The Minnesota Department of Human Services on Monday announced a new push to scrutinize providers in state-run Medicaid programs at high risk for fraud, including a significant expansion of unannounced site visits.

Human Services’ plan to significantly expand on-site validations comes as federal officials threaten to cut off Medicaid funding amid accusations of significant, widespread fraud in programs administered by the agency.

The state is currently appealing a January decision by the administration of President Donald Trump to withhold more than $2 billion in Medicaid funding from 14 high-risk programs. Funding remains in place as the appeals process continues.

Visits to provider in all 87 counties

Starting this week, Human Services is making a call out to Minnesota’s tens of thousands of state employees seeking individuals to fill 168 new positions to visit providers in all 87 counties, according to state Medicaid Director John Connolly.

Officials said the agency currently has “nowhere near” that number of staff for direct site visits, which typically happen every few years to verify that businesses claiming reimbursement from the state are indeed operating where they say they are. Training of new site inspectors is set to begin this month.

“We’ve never done anything on this scale before with provider revalidations, but the people of Minnesota deserve this level of effort so they can be confident in the programming that we offer,” Connolly told reporters on a call announcing the change.

Between now and May, Human Services plans to revalidate more than 5,800 Medicaid providers, including verification of ownership, credentials, background checks and locations. Providers fall under the 13 high-risk programs that are still running but not accepting new licenses.

Federal scrutiny

Changes are part of efforts to engage with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which has ramped up threats against the state due to accusations of fraud.

While the exact numbers remain in dispute, former assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson estimated that at least half of the $18 billion in payments in “high-risk” state-run Medicaid programs since 2018 could have been lost to fraud.

State officials, including Gov. Tim Walz, have called that number speculative, and Human Services said available evidence suggested a figure in the hundreds of millions in the same timeframe.

Programs affected by fraud include Housing Stabilization Services — which Human Services moved to shutter in August 2025 after a federal fraud investigation came to light and autism support services.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Trump appointee, threatened federal funding to Minnesota in December and demanded that state officials put together a “corrective action plan” on fraud.

State appeal may drag on for months

What followed was a series of changes by Human Services — including cutting off new licenses and provider enrollments in more than a dozen programs at high risk for fraud. But federal officials ultimately found the changes unsatisfactory and moved to cut off funding in January.

Connolly said he was disappointed by federal officials’ rejection of their draft action plan, and in a Jan 9 response letter, disputed the legality and legitimacy of Oz’s announcement that he would cut off funding.

The appeal likely will drag out for months. There is no hearing set for Minnesota’s appeal of Oz’s decision, but state officials expect a hearing officer to get the case sometime in mid-March. Once that happens, the officer will set a date.

Meanwhile, the state continues to revise its fraud action plan, Connolly said.

High risk programs

Programs deemed high risk by Minnesota include: Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention Services for Autism; Integrated Community Supports; Nonemergency Medical Transportation; Peer Recovery Services; Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services; Adult Day Services; Personal Care Assistance/Community First Services and Supports; Recuperative Care; Individualized

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Home Supports; Adult Companion Services; Night Supervision; Assertive Community Treatment; Intensive Residential Treatment Services; and Housing Stabilization Services.

One of the 14 programs, Housing Stabilization Services, is no longer operating. Human Services ended the program in October after learning of a federal investigation into allegations of significant fraud.

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk is joining his space exploration and artificial intelligence ventures into a single company before a massive planned initial public offering for the business later this year.

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His rocket venture, SpaceX, announced on Monday that it had bought xAI in an effort to help the world’s richest man dominate the rocket and artificial intelligence businesses. The deal will combine several of his offerings, including his AI chatbot Grok, his satellite communications company Starlink, and his social media company X.

Musk has talked repeatedly about the need to speed development of technology that will allow data centers to operate in space to solve the problem of overcoming the huge costs in electricity and other resources in building and running AI systems on Earth.

It’s a goal that Musk said in his announcement of the deal could become much easier to reach with a combined company.

“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale,” Musk wrote on SpaceX’s website Monday, then added in reference to solar power, “It’s always sunny in space!”

Musk said in SpaceX’s announcement he estimates “that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.”

It’s not a prediction shared by other many companies building data centers, including Microsoft.

“I’ll be surprised if people move from land to low-Earth-orbit,” Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, told The Associated Press last month, when asked about the alternatives to building data centers in the U.S. amid rising community opposition.

SpaceX won’t be the first to explore the idea of putting AI data centers in space. Google last year revealed a new research project called Project Suncatcher that would equip solar-powered satellites with AI computer chips.

Mississippi officials last month announced that xAI is set to spend $20 billion to build a data center near the state’s border with Tennessee.

The data center, called MACROHARDRR, a likely pun on Microsoft’s name, will be its third data center in the greater Memphis area.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER

The Trump administration is eliminating four out of the six locations that had been slated for a practice test to try out new methods for the 2030 census, raising concerns that the U.S. Census Bureau might not learn enough about communities that have been traditionally difficult to count.

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The test, which started Monday, will be conducted only in Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina, according to a notice submitted by the Commerce Department that will be formally published on Tuesday. The Commerce Department oversees the Census Bureau.

