WOLVERTON, Minn. — A northwestern Minnesota man accused of shooting and killing a partygoer at a New Year’s celebration he was hosting made his first appearance in Wilkin County District Court on Monday.

Myron Johanson, 26, was formally charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter related to the death of 22-year-old Jorden Boehm, of West Fargo and New Rockford, N.D., in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, during a party at Johanson’s Wolverton home at 1772 U.S. 75 in the Red River Valley.

Court records said approximately 10 people were at the gathering, at which witnesses told investigators “everyone was getting along and having a good time throughout the evening.” During the party, witnesses said Johanson carried around a black handgun in a holster, at times taking it out and “playing with it and pointing it at others in the house, and leaving it lie out on the table.”

Before the fatal shooting took place, one witness said she saw Johanson point the gun at one person’s face, only to have that person push it away. Johanson pointed the gun at another witness’s head and asked the person if they trusted him, to which the witness told investigators he responded, “(Expletive) no I don’t,” at which point Johanson laughed, and racked a round into the chamber, according to court documents.

Witnesses then saw Johanson walk up to Boehm and put the gun under his chin, again asking, “Do you trust me?” according to court documents.

“The next thing witnesses recalled was that the gun went off … (and) the victim bleeding from his neck,” an investigative report said. “One witness stated that he turned around to see the defendant holding the gun and saying, ‘Oh (expletive), call 911.’”

Johanson met sheriff’s deputies inside the home when they arrived at the scene, where he pointed them toward where Boehm’s body was lying in a pool of blood. He then showed the deputies where his gun was in his bedroom.

Johanson is being represented by Fargo defense attorney Luke Heck. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 27 in Breckenridge.

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By PATRICK WHITTLE

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the world’s rarest whale species is having more babies this year than in some recent seasons, but experts say many more young are needed to help stave off the possibility of extinction.

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The North Atlantic right whale’s population numbers an estimated 384 animals and is slowly rising after several years of decline. The whales have gained more than 7% of their 2020 population, according to scientists who study them.

The whales give birth off the southeastern United States every winter before migrating north to feed. Researchers have identified 15 calves this winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.

That number is higher than two of the last three winters, but the species needs “approximately 50 or more calves per year for many years” to stop its decline and allow for recovery, NOAA said in a statement. The whales are vulnerable to collisions with large ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear.

This year’s number is encouraging, but the species remains in peril without stronger laws to protect against those threats, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with environmental group Oceana. The federal government is in the midst of a moratorium on federal rules designed to protect right whales until 2028, and commercial fishing groups have pushed for a proposal to extend that pause for even longer.

There is still time left for more baby whales to be born this winter, but 50 is not a reasonable expectation because of a lack of reproductive females in the population, Brogan said.

“We’re not going to be able to calve ourselves to recovery,” Brogan said. “We also need to be doing more to tackle the two primary causes of right whale deaths, being entanglement in fishing gear and being hit by boats.”

The whales have fared better than last winter, when they gave birth to only 11 calves, according to NOAA data. The whales have reached 20 calves only twice since 2010, and they gave birth to no calves in a disastrous 2018 season. The whales are less likely to reproduce when they have suffered injuries or are underfed, scientists have said.

The whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the era of commercial whaling and have been federally protected for decades. They remain in a crisis at the moment because there have been more deaths than births in the population in the past decade, NOAA said in its statement.

By BRUCE SCHREINER

President Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela has emerged as a flash point in the closely watched Republican primary campaign between Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a long-running Trump antagonist, and retired Navy SEAL officer Ed Gallrein, who has the president’s backing.

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Massie, showing his non-interventionist leanings, fired off a series of social media posts criticizing the military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro and removed him from the South American country.

“Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”

The congressman claimed that Trump wrongly circumvented Congress when ordering the attack.

“In the Constitution, the Founders vested war making power in Congress, not the Executive branch,” he wrote.

Gallrein responded that Massie had “shown his true colors” by criticizing the military operation.

“This operation sends a clear message: the United States will not allow rogue regimes to enable criminal networks or use oil and other resources to fuel our global adversaries,” Gallrein said on social media. “Holding bad actors accountable is how we restore law and order, deter aggression, and protect American families.”

