In addition, KARE 11 sports director Reggie Wilson announced Thursday via Linkedin that his position is “being eliminated” and that he will leave the station on Dec. 31.
Reggie Wilson (Courtesy of KARE 11)
KARE 11 general manager Doug Wieder, Clair and Clair’s attorney Paul Schinner did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
In an Instagram post Friday, Clair confirmed she not only departed the station, she is leaving television entirely. Her KARE 11 online biography was deleted around the same time her post went up on Instagram.
“KARE 11 and I have agreed to part ways,” read the post. “I thank all my colleagues for their professionalism and hard work. I thank all the viewers for watching me and supporting me. I look forward to focusing more on my personal life and pursuing scientific careers outside of television.”
In his Linkedin post, Wilson wrote that “it’s not easy navigating layoffs, especially considering my wife and I are both enduring job loss at KARE in the same year. Now with a newborn at home, the stakes are raised. So I’m open for work.”
In a statement to the Pioneer Press, Wilson said: “I’m appreciative of the opportunity to cover sports for KARE 11 these last four years and I’m looking forward to finishing out the rest of my time strong. Hopeful and excited for what the future holds.”
Wilson joined the station in August 2021. He replaced longtime sports director Eric Perkins, who left the station after 25 years. Wilson’s wife, Alexis Rogers, left KARE in January following national layoffs.
Wren Clair lawsuit
A Hopkins native, Clair was abruptly fired by St. Paul-based KSTP in February after nearly seven years at the station. She began working at KARE in May.
In her lawsuit against KSTP, which made nationalheadlines, Clair said she was demoted in 2024 and terminated in February, “but the sex-based disparate treatment and sexual harassment occurred throughout the entirety of her employment.”
KSTP, in a legal response in Ramsey County District Court, said Clair was terminated “as a result of her poor performance, on which she was repeatedly coached.” The response also said she was not “subjected to sex-based harassment.”
At the time, Clair’s attorney Paul Schinner said the work environment at KSTP was “the kind that you would hope no longer exists in 2025 and unfortunately it is still alive and well. We feel that a fact that a woman is on television is not an excuse to subject her to offensive sexual comments and sexist double standards.”
In her lawsuit, Clair claimed former KSTP news director Kirk Varner and retired chief meteorologist Dave Dahl repeatedly made comments about her body and appearance.
In its legal response, KSTP said Varner’s discussion of Clair’s on-camera appearance was “standard for on-air talent” and that Varner “emphasized the importance of clothing fit, informed (Clair) that wearing certain pants, such as joggers, on-air was unprofessional, and addressed (Clair’s) abrupt hair color change from blonde to brunette by referencing the appearance clause in her employment agreement.”
KSTP also said after Clair reported confronting Dahl about her concerns he “apologized and agreed to work on it.”
Environmental scientist
Related Articles
‘The Paper’ review: Trying (and failing) to recapture the magic of ‘The Office’
‘Unholy Communion,’ a murder mystery shot in St. Paul, is coming to home screens
Farm Aid will be broadcast live on CNN from Huntington Bank Stadium
Conservative news network Newsmax files antitrust lawsuit against Fox News
St. Paul native Tommy Brennan lands featured player gig on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Clair holds a master of science degree in environmental science and policy from Johns Hopkins University, a bachelor of science in meteorology from Mississippi State University and degrees in chemistry and anthropology from the University of Minnesota, according to a now-deleted biography on KSTP’s website.
A member of the American Meteorological Society, Clair worked at stations in Rhinelander, Wis., and Boston, where she covered historic flooding in January 2018, before moving to KSTP. She also worked as a chemist for five years and was part of multiple publications, primarily related to organic synthesis.
Clair has tutored math and science off and on since high school and has taught GED-seeking students through Neighborhood House in the Wellstone Center in St. Paul. She has also spent time volunteering at Union Gospel Mission’s dental clinic, as well as previously running the children’s dental outreach program.
“On Wednesday night, a man held at Rikers Island died—the fifth death in city custody in the last two weeks, and the 12th this year alone. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a system in collapse.”
A 2023 rally demanding the closure of Rikers. (John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)
On Wednesday night, a man held at Rikers Island died—the fifth death in city custody in the last two weeks, and the 12th this year alone.
These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a system in collapse. For decades, New York City has been trapped in a cycle of failure at Rikers. The sprawling, decaying jail complex isn’t just a humanitarian disaster—it’s a direct threat to public safety.
