Republican elected officials are choosing their words carefully, but many are starting to realize the federal government’s paramilitary crackdown on Minnesota has put them in political peril. Even President Donald Trump himself is showing belated signs of pulling back.

But Republicans will need to go much further if they’re going to stop the administration’s unraveling of American democracy and a less-noticed feature of the immigration raids — the assault on state sovereignty. Because of that threat, Republican governors are not only uniquely positioned to push back, they have an obligation to their states to do it.

After federal immigration agents killed Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday, the images of a rogue government pepper spraying, assaulting and killing civilians exercising their constitutional rights were juxtaposed with packed streets of Minnesotans withstanding subzero temperatures to chant, sing and march in protest.

By late Monday, when Trump reassigned Greg Bovino from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and promised to reduce the number of immigration officials in the city, it was clear he knew he had lost control of the narrative.

Boots on the street and elections

It is also clear that governors across the country are right to fear that the immigration crackdown is part of a larger effort to put boots on the streets as the federal government threatens to overhaul the election system before the 2026 midterm elections. Because the White House doesn’t respect that the Constitution gives the power to run elections to the states, the administration is attempting to assemble a national voter database in a backdoor attempt to take that power away. By controlling voter rolls, the executive branch can discredit the state results it doesn’t like. By normalizing the presence of armed troops on the ground, it can suppress turnout and create the conditions to influence the outcome of the election.

How else to explain Attorney General Pam Bondi’s shocking demand that Minnesota hand over voter roll data, issued the same day as Pretti’s killing? How else to explain the $75 billion Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget or the decision to deploy 3,000 immigration agents to a city of 500,000 that is 1,300 miles from the Southern border?

“The administration has really shown its hand,” said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center, which advocates for free and fair elections. “They’re using these violent ICE operations as a weapon to try to get states to change immigration policies, (and hand over) voter data — to shrink their power. The states are standing up and they’re pushing back.”

‘What is the end game?’

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, the chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association, has offered the most forceful Republican pushback yet. In an appearance on CNN Sunday, the conservative Stitt suggested the president was more focused on intimidation tactics than immigration enforcement.

“Americans are asking themselves, what is the end game? What is the solution?” he said. “…Nobody likes the feds coming to their states. And so what is the goal right now? Is it to deport every single non-U.S. citizen? I don’t think that’s what Americans want.”

Stitt has figured out something that other Republican governors should recognize: He answers to the voters in his state, not to the White House. If Trump wants to control what Oklahoma does, regardless of what voters elected the governor to do, then his agenda isn’t the same as Trump’s.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia — including the Republican-controlled state of Georgia — have sued the DOJ over its demand that they turn over private voter data. Oklahoma is among the Republican-controlled states that have not agreed to the request, but also have not sued. Bondi’s letter was seen as another attempt at forcing Minnesota to relent.

There are signs that some of Stitt’s peers are starting to see risk in remaining silent. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a longtime MAGA stalwart, called on the president to “recalibrate” his immigration operation. Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott said that Trump “should pause these operations, de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal government’s focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants.” If the president resists, he added, “Congress and the courts must step up to restore constitutionality.”

Congress is also beginning to get the message. Republican members of Congress who have already distinguished themselves as critics of the president — Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky — have been joined by a new crop of Republicans who say they want investigations into the ICE operations: Reps. James Comer of Kentucky, Michael McCaul of Texas, Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Curtis of Utah. And House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino, a Republican from New York, renewed calls for hearings focused on oversight of DHS.

Still, flip-floppers

The irony is that many other conservatives, including those who used to loudly proclaim the importance of “states’ rights” when Republican states limited abortion and expanded gun rights, have stayed silent as the federal government seeks to dictate how they enforce their laws and administer their elections. Others, such as Florida Republican Randy Fine, have cheered the federal incursions into local affairs.

The hypocrisy and cruelty have become such liabilities for Republicans that on Monday, lawyer Chris Madel, a GOP candidate for governor of Minnesota, ended his campaign saying he “cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state.” He blamed the party for making it “nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota.”

Not about immigration, but federal control

Efforts to hold DHS accountable are a start, but to maintain the system of federalism the Constitution’s authors intended, Republicans must do more: Denounce ICE’s tactics, call for ICE and Border Patrol to leave Minnesota and other states, demand unbiased and independent investigations into the deaths caused by federal immigration agents, and demonstrate that they trust the states to administer free and fair elections in the midterms.

