Star Tribune
Warmest on record September ends with more heat, red flag warning
The driest and warmest September on record comes to an end Monday with another day with highs in the 80s expected and fire danger running high across much of Minnesota.
Red Flag warnings for extreme fire danger are in place across 39 counties in central, northeast, northwest and southwest Minnesota, where the combination of unseasonable warmth, low humidity, high winds and dry vegetation will create “critical” conditions for wildfires, the National Weather Service said.
“Today is not the day to be doing any kind of burning,” the Weather Service said.
Temperatures are forecasted to reach into the 80s for a sixth straight day Monday before a cool front pushes across the state from the northwest, the Weather Service said.
The front will bring gusty winds and drop humidity levels, creating elevated fire potential until evening in places such as Marshall, Morris, St. Cloud, Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes, Brainerd and Bemidji. A Red flag warning means fires can spread quickly and easily get out of control, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said.
“When fire risk is this high, it’s important to be careful with anything that could spark a wildfire,” said Karen Harrison, a DNR wildfire prevention specialist.
Monday’s high of 85 degrees in the Twin Cities will make it the 19th day this month the mercury has hit or surpassed the 80-degree mark. With an average daily temperature of 70.3 degrees, this September is now the warmest recorded since weather records began in 1873, the Minnesota Climatology Office said.
That eclipses the previous mark of 69.1 degrees set just last year, the Climatology Office said.
Thousands of Verizon customers have not been able to use their mobile phones to make calls Monday after the carrier confirmed an outage affecting its wireless network.
“We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers,” a statement from the company emailed to the Star Tribune said. “Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”
The company did not specifically say what the problem was, but it was impacting customers coast to coast. Locally, more than 2,600 customers in the Twin Cities reported outages, according to Downdetector.com, which monitors outages for telecommunications providers and other businesses. Verizon
The website reported more than 104,000 customers unable to access Verizon’s network at the peak of the outage, which began about 8:30 a.m. Twin Cities time. By noon, the numbers had begun to drop, according to Downdetector.com.
Most unable to make calls were still able to make emergency calls as phones were still operated in SOS mode. Customers posting on Downdetector.com reported outages in Lakeville, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Vadnais Heights, Anoka, Eden Prairie and Elk River.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced Monday that her office is bringing additional murder charges against Joshua Anthony Jones after he allegedly killed two men and shot two others near a homeless encampment in Minneapolis two weeks ago.
Jones, 36, of Bemidji, now stands charged with two counts of second-degree murder, three counts of attempted second-degree murder and three counts of illegal firearms possession from the roving attacks that occurred over nearly 15 hours on Sept. 18.
While the shootings were in proximity to a homeless encampment in the Phillips neighborhood of south Minneapolis, Moriarty said it does not appear that the victims were living at the encampment or that Jones was trying to kill people living at the encampment.
“He did actually appear to have known the people that he targeted,” Moriarty said at a news conference. She added that a specific motive for the killings remains under investigation.
The two men killed were Roland Scott Littleowl, 20, and Robert Milton Brown, 39, of Minneapolis.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office provided a timeline of the allegations against Jones:
At 4:39 a.m., Jones walked into an alley on the 2500 block of 17th Avenue S. and shot Littleowl and another man in the head and shot at a third person but missed. Littleowl died at the scene, the other shooting victim survived. At 4:21 p.m. Jones is seen on surveillance video walking up to Brown on the 2500 block of Bloomington Avenue S. and shooting him in the head. Brown also died at the scene. At 7:19 p.m., Jones approached a fifth victim near the intersection of 24th Street and 18th Avenue S. and shot at him multiple times, hitting him in the shoulder.
A short time later, Jones was arrested.
Minnesota disaster workers are being deployed to help victims of Hurricane Helene, which has devastated areas of the southeast U.S. from Florida to North Carolina and left around 100 people dead so far.
The American Red Cross Minnesota and Dakotas Region has deployed four emergency response vehicles and over 30 trained disaster volunteers to assist those impacted by the hurricane, with more preparing for dispatch.
The Salvation Army Northern Division has sent workers with experience navigating the emotional trauma of disasters, who will provide emotional care to both victims and other workers.
Here are some organizations and efforts you can donate to if you want to help those affected by Hurricane Helene.
Be cautious when contributing to help after natural disasters. Charitable giving spikes during emergencies, meaning scammers may create fake charities to take advantage of people who want to help, according to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
