The Albert Lea Police Department’s “Citizen’s Academy” is currently accepting applications for the 2012 session.  Classes will be held on Thursday evenings from 7:00 pm- 9:00 pm. Starting on March 22nd and running to May 10th with a graduation ceremony on May 14th, 2012.

The “Citizen’s Academy” is designed to give the citizens of Albert Lea a look into the workings of their local police department.

Text alerts are now available from Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea.

If you are interested in finding out about Mayo Clinic Health System's holiday hours, flu shot schedules, free sports physicals, health education classes, special events, and more, you can sign up for special text alerts.

To sign up, text "mayoal" to 88588 and then follow these simple steps:

1.  Type "mayoal" in the message area of your texting screen.
2. Key in the numbers 88588 where you would typically type in a telephone number.
3. Press "Send."
4. You will receive a response letting you know you have successfully subscribed to our text alerts.

The weather we see every day greatly depends on a lot of things.  One of those is ocean temperatures in various regions across the world.  The most common one you've likely heard of is El Niño and La Niña.  The two occur in the equatorial waters of the Pacific Ocean.  When waters are warmer than normal it is considered an El Niño year.  Conversely, cooler waters compared to normal make a La Niña year.  This winter we are currently seeing a La Niña setup which usually leads to cooler temperatures in our region of the country, which so far this winter has not been the case.  Only four of the 20 La Niñas since 1949 have lead to cooler than normal temperatures in our region.