant head injuries while working in the ditch on the north side of 241st Avenue NW, just west of 185th Street in Orrock Township.
First responders performed life-saving efforts at the scene before Stewart was transported to St. Cloud Hospital, where he was pronounced dead late Tuesday.
Stewart worked for the Minnesota-based utility company Connexus Energy. In a response to a Facebook post about the incident, a representative from Connexus thanked people for their thoughts and prayers, and clarified the utility worker was not electrocuted in the incident.
“We’re heartbroken over the passing of our friend and colleague but we are waiting for family and friends to be notified so we cannot share additional information,” Stacy Downs, communications specialist at Connexus, said Wednesday.
“I doubt if they’re going to get there by Christmas, even though I’m mailing them priority,” said Hager, a trust officer for the Department of the Interior and retired army colonel. “It’s just the way life is. Sometimes the vegetables don’t arrive on the island, so you gotta wait another week.”
In 2023, many residents across northern Minnesota and into the south metro complained their mail often didn’t arrive for days at a time. Hager said he felt USPS’s performance is “not as nearly as bad as last year” but still noticed mail arriving in the evenings when it used to arrive in the late morning.
Craig, who has been vocal about mail problems in her district, said it seemed as if USPS had “stabilized” in Minnesota relative to other parts of the country. But quarterly service reports show on-time mail delivery in the Minnesota-North Dakota district still slowed in 2024.
In the latest report, which covers July through September 2024, 84% of first-class, two-day mail, and 75% of three-to-five-day mail was delivered on time. That’s down from scores of 88% and 79% in the same period of 2023. All those scores are below national averages, which also fell during the same time period.
Bemidji Mayor Jorge Prince said he knows from talking to four carriers in town that they are overworked and understaffed.
“I still get the impression that they believe that they’re still short-staffed relative to the workload,” he said. “They’re cautious in what they say, but I think they’re feeling stretched.”
Star Tribune
Gilbert woman charged with murder after man ODs; she then wrote about it in a private Facebook message
A Gilbert, Minn., woman has been charged with third-degree murder after she allegedly gave drugs to a 25-year-old Mountain Iron man who died later from the effects of fentanyl and ethanol last summer.
Ashley Rose Cook, 20, whom investigators had been unable to find, was arrested earlier this week and arraigned in St. Louis County court in Hibbing on Tuesday. Her bail has been set at $500,000 and her next court appearance is Thursday. She is in the St. Louis County jail.
According to the criminal complaint, Cook wrote about her role in the man’s death in a private Facebook message sent on July 31.
“I gave [the victim a] perc 30 and he died,” she said. “Perc” is another name for oxycodone, according to DEA.gov.
Investigators also found a Facebook exchange between Cook and the victim indicating that she was looking for people who wanted to buy opioids.
A witness said that she and the victim met with Cook at a gas station in Gilbert. He got out of the car to talk to Cook, while the witness went to the bathroom to look for a phone she had left there earlier. The witness, her brother and the victim went home, where they planned to have a bonfire. The latter went to the bathroom but didn’t return. He was found dead alongside a piece of aluminum foil with burnt residue. An autopsy determined that he had died from the toxic effects of fentanyl and ethanol.
According to the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department, Cook’s arrest is the result of a nearly nine-month investigation by the Lake Superior Violent Offenders Task Force to “hold those accountable who profit off the deadly sale of controlled substances, particularly fentanyl.”
