The University of Minnesota, its physicians group and Fairview will return to negotiations on the future of the university’s medical school, but Fairview says it remains committed to the agreement university officials have opposed.

University officials reached an agreement to resume negotiations Thursday night, U President Rebecca Cunningham said in a statement Friday. Attorney General Keith Ellison will manage the talks with a mutually agreed-upon mediator who will be selected soon.

“The progress all parties have made to date is significant, and I thank the parties for building on this work and recognizing that time is of the essence in bringing this matter to closure in a way that secures continuity of high-quality patient care, retention of world-class physicians, and long-term support for the Medical School that trains 70 percent of all doctors in Minnesota,” Ellison said, in a statement. “This has always been and continues to be the goal.”

Fairview Health Services last week announced it had reached a 10-year partnership with University of Minnesota Physicians to fund the state’s medical school, which includes a $1 billion commitment from Fairview to continue investment in the medical center as well as the Masonic Children’s Hospital and other academic sites. Ellison at the time praised the deal as a “strong step forward,” but university officials opposed it, saying the physicians overstepped their authority.

The U’s Board of Regents, in a resolution last week, condemned the deal. This week, the leader with the physicians group was removed from a vice presidential role at the university. Cunningham and university regents were expected to meet on “clinical partnership options and next steps” Friday afternoon, but the meeting was canceled ahead of the announcement of renewed negotiations.

A previous deal between the U and Fairview is set to expire in 2026. Minneapolis-based Fairview owns health care facilities on the university’s Twin Cities campus, including the teaching hospital for the medical school.

“University of Minnesota Physicians (M Physicians), the clinical practice for the faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School, looks forward to advancing our foundational clinical agreement with Fairview Health Services while continuing to serve the academic mission of the University of Minnesota,” M Physicians said in a statement Friday. “We intend to complete our definitive clinical agreement with Fairview by the end of 2025.”

Talks to extend the partnership between the university and Fairview have been ongoing since February 2024.

Officials with Fairview expressed appreciation for the return to negotiations in statements Friday, but they also indicated that they remain committed to their “foundational and binding” agreement previously reached with M Physicians.

“Our goal is to engage constructively to find solutions that clarify the University’s research and education mission while respecting and upholding the integrity of the agreement already in place,” Fairview officials said in a statement Friday.

Stabilizing the faculty practice is urgent as physician departures from M Physicians are currently nearly 30% higher than average, according to Fairview.

“Fairview will continue to participate in time-limited discussions, but it would be irresponsible to allow open-ended negotiations, to revisit terms that have already been settled, or to return to structures that have already failed,” the statement said. “The foundational agreement already reached between Fairview and UMP offers a clear path forward, and it is essential that the work continues without unnecessary barriers.”

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Ellison thanked the parties for their work and strategic facilitator Lois Quam, who he said will remain as a facilitator in the process. Cunningham on Friday acknowledged the work ahead and the need to rebuild trust.

“This significant step forward gives me confidence we will reach an agreement that best serves the health and healthcare needs of Minnesota—not only for today, but for decades to come,” Cunningham said in her statement to staff and students. “The University is fully committed to negotiating in good faith and forging a plan of action that most strongly supports patients and our state. We are also dedicated to achieving a timely solution that is both practical and extraordinary, allowing the University to sustain and grow our academic mission.”

By STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The widow of Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi called Friday for the release of the transcript of a 2019 phone call that President Donald Trump had with Mohammed bin Salman, joining Democratic lawmakers who are raising questions about whether Trump personally benefitted from his embrace of the Saudi crown prince.

Hanan Elatr Khashoggi appeared on Capitol Hill on Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s dismissal of U.S. intelligence findings that Prince Mohammed most likely had culpability in the October 2018 slaying of her husband. Trump also lavished the Saudi ruler this week with some of Washington’s highest honors for a foreign dignitary, deepening the business and military relationship between the two nations.

Saudi intelligence officials and a forensic doctor killed and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

“There is no justification to kidnap him, torture him, to kill him and to cut him to pieces,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi said Friday during an emotional news conference. “This is a terrorist act.”

FILE – Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a press conference in Manama, Bahrain on Dec. 15, 2014. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)

The demand in Congress for the Trump administration to release the call transcripts is being led Rep. Eugene Vindman, a freshman Democrat from Virginia who was deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council during Trump’s first term.

