Minnesota
St. Paul police dog demonstrations
called off at State Fair
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has asked the city’s police chief to call off demonstrations of the department’s police dogs for the rest of the Minnesota State Fair.
Carter’s press secretary, Liz Xiong, said the mayor determined it was best to discontinue the demonstrations in light of an ongoing audit of the department’s K-9 unit.
Xiong says Carter looks forward to resuming the tradition next year, after the audit is complete.
The review is underway after three instances in St. Paul in recent years of police dogs biting and injuring people who were not suspects.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports the mayor called Police Chief Todd Axtell on Monday night after hearing a showdog, which was not a St. Paul police dog, bit a child at the fair.
Minnesota man pleads guilty
in large marijuana haul
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Minnesota man arrested in central Kansas with 471 pounds of marijuana in his van has pleaded guilty to a drug charge.
Federal prosecutors say 41-year-old Mark Berg, of Coon Rapids, Minnesota, entered the plea Tuesday to one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana.
A Kansas Highway Patrol trooper stopped Berg’s van in December on Interstate 70 in Ellsworth, Kansas. Two other vehicles were traveling with the van.