16-year-old girl killed in crash on Highway 169 in southern Minnesota
16-year-old girl killed in crash on Highway 169 in southern Minnesota originally appeared on Bring Me The News.
A two-vehicle crash on Highway 169 in southern Minnesota resulted in the death of a 16-year-old girl.
According to the Minnesota State Patrol, the 16-year-old Vernon Center girl was driving a 2003 Honda Accord southbound on Highway 169 and was involved in a collision with a northbound Dodge Ram.
The teenage driver was pronounced dead at the scene while the 31-year-old Houston woman driving the Ram wasn't injured.
The crash happened on Hwy. 169 near 150th Street in Vernon Center Township, which is located southwest of Mankato in Blue Earth County.
The 16-year-old's name has not been released.
This story was originally reported by Bring Me The News on Jun 21, 2025, where it first appeared.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Forbes
26 minutes ago
- Forbes
Tesla Misses Robotaxi Launch Date, Goes With Safety Drivers
A vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes in Austin, Texas, US, on Friday, June 20, ... More 2025.. Photographer: Eli Hartman/Bloomberg Tesla's much-anticipated June 22 'no one in the vehicle' Robotaxi launch in Austin is not ready. Instead, Tesla has announced to its invite-only passengers that it will operate a limited service with Tesla employees on board the vehicle to maintain safety. Tesla will use an approach that was used in 2019 by Russian robotaxi company Yandex, putting the safety driver in the passengers seat rather than the driver's seat. (Yandex's robotaxi was divested from Russian and now is called AVRide.) Having an employee on board, commonly called a safety driver, is the approach that every robocar company has used for testing, including testing of passenger operations. Most companies spend many years (Waymo spent a decade) testing with safety drivers, and once they are ready to take passengers, there are typically some number of years testing in that mode, though the path to removing the safety driver depends primarily on evaluation of the safety case for the vehicle, and less on the presence of passengers. Tesla has put on some other restrictions--rides will be limited to 6am to midnight (the opposite of Cruise's first operations, which were only at night) and riders come from an invite-only list (as was also the case for Waymo, and Cruise and others in their early days.) Rides will be limited to a restricted service area (often mistakenly called a 'geofence') which avoids complex and difficult streets and intersections. Rides will be unavailable in inclement weather, which also can happen with other vehicles, though fairly rarely today. Tesla FSD is known to disable itself if rain obscures some of its cameras--only the front cameras have a rain wiper. The fleet will be small. Waymo started testing with safety drivers in 2009, gave rides to passengers with safety drivers in 2017, and without safety drivers in 2020 in the Phoenix area. Cruise had a much shorter period with passengers and safety drivers. Motional has given rides for years but has never removed the safety driver. Most Chinese companies spent a few years doing it. Giving passengers rides requires good confidence in the safety of the system+safety driver combination, but taking the passengers does not alter how well the vehicle drives, except perhaps around pick-up and drop-off. (While a vehicle is more at liberty to make hard stops with no passengers on board, I am aware of no vehicle which takes advantage of this.) As such we have no information on whether Tesla will need their safety drivers for a month or a several years, or even forever with current hardware. Passenger's Seat vs. Driver's Seat Almost all vehicles use a safety driver behind the wheel. Tesla's will be in the passenger seat, in a situation similar to that used by driving instructors for student human drivers. While unconfirmed by Tesla, the employee in the passenger seat can grab the wheel and steer. Because stock Teslas have fully computer controlled brake and acceleration, they might equip the driver with electronic pedals. Some reports have suggested they have a hand controller or other ways to command the vehicle to brake. There is no value to putting the safety driver on the passengers side. It is no safer than being behind the wheel, and believed by most to be less safe because of the unusual geometr20 November 2024, Berlin: A prototype of the Tesla Cybercab stands in a showroom in the Mall of Berlin. Photo: Hannes P. Albert/dpa (Photo by Hannes P Albert/picture alliance via Getty Images)y. It's hard to come up with any reason other than just how it looks. Tesla can state the vehicles have 'nobody in the driver's seat' in order to attempt to impress the public. The driving school system works, so it's not overtly dangerous, but in that case there's an obvious reason for it that's not optics. Tesla Cybercab concept. With only 2 seats and no controls, not very suitable for a safety driver. ... More These are not being used in Tesla's Austin pilot. That said, most robocar prototypes, including Tesla supervised FSD, are reasonably safe with capable safety drivers. A negligent and poorly managed safety driver in an Uber ATG test vehicle killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona when the safety driver completely ignored her job, but otherwise these systems have a good record. The combination of Tesla Autopilot and a supervising driver has a reasonable record. (The record is not nearly as good as some people think Tesla claims. Every quarter, Tesla publishes a deeply misleading report comparing the combination of Tesla Autopilot plus supervisor to the general crash rate, but they report airbag deployments for the Teslas mostly on freeways and compare it without general crash numbers on all roads for general drivers. This makes it seem Autopilot is many times safer than regular drivers when it's actually similar, a serious and deceitful misrepresentation.) As noted, Yandex, now AVRide, has used safety drivers in the passenger seat, and has done so in Austin--also speculated to be