Today is Friday, April 18, the 108th day of 2025. There are 257 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 18, 1906, the deadliest earthquake in U.S. history struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires across the city. More than 3,000 people are believed to have been killed by the quake, which was estimated to have reached as high as 8.3 magnitude on the Richter scale.

Also on this date:

In 1775, Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Massachusetts, warning colonists that British Regular troops were approaching.

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In 1942, in the first World War II attack on the Japanese mainland, 16 U.S. Army Air Force B-25 bombers conducted an air raid, led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle, over Tokyo and several other Japanese cities.

In 1955, physicist Albert Einstein died in Princeton, New Jersey, at age 76.

In 1978, the Senate approved the Panama Canal Treaty, providing for the complete turnover of control of the waterway to Panama on the last day of 1999.

In 1983, 63 people, including 17 Americans, were killed at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, by a suicide bomber driving a van laden with explosives.

In 2015, a ship carrying migrants from Africa sank in the Mediterranean off Libya. As many as 700 people are believed to have drowned.

In 2016, “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop stage biography of America’s first treasury secretary, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

In 2019, the final report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was made public. It outlined Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election but “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

In 2023, Fox and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787.5 million settlement in the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit, averting a trial in a case that exposed how the top-rated network promoted falsehoods regarding the 2020 presidential election.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Hayley Mills is 79.
Actor James Woods is 78.
Actor Rick Moranis is 72.
Actor Eric Roberts is 69.
Journalist-author Susan Faludi is 66.
Actor Jane Leeves is 64.
Ventriloquist-comedian Jeff Dunham is 63.
Talk show host Conan O’Brien is 62.
Actor Eric McCormack is 62.
Actor Maria Bello is 58.
Football Hall of Famer Willie Roaf is 55.
Actor David Tennant is 54.
Filmmaker Eli Roth is 53.
Football Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks is 52.
Filmmaker Edgar Wright is 51.
Actor Melissa Joan Hart is 49.
Reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian is 46.
Former MLB All-Star Miguel Cabrera is 42.
Actor America Ferrera is 41.
Actor Vanessa Kirby is 37.
Actor Alia Shawkat is 36.

Over the 50 years since the first Vietnam War-era Southeast Asian refugees arrived in the U.S., there’s been hardship — but there have also been plenty of comedic moments, which is where the St. Paul-based comedy group Funny Asian Women Kollective comes in.

This weekend, the group is presenting The FAWK Hmong (+Friends) Super Show, featuring local and national Asian stand-up comedians, sketch comics and storytellers.

“It might’ve been a stereotype for people to say, 50-year anniversary, let’s reflect on war and death in this history of ours — which is completely real — but what’s really interesting is that a lot of people are focusing on the funny,” said FAWK co-founder and writer May Lee-Yang, who is directing Saturday’s show. “We don’t just want to show up on stage and talk about trauma. We want to talk about the quirky, the weird, the mundane that makes us all feel a little bit more human.”

Featured performers in the show include the trio of FAWK co-founders — Lee-Yang, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay and Naomi Ko — and Lin Sun, billed as the first Cambodian stand-up comic to have an hourlong special on a major streaming platform; online personality Ntxawm Kam; and other local acts. Plus pretaped and live sketches, including “Love Is Blind: Hmong Edition,” written by Kazua Melissa Vang, who worked as a production assistant on the most recent Minneapolis-based season of the Netflix dating show.

The FAWK Hmong (+Friends) Super Show is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at the Ordway. Tickets range from $31 to $54 and are available online.

FAWK, which was formed in 2014 and has performed three previous Super Shows over the years in addition to other programming, aims to provide a platform for participants to create a new model of gregarious, funny Asian womanhood, and break down stereotypes of Asian women as demure and quiet and overly serious.

“When we did our first Super Show at the Ordway in 2019, one feedback we got was, ‘You guys were so funny that I forgot I was watching Asian women.’” Duangphouxay Vongsay said. “And then we’ve had to unpack that.”

When Duangphouxay Vongsay was growing up, she said, she recalled Lao community members referencing complex topics like war and trauma — but only through jokes and satirical comments, not head-on discussions.

“I heard a lot of elders making fun of hard stuff to help them talk about it,” Duangphouxay Vongsay said. “For Laotians who have survived the wars — the many wars — we use comedy as a way to cope, and even sometimes to bring up topics that are really, really hard.”

This is the idea behind FAWK, she said: By finding ways to laugh about the things that are most important in our lives, even topics that may feel taboo, audience members cannot only enjoy themselves in the moment but also then use the show as a gateway for deeper conversations in the future.

