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Minnesotans check on their family members in Taiwan
Hundreds were injured and at least nine people are confirmed dead.
MINNESOTA, USA — As the dust from Taiwan’s earthquake settles, so do the nerves.
“I was on the phone with my mother yesterday evening when it happened,” said Anson Wu, the president for the Taiwanese Student Society at the University of Minnesota.
He was talking with his family in Taiwan when the earthquake that injured hundreds struck. His family was unharmed, but he said his sister is still shaken as she cleans up fallen books and broken glass from the floor.
The earthquake in Taiwan injured hundreds and at least nine people have been confirmed to have died.
He says he’s counting his blessings, because his family was not close to the epicenter. He’s turning his attention to the Taiwanese community in Minnesota.
Many of his board members also had family in Taiwan.
“William and I were watching the Timberwolves and my family’s group chat kept texting,” said Nathan Lee, graphic designer with TSS. “They said there was a huge earthquake happening.”
“All of the public transportation was shut down,” said William Cheng, the events coordinator with TSS.
Luckily, their family’s were alright, along with TSS intern Ryan Cheng’s loved ones.
“I called my parents to make sure they were doing alright,” he said.
Jason McGrath is the co-director of the U’s Chinese Flagship program. In the last month, he returned from a trip visiting UMN students studying in Taiwan.
“I am on a group chat with the students in that program and last night we got the message all of the students are accounted for and are okay,” said McGrath. “I am very relieved. This is the biggest earthquake to happen in awhile.”
Taiwanese American Association of Minnesota president Kuang-Sheng Cheng’s daughter is in Taiwan.
“She was terrified while everything was shaking,” he said, but was relieved when he found his daughter was not among the hundreds injured.
His group, along with others, are in the process of looking into ways they can help, because not every family in Taiwan were as lucky as theirs’.
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Morgan Geyser, who is now 22 years old, filed a third petition seeking her release from a psychiatric hospital.
WAUKESHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin woman accused of stabbing her classmate to please horror character Slender Man more than a decade ago asked a judge again Friday to release her from a psychiatric hospital.
Morgan Geyser, who is now 22 years old, filed a petition with Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren seeking her release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. The petition marks the third time in the last two years she has asked Bohren to let her out of the facility.
She withdrew her first petition two months after filing it in 2022. Bohren denied her second request this past April, saying she remains a risk to the public.
Geyser’s attorney, Anthony Cotton, didn’t immediately respond to email and telephone messages Friday morning.
Geyser and Anissa Weier were 12 in 2014 when they lured Payton Leutner to a Waukesha park after a sleepover. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier egged her on. Leutner barely survived.
The girls later told investigators they wanted to earn the right to be servants of the fictional Slender Man and that they feared he would harm their families if they didn’t carry out the attack.
Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide and was sent to the psychiatric institute because of mental illness. Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide and was also sent to the psychiatric center. She was granted a release in 2021 to live with her father and was ordered to wear a GPS monitor.
According to KARE 11 Meteorologist John Zeigler, trees between central Minnesota and just south of the Iron Range are in peak color condition.
MINNEAPOLIS — If you’re planning a trip north of the Twin Cities this weekend, you’re in for a fortune of fall foliage.
According to KARE 11 Meteorologist John Zeigler, trees between central Minnesota and just south of the Iron Range are in peak color condition.
“If you’re around the Twin Cities, there hasn’t been a lot of changeover yet,” Zeigler said. “So, this is the changeover happening now north of Saint Cloud. If you go up toward the Iron Range here, I actually think it might be a little bit too late.”
Zeigler said to hit spots like the Brainerd Lakes Area, in addition to cities near Duluth.
“If I was traveling to the north and I want to see the perfect colors, I would go to Two Harbors,” he said. “I would go to Duluth [or] Brainerd Lakes Area is great.”
Zeigler said if peak leaf peeping is what you’re after, Saturday will be the warmer of the two days, but Sunday is also an option — as long as you bust out your winter garb and bundle up.
“Sunday is not a bad day, but look at the 40s in Duluth — even in Hayward we’re in the forties,” Zeigler said. “Maybe a little bit of rain during the morning hours and breezy, so if you’re gonna be out there on Sunday, 40s, put your jacket on. Actually, I would pack a bigger coat heading to the north.”
Zeigler said it will still be a few weeks before we hit a peak in the metro and other communities in southern Minnesota.
KARE 11 will continue to update peak fall color progress. You can also check in with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fall Color Finder Map on the agency’s website.
The charges are connected to a fatal incident in which Thompson is accused of hitting a vehicle with his SUV, resulting in the deaths of five young women.
ST PAUL, Minn. — A jury has found Derrick Thompson guilty of drug and firearm charges stemming from a high-speed crash that claimed the lives of five young women in Minneapolis.
Thompson faced three charges – possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, being a felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.
The trial lasted less than a week. On Tuesday, jurors watched a violent and graphic video that showed Thompson’s rented SUV running a red light at high speed and crashing into a vehicle waiting at a stoplight. All five passengers inside the car that was struck were killed.
But both prosecutors and Thompson’s defense team told jurors it was not the most important piece of evidence they’d see in the case, urging them not to attempt to analyze the crash itself.
“This is a case about an armed drug dealer,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Calhoun-Lopez told the panel. “We are here today because (the) defendant crashed that car carrying 2,000 fentanyl pills, cocaine, fentanyl powder, and a loaded gun.”
Calhoun-Lopez explained Derrick Thompson’s subsequent fleeing and lying to police following the deadly crash proves the gun and drugs were his. In addition, DNA testing links Thompson to the items.
But the defense offered the jury an alternative theory that was absent from the public realm until recently when it was revealed that Thompson had a passenger in the rental car – his brother Damarco Thompson.
Thompson’s attorney Matthew Deates told jurors that Damarco is the flashier of the Thompson brothers and that he likes colorful, flashy things like the blue cap police found on the passenger side of the Escalade. Deates added that the colorful wrap on the handgun matches those tastes and that the spot where police found the bag containing the gun and drugs also points to the defendant’s brother. The bag was located under Damarco’s blue hat.
“That is the definition of confirmation bias. It’s tunnel vision. It does not make it right. This caused the government to charge the wrong person. But you – as the jury – gets to weigh the evidence and decide,” Deates said in his opening statement.
Thompson’s legal woes are far from over – he faces five counts of third-degree murder and five counts of criminal vehicular homicide at the state level.
