Missing Workes on Oil Rig

A large deep-water drilling vessel exploded of the coast of Louisiana Tuesday evening and out of the 126 crewmembers, 115 have been accounted for leaving 11 missing. After 24 hours, Deepwater Horizon is still burning and they don't know when the flames will go out. Deepwater Horizon is the name of the drilling vessel and at the time of the explosion it was only drilling and not sure what caused it to explode. It is under investigation. Deepwater Horizon is one of the most advanced rig drilling in the ocean right now.


www.usatoday.com

New $100 Bill

A high-tech $100 bill will be out and about real soon. This new bill is part of an effort to keep ahead of those people that counterfeit money. The new $100 bill that was shown for the first time on Wednesday has a disappearing Liberty Bell and a bright blue security ribbon. More you move the bill around and the objects within the bill will move around. 3-D $100 bill. The government is hoping this new bill will make it harder for the high-tech counterfeiters.

www.usatoday.com

Mine Disaster Kills at least 25 Miners

Clearing steep hills on Tuesday caused workers problems in the search for coal miners that are still missing from the blast that happen on Monday. According to some workers, "This is the worst mine distaster since 1984. Before crews could start drilling the bore holes going into the mine to search for workers they had to bulldoze a access road to the drill hole sites. Workers have been stopped on and off to do the gases they are running into when drilling. These holes are used as vents for venting out gases and also giving food and water to those that have survived.
As of this afternoon, the workers are thinking about drilling a fourth hole in efforts to find any more miners alive.

Bodies of infants dumped in river

Police in a Eastern China town of Jining City, detained two workers from a hospital after 21 bodies of infants and fetuses were found dumped along a local river.
Eight of the bodies that were found had medical tages on their ankles showing that they were from Affiliated Hospital that is connected witht he Jining Medical University.
According to the The Beining News, the bodies could have been dumped after abortions or induced labor. This type of thing happens and the medical world calls it "medical waste".
The two mortuary workers have been fired from the hospital. Police and health authorities show that both workers did have verbal agreements privately with family of the dead to dispose of them. They are still being detained until more information if available.
A government worker stated, "the bodies were brought to the river in secret and not properly buried." Police were gotten ahold of when local people and firefigthers saw some of the bodies and got them from the river.

www.usatoday.com

Story 3

Marsha L. Taylor a McDonald manager was just released from the hospital after recovering from a bicycle accident four months ago. Marsha states, “I don’t remember much of what happen, I just remember waking up in the hospital.” She has a mild concussion, broken neck, six broken ribs, broken arm, and a broken pelvis. One of Marsha doctor’s said that, “It was a miracle that I wasn’t paralyzed.”
Her recovery got worse before it got better. When they first moved her into rehabilitation facility she developed complication. She comments that, “my doctors discovered I had some internal injuries that included my intestine, liver, and gall bladder.” Those complications moved me back to the hospital and turned my skin orange. My mother said that I looked like a Halloween pumpkin. She still has to go to rehabilitation three times a week.
Marsha has not lost her interest in bicycling. She said, “I would be out there right now, but can’t bicycle while being on crutches.” Take precautions when bicycling like wearing protective clothing and helmet.

Space shuttle makes rare nighttime landing

There have been only 23 space shuttle landings in the dark and this is the second time that the space shuttle Endeavour as none a night time landing. During the Endeavour’s mission to the space station they were gone for two weeks and went over 5.7 million miles. They crew delivered and installed the new space station room named Tranquility which has a he bay glass window that has a wonderful view of the earth. Once the window was complete the 10 men and one woman crew couldn’t get enough of the view. The new compartment is part of the $400 million compartments that were supplied by te European Space Agency.

