A Chisago City man was charged with murder after authorities in east-central Minnesota say he assaulted a security guard on Christmas Day while fleeing a hold in a Wyoming hospital emergency room.

Officials identified the guard as Andrea Merrell, 43. She worked at M Health Fairview Lakes Hospital in Wyoming.

Jonathan Chet Winch, 35, was charged Monday with one count of second-degree murder in Chisago County District Court in connection with her slaying.

The criminal complaint gave the following details:

About 5:24 p.m. Thursday, police were called to M Health Fairview Lakes Hospital after staff said a man who was on a medical hold in the emergency room pushed through the doors and was running away.

When a police officer arrived, he found Merrell lying unconscious near a security vehicle with its emergency lights on in the hospital parking lot. Winch, wearing sweatpants and no shirt, was allegedly trying to get into the vehicle.

When the officer stopped his squad car nearby, Winch jumped on the windshield of the squad. The officer got out and ordered Winch to the ground. Winch did not comply and continued to advance toward the officer saying multiple times, “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

The officer struggled with Winch for about five minutes while trying to detain him until backup officers arrived and took Winch into custody.

Surveillance cameras outside the hospital captured footage of Winch and Merrell on the ground near the security vehicle before the first officer arrived. The complaint said that Winch appeared to be striking or swinging at Merrell while sitting on top of her.

Merrell was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul with severe head trauma. She died of her injuries on Saturday.

During his first court appearance on Monday in Chisago County District Court, Winch’s bail was set at $2 million. The court ordered a competency exam to be conducted while he is in custody.

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“Nearly 70 percent of New Yorkers with steam heat report being chronically overheated during the winter. Tenants are uncomfortable and landlords waste energy.”

(Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Winter is upon us, and with that comes the classic New York struggle: arctic temperatures outside and sweltering, 90-degree apartments that have all of us opening our windows. In fact, nearly 70 percent of New Yorkers with steam heat report being chronically overheated during the winter. Tenants are uncomfortable and landlords waste energy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, buildings in many European countries also have older steam radiators, yet tenants in those apartments are able to easily keep their units comfortably temperate, but not tropical, during the winter. How? With a thermostatic radiator valve, a small plastic product that can be installed in under an hour and costs less than $25 on Amazon. 

My organization, Tenants for Healthy Homes, sees an opportunity to improve tenants’ lives while also helping the city meet our energy efficiency goals. A thermostatic radiator valve allows tenants to control the temperature more precisely, preventing overheating and providing dignity and comfort in our apartments (these are different from the valves on most New York City radiators, which only allow for on/off control).

These valves, alongside common-sense maintenance like repairing broken heating system elements and leaks, installing indoor and outdoor thermometers, and insulating exposed pipes, would have an overall impact of keeping our apartments at a pleasant and comfortable temperature all winter long. 

Luckily, landlords of rent-stabilized buildings are already required to make these upgrades under our city’s green buildings law, Local Law 97. Under Local Law 97, covered rent-stabilized landlords were required to have installed individual temperature controls, alongside other affordable changes, by August of 2025. All told, the low-cost suite of upgrades, which are not allowed to result in rent increases, would increase tenant comfort and reduce pollution from heating by 15 percent or more—while solving the problem of having to keep the windows open in February. 

The law says that landlords have to install common-sense upgrades like these valves, but in practice, it’s not yet happening. As the director of Tenants for Healthy Homes, I organize with rent-stabilized tenants across New York City, and I am aware of only a small handful of buildings where the valves have been installed and these upgrades have occurred.

When I talk to fellow tenants, most don’t even know that we’re entitled to control our own heat, and there’s no way for tenants to let the city know if their landlord hasn’t made the required fixes (instead, landlords report compliance directly to the city, with no tenant involvement whatsoever). Local Law 97 enforcement and discussion has focused on owner-occupied buildings like co-ops and condos; little attention has been paid to the millions of renters who deserve, and are entitled to, comfortable, efficient homes. 

Renters across New York City deserve homes that are comfortable, affordable, efficient, and safe. Radiator valves and comfortable winter temperatures are a small part of that, but when I talk with people across our neighborhoods, they are excited by the idea that their landlords and the city should deliver these fixes that allow us to live in homes that are more comfortable and more dignified, where we aren’t sweltering all winter long. 

