Two familiar free stages at the Minnesota State Fair have lost their corporate sponsorship.

The Leinie Lodge Bandshell, the Fair’s largest free stage, is now known as the Bandshell, while Schell’s Stage at Schilling Amphitheater is now the West End Market Stage at Schilling Amphitheater.

A State Fair spokesperson declined an interview request, but did release a statement saying that their sponsorship agreements typically range from one to three years.

“We have been privileged to collaborate with several valued sponsors over many, many years, including Leinenkugel’s and August Schell Brewing Co., whose long-standing support of the State Fair is deeply appreciated,” the statement said. “We recognize that companies reassess their budget priorities for a variety of reasons, and we respect that every situation is unique. We extend our sincere gratitude and best wishes to all of our partners as they move forward.”

The spokesperson also said the State Fair is open to discuss new sponsorship inquiries.

Leinenkugel’s first sponsored the Leinie Lodge in the International Bazaar in 1990. Beginning in 2001, the larger Bandshell was named the Leinie Lodge Bandshell.

A spokesperson for Molson Coors, parent company of Leinenkugel’s, declined an interview request, but released a statement to the Pioneer Press: “Leinenkugel’s will continue to be available at the State Fair this year, and though it is common for brands to shift sponsorships, we’ll continue to show up with various partners at events across Minnesota.”

August Schell Brewing Co. started at the State Fair in 2004 as a sponsor of the Heritage Square stage. In 2014, the company became sponsor of the Schell’s Stage at Schilling Amphitheater when Heritage Square was replaced with West End Market.

A representative from August Schell Brewing Co. did not respond to email requests for a comment.

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Pending approval from the Board of Regents next month, Gretchen Ritter will be the University of Minnesota’s new executive vice president and provost starting July 31.

Ritter will serve as the University’s chief academic officer across its campus system, with a focus on its Twin Cities campus. She will be responsible for approving faculty promotion and tenure, academic programs across the system and operations, planning and growth.

She will also guide the implementation of a strategic plan for the Twin Cities campus which will promote faculty, student and staff recruitment and retention and will advance academic and research opportunities.

“Dr. Ritter brings an impressive set of credentials that combine a strong academic and research background with a history of administrative leadership,” said University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham in a statement. “She has a demonstrated commitment to working with faculty and shared governance. I look forward to working with her as the University again transforms to achieve our mission to serve our students, faculty, staff and the state.”

Ritter is currently vice president for civic engagement and education at Syracuse University in New York and was chosen through a nationwide search.

Ritter has a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor of arts from Cornell University. Her scholarly work includes works on the Constitution, democracy in America and women’s citizenship.

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By GISELA SALOMON

DORAL, Fla. (AP) — As a business owner in the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, Wilmer Escaray is stressed and in shock. He is unsure what steps he needs to take after the Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants.

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Escaray owns 15 restaurants and three markets, most of them in Doral, a city of 80,000 in the Miami area people known as “Little Venezuela” or “Doralzuela.” At least 70% of Escaray’s 150 employees and many of his customers are Venezuelan immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS.

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a federal judge’s ruling that had paused the administration’s plans to end TPS for 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation.

Like many U.S. business owners with Venezuelan employees, Escaray lacks direction. He does not know how long his employees will have legal authorization to work or if he will be able to help them, he said.

“The impact for the business will be really hard,” said Escaray, a 37-year-old Venezuelan American who came to the U.S. to study in 2007 and opened his first restaurant six years later. “I don’t know yet what I am going to do. I have to discuss with my team, with my family to see what will be the plan.”

TPS allows people already in the U.S. to legally live and work here because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife. The Trump administration said immigrants were poorly vetted after the Biden administration dramatically expanded the designation.

Immigration attorney Evelyn Alexandra Batista said the Supreme Court did not specifically address the extension of TPS-based work permits, and some work authorizations remain in effect. She warned, though, that there is no guarantee that they will continue to remain valid because the Supreme Court can change this.

“This means that employers and employees alike should be exploring all other alternative options as TPS was never meant to be permanent,” said Batista, who has received hundreds of calls from TPS beneficiaries and companies looking for advice in the months since Trump returned to office and began his immigration crackdown.

Among the options they are exploring, she said, are visas for extraordinary abilities, investment visas, and agricultural visas.

The American Business Immigration Coalition estimates that TPS holders add $31 billion to the U.S. economy through wages and spending power. There are no specific estimates of the impact of Venezuelans, although they make up the largest percentage of TPS beneficiaries.

They work in hospitality, construction, agriculture, health care, retail, and food services.

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A key witness stared down Harvey Weinstein and pointed sharply at him as she left court in sobs Tuesday, marking one of the most heated moments of the former studio boss’ sex crimes retrial.

The confrontational moment came after Jessica Mann described Weinstein grabbing, dragging, forcefully undressing and raping her in a Beverly Hills, California, hotel room around the beginning of 2014, after she told him she was dating someone else.

“You owe me one more time!” Weinstein bellowed, according to Mann, who wiped her eyes and took heaving breaths as she testified. Weinstein — who denies ever raping or sexually assaulting anyone — briefly shook his head as he watched from the defense table.

After Mann finished her narrative, she continued crying and didn’t answer when a prosecutor asked whether she needed a break. Judge Curtis Farber called for one.

When Mann passed the defense table on her way out, she turned toward the seated Weinstein, aimed a finger at her eyes and then at him. It wasn’t clear how many jurors saw the gesture, and Mann didn’t respond to a question outside court about what she meant to convey.

Harvey Weinstein appears in state court in Manhattan for his retrial on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 in New York. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)

After they left, Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala made the latest of more than a half-dozen requests for a mistrial. He cited Mann’s gesticulation, questioned her displays of emotion and complained that she shouldn’t have been asked about the alleged Los Angeles rape, as Weinstein isn’t actually charged with it.

The Oscar-winning producer is charged with raping Mann on another occasion, in 2013 in New York, and forcing oral sex on two other women separately in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Farber denied the mistrial request. He ruled before the trial that Mann and the other two women could put the charges in the context of their other interactions with Weinstein, including other times when he allegedly made unwanted advances.

As for Mann’s gesture, “I can’t control what people do in the courtroom” — nor what jurors may make of it, Farber said, suggesting that Mann be told not to make any more such moves. The judge noted that he had also seen Weinstein react visibly and mutter at times during the trial.

Mann returned to the witness stand without looking at Weinstein, who watched her stone-faced.

She resumed testifying through an edgy morning. “This is my response!” she interjected at one point when Aidala raised a legal objection to her answer to a prosecutor’s question.

Actress Jessica Mann, center, arrives to testify in Harvey Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault trial, Monday, May 19, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

Aidala hasn’t yet has his turn to question Mann, 39, about her fraught and complex history with Weinstein, 73. During an opening statement last month, the attorney portrayed her as an aspiring actor who had only willing sexual encounters with a Hollywood bigwig she thought could help her.

A cosmetologist and hairstylist, she met Weinstein socially in Los Angeles over a decade ago, when she was trying to get acting work.

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Mann said she had a consensual, on-and-off relationship with the then-married Weinstein, but that he was volatile and violated her if she refused him.

Weinstein went from movie mogul to #MeToo pariah in 2017, after allegations emerged that he had sexually harassed and sexually abused women for years. He was later convicted of various sex crimes in both New York and California, but his New York conviction was later overturned, leading to the retrial.

The proceedings have been graphic, exhaustively detailed and tense at times as his accusers underwent days of questioning. One of them, Miriam Haley, cursed at Weinstein from the witness stand. Another, Kaja Sokola, was dismayed by questions about her private journal, which Weinstein’s lawyers had gotten without her knowledge.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who alleged they have been sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified. Haley, Mann and Sokola have done so.

Associated Press video journalist Joseph B. Frederick contributed.