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A Woodbury teenager who won the support of an entire community after surviving a heart transplant is now accused of plotting a murder. Woodbury Police said 19-year-old Andrew Busskohl picked his victim at random and carefully planned how to kill him. "Someone tried to murder me. They were one step away from murdering me," said Jim Fratto. Fratto said he was asleep last Wednesday when he heard his patio window being smashed in around 1:30 a.m. Investigators said the window was the first step in a detailed plan to kill Fratto. "What I heard the plan was, break the window,...

An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale has hit China's Sichuan province. The tremor was felt across the entire region - shaking buildings in the capital, Beijing, as well as the Thai capital, Bangkok, and Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. US Geological Survey said the quake struck 57 miles north-west of the city of Chengdu at 2.29pm local time (6.28am GMT). Some 10 million people live in Chengdu.

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. health officials have identified a contaminant in batches of the blood thinner heparin associated with 19 deaths and are trying to determine how the chemical got into the drug. The lots of heparin, whose key ingredient was imported from China, were recalled Feb. 28, and Food and Drug Administration officials said Wednesday that no new deaths have been reported since that time. Dr. Janet Woodcock, head of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said the contaminant is oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, a chemical that does not occur naturally. Chondroitin sulfate is a natural compound that...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Abigail Taylor, the 6-year-old girl whose injury in a swimming pool led to federal legislation to make pools safer, died Thursday evening, her family's attorney said. Bob Bennett, an attorney for the Taylor family, said Abigail's parents were with her when she died at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. "The world's less better off without Abigail Taylor," Bennett said. Kara Haworth, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, confirmed that Abigail had died. She said she could not comment further. She said Abigail's doctors were not available on Friday. Abigail, of Edina, was injured June 29...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman has endorsed John McCain for president. The announcement came from McCain's campaign Sunday, two days before caucuses are held in Minnesota and more than 20 other states. Coleman had supported former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani before Giuliani dropped out of the race. In a news release, Coleman calls McCain "an effective leader who is the best person to lead the fight against radical Islamic extremism." Coleman joins Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty in endorsing McCain, who holds a strong lead in Minnesota over his rivals. A Minnesota Public Radio and Humphrey Institute poll...

A fit place to sweat Somali women coping with a far less active lifestyle in the U.S. now have a fitness class that honors Muslim beliefs. BY MARICELLA MIRANDA Pioneer Press Article Last Updated: 07/29/2007 11:57:41 PM CDT Saido Yusuf slams wooden drumsticks down on a blue aerobics ball: "Boom. Boom." She clashes the sticks together: "Snap." She repeats the steps faster and faster. It brings a smile to her face - and sweat to her brow. It's the 25-year-old's second time working out in a fitness gym. Until now, Yusuf couldn't find a workout class that gave her the...

A search warrant filed in Hennepin County connects a shooting investigation to a possible terror plot. According to court documents, four Somali teenage males were riding in a cab on June 24 the same night a man was shot in the chest around 9:00 p.m. Video surveillance at the Glendale Housing Projects captured the cab fleeing near the scene of the shooting. Police were able to identify the taxicab and located the vehicle at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport four days later. Inside the cab, police found a handwritten note describing acts of terrorism and bombings. Police questioned an 18-year-old relative...

A female worker's immigration status doesn't bar her from a filing a sexual harassment lawsuit, a federal judge in Minneapolis has ruled. Maria Torres, a cook at the Perkins Restaurant and Bakery in St. Paul's Midway neighborhood, accused her boss of making sexually suggestive remarks, touching her and showing up unannounced at her house. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Torres filed a harassment and retaliation lawsuit, alleging Perkins started investigating her immigration status only after she complained. Attorneys for Perkins tried to have the case dismissed, arguing her suspected status as an undocumented worker barred her and the...

WASHINGTON- Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who made the environment a key issue in her Senate campaign last year, proposed a national registry of greenhouse gas emissions Monday as part of an attempt to help reduce such emissions. Klobuchar's legislation, which she dubbed a "carbon counter," would help track greenhouse gases as a prelude to legislative efforts to limit emissions through a cap-and-trade or other approach. A cap-and-trade system sets limits on carbon emissions and makes companies pay for producing greenhouse gases. "If you don't know what you are looking at and can't measure it, you can't fix it," said Klobuchar, D-Minn....

ST. PAUL - A bruised 17-year-old Victoria McConnell of Longmont Colo., was in the car the night that Anne Ford Nelson crashed her car into a tree and killed herself and Victoria's younger brother. Thursday, she told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS her story. The high school senior and her brother, 13-year-old RC McConnell, were in the back seat of Nelson's car. Their mother, Mary, was in the front passenger seat when her former St. Ben's college classmate, Nelson, lost control and crashed on Mississippi Blvd. and Hartford Aves. in St. Paul. "We we're going really, really fast and I looked at...

