When a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman was arrested by Iran’s “morality police” for not wearing her head scarf in the manner required by the regime, human rights advocates were right to fear the worst. The Iranian government later claimed Mahsa (Zhina) Amini suffered a fatal heart attack, but witnesses alleged she was beaten unconscious after her detainment and later died — a state-sanctioned murder that would give rise to youth-led protests in the streets of Tehran.

The September 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising against the Iranian government was short-lived, leading to the deaths of hundreds of protesters and the arrest of thousands more, followed by executions of some 1,400 detainees, according to Iran Human Rights. Additional uprisings against Iran’s so-called “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spanned the Green Movement of 2009, the Bloody November protest of 2019 and the gruesome events of this past January, in which some human rights groups estimate more than 30,000 Iranians were killed.

“There were body bags, but the regime could not even bury them fast enough,” said Hamid Kashani, an Iranian-American architect who has lived in the Twin Cities since 1973. “It pushed Iranians over the edge with this regime and how far they can go butchering their own people. At this point, any outside help appears welcome to most of us.”

Still, even Kashani — a founding member of the Minnesota Committee in Support of a Democratic Iran — holds mixed feelings toward the Trump administration’s joint decision with Israel to bomb Iran. Khamenei was killed by a targeted Israeli missile strike in Tehran on Saturday, ending a 36-year rule that Iranian-Americans have described as a reign of terror.

Will Iran be any different?

Even those who celebrate his death recognize that elsewhere in the world, American efforts to topple autocratic regimes and hand-pick their successors have arguably set democracy backwards by creating ripe conditions for new authoritarians to assume power, notably Iranian-aligned leadership in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Will Iran be any different?

“It’s a million dollar question,” said Kashani, who lives in the western suburbs outside Minneapolis.

“We’re looking on with great hesitation and worry for the country and its people,” he said. “We all support getting rid of this barbaric leader, and hope for better days to come. The only concern is the ultimate outcome. Will we achieve the freedom and democracy that this whole thing is about, or will we replace one dictator with another?”

Regime change

Parham Alaei, a professor of medical physics at the University of Minnesota, shares the same mixed emotions.

“It is crucial to note that the people of Iran do not need, nor do they want, direct outside intervention; they are fighting against the regime on their own,” wrote Alaei, in a December 2022 opinion piece for the Pioneer Press regarding the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement.

Fast forward three years, and “direct outside intervention” has suddenly shaken Iran’s repressive government, killed its Supreme Leader and raised a host of new questions. The loss of life on the ground gives him pause.

“I didn’t want the war to start, but now that it’s started … the best outcome of the war would be to have a regime change,” said Alaei on Monday.

He doubts the U.S. will enter Iran with ground troops, given that the country of 93 million people is the size of Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Polling shows the attacks on Iran have proven unpopular so far with the American people, who are unsure about the Trump administration’s goals.

The government and the people

Do Khamenei’s death and U.S. and Israeli missile strikes open the door to new power structures that could help the Iranian people, or will they lead to fresh crackdowns under an equally oppressive successor?

“It may weaken the regime such that the next time people rise up as they did in January, the regime won’t have the full force of manpower and equipment to massacre the people,” said Alaei, who is praying for the former over the latter. “The best outcome would be when this war ends, people would be able to topple the government, we’d have a provisional government set in place, and people could choose their government.”

“The problem with Iraq and Afghanistan was the U.S. appointed their leader for them,” he added. “That was a ‘nation-building’ scheme.”

In the U.S., Kashani hopes that everyday Americans will come to understand that the war is with the Iranian government, and not with the people of Iran, many but not all of whom have longed for Khamenei’s overthrow.

“There is a clear distinction between Iranian people and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Kashani said. “The government and the people are totally different sides of the table.”

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A Wisconsin woman who admitted she broke a 9-month old baby’s leg at a Woodbury day care center was sentenced to serve 45 days in jail in a plea agreement Monday afternoon.

Chantelle Michelle Cheri Vevang, 36, of Roberts, was charged in August 2024 with one felony count of malicious punishment of a child with substantial bodily harm after authorities said she broke the child’s leg at day care and lied about it.

In December, Vevang entered a guilty plea in Washington County court to a misdemeanor charge regarding “any person who by act, word, or omission encourages, causes, or contributes to a child’s need for protection or services.”

