CHICAGO (AP) - A persistent weather pattern driving bitterly cold air south out of the Arctic will cause temperatures from Minnesota to Kentucky to plummet Monday, turning this winter into one of the coldest on record in some areas.
For about 2½ days, actual temperatures will range from the teens to below zero, and the wind chills with be even colder, minus 43 in Minneapolis, minus 23 in Milwaukee and Chicago, minus 14 in Kansas City, Mo., and minus 3 in Louisville.
In fact, the National Weather Service says most of the Midwest will feel far colder than Monday’s expected high in the nation’s northernmost city, Barrow, Alaska - minus 4.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Scott Blair stopped short of calling the latest round of cold part of the polar vortex, which are winds that circulate around the North Pole.
“There’s really nothing abnormal about the air that’s coming into the area,” he said. “It’s just been a very persistent pattern” of cold air.
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PELICAN RAPIDS, Minn. (AP) - Ten rural Minnesota school districts have gone to four-day weeks to save on transportation and other costs, but the state is pressuring them to return to a five-day school week.
District officials say they don’t want to change back because they’ve found a way to save money without sacrificing quality of education. But the state Department of Education says districts need to make decisions with the students’ best interests in mind, Minnesota Public Radio reported (https://bit.ly/1ggGwCfhttps://bit.ly/1ggGwCf ).
The Pelican School District is among those that cut one school day a week. By giving students Mondays off and extending the other school days, the district has saved about $100,000 per year.
Superintendent Deb Wanek said the district’s curriculum is just as strong.
“The perception is if you go to a four-day school week that’s too bad - you’ve had to cut so much,” she said. “In reality we have a very strong program even with a four-day school week.”
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BECKER, Minn. (AP) - State officials plan to update the way they consider environmental and health effects when determining the overall cost of energy production, a move that could help guide decisions ranging from the fate of aging power plants to using cleaner sources of energy.
The state Public Utilities Commission has agreed to update the way it considers costs, the St. Cloud Times reported (https://on.sctimes.com/1leuWtkhttps://on.sctimes.com/1leuWtk ). That could mean taking into account issues such as climate change, infant mortality and emergency room visits.
“What this would do is to cause Minnesota to take a hard look before investments are made in power plants so that … we have a sense of what those ultimate costs would be, and we’ll make fewer bad decisions,” said J. Drake Hamilton, science policy director with the nonprofit Fresh Energy.
The efforts date back to 1993, when Minnesota passed a landmark law requiring the PUC to consider external costs when weighing various energy options. The aim was to create a level playing field between sources of electricity that emit a lot of pollution and those that don’t, said Beth Goodpaster, an attorney with the nonprofit Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
“That way, a dirty resource would not be able to say, ’We’re cheap,’ because they would have to actually include all the costs associated with it,” she said.
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BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. (AP) - Hennepin County authorities are investigating a police-involved shooting in which a Brooklyn Park police officer shot and wounded a man.
The shooting happened Saturday about 11 p.m. in a Brooklyn Park parking lot.
Police were dispatched to a report of a fight. After they arrived, one officer fired at least one shot, injuring a person. The victim has been hospitalized. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson didn’t immediately know his condition Sunday or whether the injury was considered life-threatening.
Johnson says she’s not aware whether the officers were also fired upon, nor whether the officer fired more than one shot. She says the incident is still in the early stages of investigation.
At the police department’s request, the sheriff’s office is handling the investigation.
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