Authorities searched the South St. Paul home of a man with a history of making threats against law enforcement and found drugs and approximately 90 guns, including a rifle with a scope set up on a tripod overlooking the front door, according to court documents.

Kollin J. Konitzer, 34, is well known to authorities “due to his concerning, escalating pattern of conduct” toward law enforcement, the documents say.

Kollin J. Konitzer (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

So when South St. Paul police learned the afternoon of Aug. 19 that Konitzer was on his way to city hall to talk about a records request, he was met in a lobby by a commander.

The officer saw that Konitzer had a gun at his hip under his shirt, then discovered he did not have a permit to carry a firearm, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dakota County District Court.

Konitzer was arrested and jailed, and police filed a petition for an extreme risk protection order against him the same day alleging that he has made several threats to law enforcement and his ex-partners.

On Wednesday, agents with the Dakota County Drug Task Force executed a search warrant on Konitzer’s home in the 300 block of Seventh Avenue South and found the stockpile of handguns, shotguns and rifles, according to a complaint in that case.

A safe in his bedroom included 0.91 grams of fentanyl and a pill bottle — with no identifying prescription information — that contained 53 pills of methylphenidate, a controlled substance primarily used to treat ADHD, the complaint says.

Konitzer’s LinkedIn page says he is the owner and founder of Alphabet Soup Arms LLC, a business that was registered with the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State in November and is considered active. The online record cites his South St. Paul home as the principal place of business.

The petition for an extreme risk protection order, which a judge granted Aug. 20, details a history of alleged threatening behavior toward law enforcement, including a “comment that he could kill the police chief before he could return fire,” the document reads. He also allegedly has made “countless” social media posts promoting anti-government ideology.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s Behavioral Threat Assessment Team considers Konitzer to be a threat “due to his concerning, escalating pattern of conduct” toward law enforcement, according to the petition.

The BCA, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and South St. Paul police have all issued officer-safety alerts about Konitzer, and the city of Osseo is forwarding charges for disorderly conduct for his interaction with a front desk clerk, the petition continues.

Loaded 9 mm handgun

Because of his prior interactions with South St. Paul clerical staff, Konitzer has been directed to interact with police commanders, the charges say.

When Cmdr. Dan Salmey met Konitzer at the front window of the police department lobby, he said he wanted data he had requested several years prior regarding an interaction with officers. He also said he wanted to file a complaint related to the data request.

Salmey saw the outline of a handgun through Konitzer’s shirt. At one point he grabbed the grip of the firearm with his middle, ring and pinky fingers, “leaving his index finger free,” the charges say. Salmey then reviewed a prior investigation involving Konitzer and learned he does not have a valid permit to carry a pistol.

Salmey returned to the lobby and asked Konitzer if he had a firearm on him. He replied, “Oh absolutely,” the complaint states.

Konitzer’s 9 mm Sig Sauer handgun had one round in the chamber and 12 rounds in the magazine.

As Konitzer was being placed under arrest, he reportedly said, “I have been waiting for this.” Another officer tried to read Konitzer his Miranda warning, but he became “irate” and began screaming and swearing at the officer. Konitzer invoked his right to remain silent.

Dakota County prosecutors charged Konitzer with possession of a pistol in a public place without a permit, a gross misdemeanor, and five counts of felony fifth-degree possession of a controlled substance.

At a first court appearance Friday on the drug charges, prosecutors requested that Konitzer be held on “significant” bail — $150,000, without conditions — due to the extreme risk protection order and the guns found at his home. He was released from the Dakota County Jail after posting a $100,000 bond with conditions, including no possession of firearms.

An attorney in the drug case is not listed in the court file, and a court-appointed assistant public defender in the no-permit gun case did not immediately return a message Monday asking for comment.

Konitzer does not have a criminal history, other than a speeding ticket.

Grievances with the BCA

The extreme risk protection order petition recounts Konitzer’s other alleged threatening and questionable behavior with government agencies.

The BCA reported that Konitzer has had grievances with the agency’s firearms-instructor certification, and that he has been creating his own certificates purporting to allow the user to conceal and carry, despite lacking BCA approval, the petition alleges.

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In January, Konitzer issued a certificate to an individual who was later denied a permit in Anoka County. In response, Konitzer told Anoka County that “his group would be backed, and they would be armed,” the petition reads.

In April, Konitzer went to the South St. Paul police lobby and made obscene gestures to a staff member.

After his application to become a South St. Paul police cadet was denied, the petition says, Konitzer emailed city staff in July, stating, “We’ll break that thin blue line of tyranny one way or another!”

Konitzer also allegedly had approached South St. Paul officers’ squad vehicles after making social media posts about Molotov cocktails, explosives and firearms.

