Hao Nguyen, director of the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office trial division, is kicking off his election campaign Wednesday for Hennepin County Attorney.
Nguyen is the second person to publicize his candidacy.
“I will hold violent offenders accountable for their actions, while uplifting the voices of victims,” he said in a statement. “I will reasonably consider innovation and responsible reform, but never at the cost of public safety or equity for all our communities.
“In Hennepin County you have the right to be safe and treated fairly. You shouldn’t have to pick one over the other,” he continued.
Nguyen came to America as a refugee from Vietnam, “a child of war and the son of a single mother of three,” he said.
He worked as a correctional officer, police officer and a sheriff’s deputy before going to law school. He’s been a prosecutor for more than 15 years, and said he’s “handled cases ranging from assault to murder and everything in between.” He lives in Hennepin County with his family.
Nguyen said his endorsements include Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt.
The Carnegie Hero Fund announced last year that it was awarding Nguyen a Carnegie Medal for rushing to the aid of a man who was in crisis and near the edge of the top of a building in downtown St. Paul.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Tuesday that would overhaul how youth who commit crimes are prosecuted in the District of Columbia as congressional Republicans mobilized behind President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital.
One of the bills, called the “DC Crimes Act,” would lower the age of a youth offender in the federal district from 24 to 18 and require that criminal sentencing be at least as long as the mandatory minimums for adults, overruling local D.C. policy. It would also require the D.C. attorney general to establish a public website that would publish statistics on youth criminal acts.
The bill passed 240-179, with 30 Democrats joining Republicans in support.
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A second bill, the D.C. Juvenile Sentencing Reform Act passed by a narrower 225-203 margin, with eight Democrats backing the measure and one Republican — Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voting against it.
Massie was the lone Republican to oppose both bills.
The debate over D.C.’s laws comes as the district’s self-governance is being challenged in ways never before seen since the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973. Thousands of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers are patrolling the city’s streets, thanks to a now-lapsed emergency order from Trump. Republicans have cheered the intervention and criticized how the city is run.
The city filed a lawsuit challenging that National Guard intervention. Late Tuesday the administration entered a filing asking that a temporary injunction sought by the district be denied and the case be dismissed, partially on the grounds that the mayor has acknowledged the success of the actions. Twenty-three states weighed in on the lawsuit in support of the administration and 22 are behind the district.
Still, the latest slate of D.C. legislation has an uncertain future in the Senate, where some Democratic support would be needed. Democrats have criticized Trump’s aggressive intervention in the city’s governance and affairs and have defended the ability of residents in the nation’s capital to govern themselves.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat, said Trump is “constantly attacking what Republicans used to call a small government and deciding to be the biggest government that you can find. It’s truly shameful.”
Crockett added she believed the White House and House Republicans’ actions are “only a precursor, a precursor for everything that he wants to do in other minority-led cities.”
Republicans have countered that the Constitution specifically excludes the federal district from statehood and have offered a range of reasons for why Congress should exercise its authority to override the local government.
Speaking on the floor during the debate on the juvenile justice bill, Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, emphasized the stricter guidelines would be for “serious crimes, including murder.” He added that D.C.’s definition of a juvenile is “seven years higher” than in other cities.
Criminal justice advocates questioned why the House would involve itself in the affairs of the District, especially criminal justice matters that have been studied and researched.
Darby Hickey, senior policy counsel with DC Justice Lab, said the overall view is Congress’ actions are “fundamentally against American values, which state that the people get to elect their representatives, who will govern and make the laws.” Congress, she said, is “usurping our ability to make our own laws.”
Misty Thomas Zaleski, executive director at the Council for Court Excellence, pointed at a different Republican proposal that would abolish the Judicial Nomination Commission and give the president direct appointment authority over Washington judges and bypass the commission’s “bipartisan vetting process that has operated for 50 years.”
“Congress is not the expert in what’s needed to address these multifaceted problems that exist in the district,” she said.
Ankit Jain, D.C.’s shadow senator, said the focus now will be Senate Democrats. “We will be working aggressively to talk to Senate Democrats and make the case to them why they should vote no on these bills,” he said. One message will be D.C. is only the start. “If this succeeds, then Republicans will see that this strategy works, that they can go after a lot of the laws in blue cities and unite their party and divide the Democratic Party.”
The House is expected to take up two more D.C. criminal justice related bills Wednesday.
