Latest Minnesota news, sports, business and entertainment at 9:20 p.m. CDT

AP-US-DAUNTE-WRIGHT-POLICING

City where Daunte Wright was killed enacts policing changes

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (AP) — The Minneapolis suburb where Black motorist Daunte Wright was killed by an officer has enacted its first step in a plan to change policing in the city. Brooklyn Center announced Tuesday that officers are now instructed to release people who are cited for low-level crimes and only take them into custody if required by law. The policy also requires officers to attempt to deescalate situations. Mayor Mike Elliot says this is the first step in moving toward more equity in public safety. The citation policy is part of a city plan to change policing, introduced after Wright was killed in April by an officer who said she meant to use her Taser instead of her handgun.

AP-US-ENBRIDGE-LINE-3

Enbridge: Line 3 replacement complete; oil will flow Friday

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Enbridge says the upgrade of its Line 3 pipeline across Minnesota is “substantially complete” and that it will start filling with oil on Friday. The Canadian-based company’s president and CEO, Al Monaco, said in a statement Wednesday that the pipeline “will soon deliver the low-cost and reliable energy that people depend on every day.” The project was completed despite stiff opposition from tribes, environmentalists and others that argued it violated treaty rights, would worsen climate change and would risk spills. They’re vowing to keep fighting even though their legal options are fading. More than 900 people have been arrested or ticketed at protests along the route since construction began in December.

OBIT-INDIGENOUS FILMMAKER

Indigenous filmmaker’s ‘every breath’ a fight for his people

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — An Indigenous filmmaker who helped draw worldwide attention to the concerns of Native Americans fighting an oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation has died. Myron Dewey was a citizen of the Walker River Paiute Tribe. He passed away Sunday after his car crashed in rural Nevada. The 49-year-old won acclaim for his footage of the 2016 demonstrations over the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. His visuals of Native Americans being sprayed with water cannons in freezing weather were widely viewed. Dewey’s work on the protests was part of a long career of chronicling Indigenous and environmental issues.

TASK FORCE SHOOTING-MINNEAPOLIS

Central Minnesota prosecutor reviewing Winston Smith death

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota prosecutor is reviewing evidence in law enforcement’s fatal shooting of Winston Smith Jr. during an arrest. Crow Wing County Attorney Donald Ryan said he’ll review the evidence on his own and hopes to have a charging decision by mid-October. Ryan said he was asked to take the case because counties closer to the Twin Cities had conflicts. Members of a U.S. Marshals Service task force shot Smith in June. Authorities have said Smith fired a gun, but a witness disputes that. Ryan said he’s had “a few” police deadly force cases in his decades as Crow Wing’s top prosecutor and doesn’t recall ever bringing charges.

DEER-CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE

Deer from farm with wasting disease wind up in Minnesota

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — State wildlife officials say two Minnesota farms received deer from a Wisconsin farm where chronic wasting disease was detected last month. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says the news was “extremely concerning” and the agency is “actively considering management responses” to the threat facing the state’s wild deer population. A recent report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said that the Wisconsin deer farm where the disease was detected sold nearly 400 deer to 40 farms across seven states in the past five years. Two of those farms were in Minnesota.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-MINNESOTA-LAWSUIT

Minnesota health care workers sue to block vaccine mandate

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Nearly 200 Minnesota health workers are suing their employers to block a pending requirement that they be vaccinated against COVID-19 or risk getting fired. The lawsuit was filed in federal court late Monday against federal officials and about 20 providers that operate hospitals and clinics across Minnesota. It contends the lack of alternatives to vaccination infringes on the constitutional rights of those employees, who range from doctors and nurses to technicians. Minnesota Public Radio reports the lawsuit seeks a temporary injunction to bar any terminations or steps to put unvaccinated health workers on unpaid leave while the case plays out.

MINE SAFETY GRANTS

US mine safety grants totaling $1M awarded to 13 recipients

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Thirteen grants totaling $1 million have been awarded to promote U.S. mine safety. The U.S. Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration announced the funding Tuesday through its Brookwood-Sago grant program. The program was established in 2006 in honor of 25 miners who died in 2001 in Brookwood, Alabama, and in 2006 in Buckhannon, West Virginia. Among the grants awarded were $140,000 to the University of Arizona in Tucson, $130,000 to the Marshall University Research Corp. in Huntington, West Virginia, and $120,000 to the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City. Other grant recipients are in Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-MINNESOTA

Minnesota coronavirus cases top 700K; ICU cases dip to 197

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota’s total number of confirmed coronavirus cases has topped the 700,000 mark, while the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care at Minnesota hospitals fell below 200 for the first time in two weeks. The Minnesota Department of Health on Tuesday reported 6,203 new cases to raise the state’s total to 706,158 laboratory confirmed cases. The state also recorded 11 new deaths to raise the state’s cumulative toll to 8,109. The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care fell to 196, with a total of 767 people hospitalized amid the surge in cases caused by the delta variant.