The former wife of the commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Corrections was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for trying to kill their adult son, who is disabled, by crushing up her prescription anxiety medication and emptying it into his feeding bag at his group home in Vadnais Heights.

Julie Louise Myhre-Schnell, 65, had pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to first-degree attempted murder in connection with putting Lorazepamn and water in Paul Francis Schnell’s feeding bag on Dec. 3, 2023.

Myhre-Schnell faced between 12¾ and 18 years under state sentencing guidelines.

In granting a downward departure, Judge Joy Bartscher said the case was less serious than the typical charge of attempted murder, and that the sentence was “appropriate based on the facts.”

Julie Louise Myhre-Schnell (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

The prosecution asked Bartscher for the maximum sentence. Myhre-Schnell’s attorney, assistant public defender Carole Finneran, argued that she should receive seven to 10 years of probation.

“Her actions must be understood within the context of profound long-term caregiver burnout, a condition that is not only clinically recognized but also tragically predictable in cases like hers,” Finneran said.

According to the criminal complaint, Myhre-Schnell confided in people she was “hoping he would go to sleep forever.” She later said it was because he’d been “tortured” through the process of treating kidney stones and kidney-related infection for several months, DOC Commissioner Paul Schnell wrote in a court document about a text message she sent him.

Myhre-Schnell later told an investigator that she intended to kill her son.

An investigator talked to her son about how he felt when he found out what happened, and he said, “I made it, I’m still here,” but he said finding out what she admitted to “was heavy” and “a lot to process.”

Paul Schnell and Myhre-Schnell married in 1987. They were foster care providers when a 3-month-old ward of the state came to live with them, becoming their son. He has spina bifida and other medical needs that require use of a wheelchair, ventilator and around-the-clock medical care.

Myhre-Schnell had filed for divorce before the incident. It has since been finalized.

Paul Schnell has been the DOC commissioner since 2019. He was previously police chief in Hastings, Maplewood and Inver Grove Heights, and was formerly a St. Paul police officer and Carver County sheriff’s deputy.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

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New Twins manager Derek Shelton has made his first staff hire, tapping former Twins reliever LaTroy Hawkins to be the team’s bullpen coach, according to a source familiar with the interviews.

Shelton was introduced by the club as its 15th manager on Tuesday, and at the time Twins president Derek Falvey said there would undoubtedly be turnover on the coaching staff that worked with former manager Rocco Baldelli.

Baldelli was fired the day after the Twins completed a 70-92 season that included an 11-player salary dump at the July 31 trade deadline.

Shelton is interviewing candidates for his staff, and Hawkins replaces Colby Suggs. It appears bench coach Jayce Tingler and assistant bench coach Hank Conger also won’t be back.

Hawkins, 52, has been working as a special assistant to the Twins baseball operations and television broadcaster. He pitched 21 major league seasons for 11 teams, mostly as a reliever, but came up through the Twins’ system as a starter.

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By MAURICIO SAVARESE and ISABEL DEBRE

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — As world leaders head to a second day of climate talks being hosted in Brazil, a major proposal to protect tropical forests worldwide is sure to be a major topic of discussion.

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Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday sought to mobilize funding to halt the ongoing destruction of tropical rainforests and advance the many unmet promises made at previous summits.

He’s proposing a fund called the Tropical Forests Forever Facility that would pay 74 developing countries to keep their trees standing, using loans from wealthier nations and commercial investors. Financed by interest-bearing debt instead of donations, it aims to make it more lucrative for governments to keep their trees rather than cut them down.

The location where the proposal was announced and the talks are being held, Belem, is significant because the city is part of the Amazon rainforest, which is crucial in helping to regulate the climate.

Destroying rainforests makes money for cattle ranchers, miners and illegal loggers, but Brazil hopes to convince countries that preserving forests promises richer rewards for the entire world by absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats the planet when it’s released into the atmosphere.

As senior Brazilian officials walked reporters through the fund’s inner workings, Norway pledged $3 billion — the biggest commitment of the day — raising hopes for Lula’s ambitions to become a reality. Germany expected to follow on Friday when Lula meets Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Brazilian officials announced a total of $5.5 billion in pledges.

The fund’s rules call for 20% of the money to go to Indigenous peoples, who for millennia have managed and preserved lands. This year’s climate talks are expected to have a large presence of tribes, particularly from Brazil and surrounding countries.

But reduced participation in the summit revealed divisions among countries and focus on the many other things happening around the world. The leaders of the planet’s three biggest polluters, China, the United States and India, were absent from the preliminary gathering of world leaders ahead of the full climate talks, which begin next week.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres opened a gathering with harsh words for world powers who he said “remain captive to the fossil fuel interests, rather than protecting the public interest.”

Allowing global warming to exceed the key benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, would represent a “moral failure and deadly negligence,” Guterres said. He warned that “even a temporary overshoot will have dramatic consequences … every fraction of a degree higher means more hunger, displacement and loss.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org

A 208-year-old publication that farmers, gardeners and others keen to predict the weather have relied on for guidance will be publishing for the final time.

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Farmers’ Almanac said Thursday that its 2026 edition will be its last, citing the growing financial challenges of producing and distributing the book in today’s “chaotic media environment.” Access to the online version will cease next month.

The Maine-based publication, not to be confused with the even older Old Farmer’s Almanac in neighboring New Hampshire, was first printed in 1818. For centuries it’s used a secret formula based on sunspots, planetary positions and lunar cycles to generate long-range weather forecasts.

The almanac also contains gardening tips, trivia, jokes and natural remedies, like catnip as a pain reliever or elderberry syrup as an immune booster. But its weather forecasts make the most headlines.

Both publications were among hundreds of almanacs that served a nation of farmers over two centuries ago. Most were regional publications and no longer exist.

“It is with a heavy heart that we share the end of what has not only been an annual tradition in millions of homes and hearths for hundreds of years, but also a way of life, an inspiration for many who realize the wisdom of generations past is the key to the generations of the future,” Editor Sandi Duncan said in a statement.

Readers, saddened to hear the news, posted online about how they used it in their families for generations as a guide to help them plant gardens and follow the weather.

In 2017, when Farmers’ Almanac reported a circulation of 2.1 million in North America, its editor said it was gaining new readers among people interested in where their food came from and who were growing fresh produce in home gardens. It developed followers online and sent a weekly email to readers in addition to its printed editions.

Many of these readers lived in cities, prompting the publication to feature skyscrapers as well as an old farmhouse on its cover.

The Farmers’ Almanac was founded by David Young in New Jersey before moving to Maine in 1955. The Old Farmer’s Almanac is believed to be the oldest continually published periodical in North America.

Among Farmers’ Almanac articles from the past is one urging folks to remember “old-fashioned neighborhoodliness” in the face of newfangled technology like cars, daily mail and telephones in 1923. Editors urged readers in 1834 to abandon tobacco and in 1850 promoted the common bean leaf to combat bedbugs.

The almanac had some forward-thinking advice for women in 1876, telling them to learn skills to avoid being dependent on finding a husband. “It is better to be a woman than a wife, and do not degrade your sex by making your whole existence turn on the pivot of matrimony,” it counseled.