The instructions to Jim Mauer from his father were clear: As an emergency fill-in on a veteran crew, the first-time high school football official should not throw his flag nor blow his whistle.

“So there’s an obvious holding penalty and I do both,” Mauer said recently, recalling a night during the 1990s. “Half the players stop, half keep going and a kid runs for a touchdown.”

The head referee called the play back and led Mauer to one sideline. He told the irate coach he would receive an honest explanation.

“My kid (screwed) up and blew his whistle when he shouldn’t have,” Ken Mauer, Sr. said that night while pointing at his youngest boy, Jim. “We’re going to replay the down, 10 yards from the spot of the foul.”

The rest of that squad’s members, comprised of three of Jim Mauer’s four older brothers, give him grief about the episode to this day. And they have plenty of chances during the fall, when the five siblings often comprise an entire crew of football zebras.

“It’s like getting together with your best friends,” said Jim, a 1993 St. Cloud State graduate and former Huskies quarterback, who didn’t let the faux pas in his debut deter him from joining the family’s longtime side hustle.

“We all have home and work commitments and things going on in our lives that take time away, but we’ve made football a priority. It’s a chance to forget about the realities of life.”

Tom Mauer speaks with Johnson quarterback Ali Farfan during the Governors’ 26-8 win over Central at St. Paul Central High School on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025. (Tris Wykes / Special to the Pioneer Press)

Jim, Mark, Brian, Tom and Ken Mauer Jr., were standout athletes, though not quite to the extent of former Twins catcher Joe Mauer, their second cousin, once removed. The brothers were inspired to become officials by their father, a legendary, three-sport arbiter who also coached at St. Paul colleges and high schools.

Ken Mauer, Sr., who died in 2019, was the youngest of five brothers, all of whom played pro baseball. The 1945 Cretin High graduate starred in baseball and basketball at the University of St. Thomas. He also toiled in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm system and played pro basketball in Denver and St. Paul.

Mauer guided Macalester College to a conference baseball title during his lone year at the Scots’ helm and led Humboldt High to seven city championships, three Twin City crowns and three regional titles. He taught English in the St. Paul School District and coached football at Harding High, where his sons, all of them quarterbacks except for Brian, played for him.

The father of seven children with his wife, Thelma, Ken Sr. somehow found time to officiate football, basketball and baseball. He often worked with his brother, John.

“My father enjoyed it as much as coaching,” said Ken Jr., who took a junior college refereeing course more for the credits than as a career primer. The family’s eldest child, he began officiating junior high games for pocket money and enjoyed it enough to move on to high schools contests, sometimes with his namesake.

“I was a sponge,” said Ken Jr., who later played baseball for the Gophers. “It took the place of competing; now you’re competing against yourself.

“My father never schmoozed a coach, but there was a mutual respect. It wasn’t about how many state tournament games you were going to work. It was about doing the job well and never selling your (fellow officials) down the road.”

Ken Jr., 70, was an NBA official for 37 seasons and has refereed high school football for nearly 50 years. He’s the Mauer crew’s head referee while Brian, retired after teaching for 30 years at Minneapolis Roosevelt, is the umpire. Tom, who worked as a WNBA official for 22 years, is the back judge and Mark and Jim are the side judges.

There have been assorted combinations of Mauer brothers working on the same unit over the years, but they’re on a stretch of seven consecutive seasons as a crew.

“My parents raised us family first and we don’t have a lot of years left at this, so we’re making the most of it,” said Mark, who played football at the University of Nebraska from 1977-81 and later coached the sport at the collegiate level. “It brings you back to the game and you’re still an integral part of it.”

The Mauers almost always convene for a postgame meal to rehash a game’s events. It was a most unhappy discussion one night about 20 years ago after an Eden Prairie vs. Burnsville clash.

Burnsville led late and took an intentional safety, but its subsequent kickoff went out of bounds. The Mauers “sold it like we knew what we were doing,” said Jim, but they erroneously spotted the ball at the 40-yard line when it should have been five yards farther out.

