Interstate Highway 94 eastbound was shut down this morning while authorities worked on a semitrailer, carrying seven horses, that had rolled over, the St. Cloud Times reported. The accident was near the New Munich exit, northwest of St. Cloud. One person was taken to Melrose Hospital with injuries, and one horse was possibly injured, the article says.
“To Bayside Taxi driver Nicholas Berg, the patrons were, for much of the trip to Canada, just ‘six guys crammed into a Dodge Caravan,’ ” writes Christa Lawler in the Duluth News Tribune. “But to organizers of the Thunder Bay Blues Fest, this was precious cargo: longtime bluesman Taj Mahal and his band, the waylaid headliners for the last day of an event that had been riddled with hiccups.” The story says, “Berg, who is earning a reputation for being a cab driver with a passport, said he chatted with the three band members and three of their people when they weren’t sleeping. The man Berg later learned was blues musician Taj Mahal impressed him as ‘an extremely intelligent, well-traveled man. We just started talking about traveling. It’s my goal to see every country. I’ve been to 14. He’s been to far, far more than I have.’ “
“The Morris Area School District is expected to put a $500 per-pupil operating levy on the November election ballot, but there’s no guarantee even that amount will prevent the district from making further budget reductions in the next two years,” reports Tom Larson in the Morris Sun Tribune. The article says the decision to formulate the levy request was approved unanimously in a special session of the district school board, and that the board “is expected to approve the official ballot question at its regular meeting July 19.”
“The Willmar School Board has voted to place an $898.49-per-pupil-unit operating levy on the Nov. 2 general election ballot,” reports Linda Vanderwerf in the West Central Tribune. The article says “the next step is up to the district’s voters, who will be asked to revoke an existing $498.49 levy and replace it with the larger one for the next 10 years.”
“By year’s end, the streets of urban Hibbing will be a bit more bicycle-friendly,” Kelly Grinsteinner reports in the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The article says the City Council has approved a proposal “for designated bike routes throughout the community as well as accepted grant monies for route signs, road stencils and paint, and pamphlets mapping out the routes’ various loops.”
