NEWS
--Good Luck to the Upsala Cardinal softball team competing at the State Tournament today in Mankato. Upsala opens with Randolph today at 1:30pm on AM960 KLTF and streaming at fallsradio.com. Also no matter what happens in the first game they will play again tonight at 8:15pm and that game will be on Q92 WYRQ and fallsradio.com. If they win today they would play again on Friday.
--Congratulations to the Little Falls Flyer Baseball Team coming from behind in both games last night to first beat Rocori 6-1 after being down 1-0 then down 9-1 early in the second game, Little Falls battled back to win 13-9 and win the Section 8AAA Title. The Little Falls Flyer are heading to the State Baseball Tournament which begins on Tuesday in Jordan. The Flyers will not know who they play until the seeding of teams are done which will be on Saturday. The games will be broadcast next week on Little Falls Radio stay tuned for details.
--A 24-year-old Rogers man was sentenced to 180 days in jail to be served in three stints in the Stearns County prison for a high-profile crime from last year. Logan Oliver Smith was one of two people who broke into the Islamic Center of St. Cloud in September 2022 in the middle of the night while high on drugs. They vandalized and desecrated the building, including holy objects near the altar. They were tracked back to a local hotel room and arrested the next day. Smith pled guilty to second-degree burglary of a religious building in February. The sentence handed down earlier this week is a departure from the minimum 33 months suggested by sentencing guidelines. Mahler said Monday that Smith was amenable to probation and treatment for chemical dependency. Smith’s lawyer, Stacy Lundeen, filed a motion for downward departure on June 1st saying her client regretted what he had done and is not prejudiced against Muslims. The motion said drugs, not hate, were a factor in the break-in. Judge Mary Mahler notes that the prosecutor objects to the departure. The jail terms begin June 19th, in November, and next June as well. If Smith violates his probation he faces a 39-month prison sentence.
--An Android operating system software update is leading to a surge in accidental 911 emergency calls. In May, Google added a trigger where dispatchers are automatically notified when the power button is pressed five times in quick succession on a cell phone. Benton County Sheriff Troy Heck said the change has had quite the effect both locally and across the state. Heck explains what to do if it happens to you. “If you hang up, that actually triggers us to have to call you back and it creates more work for our telecommunicators. So we do ask that if you do accidentally dial 911, please just stay on the line and explain it was an accident.” An Apple iOS update earlier this year that sought to automatically call 911 in a car crash was being triggered at amusement parks and by riders on ATVs and other off-road vehicles. Heck says law enforcement at the national level has organizations consult on these types of changes and the unintended consequences they can create. He says everyone is trying to minimize situations like the surge in unintentional 911 calls.
--The next blood drive at the St. Francis Convent will be coming up later this month. Monday, June 19th from 1-7pm, Tuesday, June 20th from 12-6pm and Wednesday June 21st from 8:30-2:30pm. Appointments are required by contact Sister Julien at 320-632-0663 or by going to the redcrossblood.org website for further information.
--Brewskis for Newskis fundraiser for the Nordic Ski Team of Little Falls is tonight 4-9pm at Starry Eyed Brewery all are welcome.
--On Sunday the Benton County Sheriff’s Office responded to a motor vehicle crash that resulted in the death of a motorcyclist. About 6pm, Benton County deputies were sent to an intersection in Maywood Township on the report of a crash involving a motorcycle and a pickup truck. On arrival they found 57-year-old Ricky Lee Karsch of Rice, unresponsive with life-threatening injuries. Deputies learned that Karsch was the driver and lone occupant of the motorcycle involved in the crash. Karsch was airlifted from the scene by North Memorial Air Care for transport to a hospital but was dead on arrival. 20-year-old Ryan Michael Renstrom Jr. of Maple Grove. was the driver of the pickup in the crash. Renstrom’s vehicle was pulling a boat on a trailer at the time of the crash and Renstrom reported suffering minor injuries as a result of the crash.
--Brainerd law enforcement and Minnesota Department of Public Safety are warning those online and those with children and teenagers online there has been an uptick in the rise in sextortion.
Where once sextortion was a means to obtain sexually explicit images from victims, it is now being used as a form of monetary blackmail. And in some cases, it’s led to the deaths of its victims.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety reported law enforcement nationwide received more than 7,000 reports related to online financial sextortion involving children in 2022, according to the FBI. They identified at least 3,000 victims, primarily boys. More than a dozen children committed suicide because they felt there was no way out from the sextortion scheme. The FBI describes sextortion as an online crime where someone convinces a person under the age of 18 to share sexual pictures or perform sexual acts on a webcam. When targeting victims for financial gain, typically a scammer will pose as a young girl on a social media platform and they will work to convince the victim they are in a type of relationship with them. Lately Once a criminal receives the explicit images they will begin blackmailing their victim, threatening to release the pictures if their monetary demands aren't met. Even if they are met they continue to harass the victim and demand more money after the fact.
BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT
--Kris Crosby and Latasha Nelson of Little Falls, a girl born June 3rd.
DEATH NOTICES
--Greg James Kloss, age 54 of Royalton.
WEATHER
TODAY= partly sunny, hazy, PM shower possible, high 79.
TONIGHT= isolated shower, then cloudy, low near 57.
FRIDAY= sunny and more humid, t-storm possible, high 81, low 53.
SATURDAY= isolated shower, partly sunny, high 77, low 51.
SUNDAY= sunny and cooler, high near 70, low near 50.
SPORTS
TWINS= Tampa Bay walked off Twins 2-1 last night. Twins wrap up series with Tampa Bay today, pregame at 11:30am on Q92 WYRQ.
WNBA= the game between the Lynx and New York was postponed due to the poor air quality in New York from the Canadian wildfires bringing in heavy smoke and haze the New York area.
WWE= Wrestling legend Khosrow Vaziri known throughout the world as the Iron Sheik died yesterday at 81. Sheik came from Iran in 1970s and worked and lived in Minnesota with Verne Gagne training many wrestlers before become a pro wrestler himself, he married a Minnesota girl and then became World Wrestling Champion in 1983 beating Princeton, Minnesota's Bob Backlund.