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Former Minneapolis housing authority chair pleads to Feeding Our Future charges

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An Edina man who chaired the board of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal wire fraud charges for his role in the Feeding Our Future nutrition program fraud scheme.

As part of his plea deal, Sharmarke Issa, 42, admitted to running entities that laundered federal funding as part of the scheme, including Wacan Restaurant LLC and the nonprofit titled Minnesota’s Somali Community.

Issa was responsible for $7.6 million of the alleged $50 million in fraud scheme money that the U.S. government says it lost, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert read aloud in court to Issa. The defendant verbally confirmed the timeline and allegations in the plea deal.

Prior to the hearing in District Court in downtown Minneapolis, Issa’s attorney Thomas Brever said his client recognized that his conduct was wrong.

“He’s ready to take the consequences for what he did.,” Brever said. “After seeing the evidence in the other trial, he recognized there was a real likelihood of conviction.”

Issa was facing multiple other counts of wire fraud and money laundering that will be dismissed if he receives the plea deal. While maximum imprisonment for federal wire fraud can be 20 years, Issa will likely receive between two years and nine months and three years and five months of federal prison time.

The prison time would be followed by a probation period for up to three years, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel said during the hearing.

Prosecutors have called this case, which so far has 70 defendants charged in Minnesota, one of the largest pandemic-era fraud cases in the United States. The defendants are charged with stealing $250 million from federal food programs that were reimbursing nonprofits, schools and day cares for feeding low-income children.



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Twin Cities man guilty of murder for fatally stabbing fellow group home resident nearly 2 dozen times

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The staffer told a 911 dispatcher that she didn’t hear anything further from the room and said “something isn’t right.”

A police officer arrived and saw a shirtless Adams running from the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses across the street and into the group home. In a Kingdom Hall trash can, police located a “badly bent” and bloody kitchen knife inside a garbage bag. Another bag held a pair of blood-soaked gloves.

Officers located Rahn in his room with stab wounds to his neck and back. Medics declared him dead at the scene.

Adams gave various accounts to police about how and why Rahn was stabbed.

The medical examiner found stab wounds to Rahn’s face, neck, upper body and elsewhere. He also suffered at least 20 stab wounds to one of his hands, which are “consistent with defensive wounds,” the complaint said.



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The Weeknd sings about romance that’s fast, reckless

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The title track from the coming album by FKA Twigs, “Eusexua,” isn’t exactly euphoric or sexy. Produced by FKA Twigs, Koreless and Earthearter, the track runs on nervous, hopping 16th-notes and distant chords under FKA Twigs’ whispery soprano before a beat fully kicks in. It’s anxious and tentative at first, wondering about a primal, possibly dangerous, possibly life-changing attraction: “Don’t call it love — eusexua.” Later, as the rhythm revs up, she promises, “You feel alone, you’re not alone.” But the propulsion falls away, leaving her “on the edge of something greater than before,” but dangling.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Suki Waterhouse, “Model, Actress, Whatever”

Stardom, by definition, is one of the rarest occupations. It’s also a wildly disproportionate topic for songwriters to take on. The immensely sly, self-conscious and droopy-voiced English model, actress and songwriter Waterhouse takes up the self-pity of a star in “Model, Actress, Whatever,” the title song of her new EP. It’s a slow-building waltz about what happens after making it big: “All of my dreams came true/The bigger the ocean, the deeper the blue,” she declares. She musters grandiose orchestral production to sum up a feeling of emptiness.

JON PARELES, New York Times



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How much will Twin Cities counties raise 2025 property taxes?

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Administrator David Hough told the County Board that much of the rest of the new spending is directed at employee salaries and benefits. The county workforce is expected to remain flat at nearly 10,000 employees.

The proposed capital budget includes $100 million for the Blue Line Light Rail extension. Another $45 million is slated for projects at HCMC, including a new parking ramp that will help make room for the eventual construction of an inpatient hospital tower.

Commissioners will meet with department leaders over the next two months to work on specifics of the 2025 budget before approving it in mid-December.

Ramsey County officials pitched a 4.75% maximum levy increase for 2025, as expected, late last month.

Ramsey County is on a rare biennial budget cycle, meaning it approved its 2025 budget last year, anticipating this year’s 4.75% increase. There’s a caveat, though: Then-County Manager Ryan O’Connor said at the time that cannabis sales tax could lower the 2025 levy. It didn’t, former Interim County Manager Johanna Berg said last month, because the county doesn’t have a sense of what that revenue will look like yet.

The 2025 supplemental budget is $848.5 million and represents a 5% increase from last year. That’s slightly larger than the 2025 budget approved last year, largely because of grants the county accepted to cover therapeutic youth treatment homes and violence prevention services. Property taxes fund about 46% of Ramsey County’s 2025 budget.



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