A commission tasked with evaluating the closure of Rikers recently made clear what so many of us have long known: the current system is broken, dangerous, and unsustainable.
Rikers doesn’t rehabilitate. It destabilizes. According to the Blueprint to Close Rikers report released by the Independent Rikers Commission earlier this year, 84 percent of people in Rikers are held pre-trial, waiting for their court date, presumed innocent under the law. This number includes over 500 people who have been held in Rikers for over two years. And yet, whether detained pre-trial or serving a sentence, people leave Rikers worse off than when they entered. That alone makes our city less safe.
Rather than preparing people to return to their communities and live successful lives, Rikers breeds trauma, violence, and despair. It’s a place where brutality is routine, committed by and against staff and detainees alike. Court delays are rampant, and many are forced to languish behind bars for months or even years without a conviction.
Rikers has also become a de facto mental health facility—one that catastrophically fails at providing care. Nearly half of those incarcerated at Rikers live with mental illness, yet the facility only exacerbates these conditions. That’s not just inhumane. It’s counterproductive. Every day spent at Rikers can worsen serious mental illness, turning an already difficult situation into a crisis.
These missed opportunities for care represent missed chances to break the cycle of incarceration—and to connect people with support in their home communities.
And the cost? Staggering. As of 2021, it costs over $500,000 per year to jail one person at Rikers, many times more than it would cost to provide housing, health care, and treatment. We’re paying a premium to perpetuate harm.
Even corrections officers are suffering. They’re burned out, working excessive overtime in unsafe, chaotic conditions that lead to trauma and absenteeism. This system doesn’t work for anyone—not for the people jailed, not for the people working there, and not for the people of New York City.
Rikers’ remote location, an island in the East River, only deepens the dysfunction. It isolates those inside from the communities to which they will return. It limits access to attorneys, delays court appearances, and makes family visits difficult or impossible. That separation reinforces the worst tendencies of our justice system: neglect, abandonment, and indifference.
The answer isn’t to pour more money into a failed institution. It’s to build a system that actually works.
That’s why, in 2019, the City Council voted to close Rikers and replace it with four borough-based jails—smaller, safer, and more humane facilities in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. These new jails will be located near courthouses to facilitate legal access, reduce delays, and make it easier for families to stay connected—critical for rehabilitation and due process.
These new facilities must not replicate the culture of Rikers. They must represent a reset. That means training staff to address mental health needs with care and professionalism. It means building a culture rooted in dignity, not punishment.
One looming challenge is capacity. The new borough-based jails are designed to hold significantly fewer people than Rikers does today. If the number of people in pre-trial detention exceeds that limit, the Department of Correction may be forced to send detainees to facilities even farther away—undermining the very goals that the borough-based model is meant to achieve.
This is a serious concern that must be addressed with honesty and urgency. One key strategy lies in addressing the large portion of the current Rikers population made up of individuals with serious mental illness—people who should be receiving care in clinical settings, not languishing in jail. Expanding access to mental health treatment must be a cornerstone of the new system. But keeping Rikers open to solve a capacity problem is not an option. It is the problem.
The 2027 deadline to close Rikers is rapidly approaching—and we’re behind schedule. Construction delays threaten to push completion into the next decade. But the Lippman Commission’s latest report shows it doesn’t have to be this way. With urgency and leadership, we can accelerate the timeline and save lives in the process.
Every year we delay is another year of unnecessary suffering. Another year of preventable death, untreated mental illness, and wasted taxpayer dollars. Another year of injustice.
We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to break this cycle, and we must seize it.
Let’s close Rikers. Let’s build a system rooted in dignity, rehabilitation, and justice. Not only because it’s the moral thing to do—but because our safety and our humanity depend on it.
Erik Bottcher is the City Council Member representing District 3, which includes the neighborhoods of West Village, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen and Time Square.
Members of California’s Sikh trucking community say a deadly crash involving one of its own, which triggered heated national debates over immigration, has led to a spike in anti-Sikh rhetoric.
On Aug. 12, Harjinder Singh, an India-born truck driver, made a U-turn on the Florida Turnpike that authorities say caused a crash that killed three people. The crash and subsequent investigations stirred arguments between Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
It also sparked online vitriol denigrating members of the monotheistic religion, who often covet high-paying trucking jobs that allow Sikh men to wear beards, uncut hair and turbans.
“There are a lot of negative comments online,” said Prahb Singh, a truck driver in Riverside, California, who isn’t related to the driver.
