Jill Sobule, the award-winning singer-songwriter whose witty and poignant writing first attracted widespread attention with the gay-themed song “I Kissed a Girl,” died in a Woodbury house fire Thursday. She was 66.

Her death was confirmed by her publicist, David Elkin, in an email Thursday afternoon. It was not immediately clear how the fire started.

“Jill Sobule was a force of nature and human rights advocate whose music is woven into our culture,” John Porter, her manager, said in a statement. “I was having so much fun working with her. I lost a client & a friend today. I hope her music, memory, & legacy continue to live on and inspire others.”

Sobule was staying with friends, who “lost Jill, their house and their dogs,” Porter told The Hollywood Reporter.

During her more than three decades of recording, Sobule released 12 albums that addressed such complex topics as the death penalty, anorexia nervosa, reproduction and LGBTQ+ issues.

Woodbury Public Safety responders were alerted at 5:30 a.m. to a fire on the 9000 block of Pinehurst Road, according to the department. The house was fully engulfed in flames when they arrived.

Homeowners told responders that one person was likely still inside the home. Woodbury firefighters worked to extinguish the flames while searching for the missing person and they found her deceased, according to Woodbury Public Safety.

An investigation into the cause of the fire and the cause of death is ongoing. Woodbury Public Safety said there were no immediate signs of foul play.

Sobule’s first album, “Things Here Are Different,” was released in 1990. Five years later, she received widespread attention for her hit singles, “Supermodel,” from the movie “Clueless,” and “I Kissed A Girl,” which, despite being banned on several southern radio stations, made it into the Billboard Top 20.

She also starred in an autobiographical off-Broadway musical that initially premiered at the Wild Project in New York in 2022 and includes songs and stories about her life.

Sobule was known for taking control of her career by fundraising so she could make her next album. In 2008, after two major record companies dumped her and two indie labels went bankrupt beneath her, she raised tens of thousands of dollars from fans so she could make a new album.

“The old kind of paradigm, where you’ve always waited for other people to do things, you’d have your manager and your agent,” she said at the time. “You’d wait for the big record company to give you money to do things and they tell you what to do. This is so great. I want to do everything like this.”

Sobule was scheduled to perform in Denver on Friday night. Instead, there will be an informal gathering hosted by her friend Ron Bostwick from 105.5 The Colorado Sound at the performance space where attendees can “share a story or song,” according to her publicist.

A formal memorial to celebrate her life and legacy will be held later this summer.

“No one made me laugh more. Her spirit and energy shall be greatly missed within the music community and beyond,” Craig Grossman, her booking agent, said in a statement.

Related Articles

Singer Jill Sobule dies in Woodbury house fire

St. Paul police plan to encrypt dispatches, as have Minneapolis, other agencies

Apostle Supper Club across from the Xcel Energy Center to close

Slow down and look up: Extra law enforcement on MN roads starting Thursday

Charges: Man kills his mother, sexually assaults Burnsville woman the next day

Born in Denver, Colorado, on Jan. 16, 1959, she has described herself as a shy child who preferred observing over participating.

Sobule was known for playing dozens of shows a year and has described her live performances as vulnerable experiences. She said she often doesn’t have a set list and wings it.

She’s performed with such icons as Neil Young, Billy Bragg and Cyndi Lauper, and also inducted Neil Diamond into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, according to her website. She also sang a song as herself on an episode of “The Simpsons” in 2019.

“In a good way, I feel like I’m still a rookie,” she told The Associated Press in 2023 in an interview about her musical. “There’s so much more to do and I haven’t done my best yet.”

She is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, James and Mary Ellen Sobule, along with her nephews and cousins.

Pioneer Press reporter Talia McWright contributed to this report.

The end did not come without a fight for the Minnesota Wild. But it was an ending, nonetheless.

Facing elimination in Game 6 of their first-round series with Vegas, the Wild were unable to play with a lead — which was critical in these half-dozen games — and fell 3-2 on Thursday, with the Golden Knights claiming the series 4-2.

Vegas star forward Jack Eichel scored his first playoff goal at a critical time, snapping a second-period tie, as the Golden Knights won the final three games of the series to advance for the first time since their Stanley Cup win in 2023. Mark Stone added an insurance goal for the Knights with just under 4 minutes left in regulation as they held off the Wild’s late charge.

Ryan Hartman scored both goals for Minnesota, which has lost its past three playoff series in six games after leading all of them 2-1. Filip Gustavsson had 20 saves for Minnesota, which last won a first-round playoff series in 2015.

Adin Hill was the difference-maker as the Wild made a desperate third period push, as the Knights goalie had 29 saves in the win.

The season-long story about penalty-kill struggles added another chapter before the game was 5 minutes old, when Marco Rossi drew a double minor for high sticking on his first shift of the game. Vegas used the man advantage to forge an early lead on Shea Theodore’s wrist shot from the blue line.

