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AP-US-ACTIVISION-BLIZZARD-UNION-ELECTION

Video game workers at Call of Duty maker OK’d for union vote

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A labor board official has ruled that a small group of Wisconsin-based video game workers can vote to form what could be the first union at a major U.S. video game publisher. A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board on Friday ordered a May election for quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard’s Raven Software, which develops the popular Call of Duty game franchise. The unionization campaign by 21 employees at Raven’s office in Middleton, Wisconsin, has been part of a broader internal shakeup at Activision Blizzard, a Santa Monica, California-based gaming giant with roughly 10,000 employees worldwide.

13-YEAR-OLD COLLEGE GRAD

13-year-old Minnesota youth set to graduate from college

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A 13-year-old boy from Minnesota is on the verge of earning his bachelor’s degree from college _ with a major in physics and a minor in math. Elliott Tanner is maintaining a 3.78 grade point average at the University of Minnesota and is participating in undergraduate research while also tutoring classmates. He wants to be high-energy theoretical physicist and ultimately a professor of physics at the university. Elliott’s mom, Michelle Tanner, said he started reading and doing math by age 3. Following a few years of homeschooling and a high school curriculum that took him two years to complete, he began taking college classes when he was 9.

STATE OF STATE-MINNESOTA

Walz to deliver 1st State of State at Capitol since 2019

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will return to the House chamber Sunday to deliver his annual State of the State address for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The Democratic governor’s address will be the last of his first term before facing a stiff challenge from Republicans later this year. Walz is expected to highlight his budget plans and call for compromise in the divided Legislature. The address comes with four weeks left in the session as lawmakers figure out how to use the state’s $9.25 billion budget surplus and more than $1 billion in federal pandemic funds.

FRATERNITY SUED

Three defendants settle in Missouri hazing lawsuit

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Three of 23 defendants have settled their part in a lawsuit over a University of Missouri fraternity pledge party that left a student from Minnesota with brain injuries. An attorney for the family of Daniel Santulli filed a motion Wednesday to approve the settlement. The terms of the settlement, which must be approved by a court, were not released.Santulli, of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, was found in cardiac arrest inside a car at University Hospital in Columbia on Oct. 20. The lawsuit alleges Santulli and his pledge class at Phi Gamma Delta were each forced to drink a bottle of hard liquor.

CLOSED DOOR POLICE SHOOTING

Duluth officer acquitted in shooting of man through door

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — A jury has acquitted a Duluth police officer of two felony charges for shooting a man through a closed door in 2020. Tyler Leibfried was found not guilty on Friday of one count of second-degree assault and one count of the intentional discharge of a firearm endangering others. Leibfried was responding to a report of a domestic argument when he shot Jared Fyle through the door of Fyle’s apartment. Fyle had pounded his door shut with a hatchet and turned the deadbolt, but Leibfried believed the two bangs were gunshots and fired through the door a total of six times, wounding Fyle.

GIRL FATALLY SHOT

Officials: 9-year-old dies in accidental shooting in MN

LYND, Minn. (AP) — Authorities say a 9-year-old girl has died after she was accidentally shot at a home in southwestern Minnesota. According to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office, the shooting happened Monday afternoon at a residence near Lynd, a town southwest of Marshal. The girl was taken by air to a hospital and died Tuesday. She has not been identified. Sheriff’s officials say the shooting has been classified as accidental, but the circumstances of the incident remain under investigation. Authorities have not disclosed who fired the fatal shot or how the girl or anyone in the home was able to gain access to the gun.

FIVE DEAD-MINNESOTA

Police in Minnesota say man killed 4 relatives, self

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Police in Minnesota say a man killed his aunt and uncle, two young cousins and their dog before killing himself at their home in Duluth. Police Chief Mike Tusken said at a news conference Thursday that 29-year-old Brandon Taylor Cole-Skogstad killed his relatives in their beds sometime Tuesday night, then shot himself as police knocked on the door around midday Wednesday. Before he died, Cole-Skogstad posted a message on Facebook saying that he had made “the absolutely horrid choice” to kill himself and his relatives. He also wrote that he had “suffered many years of mental illness” but rarely sought help “because I felt I never deserved it.”

FOOD FRAUD-MINNESOTA

Man targeted in meals fraud probe faces passport charge

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man who authorities say is a target in a sweeping investigation into alleged fraud in a student meals program has been arrested on a passport charge. Federal prosecutors say 49-year-old Mohamed Jama Ismail was charged with making a false statement when he applied for a new passport in March — after authorities seized his passport in January. Ismail was arrested Wednesday at the airport. His attorney, Patrick Cotter, says Ismail’s motive was to go see his family, not flee the country. Ismail is one of the owners of Empire Cuisine & Market. Court documents unsealed in January say Ismail and his partners misappropriated more than $11 million that was intended for Feeding Our Future.