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The 36-year-old and two others did not return from their ascent of the Peruvian peak as scheduled on June 1.

A veteran high-altitude mountaineer and accomplished photographer who recently moved from St. Paul is missing with other adventurers while on one of the world’s most recognizable peaks.

Edson Vandeira, 36, and two fellow climbers set out on May 29 to reach the top of Artesonraju Mountain in Peru and did not return as scheduled on June 1, said his former wife, Natalia Koch.

“In the early hours of the rescue [effort], the team’s tent was found empty,” Koch wrote as part of an online fundraising campaign started to help finance the search. “There are signs that the group had reached the summit and that something serious had possibly happened during the descent.”

Koch, a University of Minnesota environmental researcher, said she is getting updates from the search team and from Vandeira’s family members.

She said the effort includes dozens of volunteers on the ground as well as helicopters and drones, but “high mountain rescue is extremely complex, demanding intense logistics, specific equipment, food, high-altitude travel and a lot of human and technical commitment.”

Artesonraju, in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the Peruvian Andes, tops out at nearly 20,000 feet and is admired for its near-perfect pyramid shape. Artesonraju is known as one of the inspirations for the Paramount Pictures logo.

Vandeira, a native of Brazil who lived in St. Paul with Koch from late 2020 until their divorce near the end of 2024, was making the climb as part of his training toward receiving full certification as a high-mountain guide, she said.

Koch said Vandeira has 17 years of mountain climbing experience and is in excellent physical condition. He has biked in the Patagonia region of South America and participated in nine expeditions to Antarctica, working there for about three months each year overseeing the safety of scientists in the field and managing camp logistics.

ST PAUL, Minn. — Three longtime child care centers in St. Paul have closed recently, and two more will shutter soon, which has leaders hosting an emergency roundtable on Thursday.

Facilities Sandcastle Early Learning Center, Hallie Q. Brown and St. Catherine Early Childhood Center closed within the last year had been open for more than 150 years combined. Children’s Country Day School and Children’s Center Montessori will close before the end of summer.

The news is putting providers and families in limbo, but experts say the industry is already in crisis.

"It requires long hours, a lot of work, with little pay," said Celeste Finn, who opened Big Wonder Child Care nearly two years ago.

Fifty students are enrolled in the space she rents from a St. Paul church. The church also helps pay for some overhead costs like janitorial needs and Wi-Fi, but Finn still struggles.

"We're $350 a week for preschool; we are not making any profit," said Finn. "Teachers could find the same or more pay at Home Depot or McDonald's, or Starbucks, and were also opting to move out of the industry."

Food and insurance prices keep rising and so, too, does competition with school-based programs. It's all signs of stress leading to many closures, including one where preschool teacher Ciara Schweitzer worked.

"It's hard, it's really hard," said Schweitzer who was employed at Children's Country Day School for five years. It had been open for 50 years.

"We're helping the working generation and we're helping our tiny people and that was my immediate thought too, was what are all these families going to do," said Schweitzer.

Schweitzer now has a new job at Big Wonder and says she feels really lucky in a business that has a much more uncertain outlook.

"When everything is so tight and tenuous, it's easy to fail," said Finn.

Most providers say that they couldn't stay open without some kind of financial assistance.

Big Wonder receives one $1,500 grant every month to give its teachers a $2 raise.

From her stockpile of retro treasures at St. Paul vintage haven Shop Country Club to her eclectic Fall/Winter vintage collection shown at Paris Fashion Week last fall, Amanda Morell has long believed in the innate romanticism of “something borrowed.”

“Vintage and upcycled pieces…they just carry so much more depth and add a touch of hand to everything,” Morell shares.

Now, this love affair with vintage charm is leading Morell into the ivory-tinted realms of a previously unexplored industry—weddings. In partnership with her friend Eva Johnson, owner of retro-themed vacation rental Grandpa’s Pool House, Morell is set to open her first vintage bridal concept, Fashion Club, on June 6 in North St. Paul. The shop will share space with Johnson’s long-envisioned Vegas-style wedding chapel—appropriately named The Garter Toss—an intimate, “post-modern glamour meets dive bar aesthetic” space for wedding ceremonies, vow renewals, and wedding/engagement shoots.

The Fashion Club will carry a mix of both vintage and upcycled bridal gowns, bridesmaids’ dresses, lingerie, accessories, and formalwear, employing a focus on affordable and casual wedding wear that offers a unique alternative for Twin Cities brides.

“We’re taking bridal and injecting fashion into it, or, as I say, ‘Doing it in a different way,’” shares Morell. “Maybe its wearing your wedding dress with a baseball cap or wearing the top of a wedding dress with a pair of jeans for an event leading up to your wedding. Just experimenting with different ideas and pioneering a new way to think about bridal.”

It is no secret that incorporating vintage or secondhand elements into a bridal ensemble (“something old” and “something borrowed”) has long been associated with good luck in marriage. But it is only recently that vintage bridal gowns have skyrocketed in popularity. Global fashion shopping platform Lyst reported a 297% spike in searches for the term “vintage wedding dress” after Princess Beatrice walked down the aisle in a secondhand Norman Hartnell gown in 2020. Since then, the trend has steadily grown, boosted by the support of mega-popular shops like Happy Isles in New York City and vintage reseller platforms like The RealReal, which reported a month-over-month rise in searches for “vintage white dress” in 2024.