With 20 seconds left in the opening period, the Wild had the puck behind their own net and looked, briefly, like they might be content to run out the clock and get to the first intermission. Instead, they initiated one final rush up ice, which ended noisily, when Hartman sent a shot through a crowd, tying the game with 4 seconds left in the first.

It was the first goal of the playoffs for Hartman, who had four assists in the first five games, and famously had a potential game-winner taken away in Game 5 when replay showed the team entered the offensive zone offside.

Minnesota made a strong push early in the second but could not take the lead, controlling the play for much of a two-minute man advantage without a breakthrough.

Instead, it was Vegas grabbing the momentum and the lead late in the period. Eichel, who had been held without a goal in the series’ first five games as the Knights’ top line struggled, got a breakaway after a lead pass from Stone that was just out of reach of Kirill Kaprizov’s desperate attempt to swat it away. Eichel’s low shot beat Gustavsson on the glove side.

But Minnesota refused to go quietly in the third, making push after push early in the period as Vegas seemed content to sit back, play defense and ice the puck when they could. Matt Boldy had a wide-open shot from the low slot only to have the puck poked away. A minute or so later, Hartman came in all alone after a set-up pass, but Hill made the save.

After Stone knocked a puck out of the air and past Gustavsson for a 3-1 lead, Hartman potted a tap-in from the side of the net just 21 seconds later to make it a one-goal game again. Hartman had a potential hat trick at his feet, but could not get a shot off following a rebound that was loose in the crease with 2:40 left.

The Wild sent Gustavsson to the bench with two minutes remaining.

The Wild went with the same lineup as Game 5, most notable for the return of Gustavsson, after he exited the previous contest after 40 minutes in with an illness. There was some speculation of potential defensive changes following the coverage gaffe that led to the Knights’ overtime winner, but coach John Hynes stuck with the status quo.

Vegas made a change at forward with Pavel Dorofeyev, their top goal scorer, missing from the lineup for the first time this season. He had played all 82 regular season games and the first five in the playoffs, but suffered an undisclosed injury late in Game 5.

Vegas, which won the Pacific Division, will host the winner of the first-round series between Los Angeles and Edmonton.

Related Articles

Wild embrace the hard of facing elimination, again

Facing elimination, Wild put on their game face

Vegas delivers gut punch as Knights push Wild to brink of elimination

Jon Merrill returns to Wild defense corps for Game 5

During Wild’s injury woes, Matt Boldy blocked out the noise

Authorities arrested a 34-year-old man Thursday in connection with the fatal shootings of three people in South Minneapolis, and the city’s police chief said it’s likely another person was killed the next day in retaliation.

Police have said that the four people killed and two others seriously wounded in the multiple shootings were Native American, and authorities strongly suspect the shootings were gang-related. However, Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference Thursday that authorities are still investigating the motives behind the shootings.

The shootings shook a large Indigenous community south of downtown Minneapolis. A 20-year-old woman, a 17-year-old boy and a 27-year-old man were killed in Tuesday’s shootings in the 1500 block of East 25th Street, and a 28-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. A 30-year-old man died in Wednesday’s shooting in the 2100 block of Cedar Avenue South.

The first shooting took place just before midnight Tuesday. O’Hara said it’s “entirely probable” that the second shooting with a single victim was a response to the three deaths, and he said someone else was responsible. It occurred about 1 p.m. Wednesday a little more than a mile to the northeast outside an apartment building housing the Minneapolis offices of the Red Lake Nation tribe.

“But beyond that, I can’t speculate further about some ongoing beef,” O’Hara said.

The police chief said investigators believe the shootings are gang related based on the “lived experience” of the people in the area.

The U.S. Marshals Service said its local fugitive task force and an FBI SWAT team arrested the suspect Thursday afternoon. He was being held in the Hennepin County jail and had not been charged as of Thursday evening.

Meanwhile, police are investigating a fifth homicide that occurred within 24 hours. Shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday, officers were alerted to gunfire in the 3000 block of 15th Avenue South. A man in his 50s was found with life-threatening gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The violence shattered a relative peace in Minneapolis. The city recently went two months without a homicide until a man was shot to death April 19. It was the city’s longest period without a homicide in a decade, according to police.

Related Articles

St. Paul police plan to encrypt dispatches, as have Minneapolis, other agencies

Police suspect 2 shootings that left 4 dead in Minneapolis were connected and gang related

Tickets for the ‘Purple Rain’ musical go on sale May 9

Theater review: Guthrie’s ‘Nacirema Society’ turns out to be all about love and laughter

Concert review: Charli XCX was all style, no substance at Target Center

By MATT O’BRIEN, AP Technology Writer

BOSTON (AP) — Tariffs weren’t on the agenda of this week’s Robotics Summit, where thousands of tech industry workers mingled with humanoid and other robot varieties and talked about how to build and sell a new generation of increasingly autonomous machines.

