Families cope with bus driver shortage
Good morning,
Happy meteorological winter!
We'll likely have a pretty nice day in store, with mostly cloudy skies in the north, partly sunny south. Highs in the 40s north, to near 60 southwest. [Get weather updates from Updraft.] | |
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Work continues Wednesday to pick a jury in the trial of Kimberly Potter, the former Brooklyn Center police officer charged in the killing of Daunte Wright.
Prosecutors, defense attorneys and Hennepin County judge Regina Chu began the hard work Tuesday, interviewing prospective jurors among the pool of roughly 200 who’d earlier filled out detailed questionnaires probing their views on race, police and crime.
By the end of the day, four jurors had been chosen out of the 12 jurors and two alternates that will be needed before opening statements, which are expected to start on Dec. 8.
Perhaps the most compelling news Tuesday: An attorney for Potter said his client would be testifying in her defense during the trial. | |
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| Kaori Yamada helps her three children get ready to ride to school during the first week in front of their Minneapolis home in September. Yamada chose not to put her children on overcrowded buses and worked out a carpool with three other families.Evan Frost | MPR News file |
By Mary Ellen Ritter
Monisha Walters had worked it all out.
Her two kids would take the bus to school in the morning. Then, when classes were over, they would bus from Minneapolis to an after-school care program near their home.
But that plan ran into a big snag about two weeks before the start of the school year, when Walters received a voicemail and email explaining that her kids might not have a bus on the first day of school. Her children’s school was one of many in the state — and across the country — grappling with the critical shortage of school bus drivers.
On the first day, the bus driver did show up in the morning — but dropped off her kids about 30 minutes late. And, an hour after the school day ended, Walters was informed that there would be no afternoon bus for her children.
Amid the nationwide bus driver shortage, which persists three months into the academic year, parents have turned to carpools with friends and neighbors, while in other cases, school staffers or after-school care employees have stepped up to fill the void. | |
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Biden sells infrastructure bill at Minnesota tech college. President Joe Biden told a small audience at Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount Tuesday that the infrastructure funding law he signed will revitalize American competitiveness and help rebuild the middle class.
As U.S. races to detect and track omicron, patchwork surveillance makes that tough. There's a lot we need to learn — and fast — about the omicron variant. Federal health officials have been scrambling since Thanksgiving to gather critical information to inform the U.S. response.
Mother of transgender child calls for civility after Hastings school board election turns ugly. A Hastings school board member who ran for reelection earlier this month says politics went too far when a parent “outed” her transgender 8-year-old on Facebook. | |
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