Fairmont announces road closure

FAIRMONT — North Prairie Avenue in Fairmont is closed at the railroad tracks through Sunday. Union Pacific crews will be replacing the crossing.

Traffic will be directed to North North Avenue.

Anyone with questions may contact City Hall at (507) 238-9461.

Man fatally shot outside church

ST. PAUL (AP) — Minnesota police say a man who was leaving a Bible study with his young daughter and father was fatally shot outside his church in St. Paul.

The homicide Wednesday night is the sixth fatal shooting in St. Paul this month. Police don’t believe the latest shooting outside St. Albans Church of God in Christ was random.

The victim’s father, who has a permit to carry, pulled out a handgun and returned fire as his son ran away. The Star Tribune reports officers following a trail of blood that led to the victim, who died at the scene next to his Bible.

Church elder Frank Frazier identified the victim as his cousin, 41-year-old RayVell Carter. Bystanders protected Carter’s daughter, who is younger than 10, until police arrived. There have been no arrests.

Court suspends mine permits

ST. PAUL (AP) — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has handed environmental groups a victory by suspending two key permits for a planned PolyMet copper-nickel mine ahead of a hearing next month.

The appeals court put PolyMet’s dam safety permit and its permit to mine on hold, ruling Wednesday that the Department of Natural Resources failed to adequately consider two important developments that happened after the agency issued the permits in November 2018.

One was the massive failure of a tailings basin dam at an iron mine in Brazil in January that was somewhat similar to the dam PolyMet plans to build near Hoyt Lakes, which is the Iron Range about 190 miles (305 kilometers) northeast of Minneapolis. The other is the acquisition of a majority stake in PolyMet by the Swiss commodities giant Glencore in June, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

The court said that at the Oct. 23 hearing, the DNR should be prepared to address whether it should conduct a full-scale review of the similarities between the dam in Brazil and PolyMet’s planned Minnesota dam, and whether Glencore should be added to the permits.

“Although the parties disagree about the import of the developments, there is no dispute that the developments warrant the DNR’s consideration,” the court wrote.