mostly for optics, though there are some legal jurisdictions where companies shave made this move because the law requires safety drivers and they hope to convey an aura of not needing them. This has also been the case in China.) When Cruise did their first 'driverless' demo ride in San Francisco, they had an employee in the passengers seat. So Tesla has been ready to run with safety drivers for years. What's tested here isn't the safety of the cars, but all the complexity of handling passengers, including the surprising problems of good PuDo (Pick-up/Drop-off.) Whether Teslas can operate a safe robotaxi with nobody onboard, particularly with their much more limited sensor hardware, remains to be seen. Other Paths To Launch Tesla apparently experimented with different paths to getting out on the road before they are ready to run unsupervised. In particular, vehicles were seen with the passenger seat safety driver, and also being followed by a 'chase car' with two on board. Reports also came of Tesla planning for 'lots of tele-ops' including not just remote assistance (as all services do) but remote supervision including remote driving. We may speculate that Tesla evaluated many different approaches: Because Elon Musk promised 'nobody in the car' and 'unsupervised' in the most recent Tesla earnings call, there was great pressure to produce #1, but the Tesla team must have concluded they could not do that yet, and made the right choice, though #3 is a better choice than #4. They also did not feel up to #2, which is commonly speculated to be what other companies have done on their first launch, later graduating to #1 #5 just looks goofy, I think the optics would not work, and it's also challenging. Remote driving is real and doable--in spite of the latency and connectivity issues of modern data networks--but perhap Tesla could not get it ready in time. All teams use remote assistance operators who do not drive the cars, but can give them advice when they get confused by a situation, and stop and ask for advice. Even Waymo recently added a minor remote driving ability for low-speed 'get the car out off the road' sort of operations. I have recommended this for some time. It is worth noting the contrast beween Cruise's 'night only' launch and Tesla's mostly-daytime one. Cruise selected the night because there is less traffic and complexity. LIDARs see very well at night. Tesla's camera-based system has very different constraints at night and many fear it's inferior then. On the other hand Tesla will operate in some night hours and with more cars and pedestrians on the street. The question for Tesla will be whether the use of safety drivers is a very temporary thing, done just because they weren't quite ready but needed to meet the announced date, or a multi-year program as it has been for most teams. Tesla is famous for not meeting the forecast ship dates for its FSD system, so it's not shocking that this pattern continues. The bigger question is whether they can do it at all. Tesla FSD 13, the version available to Tesla owners, isn't even remotely close to robotaxi ready. If Tesla has made a version which is closer, through extra work, training and severe limitations of the problem space, it's still a big accomplishment. This will be seen in the coming months. Two robocar teams had severe interactions with pedestrians. Both those teams, and one pedestrian, are dead. Tesla knows they must not make mistakes.


CBS News
36 minutes ago
- CBS News
Shooting at Juneteenth festival in Tulsa leaves 1 dead, 7 injured
Gunfire broke out at a Juneteenth celebration Saturday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing one person and wounding seven others, according to police and the organizers of the event. No arrests have been made. The 2025 Tulsa Juneteenth Festival took place in the city's Greenwood district, historically home to the affluent community known as "Black Wall Street" and, now, part of the Oklahoma State University campus. It consisted of a series of programs held over multiple days, with a runway show scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. local time Saturday evening. A national holiday observed on June 19 each year, Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and celebrations around the country tend to be weeklong. Officers working at the Tulsa festival heard gunshots at around 11 p.m. Saturday, while the event was still busy, the Tulsa Police Department said, adding that "chaos erupted as people began running in multiple directions." A 22-year-old man was killed in the shooting, according to the police department. Seven others were injured, including a 17-year-old and an elderly woman. Police said all were taken to local hospitals for treatment. At least one 24-year-old man was hospitalized in critical condition early Sunday morning, according to police. Police responded to a shooting that broke out during a busy Juneteenth celebration near downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night. Tulsa Police Department/Facebook Neither the victim nor any of the injured people have been named publicly. Police said they believe at least two different shooters are responsible, but no arrests have been made, and their intended targets were unclear. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was assisting Tulsa police in what the department called "a very active investigation." The organizers of the Juneteenth festival acknowledged there had been a shooting in a statement released late Saturday night. "We have been made aware of a shooting that occurred this evening during the Tulsa Juneteenth Festival. Our on-site security and medical teams responded immediately, and we remain in close communication with the first responders," they said in the statement. "We are actively cooperating with the Tulsa Police Department and other law enforcement agencies as the investigation continues. Our of respect for those impacted, all programming is currently canceled. Please keep our community in your prayers. We will share additional updates as more information becomes available." CBS News contacted Tulsa police for additional comments.


