A special Halloween-themed concert is coming up at the Litchfield Opera House on Saturday, October 17th. The Hexenball will get started with a taco bar at 6 p.m. and music at 7 p.m.
Connie Lies says the concert is $10, and then it’s $10 extra if you want the tacos, beverage and dessert, and if you do plan to eat, she would appreciate a call at 320-221-6679 so that she can order enough food. She says the concert will feature Hannibal Alchemista, Waar Party, Blaq Justice and Moonshie Sax.
Lies says Hannibal is our acupuncturist in Litchfield and he was playing the piano one day at the Litchfield Opera House and she told him he should perform some time at the Opera House and they continued talking about other people he knew who played instruments and the idea came together to have a Halloween-themed concert. She says the proceeds will go toward the continuing preservation of the Litchfield Opera House as there is always something that needs updating.
Lies says the balcony is now open and they are saving money to eventually put on a new roof. She says the Opera House will also be hosting its annual Craft Fair on November 14th and they could use more vendors, so again, call 320-221-6679 for more details.
The Litchfield Rotary Club has been taking orders the past few weeks for roses and fall bouquets. The annual sale is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the Litchfield Rotary Club which uses those funds for all kinds of local projects.
Steve Kess says they’ve placed their order for the flowers which can be picked up at Davis Auto Body on October 29th, 30th and 31st, but they always order extra, so if you still want to get flowers, contact any Rotary member. He says they use the funds for all kinds of projects such as the Beds for Kids project, and they’ve given over 300 beds to children around Meeker County who do not have a bed of their own.
Kess says the Litchfield Rotary Club started in 1979 and their first project was to help get a helipad at Meeker Memorial Hospital and they helped develop Prairie Park on the south side of Litchfield. He says they mainly use their funds for projects around Litchfield, but they have also been involved in projects around the world.
Kess says one of their more recent projects involved raising over $30,000 for the audio enhancement project at Lake Ripley Elementary School. Rotary member Tom Springer says that project enabled them to get a microphone and speakers installed in several of the classrooms which helps save on the teachers’ voices and helps the students hear what is being said as well. He says the Rotary Club has also installed three outdoor AEDs around Litchfield in recent years.
Springer says the Rotary Club also provides dictionaries to all 3rd graders around Meeker County and the Club partnered with the City of Litchfield to get the Splash Pad installed at Memorial Park by Lake Ripley. He says they can always use new members, and the Rotary Club meets every Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. at the Litchfield Rescue Hall. If you ordered flowers from the Litchfield Rotary Club, the pick-up times at Davis Auto Body are October 29th and 30th from 11:30-to-1 and from 4-to-6 p.m. and October 31st from 9-to-noon.
New monthly data from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development shows what officials are again calling a “mixed bag.” Month-to-month labor market figures generally declined and stagnated, but Minnesota is still outpacing the rest of the country on some metrics, including job growth, over the year.
One notable exception is wages, which have stayed flat in Minnesota since last September while prices have risen by 3.7 percent, according to the latest Consumer Price Index. That means workers in the state have lost purchasing power. Wages grew by 2.9 percent nationally.
DEED Labor Market Information Director Angelina Nguyen said that could be a result of how Minnesota’s labor force has been changing.
“The job growth that we’ve seen happened to be in industries that tend to pay lower, like education and healthcare services, or retail, or leisure and hospitality,” she said. “So the way job growth is distributed may be holding down the average hourly earnings.”
The state lost a total of 4,600 nonfarm jobs last month on a seasonally-adjusted basis while the country saw a small increase in jobs. The state’s unemployment rate rose to 4.5 percent and the nation’s grew to 4.2 percent.
During that same time, the state’s labor force grew by about 800 people. That’s basically 0 percent, but officials tout that it marks a break in a nine-month fall in the number of Minnesotans working or looking for work.
That figure has fallen by more than 34,000 people since last September, or a little over one percent.
Meanwhile, the state’s labor force participation rate, or the percentage of the population who are working or looking for work, fell last month. It’s down to 66.7 percent compared to 68.1 percent last year.
“We are puzzled,” Nguyen said. “In terms of jobs growth, Minnesota is doing fine. There’s something going on with our labor force that we don’t yet have enough data to put a finger on why we are seeing worsening labor force stats.”
DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek said the labor force could be taking a hit because of the surge in immigration enforcement earlier this year.
