International pop star Lady Gaga will wrap her current Mayhem Ball tour with two nights in St. Paul on April 9 and 10 at Grand Casino Arena, the venue formerly known as Xcel Energy Center.

Tickets go on sale at noon Monday via Ticketmaster. Citi cardholders have access to a presale that runs from noon Wednesday through 11 a.m. Friday. A presale for Verizon customers runs from noon Thursday to 11 a.m. Friday. Yet another presale opens up at noon Friday to those who register at signup.ticketmaster.com/ladygaga by 10 a.m. Thursday.

The 39-year-old musician born Stefani Germanotta signed with Interscope in 2007 and spent her early days writing for other acts, including Britney Spears, New Kids on the Block and the Pussycat Dolls. Her debut album, “The Fame,” followed in 2008 and was a worldwide smash that hit No. 2 in the States and topped the charts in Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

Each of Lady Gaga’s next five albums, including this year’s “Mayhem,” hit No. 1 and spawned a series of hits including “Born This Way,” “The Edge of Glory,” “You and I,” “Applause,” “Million Reasons,” “Stupid Love,” “Rain on Me,” “Die with a Smile” and “Abracadabra.”

Before she was a star, Lady Gaga made her acting debut in an uncredited role as a student on “The Sopranos” in 2001. She went on to win a Golden Globe in 2016 for her role in “American Horror Story: Hotel” and also starred in “American Horror Story: Roanoke.” Her 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born” with Bradley Cooper was a critical and commercial hit, pulling in $436 million worldwide and earning eight Oscar nominations and a best original song win for “Shallow.”

Lady Gaga did not initially plan to hit the road in support of “Mayhem,” but after headlining Coachella in April and staging one-off shows in Mexico, Brazil and Singapore, she decided to turn it into a full tour that kicked off in July in Las Vegas. The first North American leg ends Sept. 18 in Chicago and then moves to Europe and Australia. Her St. Paul dates will be the 82nd and 83rd of the tour.

In 2008, Lady Gaga made her local live debut at the KDWB Jingle Ball and after a club gig at the Fine Line the following year, she moved up to the former Xcel Energy Center for her next five concert appearances. Her most recent local gig, in August 2017, followed her triumphant Super Bowl halftime show and drew more than 16,000 fans to the X.

Last week, she released the single “The Dead Dance.” She recorded it for the soundtrack of the second season of Netflix’s “Wednesday,” in which she makes a guest appearance.

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By DAVE COLLINS

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal of the $1.4 billion judgment a Connecticut jury and judge issued against him for calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax staged by crisis actors.

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The Infowars host is arguing that the judge was wrong to find him liable for defamation and infliction of emotional distress without holding a trial on the merits of allegations lodged by relatives of victims of the shooting, which killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut.

Judge Barbara Bellis, frustrated at what she called Jones’ repeated failure to abide by court rulings and to turn over certain evidence to the Sandy Hook families, issued a rare default ruling against Jones and his company in late 2021 as a penalty. That meant that she found him liable without a trial on the facts and convened a jury to only determine what damages he owed.

A six-person jury in Waterbury issued a $964 million verdict in October 2022 in favor of the plaintiffs — an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight children and adults who were killed. Bellis later tacked on another $473 million in punitive damages against Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company that is based in Austin, Texas.

During the trial to determine damages, relatives of the shooting victims testified that people whom they called followers of Jones subjected them to death and rape threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media. Jones argues there was never any proof presented that linked him to those actions.

Jones filed his request to the Supreme Court on Friday and it was released by the court on Tuesday.

Jones’ lawyers — Ben Broocks, Shelby Jordan and Alan Daughtry — insist in the petition that state courts cannot determine liability based only on sanctions such as default rulings. They say that constitutional law and Supreme Court precedent require public figures such as the Sandy Hook families to prove their defamation claims against journalists such as Jones.

They also say that the Connecticut judge imposed the default ruling on Jones based on “trivial” reasons and that Jones had substantially complied with the court’s orders — which the Sandy Hook families’ lawyers deny.

Jones’ attorneys further cite First Amendment protections for free speech, saying Jones’ comments about the school shooting being a hoax were not defamatory but rather “expressions of constitutionally protected opinion.” Jones has since said he believed the shooting was “100% real.”

