Copyright St. Paul Pioneer Press
To place an obituary, please include the information from the obituary checklist below in an email to obits@pioneerpress.com. There is no option to place them through our website at this time. Feel free to contact our obituary desk at 651-228-5263 with any questions. General Information: Your full name, Address (City, State, Zip Code), Phone number, And an alternate phone number (if any) Obituary Specification: Name of Deceased, Obituary Text, A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable, TIF and other files are accepted, we will contact you if there are any issues with the photo. Ad Run dates There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply. If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply, contact us for more information. Policies: Verification of Death: In order to publish obituaries a name and phone number of funeral home/cremation society is required. We must contact the funeral home/cremation society handling the arrangements during their business hours to verify the death. If the body of the deceased has been donated to the University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program, or a similar program, their phone number is required for verification. Please allow enough time to contact them especially during their limited weekend hours. A death certificate is also acceptable for this purpose but only one of these two options are necessary. Guestbook and Outside Websites: We are not allowed to reference other media sources with a guestbook or an obituary placed elsewhere when placing an obituary in print and online. We may place a website for a funeral home or a family email for contact instead; contact us with any questions regarding this matter. Obituary Process: Once your submission is completed, we will fax or email a proof for review prior to publication in the newspaper. This proof includes price and days the notice is scheduled to appear. Please review the proof carefully. We must be notified of errors or changes before the notice appears in the Pioneer Press based on each day’s deadlines. After publication, we will not be responsible for errors that may occur after final proofing. Online: Changes to an online obituary can be handled through the obituary desk. Call us with further questions. Payment Procedure: Pre-payment is required for all obituary notices prior to publication by the deadline specified below in our deadline schedule. Please call 651-228-5263 with your payment information after you have received the proof and approved its contents. Credit Card: Payment accepted by phone only due to PCI (Payment Card Industry) regulations EFT: Check by phone. Please provide your routing number and account number. Rates: The minimum charge is $162 for the first 12 lines. Every line after the first 12 is $12. If the ad is under 12 lines it will be charged the minimum rate of $162. Obituaries including more than 40 lines will receive a 7.5% discount per line. On a second run date, receive a 20% discount off both the first and second placement. Place three obituaries and the third placement will be free of charge. Each photo published is $125 per day. For example: 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500. Deadlines: Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested. Hours Deadline (no exceptions) Ad Photos MEMORIAM (NON-OBITUARY) REQUEST Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries. Please call or email us for more memoriam information Please call 651-228-5280 for more information. HOURS: Monday – Friday 8:00AM – 5:00PM (CLOSED WEEKENDS and HOLIDAYS) Please submit your memoriam ad to memoriams@pioneerpress.com or call 651-228-5280. By RIO YAMAT, Associated Press Airlines and Travel Writer Travelers through some of the busiest U.S. airports can expect to learn Thursday whether they’ll see fewer flights as the government shutdown drags into a second month. The Federal Aviation Administration will announce the 40 “high-volume markets” where it is reducing flights by 10% before the cuts go into effect Friday, said agency administrator Bryan Bedford. The move is intended to keep the air space safe during the shutdown, the agency said. Experts predict hundreds if not thousands of flights could be canceled. The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upwards of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by aviation analytics firm Cirium. “I’m not aware in my 35-year history in the aviation market where we’ve had a situation where we’re taking these kinds of measures,” Bedford said Wednesday. “We’re in new territory in terms of government shutdowns.” Air traffic controllers have been working unpaid since the shutdown began Oct. 1. Most work mandatory overtime six days a week, leaving little time for side jobs to help cover bills and other expenses unless they call out. Mounting staffing pressures are forcing the agency to act, Bedford said Wednesday at a news conference. “We can’t ignore it,” he said, adding that even if the shutdown ends before Friday, the FAA wouldn’t automatically resume normal operations until staffing improves and stabilizes. Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declined during the news conference to name the cities and airports where they will slow air traffic, saying they wanted to first meet with airline executives to figure out how to safely implement the reductions. Major airlines, aviation unions and the broader travel industry have been urging Congress to end the shutdown, which on Wednesday became the longest on record. The shutdown is putting unnecessary strain on the system and “forcing difficult operational decisions that disrupt travel and damage confidence in the U.S. air travel experience,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman in a statement. Duffy warned on Tuesday that there could be chaos in the skies if the shutdown drags on long enough for air traffic controllers to miss their second full paycheck next week. Duffy said some controllers can get by missing one paycheck, but not two or more. And he has said some controllers are even struggling to pay for transportation to work. Staffing can run short both in regional control centers that manage multiple airports and in individual airport towers, but they don’t always lead to flight disruptions. Throughout October, flight delays caused by staffing problems had been largely isolated and temporary. But the past weekend brought some of the worst staffing issues since the start of the shutdown. From Friday to Sunday evening, at least 39 air traffic control facilities reported potential staffing limits, according to an Associated Press analysis of operations plans shared through the Air Traffic Control System Command Center system. The figure, which is likely an undercount, is well above the average for weekends before the shutdown. During weekends from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, the average number of airport towers, regional control centers and facilities monitoring traffic at higher altitudes that announced potential staffing issues was 8.3, according to the AP analysis. But during the five weekend periods since the shutdown began, the average more than tripled to 26.2 facilities. Associated Press journalist Christopher L. Keller contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
