With maintenance costs mounting, the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents has agreed to sell the historic Eastcliff mansion in St. Paul to the University of Minnesota Foundation, an independent nonprofit that manages major gifts on behalf of the school.

The $2.2 million sale will allow the foundation to lease the 20-room structure back to the university on a 40-year lease, rent-free, so it can continue to serve as the university president’s residence. Revenue from the sale will be put into a new maintenance account that will help cover the building’s day-to-day operating expenses, which total roughly $300,000 annually.

“To have one less old building that we have to maintain, to me there’s no other choice but to support this resolution,” said Gregg Goldman, the university’s executive vice president for finance and operations, prior to the 9-2 vote.

The goal of the sale, according to board members, is to leave future capital improvements in the hands of the nonprofit foundation, an independent entity that works closely with the university but that has its own board of directors, while allowing the school itself to retain ownership of the land it sits on and control of the building’s everyday management.

Built by lumber magnate Edward Brooks in 1921 overlooking the Mississippi River, Eastcliff has housed university presidents since the early 1960s and doubles as an event and welcome center for visiting dignitaries. Board members said transferring Eastcliff to the foundation would be in keeping with the spirit of the Brooks family’s 1958 donation, allowing the house to remain in service to the university and maintained by the school on a day-to-day basis.

Goldman encouraged the board to make what he described as a fiscally responsible decision to support the sale at a time of rising tuition and growing fiscal pressures, when too much of the university feels “held together with bubble gum and bailing wire.”

Two voices of dissent

The home, which sits on the National Register of Historic Places, is undergoing some $6 million in renovations in advance of the arrival of Dr. Rebecca Cunningham, who was appointed university president in July 2024. Those renovations are being paid for by the foundation, according to a spokesperson for the university on Thursday.

Board vice chair Penny Wheeler noted the sale follows the recommendation of the Eastcliff task force, which had encouraged using philanthropy to support the building’s growing capital expenses after previously mulling the possibility of a sale. The Board of Regents voted unanimously in July 2024 to support that recommendation.

The foundation, Wheeler said, “is in a perfect position” and “given the renovations currently under way, this is a really timely move for us as the Board of Regents. … If for some reason the foundation is unable to maintain (it), it comes back to university hands.”

Regents James Farnsworth, who represents the district Eastcliff sits in, and Robyn Gulley voted against the sale after expressing concern about transferring a historic university asset to an independent nonprofit. Regent Mary Turner was absent.

“I see the task force report — that I did vote in favor of in July 2024 — a little bit differently,” Farnsworth said. “(I) don’t see this proposed real estate transaction necessary in any way to help honor … those goals.”

“I won’t be able to support this today,” Farnsworth added. “This proposed transaction doesn’t feel right to me.”

Foundation’s long ties

Board vice chair Ruth Johnson noted that the foundation also owns the McNamara Alumni Center in Minneapolis, where the board’s finance and operations committee met Thursday — “the one we’re in right now,” she said.

“Our work is not affected here whatsoever by the fact that they own it,” added Johnson, who serves on the board of the U foundation and on an Eastcliff advisory board. The house is “an important part of our history. … But we can have them do the heavy lifting of supporting that.”

The 10,000-square-foot mansion has been home to eight university presidents and one governor since 1961. A frequent stop for visiting dignitaries, Eastcliff hosted the Dalai Lama in 2011.

Gov. Tim Walz and his family recently spent 19 months in Eastcliff while the governor’s Summit Avenue residence was undergoing its own improvements. The state’s first family left Eastcliff in February.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN and ISABEL DEBRE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States directly purchased Argentine pesos on Thursday and finalized a $20 billion currency swap line with Argentina’s central bank, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post, a rare move aimed at stabilizing turbulent financial markets in the cash-strapped Latin American ally.

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“U.S. Treasury is prepared, immediately, to take whatever exceptional measures are warranted to provide stability to markets,” Bessent said, adding that the Treasury Department held four days of meetings with Argentine Economy Minister Luis Caputo in Washington D.C. to cement the deal.

Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei, a fervent admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump, thanked Bessent for his “strong support” and Trump for his “powerful leadership.”

“Together, as the closest of allies, we will make a hemisphere of economic freedom and prosperity,” Milei said in a social media post.

Bessent, under fire from U.S. farmers and Democratic lawmakers, has insisted that the credit swap is not a bailout. Farmers are angry about the idea of rescuing Argentina, whose own farmers have benefited from a recent gush of sales of soybeans to China at the expense of their U.S. counterparts. Lawmakers have pushed Trump to explain how this financial help aligns with his “America First” agenda.

After the announcement Thursday, a group of Democratic Senators introduced the “No Argentina Bailout Act,” which would stop the Treasury Department from using its Exchange Stabilization Fund assist Argentina.

“It is inexplicable that President Trump is propping up a foreign government, while he shuts down our own,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “Trump promised ‘America First,’ but he’s putting himself and his billionaire buddies first and sticking Americans with the bill.”

It doesn’t help that repeated bailouts have failed to stabilize the crisis-stricken economy of Argentina. As the International Monetary Fund’s biggest debtor, it owes the global lender a staggering $41.8 billion.