During the sentencing on Monday, the baby’s mother, Sarah Oxley, gave a victim impact statement saying that the harm done to her family and baby was more than just physical.

Away on work trip

Stepping Stones Early Learning Center in Woodbury was a place they trusted to keep their baby safe, Oxley said. On the day of the injury, she and her husband were out of the country for work, leaving their baby for the first time.

“We were already struggling with the distance, but we reassured ourselves she was safe with her grandparents, and safe at Stepping Stones day care.”

That day, they got a call saying their baby had fallen from a toy and was favoring her leg.

“But something in my heart just sank,” Oxley said. The next day they were told that the injury was not better and that “someone had heard a pop in her leg when doing a diaper change.”

They immediately made plans to return home.

“While we were standing in an airport trying desperately to get home, we got the call that shattered us,” she said. “Our 9-month-old daughter had a severely fractured femur. She needed emergency surgery,” she said.

The baby was put in a cast that went from her ankle to her chest.

“For five weeks, our active curious baby couldn’t move,” Oxley said. “She couldn’t crawl, she couldn’t pull herself up. She couldn’t sleep the way she was used to. She cried through the night in pain and frustration, and we felt completely helpless.”

They learned how to change diapers on a baby with a full-body cast, they gave her sponge baths on kitchen counters, had to buy special clothes and special car seats, she said.

“We watched our baby struggle to do simple things that she was just learning to do. But the physical injury is only part of this. We struggle every single day with trust. Every time her day care now calls, my heart drops into my stomach, and I relive that moment over and over again. Emma is still fearful of medical appointments. She clings to us and cries as if she believes she’s about to be hurt again.”

Oxley asked the judge to consider when handing down her sentence “not just the broken bone, but also the fear, the trauma, the sleepless nights, the loss of trust and the ongoing uncertainty that’s caused our family.”

Shame and anxiety

Christa Groshek, Vevang’s attorney, said upon meeting her client, she quickly realized Vevang was “very childlike herself.”

Over the past two years, Vevang seemed to have trouble understanding basic information about the legal process and the world around her. Groshek said her client lives with her parents and has been so overwhelmed with shame and anxiety that “for a year… she could not leave her house.”

She “continues to struggle with understanding the world around her” and has Turner’s Syndrome, a chromosomal condition that can include intellectual impairment.

Groshek said that the day care should have realized this.

“She has strong remorse, as the county attorney pointed out,” Groshek said. “She feels horrible for what happened…She’s very, very sorry for the harm the baby’s sustained.”

Groshek asked that in light of Vevang’s remorse, her intellectual struggles and her anxiety that the judge allow electronic monitoring instead of jail.

“I think that would be a very, very difficult thing for her, and I think it would set her back and I would worry strongly about her mental health,” Groshek said.

“I’m sorry for hurting and what happened to the child,” Vevang said. “I’m really sorry. And I love children. I don’t even know what happened. I am sorry. I’m greatly sorry. That’s all I have to say.”

Jail time

Prosecutor Tom Frenette said that although Vevang did express remorse, he asked for the judge to follow recommendations and sentence her to 45 days in jail.

Washington County Judge Siv Mjanger sentenced her to 364 days in jail with 319 of the days stayed so jail time would equal 45 days.

Mjanger said the sentence could be served in various ways including electronic monitoring or work service.

The criminal complaint gave the following details:

On April 11, 2024, Vevang was working in one of the infant rooms at Stepping Stones Early Learning Center in Woodbury caring for a 9-month-old baby girl when the injury occurred, authorities said.

Vevang initially said the baby awoke from her nap about 3 p.m. and “was fussy because she needed a diaper change.” Vevang said during the diaper change on the changing table “she might have applied a little too much pressure” in pushing the infant’s right leg back because she heard a “crack or pop sound.”

Vevang told authorities the baby cried in pain and screamed louder.

Saying she was “scared,” she finished the diaper change and put the baby on the floor before going to another infant room and telling another staff member that the baby had fallen after trying to pull herself up to stand.

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A medical team at Children’s Hospital said the injury was a “severe totally displaced femur fracture and that the injury could not have occurred from a routine diaper being changed, or from a routine fall,” according to the complaint. The medical team also found three small bruises not consistent with a fall or routine care.

