Minnesota state trooper Jeremy Francis Plonski now faces a four-count federal indictment charging him with producing and distributing child pornography that state charges say involves an infant.

Plonski, 29, of Shakopee, was initially charged May 1 in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis by criminal complaint with one count of producing child pornography. He was charged in Scott County District Court the next day with first-degree criminal sexual conduct of a minor.

Jeremy Francis Plonski (Courtesy of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office)

Plonski was indicted on the four counts Thursday, and he remains jailed ahead of future hearings.

The federal charges remains sealed from public view; however, the state criminal complaint provides details into the related cases.

FBI special agents in Houston on April 30 began forensically analyzing a cellphone in an investigation into child sexual abuse materials. Federal law enforcement identified Plonski as the suspect and found several videos of him sexually assaulting an infant girl.

Plonski told law enforcement he sent four or five videos of him sexually assaulting the infant in his home to someone he met on the social media application Kik in 2022. He said after recording and sending the “four or five” incidents, “which he believed was sometime in 2022,” he “ceased all sexual contact with victim and has not touched her since,” the complaint says.

Plonski became a state trooper in 2022 and is on leave, with an internal affairs investigation underway.

He faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in federal prison if convicted, according to prosecutors.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that federal law enforcement is investigating a social media post made by former FBI Director James Comey that she and other Republicans claim is a call for violence against President Donald Trump.

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In an Instagram post earlier in the day, Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my beach walk” under a picture of seashells that appeared to form the shapes for “86 47.”

Numerous Trump administration officials, including Noem, claimed that Comey was advocating for the assassination of Trump, the 47th president. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately,” Noem wrote.

The post has since been deleted. Comey subsequently wrote, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.

“It never occurred to me,” Comey added, “but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Comey’s original post sparked outrage among conservatives on social media, with Donald Trump Jr. accusing Comey of calling for his father’s killing.

Current FBI Director Kash Patel said he was aware of the post and was conferring with the Secret Service and its director.

James Blair, White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs, noted that the post came at a delicate time given that Trump is traveling in the Middle East.

“This is a Clarion Call from Jim Comey to terrorists & hostile regimes to kill the President of the United States as he travels in the Middle East,” Blair wrote on X.

Comey, who was FBI director from 2013 to 2017, was fired by Trump during the president’s first term amid the bureau’s probe into allegations of ties between Russian officials and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Comey wrote about his career in the best-selling memoir “A Higher Loyalty.”

He is now a crime fiction writer and is promoting his latest book, “FDR Drive,” which is being released on Tuesday.

By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations on Thursday forecast slower global economic growth this year and next, pointing to the impact of the surge in U.S. tariffs and increasing trade tensions.

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U.N. economists also cited the volatile geopolitical landscape and threats of rising production costs, supply chain disruptions and financial turbulence.

“These days, there’s so much uncertainty in the air,” said Shantanu Mukherjee, director of the Economic Analysis and Policy Division at the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

“It’s been a nervous time for the global economy,” he told reporters while launching the midyear forecast. “In January this year, we were expecting two years of stable — if subpar — growth, and since then, prospects have diminished, accompanied by significant volatility across various dimensions.”

The U.N. is now forecasting global economic growth of 2.4% this year and 2.5% next year — a drop of 0.4 percentage point each year from its projections in January. Last year, the global economy grew 2.9%.

Mukherjee said the slowing is affecting most countries and regions, but among the most severely hit are the poorest and least developed countries, whose growth prospects have fallen from 4.6% to 4.1% just since January.

“That translates into a loss of billions in economic output for the most disadvantaged of countries,” which are home to over half the global population living in extreme poverty, he said.

The world’s developed and developing countries also are projected to suffer, according to the U.N. report.

Economic growth in the United States is now projected to drop significantly, from 2.8% last year to 1.6% this year, it said, noting that higher tariffs and policy uncertainty are expected to weigh on private investment and consumption.

China’s growth is expected to slow to 4.6% this year from 5% in 2024 as a result of subdued consumer sentiment, disruptions in its export-oriented manufacturing companies, and continuing challenges in its property sector, the report said.

The European Union’s growth is forecast to remain the same this year as it was last year — just 1%, the report said, citing weaker net exports and higher trade barriers. The United Kingdom’s economic growth of 1.1% last year is projected to fall to 0.9%.

Weakening trade, slowing investments and falling commodity prices are also forecast to erode growth in other major developing economies, including Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

India will remain one of the world’s fastest-growing large economies, but the U.N. forecast said its growth is expected to drop from 7.1% in 2024 to 6.3% this year.

The U.N.’s global economic growth forecast is lower than the International Monetary Fund’s.

On a more positive note, Mukherjee said the U.N. is expecting that bilateral negotiations will lead to lower tariffs, although he said they won’t return to the levels before U.S. President Donald Trump’s February announcement.

Nonetheless, Mukherjee said, resolving uncertainties would help individuals and businesses move forward with economic decisions and that would have a positive impact on the global economy.

An emergency alert for Lakeville was sent to a wider area than intended Thursday, setting off alarms on cellphones — including for St. Paul residents.

Dakota 911 Executive Director Heidi Hieserich said “an error” was “made in selecting the location. This caused the notification to extend beyond the intended range and go county wide.”

As for St. Paul residents receiving the alert, Hieserich said “sometimes there can be overreach due to the involvement of cellular towers relaying the message.”

Lakeville police were in the area southeast of 190th Street and Highview Avenue searching for a suspect who ran away from a stolen vehicle, the police department posted on X (formerly Twitter) at 2:40 p.m. They told people who live in the area to stay inside their homes and call 911 to report anything suspicious.

An emergency alert, saying the “shelter in place is clear,” was received on phones at 4:08 p.m. Lakeville police posted they’d done “an extensive search” and hadn’t located the suspect.

In an update, police said they took the suspect into custody in the 19200 block of Harappa Avenue shortly before 5 p.m. “after an observant resident contacted police.”

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