“You would expect that that would cause some people leaving the state who were impacted by Metro Surge, and therefore also leaving the labor market,” he said.
He also said Minnesota’s population is aging and foreign-born workers typically help supplement retiring workers. But that’s not happening as much anymore.
“As international immigration policy has been changed radically by the federal government, we now have far fewer folks arriving in Minnesota from foreign locations,” he said. “Therefore the thing that was offsetting our aging workforce is no longer doing so.”
- 2025: Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley dies at 74.
A founding member of Kiss, Frehley played lead guitar in his “Spaceman” makeup on hits like “Rock and Roll All Nite” and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 2014. - 2024: Former One Direction singer Liam Payne dies at 31.
Payne died after a fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He rose to fame when One Direction was put together on the British version of The X Factor in 2010. - 2012: Darius Rucker joins the Grand Ole Opry.
The former Hootie & the Blowfish frontman became only the third African American member of the Opry, after DeFord Bailey and Charley Pride. His country version of “Wagon Wheel” became a major hit the following year. - 2010: Nicki Minaj lands seven songs on the Hot 100 at the same time.
The record-setting week included “Bottoms Up” at number 11 and “Check It Out” at number 50, all before her debut album, Pink Friday, came out the next month. - 2001: Bob Dylan is turned away at the door of his own concert.
Security at the Jackson County Exposition Center in Oregon would not let him in because he had no backstage credential. Dylan grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota. - 1993: Aretha Franklin sings the national anthem at the World Series.
The Queen of Soul performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Toronto before Game 1 between the Blue Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies. - 1991: Red Hot Chili Peppers launch their Blood Sugar Sex Magik tour.
The opening night in Madison, Wisconsin, featured two young opening acts, Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. The album gave the band the hits “Give It Away” and “Under the Bridge.” - 1986: Rock stars gather in St. Louis for Chuck Berry's 60th birthday concert.
Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Etta James, Robert Cray and Linda Ronstadt joined Berry, and the footage became the 1987 documentary Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll. - 1982: Dolly Parton's “I Will Always Love You” hits number one on the country chart again.
Her new recording from the film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas made it the first song ever to top the country chart twice. Whitney Houston's version would follow a decade later. - 1976: Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life reaches number one.
The double album, featuring “Sir Duke” and “I Wish,” went on to win the Grammy for Album of the Year. - 1974: The Rolling Stones release It's Only Rock 'n Roll.
The album's title track became a concert staple, and it was the band's last studio album with guitarist Mick Taylor. - 1972: Creedence Clearwater Revival announces its breakup.
The band behind “Proud Mary” and “Fortunate Son” never reunited, and John Fogerty went on to a solo career that included the 1985 album Centerfield. - 1968: The Jimi Hendrix Experience releases Electric Ladyland.
The double album included Hendrix's version of “All Along the Watchtower,” a song written by Minnesota native Bob Dylan. - 1962: Motown's first “Motortown Revue” package tour opens.
The show kicked off at the Howard Theatre in Washington, DC, with Mary Wells, The Contours, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes and a young Little Stevie Wonder on the bill. - 1954: Rosemary Clooney goes to number one with “Hey There.”
The ballad came from the Broadway musical The Pajama Game and became one of the biggest hits of Clooney's career.
