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Former judge, former public defender in Hennepin County Attorney race

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In the race for Hennepin County attorney, voters will choose between two candidates who have differing views and experience with the criminal justice system and how to keep residents safe.

Martha Holton Dimick, 69, a retired Hennepin County judge, is running as a tough prosecutor while Mary Moriarty, 58, former Hennepin County chief public defender, is a reformer who wants to hold cops accountable. Both candidates agree that addressing gun violence and reducing recidivism are top priorities, but they have different ideas on achieving public safety.

Moriarty said data will guide charging decisions and policies to target implicit racial bias and root causes of crime. Holton Dimick wants repeat offenders to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Moriarty has spent the majority of her career litigating against the office she seeks to lead, while most of Holton Dimick’s tenure was spent as a prosecutor and judge who worked for the County Attorney’s Office from 1999 to 2009.

Recently, a group of 32 senior prosecutors in the County Attorney’s Office penned a letter in support of Holton Dimick. Meanwhile, 41 staffers from the county’s public defenders office wrote in support of Moriarty, who also has the DFL endorsement.

Moriarty would be the first openly gay woman to lead the office and Holton Dimick would be the first Black woman to oversee Minnesota’s largest public law office, comprising 200 attorneys, 260 support staff and $69 million budget.

This is the first county attorney election since the murder of George Floyd, which placed the office under a national spotlight. Retiring County Attorney Mike Freeman charged former officer Derek Chauvin within days of the killing before the state Attorney General’s Office took over the prosecution.

Freeman was frequently criticized for convening grand juries to investigate fatal shootings of civilians by police. He later admitted this process lacked transparency, and both candidates vow greater transparency in the office if elected.

Grand juries for police misconduct

Holton Dimick: “I’d rather take it by a case by case basis … I’m not going to close the door on grand jury indictments, but I feel safer saying I would rather keep the decision myself. I don’t want to give those cases over to the AG office.”

Moriarty: “I would not use a grand jury just because of their secretive nature completely controlled by prosecutors, no defense attorneys or judges… I’m not sending cases to other county attorneys either because voters of Hennepin County will have elected me to make those decisions … I’d partner with the Attorney General on a case by case basis.”

Violent crime

Holton Dimick: “I think we have to send a message that we are not going to mollycoddle these violent criminals any further and we’re all to make sure that they are adequately punished. Victims are entitled to have relief. And so our community’s entitled to have relief. I want violent criminals held accountable. And I want the consequences to fit the crime.”

Moriarty: “I’m a big advocate of the Office of Violence Prevention. They are trying to train trusted messengers in the community to recognize when something’s brewing and train them with conflict mediation skills and try to interrupt violence before it happens … We should treat violence like a disease in approaching this entire system from a public health lens.”

Police misconduct

Holton Dimick: “I think we can do reform and public safety together. The Minneapolis Police Department, the culture is damaged. We didn’t need the Department of Human Rights to tell us that.” She said she voted no on the charter amendment to replace the MPD.

Moriarty: “Prosecutors see more video [body and dash camera] than police leadership … We’ll flag that and give it to police leadership so that they can have that conversation to interrupt behavior. Nip that in the bud before it gets worse.” She will not disclose how she voted on replacing the MPD.

Cameras in courtrooms

Holton Dimick: “We have open courtrooms. People are certainly invited and can come and observe any court proceeding that they want to … Other than the high-profile cases, no, I’m not a fan.”

Moriarty: “I think there is a place for cameras in the courtroom. I wish it would actually become more normalized in a way where people could see the ordinary day to day, not just something that’s sensationalistic.”

Diversifying juries

Holton Dimick: “There’s nothing wrong, I don’t see, with the process. I think it’s just that people don’t understand how it’s done, and that it is done totally anonymously … It’s kind of a disingenuous attack on the jury system.”

Moriarty: “I think we are way behind other states. We use driver’s licenses, voter registration and IDs. And other states use library cards, government assistance, all kinds of other lists, which would bring us a much more diverse jury. And so I am very much in support of that.”

New MPD Chief Brian O’Hara

Holton Dimick: “I’m really quite impressed with him. I think he’s going to come in and going to change that police department into a more progressive police department that is more engaged in the community.”

Moriarty: “He seems to be saying the right things and acknowledging there needs to be change to build trust in the community. He has worked under a consent decree and it appears we’re headed in that direction.”