Recently, he went to the South St. Police Department and the BCA’s headquarters in St. Paul while armed and wearing a tactical vest, according to the petition.

By PATRICK WHITTLE

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A network of clinics in Maine will not resume getting Medicaid funds to treat thousands of low-income patients during its lawsuit over Trump administration cuts to abortion providers, a judge ruled Monday.

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The decision against Maine Family Planning came despite a ruling last month by another federal judge, who said Planned Parenthood clinics around the country must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the provider wrangles with the Trump administration over efforts to defund it. That legal fight continues.

Without Medicaid, the much smaller provider in Maine says it will have to stop serving hundreds of primary care patients by the end of October. The organization says abortions are a relatively small percentage of its overall services, which include cervical cancer screenings, contraception and primary care to low-income residents in one of the poorest and most rural states in the Northeast.

President Donald Trump’s policy and tax bill, known as the “ big beautiful bill,” blocked Medicaid money from flowing to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. The parameters in the bill also stopped funding from reaching Maine Family Planning, and it is the only other organization that has come forward publicly to say its funding is at risk.

Maine Family Planning says Medicaid dollars are not used for its abortion services, and it’s unfair to cut off funding for the clinics “solely because Congress wanted to defund Planned Parenthood,” an attorney for the organization told the judge earlier this month.

However, Judge Lance Walker said in his ruling Monday that the payments will not resume during the ongoing lawsuit by the provider seeking to restore the funds. He wrote that Congress can “withhold federal funds and otherwise disassociate from conduct that is not enshrined” as a constitutional right.

Walker, a 2018 Trump appointee, also wrote that it would be “a special kind of judicial hubris” to undermine the big bill, which he described as the end result of democratic processes.

The network of 18 clinics said in a statement Monday that Walker’s ruling will destabilize the state’s entire health infrastructure by potentially turning low-income patients away from their doctors. The group said about 8,000 people receive family planning and primary care from its clinics.

“Mainers’ health should never be jeopardized by political decisions, and we will continue to fight for them,” said George Hill, president and chief executive officer of Maine Family Planning.

When asked if the organization is considering appealing the decision, the group issued a statement that said the network is “considering all options to ensure that Maine’s Medicaid patients can continue to receive the health care they need and deserve.”

Attorneys representing the Trump administration did not immediately comment. Emily Hall, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, told the judge in court earlier this month that Congress has a right not to contract with abortion providers.

“The rational basis is not simply to reduce the number of abortions, it’s to ensure the federal government is not paying out money to organizations that provide abortions,” Hall said.

While advocates of cutting Medicaid for abortion providers focused on Planned Parenthood, the bill did not mention it by name. Instead, it cut off reimbursements for organizations that are primarily engaged in family planning services — which generally include items such as contraception, abortion and pregnancy tests — and received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023.

The U.S. Senate’s parliamentarian rejected a 2017 effort to defund Planned Parenthood because it was written to exclude all other providers by barring payments only to groups that received more than $350 million a year in Medicaid funds. Maine Family Planning asserts in its legal challenge that the threshold was lowered to $800,000 this time around to make sure Planned Parenthood would not be the only entity affected.

By DEE-ANN DURBIN

Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo but apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.

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“If the last few days have shown us anything, it’s how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel. We’re truly grateful for your heartfelt voices,” the company said Monday in a statement on its website. “You’ve also shown us that we could have done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be.”

Cracker Barrel took heat last week when it announced a simplified logo featuring only the chain’s name. Gone was the picture of an older man in overalls leaning against a barrel. The words “Old Country Store” were also removed.

The change was part of a wider rebrand, which has seen Cracker Barrel update its cluttered, antique-filled restaurants with lighter paint and modern furniture.

FILE – The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store logo in Pearl, Miss., is photographed, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

Many on social media, including Donald Trump Jr., criticized the new logo, with some threatening to boycott unless it was changed back. Sensing an opening, the rival chain Steak n’ Shake called the new logo “a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers.”

“Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to just scrape it all away,” Steak n’ Shake said in a statement on X.

Cracker Barrel shares have dropped more than 10% since the new logo was introduced on Aug. 18.

On Monday, the Lebanon, Tennessee-based company emphasized that many things about Cracker Barrel won’t change, including the rocking chairs on its front porches and vintage Americana and antiques scattered throughout its restaurants.

Cracker Barrel also said it will continue to honor Uncle Herschel — the older man in the former logo, who represents the uncle of Cracker Barrel’s founder — on its menu and on items sold in its stores.

The new Cracker Barrel logo is displayed on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Wyatte Grantham-Philips)

But Cracker Barrel said it also wants to make sure that the business stays fresh and attracts a new generation of customers.

“That means showing up on new platforms and in new ways, but always with our heritage at the heart,” the company said in a statement.

