State briefs

Police arrested a suspected rapist after a foot chase Sunday morning, ending a three-day search for the man.

Andrew Stephen Williams, 26, of Roseville, was arrested after police followed a tip that he was hiding out in a vacant house in Minneapolis. Police said that Williams jumped out a window and fled. He was caught after a short chase.

Williams was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center for treatment of self-inflicted knife wounds to his wrists before being transported to the Dakota County jail.

Williams was charged Friday in Dakota County with six counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Williams, a convicted sex offender, is accused of raping a woman in Eagan at knifepoint Thursday morning, then later trying to kidnap a woman in a Highland Park parking ramp, police said.

On Friday, Eagan police received information that Williams was at a residence in north Minneapolis around 12:35 p.m. While on their way to check the address, Minneapolis police responded to a burglary in progress in the same area and encountered Williams, a release said. He was wearing a wig and holding a butcher knife. The release said Williams lunged at an officer, then immediately dropped the knife and fled.

Police said Williams is suspected of breaking into a Roseville home about 4 a.m. Saturday and taking two kitchen knives.

Williams was convicted in 1996 of criminal sexual conduct for assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

Regents approve funds for sports center expansion on Duluth campus

The University of Minnesota will provide its Duluth campus with $850,000 to design an expansion to its Sports and Health Center.

The funding, authorized by the Board of Regents on Friday, will come from student fees. Students voted last spring to support the expansion and will pay a third of the project's projected $12.2 million cost.

University administrators will ask lawmakers to include the project in the 2004 bonding bill. Obtaining authority to begin designing the expansion immediately will probably increase the chances of legislative approval.

The university is planning a two-story, 46,000-square-foot expansion that will contain fitness equipment, workout rooms, offices, and a multipurpose gym large enough for two full-sized basketball courts.

Six members of Minnesota family die in Wyoming crash

A crash on a snow-slickened highway in Wyoming killed six members of a Minnesota family who were traveling to San Diego to visit relatives and check out prospects for buying a business and moving to California.

Husband and wife Ghulam and Ayesha Khan, 43 and 31 years old, respectively, were killed along with their two children, son Mohammed R. Khan, 15, and daughter Suman, 8. The family of four is from the Minneapolis suburb of Fridley.

Ayesha's mother, Zaneb Begum, 66, of Fridley, and Ayesha's brother, Mohammed A. Khan, 29, of St. Paul, also were killed when a semitrailer truck slammed into the Khans' minivan Saturday.