Two East Metro high schools woke up in Biwabik, Minn. on Thursday morning knowing they had a chance to win overall team Nordic state championships after their sprint relay teams won on Wednesday at Giants Ridge.

Done.

Third place finisher St. Paul Academy And Summit School’s Eleanor Mody, left, celebrates with first place finisher Wayzata’s Lila Golomb the Girls Classic Pursuit race during the Nordic Ski Racing State Meet at Giants Ridge in Biwabik on Thursday, February. 12, 2026. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

Stillwater got top-20 finishes from George Nelson (4), Will Foote (8) and Mo Schollett (16) in the classic pursuit, and Nelson and Foote finished fourth and 17th, respectively, in the freestyle race to lift the boys to their first overall state title since 1996.

The Ponies (383) handily beat Orono/Delano (342) and Ely (341).

On the girls’ side, junior Eleanor Mody placed third in the classic race and fourth in freestyle, and junior teammate Paloma Good finished sixth and 11th, respectively, in those races to help lift St. Paul Academy and Summit School its first skiing title.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” Mody said. “Definitely a very fun day.”

The Spartans’ rallied with a big showing in the afternoon’s classic race to finish with 374 points, besting Minneapolis Southwest (360) and Wayzata (355).

“We knew we’d be chasing for the classic, and for a long time we skied as a pack of four,” Mody said. “Then we spread out a little bit. It was so great racing with some of my best friends, really special to share that moment with them. It was the first time we’d even come close to winning in my five years on the team, so it’s pretty special.”

The Spartans got a big race from eighth-grader Elisabeth Hilton, who, coach Max Lundgren said, had “the race of her life” in the freestyle to make up for a sick teammate and become the SPA/Summit School’s third scorer.

Mody greeted Hilton at the finish line.

“She said, ‘How did I do?’ ” Mody said. “I said, ‘You’re 14th.’ Her jaw hit the ground.”

Hilton finished a solid 34th among 110 skiers in the classic race.

Nelson led Stillwater’s boys with his best individual state pursuit finishes, but it was the team title that meant most to him.

“It’s super awesome. It’s been a dream for me,” he said. “This team is so important to me. All the guys are truly amazing. It’s been an absolute honor to ace with these guys in high school.”

Teammate Foote made remarkable strides from last season when he finished eighth in the classic race — 32 places better than his 2025 finish. “They say skiers are made in the sumer, and I think it’s true,” he said. “I did a lot of roller skiing, and a lot of working out. And this wonderful team always inspires you to be better.”

“I was aiming for top 25,” he said. “Top 15 was a very aggressive goal. I was so focused on racing; I had an idea of where I was placing, but I wasn’t sure where I was. On this course, there’s a long downhill before the finish, and I was able to gather myself and think about the finish.”

Hopkins’ Logan Drevlow (13:10.7) and Bridger Nelson (13:39) finished first and second in the boys freestyle race. St. Paul Central’s Peter Schulz finished seventh, and Highland Park’s Noah Waln was 14th.

Central’s Anneliese Linders finished 10th in the girls classic pursuit, with Lakeville’s Faye Braun coming in 12th.

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Trump administration border czar Tom Homan said Minnesota had been left “safer” following a six-week surge of federal immigration enforcement in the state. But as he announced an end to the crackdown on Thursday, state officials testified to a U.S. Senate committee on the toll of federal actions.

At an oversight hearing of the Senate Homeland Security oversight committee, Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell, an appointee of DFL Gov. Tim Walz, questioned whether the thousands of reported arrests made during “Operation Metro Surge” had delivered any substantial public safety benefits.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has maintained that its operation has focused on removing the “worst of the worst” from the streets. Schnell disputed that characterization, noting that many of the close to 500 detainees listed on the ICE website did not have charges listed for violent offenses or felonies.

“I simply can’t imagine how many dollars have been spent in Operation Metro Surge. It is staggering. The cost of human life, as well as the actual financial resources, is hard to even imagine,” Schnell said. “This certainly has not been ultimately beneficial for the safety of our state.”

MN corrections official: State prisons do handover those in U.S. illegally

Two activists — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were shot dead by immigration agents in January while clashing with federal authorities during immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis. Schnell said, in his testimony, that only when a lack of coordination between the state and federal government grew into a crisis did the Trump administration become more open to collaboration and discussion with Minnesota.

“Unchecked enforcement can lead to tragedy and a profound loss of trust,” Schnell said. “Constitutional rights are not partisan issues. Governments must be checked and balanced and law enforcement must operate within the law.”

The state corrections leader was among four Minnesota officials to testify in Washington on Thursday. DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, and House Republican Floor Leader Harry Niska, a representative from Ramsey, also testified.

Schnell reiterated to senators what he had been saying for weeks in response to claims by federal authorities that Minnesota had not been cooperating with immigration enforcement: Minnesota prisons do, in fact, hand over people in the U.S. illegally at the end of their sentences.

U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer: ‘Chaos in Minneapolis was entirely preventable’

Emmer and Niska told members that clashes between protesters and federal agents and general unrest in recent weeks could have been avoided if state authorities had cooperated with federal immigration officials. Local governments in the Twin Cities do not cooperate with ICE, as the state does.

“The chaos in Minneapolis was entirely preventable had local law enforcement been allowed to work with federal law enforcement from the beginning,” Emmer told the committee. “By preventing local law enforcement from working together with federal law enforcement, they have turned Minnesota into a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens.”

Niska noted that Hennepin only honored 8% of federal immigration detainer requests over the last two years, based on data from the Deportation Project Database, a research initiative by the University of California, Los Angeles, and UC Berkley. Ramsey County honored 6%.

Niska said he appreciated “recalibration of federal enforcement” under Homan, which he described as creating a more “focused and disciplined effort on the ground.”

Keith Ellison asks for more information on detainees

Ellison told the committee that the immigration surge, which brought more than 3,000 agents to Minnesota, had “caused real harm to our state.”

He called on senators to use their oversight powers to obtain more information on the number of individuals ICE had detained and deported during the operation, push for a federal-state joint investigation of the Good and Pretti shootings — which so far federal officials have declined — and to stop agents from covering their faces during operations and engaging in racial profiling.

Walz on Thursday told reporters that it was possible that the state and officials in the administration of President Donald Trump could still cooperate on investigations, but that leaked information on talks last week made federal officials hesitate.

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By SUDHIN THANAWALA

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to make arrangements to allow some of the Venezuelan migrants deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador to return to the U.S. at the government’s expense.

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The case has been a legal flashpoint in the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. It started in March after President Donald Trump invoked the 18th century Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.

In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington criticized the White House’s response to his earlier order that it come up with a plan to give the men a chance to challenge their removals.

“Apparently not interested in participating in this process, the Government’s responses essentially told the Court to pound sand,” Boasberg wrote. Nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama, the judge has repeatedly clashed with the administration over the deportations.

An email to the White House was not immediately returned.

The 137 men were later returned to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange brokered by the United States.

Lee Gelernt, their attorney in the U.S., said at a court hearing on Monday that plaintiffs’ attorneys are in touch with a handful of them who have since managed to leave Venezuela and are now in a third country. These men are interested in clearing their names, he said.

Boasberg’s order says U.S. officials must provide the men in third countries who wish to fly back to U.S. with a boarding letter. The government must also cover their airfare. He noted the men would be detained upon their return.

Those men and the migrants who remain in Venezuela can also file new legal documents arguing the presidential proclamation under which they were deported illegally invoked the 18th century wartime law, the judge ruled. The legal filings can also challenge their designation as members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Boasberg said he could decide later whether to require hearings and how to conduct them, but it was up to the government to “remedy the wrong that it perpetrated here and to provide a means for doing so.”

“Were it otherwise, the Government could simply remove people from the United States without providing any process and then, once they were in a foreign country, deny them any right to return for a hearing or opportunity to present their case from abroad,” he wrote.

FILE – A mega-prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) stands in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)

In March, Trump officials flew the Venezuelan men to the prison, despite a verbal order from Boasberg for the aircraft to turn around. Boasberg subsequently started a contempt investigation, though the dramatic battle between the judicial and executive branches has been paused by an appeals court.

The administration has denied violating his order.

Gelernt said in a statement on Thursday Boasberg had “begun the process of giving these men their right to challenge their removal.”

“Remarkably, although the government does not dispute the men were denied due process, it still was not willing to do what was right without a court order,” he said.

By MIKE CATALINI

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Analilia Mejia, a longtime progressive organizer allied with Sen. Bernie Sanders, has emerged victorious in a crowded Democratic primary in the special election to fill the U.S. House seat formerly held by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill.

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The Associated Press declared Mejia the winner Thursday, one week after the closely contested race ended on Feb. 5.

Mejia, 48, overcame former Rep. Tom Malinowski and about a dozen other candidates in New Jersey’s 11th District.

Malinowski had already conceded the race, and Mejia has consolidated support among top Democratic leaders in the state ahead of the April 16 special general election against Republican Joe Hathaway.

The progressive victory shows the evolution of New Jersey’s 11th District, which includes parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties and some of New York City’s wealthier suburbs. The district was reliably Republican until President Donald Trump’s first term, when Sherrill won as part of a Democratic wave in 2018.

Now, instead of backing a more moderate replacement for Sherrill, primary voters chose Mejia, who campaigned on populist economic policies and the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Republicans plan to portray her as too far left for the district.

A former director of the Working Families Alliance in New Jersey, Mejia was a regular presence in the state capitol, advocating for progressive causes. She served as Sanders’ political director during his 2020 presidential run, and she was the deputy director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau under President Joe Biden.

In addition to Sanders, she was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Another key player in the race was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose affiliated super PAC tried to thwart Malinowski after he questioned unconditional aid to the Israeli government. Their efforts appeared to backfire as Mejia, who said she agreed Israel committed genocide in Gaza, edged out a victory.

The winner of the April 16 special general election will serve out the remainder of Sherrill’s term, which ends in January. There will also be a regular primary June 2 and a general election Nov. 3 for the new term.