A state Department of Human Services investigator said that a femoral fracture in a 9-month-old child was “unusual” and would take “excessive force.”

Along with the jail sentence and a $300 fine, Vevang was put on probation for 10 years with a series of restrictions including cognitive skills programming, a mental health assessment and being prohibited from working at a day care with children under five.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for California schools to tell parents if their children identify as transgender without getting the student’s approval, granting an emergency appeal from a conservative legal group.

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The order blocks for now a state law that bans automatic parental notification requirements if students change their pronouns or gender expression at school.

It comes after religious parents and educators challenged California school policies aimed at preventing schools from outing students to their families. Two sets of Catholic parents represented by the Thomas More Society say it caused schools to mislead them and secretly facilitate the children’s social transition despite their objections.

California argued that students have the right to privacy about their gender expression, especially if they fear rejection from their families, and school policies are aimed at striking a balance with parents’ rights.

The high court, though, sided with the parents and reinstated a lower-court order blocking the law and school policies while the case continues to play out.

The Supreme Court has ruled for religious plaintiffs in other recent cases, including allowing parents to pull their children from public-school lessons if they object to storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters.

The California order comes months after the court upheld state bans on gender-identity-related healthcare for minors. The justices also seem to be leaning toward allowing states to ban transgender athletes from playing on girls sports teams.

School policies for transgender students, meanwhile, have also been on the court’s radar in other cases.

The court rebuffed another similar case out of Wisconsin in December, but three conservative justices indicated they would have heard the case. Justice Samuel Alito called the school policies “an issue of great and growing national importance.”

The Trump administration, meanwhile, found in January that California’s policies violated parents’ right to access their children’s education records. The Justice Department also sued after determining the states’ transgender athlete policies violate federal civil rights law.

By JAMES ELLINGWORTH

Former U.S. Open tennis champion Daniil Medvedev has indicated he’s one of what the ATP Tour calls “a small number of players and team members” it is trying to help leave Dubai as the war in the Middle East causes a widespread travel shutdown that has also caused issues for athletes heading to the Paralympics.

Medvedev’s Instagram account reposted on Monday a report from a Russian-language tennis outlet, Bolshe, which said he was safe and staying at a friend’s apartment in Dubai, amid flight cancellations after winning the ATP event there last week.

“The health, safety and wellbeing of our players, staff and tournament personnel is our priority. We can confirm that a small number of players and team members remain in Dubai following the conclusion of the recent ATP 500 event,” the ATP Tour said in a statement Monday.

“They and their teams are being accommodated in the tournament’s official hotels, where their immediate needs are being fully supported.”

FILE – Daniil Medvedev of Russia plays a forehand return to Learner Tien of the U.S. during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake, file)

Medvedev and others are due to play at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, California, where main-draw matches start Wednesday.

“We are in direct communication with those affected, as well as with tournament organizers and security advisors,” the ATP said. “At this stage, travel assessments remain subject to ongoing assessment in line with airline operations and official guidance. We will continue to provide appropriate support to ensure players and their teams can depart safely when conditions allow.”

The Winter Paralympics open in Italy on Friday and some athletes are facing travel difficulties, the International Paralympic Committee said.

“We are in close contact with all delegations competing at the Games as well as other stakeholders. Many of the teams are already in Europe attending training or holding camps, but the closure of airspace in the Middle East is impacting the arrival of some stakeholders,” the IPC said in a statement.

The IPC confirmed to The Associated Press that the affected stakeholders include athletes.

“We would prefer not to comment on the status of individual delegations or stakeholders at this stage but can provide assurance that we are working diligently with Milano Cortina 2026 to find solutions for those affected,” the IPC added.

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Iran has one cross-country skier expected to compete at the March 6-15 Paralympics.

Cricketers from England and Pakistan’s men’s developmental teams were in the United Arab Emirates at the weekend ahead of Sunday’s game that was cancelled.

Youth basketball players also faced travel issues when a EuroLeague tournament there was canceled at the weekend.

Numerous sports events in the region have shut down, with Asian Champions League soccer games and the Qatari league on hold. The governing body which oversees Formula 1 said Monday it will focus on “safety and wellbeing” as it considers upcoming races in the region.

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis