Star Tribune
Man accused of threatening to kill server at Minneapolis LGBTQ bar pleads guilty
A 30-year-old man has pleaded guilty after being charged with waving a loaded handgun in a downtown Minneapolis bar with a largely LGBTQ clientele and shouting a derogatory epithet while threatening to kill a bartender.
Conell W. Harris, of Minneapolis, entered his plea Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis to being a felon in possession of firearm in connection with the incident on Nov. 28 at the 19 Bar located near Loring Park on W. 15th Street just west of Nicollet Avenue.
Court records show Harris has one conviction each in Hennepin County for robbery and for burglary, and two convictions for illegal weapons possession.
Federal sentencing guidelines call for Harris to serve anywhere from 4¼ to 5 ¼ years in prison. However, federal judges have full discretion when sentencing defendants and are not bound by the guidelines calculation.
Harris has also been charged in Hennepin County District Court with making threats of violence with reckless disregard of risk for his actions that night. He due back in court in the case on May 31.
This gun incident occurred as the Twin Cities LGBTQ community coped with the impact of a mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs about a week earlier. A gunman opened fire there, killing five and injuring 17 in one of the city’s few LGBTQ bars.
According to the state and federal criminal complaints filed against Harris:
Police were alerted shortly after 11 p.m. of a man who drew a gun after being directed to leave the bar. Several people inside pointed at Harris as officers arrived, arrested him and seized the weapon.
Patrons and employees told police that Harris entered the bar and was “acting strangely,” then became upset after being asked to show identification. The bar does not allow anyone inside under 21 years old. A bartender told Harris to leave.
“I ain’t going nowhere,” the charges quoted him as saying in response, before brandishing a loaded .45-caliber handgun, and he “squared up” with the bartender.
As one patron stepped in hoping to de-escalate the showdown, Harris warned the bartender in profane and physically threatening language to watch what he was saying or “I’m going to [mess] you up.”
Before leaving, Harris continued yelling profanities at the bartenders and used a derogatory term based on sexual orientation in a threat to kill one of them. Harris came back inside and played pool before officers arrived and arrested him.
Star Tribune
Coloring book duo teams up again to highlight St. Paul’s Rondo history
Kosfeld used family photographs and old newspaper pictures as the basis for her illustrations. She also researched clothing of the period. It was important to her, she said, that her drawings “were respectful. No cartoons or caricatures.”
“Rondo,” Kosfeld said, “can be a heavy subject to some communities. But I wanted to show it was just beautiful. Playful.”
The project took nearly two years to complete from January 2023 to early 2024. Kosfeld and Kronick published the coloring book themselves. The Rondo book can be found at several shops and bookstores in St. Paul, including Next Chapter Books, Red Balloon, Wet Paint, Waldmann Brewery, Subtext Books, the Minnesota Historical Society gift shop and St. Paul Children’s Hospital.
Kosfeld is working on a third coloring book with a St. Paul focus, this one on the art, architecture and history of the St. Paul park system, to be published by the Ramsey County Historical Society.
Star Tribune
Harris goes to church while Trump muses about reporters being shot
LITITZ, Pa. — Kamala Harris told a Michigan church on Sunday that God offers America a ”divine plan strong enough to heal division,” while Donald Trump gave a profane and conspiracy-laden speech in which he mused about reporters being shot and labeled Democrats as ”demonic.”
The two major candidates took starkly different tones on the final Sunday of the campaign. Less than 48 hours before Election Day, Harris, the Democratic vice president, argued that Tuesday’s election offers voters the chance to reject ”chaos, fear and hate,” while Trump, the Republican former president, repeated lies about voter fraud to try to cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and suggested that the country was falling apart without him in office.
Harris was concentrating her Sunday in Michigan, beginning the day with a few hundred parishioners at Detroit’s Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ. It marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that Harris, who is Baptist, has spoken to a Black congregation, a reflection of how critical Black voters are across multiple battleground states.
”I see faith in action in remarkable ways,” she said in remarks that quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. ”I see a nation determined to turn the page on hate and division and chart a new way forward. As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states and so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice.”
She never mentioned Trump, though she’s certain to return to her more conventional partisan speech in stops later Sunday. But Harris did tell her friendly audience that ”there are those who seek to deepen division, sow hate, spread fear and cause chaos.” The election and ”this moment in our nation,” she continued, ”has to be about so much more than partisan politics. It must be about the good work we can do together.”
Harris finished her remarks in about 11 minutes — starting and ending during Trump’s roughly 90-minute speech at a chilly outdoor rally at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, airport.
Trump usually veers from subject to subject, a discursive style he has labeled ”the weave.” But in Lancaster, he went on long tangents and hardly mentioned his usual points on the economy, immigration and rote criticisms of Harris.
Instead, Trump relaunched criticisms of voting procedures across the nation and his own staff. He resurrected grievances about being prosecuted after trying to overturn his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, suggesting at one point that he ”shouldn’t have left” the White House.
Star Tribune
How votes get counted in Minnesota on Election Day
If that’s good, in many counties, election judges have a machine tabulate results, or count votes for candidates. In these counties, one copy of the tape the that machine prints in this process is taken to the central office. In most places, that is the county elections office. In others, the central office is the city elections office, which then reports to the county, Simon said.
Some precincts are close to the elections office, and some are far away, which explains some of the variation in when results show up.
But not every county tabulates at the precinct.
In Ramsey County, judges take the ballot counting machines from precincts to the county’s election office, Elections Manager David Triplett said. There, judges of different parties verify the machines’ seals, check the number of ballots against the number of voters that day, and if they add up, tabulate the votes.
“We have 100 receipts; we have 100 ballots. All right, go ahead and let’s report that result,” he said.
It is legal for precincts to transmit results to central offices online, but it’s rare, Simon said. And no devices used in the election can be connected to the internet while voting is in progress.
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