Budget carrier Spirit Airlines said Friday that it has filed for fresh bankruptcy protection months after emerging from a Chapter 11 reorganization.

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The no-frills airline said it intends to conduct business as normal during the restructuring process, meaning passengers can continue to book trips and use their tickets, credits and loyalty points. The company said its employees and contractors would still be paid.

Spirit President and CEO Dave Davis said the airline’s previous Chapter 11 petition focused on reducing debt and raising capital, and since exiting that process in March “it has become clear that there is much more work to be done and many more tools are available to best position Spirit for the future.“

In a quarterly report issued earlier this month, Spirit Aviation Holdings, the carrier’s parent company, said it had “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern over the next year — which is accounting-speak for running out of money. Spirit cited “adverse market conditions” the company faced after its most recent restructuring and other efforts to revive its business.

That included weak demand for domestic leisure travel, which Spirit said persisted in the second quarter of its fiscal year, and “uncertainties in its business operations” that the Florida company expects to continue “for at least the remainder of 2025.”

Known for its no-frills, low-cost flights on a fleet of bright yellow planes, Spirit has struggled to recover and compete since the COVID-19 pandemic. Rising operation costs and mounting debt eventually led the company to seek bankruptcy protection in November. By the time of that Chapter 11 filing, the airline had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020.

When Spirit emerged from bankruptcy protection in March, the company successfully restructured some of its debt obligations and secured new financing for future operations. Spirit has continued to make other cost-cutting efforts since — including plans to furlough about 270 pilots and downgrade some 140 captains to first officers in the coming months.

The furloughs and downgrades announced last month go into effect Oct. 1 and Nov. 1 to align with Spirit’s “projected flight volume for 2026,” the company noted in its quarterly report. They also follow previous furloughs and job cuts before the company’s bankruptcy filing last year.

Despite these and other cost-cutting efforts, Spirit has said it needs more cash. As a result, the company said it may also sell certain aircraft and real estate.

And as discount carriers struggle to compete with bigger airlines — many of which have snagged budget-conscious customers through their own tiered offerings — Spirit is attempting to tap into the growing market for more upscale travel. It is now offering flight options with tiered prices, the higher-priced tickets coming with more amenities.

Spirit’s aircraft fleet is relatively young, which has also made the airline an attractive takeover target. But such buyout attempts from budget rivals like JetBlue and Frontier were unsuccessful both before and during the bankruptcy process.

Spirit operates 5,013 flights to 88 destinations in the U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, Panama and Colombia, according to travel search engine Skyscanner.net

A  Fridley man who investigators say was dressed as a UPS driver when he killed three people inside a Coon Rapids home was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder on Friday by a jury, authorities said.

Alonzo Pierre Mingo, 39, was charged in connection with the January 2024 killings of Shannon Patricia Jungwirth, 42, her son Jorge Alexander Reyes-Jungwirth, 20, and her husband, Mario Alberto Trejo Estrada, 39.

Alonzo Pierre Mingo (Courtesy of the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office)

Authorities say Mingo went into the home on the 200 block of 94th Avenue Northwest with two other men looking for money.

The three victims were found shot in the head, according to the criminal complaint. Two small children, both under the age of 5, were in the home at the time of the killings but not injured.

Mingo was arrested about three hours after the killings after he was pulled over in his car near his Fridley home. A UPS shirt and vest were inside a backpack, and investigators later learned that Mingo had been employed by UPS until earlier that month, the complaint says.

Mingo’s attorney could not be reached for comment on Friday. Two other men, Omar Malik Shumpert, 20, and Demetrius Trenton Shumpert, 34, both of Minneapolis, have been charged in the case. They face their own jury trials this fall.

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Plans for a new Hy-Vee grocery store in Stillwater have fallen through, and the developer of the site at the southeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue is looking for a new grocer to take its spot.

Summit Management’s Mark Lambert said Friday that his company and Hy-Vee have agreed to part ways after seven years of negotiations at the Central Commons site.

“We basically agreed to separate, and I got my site back,” Lambert said. “I felt it was more important for us to have the momentum going forward than to be in a position where we didn’t know when – and if – they were going to build the store.”

Lambert said both parties agreed it wasn’t “the right place and the right time” for Hy-Vee to build there.

“What that means is that I now have a very nice grocer location that I am marketing to other grocery stores,” Lambert said.

Officials from Hy-Vee, based in West Des Moines, Iowa, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Mixed-use development

Plans call for Central Commons, a $50 million mixed-use development, to include 190 units of luxury apartments, retail and a convenience store, Lambert said.

Key to developing the site will be finding a grocery store to anchor the project, he said.

“We know there are several great grocers in the area,” he said. “My hope is to kind of re-grocer the site, if you will, and that we’ll find another grocer that wants that location.”

A site map showing the layout for the Central Commons development on the southeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue in Stillwater. (Courtesy of Summit Management)

The road leading to the development – the 58th Street extension – is scheduled to be completed next spring, “so I’m hoping by summer of 2026, we’ll have full access and a very marketable site,” he said.

The site is being developed to accommodate an up to 95,000-square-foot grocery store and 4,000-square-foot convenience store on the property, which the city of Stillwater annexed from Stillwater Township in 2020. There’s also the possibility of a hotel, more apartments and additional retail, he said.