Vindman, who has reviewed the transcript of the phone call with Prince Mohammed, declined to go into specifics of the classified document Friday, but said it used “the terminology of quid pro quo, the ensuing benefits that the president reaped.”

The Democratic lawmakers also pointed out that Trump’s family has extensive business dealings in Saudi Arabia that at times have benefitted from the prince’s direct involvement.

The situation carries echoes of Trump’s first impeachment over his July 2019 call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he asked the new Ukraine president to do him a “favor” in investigating his presidential rival, Joe Biden. At the time, Trump ended up releasing a transcript of the call with Zelenskyy in which he also said he would withhold $400 million in military aid.

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Vindman, then at the security council, also reviewed that call. He said that out of all the calls he reviewed in his job, the calls with Zelenskyy and Prince Mohammed stood out as the most concerning. He called the transcript of the call with the Saudi ruler “shocking.”

“The Kashoggi family and the American people deserve to know what was said on that call,” he added.

When asked if the White House would release the transcript, White House communications director Steven Cheung in a statement called Vindman “a bitter back-bencher who nobody takes seriously. He is a serial liar and was part of the hoax relating to the perfect Ukraine call, in which the Ukrainian president said so himself.”

Vindman’s twin brother, then-Army officer, Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, also worked at the National Security Council at the time, and had a prominent role in Trump’s 2019 impeachment.

Eugene Vindman was not as public a figure in that impeachment trial as his brother was. But after the Senate voted to acquit Trump of the House impeachment charges, the White House reassigned Alex Vindman from the council and pushed Eugene Vindman out, too.

Eugene Vindman ran for office representing northern Virginia last year.

It is unlikely that the Trump administration would voluntarily release the 2019 call transcript with Prince Mohammed. Democratic lawmakers, who are in the minority, also have little power to force its release. They also stayed away from speculating whether Trump’s relationship with Prince Mohammed would be grounds for another impeachment inquiry if they retake the House next year.

Still, they said the interaction was emblematic of the direction that Trump is leading the country.

“We are being drawn in the direction of authoritarian monarchy, in tyranny right now,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.

After the Pinnacle Group sent 93 of its buildings into a bankruptcy auction, tenants are calling on the city to responsibly steward their properties to a new owner.

Tenants at Pinnacle Group buildings rallied outside Brooklyn’s Federal Courthouse on
Thursday. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

Across 5,000 households, 93 buildings, 50 tenant unions, and four boroughs, tenants of Pinnacle are fed up.

Pinnacle Group’s portfolio of rent stabilized housing has been troubled for years, with rapidly accumulating housing code violations, no electricity, and deteriorating buildings.

Earlier this year the struggling real estate company put the properties up for bankruptcy auction. Starting Friday, Nov. 21, investors can bid on the portfolio.

Tenants, gathered outside Brooklyn’s Federal Courthouse Thursday, called on Judge David S. Jones to slow down the auction process and give them a chance to work with the city and make sure that a responsible owner—or tenants themselves—can take over.

“We are here because of gross neglect, harassment, and abuse of tenants,” said Charlie Dulik, a Pinnacle tenant on Ocean Avenue in Flatbush at the Thursday night rally. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen to our buildings. We don’t know if they’re gonna be bought by another slumlord. We don’t know if we’re gonna have electricity in our common areas tomorrow.”

Organizers with the Union of Pinnacle Tenants want to put the buildings in a community land trust, where tenants would control their homes through a cooperative board, or seek a deal with the city to make the buildings affordable in the long term.

When Signature Bank collapsed in 2023, New York City and the federal government helped funnel the 70,000 unit portfolio to a partnership led by the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), a group that specializes in preserving affordable housing.

“We do not deserve this willful neglect of our buildings. We deserve a say in what happens to our homes,” said Vivian Kuo, a Pinnacle tenant in Manhattan for the last five years. She said her building had broken elevators, pests, and leaks.

The auction of the portfolio comes amid intense deliberations over the future of rent stabilized housing in New York City. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has promised a four-year rent freeze for all rent stabilized units.

But critics have warned that a rent freeze could cut funding for the operations of some rent stabilized buildings—forcing owners to defer maintenance and causing tenants to live in substandard conditions.

Even some nonprofit developers, like CPC Chief Executive Rafael Cestero, have raised the alarm over how rent-stabilized affordable housing is struggling.

