Kickoff to Summer at the Fair, a sampler born during the pandemic and now a summer tradition, will return for the fifth year in May.

Advance tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday.

This year, the popular slice-of-the-fair will run on Memorial Day weekend, from Thursday, May 22 through Sunday, May 25.

The four-day event includes food, brews, music, shopping, free parking and family fun at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

Attendance is limited each day so guests can have space to stroll and savor the experience.

New offerings at this year’s kickoff include deep-fried ranch dressing from LuLu’s Public House, a fan favorite from the 2024 State Fair, and Kickoff Conundrum Puzzle Hunt, a one-of-a-kind adventure created by local escape rooms.

Tickets are $13 each in advance online (fees and tax included), a savings of $3 as tickets at the gate will be $16 each (children ages four and under get in free). Each ticket is valid for a specific day.

The kickoff will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 22, and Friday, May 23, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 24, and Sunday, May 25.

Visit mnstatefair.org/kickoff-to-summer/ for all the event details and ticket info.

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A federal judge on Wednesday permanently dismissed the sweeping public corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams  — denying an effort by Trump’s Justice Department to have them tossed “without prejudice,” or keeping open the possibility of bringing them again.

Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho’s decision was not based on the merits of the case against Adams or a belief of whether he was innocent or guilty.

It came after the Justice Department asked Ho to get rid of the case without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled; Mayor Adams asked him to get rid of it permanently, and former federal judges and prosecutors urged him to scrutinize the terms behind the dismissal deal offered to Adams closely and consider appointing a special prosecutor.

The judge appointed an independent lawyer, Paul Clement, the former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, to advise him on the matter, who recommended he dismiss the case for good. Clement said the prospect of the mayor feeling indebted to the president out of fear he could be reindicted and not New Yorkers was “deeply troubling.”

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. (Jeenah Moon-Pool/Getty Images)

Less than a month after Trump took office, Emil Bove — Trump’s former criminal defense attorney turned top Justice Department official — on Feb. 14 asked Ho to dismiss the case without prejudice, which would have meant federal authorities could bring it again in the future. He cited a need for the mayor to cooperate with Trump’s hardline deportation agenda unimpeded, among other factors unrelated to Adams’s guilt or innocence. 

The mayor has faced searing condemnation for agreeing to the terms laid out by the Trump administration and saw calls for his removal amid concerns he was sacrificing New York City’s immigrant communities to save his own skin.

Those criticisms reached a fever pitch when Adams appeared on “Fox & Friends” with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who said he’d be “up [the mayor’s] butt” if he didn’t play ball with the Trump administration as it sought to carry out deportations.

Bove filed the dismissal bid after the interim head of the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, Danielle Sassoon — a veteran prosecutor and registered Republican whom Trump had installed in the senior role on his first full day in office — quit rather than obey the order to wind down the case, in which Adams faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Sassoon wrote to Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi before resigning, saying she had been preparing to sign off on more charges accusing the mayor of attempting to conceal his crimes from the FBI and ordering others to do the same. She said the proposed arrangement amounted to a “quid pro quo” between Adams and the Trump administration, “indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

Judge Dale Ho presides over a status hearing for Mayor Adams in Manhattan federal court, Oct. 2, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

The prosecutor was one of at least eight Justice Department staffers to resign over the controversy, including one of the lead prosecutors handling the case, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten.

In his resignation letter, Scotten, a U.S. Army vet who clerked for conservative Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, told Bove he’d have to find another “fool” to ask the court to throw out the case.

“[Any] assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way,” Scotten wrote.

“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”

After the Justice Department filed its dismissal motion, Adams filed his own, asking Ho to get rid of the case for good. He claimed the widely reported letters by Sassoon and Scotten had destroyed whatever presumption of innocence he had left.

The indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in September accused Adams of bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and two counts of soliciting contributions from foreign nationals for allegedly putting a price on his political influence starting more than a decade ago when he was Brooklyn borough president.

The case alleged that Adams accepted luxury travel and hotel stays worldwide from wealthy Turkish officials and businessmen and solicited illicit campaign donations from his foreign benefactors, which were funneled through U.S. citizens and maximized through the city’s public matching funds program.

Prosecutors secured a guilty plea from Brooklyn real estate magnate Erden Arkan in January, who was expected to testify at the trial, in which he admitted organizing illegal donations for Adams in spring 2021 on the orders of the then-mayoral candidate. A former senior aide to the mayor, Mohamed Bahi, had also agreed to plead guilty to related charges before Trump’s Justice Department intervened.

The feds said trial evidence would have proven how Adams partly repaid the bribes by forcing former FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro to disregard safety concerns by prematurely opening a skyscraper in Midtown housing Turkey’s consulate in time for a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are swinging again Wednesday in the final hours before President Donald Trump unveils the tariffs he promised as part of his “ Liberation Day ” that could drastically remake the global economy and trade.

The S&P 500 was 0.3% lower in morning trading after paring an early loss of 1.1%. It’s had a pattern this week of opening with sharp losses only to finish the day higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 140 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% lower.

Tesla helped pulled the market lower after it said it delivered fewer electric vehicles in the first three months of the year than it did in last year’s first quarter. Its shares fell 2.2% to extend their loss for the year so far to 35%. Tesla, one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks because of its immense size, has faced growing backlash due to anger about CEO Elon Musk’s leading the U.S. government’s efforts to cut spending.

Financial markets around the world have been particularly shaky lately because of all the uncertainty around what Trump will announce in the event scheduled to begin after the U.S. stock market closes for the day. He has said he wants tariffs to make the global system more fair and to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States from other countries.

