Workers at a leather tannery in South St. Paul will return to work on Monday, saying they have reached an agreement after a week-long strike.

About 65 union workers at Twin City Tanning went on strike, alleging that the company was unwilling to negotiate in good faith at the bargaining table.

“They have now secured a contract with pay increases above the industry standard, attendance bonuses, and a ratification bonus,” according to a Saturday press release.

The union workers are represented by the Chicago & Midwest Regional Joint Board, Workers United Local 150.

The workers’ biggest demand revolved around pay, which they say doesn’t line up with the dangerous nature of their work.

Founded in 1988, Twin City Tanning is an affiliate of the nearby Twin City Hide and is listed as a certified supplier by the Leather Working Group, a global nonprofit that encourages sustainable leather production. Officials from Twin City Tanning declined to comment.

At a tannery, the raw animal hide goes through a series of chemical and mechanical treatments to remove hair, fat and flesh before a tanning agent is added to the hide to prevent it from decaying.

“There’s hazards all over the place,” said Mark Aufderhar, a maintenance worker at the tannery.

“You can’t have just anyone doing these jobs,” he said, adding that certain chemicals they use like chromium salts and sulfuric acid can cause severe burns if not handled properly.

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In addition to the abrasive chemicals, workers at the tannery said they encounter bug-infested hides and have concerns about the building’s outdated infrastructure.

The press release said the workers are “highly skilled” and use “dangerous tools and chemicals each and every shift, and they demanded and achieved a contract worthy of their value and expertise.”

During their weeklong strike, workers also picketed outside Red Wing Shoes locations because the shoe company is a “major purchaser of the leather produced at Twin City Tanning,” the release said.

“This agreement reflects the power of solidarity,” said Kathy Hanshew, president of the Chicago & Midwest Regional Joint Board. “All workers deserve dignity, respect, and a contract worthy of their labor. Twin City Tanning’s workers are heroes in the fight for labor rights in the tanning industry and beyond. We will stand with these workers and ensure their voices continue to be heard.”

As soon as the Gophers sealed a thorough, 24-6 upset of 25th-ranked Nebraska on Friday night, the U student section ignored instructions to “remain in your seats” and stormed the field at Huntington Bank Stadium.

Elsewhere, embers were rekindled on a never-ending debate at keyboards across the internet and in group text message threads.

Minnesota Gophers football fans sign “M” as they watch the Gophers take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers in an NCAA football game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

In one corner, observers who want to let college football fans let loose a little bit. After all, Minnesota was a touchdown underdog to the Cornhuskers and it was the U’s first win over a ranked team this season.

On the other side, the fun police who feel like the Gophers should stay cool and act like they’ve been there before. There also are those worried about player and staff safety as rowdy revelers stomp onto the field.

What say you, P.J. Fleck?

“The crowd storming is awesome,” the Gophers head coach said Friday during his postgame news conference. “It’s so fun to watch the student population. I’m glad we don’t have a rule. Maybe we do. No?”

As he asked that, Fleck looked to the back of his audience, where athletics director Mark Coyle and staff signaled confirmation the Big Ten Conference does not, in fact, have a rule with putative fines for field storming. For instance, the SEC does and schools are regularly docked.

“I’m glad we don’t because I’m just an advocate. I love it,” Fleck said. “I love watching our student body, who cheers the entire game, who makes a difference in the game, go down and create a moment and memory that will last in their brain and hearts forever. I love that. Like, there is nothing better than that.”

Before the final whistle, students clad in white “Row” hats, a giveaway from the U, crowded the barriers to the field. After they descended onto the turf, fans were able to get autographs and take selfies with players.

“Just being in the crowd is awesome,” said defensive end Anthony Smith, who had 2½ sacks. “Shout-out to the U of M student body.”

“I like the hats,” added linebacker Maverick Baranowski, who contributed six tackles.

Last year, Gophers fans stormed the field in early October after a dramatic 24-17 home win over No. 11 Southern Cal in early October. Safety Koi Perich made a game-changing interception and fans hoisted the true freshman above the sea of happy fans.

But as Friday’s scene unfolded after 10 p.m., Perich was standing off to the side with Fleck and his wife Heather. He might be flipping to the curmudgeon camp on field storming, sharing this sentiment: “Aren’t we supposed to do this?”

Fleck is cool with that, too.

“That’s my guy,” he said. “That’s why he came here. It was a heck of a statement from him because that is what it’s about. I love that. I don’t want him to stop doing that.”

Gophers quarterback Drake Lindsey was a true freshman spectator during the USC win last year. This year, the redshirt freshman completed 16 of 20 passes for 152 yards and one touchdown in the Nebraska win.

