WILLMAR, Minn. (AP) - A study will be conducted to determine if a 17-year-old boy should be tried as an adult in the stabbing death of a Willmar college football player.  Judge Jon Stafsholt ordered that the certification study be completed within 30 days, and that the boy remain at Prairie Lakes Youth Programs. The boy made his first appearance Tuesday on a second-degree murder charge in Kandiyohi County District Court.  According to the petition, the teen was in a group that went to an apartment complex in Willmar early Sunday. There the boy had an altercation with 21-year-old Adam Milton, during which racial slurs were exchanged. Both the teen and Milton are African-American.  Witnesses say punches were thrown and the boy ran from Milton, who caught him. During a scuffle the Ridgewater College football player was stabbed twice in the chest. He died at Rice hospital.

ST. PAUL (AP) - The Department of Natural Resources is reporting bird die-offs on two Minnesota lakes. Officials say dead and dying double-crested cormorants,pelicans, ring-billed gulls and a great blue heron were found last week at Minnesota Lake in Faribault County and Pigeon Lake in Meeker County.  DNR biologists say the dead birds included 687 cormorants and 37 pelicans. DNR workers discovered the dead and dying birds while banding pelicans. Initial tests for avian influenza were negative, but officials say the cause of the bird illness hasn't been determined yet. The DNR, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are cleaning up the sites and collecting more samples for lab analysis.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann is back from a congressional tour of energy sites in Colorado and Alaska.  Bachmann says Congress should open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and allow for the expansion of oil exploration in other areas - moves she says could cut gas prices in half.

ST. PAUL (AP) - A Stillwater teacher will be Minnesota's nominee for National Teacher of the Year for 2009. Education Minnesota selected Derek Olson to take over as Minnesota's Teacher of the Year. Olson replaces Carleen Gulstad of Hopkins, who resigned the title for personal reasons.

ST. PAUL (AP) - No charges are expected in the death of a St. Paul toddler who was struck by a falling television. Police say the 2-year-old girl had opened a dresser drawer when a TV on top of the dresser slid off on top of her. The girl died at Regions Hospital.  Her name has not been released.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Minnesota Orchestra has canceled the final concert of the season at the Lake Harriet Band Shell in Minneapolis, because of budget cuts. The concert was scheduled for Sunday, September 14th. Instead, the concert season at Lake Harriet will close with its annual 9-11 tribute on September 11th.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Shelters in south Texas and across the border in Mexico have been filling up as wind and rain from Hurricane Dolly sweep in from the Gulf of Mexico. The causeway linking South Padre Island to the Texas mainland was shut down last night due to high winds. Officials fear levees in the Rio Grande Valley might not hold.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional analysts estimate the housing rescue bill the House votes on today could cost 25 billion dollars. The government would help struggling homeowners get new, cheaper loans and offer a financial helping hand to troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

JERUSALEM (AP) - Barack Obama's visit to Israel today has included a stop at a memorial in Jerusalem where he placed a wreath in memory of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Obama has moved on to the West bank for meetings with top Palestinian leaders.

SINGAPORE (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice greeted her North Korean counterpart at an Asian security conference in Singapore today. She's pressing the North to prove it's been telling the truth about its past nuclear activities by agreeing to a verification proposal that the U.S. drafted.

ELDORADO, Texas (AP) - More legal trouble for Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamist sect who has already been convicted in Utah and is awaiting trial in Arizona. A grand jury has indicted Jeffs on charges of sexually assaulting a girl in Texas. Four of his followers face the same charge. And a fifth is accused of failing to report child abuse.

 

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)