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Eagan man accused of suffocating infant son
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A 30-year-old Eagan man was charged with manslaughter and child neglect on Tuesday after allegedly suffocating his 2-month-old son while falling asleep with him after a night of drinking.
Nathan Savage was charged in Dakota County District Court with three counts of second-degree manslaughter, a felony, one count of gross misdemeanor child neglect and one count of gross misdemeanor child endangerment, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press (http://bit.ly/1lxfkQWhttp://bit.ly/1lxfkQW ).
According to the charges, Savage, his fiancee and friends had been drinking for the couple's anniversary. Prosecutors say Nolan Sikich was fussing, so Savage gave him a bottle and took him to bed with him, laying the infant's head on his chest.
The next morning, on Oct. 19, he awoke to his fiancee frantically asking about the baby and Savage discovered the infant beneath him.
The boy was cold and not moving. Savage knew he was dead, he told police, because he was "white as a ghost."
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'Unsession' plan tackles laws deemed old, outdated ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — It's illegal in Minnesota to sell fruit in the wrong-sized container. Automobile bug deflectors must be a certain size and color. Motorists can't drive in neutral.
Those are just a sampling of 1,000 state laws or procedures that Gov. Mark Dayton's administration deems past their time. A team of commissioners asked lawmakers Tuesday to give the statute books an overdue cleaning.
"That's really what we see this 'Unsession' as," said Tony Sertich, the commissioner of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Agency and Dayton's point person on the governor's priority project. "It's really looking top-to-bottom, cracking open the law books and seeing every way, shape or form that we can eliminate those old things that are no longer needed, they're outdated, they're duplicative or are just plain getting in the way."
The targeted laws range from the substantive to the silly. Some proposals are in the name of efficiency while others revisit laws that haven't been enforced in decades. The law making it illegal to "drive" in neutral has been on the books since 1937 — and, in the governor's eyes, defies physics.
Several dormant advisory commissions, such as the Board of Invention and the Nuclear Waste Council, would be scrapped. Other laws that were meant to deal with long-ago or unique circumstances would be purged.
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Minn. House panel opens medical marijuana debate ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota lawmakers are renewing a debate about possible legalization of medical marijuana.
A bill to do that is on Tuesday's agenda of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
In 2009, lawmakers passed a bill to allow medical marijuana. But then-Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed it over concerns raised by law enforcement. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton has also aligned himself with authorities.
Some police worry that legal medical marijuana would be used illicitly and end up in the hands of school students.
Yet some flexibility might exist among law enforcers. Rep. Carly Melin of Hibbing says the state association of police chiefs has been willing to discuss marijuana extracts in a pill, liquid or inhaler. And the Minnesota County Attorneys Association is also open to that idea.
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Death of student at swimming class investigated ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (AP) — Police and school district officials are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a 12-year-old boy who was pulled from a middle school swimming pool in St. Louis Park.
Superintendent Rob Metz said in a statement that the teacher who was on duty at the pool when Abdullahi Charif was found last Thursday has been placed on administrative leave. The pool remains closed. The boy was found unresponsive at the bottom of the pool by the gym teacher as a swimming class was wrapping up. The teacher pulled the child out of the pool and began CPR. Charif died over the weekend.
KSTP-TV (http://bit.ly/1q0XW7Uhttp://bit.ly/1q0XW7U ) reports the family's attorney, Fred Pritzker, says the gym teacher was not a certified lifeguard and was the only adult present with as many as 30 seventh-graders in the swimming class.
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Information from: KSTP-TV, http://www.kstp.comhttp://www.kstp.com
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