Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers continue their push for new gun control legislation in the wake of the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minneapolis, though without the support of rural DFLers and at least one Republican, the path forward remains unclear.

That hasn’t stopped the governor from promoting a “gun violence prevention package” that includes a ban on so-called assault weapons, new magazine capacity limits, a firearms insurance requirement and new spending on school safety and mental health resources.

Walz presented the slate of legislation at a Tuesday news conference at the state Capitol, where he was joined by DFL lawmakers, gun control proponents and a survivor of the Aug. 27 shooting in the Annunciation school church, which took the lives of two young children and injured more than 20 others.

“This is a time for bipartisan action around an issue that tore at the heart and continues to and we owe it to the Annunciation families not to have that just be another statistic,” said Walz, who unsuccessfully pushed for a special session on guns last fall. “That was the final straw. That was it. I pushed and pushed and pushed and we couldn’t even get legislators to have a hearing. Well, those days are over. Some of these folks in here are going to be testifying today.”

Annunciation student calls for action

Among those speaking in favor of gun legislation at the Capitol on Tuesday was Lydia Kaiser, an eighth grader at Annunciation who survived a gunshot to the head while trying to protect a younger student with her body.

Kaiser had to undergo surgery to remove bullet and bone fragments from her head and spent more than a month recovering in the hospital. Speaking at a morning news conference ahead of afternoon House hearings on DFL-backed gun control bills, she called on lawmakers to take action.

“All children have the right to live free from gun violence in schools, churches and in our communities,” she said. “Elected officials have a duty to protect us from guns. No one should have to go through what we went through.”

Kaiser and others affected by the shooting gathered at the Capitol to pressure lawmakers to change state gun policies. Outside the Capitol, they set up 60 empty school desks to represent 200 Minnesota children who died from gun violence since 2021.

Sixty empty school desks are displayed on the Capitol lawn representing symbolizing the more than 200 school children killed in gun violence in Minnesota since 2021. Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. The display is in honor of Harper Moyski Fletcher Merkel, both students Annunciation School who were kill last August. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Prospects for additional gun control measures

Prospects for gun control measures remain dim in the closely divided Minnesota Legislature, where bills need bipartisan support to pass.

There are 67 Democratic-Farmer-Labor and 67 Republican representatives in the House. And while the Democrats have a one-seat majority in the Senate, some members from rural districts have been hesitant to back new gun laws in the past.

After last summer’s violence, Walz, DFL and Republican lawmakers spent more than a month negotiating terms for a special session on guns. Walz at one point said there’d be a special session on guns “one way or another,” but by October, it was apparent that closed-door pre-session negotiations were not delivering any results.

Walz then held town hall meetings promoting gun control policies in Republican legislative districts and in December issued executive orders aimed at educating the public on existing state gun policies and laying the groundwork for future gun control legislation by creating a gun violence prevention research council.

Neither made any immediate changes to state gun control policy and came after months of frustration for the governor. Republicans have remained opposed to new restrictions on guns and have backed funding boosts for school security and mental health services.

Those proposals are part of the governor’s overall gun violence prevention package. Walz said he believed he might get Republican support on a bill restricting so-called ghost guns — privately made firearms without serial numbers that can be difficult to trace to a crime.

But past the mental health measures and theoretical support for a ghost gun ban, there’s little indication of bipartisan appetite for restrictions on assault weapons.

Local gun control laws, binary triggers

Another change DFLers are hoping for is an end to a 1985 state law banning local gun control laws, something Twin Cities metro mayors called for in the fall after the Annunciation school shooting. Former St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were among several mayors who gathered at the Capitol in September, calling for the change. However, like other gun-control-related policies, it does not appear to have the support needed to pass.

Walz also is calling for the Legislature to re-pass a ban on binary triggers, modifications for semiautomatic rifles that fire a shot when the trigger is pulled and again while released, greatly boosting the weapon’s rate of fire.

Minnesota lawmakers passed a ban in 2024, but Ramsey County Judge Leonardo Castro shot it down last August, as it became law as part of a 1,400-page bill passed at the last minute of the 2024 session, violating a rule limiting bills to a single overall subject.

That was just one of several recent successful legal challenges to state gun laws by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, a prominent state gun rights group.

In another August ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court said a decades-old law banning certain guns without serial numbers didn’t apply to homemade “ghost guns” as long as federal law doesn’t require a serial number.

And, earlier this year, Minnesota’s minimum age to obtain a permit to carry a firearm dropped from 21 to 18 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the state’s appeal in a case challenging the minimum age.

