Gov. Tim Walz named four new members of the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents Tuesday.

Joel Bergstrom and Samuel Heins will serve as at-large representatives, with Kowsar Mohamed serving as the student at-large. Ellen Luger will represent the 5th Congressional District. The new members include a search firm principal, a retired U.S. ambassador, former minister counselor at the United States Mission to the United Nations and a doctoral student.

They replace at-large representatives Bo Thao-Urabe and Mary Davenport and student at-large Mike Kenyanya, as well as 5th Congressional District representative Janie Mayeron. Their terms ended in June.

Members of the 12-seat board serve six-year terms as volunteers with a third of board seats up for election by the Legislature every two years. The positions are typically filled by the Legislature during a joint convention, but that didn’t happen this year. Walz interviewed candidates last week.

“The University of Minnesota Board of Regents is gaining four accomplished, knowledgeable, and dedicated leaders,” Walz said in a statement. “They will bring a wide range of experiences and perspectives, united by a deep commitment to the University’s mission. Their leadership will be critical as the Board addresses current challenges and shapes the University’s future.”

The board controls policy, curriculum, tuition and fees for the University of Minnesota’s campuses around the state and manages all University lands.

One member represents each of the state’s eight congressional districts and four are at-large positions.

The new members join the University at a time it faces significant budgetary challenges. The Board of Regents at its June meeting approved a budget which cut about 7% of the University system budget and raised in-state tuition by 6.5% and out-of-state tuition by 7.5%.

As of late May, the University had lost around $22 million dollars worth of federal research award grants and officials expect to lose 10% to 30% of federal funding. Federal research funding represented more than $600 million for the U last fiscal year.

At the same time, international student enrollment in the state could fall, according to NAFSA, a nonprofit also known as the Association of International Educators, adding to those challenges and following a nationwide trend down in international student enrollment.

The board’s next regular meeting will be Oct. 9 to Oct. 10.

Ellen Luger

Luger will represent the 5th District and most recently served as minister counselor for agriculture at the U.S. mission to the United Nations food agencies in Rome. She was later appointed acting deputy chief of mission.

She has held philanthropic leadership roles at The Minneapolis Foundation and General Mills. Her board service includes work with Twin Cities Public Television, the Global Foodbanking Network and Wellesley College. She holds a juris doctor degree from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College

Joel Bergstrom

Bergstrom is a principal at Orion Search Group, leading executive searches for clients in the nonprofit, public and private sectors, with a focus on higher education, social services, housing and the arts.

He previously served as vice president at CohenTaylor Executive Search Services and held development leadership positions at Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery and the Minnesota Medical Foundation. Currently, he volunteers with the Western Golf Association/Evans Scholars Foundation and is a former board member.

Prior to his nonprofit work, Bergstrom worked as an attorney in New York and Minnesota.

He holds a juris doctor  from New York University School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in history from the U.

Samuel Heins

Heins is a retired U.S. Ambassador to Norway under President Barack Obama. He previously worked as a senior partner at Heins Mills and Olson, leading securities fraud and antitrust litigation as an attorney.

Heins has founded or co-founded international NGOs including The Advocates for Human Rights and the Center for Victims of Torture. He also has served on election monitoring teams in Pakistan and Ukraine.

He has held board roles with the ACLU of Minnesota, Ploughshares Fund, PEN America and Planned Parenthood North Central States. Heins earned his bachelor’s degree and juris doctor from the U and has received several human rights awards, including the Minnesota Governor’s Award for International Human Rights Activities.

Kowsar Mohamed

Mohamed is the enterprise director of inclusion at the state’s Office of Inclusion and a doctoral student in Natural Resources Science and Management.

She previously served as director of strategic partnerships at the Center for Economic Inclusion and as a senior project manager with St. Paul’s Department of Planning and Economic Development. She has taught urban studies as an adjunct professor at the U and served four years on the Regent Candidate Advisory Council until 2024.

She is a member of Minneapolis’ Climate Legacy Roundtable, the Full Stack St. Paul Steering Committee and Xcel Energy’s Environmental Justice Accountability Board.

