Good morning!

Snow tapers off across Minnesota this morning, and it'll be much quieter in terms of the weather for the rest of this week. Highs today will range from 18 to 24. Get the latest from the Updraft weather blog. 

Amid a surge in carjackings in Minneapolis, one victim recalls the dreadful moment of a daytime attack. "Before I could even open it he came at me yelling with a gun extended in his right hand towards my face, saying ‘give me the keys, give me the keys,'" said Sarah, a south Minneapolis woman who experienced an armed carjacking earlier this month.

The Minneapolis Police Department reports the number of carjackings in the city skyrocketed in 2020, up 320 percent from the year before. After the incident, Sarah says she is too scared to drive alone. She hopes sharing her story will encourage others to be aware of their surroundings. 

Hope and uncertainty are the best words to describe Minnesota’s COVID-19 data this week. Tuesday’s report marked the first time since early October that new daily case counts fell below 1,000, but it came on low testing, making it difficult to draw any conclusions.

• 5,196 deaths (36 more)
• 411,110 positive cases (988 new), 393,506 off isolation (96 percent)
• 5.5 million tests, 3 million people tested (about 52 percent of the population)
• 6.3 percent seven-day positive test rate (officials find 5 percent concerning)

State health officials will brief reporters on the latest COVID-19 update at 11 a.m. today. Listen to the conference call live on the radio and MPRNews.org.

The COVID-19 variant widespread in the U.K. has been reported in the U.S. for the first time. The variant was found in a Colorado man in his 20s who is in isolation southeast of Denver and has no travel history, state health officials said. Scientists say they believe the variant is more contagious than previously identified strains. The vaccines being given now are thought to be effective against the variant, according to Colorado health officials.

From our series Portraits of Valor featuring Minnesota's World War II veterans: Meet this St. Paul couple who separately fought in the war, and met and fell in love after coming home. 

Doris and Richard Edge were both called to service during World War II. As Richard fought his way across Europe, Doris rose through the ranks in one of the military’s first programs for women. Our photojournalist Evan Frost interviewed the Edges earlier this year. Listen to his conversation with Doris and Richard and read more about their stories here. 

'This is where my roots are': How the pandemic brought a Dakota woman home after 40 years.  Back in March, our reporter Dan Kraker met Pat Northrup in her Cloquet, Minn., apartment where she danced a jingle dress dance with her family and friends. Since then, the pandemic has upended her life; someone in her apartment contracted the virus and Northrup, who's now 70, decided to move to her daughter's house, only a few miles west of the Lower Sioux Indian Community where she grew up.