July 8, 2021

Tonight will be mostly clear with thunderstorms likely in the southwest. Lows range to 40s in the northeast and near 60 in southwest Minnesota. Friday will be mostly sunny with a chance of showers and thunderstorms in southern Minnesota. Highs in the mid-70s to lower 80s. Find the latest on Updraft.

We’re getting a first look at the deadly crash with a police squad car that killed a man early Tuesday, in surveillance video from a north Minneapolis gas station.

Video obtained by KARE-TV shows the intersection of Lyndale and 41st avenues as a police chase streaks through the intersection just after midnight.

The video from two cameras at the gas station shows nearby traffic slowing and stopping as the chase approached northbound on Lyndale. It shows the car police said an officer had tried to stop, and was pursuing, speed through the intersection as another vehicle approached from the east.

Police said the officer had been pursuing a carjacking and robbery suspect, and department policy required the squad’s lights and siren be activated — and the new video indicates there will likely be body camera video as well.

The crash killed 40-year-old Leneal Frazier, uncle of Darnella Frazier, the teen who recorded video of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd last year.

The attorney for the family of George Floyd announced Thursday that he’d also been retained by Frazier’s family, who said, quote, “The Frazier family and the Minneapolis community are mourning the loss of yet another Black life because of the irresponsible actions and failings of the Minneapolis Police Department.”

Officials said Minnesota will receive more than $50 million dollars in a settlement with Purdue Pharma, maker of the opioid painkiller oxycontin.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison said the settlement money, paid out over nine years, will be overseen by the state’s opioid epidemic response advisory council and will be used for addiction prevention, treatment and recovery.

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Dry conditions might mean a good year for wild rice

"It is a little bit counterintuitive perhaps, with this being an aquatic plant, but I think in most cases, years that have slightly below average precipitation tend to produce the greatest rice abundance," said Peter David, a wildlife biologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, a resource manager for eleven Ojibwe tribes in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Latest on COVID-19 in MN: Death rate falls to early pandemic lows

Minnesota’s most recent COVID-19 data continues to show the pandemic is in check, although it still may have one or two moves left. One great piece of news from Thursday’s Health Department numbers: Deaths are averaging fewer than four per day over the past reporting week — the lowest rate since April 8, 2020, back in the earliest weeks of the pandemic.

As U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, Biden is set to explain what happens now

As security conditions deteriorate in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden is defending his decision to pull U.S. troops out of America's longest-running war.

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The delta variant isn't just hyper-contagious. It also grows more rapidly inside you

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I-35W to close in south Minneapolis this weekend

Motorists, rejoice — the end is in sight for the massive four-year reconstruction of Interstate 35W in south Minneapolis. But before we reach the finish line, we'll have to deal with a few more road closures.

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