“I think many people — most people I know, anyway — are always looking for an opportunity to laugh,” Lee-Yang said. “It brings them joy, brings them catharsis and makes them feel seen.”

If you go

What: The FAWK Hmong (+Friends) Super Show

Where: The Ordway, 345 Washington St., St. Paul

For tickets: 651-224-4222 or visit ordway.org/events/fawk-hmong-friends-super-show.

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A 52-year-old Farmington man accused his wife of cheating on him and then repeatedly stabbed her at their home on Tuesday, according to attempted murder charges.

Farmington police officers were sent to the home in the 19000 block of Goldfinch Drive about 8:30 a.m. on a report of domestic assault. Dispatchers told officers a woman was screaming that she had been stabbed and couldn’t move, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in Dakota County District Court charging Mehdi Badaoui with one count each of first- and second-degree attempted murder.

Mehdi Badaoui (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

When officers arrived at the home, a witness and Badaoui were standing in the garage. Officers took Badaoui into custody, noting he had blood on his hand.

The witness led officers to a bedroom, where the woman was lying on her side in a pool of blood. Officers applied a tourniquet to stop one of the wounds on her arm from bleeding.

Later, hospital staff told officers she had 10 stab wounds, lost a lot of blood and needed emergency surgery. A laceration to neck/shoulder area and a wound to her armpit were considered the most serious, the complaint says.

At the home, officers recovered a bloody pocketknife on the kitchen counter.

Officers were able to speak with the woman, who said Badaoui is her husband and that he believes she is unfaithful to him. She reported he has beaten her and threatened her with a knife multiple times.

The witness, who also lives at the home, told police she woke up that morning to yelling and saw Badaoui stabbing the woman. She also saw him drag the victim through the kitchen and into a bedroom.

The witness “pleaded with (Badaoui) to stop, but he stated he was going to kill (the victim) and go to jail,” the complaint says. The witness told police Badaoui has choked the victim and threatened to kill her several times before.

In an interview at the police station, Badaoui said he suspected his wife was cheating on him. He admitted to placing a GPS tracking device under a seat in her car and that several times in recent months he had waited outside her workplace for her to come out.

On the day of the stabbing, Badaoui told police, he noticed that she was somewhere other than work. He went there and confronted her and they argued. Later, at home, they argued more. He said picked up a knife and began “hitting” her with it after she tried to scratch him in the face.

Badaoui said he thought he stabbed his wife three to four times, and admitted he was angry with her while doing so and that she was screaming for the witness during the attack, the complaint says.

Badaoui had a first court appearance on the charges Thursday, where he remained at the Dakota County jail in lieu of $1 million bail or $750,000 with conditions. The court also issued a domestic abuse no-contact order, prohibiting Badaoui from having any direct or indirect contact with the woman. His next court appearance is scheduled for May 1.

“The facts in this case are shocking and the terror the victim endured is unthinkable,” Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena said in a statement. “I’m grateful to the Farmington Police Department and the first responders who provided life-saving aid. My thoughts continue to be with the victim as she recovers.”

Badaoui does not have a criminal record beyond three parking tickets and a speeding violation, Minnesota court records show.

Help for victims of domestic violence is available through the Day One hotline by calling 866-223-1111 or texting 612-399-9995.

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A lightning strike may have been the cause of a steeple fire at a historic church in St. Paul on Thursday, the fire department said.

The fire didn’t extend into the church in Frogtown and no injuries were reported.

The Gothic Revival church on Farrington Street at Sherburne Avenue was built in 1902 by Trinity Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church, according to the website of Historic St. Paul, a nonprofit preservation organization.

St. Paul Firefighters put out a reported lightning strike fire on the steeple of the former Trinity Norwegian Evangelical Church in at Sherburne Ave. and Farrington St. in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood on Thursday, April 17, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

It’s now dual zone occupancy and two adults were displaced from a basement living unit; the American Red Cross has been contacted to assist them, according to St. Paul Deputy Fire Chief Jamie Smith. He said the building is apparently still being used as a church. A property record lists the owner as Church Inc.

Firefighters responded to the scene just before 5:30 p.m. Thursday and could see tall flames coming from the steeple while they were on the way.

St. Paul’s Department of Safety and Inspections came to assess the steeple and, due to its unstable condition, sidewalks and the street are blocked — Sherburne Avenue between Virginia and Farrington streets, and Farrington Street between Sherburne and Charles avenues. The closures will remain in place until further assessment is completed, according to the fire department.

The fire happened as a thunderstorm was underway and, while the official cause of the fire is under investigation, preliminary investigation points to a lightning strike.

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