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Local/state briefs

Medical examiner: Cousins died in accidental drowning

CHASKA (AP) — A medical examiner says two missing teenage cousins whose bodies were pulled from a pond in Chaska died of accidental drowning.

The Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday identified the victims as Bushra Abdi and Zeynab Abdalla, both 19.

Family members and friends held a vigil late Sunday near the pond where divers found the women’s car. Authorities began searching after tire tracks were found leading from Highway 41 to the pond.

After several hours of searching the pond, officials used a loudspeaker to tell the crowd of several hundred people, many of them from the Somali-American community, that one body had been found in the submerged car. Soon after, they announced that a second body had been found in the water nearby.

No foul play is suspected.

2 killed in car that collided with Bethel team bus

WHITEWATER, Wis. (AP) — A bus carrying the women’s volleyball team from Bethel University in Minnesota collided with a vehicle in Wisconsin over the weekend, killing the two people in the car.

Bethel Director of Athletics Bob Bjorklund said in an e-mail to faculty of the St. Paul university that all players, coaches and the bus driver returning from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater match are OK, but shaken up. The collision occurred in Rock County about 7 miles west of Whitewater Saturday night.

The sheriff’s office said the car crossed the centerline on County Road N and hit the chartered bus with 19 people on board. The 20-year-old Waterford woman driving the car and a 22-year-old Whitewater man were pronounced dead at the scene.

Housley compared Michelle Obama’s posture to a chimp in 2009

ST. PAUL (AP) — Republican Minnesota Senate hopeful Karin Housley’s campaign said Monday that a 2009 Facebook post in which she compares Michelle Obama’s posture to that of a chimpanzee was being taken out of context.

Housley’s comments about the former first lady were one of a handful of controversial social media posts first reported by The Huffington Post. She made the posts long before running for statewide office against Democratic Sen. Tina Smith or the state Senate seat she’s held since 2013.

In a string of comments, Housley wrote that then-first lady Obama should “at least stand up straight.” After referencing a Ronald Reagan movie that features a chimpanzee, Housley continued: “I think even that chimp stood up straighter than Michelle. Uh-oh, someone is going to make a comment.”

Housley also targeted former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling her a “porker in a blue pantsuit” in response to a friend’s comment that Clinton “seems to be eating well.”

Housley’s campaign spokesman Jake Schneider accused Smith’s campaign of “using an out-of-context Facebook post from 10 years ago to manufacture outrage.”

“This is what the radical left does when they are losing — they attack Republicans so they don’t have to come up with solutions to the problems Minnesotans are facing,” Schneider said.

Public polling in Minnesota has shown Smith slightly ahead of Housley as they compete in the special election to finish former Sen. Al Franken’s term. Smith was appointed to the seat in January after Franken resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations.

“Minnesotans deserve a Senator who treats everyone with respect — even if you disagree,” Smith said in a statement.

Minnesota Dem official deletes ‘guillotine’ gibe at GOP

ST. PAUL (AP) — Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party said it’s unacceptable that a party official wrote on Facebook that Republicans should be brought “to the guillotines” after Election Day.

Party spokesman William Davis wrote in reference to Republicans: “11.7 — bring them to the guillotines.”

Party executive director Corey Day said Davis regrets the post and has deleted it. Day said the comment stemmed from an inside joke with former co-workers that still violated the party’s standards for employees.

It was not clear if Davis would be disciplined. A party statement says it would have no further comment on an “internal personnel matter.”

Republicans are calling the comments “disgusting and appalling.” Kory Wood, a consultant for GOP attorney general candidate Doug Wardlow’s campaign, said calling to decapitate Republicans has no place in politics.

Minnesota man charged with rape of 12-year-old girl

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A Minnesota man has been charged with raping a 12-year-old Kansas girl who was the focus of an Amber Alert.

The Kansas City Star reported that 23-year-old Dechon Michael White, of South St. Paul, Minnesota, was booked Friday into the Johnson County, Kansas, jail, where his bond is set at $250,000.

Federal prosecutors initially charged White with kidnapping after he allegedly took a bus to Minnesota with the girl in July. She had been reported missing two days earlier in Lenexa, Kansas. The kidnapping case was dropped this summer before Kansas prosecutors filed two rape charges.

White met the girl, who is now 13, online. Prosecutors say White and the girl told the girl’s mother that he was 16.

No attorney is listed for him in online court records

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