Plus: A McKinley City Council member is facing three felonies after allegedly disrupting power service to three Iron Range cities; St. Louis County assessors are setting up an alternate process for Fairbanks Township residents to appeal their 2025 valuations due to wildfire evacuations; Amazon is building a distribution facility in Grand Rapids; and drifting Canadian wildfire smoke is prompting air quality alerts in the Northland this weekend.
Chelsey Perkins became the News Director in early 2023 and was tasked with building a new local newsroom at the station. She is based in Brainerd and leads a team of two reporters covering communities across Northern Minnesota from the KAXE studio in Grand Rapids and the KBXE studio in Bemidji.
Megan Buffington joined the KAXE newsroom in 2024 after graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Originally from Pequot Lakes, she is passionate about educating and empowering communities through local reporting.
Larissa Donovan has been in the Bemidji area's local news scene since 2016, joining the KAXE newsroom in 2023 after several years as the News Director for the stations of Paul Bunyan Broadcasting.