RED WING, Minn. (AP) - A 2-year-old was injured early Tuesday when an agitated man tossed the child down a flight of stairs at police officers who were responding to a 911 call. The child was in critical condition Tuesday. Timothy Lee Staten, 25, was arrested and is being held in the Goodhue County Jail. He is facing charges of Assault and resisting arrest. Police said they were called to the man's address about 12:20 a.m. by a 911 caller who said a man was at the residence causing problems. When police arrived, a hysterical woman told them the man...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - When police arrested the man the signs of drunkeness were common - his breath smelled of alcohol, his eyes were bloodshot and his balance was off - but the charge was unusual, driving drunk on the tarmac of the international airport. According to criminal charges filed Thursday in Hennepin County District Court, airport police arrested Ronald O. Ogembo, 35 of Hopkins, on Tuesday at the Minneapolis St. Paul-International Airport. Ogembo drove a service van for airline catering company LSG Sky Chefs, a unit of the German airline Lufthansa. He acknowledged driving the van at work Tuesday and...

Special automobile seat restraints for most children until they're 9 years old would be the law of the land in Minnesota under a bill approved Monday by the state Senate. Safety advocates say that ordinary car seat belts can severely injure small children in a crash because they don't fit them. Ruptured intestines, spinal cord damage, and head and neck injuries can result from lap belts designed for adult hips that ride across children's abdomens. "It's called seat-belt syndrome," said Julie Philbrook, a Hennepin County Medical Center nurse and an expert on child passenger safety who earlier this session testified...

ST. PAUL - A Twin Cities woman's strange traffic stop has alerted authorities to a man masquerading as a cop in Superior, Wis. Aleece Rikkola, of St. Paul, says she was pulled over Saturday night. She saw what looked like a typical, undercover cop car, painted white with various mirrors and antennas. She said the man conducted himself in such a professional manner, she had no reason to believe he was a phony. Rikkola says he told her he received a call from his station saying to be on the lookout for a black Ford Tempo, like hers. He said...

For years the UAW Solidarity House in Detroit has let Marine reservists park in its lot while the reservists undergo weekend training. Now, however, WXYZ.com reports that UAW has begun placing some restrictions on reservists' parking privileges: Marines at nearby Marine Corps Reserve Center say on Tuesday morning, the director of security at the UAW told them that while they support the troops, Marines driving foreign vehicles or sporting a President George Bush bumper sticker were no longer welcome to park there. U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Joe Rutledge told Action News, "We received a phone call from the UAW, who...

CLEVELAND (AP) - Health officials are putting eleven states on the lookout for boneless chicken feet -- an Asian delicacy the government says was illegally smuggled into the country. The government banned imports of birds and poultry products from Asia last year because of bird flu. Officials are visiting hundreds of Asian restaurants and markets in Ohio today to explain the health risks. Chicken feet have already been seized at stores in Cleveland and Columbus. The Agriculture Department says a Connecticut-based importer, Food King, distributed chicken feet to 68 stores in eleven states. The company has cooperated with a voluntary...

PITTSBURGH - He could be older than Warner Bros. studio, General Motors and the Boy Scouts. He could have survived two world wars and Prohibition. He could have been dinner. AP Photo He's Bubba, a 22-pound leviathan of a lobster pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Mass., and shipped to a Pittsburgh fish market. "It is overwhelming," owner Bob Wholey said. "If you see it, you will never forget it. Customers are just in awe." On Tuesday, Wholey gave the lobster to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, which will send him to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It...

ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) - Two Northwest Airlines pilots said laser lights were shone into their cockpits as they were about to land their planes at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, authorities said. A flight from Orlando, Fla., landed safely at 7:20 p.m. EST Thursday, followed at 8 p.m. by a flight from Montego Bay, Jamaica, FBI Special Agent Terry Booth told The Detroit News. The pilots told air traffic controllers that green laser light came from an area along Interstate 94 just east of the airport. Airport security reported the incidents to the Transportation Security Administration, which in turn notified the FBI....

ST. PAUL - Gov. Tim Pawlenty is proposing Minnesota ban cigarettes infused with lime, vanilla, berry and other candy flavors. Pawlenty accuses the tobacco industry of marketing the specialty products to teens. He says tobacco companies are marketing sweetened and candy flavored cigarettes as a way to attract new smokers. The governor said he's proposing the ban after spotting an ad for the new cigarettes in a magazine geared toward teenagers. "The disgusting practice that big tobacco has undertaken to market candy-flavored and sweetened cigarettes to America's youth, this is a practice that is very troubling and it needs to...

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS - Two people are dead and four others injured in a shooting that took place outside a billiards hall. Gunfire broke out in front of Jimmy's Pro Billiards on Central Avenue in Columbia Heights at around 10 p.m. Police said it began when a group went into the pool hall and started a fight. That fight eventually moved outside, where witnesses said at least three men pulled out guns and started firing. Authorities said the groups involved in the fight were members of Hmong and Tibetan gangs. The four injured people are all hospitalized. At least one of...