Star Tribune
Funerals set for children killed in St. Paul fire
Family members have scheduled funeral services for four children killed last month in one of the worst blazes in St. Paul’s history.
Pa Cheng Vang, the children’s father, posted on social media that the service for his 4-year-old son Muaj Tshav Ntuj Vang will take place Saturday at the East Chapel-Legacy Funeral home, 255 Eaton St. in St. Paul. The service will be open to the public, and is scheduled to end on Monday, Feb. 19.
Services for the other three children killed in the fire, 1-year-old Muaj Cag Txuj Vang, 5-year-old Ntshiab Siv Vang, and 5-year-old Siv Ntshiab Vang, have been set for March 16, 23 and 30, respectively. Those are expected to take place at the Saint Paul Funeral Home, 199 Plato Boulevard.
Residents and officials have regarded the Jan. 3 fire as one of the worst in city history, hospitalizing Vang’s wife and all six of their children before four of the youth died from their injuries. There have been six fire deaths in St. Paul so far this year, bringing St. Paul near a grim record that was set decades ago. “The city averages two to three fire fatalities annually,” Deputy St. Paul Fire Chief Roy Mokosso said in a previous news release. “Saint Paul had six fire fatalities in 2017 and the most recorded in the last 30 years was seven in 1994.”
Officials believe the fire was an accident caused by an unattended candle, but that investigation is ongoing. Scores of residents and city officials have responded with support for the family, gathering hundreds for a vigil and drawing more than $400,000 in donations from across the country.
The health conditions for two of Vang’s children has since improved. Vang’s 3-year-old daughter Hnub Qub Vang was discharged from Regions Hospital, and his 6-year-old son Cag Kub Vang has shown is now opening his eyes and moving.
Vang’s wife Ker Lor has shown some improvement, but was reportedly moved to another hospital for treatment.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 11,000 bridges in communities across America are finally getting the repairs they’ve long needed with funding from our infrastructure law,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a news release. He said the bridge repairs ensure “people and goods can get where they need to go, safely and efficiently.”
A 19-year-old driver trying to get around slower vehicles collided head-on with an SUV in Wright County and killed one person and injured several others, officials said Thursday.
SUV passenger Janice Evelyn Johnson, 92, of Arden Hills, died Monday at HCMC from injuries she suffered in the collision on Oct. 22 in Monticello Township on County Road 37 near County Road 12, the Sheriff’s Office said in a search warrant affidavit filed in Hennepin County District Court.
The driver and two other people in the SUV survived their injuries, according to the affidavit, which the Sheriff’s Office filed to collect Johnson’s medical records at HCMC as part of its investigation.
According to the affidavit:
Deputies arrived at the crash scene and spoke with the car’s driver, Christian Kabunangu, of Brooklyn Park, who said he was heading west on County Road 37 and found himself behind two vehicles traveling below the speed limit.
“He was late for work, so he decided to pass them,” the affidavit read. Kabunangu said he saw the oncoming SUV and estimated it was about a half-mile down the road.
As he attempted to pass one of the slower vehicles, he explained, the other driver “sped up, preventing him from getting back into the westbound lane,” the filing continued.
As the Honda drew near, he swerved to the left, but the SUV did the same and they collided.
Star Tribune
University of Minnesota researchers find that native plants can beat invasive buckthorn on their own turf.
If the invasive buckthorn that is strangling the life out of Minnesota’s forest floor has a weakness, it is right now, in the shortening daylight of the late fall.
With a little help and planning, certain native plants have the best chance of beating buckthorn back and helping to eradicate it from the woods, according to new research from the University of Minnesota.
The sprawling bush has been one of the most formidable invasive species to take root in Minnesota since it was brought from Europe in the mid-1800s. It was prized as an ornamental privacy hedge. All the attributes that make buckthorn good at that job — dense thick leaves that stay late into the fall, toughness and resilience to damage and pruning, unappealing taste to wildlife and herbivores — have allowed it to thrive in the wild.
It grows fast and thick, out-competing the vast majority of native plants and shrubs for sunlight and then starving them under its shade. It creates damaging feedback loops, providing ideal habitat and calcium-rich food for invasive earthworms, which in turn kill off and uproot native plants. That leaves even less competition for buckthorn to take root, said Mike Schuster, a researcher for the university’s Department of Forest Resources.
When it takes over a natural area, buckthorn creates a “green desert,” Schuster said. “All that’s left is just a perpetual hedge, with little biodiversity.”
Since the 1990s, when the spread became impossible to ignore, Minnesota foresters, park managers and cities have spent millions of dollars a year trying to beat it back. They’ve used chainsaws and trimmers, poisons and herbicides, and even goats for hire. The buckthorn almost always grows back within a few years.
It’s been so pervasive that a conventional wisdom formed that buckthorn seeds could survive dormant in the soil for up to six years. That thought has led to a sort of fatalism: even if the plant were entirely removed from a property there would be a looming threat that it would sprout back, Schuster said.
But there is nothing special about buckthorn seeds. They only survive for a year or two.