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Former Duluth East hockey coach Mike Randolph violated employee conduct policies

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Not all of the interviews were negative; a fair amount of players and parents reported positive experiences with Randolph, some saying they never witnessed him belittling players.

“To me, he was fabulous,” one parent said, noting their child “blossomed” under Randolph.

Terch wrote he was not able to substantiate an allegation that Randolph received payments from the East End Hockey Boosters, although he did find “unusual financial management practices” by the booster club, including a misrepresentation to parents about the use of at least some of what they paid, a commingling of funds between events and “unorthodox” accounting practices. Several parents said they felt they had overpaid many times without explanation. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension began investigating the former East hockey booster club in 2023 for alleged embezzlement. The status of that case is unknown.

In response to the report’s release, Duluth Public Schools Superintendent John Magas said in a statement that he can’t discuss personnel matters, but the district takes all reports from students and families “very seriously.”

“Our primary goal is to ensure that students have the best possible experiences, both in the classroom and in extracurricular activities,” he said. “We are committed to thoroughly investigating any concerns brought to our attention and taking appropriate action” to maintain safe and positive learning environments.

St. Thomas Academy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.



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How Trump tariffs would shock U.S., world economies

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Gas prices would increase by as much as 75 cents per gallon in the Midwest, where most refined products come from Canada, according to Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy. Overall, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said Trump’s tariffs would cost the typical household $2,600 per year; the Yale Budget Lab said in an estimate released Wednesday that the annual cost could be as high as $7,600 for a typical household. As a share of their income, the poorest Americans would pay 6 percent more with 20 percent tariffs, compared with 1.4 percent more for the richest 1 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank.

“We’re not talking about caviar — these are things that people have to buy. They’re essentials,” said Neil Saunders, a managing director at the analytics company GlobalData.

Economists say it would take several painful years for alternative domestic producers to emerge for many goods. For instance, almost all shoes and 90 percent of tomatoes sold in the country are imported, according to the Peterson Institute. And the United States does not even have the climate necessary to produce many food items – such as coffee, bananas, avocados, to say nothing of Chilean sea bass – at the necessary scale to meet domestic demand, said Joseph Politano, an economic analyst who has written on the subject on his Substack.

Trump’s tariffs would also reverberate through Wall Street and global markets, inviting turmoil that would affect investors and companies worldwide. Those effects would probably be felt quickly.

During Trump’s first term, stocks fell on nine of 11 days in 2018 and 2019 that the United States or China announced new tariffs, according to a study this year by economists with the Federal Reserve and Columbia University. Comprehensive tariffs would cause a swift one-time jump in prices before reducing economic growth about six months later, according to economist David Page, head of macro research for AXA Investment Managers in London.

Many analysts are hopeful that a stock market panic would dissuade or prevent Trump from carrying out his plans. The investment bank UBS projected that a 10 percent universal tariff could lead to a 10 percent contraction in the stock market. U.S. multinationals are heavily dependent on foreign subsidiaries, and retailers, auto manufacturers and other industrial sectors would be hit the hardest, according to UBS. Chris McNally, an analyst at Evercore, said Trump’s 10 percent tariff plan could cause a more than 20 percent decline in General Motors’ earnings, with slightly smaller declines for Ford and Stellantis.



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On the Wisconsin-Iowa border, the Mississippi River is eroding sacred Indigenous mounds

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Bear and other members of her tribe are serving as consultants on the project, as is William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, and his tribe. They also lead teams of volunteers to help care for the mounds, which includes removing invasive European plants and replacing them with native plants that reduce soil erosion.

Some are skeptical of this manmade solution to a manmade problem. There are some tribal partners who’ve expressed that the river should be allowed to keep flowing as it wants to, Oberreuter said. Snow also acknowledged that people have been hesitant about making such a change to the natural bank.

But, she pointed out, “The bank is (already) no longer what it was.”

When the berm is complete, Snow said, there’ll be a trail atop it that visitors can walk. That may help protect the mounds better than the current way to see them, which is to walk among them, she said.

The Sny Magill Unit has been part of Effigy Mounds National Monument since 1962, Snow said, but it’s not advertised like the rest of the park. That’s in part because there are no staff stationed there to properly guide people through the mounds. But if people visit respectfully, she believes it’s one of the best places to take in the mounds because it’s on a flat, walkable surface, unlike the rest of the park, which is on a blufftop.



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