Star Tribune
When it comes to voter turnout, Minnesota is No. 1 by a whisker
Election officials in all 87 counties in Minnesota have begun the process of checking results for accuracy. Required by law, officials will manually count ballots of randomly selected precincts and compare results with those tabulated by electronic voting machines.
In Hennepin County, that included checking results in 12 precincts chosen in a lottery, and verifying the results of three races in each. In total, 30 election judges with observers and the public watching from across the table will comb through 70,314 ballots to ensure vote totals match up, said Ginny Gelms, head of Hennepin County Elections.
The process started Monday morning and may take two days, Gelms said.
“Today is a reminder that the 2024 election process is not over yet,” Simon said. “The mandatory reviews are a critical safeguard to ensure accuracy.”
Discrepancies in vote totals are rare, officials said. In that case, additional precincts in the count would be audited, Gelms said.
Star Tribune
20-year term for man who fatally shot victim at Minneapolis light-rail station on Christmas Eve 2020
A man has received a 20-year prison term for a fatal shooting at a Minneapolis light-rail station on Christmas Eve nearly four years ago in a dispute over a small amount of money.
Tenzin Yamgha, 30, of Anoka, was sentenced in Hennepin County District Court last week after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the shooting on Dec. 24, 2020, of Malcolm J. Williams, 29, of Minneapolis at the station located at E. Lake Street and S. Hiawatha Avenue.
With credit for time in jail since his arrest, Yamgha is expected to serve just shy of 12 years in prison and the balance on supervised release.
Yamgha’s criminal history in Minnesota also includes convictions for various drug offenses, illegal weapons possession, fleeing police, domestic assault and burglary.
In a statement issued Monday, County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the family’s “wait for a resolution to this case spanned nearly four years. While no sentence will return Mr. Williams to them, [the sentence] brings accountability to Mr. Yamgha and protects the community from him in the years ahead.”
Officers were dispatched to the light-rail station, where they found Williams in the lobby area of the upstairs escalator. He was shot several times and died at the scene.
Station video surveillance showed Yamgha entering the lobby accompanied by his girlfriend. Williams approached and confronted Yamgha, who said, “I will pull the trigger.”
Star Tribune
In latest self-defense ruling, Minnesota Supreme Court orders new trial for man who killed robber
Baker was convicted of both counts. His lawyers appealed.
A Minnesota appeals court sided with the district court, writing that Baker “was not content with simply neutralizing Anderson’s threat, but was motivated by vengeance.”
That argument stemmed from statements made by Baker to police that the victims were running away when he shot at them and phone calls Baker made in prison where he told his girlfriend he was “mad as hell” the other robbery suspect got away when he started shooting.
The appeals court opinion, written by Judge Michael Kirk, argued, “Baker had not demonstrated the absence of a reasonable possibility of retreat, equally support the conclusion that his use of deadly force was unreasonable.” Kirk wrote that “no reasonable jury” would find that Baker’s use of force was justifiable so the district court did not “abuse its discretion” by failing to instruct the jury on the law of self-defense and defense of others.
The Minnesota Supreme Court disagreed.
The crux of Hudson’s opinion focuses on Baker’s right to have self-defense and defense of others considered by the jury at closing arguments, not whether Baker’s argument would overturn the guilty verdict.
Minneapolis’ THC-focused restaurant Hi Flora! has announced it will close in early December, citing financial struggles following a $7,500 fine from the state’s Office of Cannabis Management over a variety of alleged violations.
Chef and owner Heather Klein, who opened the restaurant in July 2023, posted on Sunday that the business at 2558 Lyndale Avenue South will close on Dec. 5.
“This reality has been hard to accept, especially since we’ve built a one of a kind safe space that’s all about plants, wellness, healing and connection without alcohol,” Klein said in her announcement on Instagram.
Hi Flora! was hyped when it opened a little over a year ago for pairing vegan food with THC “tinctures” — liquid solutions that customers could either take home or add to their food or drinks. The restaurant also sold THC beverages. Klein did not sell alcohol at the restaurant, saying she wanted it to be an alternative for people who don’t drink alcohol.
But financial hardships set in following an incident in August, she said, when a woman ingested too much THC and her party called an ambulance to the restaurant. Charlene Briner, the interim director of the Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), said it was a “serious adverse health event.” Klein described it differently, calling the episode “a little anxiety” that subsided within 20 minutes.
The ambulance crew reported the incident to the state, which led to an investigation and seizure of some of Hi Flora!’s products.
“Our enforcement team responded and conducted an inspection that identified numerous non-compliant products and practices,” Briner said. She added that “this was not the first instance of complaints about this business leading to inspectors finding violations.”