Gallrein added that American intervention “opens the door to a new chapter for the people of Venezuela — one defined not by decades of oppression, but by the possibility of peace and prosperity.”

He is Trump’s choice to challenge Massie, a maverick who has had an up-and-down relationship with Trump. The primary election in May will test Trump’s hold over Republican politics. The sudden emergence of Venezuela as an issue will test the president’s ability to hold together his coalition during a challenging election year for Republicans that could be defined by domestic concerns like health care and affordability.

The libertarian-leaning Massie has won reelection by lopsided margins since entering Congress in 2012 — even when he incurred Trump’s wrath.

The military action in Venezuela is the latest example of Massie standing up to Trump.

The congressman opposed the massive tax breaks and spending cuts package last year that Trump calls “beautiful” but Massie says will grow the national debt and hurt the economy. Massie said the president lacked authority to attack Iran’s nuclear sites without congressional approval. And Massie was at the forefront of efforts to force the public release of case files on the sex trafficking probe into the late Jeffrey Epstein.

In his bid to unseat the congressman, Gallrein has the president’s vaunted political operation on his side, and a super PAC launched by Trump aides has run ads attacking Massie. But he will confront an entrenched, well-funded incumbent in Massie.

Trump on Monday reiterated his support for Gallrein on his social media platform and urged other Republicans to stay out of the May primary.

“I have heard that there are other Candidates exploring a run for this seat, but I am asking all MAGA Warriors to rally behind Captain Ed Gallrein, the Candidate who is, far and away, best positioned to DEFEAT Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO from the beautiful Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Trump said.

So far, at least two Democrats have filed to run for the congressional seat stretching across northern Kentucky, along with a third Republican besides Massie and Gallrein. The eventual Republican nominee will be heavily favored in a district last represented by a Democrat two decades ago.

By JOSH FUNK

Pipeline safety regulators on Monday assessed their largest fine ever against the company responsible for leaking 1.1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf off the coast of Louisiana in 2023. But the $9.6 million fine isn’t likely to be a major burden for Third Coast to pay.

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This single fine is close to the normal total of $8 million to $10 million in all fines that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration hands out each year. But Third Coast has a stake in some 1,900 miles of pipelines, and in September, the Houston-based company announced that it had secured a nearly $1 billion loan.

Pipeline Safety Trust Executive Director Bill Caram said this spill “resulted from a company-wide systemic failure, indicating the operator’s fundamental inability to implement pipeline safety regulations,” so the record fine is appropriate and welcome.

“However, even record fines often fail to be financially meaningful to pipeline operators. The proposed fine represents less than 3% of Third Coast Midstream’s estimated annual earnings,” Caram said. “True deterrence requires penalties that make noncompliance more expensive than compliance.”

The agency said Third Coast didn’t establish proper emergency procedures, which is part of why the National Transportation Safety Board found that operators failed to shut down the pipeline for nearly 13 hours after their gauges first hinted at a problem. PHMSA also said the company didn’t adequately assess the risks or properly maintain the 18-inch Main Pass Oil Gathering pipeline.

The agency said the company “failed to perform new integrity analyses or evaluations following changes in circumstances that identified new and elevated risk factors” for the pipeline.

That echoed what the NTSB said in its final report in June, that “Third Coast missed several opportunities to evaluate how geohazards may threaten the integrity of their pipeline. Information widely available within the industry suggested that land movement related to hurricane activity was a threat to pipelines.”

The NTSB said the leak off the coast of Louisiana was the result of underwater landslides, caused by hazards such as hurricanes, that Third Coast, the pipeline owner, failed to address despite the threats being well known in the industry.

A Third Coast spokesperson said the allegations were a shock because the company “consistently meets or exceeds regulatory requirements across our operations.”

“After constructive engagement with PHMSA over the last two years, we were surprised to see aspects of the recent allegations that we believe are inaccurate and exceed established precedent. We will address these concerns with the agency moving forward,” the company spokesperson said.

The amount of oil spilled in this incident was far less than the 2010 BP oil disaster, when 134 million gallons were released in the weeks following an oil rig explosion, but it could have been much smaller if workers in the Third Coast control room had acted more quickly, the NTSB said.