While Washington residents are able to elect their own mayor, council and other officials, that self-governance has it limits. Congress maintains authority over laws passed by the D.C. council and it can impose its own laws and restrictions. Congress also controls the D.C. budget even though the budget is generated by local tax revenue.
Earlier this year the House cut $1.1 billion out of the city’s budget.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, called on the money for D.C. to be restored.
Dressed in torn cargo pants and beat up Vans, architectural designer and DIY influencer Ben Uyeda was stretched out poolside in a rare moment of repose on a recent Tuesday evening at Reset, his new hotel in 29 Palms.
“This is the best time to watch the mountains,” he said, looking south toward the direction of Joshua Tree National Park. “Right now they look really jagged, but they’ll turn soft and orange as the sun sets.”
Sitting next to him were his collaborators Emi Kitawaki and Jen Whitaker of the design firm Gry Space who created the look and tone of Reset’s spare, earthy interiors. Sharing a cold cucumber salad from the hotel’s in-house restaurant, they gazed across the spacious pool area with its wide platform loungers and stucco walls that perfectly matched the color of the dusty landscape beyond.
“The sky is the show,” Kitawaki said, looking up.
Reset, which opened to the public this summer, is a new kind of hotel for the high desert: Modern. Minimal. Modular. While the pool area with its hot tub, sauna and thoughtful landscaping is pure desert luxury, the rest of the hotel consists of 65 rectangular-shaped, free-standing rooms laid out in neat rows. Each sparsely furnished room is outfitted with carefully selected amenities that suggest a highly curated camping trip — a stylish solar lantern, in-room pour-over coffee, an outdoor fire pit and, most importantly, a sturdy cushion on the private outdoor patio for stargazing.
“The best view here is always up,” Uyeda said.
The Reset Hotel is a new kind of hotel for the high desert: Modern. Minimal. Modular. (Reset Hotel/TNS)
A spacious pool area at the Reset Hotel. (The Reset Hotel/TNS)
The Reset Hotel has spare, earthy interiors. (Reset Hotel/TNS)
The Reset Hotel. (The Reset Hotel/TNS)
The Reset Hotel, the first new hotel to be built from the ground up in the Joshua Tree area. (Reset Hotel/TNS)
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The Reset Hotel is a new kind of hotel for the high desert: Modern. Minimal. Modular. (Reset Hotel/TNS)
The rooms are not technically built from shipping containers, but with their boxy shape, corrugated silver sides and narrow dimensions, they sure look like it. Walking along the hotel’s concrete paths, the overall effect is far more sci-fi than Old West. As one guest put it, “It feels like a test case for Elon Musk’s first colony on Mars.”
The hotel’s designers say the evocation of space travel was deliberate.
“When we came onto the project, the first thing Ben mentioned was what would humans do if we built a community on Mars,” Kitawaki said. “Everything is designed from a more mission, utilitarian standpoint: What is actually needed?”
A DIY hotel
A handful of new hotels opened in the Joshua Tree area as tourism to the park has soared over the last several years. The most recent additions include the bare-bones Field Station, which took over the former Travel Lodge in Yucca Valley in 2024 and Hotel Wren, a revamped 1940s roadside motel in 29 Palms that opened this year. But Reset is the first hotel to be built from the ground up in the area in 15 years.
Uyeda, who has more than 1.6 million subscribers on his YouTube channel HomeMade Modern, got involved with the project after building a shipping container house in Joshua Tree and releasing a docuseries detailing the process in 2020. A former professor of architecture at Northeastern and Cornell universities, he’d noticed that as home prices skyrocketed there was a corresponding increase of interest in potentially more affordable construction like tiny homes, earthships and container homes. “People say it’s a trend, but in fact only about 100 of these have been built,” he said. “I don’t have a negative take on shipping container houses, but if something was really moving the needle then more people would be doing it.”
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Soon after completing his shipping container house, Uyeda began having conversations with his now business partner Adam Wininger about how the rise of Airbnb was converting desperately needed housing in the desert to vacation rentals. They wondered if building modular structures on land that was already zoned for commercial use might be one solution to increasing lodging units without impacting local housing supply. While the process of building modular is not cheaper than a regular build, it is faster, especially in a remote desert location.
“We’re both native Californians,” he said. “There is a real demand for this kind of hospitality.”
The seeds of the Reset were planted.
The team acquired 180 acres of property in 2020 and began construction in 2023.
