A special session on gun control in the wake of the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting and the shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers and their family members is running into harsh political realities at the Capitol.

At an unrelated press conference earlier this week Gov. Tim Walz said conversations with leadership are ongoing, but that he was told by GOP leadership that there would “never” be a vote on a “gun ban.”

Gov. Tim Walz.

“I guess there’s a line in the sand, and I was told by Republican leadership that there would never be a vote on … a gun ban, and that’s not acceptable in reaching a compromise,” he said. “It’s clear to me that Republican legislators want to talk about everything else except guns.”

House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said Tuesday that she thinks Walz could be mischaracterizing what was said by Republicans in leadership conversations.

“It appears to me that the governor is either misunderstanding or mischaracterizing the fact that even DFL leaders have acknowledged there are not enough votes to pass a gun ban,” Demuth said.

“I did not say there would never be a vote — but you need a bill in order to vote, and the governor has given no language or detail of what he wants voted on aside from vague bans,” she said. “If he is serious about wanting a vote, he should be honest about what he’s actually looking for a vote on instead of playing politics to further his campaign.”

House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring.

While Walz has not put out an official gun legislation package, he clarified Tuesday what he requested.

“I asked for a floor vote on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons, and just let the members vote on it,” he said. “And if they believe that’s a bad idea, which obviously they do … then you can simply vote no.”

Walz could call a special session whenever he wants. But the current makeup of the Legislature would make it difficult for an assault weapons ban to make it to a floor vote in either chamber.

Margins in both chambers

The House is currently tied 67-67 — part of the power-sharing agreement under the tie is that committees are co-chaired with equal GOP-to-DFL representation — meaning any assault weapons ban would need at least one Republican vote in several committees to make it to a floor vote.

The Senate currently has two vacant seats to be filled on Nov. 4 and a 33-22 DFL majority. Senate Democrats don’t have a quorum and can’t pass anything off the floor without 34 members.

“Look, we’re at 67-67 and neither side has 34 votes in the Senate. So it’s going to take a compromise, which shouldn’t be that difficult,” Walz said Tuesday. “The vast majority of the people in Minnesota want to see us do something on this. We should be able to get together and do that.”

Special session

A Senate working group last week gave a clearer picture of how some gun control proposals could go in a special session as Republicans spoke out about their opposition to doing so.

Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, who represents a district that includes Annunciation, said at the working group on Sept. 17 that Annunciation parents — some of whom have testified in support of an assault weapons ban — are asking her for a vote.

“The parents I have spoken with understand what the Legislature is, but they also want a vote,” she said. “They want members to take their vote. They want to speak to those members who are opposing on both sides of the aisle.”

Republican votes aren’t the only factor — Democrats weren’t able to pass an assault weapons ban during the DFL trifecta.

It’s unclear where this standstill puts a special session. Nevertheless, Walz and DFL leadership have said in the past few weeks that a special session wouldn’t hinge on whether or not the votes are there.

“Leadership has the responsibility to come to an agreement. And I get the feeling right now that there is no appetite on the Republican side over the floor vote on guns,” he said.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Government Efficiency’s remaking of the federal workforce has battered the Washington job market and put more households in the metropolitan area in financial distress, according to a report released Wednesday.

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The number of homes for sale in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia region, also known as the DMV, is up by 64% since June 2024, and the region’s unemployment rate is the highest in the nation, according to the DMV Monitor, a real-time data interactive created by the Brookings Institution with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Washington has had the nation’s highest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for four straight months. The unemployment rate was 5.3% in January and ticked up to 6% in August, compared with the 4.3% national average, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

From the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in January, DOGE, led by his then-adviser Elon Musk, instigated purges of federal agencies with the expressed mission of rooting out fraud, waste and abuse. DOGE led to tens of thousands of job cuts, including layoffs and people who accepted financial incentives to quit. Some people were rehired, a reflection of the haphazard process. Although losses were felt around the country, the Washington area was particularly hard hit.

Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, said last month that there will be 300,000 fewer federal workers on the payroll nationwide by the end of the year. The government has about 2.5 million workers, including military members.

Contractors have been affected, too. DOGE’s website states that 13,231 federal government contracts have been terminated, totaling $59 billion in savings. In fiscal year 2024, more than 100,000 companies received contracts, totaling roughly $774 billion.

FILE – Elon Musk speaks during an event with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Besides the mass layoffs, the Republican president’s other actions to remake the image of the nation’s capital — including deploying National Guard troops and federalizing the city’s local Metropolitan Police Department — “could shape consumer spending and investment in the local economy,” the report says.

The report also says private-sector job growth is stagnating, “with many new jobs not aligned with the skills and experiences of most laid-off federal workers.”