Born on This Day
- 1977: John Mayer, American singer and guitarist
Turns 49. Known for “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “Daughters,” and has toured with Dead & Company since 2015. - 1971: Chad Gray, American singer (Mudvayne)
Turns 55. Lead vocalist of the heavy rock bands Mudvayne and Hellyeah. - 1969: Wendy Wilson, American singer (Wilson Phillips)
Turns 57. The daughter of Beach Boy Brian Wilson sang on the 1990 number one hit “Hold On.” - 1962: Flea, Australian American bassist (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Turns 64. His funk-driven bass lines anchor hits like “Give It Away” and “Can't Stop.” - 1960: Bob Mould, American singer and guitarist (Hüsker Dü)
Turns 66. Co-founded the influential St. Paul, Minnesota, punk band Hüsker Dü and later led the band Sugar. - 1959: Gary Kemp, English guitarist and songwriter (Spandau Ballet)
Turns 67. Wrote the band's 1983 hit “True.” - 1953: Tony Carey, American keyboardist (Rainbow)
Turns 73. Played keyboards in Rainbow and scored an MTV hit with “Why Me?” as Planet P Project. - 1947: Bob Weir, American singer and guitarist (Grateful Dead)
Co-founded the Grateful Dead as its youngest member and played rhythm guitar with the band for three decades. - 1943: Fred Turner, Canadian singer and bassist (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
Turns 83. His gravelly voice led “Roll On Down the Highway” and “Not Fragile.” - 1938: Nico, German singer (The Velvet Underground)
Sang on the 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico, including “Femme Fatale.” - 1935: Sugar Pie DeSanto, American R&B singer
Known for the 1960 hit “I Want to Know” and her 1965 duet with Etta James, “Do I Make Myself Clear.” - 1925: Angela Lansbury, English American actress and singer
A Broadway musical star who sang the title song in Disney's 1991 film Beauty and the Beast. - 1923: Bert Kaempfert, German bandleader and composer
Wrote the music for “Strangers in the Night” and topped the US chart in 1961 with “Wonderland by Night.” - 1903: Big Joe Williams, American blues singer and guitarist
The Delta bluesman first recorded “Baby Please Don't Go,” later covered by countless rock bands.
- 2024: Former One Direction singer Liam Payne dies in Argentina at 31.
He fell from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires. Payne rose to fame in One Direction, the boy band put together on The X Factor in 2010, and later had a solo hit with “Strip That Down.” - 2003: Hungarian boxing great László Papp dies at 77.
Papp was the first boxer to win three Olympic gold medals, taking titles at the 1948 London, 1952 Helsinki, and 1956 Melbourne Games. - 1995: The Million Man March fills the National Mall in Washington.
Organized by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as a call for unity and responsibility among African American men, the rally drew a crowd estimated at about 1.1 million, though official and unofficial counts varied widely. - 1978: Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyła is elected pope and takes the name John Paul II.
He was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first ever from Poland. He led the Catholic Church until his death in 2005 and was declared a saint in 2014. - 1968: Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists on the Olympic medal stand.
After finishing first and third in the 200 meters at the Mexico City Games, the two American sprinters bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists during the national anthem in a Black-power salute. They were ordered out of the Games, but the image became one of the most famous in sports history. - 1964: China explodes its first atomic bomb.
The test at Lop Nur in the remote western region of Xinjiang made China the world's fifth nuclear power, after the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France. - 1961: Patsy Cline releases “Crazy.”
Written by a young Willie Nelson, the ballad became her signature song and a hit on both the country and pop charts. Cline died in a plane crash less than two years later. - 1946: Ten Nazi leaders convicted at Nuremberg are hanged.
They were among twelve defendants sentenced to death by the international tribunal, and included former foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and security chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Hermann Göring escaped the gallows by taking poison hours before, and Martin Bormann had been sentenced in absentia. - 1923: Walt and Roy Disney start their cartoon studio in Hollywood.
The brothers founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, whose first series was the Alice Comedies. It was later renamed and grew into the Walt Disney Company. - 1916: Margaret Sanger opens America's first birth control clinic.
The reproductive rights activist set up the clinic in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. Police shut it down within days and arrested her, but she went on to found the group that became Planned Parenthood. - 1905: Britain's partition of Bengal takes effect.
Ordered under viceroy Lord Curzon, it split the province of Bengal into two. The move set off widespread protests that energized the Indian independence movement, and Britain reversed the partition in 1911. - 1869: The “petrified” Cardiff Giant is dug up in New York State.
Workers digging a well on a farm in Cardiff, New York, uncovered the ten-foot stone figure, which was billed as a fossilized ancient man and drew paying crowds. It was soon exposed as a hoax carved from gypsum on the orders of tobacconist George Hull. - 1859: Abolitionist John Brown raids the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
Brown and a small band of followers seized the armory in what was then Virginia, hoping to spark an uprising of enslaved people. U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee captured him two days later, and he was hanged that December. - 1847: Charlotte Brontë publishes Jane Eyre.
The English novelist released the book in London under the pen name Currer Bell. It was an immediate success and remains one of the best-loved novels in the English language. - 1846: Ether is first demonstrated publicly as a surgical anesthetic.
Dentist William Thomas Green Morton put a patient to sleep with ether at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston while surgeon John Collins Warren removed a tumor from his neck. The room is still known as the Ether Dome. - 1829: Boston's Tremont House opens as America's first modern luxury hotel.
