St. Paul police asked for the public’s help Tuesday to find two people missing in separate cases, each of which may be suspicious.

Brenda Holmes, 49, was last seen by family on July 5, 2025. (Courtesy of the St. Paul Police Department)

Brenda Holmes, 49, was last seen at Mounds Regional Park/Wicaḣapi Regional Park in the Dayton’s Bluff area on July 5.

Holmes, who is about 5 feet 2 inches tall with blue and black hair, was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, green camouflage leggings and black high-top boots.

Nicholas Christianson, 41, was last seen on June 3, 2025. (Courtesy of the St. Paul Police Department)

In a separate case, Nicholas Christianson, 41, was last seen June 3 in the area of Larpenteur and White Bear avenues. He is 6 feet tall with brown hair, and was last seen wearing a dark gray jacket, black shirt, blue jeans and brown boots.

Police did not release additional information on why their disappearances are potentially suspicious.

They’re asking anyone with tips on Holmes or Christianson to come forward by calling 651-291-1111 or 911.

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By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seventeen immigration court judges have been fired in recent days, according to the union that represents them, as the Trump administration pushes forward with its mass deportations of immigrants in the country.

The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents immigration court judges as well as other professionals, said in a news release that 15 judges were fired “without cause” on Friday and another two on Monday. The union said they were working in courts in 10 different states across the country — California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

“It’s outrageous and against the public interest that at the same time Congress has authorized 800 immigration judges, we are firing large numbers of immigration judges without cause,” said the union’s President Matt Biggs. “This is nonsensical. The answer is to stop firing and start hiring.”

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Firings come with courts at the center of administration efforts

The firings come as the courts have been increasingly at the center of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement efforts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arresting immigrants as they appear at court for proceedings.

A spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which is the part of the Justice Department that oversees the courts, said in an email that the office would not comment on the firings.

The large-scale arrests began in May and have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants appearing in court. In what has become a familiar scene, a judge will grant a government lawyer’s request to dismiss deportation proceedings against an immigrant. Meanwhile, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are waiting in the hallway to arrest the person and put them on a fast track to deportation as soon as he or she leaves the courtroom.

Immigration court judges are also dealing with a massive backlog of roughly 3.5 million cases that ballooned in recent years. Cases can take years to weave their way to a final determination, with judges and lawyers frequently scheduling final hearings on the merits of a case over a year out. Unlike criminal courts, immigrants don’t have the right to a lawyer, and if they can’t afford one they represent themselves — often using an interpreter to make their case.

Courts are getting a cash infusion

Under recently passed legislation that will use $170 billion to supercharge immigration enforcement, the courts are set to get an infusion of $3.3 billion. That will go toward raising the number of judges to 800 and hiring more staff to support them.

But the union said that since the Trump administration took office over 103 judges have either been fired or voluntarily left after taking what was dubbed the “Fork in the Road” offers at the beginning of the administration. The union said that rather than speeding up the immigration court process, the Justice Department’s firings would actually make the backlogs worse. The union said that it can take as long as a year to recruit, hire and train new immigration court judges.

There are currently about 600 judges, according to the union figures. Immigration courts fall under the Justice Department.

Fresh from playing a post-Twins game concert Friday night at Target Field, ’00s hitmaker Nelly was announced as headliner for the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand on Aug. 30.

Tickets are priced from $121.75 to $54 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Etix or by calling 800-514-3849. Ja Rule, Mya and Ying Yang Twins are also on the bill.

St. Louis native Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. adopted the stage name Nelly and made a huge splash with his 2000 debut album, “Country Grammar.” It topped 10 million in sales and spawned hits in the title track, “E.I.” and “Ride wit Me.”

Nelly released his signature song, “Hot in Herre,” in 2002 and returned to the charts with “Dilemma,” “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” “Over and Over” and “Grillz.”

“Just a Dream,” from 2010, turned out to be his last major single, but Nelly got a career boost in 2013 when he was a guest on the Florida Georgia Line smash “Cruise.” Soon after, he hit the road opening for the country duo. His most recent album, 2021’s “Heartland,” included collaborations with Florida Georgia Line, Darius Rucker, Jimmie Allen and Kane Brown.