Four other sites — Colorado Springs, Colorado, tribal lands in Arizona, western North Carolina and western Texas — originally were included when the Census Bureau announced the locations in 2024.

The bureau didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry on Monday about the reasons for the reduced number of sites. In a statement on its website, it said it “remains committed to conducting the most accurate count in history for the 2030 Census and looks forward to the continued partnership with local communities.”

Mark Mather, an associate vice president at the Population Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan research group, said limiting the test to just two metro areas in the South would be “a step backward.”

“The Census Bureau would be essentially flying blind into communities that need testing most — tribal lands, rural areas with limited connectivity and places with historically low response rates,” Mather said. “You can’t fix what you don’t test.”

The test is supposed to give the statistical agency the chance to learn how to better tally populations that were undercounted in the 2020 census and improve methods that will be used in 2030. It also allows it to test its messaging and its ability to process data as it’s being gathered.

Among the new methods being tested for 2030 is the use of U.S. Postal Service workers to conduct tasks previously done by census workers.

FILE – People walk past posters encouraging participation in the 2020 Census in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, April 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

The original six test sites had been picked for a variety of reasons, including a desire to include rural areas where some residents don’t receive mail or have little or no internet service. Others, including tribal land, fast-growing locations with new construction, and dorms, care facilities and military barracks had been picked because their residents are traditionally hard to count.

Ahead of the last census in 2020, the only start-to-finish test of the head count was held in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2018. Plans for other tests were canceled because of a lack of funding from Congress.

The once-a-decade head count determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets. It also guides the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual federal spending.

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Census Bureau at https://apnews.com/hub/us-census-bureau.

It’s been one year since William “Ike” Eickholt was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in a ditch near Ravenna Trail in Hastings.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office is hoping the anniversary of Eickholt’s murder, a $1,000 reward and the release of body-worn camera video footage and crime-scene photos will generate additional tips.

Eickholt, 74, of Denmark Township, died around 9:30 a.m. Feb. 2, 2025; no one has been arrested in connection with the killing.

Eickholt was found on the side of the road on Feb. 2 in the 1300 block of Ravenna Trail, a “very frequently traveled road to Treasure Island Casino and there are many people who go through that area at all times of the day,” Detective Chad Schlichte of the Hastings Police Department said in a video posted on social media to bring attention to Eickholt’s case.

“I think somebody out there could have seen something,” Schlichte said. “He was just laying in the ditch with items of trash and things like that. It’s very uncommon for this area.”

Eickholt had been reported missing the day before when investigators responded to multiple vehicle fires at his property at 13536 St. Croix Trail S. in Denmark Township, the southern tip of Washington County.

When Washington County Deputy Shane Thorston responded to the fire, he found “four big pools of blood at the end of the driveway,” he said in the video. Thorsten said he knew they were not from a minor injury.

Targeted for gender expression?

Friends said Eickholt had been living in his truck since his one-story house was left uninhabitable after a fire on July 30, 2024.

After Eickholt was found dead, Mitch Carmody, a friend of his since 2023, expressed concern that Eickholt was a victim of violence, targeted for his gender expression.

Eickholt, who liked to wear women’s clothing, was a recognizable figure in southern Washington County, Hastings and Prescott, Wis. He regularly walked on St. Croix Trail and often hung his wardrobe on the trees at the end of his driveway, Carmody said.

Carmody said he was hopes the video generates answers. “I’m relieved by what a wonderful job the Washington County Sheriff’s Office did,” he said. “I thought maybe they’d forgotten us or the case was cold, but it was a wonderful thing.”

Eickholt was a regular at many Prescott businesses, including the BP gas station, Dairy Queen Grill & Chill and Ptacek’s IGA grocery store. He was last seen on Jan. 31, 2025, at the Holiday gas station on Point Douglas Drive in Hastings.

William “Ike” Eickholt was last seen on Jan. 31, 2025, at the Holiday gas station on Point Douglas Drive in Hastings. (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

“There weren’t any signs of distress, no obvious danger, just Ike going about his day,” said Washington County Sheriff’s Office Detective Cooper Valeseno.

Eickholt’s death is “unsettling for a lot of people in the community, especially for the shock of what happened,” Schlichte said. “It just would be nice to not only get closure for the family, but also the closure for the people in the Washington County area that he lived by, but also the people in this town, too.”

Eickholt’s family, who called Eickholt “Bill,” shared a letter with authorities after his death.

“Bill was a kind person who would say ‘hello’ even if he didn’t know you,” the letter states. “He was a trusting individual who believed that all people were good. He loved nature and liked to walk and take in the beauty of his community. Bill had a dog for most of his life and loved to pheasant hunt. Bill was a free spirit and would not cause harm to anyone.”

“Someone saw Ike that night,” Valeseno said. “Someone knows how he got to Ravenna Trail in Hastings from his driveway. He was a human being. He had family and friends. He had routines, interests, and a life. The community deserves answers.”

Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to an arrest or conviction.

Anyone with information about the death of William “Ike’ Eickholt is asked to call the Washington County Sheriff’s Office at 651-430-7850.

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