“That is obviously a moment you dream of when you are a little kid,” Lindsey said. “… Then you get to experience it. Last year, we got to with USC, and it’s always cool. We’ve got really, really good fans, and our students were electric.”

Field storming moments against ranked teams don’t come around every year at Minnesota; it’s more like every other year.

On Friday, Fleck notched a new program record with his seventh win against teams in the Associated Press Top 25; three of those are on the road or in a bowl game. He also has 17 losses in that category since coming to Minnesota in 2017.

Friday’s field storming was the fourth such occasion in Fleck’s nearly nine full seasons at the U. An argument can be made that Friday’s was the least justified with Nebraska in the poll’s last spot.

The first one was the most famous, when No. 13 Minnesota beat No. 5 Penn State, 31-26, in 2019. The Gophers improved to 9-0 in what would be an 11-2 season.

The second came in 2021, when the Gophers knocked off rival and 18th-ranked Wisconsin, 23-13, in Minneapolis. The field was more packed than on Friday and was flowing in unison to the Badgers’ anthem — House of Pain’s “Jump Around” — blaring from the stadium’s speakers.

Then came USC a year ago, and Friday when Gophers fans danced to a few songs, including one from Icona Pop, featuring Charli XCX. The chorus was fitting for their likely collective view on whether fans should or shouldn’t field storm after wins:

“I don’t care! I love it!”

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On the street near St. Paul’s Lake Phalen where a driver struck an 83-year-old pedestrian and left the scene, officers found no evidence to solve the hit-and-run: No witnesses, no surveillance footage, no damaged remnants of the vehicle, no skid marks.

But there were signs of the force that took John Bidon’s life. One of his shoes was thrown off and found in a yard. One of his hearing aids was knocked out and located in the intersection. One of his sons found the remnants of his blood in the street.

A year later, Bidon’s family is still looking for answers and they’re asking anyone with clues to come forward. Police said last week that they’re taking another look at the case to see if there are any other avenues to be explored.

“It’s hard to fathom there’s just not one lead,” said son Mike Bidon. He thinks every day about memories of his dad and about what happened.

Jayne Bidon, Mike’s wife, said when they run into friends they haven’t seen for awhile, they ask, “You still haven’t heard anything?”

John Bidon (Courtesy of Mike Bidon)

“And then we talk about, ‘How is this person living with themselves?’” she said. “You know, the weight that they have on their shoulders. You’d think they would want to get that off their back, and it would help us to know what happened because there’s just so many questions.”

Bidon was one of four pedestrians killed in St. Paul last year and his is the only case that wasn’t solved. In most situations, drivers stay at the scene. There have been three fatal pedestrian crashes in the city this year and the drivers were identified in each, according to police.

“What makes it so difficult is there was no witness to it,” said Sgt. Jason Neubrand, who investigated the Bidon case. Police had no description of a suspect vehicle to go on. “A couple of neighbors heard a loud noise but didn’t see anything. … Usually with a crash, there’ll be part of a grille or part of the headlight or taillight or something left behind, and there was nothing.”

The department’s forensic services unit processed the scene. Neubrand was there the night of the crash and returned in the daytime, but no one found evidence.

It’s a residential area, and there aren’t city cameras. Surveillance cameras at one home didn’t capture the crash. Another resident had a Ring camera that wasn’t pointed toward the site of the collision, according to a police report.

Still, the case could be solved “with the smallest piece of information,” said Alyssa Arcand, a department spokeswoman. Police and the family are urging anyone with information to come forward. The family is offering a reward of $1,000 for justice in the case.

East Side staple

Bidon was struck at Arlington Avenue and McAfee Street, three blocks from his home and two blocks from Lake Phalen.

He and his wife, Josephine, moved into their Arlington Avenue home more than 58 years earlier. They were married for about 60 years when she died in 2021.

“He was old school,” Mike Bidon said of his father. “Just a hard worker — around the house, taking us kids to sports, working at 3M. He was a staple of the East Side.”

For 30 years, Bidon took daily runs around Lake Phalen. He’d stretch it out to five miles and run one of the miles backward to work other muscles.

Bidon remained mentally sharp and active.

He and friends from Mechanic Arts High School went out for “The Breakfast Club” once a month and he’d have lunch with his retired friends from 3M weekly. The year before, he took a trip to Mexico with his best friend and they were talking about going again in the spring.

What brought him out that night?

Bidon’s family doesn’t know why he was out the night of Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, and police didn’t determine why, either.

He was struck about 7:30 p.m., after the sun had set. The weather was pleasant, with the temperature around 60 degrees.