Our apartments are too hot—and when they’re not, they’re too cold, too polluted, or too poorly maintained. The millions of New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized housing deserve all the benefits of efficiency, alongside all the benefits of habitable, well-maintained homes.

With these relatively simple interventions—and a focus on enforcement from the city—we might soon be able to get there.

Arielle Swernoff is the director of Tenants for Healthy Homes, a group of tenants coming together to advocate for policies that ensure our homes are comfortable, safe, energy efficient, and affordable.

The post Opinion: Radiators, Tenants & NYC’s Green Buildings Law appeared first on City Limits.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The game couldn’t have started much better for the Chicago Bears after getting a pick-6 on the first play.

The ending couldn’t have been much more crushing with a potential game-winning pass from the 2-yard line falling short as the Bears couldn’t complete a record seventh late-game comeback.

Caleb Williams missed on a last-ditch pass to Jahdae Walker in the end zone Sunday night, sending the Bears to a 42-38 loss to the San Francisco 49ers that cost them a chance to earn the top seed in the NFC playoffs.

“It’s frustrating,” Williams said. “You don’t want to lose a game ever. And then also, in that position, having a shot at the end is all you can ask for in this moment. But we’ve got to do better job overall.”

Williams and the Bears (11-5) had been at their best in those types of late-game situations with an NFL record six wins when trailing in the final two minutes of regulation, including a comeback win last week against the Green Bay Packers.

Williams moved Chicago 63 yards in 2:11, converting a fourth-and-5 and then getting the ball to the 2 with a hook-and-ladder pass to Colston Loveland, who lateraled to D’Andre Swift.

After a spike to stop the clock, the Bears struggled to line up properly on the final play. Williams was then flushed out of the pocket by Bryce Huff, and his throw to the end zone short-hopped Walker.

“We just had to try to make something out of nothing in that situation and then, like I said, we had a shot,” Williams said. “With all that going on, time winding down, we had a shot. I just have to give my guys a shot in that situation. I ended up dirting the ball, didn’t get my legs into it. Just put the ball in the end zone in that situation. I can’t dirt the ball.”

The loss ends the Bears’ hopes of earning the top seed and a first-round bye. Chicago, which went 1-1 against the Vikings this season, has clinched the NFC North and can earn the No. 2 seed by beating Detroit next Sunday or if Philadelphia loses to Washington.

Williams threw for 330 yards and two touchdowns, Swift ran for two scores, rookies Luther Burden and Loveland combined for 14 catches for 232 yards and two touchdowns, and T.J. Edwards scored on a 34-yard pick-6 on the first play from scrimmage.

But the defense struggled to get any stops, allowing Brock Purdy and the 49ers to score six touchdowns in the third game this season that Chicago has allowed at least 42 points.

For a franchise built on a history of stout defenses and inconsistent offenses, the manner in which the Bears lost was especially stunning. They became the second team in the Super Bowl era to lose a game in the regular season or playoffs when they scored at least 35 points, got a defensive touchdown and didn’t turn the ball over.

Teams had been 286-1 in that scenario with the only other team to lose being Denver in a 41-36 loss to the St. Louis Rams in the 2000 season opener.

“When you go against a dynamic offense like that, you talk about the possibilities as an offense of going tit-for-tat with them, and at times we may answer that call,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said. “They just ended up making more plays than us.”

San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, right, runs against Chicago Bears safety Jaquan Brisker (9) during the second half of an NFL football game in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Eakin Howard)

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By MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The moon and sun share top billing in 2026.

Kicking off the year’s cosmic wonders is the moon, drawing the first astronauts to visit in more than 50 years as well as a caravan of robotic lunar landers including Jeff Bezos’ new supersized Blue Moon. A supermoon looms on Jan. 3 and an astronomical blue moon is on the books for May.

The sun will also generate buzz with a ring-of-fire eclipse at the bottom of the world in February and a total solar eclipse at the top of the world in August. Expect more auroras in unexpected places, though perhaps not as frequently as the past couple years.

And that comet that strayed into our turf from another star? While still visible with powerful backyard telescopes, the recently discovered comet known as 3I/Atlas is fading by the day after swinging past Earth in December. Jupiter is next on its dance card in March. Once the icy outsider departs our solar system a decade from now, it will be back where it belongs in interstellar space.