Over the past decade, Nelly has played Target Field (with Florida Georgia Line), the Myth, Treasure Island Casino, Twin Cities Summer Jam and, last year, Xcel Energy Center as the opening act for Janet Jackson.

Nelly is the final act announced to play the Minnesota State Fair, which runs from Aug. 21 through Sept. 1.

He joins the previously announced headliners:

Thursday, Aug. 21: Old Dominion

Friday, Aug. 22: Meghan Trainor

Saturday, Aug. 23: Atmosphere

Sunday, Aug. 24: Melissa Etheridge and Indigo Girls

Monday, Aug. 25: The Happy Together Tour

Tuesday, Aug. 26: Def Leppard

Wednesday, Aug. 27: Hank Williams Jr.

Thursday, Aug. 28: Steve Miller Band

Friday, Aug. 29: Avett Brothers

Saturday, Aug. 30: Nelly

Sunday, Aug. 31: Minnesota State Fair Amateur Talent Contest Finals

Monday, Sept. 1: Rock and Roll Playhouse

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A federal grand jury indicted a Minnesota man Tuesday on charges that he fatally shot a prominent Minnesota state representative and her husband and seriously wounded a state senator and his wife while he was allegedly disguised as a police officer.

The indictment handed up lists murder, stalking and firearms charges against Vance Boelter. The murder counts in the deaths of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, could carry the federal death penalty.

The chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota has called the killings a political assassination.

Prosecutors initially charged Boelter in a complaint with six counts, including murder, stalking and firearms offenses. But under federal court rules they needed a grand jury indictment to take the case to trial.

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Prosecutors say Boelter, 57, was driving a fake squad car, wearing a realistic rubber mask that covered his head and wearing tactical gear around 2 a.m. on June 14 when he went to the home of Sen. John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, in the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin. He allegedly shot the senator nine times, and Yvette Hoffman eight times, but they survived.

Prosecutors allege he then stopped at the homes of two other lawmakers. One, in Maple Grove, wasn’t home while a police officer may have scared him off from the second, in New Hope. Boelter then allegedly went to the Hortmans’ home in nearby Brooklyn Park and killed both of them. Their dog was so gravely injured that he had to be euthanized.

Brooklyn Park police, who had been alerted to the shootings of the Hoffmans, arrived at the Hortman home around 3:30 a.m., moments before the gunman opened fire on the couple, the complaint said. Boelter allegedly fled and left behind his car, which contained notebooks listing dozens of Democratic officials as potential targets with their home addresses, as well as five guns and a large quantity of ammunition.

Law enforcement officers finally captured Boelter about 40 hours later, about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from his rural home in Green Isle, after what authorities called the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history.

Sen. Hoffman is out of the hospital and is now at a rehabilitation facility, his family announced last week, adding he has a long road to recovery. Yvette Hoffman was released a few days after the attack. Former President Joe Biden visited the senator in the hospital when he was in town for the Hortmans’ funeral.

Friends have described Boelter as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had been struggling to find work. At a hearing July 3, Boelter said he was “looking forward to the facts about the 14th coming out.”

In an interview published by the New York Post on Saturday, Boelter insisted the shootings had nothing to do with his opposition to abortion or his support for President Donald Trump, but he declined to discuss why he allegedly killed the Hortmans and wounded the Hoffmans.

“You are fishing and I can’t talk about my case…I’ll say it didn’t involve either the Trump stuff or pro life,” Boelter wrote in a message to the newspaper via the jail’s messaging system.

It ultimately will be up to Attorney General Pam Bondi, in consultation with the local U.S. attorney’s office, to decide whether to seek the federal death penalty. Minnesota abolished its state death penalty in 1911. But the Trump administration says it intends to be aggressive in seeking capital punishment for eligible federal crimes.

Boelter also faces state murder and attempted murder charges in Hennepin County, but the federal case will go first.

Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris joined mourners at the Hortmans’ funeral June 28. Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket, eulogized Melissa Hortman as “the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history.”

Hortman led the House from 2019 until January and was a driving force as Democrats passed an ambitious list of liberal priorities in 2023. She yielded the speakership to a Republican in a power-sharing deal after the November elections left the House tied, and she took the title speaker emerita.

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