Mike and Jayne Bidon had not heard from John that he was regularly taking walks, though an employee at his bank later said he told her he’d started going for walks again.

John Bidon loved being outside.

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“He put a ton of work” into his house, yard and garden, probably spending 80 hours a week on them in the nice weather, son Patrick Bidon said last year.

He planted flowers around the house and the garage, and was always watering his grass and mowing it. “I’m not exaggerating at all — he had the greenest grass probably in most of St. Paul for most of the years,” Patrick Bidon said.

On his last day, it appeared John Bidon had been composting his garden, said Patrick Bidon, who found a piece of tape his dad left behind. “He worked at 3M, so he’d always use tape to tie up the bags,” his son said recently.

It didn’t look like he’d rushed out of his house because the door was locked and nothing was out of place.

John Bidon’s family looked for other clues and asked the medical examiner’s office if his blood work showed he’d been having a diabetic emergency. They were told he had not been, Jayne Bidon said.

Stop signs added a block away

Traffic moves through Arlington Avenue and Clarence Street on Oct. 15, 2025, where two stop signs were installed this year. The location is a block from where John Bidon was struck on Oct. 19, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

After Bidon’s death, his family needed to go to his pharmacy and credit union to wrap up matters. At the pharmacy, employees who knew him reacted with, “No, not John!” and said they were going to miss his smile and friendliness.

At the bank, they heard John Bidon sometimes brought in his laptop for help with online banking or figuring out a laptop problem.

Friends of Mike Bidon told him, “He was the dad I never had.”

“Hearing those stories really warm our hearts,” Jayne Bidon said.

It’s not known which way John Bidon or the vehicle that struck him were traveling. His family thinks the driver was westbound on Arlington Avenue because people “pick up a lot of speed and then you go down a hill, and that’s where my dad was struck, toward the bottom of the hill” leading to Lake Phalen, Mike Bidon said.

The city has added stop signs on Arlington Avenue at Clarence Street, a block from the crash site, making it a four-way stop. Previously, there were only stop signs on Clarence Street.

St. Paul’s Public Works Department received a request for the change. It wasn’t known last week if the request was related to what happened to Bidon.

Family’s frustration

Bidon’s family saw Sgt. Neubrand on Oct. 25 to get John Bidon’s house keys, which he’d had in his pocket. Jayne Bidon said she asked him then, “When can we get this out in the media?”

Neubrand wrote in a report that he’d asked a public information officer on Oct. 24 to get out the word. The police department’s public information officers posted on Facebook on Oct. 28, nine days after the crash, asking for people to come forward with tips. There was subsequent media attention.

Jayne and Mike Bidon said they’re frustrated because they think immediate public attention could have resulted in tips. They’ve seen other hit-and-run cases in the news more quickly and they wonder why John’s case wasn’t.

The police department tries to exhaust leads before asking the public for help and looks for information that could aid in the search, such as the type or color of a suspect vehicle, said Arcand, the police spokeswoman.

Jayne Bidon last talked to the investigator in January and Mike Bidon spoke to him before that, and they said they were upset about not being kept up to date on the investigation.

After recently reading the police reports, they said they’re left feeling that more could have been done. They asked why police reports don’t indicate that officers talked to Bidon’s neighbors to try to piece together more of his night.

They also point to a request that a different officer sent to T-Mobile to preserve information from the cellphone of the “deceased male,” but it refers to Mike Bidon instead of John Bidon and lists Mike’s phone number instead of John’s.

John Bidon did not have his phone with him when he was struck. Patrick Bidon said he looked over his father’s phone and didn’t find clues about that night.

Patrick Bidon figured police had run out of leads and done all they could.

Neubrand said he was frustrated that, due to the lack of evidence, he couldn’t find the driver who struck John Bidon.

“You want to help the families as much as you can,” he said. “… You want to see an end to the case as well.”

‘We miss him dearly’

In addition to Bidon’s two sons, he is survived by three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

“We miss him dearly at all the holidays, birthday parties,” Patrick Bidon said. “My father and I teased each other every time we talked to each other. I called him Walter for Walter Matthau from ‘Grumpy Old Men,’” the 1993 movie that was filmed in St. Paul.

When it had been six months since John Bidon was killed, Mike and Jayne Bidon organized a run around Lake Phalen to get the unsolved case out in the public eye again.

They also wanted to “bring up happy memories” of their family’s time at the lake, Mike Bidon said. They asked people to wear John Bidon’s favorite colors: maroon and gold for the Gophers; purple for the Vikings.

Since John Bidon was so often in his yard, people walking to or from Lake Phalen would always chat with him.