Republican governors are best situated to call for these reforms. It’s time for them to admit that the siege of Minneapolis and other blue cities was never about immigration. It is about power, intimidation — and federal control.

Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades.

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By GEOFF MULVIHILL

Work requirements are kicking in for more older adults and parents of teenagers across the U.S. who get help with groceries through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The implementation dates vary by state: In some, people could lose benefits as soon as Sunday if they can’t show they’re working but many people have a month or more before their benefits are at risk.

Here’s what to know about the changes.

The law takes away exemptions for work requirements

A massive tax and spending bill signed into law in July by President Donald Trump expanded requirements for many adult SNAP recipients to work, volunteer or participate in job training for at least 80 hours a month. Those who don’t are limited to three months of benefits in a three-year period.

The work requirements previously applied to adults ages 18 through 54 who are physically and mentally able to work and don’t have dependents under age 18. The new law applies those requirements to those ages 55 through 64 and to parents without children younger than 14. It repeals work exemptions for homeless individuals, veterans and young adults aging out of foster care. And it limits the ability of states to waive work requirements in areas lacking jobs.

The new requirements are expected to reduce the average monthly number of SNAP recipients by about 2.4 million people over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The three-month clock is starting in some states and ending in others

When the requirements kick in depends on the state.

Texas started its requirement in October, so people there could have exhausted their three months of benefits by Jan. 1 and already been removed from the rolls.

Several states started the three-month clock in November, opening the possibility of people losing benefits in coming days. Among them are Alaska, Colorado, Georgia and Hawaii.

The requirements take effect Sunday in other states, including Illinois and Ohio. In those places, people could lose benefits in May. Ohio says people will have to show documentation of work starting in March.

Some states have exemptions because of relatively high unemployment rates, either statewide or in certain regions, that let them delay implementation. California’s waiver is scheduled to be in place until January 2027.

But most of those have ended or will soon. For most of New York, the work requirement is to start in March. But it began in October in Saratoga County.

Many SNAP beneficiaries already work

About 42 million people — or 1 in 8 Americans — receive the benefits. The majority are in households that have incomes below the poverty line, which is about $33,000 for a family of four.

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An analysis from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that about 3 in 5 people who benefit from SNAP are in families with children and more than 1 in 3 are in households with older adults or people with disabilities. Nearly 2 in 5 people are in households that include someone with a job.

The average benefit per person is about $190 per month.

The work requirement isn’t the only change to coming to SNAP.

Starting in October, states will be required to cover three-fourths of the administrative costs. Currently, state and federal governments divide the states’ cost of running the program roughly equally. In late 2027, states with higher error rates in payments will be required to cover some of the benefit costs.

A large swath of what’s left of the Twin Cities sports media was on a Zoom call with outgoing Twins president Derek Falvey on Friday when the Vikings announced that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was suddenly their outgoing general manager.

It was a surprise to most of the teleconference participants, who had their noses buried in Twins news, but no one was more surprised than Falvey, a friend of Adofo-Mensah who was just hearing the news from a newspaper columnist.

“Really unfortunate news,” Falvey said after gathering his bearings. “I didn’t know that. I love Kwesi.”

It’s not often that one of Minnesota’s four major pro sports teams parts with its personnel chief, and the Twins and Vikings did it within two hours of one another Friday. It was a surprise. Adofo-Mensah got a contract extension last May; Falvey had recently been named the Twins’ president of baseball and business operations and hired a new manager in November — not to mention that spring training starts in two weeks.

So, yeah, the timing was odd. But neither separation was totally unexpected.

Adofo-Mensah’s exit is the simpler to explain. In the parlance of “GoodFellas,” it was for Billy Batts, or more specifically, Sam Darnold.

A lot of people with a lot less personnel experience suspected it was a bad idea to ask J.J. McCarthy, in his first NFL season, to lead a team to the postseason, let alone an NFC title. When the Vikings finished the regular season strong despite poor quarterback play, and Darnold led Seattle to the Super Bowl, it didn’t look good for the guys who made that call.

Presumably, Kevin O’Connell was a big part of that decision, but he’s a) not the general manager and b) was notably able to keep a deflated team playing together and hard down the stretch.

