State tennis: Hill-Murray tandem wins doubles title

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Class 2A

Unseeded entering the week, the doubles duo of Sedona Stumpf and Brooke Gabel ran the table through an upset-filled bracket in Bloomington to win the Class 2A crown.

Stumpf and Gabel dropped the opening set of the title bout to Holy Angels’ Josie Brown and Katie Jung 4-6, but rallied to win the final two sets 6-1, 6-0.

Holy Angels’ Elizabeth Payne won the singles title via a thrilling victory in the final, where she edged Mankato East’s Sam Williams in a third-set tiebreaker.

Class 3A

Mounds View sisters Rory and Reese Wahlstrand reached the finals in their attempt to defend their state doubles title, but fell 6-1, 6-0 to Edina’s Raya Hou and Lauryn Schenk in the championship match Friday at Baseline Tennis Center.

Rochester Mayo’s Aoife Loftus defeated her teammate, Malea Diehn, 6-1, 6-3 to win the singles title. Loftus upset top-seeded Cassandra Li of Eagan in the semifinals in three sets.

Class A

Minnehaha Academy’s Chloe Alley defended her singles title with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Leah Maddock of Osakis, while Breck’s Addie Berman and Abbey Perry won the doubles title in straight sets over Litchfield’s Isla Dille and Molly Patten.

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Pentagon accepts $130 million donation to help pay the military during the government shutdown

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By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon confirmed Friday that it has accepted an anonymous $130 million gift to help pay members of the military during the government shutdown, raising ethical questions after President Donald Trump had announced that a friend had offered the gift to defray any shortfalls.

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While large and unusual, the gift amounts to a small contribution toward the billions needed to cover service member paychecks. The Trump administration told Congress last week that it used $6.5 billion to make payroll. The next payday is coming within the week, and it is unclear if the administration will again move money around to ensure the military does not go without compensation.

“That’s what I call a patriot,” Trump said during a White House event Thursday when he disclosed the payment from the donor.

The president declined to name the person, whom he called “a friend of mine,” saying the man didn’t want the recognition.

The Pentagon confirmed it had accepted the donation on Thursday “under its general gift acceptance authority.”

“The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of Service members’ salaries and benefits,” said Sean Parnell, chief spokesman for the Pentagon. “We are grateful for this donor’s assistance after Democrats opted to withhold pay from troops.”

Congress is at a stalemate over the government shutdown, now on track to become one of the longest federal closures ever, in its 24th day. Neither Republicans, who have control of the House and Senate, nor Democrats, in the minority, are willing to budge in their broader standoff over health care funding.

Payment for service members is a key concern among lawmakers of both parties as well as a point of political leverage. The Trump administration shifted $8 billion from military research and development funds to make payroll last week, ensuring that military compensation did not lapse.

But it is unclear if the Trump administration will be willing — or able — to shift money again next week as tensions rise over the protracted shutdown.

While the $130 million is a hefty sum, it would cover just a fraction of the billions needed for military paychecks. Trump said the donation was to cover any “shortfall.”

What’s unclear, however, is the regulations around such a donation.

Pentagon policy says authorities “must consult with their appropriate Ethics Official before accepting such a gift valued in excess of $10,000 to determine whether the donor is involved in any claims, procurement actions, litigation, or other particular matters involving the Department that must be considered prior to gift acceptance.”

US says it now plans to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia as soon as Oct. 31

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BALTIMORE (AP) — The U.S. government plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, and could do so as early as Oct. 31, according to a Friday court filing.

The Salvadoran national’s case has become a magnet for opposition to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies since he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, in violation of a settlement agreement. He was returned to the U.S. in June after the U.S. Supreme Court said the administration had to work to bring him back. Since he cannot be re-deported to El Salvador, ICE has been seeking to deport him to a series of African countries.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Maryland has previously barred his immediate deportation. Abrego Garcia’s lawsuit there claims the Trump administration is illegally using the deportation process to punish him for the embarrassment of his earlier mistaken deportation.

A Friday court filing from the Department of Homeland Security notes that “Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent.” Its national language is English; its constitution “provides robust protections for human rights;” and Liberia is “committed to the humane treatment of refugees,” the filing reads. It concludes that Abrego Garcia could be deported as soon as Oct. 31.

“After failed attempts with Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana, ICE now seeks to deport our client, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to Liberia, a country with which he has no connection, thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland,” a statement from attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg reads. “Costa Rica stands ready to accept him as a refugee, a viable and lawful option. Yet the government has chosen a course calculated to inflict maximum hardship. These actions are punitive, cruel, and unconstitutional.”

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Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a “well-founded fear” of violence from a gang that targeted his family, according to court filings. In a separate action in immigration court, Abrego Garcia has applied for asylum in the United States.

Additionally, Abrego Garcia is facing criminal charges in federal court in Tennessee, where he has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling. He has filed a motion to dismiss the charges, claiming the prosecution is vindictive.

US imposes sanctions on Colombia’s president and family members over drug trade allegations

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By MATTHEW LEE and FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration imposed sanctions Friday on Colombian President Gustavo Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade, sharply escalating tensions with the leftist leader of one of the closest U.S. allies in South America.

The Treasury Department leveled the penalties against Petro; his wife, Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia; his son, Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos; and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti.

Petro “has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “President Trump is taking strong action to protect our nation and make clear that we will not tolerate the trafficking of drugs into our nation.”

The move ramps up a growing clash between the Republican U.S. president and Colombia’s first leftist leader, notably over deadly American strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats off South America.

This week, the Trump administration expanded its crackdown to the eastern Pacific Ocean, where much of the cocaine from the world’s largest producers, including Colombia, is smuggled. And in an escalation of military firepower in the region, the U.S. military is sending an aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, the Pentagon announced Friday.

The U.S. last month added Colombia, the top recipient of American assistance in the region, to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in almost 30 years.

The penalties were expected after Trump recently said he would slash assistance to Colombia and impose tariffs on its exports, referring to Petro on social media in recent days as “an illegal drug leader.”

“He’s a guy that is making a lot of drugs,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “He better watch it, or we’ll take very serious action against him and his country.”

After Trump accused him of having ties to drug trafficking, Petro on Wednesday said he would resort to the U.S. court system to defend himself.

“Against the calumnies that high-ranking officials have hurled at me on U.S. soil, I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the U.S. courts,” Petro wrote on X without naming Trump but citing a news report about his comments.

A day earlier, Petro’s anti-drug policy was the subject of a meeting between him and the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Colombia, John T. McNamara. McNamara also met with Foreign Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio Mapy on Thursday.

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Petro has repeatedly defended his policy, which moves away from a repressive approach and prioritizes reaching agreements with growers of coca leaf — the raw material for cocaine — to encourage them to switch to other crops, pursuing major drug lords and combating money laundering. He has said his government has achieved record cocaine seizures and questioned U.N. figures showing record coca leaf cultivation and cocaine production.

The amount of land dedicated to cultivating coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, has almost tripled in the past decade to a record 253,000 hectares (625,000 acres) in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. That is about triple the size of New York City.

The Trump administration has surged military ships and planes to Latin America to target traffickers accused of funneling drugs to the U.S. Petro has pushed back against the strikes that have killed at least 37 people since they started last month, with the latest two targeting vessels in the eastern Pacific, where Colombia has a coastline.

Petro has repeatedly feuded with Trump this year. Petro initially rejected U.S. military flights of deported migrants, leading Trump to threaten tariffs. The State Department said it would revoke Petro’s visa when he attended the U.N. General Assembly in New York because he told American soldiers to disobey Trump’s orders.

Lee reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Washington and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.