A judge delayed the trial of a Minnesota lawmaker accused of burglary in the wake of the assassination of a state representative and attempted assassination of a state senator.

Jury selection in the trial for Sen. Nicole Mitchell, accused of burglarizing her stepmother’s house in Detroit Lakes in 2024, was set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Monday. Instead, parties in the case had a virtual hearing Monday morning after Mitchell’s attorneys filed a motion to continue the trial at a later date.

In a motion filed Monday, the Woodbury Democrat’s attorneys, Dane DeKrey and Bruce Ringstrom Jr., asked for the trial to be delayed “out of reverence for Saturday’s unspeakable tragedy” and “to allow the partisan political temperature in Minnesota time to cool down.”

Early Saturday morning, former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed in their Brooklyn Park home. Shortly before, state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot and injured at their home in Champlin.

The shootings kicked off a two-day manhunt for the suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, which came to an end Sunday night. Boelter was found alive and taken into custody in rural Sibley County, southwest of the Twin Cities.

Nicole Mitchell (Courtesy of the Becker County Sheriff’s Office)

During Monday’s hearing, DeKrey said he did not think he had to get into the reasons for asking for a delay in the trial.

“We just believe it’s not a good week to try this case,” he said.

Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald, representing the state of Minnesota, said he briefed the family of the victim of the alleged burglary on the request to delay the trial. He also said the state does not oppose the delay.

Judge Michael Fritz granted the request, saying he thought the recency of the violence over the weekend would affect a fair trial. With the ongoing investigation, the court has concerns about security, he added.

The parties did not set a new date for the trial during the hearing.

Mitchell has been charged with two felony burglary counts: first-degree burglary and possession of burglary or theft tools. She pleaded not guilty to the burglary charge.

Mitchell told police officers she was retrieving items of a sentimental nature that belonged to her late father, included his cremated remains, court documents say.

Charges were brought against Mitchell during the 2024 legislative session. Mitchell was arrested in her stepmother’s house on April 22, 2024.

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DENVER — A federal jury in Colorado on Monday found that one of the nation’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, defamed a former employee for a leading voting equipment company after the 2020 presidential election.

The employee, Eric Coomer, sued after Lindell called him a traitor and accusations about him stealing the election were streamed on Lindell’s online media platform.

Coomer was the security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, whose voting machines became the target of elaborate conspiracy theories among allies of President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely claim that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was due to widespread fraud.

Dominion won a $787 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit it filed against Fox News over its airing of false claims against the company and has another lawsuit against the conservative network Newsmax.

Newsmax apologized to Coomer in 2021 for airing false allegations against him.

Coomer said during the two-week Lindell trial that his career and life were destroyed by the statements. His lawyers said Lindell either knew the statements were lies, or conveyed them recklessly without knowing if they were true.

Lindell’s lawyers denied the claims and said his online platform, formerly known as Frankspeech, is not liable for statements made by others.

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Lindell said he went to trial to draw attention to the need to get rid of electronic voting machines that have been targeted in a web of conspiracy theories. He said he used to be worth about $60 million before he started speaking out about the 2020 election and is now $10 million in debt.

Reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his loss in 2020 all affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Trump’s attorney general at the time said there was no evidence of widespread fraud, and Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases seeking to overturn the result.

Lindell stuck by his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen during the trial, but did not call any experts to present evidence of his claims.

Lindell said his beliefs that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud were influenced by watching the 2020 HBO documentary “Kill Chain” and by the views of Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. In an interview for a documentary Lindell made in 2021, Flynn said foreign interference was going to happen in U.S. elections, and Lindell said he had no reason to doubt the claim since Flynn had worked for both political parties in intelligence.

Lindell distanced himself from an account by a Colorado podcaster who claimed to have heard a conference call from the anti-fascist group Antifa before the 2020 election. The podcast claimed that on the call someone named Eric from Dominion said he would make sure that Trump would not win, a story that was recounted on Frankspeech during a 2021 event. Lindell said he only learned about that during the trial.

