Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

To exciting news downtown.

This week, Cento Wood-fired Pizza and Cafe opened its doors for a soft opening in its cafe and reservations in the pizzeria on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There is a lot of buzz about this new restaurant on Broadway, and it brought a lot of excitement on social media this week.

We thank Century Partners, the owners of the Jacobson Building, where Cento is located, for their investment into the space and providing another choice for residents.

Cento is slated to open on Tuesday to the general public, and we encourage people to get out and give it a try. The cafe in the front, with coffee and baked goods, will be open from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the pizzeria in the back will be open at 4 p.m.

We were also happy to hear recently that Albert Lea’s beloved Leutholds will return downtown after more than three decades at Northbridge Mall.

Like one of the owners said, there is a revitalization happening downtown and they wanted to be a part of it.

We think the move will open up opportunities for their business and potentially bring in new customers.

The downtown is getting better and better every day.

To a decline in MCA test results for the Albert Lea school district.

The results of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments were released this week, and we were disappointed to see that Albert Lea’s numbers as a whole declined, though there were two schools, specifically, that saw notable progress.

As a district, there was an almost 4% decline in proficiency in math, a 1% decrease in proficiency in reading and an almost 2% decline in proficiency in science.

Halverson Elementary School saw improvement across the board in all three subject areas, and Lakeview saw increases in two subjects.

We congratulate the teachers and administrators at these two schools for their success, and we hope to see the other schools reverse course in the coming years.

To the number of crashes in the area this week.

We were saddened to hear reports of multiple crashes this week, several with injuries and some also without.

As we have covered this week in the newspaper, one of those crashes was a double fatality, and others have had varying levels of injuries.

We offer our condolences to the friends and family of those who died in the Monday crash.

While the details in this case have not been released, we hope people will be alert and attentive when they get behind the wheel and always err on the side of caution.