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Axel Henry sworn in as St. Paul’s next chief of police

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A unanimous St. Paul City Council endorsement preceded Police Department veteran Axel Henry’s swearing in Wednesday. He will now take the helm of a force where he’s served myriad roles and spent nearly all of his professional career.

Henry entered the council chambers to applause, and after the 7-0 confirmation vote, he was immediately sworn in before a crowd of more than 150 people, including family, friends, uniformed officers and civilians.

“As I look around this room and I look around our city, I know that we have the potential to do things at a level that could really set the bar for the entire country,” Henry said as he was sworn in. “I think that’s the type of work the mayor wants to see. That’s the type of work our officers want to see, and that’s the type of work that I want to see. We know it won’t be easy, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s going to be attainable.”

Wednesday’s decision is the culmination of a selection process, led by a 39-member citizen committee, which spanned more than five months. Through that process, candidates underwent several interviews, answered questions about their experiences, and interacted with residents in two public forums.

Mayor Melvin Carter thanked those candidates and interim Chief Jeremy Ellison, who declined to apply for the position, adding that the search process showcased talent within the Police Department.

“We need a chief who understands our need to — to use a hockey reference — ‘skate where the puck is going’ with regards to public safety and keep us on the cutting edge going forward. We need a police chief who understands,” Carter said. “I was looking for a chief who embodied all of those things. In Axel Henry we have someone who has been at the forefront for years, keeping St. Paul in the forefront.”

Third Ward Council Member Chris Tolbert, whose territory covers the city’s southwest side, offered Henry both congratulations and support as he inherits “the best Police Department in the state of Minnesota.”

“It’s a modern, reformed Police Department that continues to try and get better every single day to offer community-first public safety to every person that comes to St. Paul,” he said. “And I know that takes work every day of the women and men of the Police Department as well as the leadership, and I trust and I know that you’ll continue to work on that every single day to have trust in the community, and have trust with all the officers and civilian staff who work in your department.

“Best of luck to you, but also know that we are all here to help and let us know what we can do to help you to succeed. Because we need you to succeed and we need to do well.”

Henry, 54, has spent decades climbing the ranks of the St. Paul Police Department. His father was an English professor at Macalester College, and he says the city basically raised him when his mother was “out of the picture” at age 11.

Henry currently lives in the Little Bohemia neighborhood, and his partner Mikeya Griffin is the executive director of the Rondo Community Land Trust, which works to provide affordable housing and commercial opportunities for people with low or moderate income. Henry previously served as commander of St. Paul’s narcotics, financial intelligence and human trafficking division before applying for chief.

Among his priorities as chief, Henry says public safety and rebuilding trust with communities are central. His swearing-in comes more than a week after that of Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, 43, a veteran law enforcement official from New Jersey.

Henry said he exchanged numbers with O’Hara, although they’ve not yet sat down together.

“We’re going to work together to make sure that collaboration is successful and is done in a way that represents the kind of public safety we want here in St. Paul,” he said.

Henry will take the helm for a six-year term that pays between $130,000 to $182,000 a year, based on experience and qualifications.



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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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