But tariffs also threaten to grind down growth for the U.S. and other economies around the world, while worsening inflation when it seems to be remaining stubbornly higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Much is still unknown about what Trump will say later in the day, including how big the tariffs will be, which countries will be hit and what kinds of products will be targeted.

The announcement may also not even clear up all the uncertainty weighing on Wall Street, given that it may just provide a starting point for negotiations with other countries.

One of the hopes that’s helped push upward on the U.S. stock market recently is the possibility that at least the worst of the uncertainty may have already passed.

“We do not know how long the previously enacted tariffs and any future tariffs will remain in force, but we believe peak tariff uncertainty may soon be behind us,” according to Kurt Reiman, head of fixed income Americas, and other strategists at UBS Global Wealth Management. “Much of the work the administration set out to achieve will have been put in place, and there are numerous potential offramps available.”

The tariffs Trump plans to unveil later in the day follow other announcements of 25% tariffs on auto imports; levies against China, Canada and Mexico; and expanded tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump has also put tariffs against countries that import oil from Venezuela and plans separate import taxes on pharmaceutical drugs, lumber, copper and computer chips.

Another fear hitting the market is that the herky-jerky rollout of his trade strategy may by itself create enough nervousness to spur U.S. households and businesses to freeze their spending, which would damage the economy.

Surveys have shown deepening pessimism, but economists are waiting to see if that translates into actual damage for the economy. A report on Wednesday morning suggested the U.S. job market may still be running stronger than expected.

The report from ADP Research said employers, excluding the government, accelerated their hiring last month by more than economists estimated. It could offer an encouraging signal for the more comprehensive hiring report that’s coming Friday from the U.S. government. Economists expect that to show overall hiring slowed in March from February.

The job market has been one of the linchpins keeping the U.S. economy out of a recession.

Treasury yields nevertheless fell after the ADP payrolls report, continuing a trend that’s largely held since January on worries about how tariffs could slow the economy.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.14% from 4.17% late Tuesday and from roughly 4.80% early this year. That’s a significant move for the bond market.

On Wall Street, Newsmax fell 36.3% in its third day of trading to give back some of its meteoric gains from its debut. It surged 735% Monday and then another 179% on Tuesday.

In stock market abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe after finishing mixed in Asia.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge dismissed New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case on Wednesday, acquiescing to the Justice Department’s extraordinary request to set aside criminal charges so the Democrat could help with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The judge, though, denied prosecutors the ability to potentially bring the criminal case back after the mayoral election. Judge Dale E. Ho’s order to dismiss the case “with prejudice” spares Adams from having to govern in a way that pleases Trump, or potentially risk having the Republican’s Justice Department revive the charges.

The decision follows a legal drama that roiled the Justice Department, created turmoil in City Hall and left Adams’ mayoralty hanging by a thread amid questions about his political independence and ability to govern.

Several prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned rather than carry out the Justice Department’s directive to drop the case against Adams. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat, pondered whether to remove Adams from office but decided instead to propose new oversight for city government.

At a Feb. 19 hearing, Adams told Ho: “I have not committed a crime.”

Adams had pleaded not guilty to bribery and other charges after a 2024 indictment accused him of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel discounts from a Turkish official and others — and returning the favors by, among other things, helping Turkey open a diplomatic building without passing fire inspections.

The case, brought during President Joe Biden’s administration, was on track for an April trial until Trump’s Justice Department moved to drop it. Ho delayed the trial and appointed former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement to assist him in deciding what to do.

The Justice Department had wanted the option to revive the case in the fall. Adams’ lawyers wanted it gone for good.

In a written submission on March 7, Clement told Ho he had no choice under the law but to dismiss the case. But he recommended that the judge reject the Justice Department’s request to be able to refile them after this year’s mayoral election, which would leave “a prospect that hangs like the proverbial Sword of Damocles over the accused.”

The decision comes with three months to go until a Democratic primary that is likely to chose the city’s next mayor.

Adams faces a large field of challengers, including former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and several Democrats who say he’s now too indebted to Trump for New Yorkers to be sure he’ll prioritize their interests. Adams has said he’s “solely beholden to the 8.3 million New Yorkers that I represent, and I will always put this city first.”

As recently as Jan. 6, the assistant U.S. attorneys in New York who were prosecuting Adams wrote in court papers that they continued to “uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams.” But a month later, their new superiors in Washington decided to abandon the case.

In court filings and a hearing, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove has said he was “particularly concerned about the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Adams’ ability to support” Trump’s immigration objectives. Bove also has questioned the prior administration’s motives in pursuing Adams, who had criticized then-President Joe Biden’s handling of an influx of migrants.

The Trump administration’s acting U.S. attorney in New York, Danielle Sassoon, resisted Bove’s order, saying she couldn’t defend a dismissal linked to political considerations. Sassoon a

Sassoon and several other career prosecutors and supervisors of public corruption cases quit rather than follow Bove’s order. Bove put other New York-based prosecutors involved in the Adams case on a paid leave.

Bove and two senior Justice Department lawyers ultimately signed court papers requesting a dismissal with the option to refile the charges after the November election.

After four of Adams’ top deputies at City Hall decided to resign, Hochul briefly considered taking the unprecedented step of ousting a New York City mayor. She ultimately concluded it would be undemocratic and disruptive to do so.

Adams, a retired police captain and former state lawmaker and Brooklyn official, was elected in 2021 as a centrist Democrat in one of the United States’ liberal strongholds. But since his indictment in September, Adams has cultivated a warmer relationship with Trump, telling his staff not to criticize the president publicly and making media appearances with administration officials.

Adams insists that just he’s looking out for the city by having a working relationship with the administration.

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