FILE – This photo provided by Gianluca Masi shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas as it streaks through space, 190 million miles from Earth, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, seen from Manciano, Italy. (Gianluca Masi via AP, File)

It’s our third known interstellar visitor. Scientists anticipate more.

“I can’t believe it’s taken this long to find three,” said NASA’s Paul Chodas, who’s been on the lookout since the 1980s. And with ever better technology, “the chance of catching another interstellar visitor will increase.”

Here’s a rundown on what the universe has in store for us in 2026:

Next stop, moon

NASA’s upcoming moonshot commander Reid Wiseman said there’s a good chance he and his crew will be the first to lay eyeballs on large swaths of the lunar far side that were missed by the Apollo astronauts a half-century ago. Their observations could be a boon for geologists, he noted, and other experts picking future landing sites.

Launching early in the year, the three Americans and one Canadian will zip past the moon, do a U-turn behind it, then hustle straight back to Earth to close out their 10-day mission. No stopping for a moonwalk — the boot prints will be left by the next crew in NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program.

FILE – In this photo provided by NASA, Artemis II crew members, from left, Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch, stand together at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in front of an Orion crew module on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. (Kim Shiflett/NASA via AP, File)

More robotic moon landings are on the books by China as well as U.S. companies. Early in the year, Amazon founder Bezos is looking for his Blue Origin rocket company to launch a prototype of the lunar lander it’s designing for NASA’s astronauts. This Blue Moon demo will stand 26 feet, taller than what delivered Apollo’s 12 moonwalkers to the lunar surface. The Blue Moon version for crew will be almost double that height.

This illustration provided by Blue Origin depicts the company’s Blue Moon MK1 spacecraft on the surface of the moon. (Blue Origin via AP)

Back for another stab at the moon, Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines are also targeting 2026 landings with scientific gear. The only private entity to nail a lunar landing, Firefly Aerospace, will aim for the moon’s far side in 2026.

China is targeting the south polar region in the new year, sending a rover as well as a so-called hopper to jump into permanently shadowed craters in search of ice.

Eclipses

The cosmos pulls out all the stops with a total solar eclipse on Aug. 12 that will begin in the Arctic and cross over Greenland, Iceland and Spain. Totality will last two minutes and 18 seconds as the moon moves directly between Earth and the sun to blot out the latter. By contrast, the total solar eclipse in 2027 will offer a whopping 6 1/2 minutes of totality and pass over more countries.

FILE – The moon moves across the sun during a “ring of fire” annular solar eclipse seen from Tahai, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile, on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File)

For 2026, the warm-up act will be a ring-of-fire eclipse in the Antarctic on Feb. 17, with only a few research stations in prime viewing position. South Africa and southernmost Chile and Argentina will have partial viewing. A total lunar eclipse will follow two weeks after February’s ring of fire, with a partial lunar eclipse closing out the action at the end of August.

Parading planets

Six of the solar system’s eight planets will prance across the sky in a must-see lineup around Feb. 28. A nearly full moon is even getting into the act, appearing alongside Jupiter. Uranus and Neptune will require binoculars or telescopes. But Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn should be visible with the naked eye shortly after sunset, weather permitting, though Mercury and Venus will be low on the horizon.

Mars will be the lone no-show. The good news is that the red planet will join a six-planet parade in August, with Venus the holdout.

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Supermoons

Three supermoons will lighten up the night skies in 2026, the stunning result when a full moon inches closer to Earth than usual as it orbits in a not-quite-perfect circle. Appearing bigger and brighter, supermoons are a perennial crowd pleaser requiring no equipment, only your eyes.

The year’s first supermoon in January coincides with a meteor shower, but the moonlight likely will obscure the dimmer fireballs. The second supermoon of 2026 won’t occur until Nov. 24, with the third — the year’s final and closest supermoon — occurring the night of Dec. 23 into Dec. 24. This Christmas Eve supermoon will pass within 221,668 miles of Earth.

Northern and southern lights

The sun is expected to churn out more eruptions in 2026 that could lead to geomagnetic storms here on Earth, giving rise to stunning aurora. Solar action should start to ease, however, with the 11-year solar cycle finally on the downslide.

Space weather forecasters like Rob Steenburgh at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can’t wait to tap into all the solar wind measurements coming soon from an observatory launched in the fall.

“2026 will be an exciting year for space weather enthusiasts,” he said in an email, with this new spacecraft and others helping scientists “better understand our nearest star and forecast its impacts.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.