Prime location

An aerial photograph taken Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, shows the site of the future Central Commons development, located on the southeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue in Stillwater. Pictured on the left is the future home of the new Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater. (Courtesy of Summit Management)

The site is in a prime location, just south of the new $400 million Lakeview Hospital campus at the northeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue in Stillwater.

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“We’re still excited about (the project),” Lambert said. “I mean, it’s an amazing corner. It’s right across from the new hospital. … While we’re disappointed we weren’t able to continue our partnership with Hy-Vee, we’re excited about identifying a new partner to continue the work we’ve done the last seven years on this site.”

Stillwater Mayor Ted Kozlowski said he is confident that another grocer will decide to build at the site.

“I really think there will be something cool that lands in that spot, so I’m not too worried about the future of it,” he said. “There are a lot of really cool options. I was just at the new Kowalski’s they built over in Edina. Boy, would I love to see that in Stillwater, like, that is the sexiest grocery store I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s really, really nice. I’m ready to call the CEO.”

Kowalski’s operates a store in Oak Park Heights, just east of the Central Commons site.

LOCKPORT, Manitoba – Just about the time you think you’ve seen everything, something new comes along that leaves you shaking your head.

Fear not, this isn’t a rant; it’s all good.

Quite amazing, really.

The stretch of Red River from the St. Andrews Lock and Dam in Lockport and downstream to Lake Winnipeg is one of the best channel catfish destinations on the planet, bar none. It’s a place I try to fish at least once every year and where I boated my “PB” (personal best) catfish, a 33-pound behemoth, several years ago.

Catfish that big don’t come along very often – even at Lockport – but fish in the 20-pound range are relatively common. That’s the kind of potential awaiting catfish anglers who fish the Red near Lockport.

Providing, of course, they have the right bait.

Historically, before going to Lockport, U.S. fishermen would catch goldeyes or buy suckers at home, freezing them to use for cutbait, or catch frogs and freeze them for the trip across the border. Beginning in late July and continuing well into August, the big Lockport cats tend to find frogs particularly delectable.

That all changed a few years back, when Canada banned the import of nightcrawlers and all aquatic bait, whether live, dead or frozen, as part of an effort to minimize the risk of introducing aquatic invasive species into the country.

You can catch goldeyes and frogs in Canada, of course, but catching bait takes time away from catching catfish.

With that dilemma as a backdrop, longtime fishing buddy Brad Durick, a Grand Forks catfish guide, his 15-year-old son Braden and I found ourselves scrounging for bait before a recent fishing trip to Lockport.

A Canadian friend who lives near the river gave us some goldeyes he’d caught a few days earlier below the Lockport Dam, and our host had some of her late husband’s old frozen bait in her freezer. A longtime friend and fishing partner – and a real stickler when it came to catfish bait – Jim Stinson died in March.

Given the bait challenges, Durick decided the trip would be the perfect time to experiment with a chicken bait concoction he’d heard about back in 2011 from a client who lived in North Carolina.

This wasn’t some vile, rotten-smelling stuff that uninitiated anglers might think of when they think of catfishing. This “recipe” called for cutting up fresh chicken breasts and slathering them with garlic powder and strawberry Jell-O powder.

Why strawberry Jello-O powder and not some other flavor, I’m not sure, but when in doubt, follow the recipe.

This was all new to me.

Stopping at a Canadian grocery store on the way to Lockport, we bought two packages of fresh chicken breasts, garlic powder (which I’d forgotten to bring from home) and two boxes of strawberry Jell-O powder. We pondered whether we should get sugar-free Jell-O or the sweetened variety.

Ultimately, we chose the sweetened variety.

We hit the water that first afternoon with the aforementioned goldeyes and old freezer-burnt Canadian bait, fully expecting we’d be up early the next morning to try catching frogs in a spot we’d heard would produce.

I missed a fish on a frog that had been in our Canadian host’s freezer for who knows how many years, and we’d landed a couple of catfish on the old frozen bait when Durick decided to hook on a chunk of the “Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken” mixture he’d whipped up before we hit the water.

None of us were expecting much.

But when he caught a catfish on the chicken bait – followed by another and another and another – it wasn’t long before all three of us had made the switch.

The catfish absolutely loved it.

Based on what I could find online, the mixture makes good catfish bait because the garlic powder’s potent aroma and the amino acids in the Jell-O powder attract catfish from a distance. The chicken provides a good base for holding the mixture, while the Jell-O powder absorbs moisture, making the chicken tougher and more likely to stay on the hook.

Still, even though Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken works in the South, I was skeptical that it would work in Lockport, where catfish seem to be even more bait specific than they are along the Grand Forks stretch of the Red River. I’ve seen times at Lockport when, if the catfish are going on frogs, all you’re going to do if you don’t have frogs is watch neighboring boats that have frogs catch catfish.

I’m not skeptical any more.

Over two partial days and one full day of fishing – roughly 15 hours total – the three of us boated 53 catfish up to 25 pounds. All but maybe half a dozen of those catfish came on Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken. Durick even had to mix up a second batch the evening before our third and final day on the water, an outing in which we boated 28 of our 53 catfish in about four hours of fishing.

He was cackling about the bait and how well it worked all weekend.

Whether this not-so-secret hot, new bait is the “be all-end all” for future catfish excursions to Lockport – and whether it works in Grand Forks – remains to be seen, but the results from our most recent trip were too convincing to say it was a fluke.

In three days on the water, the results were the same every time: Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken ruled the roost.

Go figure.

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