Not on the official agenda, at least.

“Jump up to the microphones,” said keynote speaker Aaron Saunders, chief technology officer of Boston Dynamics, inviting a standing-room-only crowd to ask him questions. “And I’m the CTO, so don’t ask me about tariffs.”

The crowd laughed and complied. But as they streamed onto the show floor at Boston’s convention center, greeted by a remote-controlled humanoid made by Chinese company Unitree, it was hard to ignore the shadow of President Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs and retaliatory measures from Trump’s biggest target, China.

Tariffs are the “No. 1 topic that we’re discussing in the hallways and at the water cooler with people that I’ve known for a long time,” said event organizer Steve Crowe, chair of the annual Robotics Summit & Expo. “I think it’s definitely top of mind, because there’s so much uncertainty about what is going to come.”

That concern is rooted in a robot’s complex anatomy of motors and actuators to move their limbs, computers to power their artificial intelligence, and sensing devices to help them react to their surroundings. Sensors, semiconductors, batteries and rare earth magnets are among the array of components most sensitive to global trade disputes.

Tesla CEO and billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk warned investors last week that China’s countermeasures restricting shipments of rare earth magnets will delay Tesla’s development of its Optimus humanoid robots.

At the summit on Wednesday and Thursday, some humanoid makers were looking at a potential bright side to the geopolitical shifts as American businesses look harder for domestic supplies of parts and the development of U.S.-based robots that can automate factories and warehouses.

“It’s added some inconveniences to our own supply chain. But it’s also opened up opportunities,” said Pras Velagapudi, chief technology officer at Oregon-based Agility Robotics, in an interview. The company is starting to deploy its humanoid robot, called Digit, at a U.S. plant run by German manufacturer Schaeffler, a maker of ball bearings and other components key to the auto industry.

Al Makke, a director of engineering for Schaeffler’s chassis systems, said tariffs could push many companies toward onshoring production of a variety of items in the U.S.

“And if that does happen, then local companies have to deal with high labor costs and a shortage of labor and so automation gets pushed further,” Makke said. “And one of those faces of automation is humanoids.”

Most of the big industrial robots employed in the U.S. are used to help make cars, and are imported from countries such as Japan, Germany or South Korea.

Automakers in the U.S. installed 9.6% more robots in their plants than a year before, according to new data from the International Federation of Robotics, a trade group.

For now, humanoids are still a niche but one that invites intense curiosity, in part thanks to popular science fiction. Saunders, of Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics, presented an update Wednesday on the development of its Atlas humanoid robot but didn’t bring a physical prototype, instead showing off a more familiar pack of its four-legged Spot robots contained in a pen on the show floor.

Related Articles

Trump says it’s Biden’s economy, but businesses and economists beg to differ

Apple posts stronger-than-expected Q2 results, says majority of US iPhones sold will come from India

Amazon posts solid first quarter earnings growth, but outlook is tempered by tariff uncertainty

She’s in charge: At the F1 Miami Grand Prix, many top executive roles are held by women

Cheap parcels from China will no longer be duty-free. Here’s what it means for buyers and sellers

The sole humanoid at the conference was Unitree’s G1. Marketed for $16,000 and remote-controlled by an employee standing nearby, the robot fluidly shook hands, waved back at people and walked around the show floor, but it won’t be moving totes or working in a factory anytime soon.

Its main customers outside China are academic researchers and some social media influencers, and Trump’s current tariffs totaling 145% on China would raise its cost to American buyers to roughly $40,000, said Tony Yang, a Unitree vice president of business development who manages its North American sales. Nevertheless, Unitree’s strategy to rapidly develop its hardware and software is a long-term one.

“It’s still a very narrow market, but I think there’s still a huge potential market on the industry side, like for manufacturing and factory and even home use,” Yang said.

At a full pickleball court on the show floor, some conference attendees took a break to grab a racket and swing at balls tossed by a wheeled robot. Asked to describe what’s inside the Tennibot robot, its maker also had tariffs on the mind.

“Injection molded parts, rivets, screws, nuts, wheels, motors, batteries,” said Haitham Eletrabi, co-founder and CEO of Tennibot, based in Auburn, Alabama. “The supply chain gets very complex. We get parts from all over the world. Tariffs are adding a lot of uncertainty.”

It’s not just the U.S.-China trade rivalry that was weighing on some attendees. Francesca Torsiello, of the recruitment firm Adapt Talent, said she’s also hearing more wariness from Canadian robotics and engineering candidates about taking jobs in the U.S. amid a tense political environment.

“In the past, people in Canada found it attractive to come and work for U.S. companies; right now they’re being very hesitant,” Torsiello said.

AP video journalist Rodrique Ngowi contributed to this report.