Bison return to Afton’s Belwin Conservancy this weekend

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A herd of 29 juvenile male bison will arrive Saturday at their Afton summer home — 130 fenced-in acres at Belwin Conservancy.

The herd is on loan from NorthStar Bison in Rice Lake, Wis., which raises the animals for meat. While at Belwin, they graze freely and help restore the prairie.

The Saturday release, which is open to the public, has become a popular event. Hundreds of visitors attend the event each spring.

The bison are scheduled to arrive at noon.

The Belwin Bison Festival, which takes place at Belwin’s Lucy Winton Bell Athletic Fields, starts at 10 a.m. with a 5K “Run with the Bison” fun run through the prairie. Registration is required. The cost is $20 through noon on Friday; the day-of entry fee is $25. The run is free for children 12 and under, but they must be registered by a parent or guardian through the online system, or sign a waiver in person on Saturday. Check-in begins at 9 a.m., and the line-up starts at 9:45 a.m.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., there will be family-friendly activities including educational displays, live music, interactive eco-art and food trucks. The cost to attend the bison release is $10 per car; cash or check only, payable as you drive in; no RSVP is required. Dogs are not allowed at the event.

Event details, including parking and shuttle information, can be found at belwin.org/event/belwin-bison-festival/.

Visitors can view the bison at Belwin throughout the summer via a two-story observation platform, open daily from dawn to dusk.

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Supreme Court orders Louisiana to use congressional map with additional Black district in 2024 vote

posted in: Politics | 0

By MARK SHERMAN and KEVIN McGILL (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Louisiana to hold congressional elections in 2024 using a House map with a second mostly Black district, despite a lower-court ruling that called the map an illegal racial gerrymander.

The order allows the use of a map that has majority Black populations in two of the state’s six congressional districts, potentially boosting Democrats’ chances of gaining control of the closely divided House of Representatives in the 2024 elections.

The justices acted on emergency appeals filed by the state’s top Republican elected officials and Black voters who said they needed the high court’s intervention to avoid confusion as the elections approach. About a third of Louisiana is Black.

The Supreme Court’s order does not deal with a lower-court ruling that found the map relied too heavily on race. Instead, it only prevents yet another new map from being drawn for this year’s elections.

The Supreme Court could decide at a later date to hear arguments over the decision striking down the Louisiana map.

The court’s three liberal justices dissented from Wednesday’s order. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the judges who struck down the latest map should have had the chance to produce a new map before the high court intervened.

“There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” Jackson wrote.

Liberal justices have dissented from prior Supreme Court orders that put decisions near elections on hold. Those orders invoked the need to give enough time to voters and election officials to ensure orderly balloting. “When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote two years ago in a similar case from Alabama. The court has never set a firm deadline for how close is too close.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she was pleased with the order. “The Secretary of State has consistently stated she needed a map by May 15,” Murrill said in an emailed statement. “The plaintiffs did not contest it at trial. We will continue to defend the law and are grateful the Supreme Court granted the stay which will ensure we have a stable election season.”

A lawyer for the Black voters praised the court’s action. “We are very relieved that SCOTUS agreed with us that it’s too close to the election to insert uncertainty. … We will have a map with 2 majority black districts this fall,” Jared Evans, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, wrote in a text using an abbreviation for the Supreme Court.

Edward Greim and Paul Hurd, attorneys for plaintiffs who challenged the new map said Wednesday’s order lets the state impose a “brutal racial gerrymander” on 2024 voters who will cast ballots in districts “segregated by race.” But they predicted eventual victory in the case.

Louisiana has had two congressional maps blocked by federal courts in the past two years in a swirl of lawsuits that included a previous intervention by the Supreme Court.

The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 Census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district.

Noting the size of the state’s Black population, civil rights advocates challenged the map in a Baton Rouge-based federal court and won a ruling from U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick that the districts likely discriminated against Black voters.

The Supreme Court put Dick’s ruling on hold while it took up a similar case from Alabama. The justices allowed both states to use the maps in the 2022 elections even though both had been ruled likely discriminatory by federal judges.

