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Smoking blamed for deadly overnight house fire in St. Paul
St. Paul police officers arrived on scene and were told a person was still inside the burning home. The victim was discovered deceased in a bedroom.
ST PAUL, Minn. — It has been a deadly start to the year in St. Paul in terms of house fires, with another life being claimed late Wednesday on the city’s west side.
St. Paul police and fire crews responded to the 2200 block of Buford Ave. just before midnight after receiving a 911 call. The caller told dispatchers they heard someone inside a burning home yelling “help.”
Police squads were the first to arrive and were told by a resident who had escaped the home that someone was still inside. Officers attempted to make entry but were turned back by heavy smoke and heat.
Fire crews set up and quickly put down the fire. They then went inside the structure and located a residence deceased inside a room where the fire appears to have started. Investigators say there were no working smoke detectors near the room where the victim was found.
Two dogs perished in the blaze, and another resident was taken to a local hospital with unspecified injuries.
St. Paul Deputy Fire Chief Roy Mokosso said in a news release that preliminary evidence suggests that smoking was the cause of the fire. He reminds Minnesotans that smoking remains the leading cause of fatal fires in the state.
Thursday’s death marks the sixth fire fatality in St. Paul in 2024. Four children died after their family’s home on Arkwright Street burned Jan. 3, and a person badly injured in a Jan. 23 kitchen fire inside a house on the 1600 block of Juliet Ave. eventually died from their injuries.
Mokosso says St. Paul averages two to three fire deaths annually, and that the last time the city had six fire fatalities in a year was in 2017. St. Paul is already at that mark less than two months into 2024.
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So far in 2024, the organization said at least 12 people in Minnesota have also become victims of intimate partner violence.
ST PAUL, Minn. — At least 40 people were killed in Minnesota last year as the result of intimate partner violence, marking the highest number of victims in over three decades of tracking domestic violence data.
According to Violence Free Minnesota’s annual Homicide Report for 2023, of those 40 known victims, 29 were killed by a current or former intimate partner, while 11 intervenors and bystanders were killed in intimate partner violence-related situations. So far in 2024, the organization said at least 12 people in Minnesota have also become victims of domestic violence.
“To every person who lost a family member or loved one in Minnesota in 2023: we believe you, and we want to achieve a safer, violence-free Minnesota together,” said Violence Free Minnesota Executive Director Guadalupe Lopez.
The coalition, made up of more than 90 member programs working to end domestic abuse across Minnesota, released the report Tuesday to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
For more information, visit Violence Free Minnesota’s website.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence and needs help, call 800-799-7233 or text START to 88788 to be connected with someone from the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
The hotline includes more options for support and identifiers of abuse on its website.
For Minnesota residents, Cornerstone MN offers resources and safe housing for domestic abuse survivors and crime victims. Call 1-866-223-1111 or chat online with the crisis hotline.
The legislation prevents transferring a dead patient’s medical debt to a surviving spouse and reporting unpaid medical bills to creditors, among other things.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The Debt Fairness Act is officially the law of the land across Minnesota, going into effect on Oct. 1, 2024.
Passed in April as part of the larger Commerce Policy Bill, the act takes a number of steps to protect those struggling under the weight of medical debt. Among other things, the Debt Fairness Act:
- Prevents medical providers from denying care due to unpaid medical debt
- Bans the practice of transferring a dead patient’s medical debt to a surviving spouse
- Prohibits medical providers from reporting unpaid medical bills to credit bureaus
- Establishes strong new protections from unethical medical debt collection practices
- Requires medical providers to publish medical debt collection practices
- Creates a new process to help people dispute medical coding and billing errors
The bill received strong support at Capitol rallies from Minnesotans like Jen Schultz, a public relations professional and adjunct professor at Concordia University in St. Paul.
“I’m a four-time cancer survivor and a lot of times it feels like I’m in a constant cycle of medical debt,” Schultz told KARE. “I’ve had so many situations where I’ve had to choose between buying groceries or paying a full medical bill or putting gas in my car.”
Schultz said bills tend to pile up for cancer survivors like her due to the constant need to check and recheck to ensure the disease has not returned.
“Oncology appointments, scans, ultrasounds, biopsies, medication, treatment, and so on,” Schultz explained.
Credit agencies and hospital groups lobbied hard against the bill before its passage, cautioning lawmakers about the unintended consequences of changing the rules. Danny Ackert of the Minnesota Hospital Association said hospitals wrote off $537 million in uncollectible debt in 2022, and $280 million of that was from patients with insurance who couldn’t afford their copays and deductibles.
“The hospital association is concerned that provisions in Senate File 4065 pertain to medical debt in combination are not appropriately balanced,” Ackert told the panel at the time.
On Tuesday Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that his office will host a new Debt Fairness Legal Clinic on Saturday, October 5 at NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center. Experts will be on hand to provide support and advice to Minnesotans struggling under the weight of medical debt.
HOPE 4 Youth offers programs and support for young people experiencing homelessness.
COON RAPIDS, Minn. — On any given night, about 6,000 young people in Minnesota are experiencing homelessness. HOPE 4 Youth is raising awareness and funds to make sure that number goes down.
The Darkest Night 4K is raising funds to help that cause. Participants will take part in a luminary-lit walk or run with live music and activities at the Bunker Hills Golf Club in Coon Rapids on Oct. 4 from 5:30-8:30 p.m.
If you attend, you might see a familiar face as KARE 11 Sunrise anchor Jason Hackett will be emceeing the event.
Nikki Kalvin, the director of advancement with HOPE 4 Youth, visited KARE 11 News at Noon to share more about the event and the organization’s mission.
HOPE 4 Youth offers housing programs and support for people ages 16-24 who are dealing with homelessness. The proceeds from The Darkest Night 4K will go to their programs.
Tickets are $40 for adults, $20 for kids or students and free for children ages 3 and under. Click here for more information.