None of the people named in this story are in the same family; Singh is a common last name among Sikhs.
“People are saying: ‘Take the towel heads off the streets’ and ’Make our roads safe by taking immigrants off the street,” said Singh, a U.S. citizen who emigrated from India at age 8. “All of this before a judge gives a sentence. It was a mistake by a driver, not the whole community.”
Freight trucks travel northbound on Interstate 5 Highway, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Tracy, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Freight trucks travel northbound on Interstate 5 Highway, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Tracy, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Harsimran Singh, owner of Gillson Trucking, walks through his lot in Stockton, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Sikh truck driver Prahb Singh fills up the tank of his truck at a gas station in Fontana, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Trucks refuel at a gas station in Fontana, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
A truck driver arrives at a Cheema Freightlines facility in Lathrop, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Sikh driver Jagdeep Singh parks his truck at a Cheema Freightlines facility at the end of his shift Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Lathrop, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Sikh truck driver Prahb Singh fills up the tank of his truck at a gas station in Fontana, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
1 of 8
Freight trucks travel northbound on Interstate 5 Highway, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Tracy, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Estimates of the Sikh population in the U.S. range up to 750,000, with the largest concentration in California. Many work in the trucking industry and related businesses, including restaurants and trucking schools along major routes.
“I’ve been talking to a lot of truck drivers, and they’ve been saying, ‘People look at us different now,’” said Sukhpreet Waraich, a trucker who owns an interstate freight carrier in Fontana, California.
A father of three and his family’s breadwinner, he worries about being unfairly targeted. Like other Sikhs, he lamented the Florida crash, calling it a tragedy. But he hopes the driver gets a fair trial and wants people to understand it’s an isolated crash.
“I’ve been driving since 2019. I haven’t got a single ticket,” Waraich said.
The North American Punjabi Truckers Association estimates that the Sikh workforce makes up about 40% of truck driving on the West Coast and about 20% nationwide. No official figures exist, CEO Raman Dhillon said, but advocacy groups estimate about 150,000 Sikh truck drivers work in the U.S. That number could be as high as 250,000, given the high demand for drivers post-pandemic, he said.
Since the fatal crash, the association has received numerous reports of Sikh drivers being harassed. In one instance, Dhillon said, a Sikh man was ejected from an Oklahoma truck stop when he tried to take a shower.
Fatal Florida crash and partisan politics
In Florida, Harjinder Singh faces manslaughter and vehicular homicide charges, and is being held without bond. Florida authorities say he entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in 2018. However, California officials say federal authorities told them he was in the country legally with a work permit when the state issued him a driver’s license.
The Trump administration said Singh should have never received a commercial driver’s license because of his immigration status and because he failed an English proficiency test after the crash. But New Mexico officials released a video of a traffic stop that showed Singh communicating in English with an officer.
DeSantis sent Florida’s lieutenant governor to California to oversee the handover of the truck driver, saying Singh should never have been behind the wheel and calling him a “thug.”
“The sheriff’s job is done by the lieutenant governor,” whose name calling “was very low,” Dhillon said.
Others in the Sikh trucking industry worry about becoming scapegoats in the country’s bitter fight over immigration.
Related Articles
Deported Venezuelan mothers ask Melania Trump to help reunite them with their children
$50 million suit against crypto ‘godfather’ reads like a movie plot, featuring corrupt LA deputies
The gender gap in math widened in the pandemic. Schools are trying to make up lost ground
Top US coal miner Peabody sees booming demand in Trump era
As summers grow deadlier, here’s what to know about utility shutoffs
“This is a tragedy; it was an accident, and every Punjabi, every Sikh, feels for the victims’ family,” said Harsimran Singh, CEO of Gillson Trucking in Stockton, California, who is not related to the driver.
“But the way that this case has been handled … has many, many people in my community fear for their future in this country.”
Since the crash, he said five of his Sikh drivers quit, telling him they no longer feel safe.
In a sign of support, the UNITED SIKHS advocacy group recently held a gathering outside the Florida jail. They prayed for the victims of the crash and offered to help families with the cost of funeral arrangements, while they condemned anti-Sikh discrimination.
“Many immigrants have settled here, fleeing religious and other persecution, and we value the equal opportunity afforded to them by our legal system,” said Gurvinder Singh, the group’s international humanitarian aid director, who is also unrelated to the driver.