Milei, a wild-haired far-right economist, came to office in late 2023 on the bold promise that this time would be different.

He vowed to take a chainsaw to reckless public spending that he inherited from his left-wing predecessor. But his radical austerity program has been painful, with no economic revival in sight and Argentines are losing patience.

Now Milei faces his greatest test yet as he heads into a midterm congressional election on Oct. 26 that could decide the fate of his free-market experiment. A disastrous defeat in local elections last month triggered a sudden exodus from Argentine assets as investors fretted over the country’s political dysfunction, overvalued peso and rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves.

The U.S. financial help offers Milei a crucial reprieve. On Thursday, Argentina’s dollar-denominated bonds rose about 10% on Bessent’s confirmation of the credit line and the Buenos Aires stock market surged 15%.

Economy Minister Caputo expressed his “deepest gratitude” to Bessent following the announcement.

“Your steadfast commitment has been remarkable,” he wrote.

Bessent made no mention of any economic conditions attached to the swap line for Argentina, leading many observers to criticize the intervention as a pre-election reward for a loyal friend rather than an investment in a strategic partner.

DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A St. Paul police sergeant says God put her and other officers in the right place at the right time when a runner collapsed during the Twin Cities Marathon weekend 10k.

Sgt. Colleen Rooney and three other officers gave CPR to the man, who’s in his early 40s and who’d gone into cardiac arrest during last October’s 6.2-mile race. He survived.

“You never know when your last day is,” Rooney said. “We’re really lucky to have been trained and have instinct kick in.”

Deputy St. Paul Police Chief Tim Flynn presented the department’s Life-Saving Award to Rooney, Sgts. Christopher Langr and Timothy Moore, and Officer Jonathan Schroeder on Thursday.

He told them they acted selflessly and bravely, and their “decision-making and ability to remain calm under pressure undoubtedly made a significant difference in the outcome of the incident.”

‘Team effort’

Moore and Rooney were supervisors along the race route. Officers are assigned to main streets, but not all smaller streets. Moore pointed out there wasn’t an officer at Summit Avenue and Griggs Street, and suggested Rooney cover it.

The St. Paul Police Department presented four officers with the department’s Life-Saving Award on Oct. 9, 2025, at the Western District station in St. Paul. They gave CPR to a runner who went into cardiac arrest during the Twin Cities Marathon 10k in 2024, and the man survived. The recipients were, from left to right, Sgt. Timothy Moore, Sgt. Colleen Rooney, Sgt. Christopher Langr and Officer Jonathan Schroeder. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

“I took his direction and went there, and that’s exactly the intersection where this man went down,” Rooney said. “… I think God put us there at the right time.”

Rooney began CPR and radioed that the runner was unconscious and not breathing. Moore arrived to assist with CPR, as did Schroeder and Langr, who was an officer at the time.

It was “completely a team effort,” Moore said. Doing CPR “is exhausting. It’s one of those things that you don’t realize, I guess ’til you’ve done it in real life, that it takes a lot out of you. And we needed to rotate, and that’s what we were doing.”

Runners “stopped to check, to … see if there was anything that they could do to help,” Moore added.

St. Paul Fire Department medics had to contend with Summit Avenue being closed for the race and the large number of runners to get there, Flynn said. They delivered a shock to the man using a defibrillator and his heart started pumping again. They transported him to Regions Hospital for treatment.

The officers received an update the next day that the man had survived.

2nd life-saving award for 2 of the officers

Rooney said of Schroeder, who became a St. Paul officer in 2024: “This young man … was in his second phase of field training … and did an amazing job.”

Moore said that every time he puts on his uniform, he tries to be ready for anything that could happen.

“How I feel about it is fortunate,” he said.

“There’s people that sit home and watch the news and say, ‘Gosh, I wish I could have been there to do something.’ … With this job, we’re fortunate enough to be in those situations where we can do things to help people, and that’s why it’s the best job around.”

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Still, Moore felt mixed emotions about receiving the award.

“This is what we’re supposed to do,” he said of their actions. It “shouldn’t be anything really out of the ordinary. But at the same time, it’s cool that the chief and people recognize this.”

The Life-Saving Award is the fourth highest honor in the St. Paul Police Department.

For Langr and Rooney, it was their second time receiving the award.

Langr was a recipient after he and another officer were on patrol in 2021, heard gunshots and found a victim with life-threatening injuries. Rooney received it for providing aid to a woman after a serious domestic assault in the early 2010s.

The city of Falcon Heights hosts their Fall Fest this Saturday at Falcon Heights Elementary School.

​ The event is a free event to celebrate the fall season from 1 to 3 p.m. This is the second annual Fall Fest for Falcon Heights, according to City Administrator Jack Linehan.

“We started Fall Fest to get people out of their homes meet their neighbors and build some community,” Linehan said.

The event will include members of the St. Anthony Police Department and the St. Paul Fire Department through the Touch a Truck activity, according to the Falcon Heights website. Some of the other events include a bouncy house, axe-throwing, and yard games.

There will be food and beverages from Karol Coffee and Floyd’s Mini Doughnuts.

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