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By JAKE OFFENHARTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — Millions across the northeastern United States on Tuesday contended with treks to school and work as they dug out from a major — and in some areas record-breaking — storm that blanketed the region with snow, canceled flights, disrupted transit and downed power lines.

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Even as the snow moved north Tuesday, giving way to sunshine in parts of the region, the National Weather Service warned another storm originating in the Great Lakes was right around the corner, though it’s not forecast to be nearly as severe.

Many large school districts remained closed, including in Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. But in New York City, more than 900,000 students in the nation’s largest public school system had a regular day, Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared, inviting kids to pelt him with snowballs over his decision.

Many students and their caregivers seemed open to taking the mayor up on that idea, as they scrambled over mountainous snow banks and dodged salt spreaders during the morning drop-off.

“We’re walking on thin ice here. One more day would’ve been fine,” said Danielle Obloj, the parent of a Brooklyn fifth grader. “They should never have let these kids come back to school.”

Others hailed the city’s efforts at snow-clearing.

“It was much better than last time — an easy commute, no problems whatsoever,” said Raul Garcia, as he exited a cab with his three school-age children. “We thought it was going to be really bad walking, but looking at the streets, they’re so clean.”

Philadelphia switched to online learning Monday and Tuesday, while districts on Long Island and elsewhere in the New York suburbs canceled school again Tuesday.

Roads are reopening and mass transit is coming back online

Monday’s storm that meteorologists are calling the strongest in a decade dumped more than 2 feet (0.6 meters) of snow in parts of the Northeast. More than 3 feet (0.9 meters) fell in Rhode Island — surpassing snow totals from the historic Blizzard of 1978 that struck the Northeast, the National Weather Service said.

By Tuesday morning, roads began to reopen, mass transportation was coming back online in some cities and power had returned for some of the hundreds of thousands who had lost electricity in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware and Rhode Island.

Amtrak canceled some trains between Boston and New York and between New York and Philadelphia on Tuesday morning.

But other railroads were open, including New Jersey Transit, and the Long Island Railroad “unleashed” a snow-clearing train car known as “Darth Vader” to clear snow drifts.

Another storm is on the way

The weather service said it’s tracking another storm that could bring snow to the Great Lakes on Tuesday before pushing into the Northeast on Wednesday. The clipper storm brings the prospect of a combination of rain and up to a couple of inches of snow.

The new storm is not expected to be as strong, but even a few extra inches of snow on top of hard-hit areas could make cleanup more difficult, said Frank Pereira, meteorologist for the weather service in College Park, Maryland.

Canceled flights and a snowball fight

The weather service referred to Monday’s storm as a “classic bomb cyclone/nor’easter off the Northeast coast.” A bomb cyclone happens when a storm’s pressure falls by a certain amount within a 24-hour period.

Roughly 2,200 flights in and out of the U.S. were canceled Tuesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Most of the cancellations involved airports in New York, New Jersey and Boston.

Rhode Island’s T.F. Green International Airport paused its airport operations Monday as it dealt with nearly 38 inches (97 centimeters) of snow, according to the Weather Service, breaking a record of 28.6 inches (72.6 centimeters) set in 1978. The pause was expected to continue through Tuesday afternoon as the airport assessed conditions.

Along with the disruptions, the storm led to the creation of armies of snowmen and other sculptures as well as snowball fights.

A massivesnowball fight e rupted Monday in New York City’s Washington Square Park, but video showed two outnumbered police officers being pelted by snowballs. City police commissioner Jessica Tisch called the behavior “disgraceful” and “criminal.”

Storm strands juror as sex trafficking trial resumes

Storm-related travel disruptions even impacted the resumption of a high-profile criminal case in Manhattan federal court.

A juror in the sex trafficking trial of wealthy brothers Alon, Oren and Tal Alexander was “trapped in Miami” and wasn’t scheduled for a return flight until Friday, Juge Valerie Caproni said Tuesday.

The judge eventually dismissed the stranded juror from the case, leaving just one alternate. The trial wasn’t held last week to accommodate jurors whose children were on a school break.

“I am loath to lose another juror, but I am also loath to lose another week of trial,” Caproni said.

Associated Press writers Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania; Michael R. Sisak in New York; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

By SYLVIA HUI

LONDON (AP) — The former Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson, the U.K.’s former ambassador to Washington, were arrested within days of each other for their ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and both are under investigation for the same offense: misconduct in public office.

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Neither of them has been charged, yet, but their high-profile arrests have shone a spotlight on an ancient law that experts say is ill-defined, too broad and direly in need of reform.