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By CEDAR ATTANASIO, Associated Press

A huge basin of rainwater and snowmelt dammed by Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier has started to release, and officials on Tuesday urged residents in some parts of Juneau to evacuate ahead of what could be a record surge of floodwater downstream.

Officials in recent days have been warning people in the flood zone to be ready to evacuate. On Tuesday morning they confirmed water had started escaping the ice dam and flowing downstream, with flooding expected late Tuesday into Wednesday.

Flooding from the basin has become an annual concern, and in recent years has swept away houses and swamped hundreds of homes.

People view Mendenhall Glacier from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors Center area, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)

The Mendenhall Glacier — a thinning, retreating glacier that is a major tourist attraction in southeast Alaska — acts as a dam for Suicide Basin, which fills each spring and summer with rainwater and snowmelt. The basin itself was left behind when a smaller glacier nearby retreated.

When the water in the basin builds up enough pressure, it forces its way under or around the ice dam, entering Mendenhall Lake and eventually the Mendenhall River. Before the basin reached the limit of its capacity and began overtopping over the weekend, the water level was rising rapidly — as much as 4 feet per day during especially sunny or rainy days, according to the National Weather Service.

The Mendenhall Glacier is visible in the distance from a residential area, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)

The threat of so-called glacier outburst flooding has troubled parts of Juneau since 2011. In some years, there has been limited flooding of streets or properties near the lake or river.

But 2023 and 2024 marked successive years of record flooding, with the river last August cresting at 15.99 feet, about 1 foot over the prior record set a year earlier, and flooding extending farther into the Mendenhall Valley.

Last year, nearly 300 residences were damaged.

A large outburst can release up to 15 billion gallons of water, according to the University of Alaska Southeast and Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. That’s the equivalent of nearly 23,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. During last year’s flood, the flow rate in the rushing Mendenhall River was about half that of Niagara Falls, the researchers say.

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City officials responded to concerns from property owners this year by working with state, federal and tribal entities to install a temporary levee along roughly 2.5 miles of riverbank in an attempt to guard against widespread flooding. The installation of about 10,000, four-foot (1.2-meter) tall barriers is intended to protect more than 460 properties from flood levels similar to last year, said Nate Rumsey, deputy director with the city’s engineering and public works department.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is at the start of what’s expected to be a yearslong process of studying conditions in the region and examining options for a more permanent solution. The timeline has angered some residents, who say it’s unreasonable.

Outburst floods are expected to continue as long as the Mendenhall Glacier acts as an ice dam to seal off the basin, which could span another 25 to 60 years, according to the university and science center researchers.

Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer in Juneau contributed to this report.

Authorities identified a man Tuesday who was fatally shot outside a St. Paul bar as a 43-year-old from Brooklyn Park.

A bouncer at the Midway Saloon was charged Friday with the shooting death of patron Jeffrey S. Matson outside the University Avenue bar early Thursday.

Davarius Lamonte Clark, 29, of Minneapolis, is charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder while committing a felony assault.

The bar manager told investigators the two men had argued inside the bar because Matson had brought his bike inside the business. The bar manager told Clark that Matson could keep his bike inside as long as Matson kept an eye on it.

Surveillance video showed the two men arguing outside the bar. Clark told police the man called him a racist expletive and spit on him two times, according to the criminal complaint. He said he “very angry” and “blacked out,” not remembering anything until he was being placed in the back of a squad car, the complaint continued.

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By SAM MEDNICK, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about the possibility of resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the war-torn East African country, part of a wider effort by Israel to facilitate mass emigration from the territory left in ruins by its 22-month offensive against Hamas.

Six people familiar with the matter confirmed the talks to The Associated Press. It’s unclear how far the talks have advanced, but if implemented, the plans would amount to transferring people from one war-ravaged land at risk of famine to another, and raise human rights concerns.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to realize U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating much of Gaza’s population through what Netanyahu refers to as “voluntary migration.” Israel has floated similar resettlement proposals with other African nations.