The company said it will also keep testing, learning and listening to its employees and customers.

Cracker Barrel shares fell less than 1% to close at $54.26 per share Monday.

Jim Stern, a counselor at Roseville Area High School, stood in front of the group gathered in front of him Friday outside the school, socializing among each other, and held a bullhorn up to get their attention.

“Welcome back to school,” he said. “Hope you had a good summer.”

The group wasn’t high schoolers prepared for the school year — they were graduates of former Alexander Ramsey High School’s class of 1975, gathered together for a tour of their high school, now Roseville Area High School, before their reunion, which was held Saturday.

Besides being their 50th reunion, and their first since the pandemic prevented the 45th, it’s also the one where the former classmates will first see the time capsule their class buried 50 years ago. It was thought lost after school renovations seemingly buried it under concrete.

Originally, the class had planned to have the time capsule unburied for their 25th reunion, but when former classmates Bobbie Evangelist, Cindi Baisi and others returned to the campus, they discovered that renovations had made it impossible to find.

“We just thought we’d come here in the summer, dig it up and be on our way,” Evangelist said. “We dug a lot for a couple days and we never – we had a whole crew out here. We had the custodians from the school helping us.”

Diane Kinderwater, from Albuquerque New Mexico, and John Ludwigson, Lake Elmo, look at a 1975 yearbook from Alexander Ramsey High School now Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Found accidentally

It wasn’t until around the classmates’ 40th reunion that the time capsule was found accidentally while work was being done on the school.

Among the items — originally buried in a baby casket to preserve them — were newspapers, including a copy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press with a headline reading “Wendy nixes session,” a reference to then-Gov. Wendall Anderson. A Time magazine carries a photo of then-President Gerald Ford. A TV Guide features a story on the Bob Newhart Show.

There’s also a bottle of Italian liqueur — from 1973 to 1976, the legal drinking age in Minnesota was 18. A troll doll, student identification cards and photos and a fake skeleton also were there. There’s also a Rams logo — the team nickname of Alexander Ramsey.

Each of the 550 or so students also wrote letters, either to their future selves or to friends. Classmates got those letters back at Saturday’s reunion. For those who couldn’t attend, the rest will be mailed to them or sent to their next of kin.

Diane Kinderwater, of Albuquerque, N.M., looks over a letter she wrote to herself in 1975, expressing her hopes and dreams, that was placed in time capsule at Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Even 50 years later, Suzi Ramsey Fiedler remembered what she wrote to herself, she said before the school tour. It included the number of children and career she wanted and the airline pilot she imagined herself marrying.

Classmate Diane Kinderwater, of New Mexico, who opened her letter ahead of the school tour, was happy that she ended up on TV like her younger self dreamed of doing.

“I’m so happy,” said Kinderwater, who has worked in broadcasting.

John Healy, from Lake Elmo, holds a up a 1975 Alexander Ramsey High School year book photo proclaiming him and classmate Lauren Kresch as the “Best Kisser” at Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025.
(John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Memories

The group followed Stern through the school, asking each other where they’re living now, remembering moments from their time there, their chatter filling the hallways. Many now live out of state. A former exchange student from Finland returned with his wife, the two of them taking the trip from Helsinki to visit the school where he joined the speech team to help himself improve his English.

Most of the school is unrecognizable to the group, except for the gym, which they said is the same, and some of the hallways.

Life at school is different, too. The school no longer has a designated smoking area for students and students don’t just sign themselves out of class when they want to like those in the class of 1975 were able to do. Other things have stayed the same.

“We were involved in theater. We were involved in band, in orchestra, in art,” Kinderwater said. “The school provided us many opportunities, and many students took advantage of it, and were in a position to be able to take advantage of it.”

The class visited the band room, the auditorium completed after they graduated, the auto shop and media center. They caught up, joked around and recalled pranks — including at least one streaking incident. For them, the tour wasn’t so much a chance to see the new parts of the building as it is a chance to remember their time there.

Diane Kinderwater points to the article in a 1975 student newspaper that announced a future auditorium as she stands in the front that auditorium at Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

‘Reunions — don’t miss the 50th’

At the end of the tour, Stern holds up the bullhorn again.

“You’ve been much, much better than the class of ‘74,” Stern said to laughter from the group.

He wasn’t quite kidding — he’s also led school tours for the class of 1974, 1973 and 1959.

“I joke with my colleagues, I may be doing this until I retire because the 50th just keeps coming for younger graduates,” Stern said.

The classmates joke about who will plan the 75th.

“My dad always said, ‘Reunions – don’t miss the 50th,’ ” Ramsey Fiedler said. “That’s what he always said. Reunions, people compare what you do in your life. But he said, ‘The 50th, they’re all over that and now they’re just interested in your life.’ ”

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