Star Tribune
White Bear Lake father faces murder charge after newborn son died from head injury
The father of a newborn baby from White Bear Lake who died from head injuries earlier this year has now been charged with second-degree murder.
After his 7-week-old son was hospitalized in January, Mark R. Forster, 39, of White Bear Lake told investigators and the mother of his child that he couldn’t be sure that he did not accidentally harm the boy while looking after him and blacking out from heavy drinking and marijuana use, according to a criminal complaint.
His son, Jackson Dallas Forster, was taken to the hospital hours later, when he began having seizures and turning blue while under his mother’s care. He died March 22. Blunt-force head trauma was identified as the cause of death by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Prosecutors charged Forster and issued a warrant for his arrest Monday.
According to the complaint:
Around 1 a.m. Jan. 31, Forster returned home from work and took charge of caring for his son until about 2:30 p.m. But when he arrived at home he “kinda delved into liquor a little bit,” he told police.
He said he smoked a bowl of marijuana and had five drinks. He told police he may have dropped the child or sat on him, but he couldn’t remember everything.
Police located a text message he sent to the mother that said, in part, “I’m just really upset with myself because I got so blackout drunk last night I don’t remember anything. This is all my fault.”
After taking over childcare around 2:30 p.m., the mother noticed the child was sleeping longer than usual, not hungry and his body was tensed up. He eventually started having spasms and was taken to the hospital.
The mother told police Forster had been a supportive partner and father but she was concerned he had been drinking too much. Forster said he had been dealing with anxiety, stress from work and had an alcohol problem for years.
Emerald ash borer is just one of the invasive species destroying forests across the globe at a time when trees are desperately needed. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and clean the air, and are critical to combating climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
Arborists are well aware that trees may be the best hope for staving off the worst effects of climate change, Zumach said.
“You have to believe that, with every tree there’s shade and energy savings and improved air quality,” she said.
To mitigate the harm of future disease, foresters in Minnesota try to plant a diverse array of species when replacing lost ash trees. The crew working Furness Parkway had about 20 varieties, Cleaver said, including linden trees, honey locusts, triumph elms, eastern larches and London plane trees.
As Carpenter and Cleaver finished planting the linden boulevard tree, they poured a 5-gallon bucket of water over the soil, which the tree quickly absorbed. They put mulch around the tree to protect the roots and prevent accidental maiming by mowing crews.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, suggested this week that it would have been better for the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden had abandoned his reelection campaign sooner and the party had then held a competitive primary process to replace him.
In an interview Thursday with the New York Times, Pelosi said what was widely reported around the time Biden dropped out: that she believed it was implicitly understood that his exit would be followed by an internal party competition for a new nominee, instead of an anointment of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said during an interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of “The Interview,” a Times podcast. She added during the interview, “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.”
Pelosi went on: “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
Biden endorsed Harris within an hour after he ended his campaign in July, a decision he made only after an intense pressure campaign from Democrats that Pelosi quietly led. His support for the vice president, along with backing from many other Democrats, choked off any avenue for a challenger to emerge. Over two weeks, Harris swiftly gathered support from delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
While some Democrats floated the idea of a quick primary, those proposals never gained traction and were not embraced by the Democratic National Committee or convention delegates.
In the interview, Pelosi went to great lengths to defend the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments, most of which took place during his first two years, when she was the House speaker. After Republicans won control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, she relinquished her leadership post but remained in the chamber as an eminence grise for the party.
The former speaker, who was elected Tuesday to her 20th term representing San Francisco, argued in the interview that the Democratic Party still stood up for working-class voters on economic issues.
Eagan authorities are asking residents to stay vigilant after two sexual assaults at Lebanon Hills Regional Park.
The Eagan Police Department said a woman was attacked while walking alone on one of the park’s trails around 11 a.m. on Nov. 7. Her assault follows a “similar incident” near the same location on Sept. 7, but that victim got away from the suspect. No arrests have been made.
“The Eagan Police Department and Dakota County Sheriff’s Office have increased patrol activity in and around the Lebanon Hills Regional Park,” a news release said. “We are actively working on leads in both cases, therefore this is an open/active investigation, so no further information will be released.”
While investigators search for suspects, police asked residents to remain cautious by: walking in pairs or groups, staying aware of their surroundings, avoiding poorly lit areas and staying in populated areas, and reporting suspicious activity to 911.