Firing both would have been a complete re-start, and Adofo-Mensah was the easy choice. He has added some good free agents in his four seasons, but spent a lot of money to do it and has whiffed on some high draft picks. As a result, the Vikings are up against the salary cap and don’t know who their starting quarterback will be in 2026.

FILE – Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah answers questions during an NFL football press conference Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Eagan, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)

According to overthecap.com, only one team has a larger cap deficit than Minnesota, and it’s the Kansas City Chiefs — who have played in five of the past six Super Bowls and won three. The Vikings haven’t been there since 1977. It’s not surprising ownership wanted to move on.

Falvey is a little more of a head-scratcher if you just look at the resume. In nine years as the team’s president of baseball operations, he built three American League Central Division winners and four playoff teams. Many of the draft choices he made with then-GM Thad Levine. And while only the 2023 team won a playoff series, that team snapped what was a major league record 18-game postseason losing skid.

But Falvey was noticeably uncomfortable with ownership’s decision to slash payroll by $30 million after that season, and had a difficult time explaining why the team traded away 10 of its best players at the deadline last July.

“It’s been a challenge at times,” he acknowledged Friday. “I’d be lying to say anything else.”

The last two months of the 2025 season were hard on anyone watching the Twins. Left with a team full of young position players still finding their way in the majors, the Twins couldn’t hit and didn’t have a bullpen because they traded away their best five relievers. The results were predictable.

The three free agents the Twins have signed this winter are reasonable additions, but none of them are likely to move the needle. Fans see a long road back to competitiveness ahead; after a third straight season of belt-tightening, it’s impossible to imagine Falvey didn’t feel the same way.

Both Falvey and new executive chair Tom Pohlad described Friday’s move as mutual. That’s often a transparent euphemism for someone getting fired, but in this case, it seems accurate.

“I think what we shared is a sense of urgency to be decisive about doing what’s in the best interest of the Twins, and this was what we were decisive about,” Pohlad said.

Falvey might not have been expecting to leave right before spring training starts, but if the past two seasons weren’t a sign of things to come, he certainly got a good look while discussing the landscape over the past few weeks with his new boss.

In the end, not so surprising.

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By JESSICA HILL

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada jury on Friday convicted “Dances With Wolves” actor Nathan Chasing Horse of sexually assaulting a minor.

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The jurors in Las Vegas found Chasing Horse guilty of multiple charges of sexual assault. He was acquitted on other sexual assault charges.

He had pleaded not guilty to all 21 charges and his defense attorneys said he was falsely accused. Prosecutors said Chasing Horse used his reputation as a Lakota medicine man to prey on Indigenous women and girls. Most of the guilty verdicts returned by the jury centered on Chasing Horse’s conduct with a victim who was 14 years old when Chasing Horse began assaulting her.

The verdicts mark the climax of a yearslong effort to prosecute Chasing Horse after he was first arrested and indicted in 2023 in a case that sent shock waves through Indian Country.

As the verdict was read, Chasing Horse stood quietly. Victims and their supporters cried and hugged in the hallway while wearing yellow ribbons.

“Dances With Wolves” was one of the most prominent films featuring Native American actors when it premiered in 1990. After Chasing Horse appeared in the Oscar-winning film, he traveled across North America and performed healing ceremonies.

His trial came as authorities have responded more in recent years to an epidemic of violence against Native women.

Nathan Chasing Horse, center, confers with attorneys as he appears in court for his trial on charges of sexually abusing Indigenous women and girls Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

During the three-week trial, jurors heard from three women who say Chasing Horse sexually assaulted them, some of whom were underage at the time.

Clark County Deputy District Attorney Bianca Pucci said in her closing statements Wednesday that for almost 20 years, Chasing Horse “spun a web of abuse” that caught many women.

Defense attorney Craig Mueller said in his closing statements there was no evidence, including eyewitnesses. He questioned the main accuser’s credibility, describing her as a “scorned woman.”

Prosecutors said sexual assault cases rarely have eyewitnesses and often happen behind closed doors.

The main accuser was 14 years old in 2012 when Chasing Horse allegedly told her the spirits wanted her to give up her virginity to save her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer. He then sexually assaulted her and told her that if she told anyone, her mother would die, Pucci said during opening statements.