“Neighbors still stop by and talk about him, and it’s really nice to see how many people have not forgotten him,” Patrick Bidon said.

Even if the driver doesn’t come forward, John Bidon’s family figures there’s a chance that he or she told someone what happened.

Being able to find out more “would be some closure,” Patrick Bidon said. “There’s a lot of unanswered questions.”

Street safety and how to help

Anyone with information about the John Bidon hit-and-run is asked to call St. Paul police Sgt. Jason Neubrand at 651-266-5722.

Minnesota’s Office of Traffic Safety reminds:

• Drivers must stop for pedestrians crossing the street. Treat every corner and intersection as a crosswalk, whether it’s marked or unmarked, and let pedestrians cross.

• Pedestrians must obey traffic-control devices, such as traffic lights, signs and barricades.

The state’s Department of Transportation gives these tips for drivers:

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• Look in all directions before turning.

• Watch for people walking, day or night.

• Be alert and expect to see people walking everywhere.

• Slower speeds save lives.

• Before passing stopped vehicles, check for people crossing.

And tips for pedestrians:

• Cross in well-lit areas when possible.

• Be alert and look for vehicles before crossing.

• Stand clear of parked cars and obstacles before crossing.

• Look and continue to look for vehicles in all lanes of traffic when crossing.

By Hannah Elliott, Bloomberg News

There’s something fundamentally American about the freedom to get in your car and drive.

Driving is self-determination. The liberty to set your own course. The power to move under your own willpower, whether for duty or sheer pleasure. Despite some decline among Gen Zers, plenty of teens still eagerly anticipate getting their driver’s license. In many American towns, where public transportation and walkability are scarce, driving is what empowers you to explore.

Some motoring enthusiasts worry self-driving vehicles threaten that ideal. These robot autos, run by Google and China and Elon Musk, use AI and radars to navigate without human input; they could replace our car-centric culture with faceless communal bots controlled by opaque entities. Even worse, self-driving vehicles present safety concerns and other vulnerabilities, such as being hacked or spoofed by malicious agents at home or abroad.

I’ve covered the car industry for 20 years, and I would hate to see our sports coupes and road trips disappear. The risks associated with relinquishing control over my mobility also give me pause. Or they did. I took a Waymo for the first time recently in Los Angeles and … I haven’t stopped using it since. Rather than replace our cool cars, self-driving vehicles will, I predict, become a welcome complement to modern life, first as part of ride-sharing platforms and then as privately owned transport. Why? Because they offer an excellent solution for something nobody likes: commuting.

If driving is heaven, commuting is hell. Not even the hardest-core drivers like it. So the question isn’t whether self-driving will replace our favorite cars (I think not), but rather, will it remove the burden of our most mundane trips? And could it replace other ride-sharing platforms like Uber? I certainly hope so.

Waymo LLC, the self-driving car service subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, was founded in 2009 with a mission to explore what self-driving technology could offer. It now has more than 2,000 electric vehicles operating across its markets, which include LA, Phoenix and San Francisco, plus Austin and Atlanta, where Waymo rides are hailed via Uber. In 2026, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Nashville and Washington, DC, will join the ranks with Waymos on their streets. New York City just granted the company permission to continue testing there until the end of the year, and Seattle is in the works too. Waymo provides more than 250,000 trips each week, and regulators are already adapting. A new California law will soon authorize police to issue “notices of autonomous vehicle noncompliance” when they see driverless cars breaking traffic rules.

Beyond Waymo, robo-taxis and -shuttles are also running in China, Singapore and the Middle East, and they’re being tested across Europe. The vehicles are expected to become commercially available in the U.S. at a large scale by 2030, according to the research firm McKinsey.

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But they’re a long way from being ubiquitous. A world of self-driving cars will require billions of dollars of development, improved navigation systems, increased charging infrastructures and new regulations to amend traffic laws. Ford, General Motors and Volkswagen have all canceled autonomous taxi programs they once funded by the billions. (GM is planning to renew exploring autonomous cars for personal use, rather than as a robotaxi service. Later this year, the autonomous mobility subsidiary of Volkswagen Group of America Inc. will begin testing electric autonomous ID. Buzz AD vehicles, with plans to offer rides via Uber 2026 in LA. The vehicles will use human operators during their testing and launch phases.) Tesla’s Robotaxis aren’t open to the public. Given the company’s proclivity for extensive delays, it’s unclear when they will be.

