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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 WAFAA SHURAFA and SAM METZ, Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Officials at Gaza’s largest functioning hospital said Wednesday that the bodies of 15 more Palestinians were returned from Israel, as exchanges outlined in last month’s fragile ceasefire continued despite allegations of violations. The International Committee of the Red Cross has transported 285 bodies held in Israeli custody to Gaza since last month’s agreement was brokered, though health officials in Gaza have said identifying the remains is complicated by a lack of DNA testing kits. Israel has not disclosed how many bodies it is holding or where they were recovered, but has been returning 15 each time the remains of an Israeli hostage are returned from Gaza. The 15 were returned to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Wednesday a day after Palestinian militants in Gaza handed over the body of an Israeli soldier taken hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that started the war. The exchanges are the central component of the initial phase of the U.S.-brokered agreement which requires Hamas return all hostage remains as quickly as possible. The exchanges have gone ahead even as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of breaching other terms of the deal. Hamas returned 20 living hostages to Israel on Oct. 13. The group has since also returned the remains of 21 bodies. Israeli officials have decried parts of the process as a violation of the agreement, accusing Hamas of handing over partial remains in some instances and staging the discovery of bodies in others. It has pushed to speed up the returns and in certain cases has said the remains were not those of hostages. Hamas has said recovering bodies is complicated by the widespread devastation in the coastal enclave and has returned one to three bodies every few days. It has accused Israel of opening fire at civilians and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the territory. The number of casualties has dropped since the ceasefire took effect. But health officials in Gaza — who do not distinguish between civilians and militants — have continued to report deaths from strikes, while Israel has said that soldiers have also been killed. The deal will not move to subsequent phases until all the remains of Israeli hostages are returned. The next parts of the 20-point plan call for creating an international stabilization force. Its makeup hasn’t been finalized, but diplomats are working to define its role, persuade Arab countries to take part, and win wider international support. “What we believe is that whatever entity that is created in Gaza should have the legitimacy of a mandate from the Security Council,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters in Doha on Tuesday. The fragile agreement aims to wind down the war that was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel responded with a sweeping military offensive that has killed more than 68,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts. Israel, which has denied accusations by a U.N. commission of inquiry and others of committing genocide in Gaza, has disputed the ministry’s figures without providing a contradicting toll. Metz reported from Rabat, Morocco.