Room modules were made in a factory outside of Ontario, Canada, at the same time that foundation work was occurring in 29 Palms. Throughout the process Uyeda promoted the hotel on his social media feeds by releasing DIY videos demonstrating how he and his small team hand-built 500 pieces of furniture for Reset including fold-out desks, couches, daybeds and a vase made out of rock while also offering his followers a sneak peek at Reset’s construction process.
“So often you don’t know what’s real and what’s not,” Kitawaki said. “But when you come here, it feels personal. You’re connected to the items you see in the hotel because you saw how they were made.”
Waking up on Mars
So, what’s it like to stay in a futuristic, DIY desert hotel?
“The word ‘Mars’ has come up a lot,” said a young man from San Francisco who was visiting with his girlfriend. “The name Reset feels apt. We definitely feel like we are taking a break from civilization.”
The hotel has four types of rooms — two offer desert views, two do not. I booked the Mountain View Suite, which has the most bells and whistles. In the context of Reset this means it had a large window at one end of the unit that looked out toward the park, a couch in the room and a soaking tub on the private outdoor patio. Like all the rooms, it was also equipped with an outdoor fire pit and a comfortable cushion for stargazing.
The room itself was neatly ordered with walnut and cement accents. Nothing felt extraneous. Everything felt organic, a choice the designers said was deliberate.
“It was all about how do we get the inside to look like the outside,” said Whitaker who, with her partner Kitawaki chose all the furnishings and finishes down to the organic bath products from Flamingo Estate. “It’s why we used so many materials from the land itself.”
Reset is just 6 minutes from the 29 Palms entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, making the hotel an easy home base for exploring the park. It also offers easy access to the growing community of creative businesses in the town of 29 Palms.
When I first arrived at Reset, I was taken aback by the starkness of the space, but it didn’t take long for the hotel’s minimalism and clean lines to grow on me. Whether I was in bed, at the pool, or lying on my private patio, the thoughtfully designed spaces always encouraged me to look out and up.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the Mojave, and each time I visit I am struck again by its otherworldliness. Sitting in my modular room at Reset, comfy in my little pod, I felt I could stare out at it all day.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is stuck on pause Wednesday as it waits to hear from the Federal Reserve in the afternoon, when it’s expected to deliver the first cut to interest rates of the year.
The S&P 500 edged down by 0.1% and was drifting near its record set on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 252 points, or 0.6%, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower.
Anticipation has been building for months about this afternoon’s announcement by the Fed. The decision itself will likely be an afterthought because traders and economists already widely expect the Fed to cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point.
What’s more important will be what Fed officials say about the probability of more cuts. The unanimous expectation is that they will keep lowering rates through this year and into next in order to prop up the slowing job market.
Reports are showing that it’s become more difficult for people to find a job, which could be forcing the Fed to see it as the bigger problem for the economy than the threat of higher inflation.
The Fed has been keeping rates on hold so far this year because lower rates can push inflation higher, and it’s been worried about how much President Donald Trump’s tariffs will raise prices for all kinds of products. Inflation has so far refused to go back below the Fed’s 2% target.
Stocks have run to records on expectations for easier interest rates. That in turn raises the possibility of disappointment for Wall Street if Fed Chair Jerome Powell hints at fewer cuts coming than everyone expects. Fed officials will also be releasing their projections for where they see interest rates and inflation heading in upcoming years.
On Wall Street, Workday helped lead the market with a gain of 8.8% after Elliott Investment Management said it’s built a stake of more than $2 billion in it and supports its management. The company, which helps customers manage their finances and human resources, recently increased its program to send cash to investors through purchases of its stock by up to $4 billion.
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On the losing end of Wall Street was General Mills, which fell 1.3%. The food giant reported a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but its revenue only roughly matched forecasts. It also said it expects investments it’s making in brands to drive growth, such as Blue Buffalo’s launch into fresh pet food, to knock its profit lower in its upcoming fiscal year.
RCI Hospitality Holdings dropped 8% after New York’s attorney general accused executives of bribery and other crimes for trying to avoid paying millions of dollars in sales taxes. RCI owns strip clubs and sports bars across the country, including Rick’s Cabaret.
Later in the day, the online ticket marketplace StubHub will see its stock trade on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time. Its stock will trade under the symbol “STUB” and sold at its initial public offering for a price of $23.50 per share.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2% from its record after data showed Japan’s exports to the U.S. dropped 13.8% in August from a year earlier, as auto exports were hit by Trump’s tariffs.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.02% from 4.04% late Tuesday.
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