As self-driving options develop, consumer demand shouldn’t be a problem, according to experts; most people who try it like it. Waymo reports a 98% satisfaction rating among users in LA. Proponents note that more than 1.3 million deaths occur around the world annually in traffic accidents, whereas self-driving vehicles eliminate the human errors that cause more than 90% of those deaths, according to research by Global Market Insights.

Waymo uses a proprietary AI system for autonomous driving that has been installed on a fleet of Jaguar I-PACEs equipped with dozens of cameras and sensors. The technology is more robust than the hands-free driving systems we have in our own cars, combining AI learning with LiDAR, radar, cameras and high-definition maps to read and anticipate the environment.

There are still significant limitations to Waymo vehicles’ range and their ability to adapt to real-life scenarios. But after a week of Waymo rides, which I ordered easily via an app, other ride-sharing platforms seemed woefully outdated.

My first trip was not perfect. Our house in Hollywood sits outside Waymo’s range, so my gallant husband had to drive me about a mile down the hill to a cafe on Hollywood Boulevard, where I ordered the car. It took 26 (!) minutes to arrive—precious time lost because of high rider volume on a Monday morning. An Uber would have been there within a few minutes. But the vehicle showed up at exactly the time it had promised, unlike Uber, which tends to miss arrival estimates. A spokesperson from Uber did not comment.

Synched with my iPhone, the car unlocked automatically when it pulled up, waiting until I clicked my seat belt and pushed a green button on a screen in the rear to commence the journey. Icons in the app would have let me open the trunk, had I wanted, and allowed me to adjust the sound and temperature in the car.

Any drama I expected to feel from being alone in a moving vehicle just didn’t exist. No driver? No problem. I forgot about it before I even hit Santa Monica Boulevard, and my 44-minute ride to the office proved delightfully uneventful while my productivity soared: I stretched my legs; checked email; made phone calls and wrote to-do lists—all things I cannot do when driving myself to the newsroom each morning. The trip cost $23.28, almost half the price of an Uber Black ($41.25) or UberX ($42.95) at the same hour.

There were a few hiccups. The car froze momentarily behind a truck parked illegally, causing other drivers to honk erratically. More annoyingly, it didn’t drop me at the address I requested but in a hotel valet line across an intersection and down the next block. I’ve learned that Waymos often leave passengers on side streets or one block past a chosen destination, depending on how busy the drop-off point seems. (This is because the cars are programmed to prioritize safety and efficiency rather than moving swiftly in hectic traffic.) That would have been frustrating had it been raining, or an unfamiliar neighborhood, or had I been wearing heels.

There’s room for improvement in the car’s ability to take a direct route to a destination rather than zig-zagging or circling the arrival spot before stopping, as it did one evening when trying to avoid busy corners to drop me off in Hollywood. It made for a slightly longer drive than if I had done it myself. Indeed, the logistical challenges of using Waymo are its biggest problem. One night it wouldn’t let me change my destination just 15 minutes into a 55-minute journey, even though the new destination was far closer. (It would have allowed me to cancel the ride, leaving me on the street corner.)

I’m hoping all this will improve as Waymo expands its range—and incorporates highways and Interstates, which it currently does not—because the privacy, punctuality and peace inside the cabin are delightful. I found myself scheduling Waymos to take me to dinner in West Hollywood or to try on shoes at Reformation on Melrose Avenue. It was freeing not to stress about parking or bad drivers.

If more folks used self-driving cars, it would lead to more parking; reduce road rage, drunk driving and traffic accidents; and alleviate noise pollution and congestion. Waymo is a far better driver than most of the ride-sharing and taxi drivers I’ve had. It’s certainly more courteous, gliding elegantly through yellow lights, and moving up in line at stoplights if the vehicle behind it wants to turn right. The car remained smooth and predictable even in tight traffic, navigating tiny neighborhood streets with ease. I was so relaxed I started dozing.

One morning I even walked myself 20 minutes down to the Hollywood coffee shop so I could take a Waymo again to work. I didn’t love the hike, but I wanted that solitary ride. (Mornings when I needed to be in the office at a specific time, I drove myself.)

The solitude is the top benefit I hear from everyone I speak with about the service—especially women and gay and trans friends who worry about being accosted, harassed or ogled by drivers. Self-driving cars offer a way to ride alone in safety. We just need the services to be bigger and better and more flexible.

It’s encouraging to see the industry growing, with companies like Zoox, Pony Ai and WeRide working to expand the technology. In 2024 the global market for self-driving cars was valued at $1.7 trillion, according to Global Market Insights. It’s expected to hit $3.9 trillion by 2034.

As for me, I’ll plan to hold on to my cars and use Waymo for my daily commute and mundane chores. If I’m lucky, I’ll never have to take an Uber again.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.