DETROIT LAKES, Minn. — Opening arguments in the burglary case for a Minnesota state senator Tuesday painted her in two different lights — prosecutors said she was a person intent on stealing while the defense portrayed her as a concerned stepdaughter.

Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury.

Sen. Nicole Mitchell, a Democratic-Farmer-Laborer lawmaker from Woodbury, was charged with two felony burglary counts after she was arrested in her stepmother’s house early in the morning of April 22, 2024. If found guilty, Mitchell could face prison time.

The prosecutor, Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald, opened his argument with a statement attributed to Mitchell as she was arrested in her stepmother’s house: “I know I did something bad.”

“I ask that you specifically remember those words throughout the trial,” McDonald said.

During her arrest, Mitchell made clear confessions, McDonald said. He said evidence in the trial will show the residence Mitchell entered was not her home, that she was not invited and that she pried a window open with a crowbar.

“The defendant entered her stepmother’s home with a purpose — to steal,” McDonald said.

The defense would show evidence of family conflict and terse exchanges between Nicole Mitchell and her stepmother, Carol Mitchell, following the death of Nicole Mitchell’s father.

“But grief and frustration do not justify burglary,” McDonald said.

The defense

Her attorney, Bruce Ringstrom Jr., described her as a concerned stepdaughter who entered the home to check on her stepmother, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

He started by telling the jury about Nicole Mitchell — how she is a hard worker, how she often felt more comfortable opening up to her stepmother than her biological mother, and how she has balanced jobs with family and serving in the military.

“Our defense is, there is no clear roadmap for helping an aging parent — there can be good days and bad days,” Ringstrom said.

As police were called to the house the morning of her arrest, Nicole Mitchell did not run away, he said. “Nicole Mitchell’s intent is to check on Carol Mitchell. A burglar runs, a concerned child stays,” he said.

Nicole Mitchell’s intent when she entered her stepmother’s house is the real issue in the case, he said, noting the defense does not dispute that she entered the house without consent.

There are two possible reasons for Nicole Mitchell to enter the house, Ringstrom said: to steal or to check on Carol Mitchell. Unless the state’s evidence can rule out that she was there to check on her stepmother, the verdict must be not guilty, Ringstrom argued.

Multiple witnesses

After opening arguments, the jury heard from multiple witnesses in the case: a dispatcher with the Becker County Sheriff’s Department who took Carol Mitchell’s 911 call, a then-Detroit Lakes Police Department patrol officer who called to Carol Mitchell’s house, and Carol Mitchell.

Nicole Mitchell was charged during the 2024 Minnesota legislative session.

Charges against her proved a point of contention in a divided Senate during the last two sessions. DFL leaders barred her from participating in committee assignments or party caucus meetings. Senate Republicans called for her resignation and unsuccessfully tried to oust her from the Senate.

The felony burglary charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in jail or a county workhouse, and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $35,000 fine. Felony possession of burglary tools carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

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By ANNIE MA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Tuesday grilled the leaders of Georgetown University, the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley in the latest hearing on antisemitism in higher education, accusing the schools of failing to respond adequately to allegations of bias or discrimination.

In their appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the three university leaders said that they had taken disciplinary action where appropriate and stressed the importance of protecting free speech.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons pushed back on the suggestion that antisemitism was more present on college campuses than anywhere else.

“If somebody is expressing pro-Palestinian beliefs, that’s not necessarily antisemitic,” he said.

Dr. Rich Lyons, Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley, testifies during a House Committee on Education and Workforce Committee hearing on “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology” on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

The hearing was the ninth in a series Republicans have held to scrutinize university leadership over allegations of antisemitism on campuses after a wave of protests following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel. Widely criticized testimony before the committee by the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University in 2023 contributed to their resignations.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Democrats blasted Republican committee members for their focus on antisemitism while not speaking out on the dismantling of the Education Department, which is tasked with investigating antisemitism and other civil rights violations in schools.

“They have turned this hearing room into a kangaroo court, where they spend our time litigating a predetermined outcome to do nothing, actually, to help Jewish students, just make public theater out of legitimate pain,” Rep. Mark Takano, D-CA.

Dr. Félix Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor, The City University of New York, testifies during a House Committee on Education and Workforce Committee hearing on “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology” on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Republicans said the university leaders have allowed campus antisemitism to run unchecked.

“Universities can choose to hire antisemitic faculty, welcome students with a history of antisemitism, accept certain foreign funding, and let the behavior of antisemitic unions go unchecked,” Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg, committee chair, said in his opening statements. “But we will see today they do so at their own risk.”

The hearing was periodically interrupted by protesters, who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans before being removed by Capitol police. Rep. Randy Fine, R-FL, berated the college presidents and said they were responsible because of the attitudes they had permitted on their campuses.

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Republicans pressed the three college leaders on whether they had disciplined or fired faculty and employees for behavior they said was antisemitic. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., pressed CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez on the employment of a law professor who worked on the legal defense of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist the Trump administration attempted to deport over his role in protests at Columbia University.

Stefanik pushed Matos Rodríguez to answer whether the professor should be fired. Without responding directly, Matos Rodríguez defended CUNY and said antisemitism had no place at the school. He said any student or employee who broke CUNY rules would be investigated.

University leaders also emphasized the importance of free speech on campuses for students and faculty.

Interim Georgetown President Richard Groves said that as a Jesuit university, fostering interfaith dialogue and understanding was a key part of the school’s mission. He said the university has not experienced any encampments or physical violence since the Hamas attack in October 2023.

“Given our Jesuit values, we expose students to different viewpoints on the Middle East,” Groves said. “In addition to speakers on Gaza, we’ve hosted IDF soldiers, families of Israeli and Palestinians who’ve lost their lives. U.S. families of U.S. hostages in Gaza. Georgetown is not perfect, and as events evolve, we’ve had to clarify rules of student behavior.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By DIDI TANG, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Views of China and its leader, Xi Jinping, have improved in many countries worldwide, while those of the U.S. and President Donald Trump have deteriorated, according to a new survey of about two dozen countries by the Pew Research Center.

Released Tuesday, the survey shows that international views of the two superpowers and their leaders are closer than ever. The results are a drastic departure from those in the past several years when the U.S. and its leader — then-President Joe Biden — enjoyed more favorable international views than China and its president.

In its latest survey of 24 countries, Pew found that the U.S. was viewed more favorably than China in eight countries, China was viewed more favorably in seven, and the two were viewed about equally in the remainder.

Pew did not provide definitive explanations for the shifts, but Laura Silver, associate director of research, said it’s possible that views of a country may change when those of another superpower shift.

“As the U.S. potentially looks like a less reliable partner and people have limited confidence, for example, in Trump to lead the global economy, China may look different in some people’s eyes,” Silver said.

Also, China’s human rights policies and its handling of the pandemic — which were related to negative views of the country in the past — may not weigh as much this time, she said.

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A group of Democratic senators this week accused the Trump administration of ceding global influence to China by shuttering foreign aid programs, imposing tariffs on allies, cracking down on elite universities and restricting visas for international students.

In the Pew findings, 35% of those in 10 high-income countries surveyed consistently — including Canada, France, Germany and Italy — have favorable opinions of the U.S., down from 51% from last year.

By comparison, 32% of them have positive views of China, up from last year’s 23%. And 24% of them say they have confidence in Trump, compared with 53% last year for Biden.

Xi scored a slight improvement: 22% of those in these rich countries say they have confidence in the Chinese president, up from last year’s 17%.

However, people in Israel have far more favorable views of the U.S. than of China: 83% of Israelis like the U.S., compared with 33% who say they have positive views of China. And 69% of them say they have confidence in Trump, while only 9% express confidence in Xi.

Pew surveyed more than 30,000 people across 25 countries — including the U.S., which was excluded from the comparison — from Jan. 8 to April 26. The margins of error for each country ranged from plus or minus 2.5 to plus or minus 4.7.

AP writers Emily Swanson and Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

By CLAIRE SAVAGE, Associated Press

The federal agency responsible for enforcing laws against workplace discrimination will allow some complaints filed by transgender workers to move forward, shifting course from earlier guidance that indefinitely stalled all such cases, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press.

The email was sent earlier this month to leaders of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with the subject line “Hot Topics,” in which Thomas Colclough, director of the agency’s Office of Field Programs, announced that if new transgender worker complaints involve “hiring, discharge or promotion, you are clear to continue processing these charges.”

But even those cases will still be subject to higher scrutiny than other types of workplace discrimination cases, requiring approval from President Donald Trump’s appointed acting agency head Andrea Lucas, who has said that one of her priorities would be “defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights.”

Since Trump regained office in January, the EEOC has moved away from its prior interpretation of civil rights law, marking a stark contrast to a decade ago when the agency issued a landmark finding that a transgender civilian employee of the U.S. Army had been discriminated against because her employer refused to use her preferred pronouns or allow her to use bathrooms based on her gender identity.

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Under Lucas’s leadership, the EEOC has dropped several lawsuits on behalf of transgender workers. Lucas defended that decision during her June 18 Senate committee confirmation hearing in order to comply with the president’s executive order declaring two unchangeable sexes.

However, she acknowledged that a 2020 Supreme Court ruling — Bostock v. Clayton County — “did clearly hold that discriminating against someone on the basis of sex included firing an individual who is transgender or based on their sexual orientation.”

Colclough acknowledged in his July 1 email that the EEOC will consider transgender discrimination complaints that “fall squarely under” the Supreme Court’s ruling, such as cases involving hiring, firing and promotion. The email backtracked on an earlier policy, communicated verbally, that de-prioritized all transgender cases.

The EEOC declined to comment on the specifics of its latest policy, saying: “Under federal law, charge inquiries and charges of discrimination made to the EEOC are confidential. Pursuant to Title VII and as statutorily required, the EEOC is, has been, and will continue to accept and investigate charges on all bases protected by law, and to serve those charges to the relevant employer.”

But even the cases that the EEOC is willing to consider under Bostock must still be reviewed by a senior attorney advisor, and then sent to Lucas for final approval.

This heightened review process is not typical for other discrimination charges and reflects the agency’s increased oversight for gender identity cases, former EEOC commissioner Chai Feldblum told The AP in a Monday phone interview.

“It is a slight improvement because it will allow certain claims of discrimination to proceed,” Feldblum said of the new policy. “But overall it does not fix a horrific and legally improper situation currently occurring at the EEOC.”

Colclough’s email did not clarify how long the review process might take, or whether cases that include additional claims, such as harassment or retaliation, would be eligible to proceed, and the EEOC declined to address those questions.

“This is not the EEOC being clear to either its own staff or to the public what charges are going to be processed,” Feldblum said. “This is not a panacea.”

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.