KSTP-TV's Miles gets engaged; Hartnett gets a stomach bug

KSTP-TV weekend anchor Jessica Miles is indeed sporting an engagement ring.

Thanks for noticing, Linda Clarin and Todd Shoemaker, who I'll assume are not related to Miles. After reading their e-mails expressing interest in what looked like a rock on Miles' left hand, I inquired Monday. Miles promised to call back as soon as she finished some news business.

Later, she left this voice mail: "Hi, it's Jessica Miles with 5 Eyewitness News. I am sorry I am getting back with you now, after 7 o'clock. I was out of town and just kind of frantically hurrying to get my stuff done today. My apologies, I know you work on deadline. Anyway, to answer your question: Yes, I am engaged. I just got engaged a couple of weeks ago. Needless to say, I'm thrilled. Very, very excited and busy planning. Thanks for the call."

Sensing that Linda and Todd would have wanted me to ask more, I called Miles again and left a voice mail congratulating her and noting that she had not disclosed so much as the first name or a general job description of the person who popped the question.

"All right," Miles said in another voice mail. "My fiancé's name is Cory Kampschroer, doesn't look like it sounds, at all, and he works in news but in radio."

Get well, Josh Wishing Josh Hartnett a speedy recovery from the stomach problem that landed him in an L.A. hospital this week.

Cool on ice fishing The rubification of Minnesota continued Tuesday when NBC's Tiki Barber went ice fishing with Paul Lynch, executive chef of FireLake restaurant in the downtown Minneapolis Radisson.

Just don't call him king Good lord. Charles Carlson, the would-be Minneapolis City Council candidate who the Minnesota Daily proved was not exactly the person he represented himself as, claims to know nothing about a business card that accords him a title.

Carlson, who claimed to be from the UK but apparently is not, reportedly passed around at least one business card that read: Lord Charles M.H. Edvard-Carlson.

The phone number on the card is the same number at which I've always reached him, but, of course, anything can be printed on a business card. During my first interview with him about the business card, he said, "I have no idea. People are very angry [with me]."

But angry enough to print up gag business cards? Lord, have mercy, I rather doubt it.

A couple of weeks later, Carlson called me to say, "I just was getting a lot of calls and e-mails from people asking me where I was. I was wondering if you had gotten anything as well."

Then I told Carlson I was still waiting for him to be honest with me about the Lord card. "I had nothing to do with that," he said.

And then he tantalized me with this nugget: Maybe the card is somebody's way of sparking an investigation of him. "A lot of people wrote letters to the county attorney's office," he said. "The county attorney's investigator has been calling my treasurer all week ... and I spoke with Pat Diamond, who is the chief prosecutor."

In early March, I asked Rondah Kinchlow, the Hennepin County attorney office's media rep, about a form letter circulating that was encouraging an investigation of Carlson's campaign actions. She said her office had not received such a letter.

On Wednesday, I asked Kinchlow whether Diamond had talked to Carlson. "I don't have anything to say about this right now," is the word from Diamond via Kinchlow.

Stay tuned.