Kristin Obituaries

Mass of Christian Burial will be 11:30 a.m. Friday, June 24, 2025 at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church, North Branch for Kristin Connolly (Stavrum), who died Saturday, June 17, 2025 at the St. Cloud Hospital in St. Cloud, MN from complications from a breast reduction. Rev. John Paul Philips will officiate and burial will be at Assumption Cemetery, Harris. Friends and relatives may call from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Tuesday at the church. Arrangements were made by Williams Dingmann Family Funeral Home, North Branch.
Kristin was born December 12, 1980 to Kenneth and Linda Stavrum in St. Cloud, MN. She graduated from Apollo High School and also graduated from Anoka Ramsey Community College with AAS in Human Resources. Kristin married Thomas Connolly on October 10, 2010; they had three children, Popeye, Olive Oil, and Sweet Pea. Kristin loved her family, friends, pets, stock car racing, demo derbies, fishing, and scrapbooking. She was a huge supporter of her husband’s bicycle shop in North Branch, MN. Kristin was a loving daughter, mother, aunt, and friend. The joy of her life will live on in the hearts of all who knew her.
Survivors include her husband Thomas of Harris, and three children; Popeye, Olive Oil, and Sweet Pea all at home; her parents Ken and Linda of St. Cloud; mother-in-law Judy; her sister Amy (Travis) Vogt and nieces Widget and Gidget Vogt.
Kristin was preceded in death by her beloved blacklabs Dale and Jeff; many cats through the years.

Private colleges aim to rein in loan-free financial aid

www.usatoday.com

Middle-class students will possibly be taking on more debt if they want to attend private colleges. The nation’s two most selective Dartmouth and Williams have announced they would not be offering aid packages that would normal allow students of any income to attend these schools. The students would have to take out loans. In the future other private schools will follow.
According to experts, they expect that financial aid at private school will be less generous than before, because of the economic downturn and also depends on the school. Many colleges had to dip into their savings last year because they feared there enrollment would go down.
Private schools are in the process right now of setting their budgets for the next fiscal year and none of them have announced their details on tuition or student aid projections. Some that have talked about their budgets are going to offer more financial aid which means admit more students or raise tuition.

Sheriff vs. Commissioners of Stearns County

A Thursday afternoon meeting between the county sheriff and county commissioners turned into one department blaming the other department. The disagreements began when the sheriff accused the county commissioners of shortchanging the sheriff department. According to Sheriff Gus Dicesari, “You’re putting the lives of the people of this county in jeopardy,” however Commission President Anne Chenn disagreed on his statement. “The county doesn’t have the funds to buy new police cars and hire more sheriffs,” states Ann Chenn.
Out of the seven other county commissioners only two side with Sheriff Dicesari. They feel the county should spend more money on the sheriff’s department and not on the programs for migrants that come to this county looking for work. Commissioner Anita Shenuski one of the supporters for the sheriff stated, “We never had problems until we began letting migrants come to this county and work.” Shenuski and Chenn got into an argument when Shenuski said, “They take jobs away from decent people and work for next to nothing and if something is stolen you can bet it was one of them that have taken it. We need to protect the local residents.” Chenn called her a hypocrite for trying to blame those peoples when, “they come here to work jobs that local residents don’t want to do.”
Chenn also noted that the county ran short on money this year because of the increased costs for health care and the higher fuel cost, she also added “we had to spend 30 million to build a new prison to help with the overflowing ones.”
Sheriff Dicesari told the commissioners that he needed more funds, because he needs to purchase new vehicles to replace the ones that older and have more than 150,000 miles on them. “My deputies can’t keep driving these old vehicles, because something bad is going to happen,” according to Dicesari.
Chenn told Dicesari that he is going to have to make due this year with the vehicle. The county doesn’t have the budget. Chenn suggested, “The deputies should not drive their cruisers home each day as they do now.” Dicesari commented back by saying, “letting the deputies drive their cruisers home and parking them in their neighborhood was a deterrent to crime.”
When it was time to vote the commissioners voted 5-2 against the sheriff’s request for additional funds.

Airport Scanners

Airport scanner stir fears over security lines~~www.usatoday.com
The body scanners that the government want to install in over a dozen airports are concerning some airport staff, because the scanners could lengthen the security lines and congest the terminals.
The scanners take up to five times longer the metal detectors they will be replacing.
International Air Transport Association member Steve Lott said, “Scanners would lead to significant passenger’s delays at the checkpoints.” However, Greg Soule a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration said, “Scanners will not significantly increase checkout times.”
The TSA plans to install 950 scanners over the next two years at airports.

My first day at ARCC

I was out of high school for almost 8 years when I decided to change my life around and go to college. It was very scary for me, because I never thought that I could make it as a college student and work a job somewhere. My first day was acoss the street at pole barn university and it was nerve racking. I walked in not knowing where anything was and not sure that I could make it as a student. It took a couple of weeks before I got passed the nerves and now that I'm graduating in the spring I don't want to leave yet. I've made wonderful friends and want to keep my education going.