Sikhs find religious freedom in trucking
Sikhism was founded more than 500 years ago in India’s Punjab region. It is among the world’s largest religions with about 25 million followers.
For many years, Sikh migrants from Punjab — once India’s breadbasket — have been moving abroad in search of better opportunities. Fragile farm incomes and scarce jobs have driven the more recent exodus. The vast Sikh diaspora reinforces the belief that migration, legal or illegal, is the surest path to stability.
At his gurdwara — a Sikh house of worship — in Fremont, California, Jasdeep Singh heard reports of children being bullied at school since the crash.
“The whole community has been put on trial because we’re so visible,” he said.
“It was always there but now it’s on another level. In 9/11, they thought we were Muslims,” he said about crimes where attackers said they mistook Sikhs for Arab Muslims. “But this time, there’s no confusion. If you ask me, it’s worse.”
In California’s Central Valley, generations of Sikhs have taken pride in bolstering the U.S. trucking industry.
The jobs are crucial to the community. Financially, they help Sikh immigrants provide for their families and send their children to college, said Manpreet Kaur, education director for the Sikh Coalition. Trucking also allows Sikhs to practice their faith more freely, she said.
“There’s a certain agency that is afforded to an individual, especially for those who might be wearing a turban, keeping their unshorn beards, that is not available in the ordinary workplace,” said Kaur, whose father became a trucker in California in the 1970s.
“You’re able to, for example, park and pray,” she said. “The community has a fear of losing that (freedom) with the negative rhetoric that is coming out.”
Sikhs worry about rhetoric leading to violence
Beyond the rhetoric, she hopes people can understand “there’s also another story, another existence of a community that lives and thrives and is really the backbone of the American trucking industry.”
The Sikh Coalition, the largest Sikh advocacy group in the U.S., is mourning the lost lives in Florida while hoping the driver gets a fair trial. Coalition executive director Harman Singh also flagged growing concerns the crash is being used to “demonize” the entire Sikh community.
“Anytime an incident like this occurs and we hear and see heightened rhetoric targeting the community, targeting people’s articles of faith, suggesting that our community is somehow uniquely lawless or criminal, that ends up resulting in increased violence,” he said.
The coalition has been reaching out to Sikh truckers to ensure they know their rights if stopped by authorities.
“We want to make sure that there’s legal proceedings and a process there to make sure that the family receives justice,” he said. “But that should happen through the courtroom. It shouldn’t happen through headlines. It shouldn’t happen on social media. And it certainly shouldn’t happen with very divisive rhetoric about a community at large.”
Associated Press writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, and Rajesh Roy in New Delhi contributed.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
By CHRIS MEGERIAN and SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to issue an executive order on Friday renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War — a long-telegraphed move aimed at projecting America’s military around the globe.
Related Articles
Deported Venezuelan mothers ask Melania Trump to help reunite them with their children
A deadly strike marks a moment in Rubio’s long desire to confront Venezuela
Cork won a rare Trump tariff exemption thanks to lobbying on both sides of the Atlantic
Operation Warp Speed was one of Trump’s biggest achievements. Then came RFK Jr. and vaccine skeptics
Pentagon-funded research at colleges has aided the Chinese military, a House GOP report says
It comes as some of Trump’s closest supporters on Capitol Hill proposed legislation that would codify the new name into law, with Congress having the sole power to establish, shutter and rename federal departments. Absent a change in law, Trump will authorize the Pentagon to use secondary titles.
“From 1789 until the end of World War II, the United States military fought under the banner of the Department of War,” Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube, an Army veteran, said in a statement. “It is only fitting that we pay tribute to their eternal example and renowned commitment to lethality by restoring the name of the ‘Department of War’ to our Armed Forces.”
Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, are introducing companion legislation in the Senate.
The Department of War was created in 1789 and was renamed in 1947, two years after the end of World War II.
Trump has said he wants to change the name back to the Department of War because it “just sounded better.” The Republican president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have long talked about changing the name, with Hegseth creating a social media poll on the topic in March.
Since then, Hegseth has hinted that his title as defense secretary may not be permanent at multiple public events, including a speech at Fort Benning, Georgia, on Thursday. He told an auditorium full of soldiers that it “may be a slightly different title tomorrow.”
In August, Trump told reporters that “everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
When confronted with the possibility that making the name change would require an act of Congress, Trump told reporters that “we’re just going to do it.”
“I’m sure Congress will go along,” he said, “if we need that.”
Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.