Palestinians, rights groups, and much of the international community have rejected the proposals as a blueprint for forcible expulsion in violation of international law.

For South Sudan, such a deal could help it build closer ties to Israel, now the almost unchallenged military power in the Middle East. It is also a potential inroad to Trump, who broached the idea of resettling Gaza’s population in February but appears to have backed away in recent months.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment and South Sudan’s foreign minister did not respond to questions about the talks. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said it doesn’t comment on private diplomatic conversations.

Displaced Palestinians walk through a makeshift camp along the beach in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Egypt opposes proposals to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza

Joe Szlavik, the founder of a U.S. lobbying firm working with South Sudan, said he was briefed by South Sudanese officials on the talks. He said an Israeli delegation plans to visit the country to look into the possibility of setting up camps for Palestinians there. No known date has been set for the visit. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the visit.

Szlavik said Israel would likely pay for makeshift camps.

Edmund Yakani, who heads a South Sudanese civil society group, said he had also spoken to South Sudanese officials about the talks. Four additional officials with knowledge of the discussions confirmed talks were taking place on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Two of the officials, both from Egypt, told AP they’ve known for months about Israel’s efforts to find a country to accept Palestinians, including its contact with South Sudan. They said they’ve been lobbying South Sudan against taking the Palestinians.

Egypt is deeply opposed to plans to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza, with which it shares a border, fearing an influx of refugees into its own territory.

The AP previously reported on similar talks initiated by Israel and the U.S. with Sudan and Somalia, countries that are also grappling with war and hunger, and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland. The status of those discussions is not known.

The sun sets behind buildings that were destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations stand in the northern Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

‘Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally’

Szlavik, who’s been hired by South Sudan to improve its relations with the United States, said the U.S. is aware of the discussions with Israel but is not directly involved.

South Sudan wants the Trump administration to lift a travel ban on the country and remove sanctions from some South Sudanese elites, said Szlavik. It has already accepted eight individuals swept up in the administration’s mass deportations, in what may have been an effort to curry favor.

The Trump administration has pressured a number of countries to help facilitate deportations.

“Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally, financial gain and diplomatic security it can get,” said Peter Martell, a journalist and author of a book about the country, “First Raise a Flag.”

Israel’s Mossad spy agency provided aid to the South Sudanese during their decades-long civil war against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum ahead of independence in 2011, according to the book.

The State Department, asked if there was any quid pro quo with South Sudan, said decisions on the issuing of visas are made “in a way that prioritizes upholding the highest standards for U.S. national security, public safety, and the enforcement of our immigration laws.”

Palestinians struggle to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

From one hunger-stricken conflict zone to another

Many Palestinians might want to leave Gaza, at least temporarily, to escape the war and a hunger crisis bordering on famine. But they have roundly rejected any permanent resettlement from what they see as an integral part of their national homeland.

They fear that Israel will never allow them to return, and that a mass departure would allow it to annex Gaza and reestablish Jewish settlements there, as called for by far-right ministers in the Israeli government.

Still, even those Palestinians who want to leave are unlikely to take their chances in South Sudan, among the world’s most unstable and conflict-ridden countries.

South Sudan has struggled to recover from a civil war that broke out after independence, and which killed nearly 400,000 people and plunged pockets of the country into famine. The oil-rich country is plagued by corruption and relies on international aid to help feed its 11 million people – a challenge that has only grown since the Trump administration made sweeping cuts to foreign assistance.

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A peace deal reached seven years ago has been fragile and incomplete, and the threat of war returned when the main opposition leader was placed under house arrest this year.

Palestinians in particular could find themselves unwelcome. The long war for independence from Sudan pitted the mostly Christian and animist south against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north.

Yakani, of the civil society group, said South Sudanese would need to know who is coming and how long they plan to stay, or there could be hostilities due to the “historical issues with Muslims and Arabs.”

“South Sudan should not become a dumping ground for people,” he said. “And it should not accept to take people as negotiating chips to improve relations.”

Associated Press reporters Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C. and Samy Magdy in Cairo, Egypt, contributed