Teen charged with vehicular homicide

A 19 year old Afton girl was charged in the crash that killed her girlfriend. Alicia Haupert and friends were drinking vodka shots earlier in the night. Alicia and her friends were heading home the next morning after sleeping a few hours when the crash accorded on Hwy 95 in May Township. Alicia was behind the wheel with a 0.108 blood-alcohol percent at the time of the accident. One passenger was hurt and the other was killed in the back seat. The girl in the back was Andrea Zimmerman from Stillwater. According to the state trooper on the scene Alicia stated “did not feel that what she had to drink affected her ability to drive or she feel any affects of what she drank earlier.”

Star Tribune~ Feb 2, 2010

Two killed in Interstate 790 multi-vehicle accident

At 6:45 a.m. this morning along Interstate 790, two tractor trailers collided and started a chain reaction accident. Along with those already involved in the accident two more tractor trailers and fourteen cars were damaged in the crash.
All those involved in the accident two were killed and four people had life threatening injuries. Two of those people were taken by ambulances and the others were taken by Life Flight to Statesville about 50 miles away.
As of right now the city’s Police Department is not sure how the accident occurred and they will let the public know as soon as they are done investigating. So far they believe that the two tractor trailers collided.
So far there are no files against anyone involved in this accident.
Fire chief Tony Sullivan stated “the crash scene looked like a war zone when he arrived.” There were bodies lying all along the road and people covered with blood. One of the toughest for the police and fire department was when the workers had to run from car to car to help those that were hurt. Another bad thing was the emergency workers had a hard time deciding who was driving and who the passengers were and which vehicles belonged to whom. Chief Sullivan also stated “this is the worst accident he has seen in the 18 years.” He has been with the fire department for that long.
The accident happened in the northbound lanes which ended up closing both lanes of the interstate. At time of this publication the interstate was still closed. This caused a major mess for rush hour and all traffic had to be detoured to Interstate 690 on the other side of town which in return backed up traffic on that interstate for three hours.

Clearwater Fire Fighter hit by vehicle

This morning around 7 a.m. the Clearwater Fire Department responded to car fire on Interstate 94 near Clearwater. It went from a putting vehicle fires out to helping one of their men survive. Cory Broich was hit by a vehicle traveling east on Interstate 94. He was unhooking the water line from the fire truck when the incident occurred. Cory was pinned between the car and the fire truck. He was air lifted to St. Cloud Hospital with two broken legs and no head injuries.

www.sctimes.com

Do's and Don'ts

When it comes to leads all I have to say is that it is hard to decide what should be written for the lead. Like I've stated to others is that what I feel is important may not be important to others or what is needed for a lead.

For the do's I feel that you need only the information that will catch peoples eyes and get there attention. Just get the main facts in the lead and leave the rest for the article.

Don'ts for leads are don't make it to long so you don't catch the eye of the person

Pawlenty seizes on breath analyer to combat drunk driving

A proposal to make tougher DWI laws is now heading to house for approval. Gov. Pawlenty wants to see tougher DWI laws in involve a breath analyer system in vehicles that would be contected to ignition system. Drunk drivers that have been convicted for a second or third time would have to this system install that there expense if they would like to be able to drive and not lose their license like before. This system would be a good way to widen the Drunk Driving laws and hopefully cut back on drunk driving repets and deaths in the state.

Viking Prayer

Our Favre-ther who art in Mississippi, hallowed be thy name. Thy bowl will come, it will be won, in Miami as it is in the Dome. Give us this Sunday, our weekly win. Give us touchdown passes, but do not let others pass against us. Lead us not into frustration, but deliver us to the Super Bowl. For thine.....is the MVP,the best of the NFC, and the glory of the Purple People Eaters, now and forever. Amen!

Introduction to Kristin Stavrum

My name is Kristin Stavrum and as you can tell so far my favorite color is pink!! Since I got that out of the way let me tell you alittle about myself.

I was born and raised in St. Cloud. I moved over to this area nine years ago when I met my boyfriend Tom. When people ask how we met I always get a weird reaction. We met in a yahoo chat room when I answered his ad, "Any single females." We have been together ever since.

I currently work at the information desk at the Cambridge Campus as a student worker and in the summer I help Tom with his bicycle job.

We have two black labs names Dale and Jeff. They are my children! We also have some cats named Scruffy, Anakin, Callie, and Gemmi.

I'm going to school for my AAS in Office Technology and plan to come back for the Human Resource program we are getting.