Motor 1
44 minutes ago
- Motor 1
‘Can't I Just Use Carfax?' Man Lists His Car for Sale on Facebook Marketplace. Then He Spends $60 on a Vehicle History Report
Selling a car online already feels like a gamble. Now, scammers are using a sneaky trick involving fake history report sites and too-good-to-be-true buyers. The lesson in avoiding e-commerce scams comes at the expense of online creator Kris (@imkriswithhak). Kris says he got taken for $60 by a swindler who swooped in on his attempt to sell a vehicle on Facebook Marketplace. Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . In a TikTok viewed nearly 59,000 times as of this writing, Kris says the scam began like many average interactions on Facebook Marketplace . He posted his car, a potential buyer reached out to express interest, and asked the usual questions about condition, title status, and availability. Nothing seemed amiss. 'Then they tell you go to this website,' he says, adding, 'And they're like, 'Hey, buy this report so I can see if the car's alright.'' Kris says he offered to get a Carfax report, but the potential buyer insisted it wouldn't be the same. They also said the other report only cost $60. 'So I buy the report, sent it to the guy,' Kris says. The man agreed to buy the car, and they set up a time to meet the next day. The man essentially vanished, Kris says. He'd blocked him on Facebook Messenger. That's when he realized what had happened. 'I look at the transaction, it's some Pakistani name, PayPal, something,' Kris laments. He captioned his post, 'Has this happened to anyone else?' Numerous people commented to share that they too have been scammed this way. A Clever Scam Sites like the vehicle history report site the alleged scammer recommended to Kris can appear professional, offering standard VIN lookup features and pricing that undercuts major services. This type of scam is effective because it leverages trust and urgency, which cybersecurity experts often call ' social engineering .' Trending Now 'He Wears That Little, Dangly Cross Earring:' Woman Says 'Car Guys' Are Major 'Red Flags' for Dating. Is She onto Something? 'Enjoy That Day Off:' Man Asks People to Photoshop a Video to Look Like He Crashed His Car to Skip Work. The Internet Complies Fraudsters understand sellers are motivated to close deals quickly and may be willing to jump through hoops to reassure buyers. By appearing cooperative and politely rejecting more familiar services like Carfax, claiming they need a 'different kind of report,' the scammer subtly redirects control of the transaction. It's a classic bait-and-switch disguised as a reasonable request from a serious buyer. According to the Federal Trade Commission, similar schemes have been reported for years, often involving fake report sites created solely to harvest payment information or collect referral fees. Avoid Getting Scammed The red flags in these cases can be easy to miss. A buyer insisting on using a specific website for a report, particularly one you've never heard of, is a clue that it may be a scam. It may also be suspicious if they make any request before you've spoken on the phone or met in person. Payments for these reports are often routed through platforms like PayPal or Venmo, where the recipient's name appears unusual or wildly incongruous to the buyer's identity. Some victims report foreign names or personal email addresses triggered suspicion only after the scam became clear. There are safer ways to handle used car transactions online, particularly regarding vehicle history reports. Sellers should stick to well-known services such as Carfax or AutoCheck. If a buyer truly wants a history report, they should be willing to buy it themselves or accept a standard one provided by the seller. The National Insurance Crime Bureau also offers a free VINcheck tool that flags theft or salvage status for vehicles registered in the United States. For added protection, sellers can attempt to verify the buyer's identity before investing money in any aspect of the transaction. A short phone call, FaceTime meeting, or even a basic LinkedIn or Facebook profile check can provide some peace of mind. When it comes time to meet, law enforcement agencies around the country often recommend designated 'safe exchange zones,' typically located in police department parking lots or other monitored locations. Follow this advice, and you might not end up like Kris. At the end of his post, he says, 'The moral of the story is: Don't do it.' Motor1 contacted Kris via TikTok direct message and Facebook parent company Meta via email. We'll be sure to update this post if either responds. More From Motor1 First-Time Shopper Buys Her 'Dream Car.' Then the Salesman 'Scams' Her out of Her Audi 'This Is, By Far, The Perfect Vehicle:' Mechanic Spots 2017 Toyota Sequoia Platinum Edition at Auction. Then He Sees the Price Someone Deepfaked Ferrari CEO's Voice and Tried to Scam the Company How I Was Scammed Out Of $200 Trying To Buy My Dream Porsche Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )