The University of Minnesota Board of Regents is expected to vote Thursday to authorize the sale of the Les Bolstad golf course, with University officials citing financial and infrastructure needs.

The approximately 141-acre public facility in Falcon Heights will remain open during the 2025 season – with scheduled activities to proceed for the remainder of the year – and close as usual in the fall, but will not reopen in the spring.

“We recognize this course holds generations of memories for our community. This decision reflects careful consideration and was made in light of today’s challenging financial environment. As a public university, we have a responsibility to ensure that our land and resources are aligned with our core mission: supporting students, advancing research, and serving the state of Minnesota,” U officials said in a statement.

The golf course, which opened in 1928, requires significant work and no longer meets the University’s threshold for investments that advance teaching, research and service, according to the University.

“The course requires significant infrastructure upgrades to remain viable. The irrigation system is more than 50 years old and past its useful life,” according to a Board docket. “The original clubhouse has been closed for over a decade due to safety concerns, and the operations of the course are currently housed in a temporary facility. These investments are not mission-critical and would divert resources from core academic and research priorities.”

The University will obtain two independent appraisals to help guide setting a market value for the property. A final sale price will depend on market conditions, land-use potential and buyer negotiations.

The John W. Mooty Golf Facility used by the University’s men’s and women’s golf teams, as well as the Elizabeth Lyle Robbie Stadium used by the women’s soccer team and the KUOM radio tower will not be included in the sale.

Falcon Heights city officials said in a Friday statement that they look forward to working with the University, potential buyers and community members on the future of the property.

If the site were to become available for private development, it might provide an opportunity for the city, which is fully developed, to create a new neighborhood, according to the city’s 2024 Larpenteur Avenue Corridor Study.

“The Falcon Heights community has taken proactive steps to plan for the potential reuse of the property with the adoption of our Larpenteur/Snelling Corridor Study, which was approved in 2024 and included looking at potential future zoning for the site,” Friday’s statement said.

The sale of Hillcrest Golf Course on the Greater East Side for $10 million in 2019 to the St. Paul Port Authority has opened up 112 acres for residential and commercial development.

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By SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior U.S. administration officials will meet with a Chinese delegation on Monday in London for the next round of trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, President Donald Trump said Friday.

The meeting comes after a phone call between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, which the U.S. president described as a “very positive” conversation as the two countries attempt to break an impasse over tariffs and global supplies of rare earth minerals.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will represent the U.S. side in the trade talks.

“The meeting should go very well,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Friday afternoon.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Friday, Trump said Xi had agreed to restart exports of rare earth minerals and magnets to the U.S. which China had slowed, threatening a range of U.S. manufacturers that relied on the critical materials. The was no immediate confirmation from China.

The Thursday conversation between Trump and Xi, who lead the world’s two biggest economies, lasted about an hour and a half, according to the U.S. president. The Chinese foreign ministry has said Trump initiated the call.

The ministry said Xi asked Trump to “remove the negative measures” that the U.S. has taken against China. It also said that Trump said “the U.S. loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America,” although his administration has vowed to revoke some of their visas.

By JEFF MARTIN, Associated Press

A former police chief and convicted killer known as the “Devil in the Ozarks” was captured by law enforcement 1.5 miles northwest of the prison he escaped from following a massive manhunt in the mountains of northern Arkansas, authorities announced on Friday.

Grant Hardin’s identity was confirmed through finger printing, the Izard County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.

Hardin, a former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape. He was the subject of the TV documentary “Devil in the Ozarks.”

A flier looking for Grant Hardin hangs on the glass of a business, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in downtown Calico Rockt, Ark. (AP Photo/Nicholas Ingram)

Hardin had been held at the Calico Rock prison since 2017 after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in a fatal shooting. In order to escape, he had impersonated a corrections officer “in dress and manner,” according to a court document. A prison officer in one of the guard towers opened a secure gate, allowing him to walk out of the facility.

Rand Champion, a spokesperson for the state prison system, said that someone should have checked Hardin’s identity before he was allowed to leave, describing the lack of verification as a “lapse” that’s being investigated.

Police set up checkpoints looking for escaped prisoner Grant Hardin, Thursday, May 29, 2025, near downtown Calico Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/Nicholas Ingram)

Searchers had been using bloodhounds, officers on horseback, drones and helicopters in their hunt for Hardin since he escaped on May 25.

An elite and highly trained U.S. Border Patrol team had recently joined the search, federal authorities announced this week.

The Border Patrol Tactical Team known as BORTAC provided “advanced search capabilities and operational support” in the hunt for Hardin, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. Its members are experienced in navigating complex terrain, the agency said. The Ozark Mountains region is known for its rocky and rugged landscape, thick forests and an extensive cave network.

Police set up checkpoints looking for escaped prisoner Grant Hardin, Thursday, May 29, 2025, near downtown Calico Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/Nicholas Ingram)

MONTREAL — A man who was once convicted in the United States of supporting al-Qaida has been charged in Canada after allegedly threatening an attack.

Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, 51, allegedly told a homeless shelter employee in Montreal that he wanted to build bombs to detonate on public transit. He was charged with uttering threats.

He was ordered at a court appearance in Montreal on Friday to undergo a 30-day psychological assessment and return to court July 7, according to the newspaper La Presse.

“Both parties have reason to believe that Mr. Warsame’s criminal responsibility is in question in this case,” Vincent Petit, who represents Warsame, told the court.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed that he is the same Mohammed Warsame who spent 5½ years in solitary confinement before pleading guilty in Minnesota in 2009 to one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to al-Qaida, which the U.S. calls a terrorist organization that was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Warsame was sentenced to seven years and eight months in federal prison with credit for time served. He was deported to Canada in 2010 and had no fixed address at the time of the latest alleged incident.

The Old Mission Brewery, which runs several homeless shelters in Montreal, contacted police after Warsame allegedly said on May 27 that he wanted to carry out an attack that would kill a large number of people. Warsame was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons, and he was formally arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Wednesday.

The Somali-born Canadian citizen admitted in his 2009 plea agreement that he traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 to attend al-Qaida training camps, where he dined with the organization’s founder, Osama bin Laden. Prosecutors say he later sent money to one of his training camp commanders and went to the Taliban’s front line.

Warsame later settled in Minneapolis, where he continued to provide information to al-Qaida associates.

Prosecutors painted him as a jihadist who called his time in one training camp “one of the greatest experiences” of his life. They said that even after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he passed along information to al-Qaida operatives about border entries and whereabouts of jihadists — and only stopped when he was arrested in December 2003.

But his attorneys depicted him as a bumbling idealist whom other fighters in the camps in Afghanistan viewed as ineffective and awkward.

Warsame’s case took unusually long to work through the U.S. court system partly because everyone — including the judge, defense attorneys and prosecutors — needed security clearances.

Retired agent Harry Samit, who was the lead FBI investigator on the case and is now director of special investigations for the professional assessment company Pearson VUE in Bloomington, recalled in an interview Friday that Warsame’s case was the second major al-Qaida case to break in Minnesota. It came after that of Zacarias Moussaoui, who took flight simulator training in Minnesota and remains the only person to stand trial in a U.S. court in the 9/11 attacks.

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Moussaoui was jailed on an immigration violation when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

Samit, whose books on the Minnesota cases will be published starting this summer, said the FBI got word as it was preparing for Moussaoui to stand trial that another al-Qaida operative was in Minneapolis. He said he is certain that Warsame was a sleeper agent who was waiting for instructions from his commanders before he was found.

While Warsame was “kind of a goofy, not very threatening guy,” Samit said, he and other agents who questioned him also concluded that he was “pure of heart and he was dedicated to the cause.” He said that was apparently enough for al-Qaida leaders who sent him Minnesota, where at a minimum they used him to raise money.

When Warsame was deported, the retired agent said, the FBI gave Canadian authorities a “full accounting” of what it knew and why the bureau still considered him a threat. So he said wasn’t surprised to learn this week, after all these years, that Warsame might still remain a danger to society.