An Eden Prairie receiver caught a pass as time expired, barely falling across the goal line for the winning points.

High school football official Ken Mauer works Minneapolis Washburn’s 49-0 victory over the Scots at Highland Park High School on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (Tris Wykes / Pioneer Press)

“You never want the game to be dependent on an official’s call,” Jim said, recalling that Ken Jr., later visited Burnsville to discuss the game’s ending with its players and coaches.

Ken, Jr. was also a key note speaker at the Capital City Officials Association preseason meeting this year. Dan Pelletier, the association assigner’s and a longtime high school and college referee, said the message was for officials to work on controlling that which they can control.

Uniform appearance, rules knowledge, positional correctness and how to interact with players, coaches and fans are examples, said Pelletier, who worked with Ken Mauer, Sr., and has done so with all his sons during a 34-year career.

“You can train people from the jump, but there’s no duplicating experience,” Pelletier said, noting that officials now view online video of their games to assess tendencies and study unique plays and situations.

He noted the Mauers “communicate well and know what to expect from each other, and so they’re almost always on the same page.”

That includes verbal battles, but the siblings have each other’s striped backs.

“We’re five athletic and competitive brothers, so we argue all the time, but not necessarily on the football field,” said Tom Mauer, recently retired as assistant director of athletics at Concordia University in his hometown. “I think we take a little more pride in refereeing correctly than most.”

Ken Mauer Jr., said he’s unsure how much longer he’ll officiate football, but added he’ll likely accede to the wishes of his brothers.

“We’re in the twilight of our officiating years,” he said. “I think we’ll probably all give it up at the same time.”

By Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, The Seattle Times

The annual membership cost to enter Costco’s big-box warehouses and stock up on bulk groceries — not to mention the free food samples — has gone up. But that’s not stopping fans from becoming or remaining loyal members.

Since September 2024, individual members in the U.S. pay $65 per year, a $5 increase from past dues. Executive memberships have been $130 per year, up from $120.

But loyalists of the Issaquah, Washington-based retailer weren’t dissuaded: 68.3 million people held individual memberships by the end of fiscal 2025 — an upsurge from 63.7 million in 2024 and 58.8 million in 2023, according to Costco’s annual report filed this month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The number of business memberships also increased to 12.7 million in 2025 from 12.5 million in 2024 and 12.2 million in 2023.

Despite the increases, the growth rate of total paid members has slowed slightly, with a 6% increase year over year, compared to a 7% increase in 2024 from 2023.

Membership loyalty and growth are essential to our business,” the company wrote in the report.

So far, it has maintained that faith. Costco boasted a membership renewal rate in the U.S. of about 92% and a global renewal rate of around 90% at the end of fiscal 2025, according to its report.

The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

Lenora Good, a resident of Kennewick, has maintained her Costco membership for over 30 years. Several factors have kept her devoted to the company: the Kirkland brand, the friendly staff and “the best deal on hearing aids that I’ve found.”

She hasn’t noticed much employee turnover at her local store. Costco offers an employee stock purchase plan, so “a lot of the worker bees are part owners,” Good said. “They have more pride in what they’re doing.”

Good admits that she didn’t notice when the membership cost went up. “I’m sure I’ve gotten the $5 back in many different ways,” she added.

Costco is attracting new members, too.

“Costco membership is becoming increasingly popular for younger customers,” said David Bellinger, a director and senior analyst at Japanese investment banking and securities firm Mizuho Securities, in an email.

Bellinger estimates that nearly half of new member sign-ups are under the age of 40, with the average member age falling in the low 50s.

“This is helping to cushion the impact from lingering inflation across the board, particularly within the food category,” Bellinger said.

He said these patrons tend to sign up online, with “modestly higher churn rates,” or the rate at which a customer cancels their membership.

According to Bellinger, Costco “senior management (is) indicating this could lead to a downtick in membership renewal rates into 2026.”

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Still, at the end of fiscal year 2025, business looked good for the retailer: Net sales jumped 8%, and membership fee revenue climbed 10%, due to new sign-ups and fee increases, the report shows.

