The Minnesota Department of Human Services says it will stop accepting license applications for adult day care providers for up to two years amid suspicion of fraudulent activity and allegations of kickback schemes in the program.

It’s the latest program the agency has put under greater scrutiny as officials try to do more to stop fraud. Last week, DHS announced it would pause new licenses for Home and Community-Based Human Services for two years.

DHS said Tuesday it will pause new licenses for daytime programs for the elderly and disabled because the number of providers currently goes “well beyond” the needs for service. The pause will begin Feb. 1 next year and likely extend to Jan. 31, 2028.

At a Wednesday hearing of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee, DHS Inspector General James Clark told state representatives that an “excess of providers” was cause for fraud concerns.

“When you have a marketplace where there’s excess capacity, there’s not a way for you to drum up legitimate business. Then you’re going to try to figure out — if profit is your motive — you’re going to figure out ways to drum up illegitimate businesses,” Clark said. “That’s why we’ve seen allegations and we’re investigating allegations of kickbacks in the adult day program area.”

Asked about how much adult day care programs had grown in the past five years, state Medicaid Director John Connolly said DHS numbers showed a roughly 7% increase in people enrolled in adult day care and a 43% increase in license capacity over the last decade.

For that reason, adult day services is among the 14 programs undergoing a third-party audit after being deemed high risk by the human services department, Connolly said. Gov. Tim Walz ordered the audit at the end of October, and the layer of review could mean delayed payments for providers.

DHS will stop issuing licenses for new home and community-based services providers at the beginning of 2026, and the pause is expected to last until the end of 2027. The agency said it would consider exceptions to the pause for both those services and adult day care.

Home and community services will have a licensing pause for similar reasons to adult day care: the increase in provider applications greatly exceeded the demand for services.

At the end of October, DHS ended one Medicaid-funded program altogether: Housing Stabilization Services. The move came after news emerged of a federal investigation of a “massive” fraud scheme that cost the state millions.

Housing Stabilization Services, a first-of-its-kind program launched in 2020, used Medicaid dollars to help the elderly and people with disabilities at risk of homelessness find and pay for housing. People with mental illness and addiction problems were also eligible.

But some providers acquired names and other information from facilities like addiction treatment centers to file false and inflated claims to DHS, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In September, federal prosecutors charged eight people for allegedly stealing around $10 million from the program. It’s just one of numerous fraud cases that have come to light in Minnesota in recent years. Then-acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson estimated in July that fraud in the state could top $1 billion.

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Walz has issued executive orders directing state agencies to do more to address fraud, though the administration of President Donald Trump also has begun pressuring Minnesota.

Earlier this month, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Mehmet Oz, better known as the TV personality Dr. Oz, demanded a six-month freeze on enrollments for “high-risk providers” and confirmation of existing providers’ legitimacy. Oz threatened federal funding for the state if it didn’t comply.

With official proclamations, the St. Paul City Council said goodbye to six longstanding public servants leaving City Hall, including Mayor Melvin Carter, mayoral adviser Russ Stark, and Fire Chief “Butch” Inks. Each was recognized with a day dedicated in their honor.

Also recognized by the council on Wednesday were three longstanding planners and project leads with the city’s department of Planning and Economic Development — Ross Currier, Paul Dubruiel and Marie Franchett — who have played no small role in determining the contours of some of the city’s most visible construction projects.

Franchett in particular served 32 years with the city, serving as project lead on Allianz Field, the Verdant at the West Side Flats, the downtown Penfield apartments and their adjoining grocery space, and other key housing and mixed-use developments.

Dubruiel, who oversaw lot splits and other Planning Commission work, spent 30 years working for the city, and Currier was with PED for 11 years, handling dozens of STAR grants,  as well as business Bridge Fund grants during the pandemic.

Council Member Nelsie Yang said the mayor always appeared cool in a crisis, and the city weathered several during his two terms, from riots to pandemic.

“There has not been a better ambassador and champion for our city throughout incredibly difficult times than Mayor Carter,” said Council President Rebecca Noecker.

Council Member Anika Bowie noted Carter had a history of centering children in his policies, from forgiving library fines and dedicating college savings accounts for newborns to lifting fees for youth sports at rec centers.

“It will take years, and even decades, for the seeds that he has planted and so much of the work to come to fruition,” added Molly Coleman, one of the newest members of the city council.

Fighting tears, Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim said Inks, a 41-year city employee, was fresh off of arm surgery when she called him about a person injured during a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement action two weeks ago. Inks still showed up in person and demanded of ICE agents, “Are you denying this person medical care?” The individual was soon removed on a stretcher.

Kim said Stark — who had once served as president of the city council — had touched myriad aspects of the city by leading on the development of St. Paul’s Climate Action and Resilience Plan, the Evie electric car-sharing program and the EV Spot charging network. Through his efforts, carbon emissions in the city’s municipal buildings dropped 46%.