Lindell said he never accused Coomer of rigging the election, but he did say he was upset because he said Newsmax blocked him from being able to go on air to talk about voting machines after it apologized to Coomer. Coomer denied there was any such deal to block Lindell under his agreement with the network.

Coomer’s lawyers tried to show how their client’s life was devastated by the conspiracy theories spreading about him. Lindell was comparatively late to seize on Coomer, not mentioning him until February 2021, well after his name had been circulated by other Trump partisans.

Coomer said the conspiracy theories cost him his job, his mental health and the life he’d built and said Lindell’s statements were the most distressing of all. He specifically pointed to a statement on May 9, 2021, when Lindell described what he believed Coomer had done as “treason.”

Lindell’s attorneys argued that Coomer’s reputation was already in tatters by the time Lindell mentioned him. They said that was partly because of Coomer’s own Facebook posts disparaging Trump, which the former Dominion employee acknowledged were “hyperbolic” and had been a mistake.

“It is antisocial to systematically underfund the management and upkeep of affordable housing. Buildings deteriorate, and health and safety hazards spread, all to the detriment of residents.”

(Adi Talwar for City Limits)

We all know that New York City is in a housing crisis, and needs more quality, affordable, stable housing to meet the needs of residents.  

But we are also experiencing an accelerating crisis in the portion of our housing stock that is dedicated to the social goals of long-term affordability and tenant stability. This is because housing policies and programs have focused on keeping rents low without adequately providing for the ongoing operation and management of housing.

Let’s call this “antisocial housing.”

Why? It is antisocial to systematically underfund the management and upkeep of affordable housing. Buildings deteriorate, and health and safety hazards spread, all to the detriment of residents. 

It is antisocial to tell residents that rents will remain permanently affordable at low levels, without a realistic plan for how the building will continue to operate. When we deny the true costs of operating and maintaining a building, deferred maintenance and capital upgrades are pushed off onto a future generation of residents (or taxpayers). When the future arrives and buildings cannot afford major investments, routine maintenance, or even emergency repairs, residents’ stability and quality of life suffers.  

It is antisocial to implement policies that increase the cost of operating housing while preventing building revenues from keeping up. If rents collected can’t cover increasing salaries, maintenance, repairs, utility bills, facade maintenance, insurance, loan repayment, regulatory compliance, marketing, resident services, and other necessities, no owner can maintain an adequate residential environment. 

Some have suggested that nonprofit ownership of housing could solve the problem. But nonprofit organizations already own and manage much of our regulated affordable housing stock, while rising expenses, diminished rent collections, and numerous other factors are bringing mounting financial and physical distress to rent-stabilized and affordable housing.

Mission-based housing nonprofits often have sophisticated professional staffing and capacity, but when costs exceed revenues, they are no more able to pay the bills than any other landlord. Advocates have begun raising alarms and calling for financial support. Residents and neighborhoods will suffer the worst if nonprofits fail, or if owners default or abandon housing as they did a half-century ago. 

Some others have suggested that government ownership is the solution. But New York City’s public housing provides perhaps the starkest illustration of the consequences of underfunding. Public housing was built without capital reserves to cover long-term costs, then subsidized to support people at the lowest incomes, then starved of the subsidies necessary to support these costs. It is not “social” for people to live in the appalling conditions that too many public housing residents in New York City currently endure.

Still others have suggested that freezing rents is a solution. But freezing rents amidst rising costs is like scratching a mosquito bite—a short-sighted response that will make problems worse. 

The distress plaguing much of the city’s Mitchell-Lama rental housing reveals this. These buildings were intended to be financially self-sustaining, but rents were effectively frozen by a process that made increases untimely and difficult, while costs grew substantially. The promise of flat housing expenses was an illusion, and mounting capital needs and financial distress eventually required rent increases, often so large as to be dislocating to residents.

Faced with a choice between saving their finances or those of residents, many buildings exited the program—diminishing the stock of affordable housing—while others that remained languish in deteriorating conditions that increasingly resemble those of public housing. 

Failing to plan adequately for expenses shortchanges the well-being of residents and the future habitability of housing, regardless of who owns the building. 

Fixing our antisocial housing problem is a matter of math, not politics or ideology. Both tenants and building owners must be able to consistently pay their bills. This requires housing policies that combat rising operating expenses, alleviate administrative burdens, and confront the incremental costs of new regulations.

It requires realistic rent-setting and financial planning for buildings, adequately funding property management, and making effective use of all available government funds for affordable housing.

It requires processes that ensure residents pay their rent, a relentless defense of the federal programs that provide a lifeline for low-income renters—Section 8, SNAP, Medicaid—and bolstering rental assistance. 

At this stage, it will also require broad-based financial assistance to put a potentially large number of buildings back on a sound financial footing. The longer this takes, and the more public policy limits revenues without alleviating costs, the greater the damage will be to our affordable housing supply.

Too many low-income New Yorkers can’t pay the rent needed to keep a roof over their heads. Waiting for the roof to cave in is not a solution. 

Howard Slatkin and Sarah Watson are executive director and deputy director of Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a nonprofit policy organization.

The post Opinion: NYC’s ‘Antisocial’ Housing Problem appeared first on City Limits.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled Monday it was illegal for the Trump administration to cancel several hundred research grants, adding that the cuts raise serious questions about racial discrimination.

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U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts said the administration’s process was “arbitrary and capricious” and that it did not follow long-held government rules and standards when it abruptly canceled grants deemed to focus on gender identity or diversity, equity and inclusion.

In a hearing Monday on two cases calling for the grants to be restored, the judge pushed government lawyers to offer a formal definition of DEI, questioning how grants could be canceled for that reason when some were designed to study health disparities as Congress had directed.

Young, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, went on to address what he called “a darker aspect” to the cases, calling it “palpably clear” that what was behind the government actions was “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.”

After 40 years on the bench, “I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” Young added. He ended Monday’s hearing saying, “Have we no shame.”

During his remarks ending the hearing, the judge said he would issue his written order soon.

Young’s decision addresses only a fraction of the hundreds of NIH research projects the Trump administration has cut — those specifically addressed in two lawsuits filed separately this spring by 16 attorneys general, public health advocacy groups and some affected scientists. A full count wasn’t immediately available.

While Young said the funding must be restored, Monday’s action was an interim step. The ruling, when formally issued, is expected to be appealed. The Trump administration didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

While the original lawsuits didn’t specifically claim racial discrimination, they said the new NIH policies prohibited “research into certain politically disfavored subjects.” In a filing this month after the lawsuits were consolidated, lawyers said the NIH did not highlight genuine concerns with the hundreds of canceled research projects studies, but instead sent “boilerplate termination letters” to universities.

The topics of research ranged widely, including cardiovascular health, sexually transmitted infections, depression, Alzheimer’s and alcohol abuse in minors, among other things. Attorneys cited projects such as one tracking how medicines may work differently in people of ancestrally diverse backgrounds, and said the cuts affected more than scientists — such as potential harm to patients in a closed study of suicide treatment.

Lawyers for the federal government said in a court filing earlier this month that NIH grant terminations for DEI studies were “sufficiently reasoned,” adding later that “plaintiffs may disagree with NIH’s basis, but that does not make the basis arbitrary and capricious.” The NIH, lawyers argued, has “broad discretion” to decide on and provide grants “in alignment with its priorities” — which includes ending grants.

Monday, Justice Department lawyer Thomas Ports Jr. pointed to 13 examples of grants related to minority health that NIH either hadn’t cut or had renewed in the same time period — and said some of the cancellations were justified by the agency’s judgement that the research wasn’t scientifically valuable.

The NIH has long been the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.