Since first opening its doors in Seattle in 1983, Costco’s empire has rapidly expanded. The number of warehouses worldwide is growing, with 914 locations recorded as of Aug. 31. That’s a jump from 890 warehouses around a year prior.

“We intend to continue to open warehouses in new markets,” the company said in the report.

Around the globe, Costco employs about 341,000 people — 5% of whom are union-represented.

But the company said it still faces competition in the industry, as “the retail business is highly competitive,” and it’s impacted by myriad economic factors, supplier issues, changes in foreign currency rates, natural disasters and stock market expectations.

The company has made a couple changes to protect its financial well-being. Costco started tightening its policies around the common practice of sharing membership cards in 2023. The next year, the company installed card scanners required for entry into its warehouses.

Though retail theft has been a worsening problem across the industry in recent years, Costco said its related security measures are paying off.

“By strictly controlling the entrances and exits and using a membership format, we believe our inventory losses (shrinkage) are well below those of typical retail operations, according to Costco’s annual report.

©2025 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By HANNA ARHIROVA, Associated Press

SHOSTKA, Ukraine (AP) — As the lights went out in her hometown, 40-year-old Zinaida Kot could not help but think about her next dialysis treatment for kidney disease. Without electricity, the machine that keeps her alive stops working.

Kot is among millions of Ukrainians who are bracing for another winter of power cuts and possibly blackouts as Russia renewed its campaign of attacks on the country’s energy grid. Analysts and officials say that this year Moscow has shifted tactics, targeting specific regions and gas infrastructure.

In some regions — mostly those closer to the front line in the east — the season of buzzing generators has started, as well as long hours of darkness with no power or water. People are once again pulling out small power stations, charging numerous power banks, and storing bottles of water in their bathrooms.

The attacks have grown more effective as Russia launches hundreds of drones, some equipped with cameras that improve targeting, overwhelming air defenses — especially in regions where protection is weaker.

The consequences are already reshaping daily life — especially for those whose survival depends on electricity. For Zinaida Kot, who has been on dialysis for seven years, this is far worse than mere discomfort.

“It is bad. We really worry when there is no electricity,” she said from her hospital bed, connected to a dialysis machine powered by a generator that staff call “not reliable enough.”

“If there’s no treatment, I would die. I would not exist.”

Blackout in Shostka

In early October, a Russian strike left the small northern town of Shostka — with a prewar population of nearly 72,000 — without electricity, water, or gas. The town lies just 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the front line in northern Sumy region. Gas service was later restored, and electricity returned for only a few hours each day.

“The situation is challenging,” said Mykola Noha, the mayor of Shostka. Electricity and water are now supplied on a schedule, available for a few hours each day. “And it really worries the residents as we can’t predict power cuts. We fix something and it gets destroyed again. This is our situation.”

Shostka hums with the low growl of generators on rain-dark asphalt, blanketed in yellow leaves. They power cafes, shops, residential buildings, and hospitals. Across town, so-called “invincibility points” offer residents a place to charge devices, warm up, and even rest on cots provided.

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The hardest days, locals say, were when there was no gas — no heat or way to cook — and people made meals over open fires in the streets.

At the local hospital, where all stoves are electric, staff built a simple wood-burning oven during the early days of Russia’s invasion, in 2022, when the town came close to occupation. And now it helps to feed at least 180 patients, said Svitlana Zakotei, 57, a nurse who oversees the patients’ meals.

The hospital has spent three weeks running on generators — a costly lifeline that burns half a ton of fuel a day, about 250,000 hryvnias ($5,973) a week, said the hospital’s chief, Oleh Shtohryn. That’s nearly as much as its usual monthly electricity bill.

Power is rationed. In the dialysis ward, lights stay dim so electricity can feed the machines that keep patients alive. One of the eight units burned out because of the blackout — a costly loss the hospital could not afford to replace soon. Still, 23 patients come daily for hourslong treatment.

Russia has new strategy to bomb the energy sites

The crisis in Shostka reflects Russia’s shifting strategy. In 2022–2023, Moscow launched waves of missiles and drones across the country to destabilize Ukraine’s national grid. This year, it is striking region by region.

The recent pattern shows heavier attacks on the Chernihiv, Sumy, and Poltava regions, while Kharkiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Dnipro face less frequent but still regular strikes.

On Tuesday, Chernihiv and part of the region were left without electricity after Russia attacked the local energy grid the night before, local officials said.

“They’ve had no success hitting the national infrastructure because it’s now much better protected and operators know how to respond,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Center. “So they’ve decided to refocus and change tactics.”

Front-line regions within about 120 kilometers of combat are the most vulnerable, he said. “These are attacks on civilians who have nothing to do with the war.”

And for Ukrainian energy crews, that means fixing the same lines and stations again and again — from transmission towers to thermal plants — while enduring outages at home.

“But it’s our job. Who else would do it? Nobody else would,” said Bohdan Bilous, an electrical technician. “I want to be optimistic and prepared for any situation, but the reality is extremely cruel right now.”

Svitlana Kalysh, spokeswoman for the regional energy company in Sumy region, said proximity to the front line makes each repair crew a target. “They’re getting better at knowing how to attack,” she said of the Russians.

She explained that because of the repeated attacks and the complex nature of the damage, there are ever fewer ways to transmit and distribute electricity. However, solutions have always been found to restore power.

Bracing for the upcoming winter

At a switchyard in the Chernihiv region, all seems calm — a woman tends her cabbage patch nearby — but residents are used to the explosions which intensify each year as winter nears.

The switchyard looks like a museum of nearly four years of strikes. Along the main road lined with towering pylons, a crater in the asphalt marks one of the first attacks in 2022.

The latest strike, on Oct. 4, was far more precise and devastating. In the roof of the transformer building, there’s one neat hole near the center, and another in the wall — scars left by Shahed drones.

Sandbags around the building absorbed some shock waves but couldn’t stop a direct hit. Inside, the station is cold and dark but still operating at half capacity. Thousands of homes across Chernihiv remain without steady power.

Workers are already trying to repair the damage, but even under ideal conditions — few air raids, no new strikes — it will take weeks. Each time an alert sounds, crews must leave their posts.

“If you look at this year, it’s one of the hardest,” said Serhii Pereverza, deputy director of local energy company Chernihivoblenergo. “We hope for the best and think about alternative ways to supply our customers.”

Kharchenko noted that last year Russia lacked the capacity to launch 500 or 600 drones at once, and the smaller attacks it could mount were largely ineffective.

But this year even when several air-defense points and mobile units surround a facility, the Russians simply overwhelm them — sending about six drones at each defensive position and another 10 directly at the target.

“This year they’ve roughly tripled the scale,” he said. “They’re breaking through individual sites by sheer volume and power.”

Associated Press reporters Dmytro Zhyhinas and Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Bria Shea has been named president of Xcel Energy for the company’s Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota region.

Bria Shea. (Courtesy of Xcel Energy)

Shea, joined Xcel Energy in 2008 and has held several leadership roles on the regulatory team. She most recently was regional vice president for Planning and Policy. In that role Shea led government affairs and regulatory strategy for resource, transmission and distribution planning for energy systems throughout the Upper Midwest. Xcel Energy serves customers in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

In her new role Shea will oversee strategic planning, financial results and operational outcomes as well as leading teams focused on customer, community, regulatory, legislative and government affairs.

Shea serves on the board of the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership and has held board positions with the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce and YWCA Minneapolis. She has an undergraduate degree from Gustavus Adolphus College and law degree from William Mitchell College of Law.

Shea succeeds Ryan Long, who was named executive vice president, chief legal and compliance officer, earlier this year.

Xcel Energy has 1.6 million electricity customers and 600,000 natural gas customers across Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. The operating company accounts for about 40% of the company’s consolidated earnings and has a mix of energy resources, including nuclear, wind, solar and natural gas.