Police have not disclosed details of how they questioned Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson. But documents recently released by the U.S. government suggest both of them were close to Epstein and may have leaked sensitive information to him.

The trove of files suggest the former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, passed confidential trade reports, among other documents, to Epstein when he was serving as the U.K.’s trade envoy from 2001 to 2011.

In the case of Mandelson, the documents suggest the veteran Labour Party politician may have shared an internal government report with Epstein and told the financier that he would lobby for a cut on tax on bankers’ bonuses when he held the title of Business Secretary around 15 years ago.

Both men previously denied wrongdoing and have not commented on the most recent allegations.

A difficult offense to prove

The Crown Prosecution Service — which conducts criminal investigations in England and Wales — defines misconduct in public office as “serious willful abuse or neglect of the power or responsibilities of the public office held.” There must be a direct link between the misconduct and an abuse of those responsibilities, it said.

The offense carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Prosecutors must investigate all the evidence gathered on the men to consider if it is enough to prove misconduct in each case.

Experts say proving the offense, which can be traced back to medieval times, is notoriously difficult.

There is no simple definition of what constitutes a “public officer.” It may be particularly difficult to prove Mountbatten-Windsor was the holder of a public office when he was the U.K.’s special representative for international trade and investment — an unsalaried role with paid travel expenses.

Prosecutors must next establish if the suspects willfully neglected to perform their duties or willfully committed misconduct.

The neglect or misconduct must also be so serious that it amounts to an abuse of public trust.

Finally, the actions must be deemed to be “without reasonable excuse of justification,” according to the prosecution service.

‘The law is in need of reform’

The Law Commission, an independent legal body that makes reform recommendations to the government, says the wording of the offense is unhelpfully vague. The commission has called for years for it to be repealed and replaced by more specific offenses.

“The law is in need of reform, in order to ensure that public officials are appropriately held to account for misconduct committed in connection with their official duties,” the Law Commission said on its website.

Another of the commission’s concerns is that most prosecutions of the offense have been directed at low- to midranking officials and staff such as police and prison officers, rather than senior managers or politicians.

Both Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson were released after police questioning.

Marcus Johnstone, managing director of PCD Solicitors, a law firm that is not involved in the cases, said the bar is “extremely high” to reach a conviction, and that he does not expect to see any conviction against either man. He said if either was convicted, the sentences would probably be from one to 10 years in prison.

“It must be noted that cases involving government ministers or trade envoys charged with misconduct in public office are extremely rare, and there is no real guidance as to the expected sentence,” Johnstone said.

“Although an investigation is now taking place,” he added, “we are still a long way away from a potential prosecution.”

Oh, For Sleet’s Ske and Flurrious George are the two top voter-getters in the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Name a Snowplow contest this year. The two garnered more than 18,800 votes in February.

A total of eight winners were picked and they feature names with puns as well as references to popular music and movies.

“We’re so thankful to the Minnesotans who have helped submit and select new and creative snowplow names for our agency,” said MnDOT Commissioner Nancy Daubenberger, in a statement. “Let’s remember it’s not just the plows, it’s also about the more than 1,600 Minnesota snowplow operators who keep us safe, and our roads cleared all winter long. Please slow down and give the operators of Sled Zepplin, The Life of a Snowgirl and all of Minnesota’s other snowplows plenty of space to clear roads safely every time it snows.”

The public was invited to submit names in December. MnDOT received more than 67,500 submissions which were narrowed down by agency staff to 30 finalists.

MnDOT now has 52 named snowplows which include Plowy McPlowFace, Betty Whiteout and Taylor Drift. The 2025 winner was Anthony Sledwards, likely in honor of Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards. 48 of the snowplows have been named through the contest, with four others named by MnDOT staff in acknowledgement of highways the state plows adjacent to tribal lands.

The top eight snowplow names, in order of amount of votes received and the districts their snowplow will serve are:

• Oh, For Sleet’s Sake – District 3 (Central Minnesota).

• Flurrious George – District 6 (Southeast Minnesota).

• Sled Zeppelin – District 2 (Northwest Minnesota).

• K Pop Blizzard Hunter – District 8 (Southwest Minnesota).

• Minne-Snow-ta – District 1 (Northeast Minnesota).

• Every Day I’m Shovelin’ – District 7 (South Central Minnesota).

• O Brother, Where Art Plow? – District 4 (West Central Minnesota).

• The Life of a Snowgirl – Metro (Twin Cities).

All 30 finalists for 2026 can be found at dot.state.mn.us/nameasnowplow.

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