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Readers and writers: Minnesota broadcast royalty make a memorable Mystery Night

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

You know a program is going to be fun when people line up to have their pictures taken with the guest speakers.Ron Handberg, left, and Don Shelby, retired WCCO-TV colleagues and friends, talk about television and writing books Monday during a sold-out Monday Mystery Night reading series at Axel’s restaurant in Mendota. (Mary Ann Grossman / Pioneer Press)That’s what happened last week at the monthly Monday Night Mystery reading series at Axel’s Restaurant in Mendota, when WCCO alums and longtime friends Ron Handberg and Don Shelby presented a mostly light-hearted program about writing, television and the emotional price reporters pay for doing their jobs.“I’m in the position of introducing men who need no introduction,” said host Rob Younghans, handing the mic to the two men who helped shape WCCO-TV into a winner of Peabody Awards and national Emmys.Looking relaxed and comfortable with one another, Handberg and Shelby together represent nearly a ce...

Dedicated pickleball courts at new Highland Bridge park are a first for St. Paul

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

A new city park at Highland Bridge features St. Paul’s first three regulation pickleball courts, as well as a traditional playground, outdoor basketball court and picnic tables.There are about a dozen locations throughout the city where outdoor pickleball courts are striped onto existing tennis courts, “but the tennis nets are a little higher,” said Clare Cloyd, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Parks and Rec. “It’s not exactly the same game. These are the first that are specifically designed and built as pickleball courts.”Assembly Union Park in Highland Bridge features the St. Paul park system’s first regulation pickleball courts that aren’t striped atop existing tennis courts. A grand opening for the park was scheduled for July 22, 2023. (courtesy of the City of St. Paul)The official grand opening of Assembly Union Park is set for 11 a.m. Saturday, with Parks and Rec Director Andy Rodriguez, Council Member Chris Tolbert and Tony Romens, a ...

Nighttime rescue of three from Arkansas River in Brown’s Canyon after raft flips

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

Three people, a guide and two passengers, were rescued at night after a raft flipped on the Arkansas River in Brown’s Canyon.Jeff Hammond, a river ranger with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, was getting ready for bed about 10 p.m. July 6 when his phone rang, according to a CPW news release. The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office called, notifying Hammond of the incident and requesting his expertise and aid.“They told me a boat with three people in it had flipped in Zoom Flume in Browns Canyon,” Hammond said in the Friday news release. “They had made contact with one person and two were unaccounted for. All three were still in the canyon and needed to be rescued. So I quickly got back in uniform, grabbed my gear and jumped in my truck.”Late-night rescues of boaters on the Arkansas River are unordinary and the 13-mile, boulder-strewn stretch between Buena Vista and Salida, where the search and rescue was carried out, presents dangerous challen...

Colorado hiring holding a recession at bay, for now

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

Colorado employers added jobs for the third month in a row, ending a streak going back to last fall of up and down hiring, according to a monthly update from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.Colorado gained a net 4,700 nonfarm jobs in June, according to preliminary estimates, which followed a gain of 8,600 jobs in May and 6,100 in April. After a weak first quarter where only 600 jobs were added, the state added 19,400 in the second.Over the past year, employers in the state have added 42,400 jobs on a seasonally-adjusted basis with two sectors dominating. Local governments have added 19,500 jobs and leisure and hospitality is up by 25,000, mostly because of strong hiring at restaurants and more recently at hotels.“We are starting to see a strong rebound in hotel employment. Travel is coming back,” said Ryan Gedney, a senior labor economist with the state on a news call Friday morning.For the month, leisure and hospitality added a net 1,700 jobs, while loca...

Exclusive: Kroger and Albertsons CEOs give details on controversial $25 billion merger

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen and Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran pledged to lower prices, pay employees’ retirement pension funds, respect their union contracts and not to lay off frontline associates if their proposed grocery merger prevails.Nine months after the announcement of the almost $25 billion deal, the executives sat down for the first time with a newspaper on Friday to provide updates on the merger process. If successful, the deal would directly impact Coloradans – Kroger serves as the parent company of King Soopers, the state’s largest grocery store chain headquartered in Denver, while Safeway operates under Albertsons Companies Inc.But the pair face a tough road ahead with Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons – a move first made public in October. The deal has attracted the ire of unions and farmers fearful of the possible consequences, including job losses, the proliferation of food deserts and jumps in prices.The merger has also earned the skepticism of go...

Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann gets protective order on man she accuses of harassment

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

A judge this week granted Thornton’s mayor, Jan Kulmann, a permanent civil protection order against a 29-year-old man she accuses of harassing her at city events over the last six weeks.The order against Dariush Namazi, who satirically calls himself “Danny Kulmann” and ironically claims to be the mayor’s political ally, requires him to stay at least 15 feet away from the Kulmann.It was issued on Tuesday by Adams County Magistrate Michael Garlan and follows up on a temporary protection order that was issued against Namazi on June 22.“The first time I saw Mr. Namazi was on June 3 during Thorntonfest,” Kulmann told The Denver Post. “He started with an intentionally misleading online persona shortly after that. He’s been coming to city events, including our concerts and movies, since then.”Kulmann, who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican hopeful in the 8th Congressional District race last year, said Namazi has “blocked her exits”...

How to use AI for family time

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

Last week, I walked you through how to turn artificial intelligence into a tutor and research assistant. In the final installment of our how-to editions, we’ll take what we’ve learned and use it to make the most of family time.We’ll focus on a few tasks that can take up a lot of mental bandwidth at home.Weekly meal planning is a major chore, and gift giving can be daunting, with various birthdays and holidays throughout the year. And any adult who has read books for children knows that it can become repetitive, and the books aren’t always relatable to a child’s situation or growing pains.Here’s how AI can help. Meal-planning superpowers Foodies and private chefs have been enthusiastically using AI to sketch out comprehensive meal plans that consider people’s preferences and dietary restrictions. (Cooks are less gung ho about AI-generated recipes, which can be a disaster if a bot screws up.)It turns out that brainstorming meals is a borderline superpower for a chatbot like ChatGPT or...

OpenAI worries about what its chatbot will say about people’s faces

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

The chatbot that millions of people have used to write term papers, computer code and fairy tales doesn’t just do words. ChatGPT, the artificial-intelligence-powered tool from OpenAI, can analyze images, too — describing what’s in them, answering questions about them and even recognizing specific people’s faces. The hope is that, eventually, someone could upload a picture of a broken-down car’s engine or a mysterious rash and ChatGPT could suggest the fix.What OpenAI doesn’t want ChatGPT to become is a facial recognition machine.For the past few months, Jonathan Mosen has been among a select group of people with access to an advanced version of the chatbot that can analyze images. On a recent trip, Mosen, an employment agency CEO who is blind, used the visual analysis to determine which dispensers in a hotel room bathroom were shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. It went far beyond the performance of image analysis software he had used in the past.“It told me the milliliter ca...

49ers training camp: Will rookie tight ends become George Kittle’s top wingmen?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

SANTA CLARA — Three summers in a row, George Kittle has welcomed NFL tight ends to work out in Nashville, near his offseason home.Earlier this year, the 49ers drafted two tight ends – Cameron Latu and Brayden Willis — to learn from, back up, and complement Kittle.“They’re both great, both high character guys, both have great work ethics, and they learn really well,” Kittle said as the offseason program wound down in June.If Latu or Willis is really ready for the NFL, then incumbents Ross Dwelley and Charlie Woerner could be pressed more than ever for spots on a championship-focused roster.If that foursome isn’t enough, also on the radar is Troy Fumagalli, a practice-squad player last season.Kittle is coming off a strong season, highlighted by a career-high 11 touchdown catches and the requisite accolades (Pro Bowl, Second-Team All-Pro). Seven of those scores came in the final four games of the regular season as Brock Purdy’s trusted target; none of Kittle’s 10 playoff ca...

Editorial: U.S. techs’ AI pledge provides glimmer of hope for safeguards

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:12:51 GMT

At long last there is a glimmer of hope that artificial intelligence can be developed in a manner that generates public trust and ensures cybersecurity.But it’s still just a glimmer.Big Tech leaders have long acknowledged the societal risks of the technology. Friday’s announcement at the White House that seven leading U.S. artificial intelligence companies have pledged to build safeguards into their AI products marks a welcome first step toward addressing the dangers.The companies — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI — now must follow through on their voluntary commitments by working with the Biden administration and Congress on binding guardrails that prevent the sort of debacles that have plagued social media companies.The five most critical elements of the eight-part agreement include:• Implementing watermarks or some other means of identifying AI-generated content.• Independent testing of AI products for safety before they a...