State rent laws passed in 2019 made it more difficult for owners to remove units from stabilization. That left some large rent stabilized portfolios, like Pinnacle’s, with fewer avenues to hike rents—a practice the company was known for before the law change. 

“They recklessly gambled and want tenants to pay for it,” said Dulik.

A spokesperson for the Pinnacle Group declined to comment on this story.

Here’s what else happened in housing this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

Two weeks ago, New Yorkers passed three housing ballot measures that change how the city approves affordable housing projects. See how voters in each Council district weighed in on the proposals, which divided both lawmakers and housing advocates.

As outgoing Mayor Eric Adams weighs appointing new members to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board during his final weeks in office, tenant groups have a message for any potential candidates: don’t take the gig. 

The City Council last week passed the OneLIC plan, which will update zoning rules for 54 blocks near the East River waterfront in Hunters Point North. It’s expected to create more housing than any neighborhood-specific rezoning in the last 25 years.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

A group representing local plumbers is calling for NYCHA to conduct comprehensive emergency boiler inspections after a partial building collapse in The Bronx last month, The City reports.

The developers behind the senior housing project planned for the Elizabeth Street Garden site are suing the Adams Administration, which sought to squash the development by making the garden an official city park, according to Gothamist.

Debate over the city’s rules for short-term rentals like Airbnb rages on, the New York Post reports.

Outside the city, New York State is increasingly turning to hotels to house homeless families, according to NY1.

The post Pinnacle Tenants Demand City Intervene to Save Their Homes, And What Else Happened This Week in Housing appeared first on City Limits.

St. Thomas will be facing the best football team the program has ever played on Saturday, according to head coach Glenn Caruso, when they travel to Fargo to play North Dakota State, the top-ranked FCS team in the country.

“By a lot,” Caruso said.

To this point in their Division I journey, whenever the Tommies have faced a program that offers athletic scholarships — be it the likes of Northern Iowa and South Dakota in the past, and Lindenwood and Idaho this season — Caruso has viewed it as a chance to measure how much the Tommies have grown.

The meeting with the 11-0 Bison feels more like a exercise in survival.

The Tommies (7-4) will be without a number of starters due to injury, including graduate transfer quarterback Andy Peters. Caruso has no other choice but to play those who are able and hope for the best in a difficult situation.

“Any time you get a chance to play a great football team, there is a lot you can extract from that,” he said. “This is hopefully something we can stand on foundationally and be better for it in years to come.”

Nine of the Bison’s 11 victories have been of the blowout variety. Their closest game was a 15-10 win over North Dakota on Nov. 8. They have outscored all opponents by a combined score of 444-133.

Caruso believes this Bison team could be the best in the program’s illustrious history, which features 10 national championships.

“They’re just so complete,” he said. “Really good quarterback, really good offensive line. NFL(-caliber) receiver, the best running back we’ve ever seen. They pair that up with the best defense in the nation — by a lot.

“It’s daunting when you look at the numbers, so we choose not to look at the numbers.”

It remains to be seen how much the Bison’s top players will play, although Caruso said he expects to see all of their starters for the majority of the game.

It’s a game that has added significance for Caruso, who began his coaching career at NDSU, serving as an assistant coach from 1997-2002. He met his wife, Rachel, during that time and started his family in Fargo.

Caruso, a Connecticut native, said he’ll forever be grateful to then-coach Bob Babich for hiring him.

“To get in your Volkswagen and drive halfway across the country and sleep on the couch in someone’s basement and make nothing,” he said. “To go to the Ground Round every Tuesday and Thursday night because if you bought a beer they’d let you eat from the taco bar for free.

“Those were tough days, but they were also influential days. When I started my career, there were three things I prioritized: the chance to take on responsibility, the chance to win and the chance to be around some awesome people. I found it, and it just happened to be in Fargo, North Dakota.

“In doing so it led me to finding a passion for this part of the country. Aside from our family, the thing that I got from Fargo that I cherish the most is that I was able to see the type of Upper Midwest kids that I would get to coach if I stayed. That has affected and curated by career decisions more than anything else besides family.”

Caruso has retained ties within the Fargo community and has friends on the NDSU staff. He keeps a close eye on the Bison.

“I don’t always get to watch a team like NDSU during the season because we’re working,” he said, “but, absolutely, I follow them. I always keep in touch and I always cheer for them when they’re not playing St. Thomas.”

The Tommies and the Bison will be meeting for the 24th time, and the first time since 1966. The Bison lead the series 14-7-2.

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