Wisconsin man charged in hotel standoff
ST. PAUL — A Wisconsin man has been charged in a St. Paul hotel standoff with police.
Thirty-six-year-old Joshua Hacken, of Dresser, Wis., is accused of pulling a gun on an employee at Days Inn on Sunday when confronted in a hotel room. A complaint says Hacken fled from the pool area into another room when police arrived and held them at bay for more than three hours.
Police negotiators were able to convince Hacken to surrender. He's charged with second-degree assault and illegally possessing a firearm. It's not immediately clear if Hacken has an attorney. — Associated Press
Officials investigate dissolved foundation
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ST. PAUL — A philanthropist who donated $50 million to help build the University of Minnesota's children's hospital has dissolved her charitable foundation and given the remaining $1.77 million to her father's new medical device company.
Caroline Amplatz's decision last month began an investigation by Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson's office, which has asked her to retrieve the foundation's assets before it reviews the legality of giving money intended for charitable purposes to a private company.
Amplatz said in an email Thursday that she returned the funds to the Caroline Kid's Foundation's bank account to comply with a mandatory waiting period.
Amplatz, who is an attorney, said the transfer isn't illegal and that the issue entails determining how to pay future taxes, which she said she intends to do.
She has given generously to a variety of Twin Cities organizations over the past decade. She has donated to environmental, education and arts causes, including $3 million to the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts in Minneapolis.
The foundation, to which she said she is the sole donor, has given away about $1.76 million since 2008, according to annual reports filed with the Attorney General's Office. Other donations, such as the large gift to the children's hospital, were made as an individual unrelated to the foundation.
Her wealth comes from the medical inventions of her father, Kurt Amplatz, who founded AGA Medical with his daughter's then husband, Franck Gougeon.
After her divorce, Amplatz gave money as an individual donor and through her foundation, which she established in 2008. She said she is dissolving the foundation now because it "interferes" with her goals. — Associated Press
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Deputy injured when helicopter is struck by gunfire
FOSSTON — Authorities have arrested a man suspected of shooting a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter in northern Minnesota.
Clearwater County sheriff's officials say a Polk County deputy was injured, either by a gunshot or by flying glass when one of the helicopter's windows shattered Monday. The deputy was taken to a hospital in Fosston for treatment.
Authorities say the pilot was flying over an area of suspected drug activity when the chopper was hit twice by gunfire from a high-powered rifle. The pilot wasn't injured.
Sheriff's deputies searched the area where the shots were fired and arrested a 71-year-old man they found hiding in some woods near a cabin. — Associated Press
Group files appeal over flood diversion permit
FARGO, N.D. — A water resource district representing people whose land would be flooded by a Red River diversion channel says the North Dakota state engineer should not have approved a construction permit for part of the project.
An appeal filed in state court last week by the Richland County Water Resource District contends that the engineer's office failed to give the group notice of the application for the project, as required by law. The document says notice was provided to the neighboring Cass County Joint Water Resource District.
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The $2.1 billion channel is designed to move water around the flood-prone Fargo and Moorhead metropolitan area, but would need a staging area in Cass and Richland counties to store water in times of serious flooding.
"I'd say that getting 10,000 acres of our land flooded makes us a part of the project," said Don Moffet, district chairman for the Richland water group.
Garland Erbele, the state engineer, and Liz Brocker, spokeswoman for the North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, declined to comment on the appeal.
Erbele on July 8 granted the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Authority's application for a permit to build an inlet structure. The Richland County group says that approval is premature because the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has not completed its permitting process.
"If Minnesota doesn't permit this project, all this construction will be a massive waste of taxpayer money," Moffet said.
Moffet said his group is not opposed to flood protection for the Fargo-Moorhead area, "but not to the detriment of Richland County." — Associated Press
