Good morning. There's a La Niña advisory issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climatologically, La Niña winters skew colder and snowier than average. We might want to plan for that. For Friday, partly cloudy in the morning, then mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain showers in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 60s. Check out the Updraft for more details. A Hennepin County judge will hear arguments Friday morning in the case of four former police officers charged in the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 after former officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for about nine minutes. Attorneys representing the men will argue against a joint trial and request that the trial be moved outside the county.
St. Paul attorney Paul Applebaum, who isn’t involved in the cases, said it’s going to be tough for the defense attorneys to get the cases separated, partly because it would be difficult for Chauvin to blame the other officers for the charges of murder and manslaughter against him, but also because of the burden of holding four separate trials.
In recent weeks, attorneys representing former Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd’s death have argued that charges against him should be dismissed, sketching out a legal strategy that alleges that Floyd was intoxicated, overdosed and contributed to his own death.
State public health officials believe backyard parties, informal get-togethers and other social functions are fueling current case counts. A late-August wedding in southwestern Minnesota is now the state’s largest social spreader event.
Some 275 people attended the wedding and reception in Ghent, in Lyon County, on Aug. 22. There are now 75 COVID-19 cases scattered over 14 counties directly tied to that wedding, Kris Ehresmann, the state’s infectious disease director, said Thursday.
“This is the largest event we’ve seen pertaining to disease transmission for a social event,” Kris Ehresmann, the state’s infectious disease director, said Thursday.
Combine that with the cases resulting from the August motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D., which Minnesota can connect 51 cases, including one death.
Here are Minnesota’s latest COVID-19 statistics:
1,884 deaths82,249 positive cases, 75,425 off isolation257 hospitalized, 138 in ICU 1,646,961 tests, 1,205,501 people testedThe University of Minnesota will end men’s indoor and outdoor track and field, men’s gymnastics and men’s tennis as it slashes costs to ease losses from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Big Ten’s move to postpone football.
“Our athletic department is now facing a projected loss of revenue of approximately $75 million just this fiscal year,” Joan Gabel, the university president, said in a statement Thursday, noting that the impact will last for years.
MPR News intern Myah Christenson writes: A middle school IT club has found a way to use their skills to revamp old computers at a time when distance learning has made such technology indispensable.
“These kids very enthusiastically caught the open-source bug and took on the challenge of wanting to help their fellow students,” said Stu Keroff, a social studies teacher who directs the club.
It was an nontraditional first week of school for thousands of students across Minnesota.Here's a photo gallery documenting the changes schools made to guard against the coronavirus.
-- Matt Mikus, MPR News @mikusmatt |
