The city of St. Paul plans to lease more than 10,000 square feet within the Osborn 370 building on Wabasha Street, covering the building’s entire ninth floor, for eight years. What will that square footage be used for? Therein lies the question.

The lease at 9 Fifth St. E., approved Wednesday by the St. Paul City Council, allows for flexible move-in dates and below-market rates, with the first 12 months rent-free. That gives the city some time to complete a “space use” study with the help of real estate consultants, who will attempt to determine which city offices will make best use of the new floor and in what manner.

It might become collaborative work space for the city to engage with private sector partners, or it may support departments with space shortages, such as the city attorney’s office.

It also may be used as upgraded space for staff committed to working downtown more than three days per week, said Bruce Engelbrekt, the city’s real estate manager, addressing the city council on Wednesday.

City offices

With many office staff on a hybrid work schedule, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter floated the idea last year of clearing out the downtown City Hall Annex building on Fourth Street and converting the property into residences, which remains a possibility.

“We’re trying to think strategically about how to use our purchasing power and people power to help be part of the solution,” said Council President Rebecca Noecker.

City offices are largely but not exclusively spread throughout the City Hall/Ramsey County Courthouse building at 15 West Kellogg Blvd. and the annex building directly across the street.

The city’s Department of Safety and Inspections works out of a building on Jackson Street, which is owned by Madison Equities, an embattled downtown property owner that has recently lost control of some of its buildings to foreclosure and receivership.

‘Minimal upfront investments’

The study likely will at least touch on library staff based at the downtown George Latimer Central Library.

“We have a question into (the consultants) whether the mayor’s office and the city council offices should be part of the study, because of your need to be located in this building,” Engelbrekt said. “We need to specifically look at those (offices) that have some space needs.”

Council Member Cheniqua Johnson noted Osborn 370 has developed a positive reputation downtown, drawing notable tenants such as the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation.

The Osborn 370 floor is partially furnished, allowing “minimal up-front investment to move and establish operations,” according to the council resolution approved Wednesday.

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By MATT OTT, AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. fell this week for the first time in a month, but borrowing costs for homebuyers remain elevated.

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The long-term rate dipped to 6.85% from 6.89% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.99%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also came down. The average rate fell to 5.99% from 6.03% last week and 6.29% a year ago, Freddie Mac said.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. The key barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Bond yields have retreated the past week but broadly have been trending higher since hitting 2025 lows in early April, reflecting investors’ uncertainty over the Trump administration’s ever-changing tariffs policy and worry over exploding federal government debt.

The 10-year Treasury yield was 4.39% in midday trading Thursday, down from 4.54% a week ago.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) — Six weeks before UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel in December, suspect Luigi Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and said killing the executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming,” prosecutors revealed Wednesday.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office quoted extensively from Mangione’s handwritten diary — highlighting his desire to kill an insurance honcho and praise for Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber — as they fight to uphold his state murder charges. They also cited a confession they say he penned “To the feds,” in which he wrote that “it had to be done.”

Mangione’s lawyers want the state case thrown out, arguing in court papers that those charges and a parallel federal death penalty case amount to double jeopardy.

They also want state terrorism charges dismissed, have asked for the federal case to go first and say prosecutors should be barred from using evidence collected during Mangione’s arrest, including a 9mm handgun, statements to police and the diary.

Manhattan prosecutors contend that there are no double jeopardy issues because neither case has gone to trial and because the state and federal prosecutions involve different legal theories.

His lawyers say that has created a “legal quagmire” that makes it “legally and logistically impossible to defend against them simultaneously.”

The state charges, which carry a maximum of life in prison, allege that Mangione wanted to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” that is, insurance employees and investors. The federal charges allege that Mangione stalked an individual, Thompson, and do not involve terror allegations.

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty in both cases. No trial dates have been set.

Mangione’s “intentions were obvious from his acts, but his writings serve to make those intentions explicit,” prosecutors said in Wednesday’s filing. The writings, which they sometimes described as a manifesto, “convey one clear message: that the murder of Brian Thompson was intended to bring about revolutionary change to the healthcare industry.”

They quoted excerpts in which Mangione discussed options for the attack, such as bombing UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters, before deciding to target the company’s investor conference in Manhattan. He wrote about plans to “wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention” because it was “targeted, precise and doesn’t risk innocents.”

UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. health insurer, “literally extracts human life force for money,” Mangione wrote, envisioning the news headline, “Insurance CEO killed at annual investors conference.”

The company has said he was never a client.

Mangione is due back in state court June 26, when Judge Gregory Carro is expected to rule on his request for dismissal.

His lawyers asked Tuesday for his handcuffs and bulletproof vest to be removed during the hearing. They called him a “a model prisoner, a model defendant” and said the security measures would suggest to potential jurors that he is dangerous. Carro has not ruled on that.

Mangione’s next federal court date is Dec. 5, a day after the one-year anniversary of Thompson’s death.

Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind as he arrived for the conference Dec. 4 at the New York Hilton Midtown. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione was arrested Dec. 9 at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) to the west, and he is being held in a federal jail in Brooklyn.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has called the ambush “a killing that was intended to evoke terror.”

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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in April that she was directing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for “an act of political violence” and a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”

The killing and ensuing search for Mangione rattled the business community while galvanizing health insurance critics who rallied around him as a stand-in for frustrations over coverage denials and hefty bills. Supporters have flocked to his court appearances and flooded him with mail.

Mangione “demonstrated in his manifesto that he was a revolutionary anarchist who would usher in a better healthcare system by killing the CEO” of one of the biggest U.S. companies, prosecutors wrote. “This brutal, cowardly murder was the mechanism that defendant chose to bring on that revolution.”

By JENNIFER PELTZ and CEDAR ATTANASIO

NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors started deliberating Thursday in Harvey Weinstein ’s New York sex crimes retrial, tasked with deciding — again — a case that encapsulated the #MeToo movement.

The seven-woman, five-man jury is considering two counts of criminal sex act and one count of rape, each relating to a different accuser and a different date. In this case, the criminal sex act charge is the higher-degree felony. The jury got the case after a juror was replaced by an alternate after she couldn’t come to court due to illness.

Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty.

Nearly eight years ago, a series of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar-winning movie producer propelled the #MeToo movement. Some of those accusations later generated criminal charges and convictions in New York and California.

The New York conviction from 2020 was subsequently overturned, leading to the retrial before a new jury and a different judge.

Jurors heard more than five weeks of testimony, including lengthy and sometimes fiery questioning of Weinstein’s three accusers in the case.

Jessica Mann said he raped her in 2013, when she was trying to build an acting career. Miriam Haley accused him of forcibly performing oral sex on her in 2006, when she was looking for work in entertainment production.

Kaja Sokola, who wasn’t involved in Weinstein’s first trial, told jurors that he forced oral sex on her, too, during 2006. At the time, she was a teenage fashion model trying to break into acting.

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“They all had dreams of pursuing careers in the defendant’s world, the entertainment industry,” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg told jurors in her closing argument Tuesday. She contended that Weinstein let the women think he was interested in their careers when what actually interested him were their bodies, and “he was going to have their bodies and touch their bodies whether they wanted him to or not.”

Weinstein chose not to testify. His defense called other witnesses, including some former friends of Sokola’s and Mann’s.

Weinstein’s attorneys argued that all three accusers consented to Weinstein’s advances because they wanted help with their Hollywood aims. All three stayed on friendly terms with him afterward, a point the defense emphasized.

“It’s transactional, folks. Yes, he wants to fool around with them, and yes, they want something from him,” defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said in his summation Tuesday.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. Sokola, Mann and Haley have agreed to be named.