The 170-room hotel offered indoor plumbing and running water, a novelty at the time, and was celebrated with a grand opening feast. Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, and Ralph Waldo Emerson were among its guests before it was torn down in 1895. - 1813: The Battle of Leipzig begins.
Napoleon's army faced the combined forces of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden in what became known as the Battle of the Nations, fought from October 16 to 19. His defeat forced him to retreat across the Rhine and led to his first exile the following year. - 1793: Marie-Antoinette is executed by guillotine in Paris.
The Austrian-born queen of France had become a target of revolutionaries who resented her lavish spending and her efforts to save the monarchy. She was 37 and died nine months after her husband, Louis XVI, met the same fate.
Born on This Day
- 1997: Naomi Osaka, Japanese tennis player
Turns 29. Four-time Grand Slam singles champion and a former world No. 1. - 1992: Bryce Harper, American baseball player
Turns 34. Philadelphia Phillies slugger and two-time National League MVP. - 1980: Sue Bird, American basketball player
Seattle Storm point guard who won four WNBA titles and five Olympic gold medals. - 1977: John Mayer, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
Turns 49. Known for “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “Gravity,” and for touring with Dead & Company. - 1975: Kellie Martin, American actress
Turns 51. Played Becca on Life Goes On and later starred on ER. - 1962: Flea, Australian-American rock bassist
Turns 64. Bassist and founding member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. - 1962: Manute Bol, Sudanese-American basketball player
At 7 feet 7 inches, one of the tallest players in NBA history and a fearsome shot blocker. - 1960: Bob Mould, American rock singer and guitarist
Minnesota connection: co-founded the influential St. Paul punk band Hüsker Dü. - 1958: Tim Robbins, American actor and director
Turns 68. Starred in The Shawshank Redemption and won an Oscar for Mystic River. - 1947: Bob Weir, American rock guitarist and singer
Founding guitarist and singer of the Grateful Dead; he died in January 2026. - 1947: David Zucker, American filmmaker
Co-creator of the comedy classics Airplane! and The Naked Gun. - 1946: Suzanne Somers, American actress
Played Chrissy Snow on Three's Company. - 1941: Tim McCarver, American baseball catcher and broadcaster
Two-time World Series champion with the Cardinals and longtime voice of baseball on Fox. - 1940: Barry Corbin, American actor
Turns 86. Known for Northern Exposure, Lonesome Dove, and WarGames. - 1940: Dave DeBusschere, American basketball player
Hall of Fame forward who won two NBA titles with the New York Knicks. - 1938: Nico, German singer and actress
Sang on the landmark album The Velvet Underground & Nico. - 1925: Angela Lansbury, English-American actress
Starred as Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote and voiced Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast. - 1888: Eugene O'Neill, American playwright
Nobel Prize winner and author of Long Day's Journey into Night. - 1854: Oscar Wilde, Irish writer
Wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest. - 1758: Noah Webster, American lexicographer
His American dictionary gave us the name Webster's and standardized American spelling.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s veto of regulations on autonomous rideshare vehicles in the city survived an override vote by the City Council on Thursday.
After the vote failed, backers of the rules on robotaxis said they’ll make another attempt to regulate the industry.
The council needed nine votes to override Frey’s veto — but only seven council members supported the attempt.
Among other measures, the proposed regulations would have required human safety monitors inside autonomous rideshare vehicles.
Supporters of the proposal said it’s needed to protect thousands of rideshare jobs. Frey had said what the council passed amounted to a back-door ban on companies like Waymo — and he called for “thoughtful regulation for safety.”
Speaking after the vote, council member Robin Wonsley said she and her fellow supporters of the proposal will “continue the efforts and fight to hold big tech accountable and protect our communities from the economic and physical dangers of autonomous robotaxis.”
“I look forward to continuing the work to pass regulations on big tech robotaxis that put workers and local government in the driver’s seat,” Wonsley said. “We’re not done. We’re going to continue the work.”
Waymo has been test-driving its vehicles in Minneapolis since last winter, with people behind the wheel — but has not yet started taking customers.
In St. Paul, the City Council this week made its own move toward regulations on the industry. The council adopted a resolution directing the city’s planning commission to study autonomous vehicles and suggest potential guardrails around safety, data-sharing and worker protections.