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Stark was also instrumental in establishing 55 miles of new bikeways, including the fully-completed Grand Rounds and the nearly-complete Capital City Bikeway, and installing geothermal systems and solar panels in The Heights development and the new North End Community Center, among other projects. St. Paul repeatedly reduced the amount of parking developers are required to install for new real estate development citywide, eventually eliminating parking minimums entirely.

By order of the city council, Wednesday was named Russ Stark Day in the city, to be followed by Melvin Carter III Day on Thursday. Dec. 30 will be “Butch” Inks Day in the city.

By MICHAEL CASEY

BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) — Police intensified their search Wednesday for a suspect in the killing of professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two days after he was shot to death at his home outside Boston.

Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, was shot Monday night at his apartment in Brookline, Massachusetts. He died at a local hospital on Tuesday, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

The prosecutor’s office said the homicide investigation was “active and ongoing” as of early afternoon Wednesday and had no update — earlier they had said no suspects were in custody.

The investigation into the MIT professor’s killing comes as Brown University, another prestigious institution just 50 miles away in Providence, Rhode Island, is reeling from an unsolved shooting that killed two students and wounded nine others Saturday. Investigators provided no indication Tuesday that they were any closer to zeroing in on the gunman’s identity.

The FBI on Tuesday said it knew of no connection between the crimes.

Dozens of people gathered outside Louriero’s building Tuesday night, many with candles in hand, to honor the professor’s life and support his family. Neighbors received paper notices attached to their doors with tape to place candles in their windows in Louriero’s honor. Some people cried and held each other, but most attendees were silent, their breath visible in the bracing cold. A few children rode scooters from their nearby homes to the gathering.

The killing happened when most MIT students were on winter break, and more than a dozen of them on the Cambridge campus on Wednesday didn’t want to talk about it. Most said they didn’t know him.

A 22-year-old student at Boston University who lives near Loureiro’s apartment in Brookline told The Boston Globe she heard three loud noises Monday evening and feared it was gunfire. “I had never heard anything so loud, so I assumed they were gunshots,” Liv Schachner was quoted as saying. “It’s difficult to grasp. It just seems like it keeps happening.”

This undated photo provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in December 2025 shows Nuno Loureiro. (Jake Belcher/MIT via AP)

Loureiro, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of the school’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.

He grew up in Viseu, in central Portugal, and studied in Lisbon before earning a doctorate in London, according to MIT. He was a researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon before joining MIT, the university said.

“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner,” Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who previously led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, told a campus publication.

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The president of MIT, Sally Kornbluth, said in a statement that the killing was a “shocking loss.” The office of Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also put out a condolence statement calling Loureiro’s death “an irreparable loss for science and for all those with whom he worked and lived.”

Loureiro had said he hoped his work would shape the future.

“It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,” Loureiro said when he was named to lead the plasma science lab last year. “Fusion energy will change the course of human history.”

Associated Press writers Leah Willingham in Boston; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and David Biller in Rome contributed.

St. Paul police officers will not be charged for fatally shooting a 36-year-old man who officers reported pointed a gun at them last year, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.

A warrant was issued for Mychel Stowers’ arrest when prosecutors charged him Oct. 24, 2024, with the murder of his pregnant wife, Damara Kirkland.

As two officers approached Stowers in their police vehicle, they each reported they saw him pull a handgun from his waist area and point at them. Their statements were “consistent with and corroborated by” in-squad camera footage, according to a county attorney’s office memo of their review of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation.

The BCA presented their findings to the county attorney’s office. Prosecutors concluded the use of deadly force by officers Matthew Foy and Eric Jaworski was legally justified under Minnesota law.

Officers received an anonymous report just after 1 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2024, that Stowers was on a bicycle at a laundromat in the 1100 block of West Seventh Street, police said last year.

Police monitored the business to determine if he was inside when the same person called again and reported that the man on a bike “in front of the business was in fact Stowers,” according to a statement from police at the time. “Officers established a perimeter in (an) attempt to contain Stowers from fleeing the area and set a plan to arrest him.”

The man rode the bike south on Bay Street to Watson Avenue “where uniformed officers in marked squad cars closed in on him,” police said.

“Before officers could confirm his identity, the man, now identified as Stowers, produced a handgun and pointed it at the officers,” according to a statement last year from the BCA. Foy fired a handgun and Jaworski a rifle, the BCA said.

Excerpts of body-camera footage released by police last year showed Foy was driving and Jaworski fired through the windshield from the passenger seat.

Stowers was charged in the fatal shooting of Kirkland, 35, in her apartment in St. Paul’s North End on Oct. 19, 2024. An autopsy found she was eight to nine weeks pregnant, and one of the murder charges was for the death of her unborn child. Stowers was also charged with shooting a man in the leg as he allegedly carjacked him and fled the area.

Stowers was released from prison in March 2024 in the 2008 killing of a man in St. Paul. He was on work release, and the Minnesota Department of Corrections said he was under supervision by their agency and a halfway house.

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