“As a result,” it says, “job postings were not as robust as they were in peer regions, which is concerning when unemployment has soared, especially in the suburbs.”

A representative from the White House did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the report.

The DMV region is home to the most college graduates of any major U.S. metropolitan area, and one-fifth of federal workers are concentrated in the area.

In July, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump’s Republican administration to downsize the federal workforce further, despite warnings that critical government services will be lost. The ruling does not apply to every agency, and other legal challenges to federal worker firings continue.

Additionally, hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Musk’s cost-cutting blitz are being asked to return to work.

“The DMV region’s economy has grown even weaker than the nation in many categories due to the Trump administration’s seismic actions to shrink the federal government,” the report reads.

And given proposed additional cuts in the future, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute predicts it’s likely more Washington residents and others from around the region who work in Washington will lose their federal jobs over the coming months and years.

The latest Washington Office of Revenue Analysis figures show that initial unemployment insurance claims have jumped by 33.7% compared with this time last year.

Marcus Schmit has been named executive director of NAMI Minnesota — the National Alliance on Mental Illness — effective Oct. 27, 2025.

Marcus Schmit.
(Courtesy of NAMI Minnesota)

Schmit succeeds Sue Abderholden, who led the organization for more than 20 years.

Schmit is currently executive director of Hearth Connection, a nonprofit that focuses on ending long-term homelessness through supportive housing and systems partnerships.

He also served as assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Corrections, director of Advocacy at Second Harvest Heartland, and held senior posts with MNsure and with Tim Walz, when he was a member of Congress.

“Marcus brings deep policy expertise, proven nonprofit leadership, and a personal commitment to advancing Minnesota’s mental health system,” shared Jessica Gourneau, president of NAMI Minnesota’s board of directors, in a statement. “We are excited for the vision, energy, and relationships he will bring to build on Sue’s extraordinary legacy and lead NAMI Minnesota into its next chapter.”

The organization is holding its annual NAMIWalks Minnesota on Saturday at Minnehaha Regional Park in Minneapolis. The event this year is themed “Mental Health for All,” and is to feature a program at 12:30 p.m. followed by a 5K walk at 1 p.m. There also will be a resource fair, family-friendly activities, free parking and shuttle service, and no registration fee.

Both Abderholden and Schmit are expected to attend the event.

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By SETH BORENSTEIN

NEW YORK (AP) — Soon people will be able to use satellite technology and artificial intelligence to track dangerous soot pollution in their neighborhoods — and where it comes from — in a way not so different from monitoring approaching storms under plans by a nonprofit coalition led by former Vice President Al Gore.

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Gore, who co-founded Climate TRACE, which uses satellites to monitor the location of heat-trapping methane sources, on Wednesday expanded his system to track the source and plume of pollution from tiny particles, often referred to as soot, on a neighborhood basis for 2,500 cities across the world. Particle pollution kills millions of people worldwide each year — and tens of thousands in the United States — according to scientific studies and reports.

Gore’s coalition uses 300 satellites, 30,000 ground-tracking sensors and artificial intelligence to track 137,095 sources of particle pollution, with 3,937 of them categorized as “super emitters” for how much they spew. Users can look at long-term trends, but in about a year Gore hopes these can become available daily so they can be incorporated into weather apps, like allergy reports.

It’s not just seeing the pollutants. The website shows who is spewing them.

“It’s difficult, before AI, for people to really see precisely where this conventional air pollution is coming from,” Gore said. “When it’s over in their homes and in their neighborhoods and when people have a very clear idea of this, then I think they’re empowered with the truth of their situation. My faith tradition has always taught me you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

Unlike methane, soot pollution isn’t technically a climate issue because it doesn’t cause the world to warm, but it does come from the same process: fossil fuel combustion.

FILE – People visit the Mount Royal lookout in Montreal, July 14, 2025, as much of Central Canada and Manitoba were placed under special air quality statements or warnings, amid smoke from wildfires, and Environment Canada advised residents to limit time outdoors and watch for smoke exposure symptoms. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

“It’s the same combustion process of the same fuels that produce both the greenhouse gas pollution and the particulate pollution that kills almost 9 million people every single year,” Gore said in a video interview Monday. “I’ll give you an example. I recently spent a week in Cancer Alley, the stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans where the U.S. petrochemical industry is based. That’s a 65-mile stretch, you know, and on either side of the river we did an analysis with the Climate TRACE data. If Cancer Alley were a nation, its per capita global warming pollution emissions would rank fourth in the world, behind Turkmenistan.”

Gore’s firm found Karachi, Pakistan, had the most people exposed to soot pollution, followed by Guangzhou, China, Seoul, South Korea, New York City and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.