But apart from Andrea’s Vintage Bridal in Linden Hills, there are few brick-and-mortar vintage bridal experiences in the Twin Cities—a perceived “void or opportunity” that Morell couldn’t wait to jump on.

“It gets me really excited, because I like to be the ‘first’ to do something or, if not the first, at least someone to help people start thinking about things a little bit differently. That’s what has kept me really motivated—giving people a different experience.”

Shoppers familiar with Morell’s West Seventh Shop Country Club can expect to enjoy a similar fashion-forward, Parisian street-style edge from her bridal offerings, in addition to one-of-a-kind upcycled creations by three independent designers. Morell describes the set-up as a “co-op” of sorts, granting additional creatives a chance to sell their work and gain 27/7 access to the space for photo shoots and personal brand development.

“It’s like an antique mall kind of idea. I’m so excited about it. And the more drop-offs the three designers bring me, the more excited I get,” says Morell. “We don’t have just vintage veils; we have vintage veils that artists have put their unique spin on. It’s so cool.”

Among the designers/sellers joining Fashion Club will be Twin Cities-based Jenny Carle Designs and Moon Gold Goods, who have both collaborated with Morrell on past runway and market experiences, and Wisconsin-based Lizzy Averbeck Styles, who has been involved in several local runway productions.

“Wearing vintage on your wedding day is not only good for the environment but good for your wallet, and makes a bold statement on your special day,” says Averbeck. “I think this shop is going to bring bridal to a whole new level.”

Fashion Club’s grand opening on June 6 will coincide with the first History Cruze Car Show of the summer season, a beloved 29-year-old tradition in North St. Paul. Shoppers can view the parade of over 700 classic cars outside the shop’s front door as they enjoy exclusive chapel tours, romantic photo ops, swag bags, drinks, and DJ tunes. Stop by any time from 5-9 p.m. to welcome this exciting new addition to the Twin Cities bridal landscape— 2543 7th Avenue East, North St. Paul

The Minnesota Zoo unveiled a brand-new, thoughtfully designed exhibit inspired by the woodsy, mossy lands of the eastern Himalayas. The Red Panda Forest, which officially opened for guests on May 31, now houses two red pandas, two western tufted deer, and two red-crowned cranes.

“We created it in about a year,” says Annie Rivas, the Minnesota Zoo’s director of animal health. “Red pandas really bring out the passion in people.”

The zoo hasn’t had any red pandas since 2021, when the last of its former group, a 10-year-old named Min, died. And the team knew they wanted to bring the species back—but in a better area for the cooler-climate-loving animals, which previously lived in the Tropics Trail.

“That was a tough space for them because it was warm and red pandas love to experience the winters,” Rivas says. “We’re really excited that they now get to go outside and have the winters, like they would in their own habitat around the Himalayas. They really like snow.”

Rivas and her team were closely involved in the exhibit design to ensure the Red Panda Forest is as strong as it could be for panda siblings Cedar and Spruce, a pair of crane sisters, and deer Douglas and Gertrude. That includes making sure there aren’t any poisonous plants hiding anywhere, that some plants (like bamboo) could be a food source for the animals, that cooling mists and air flow would make the area comfortable during hot summers, and that the area is “escape-proof,” according to Rivas. “Pandas are notorious climbers,” she says.

The team also wanted the forest to look as much like a Himalayan forest as it could, down to (safely) dyeing the moss inside the exact shade it would be in the wilderness.

And now that the animals have gone through routine disease screenings, parasite testing, vaccinations, and quarantine periods to prepare them for their new home, they’re officially ready for their close-ups. Find the pandas, cranes, and deer on the Northern Trail, former home to the zoo’s dhole, near the moose and Llama Trek. Not ready to say goodbye? Grab a little stuffed red panda in the gift shop, or snag a red panda-themed menu item, including red velvet T-Rex cookies, a fruit punch-flavored Red Panda Punch from Northern Soda, or a Red Panda Ale by South X Southeast Brewery.

Minnesota Zoo, 13000 Zoo Blvd., Apple Valley, 952-431-9200, mnzoo.org

Mpls.St.Paul Daily Edit

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St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News)- Another person has been sentenced in a Minnesota drug smuggling conspiracy involving stuffed animals.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota announced the sentencing on Tuesday. A federal judge sentenced the St. Paul man last week.

Authorities busted the massive drug smuggling operation in late 2023 after becoming aware of it earlier that year.

31-year-old Quijuan Hosea Bankhead previously pleaded guilty for his role in the conspiracy that involved trafficking fentanyl by hiding it inside of stuffed animals.

Federal court documents say Bankhead and the other defendants in the case would travel to Phoenix, AZ to obtain the fentanyl.

They would hide the highly-addictive opioid in stuffed animals then ship the animals back to the Twin Cities area from August of 2022 through December of 2023.

Local and federal authorities put an end to the conspiracy when they seized a shipment containing 66 pounds of fentanyl, court documents say.

Bankhead has been sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.

“Bankhead and his network smuggled deadly fentanyl into Minnesota and had the gall to hide this poison inside of children’s toys—stuffed animals,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson.

Last year, Cornell Montez Chandler Jr. was sentenced to more than 13 years for his role in the drug trafficking operation and Da'Shawn Natori Domena pleaded guilty in the case.

At least nine people were charged in the drug smuggling scheme.