The high court eventually affirmed the ruling from Alabama and returned the Louisiana case to federal court, with the expectation that new maps would be in place for the 2024 elections.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave lawmakers in Louisiana a deadline of early 2024 to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-imposed map.

New Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, had defended Louisiana’s congressional map as attorney general. Now, though, he urged lawmakers to pass a new map with another majority Black district at a January special session. He backed a map that created a new majority Black district stretching across the state, linking parts of the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas.

A different set of plaintiffs, a group of self-described non-African Americans, filed suit in western Louisiana, claiming that the new map was also illegal because it was driven too much by race, in violation of the Constitution. A divided panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 in April in their favor and blocked use of the new map.

Landry and Murrill, a Republican ally, argued that the new map should be used, saying it was adopted with political considerations — not race — as a driving factor. They note that it provides politically safe districts for House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, fellow Republicans. Some lawmakers have also noted that the one Republican whose district is greatly altered in the new map, Rep. Garret Graves, supported a GOP opponent of Landry in last fall’s governor’s race. The change to Graves’ district bolsters the argument that politics was the driving factor rather than race, lawmakers have said.

Voting patterns show a new mostly Black district would give Democrats the chance to capture another House seat and send a second Black representative to Congress from Louisiana. Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields, a former congressman who is Black, had said he will run for Congress in the new district, if it’s in place for the next election.

___

McGill reported from New Orleans.

US border arrests fall in April, bucking usual spring increase as Mexico steps up enforcement

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Arrests for illegally crossing the U.S. border from Mexico fell more than 6% in April to the fourth lowest month of the Biden administration, authorities said Wednesday, bucking the usual spring increase.

U.S. officials have largely attributed the decline to more enforcement in Mexico, including in yards where migrants are known to board freight trains. Mexico won’t allow more than 4,000 illegal crossings a day to the U.S., Alicia Barcena, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, told reporters Tuesday, down from more than 10,000 Border Patrol arrests on some days in December.

Migrants were arrested 128,900 times in April, down from 137,480 in March and barely half a record-high of 249,737 in December, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. While still historically high, the sharp decline in arrests since late December is welcome news for President Joe Biden on a key issue that has nagged him in election-year polls.

Troy Miller, Customs and Border Protection’s acting commissioner, said more enforcement, including deportations, and cooperation with other countries resulted in lower numbers.

“As a result of this increased enforcement, southwest border encounters have not increased, bucking previous trends. We will remain vigilant to continually shifting migration patterns,” he said.

Authorities granted entry to 41,400 people in April at land crossings with Mexico through an online appointment app called CBP One, bringing the total to more than 591,000 since it was introduced in January 2023.

The U.S. also allows up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuela if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive on commercial flights. About 435,000 entered the country that way through April, including 91,000 Cubans, 166,700 Haitians, 75,700 Nicaraguans and 101,200 Venezuelans.

Stillwater: Celebration planned to mark end of Historic Courthouse’s $4.5M makeover

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The grand reopening celebration of the Historic Courthouse in Stillwater, which recently underwent extensive renovations, will be June 8.

The event, which begins at 10 a.m., will include speakers and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., staff from Washington County Parks will provide educational programming and activities.

Contractors work on scaffolding wrapped in debris containment netting as they restore the exterior of the Washington County Historic Courthouse in Stillwater on Oct. 19, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The courthouse was closed for almost a year as it underwent a massive $4.5 million exterior restoration that included replacing the roof; repairing the cupola and dome; repairing and replacing deteriorated bricks and mortar; waterproofing the foundation; and installing new downspouts, among other work.

It was the second major shutdown for the courthouse in recent years. It abruptly closed in June 2022 for several months when crews discovered a fracture in one of the heavy timber trusses holding up the roof of the 1870 building.

Regular hours of operation for the Historic Courthouse, located at 101 W. Pine St., are 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

For more information about the Historic Courthouse, including tour and rental information, go to www.co.washington.mn.us/2204/Historic-Courthouse, call 651-275-7075 or email parks@co.washington.mn.us.

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