“The media landscape is rife with groups challenging various events, including Holocaust denial, moon landing skepticism, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and even flat Earth claims,” the petition says. “However, such statements critique or dismiss the events themselves, not the character, conduct, or reputation of those associated with them.”

Among other claims, Jones’ petition says the $1.4 billion judgment is excessive punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

If the judgment is allowed to stand, Jones’ lawyers said it would “chill the reporting of news” and “result in self-censoring fear of suits.”

Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families disputed Jones’ arguments.

“There is no legitimate basis for the U.S. Supreme Court to accept this last gasp from Alex Jones and we will oppose it in due course,” Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families, said in a statement.

A mid-level appellate court in Connecticut upheld all but $150 million of the $1.4 billion judgment in December, and the state Supreme Court declined to hear Jones’ appeal of that ruling in April.

In a similar defamation lawsuit filed in Texas by the parents of another Sandy Hook victim, Jones was found liable without a trial as punishment for failing to turn over documents. In that case, which also is being appealed, a judge and jury issued a $49 million judgment against Jones in August 2022.

Jones filed for bankruptcy in late 2022. In those proceedings, an auction was held in November to liquidate Infowars’ assets to help pay the defamation judgments, and the satirical news outlet The Onion was named the winning bidder. But the bankruptcy judge threw out the auction results, citing problems with the process and The Onion’s bid.

The attempt to sell off Infowars’ assets has moved to a Texas state court in Austin. Jones is now appealing a recent order from the court that appointed a receiver to liquidate the assets. Some of Jones’ personal property is also being sold off as part of the bankruptcy case.

By FATMA KHALED and STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN, Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement Tuesday in Cairo to pave the way for resuming cooperation, including on ways of relaunching inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The announcement followed a meeting among Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi.

The meeting came at a sensitive time as France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Aug. 28 began the process of reimposing sanctions on Iran over what they have deemed non-compliance with a 2015 agreement aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

On July 2, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a law adopted by his country’s parliament suspending all cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. That followed Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June, during which Israel and the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear sites.

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The only site inspected by the IAEA since the war has been the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, which operates with Russian technical assistance. Inspectors watched a fuel replacement procedure at the plant over two days starting Aug. 27.

IAEA inspectors have been unable to verify Iran’s near bomb-grade stockpile since the start of the war on June 13, which the U.N. nuclear watchdog described as “a matter of serious concern.”

Egypt has been helping bolster cooperation between Iran and the IAEA.

The Iranian foreign ministry said last month that talks between his country and the agency would be “technical” and “complicated.”

Relations between the two had soured after a 12-day air war was waged by Israel and the U.S in June, which saw key Iranian nuclear facilities bombed. The IAEA board said on June 12 that Iran had breached its non-proliferation obligations, a day before Israel’s airstrikes over Iran that sparked the war.

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Princeton University doctoral student who was kidnapped in Iraq in 2023 while doing research there has been freed and turned over to U.S. authorities, her family and President Donald Trump said Tuesday.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, who holds Israeli and Russian citizenship, spent more than 900 days in custody after being kidnapped in March 2003 in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

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In the past few months, officials from several countries, including the Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister, have confirmed she was alive and being held in Iraq by a Shiite Muslim militant group called Kataeb Hezbollah, according to her sister. The group has not claimed the kidnapping nor have Iraqi officials publicly said which group is responsible.

“My entire family is incredibly happy. We cannot wait to see Elizabeth and give her all the love we have been waiting to share for 903 days,” said a statement from her sister Emma in which she thanked, among others, Adam Boehler, the U.S. special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.

Emma Tsurkov said she lost contact with her sister in late March 2023, after Elizabeth went to meet sources in a coffee shop in Baghdad’s central neighborhood of Karradah. Elizabeth Tsurkov had back surgery eight days before her kidnapping for a slipped disc and was more vulnerable, her sister said. She was supposed to get her stitches removed two days after her kidnapping and faced a long road of physical therapy back in Princeton, New Jersey.

The only direct proof of life of Elizabeth Tsurkov during her captivity was a video broadcast in November 2023 on an Iraqi television station and circulated on pro-Iranian social media purporting to show her.