More than a week after Newport Beach police announced they’d found and arrested a suspect in a four-decade-old homicide case, the man has been freed and county prosecutors say they don’t expect to charge him.
On Dec. 6, the Newport Beach Police Department announced in a social media post that it had arrested 70-year-old Michael Larry Manatt, from Huntington Beach, in connection with the killing of Ronald Gaskey in 1983.
Gaskey’s girlfriend found him dead in the upstairs hallway of his Newport Shores home, the Orange County Register reported at the time, after he didn’t show up for work with his family’s construction company. Authorities said he was beaten with a blunt instrument, but there were no details about a suspect, the newspaper reported.
In recent years, Newport Beach detectives reopened the investigation and “read through numerous reports, studied evidence, and completed additional interviews,” the department said in announcing Manatt’s arrest.
Detectives took their evidence to a judge, who signed off on an arrest warrant, and police took Manatt into custody “without incident,” the department said.
But more than a week later, Manatt is out on bail and the Orange County District Attorney’s office has not received a case file from police.
“Nothing has been submitted to us and we do not expect anything to be submitted,” said Orange County district attorney spokesperson Kimberly Edds.
It’s unclear whether Manatt has retained an attorney.
A spokesperson for Newport Beach police could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday for an update on the case or on whether Manatt remains a suspect in Gaskey’s killing.
A 40-year-old tech consultant has been convicted of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee in San Francisco last year.
The verdict read Tuesday arrives more than a year after Lee was found bleeding to death in a downtown San Francisco street.
The jury listened to over six weeks of testimony about a drug bender, sexual assault and ultimately an early morning stabbing in San Francisco in April 2023.
During closing arguments, prosecutors played the 911 call Lee made after Nima Momeni stabbed him and left him dying on the street, the Associated Press reported.
The jury listened as Lee repeatedly asked for help on the call.
Lee, 43, was found bleeding downtown around 2:30 a.m. on April 4, 2023. He later succumbed to his injuries.
Momeni stabbed Lee three times near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge because he was upset that Lee introduced his sister, Khazar Momeni, to a man who allegedly gave her GHB, known as a date-rape drug. Khazar Momeni testified that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Jeremy Boivin, a friend of Lee’s and described by prosecutors as a drug dealer, according to reporting from news station ABC7. Boivin has not been charged in connection to the case, according to authorities.
The criminal trial, which started Oct. 14, ends a chapter in a killing that rocked the Bay Area. The jury reached their verdict after seven days of deliberation.
Early reports of Lee’s death sparked fear and criticism in San Francisco about rampant crime, though the narrative around the incident quickly changed after police announced Momeni’s arrest and provided details about a possible motive.
Assistant Dist. Atty. Dane Reinstedt summarized the events that led to the stabbing in his closing arguments on Monday.
Hours before the stabbing, Lee met Nima Momeni at Momeni’s sister’s condo on Mission Street and Momeni questioned Lee about what happened to her. Nima Momeni then grabbed a paring knife from the kitchen before heading out the door with Lee.
Video from an elevator shows the men leave the building around 2 a.m. and then driving away in Momeni’s BMW.
On the stand in his trial, Momeni testified that Lee attacked him after he made a “bad joke” while they were in the car, according to the Associated Press.
“I was scared for my life,” Momeni told the jury.
Momeni testified he drove over a pothole and Lee spilled a beer he was holding, so he pulled over on a quiet section of the Bay Bridge. That’s when Momeni joked that Lee should spend his last night visiting the city with his family instead of trying to find a strip club, according to his testimony.
Momeni’s defense attorney claimed Lee was upset and attacked Momeni, forcing his client to use his Krav Maga martial arts skills to defend himself, according to the Associated Press. Momeni did not realize Lee was stabbed, his attorney told the jury during his closing argument.
But prosecutors said that the stab wounds were precise, clean and not made by someone in a self-defense posture.
Momeni didn’t call police to report that Lee attacked him with a knife or even after it was reported that Lee was found on a street with stab wounds and later died, Reinstedt said.
Alcohol, ketamine and cocaine were found in Lee’s system, according to an autopsy report.
Defense attorneys claimed that Lee was on a multiday drug-fueled bender, which would explain why he was agitated and violent the night he died.
Defense attorney Saam Zangeneh played surveillance video in his closing arguments that shows Lee and a friend outside the private San Francisco social club The Battery. In the video, Lee allegedly snorted drugs off an object that Zangeneh claims was the knife used in his own murder, according to reporting from ABC7.
In response, Assistant Dist. Atty. Omid Talai asked the jury to consider why none of Lee’s DNA was found on that object if it was supposedly the knife used in the killing. Prosecutors said that only Momeni’s DNA was found on the knife.
Prosecutors showed video of Lee before he was stabbed. At one point, his jacket was open and Reinstedt said there was no knife visible. Another video, albeit grainy, showed the men on the bridge but it showed that Momeni was the aggressor, according to reporting from the Associated Press.
MinnPost is hiring an audience editor, a key leadership position that will manage and direct audience development efforts across the organization.
This position will lead new investments in MinnPost’s audience strategy as we navigate the ever-changing digital media environment, using audience data to craft and execute engagement strategies that includes – but goes well beyond – growing website and newsletter audiences. That growth must be paired with stronger and more meaningful connections with readers, demonstrating that journalism is an essential source of information that equips people to be civically engaged through everything from voting to participating in public discourse to identifying and pursuing solutions that make state and local systems work better.
At MinnPost, we aim to serve people seeking analysis, context and perspective on news affecting our state through in-depth and explanatory journalism. We’ve grown our newsletter audience by more than 50% in the past two years and have new audience research in hand to help inform decisions to further that growth. We’re also looking forward to making new investments that will grow our newsroom starting in 2025.
The audience editor will play an important role in shaping how to deepen audience relationships and leverage that additional coverage to better serve even more Minnesotans. We’re looking for someone who is entrepreneurial, a great collaborator, and is driven by our shared belief that rigorous, in-depth journalism that inspires and engages communities across the state is crucial to a strong democracy.
In this role, you will:
● Supervise the newsroom audience team responsible for web production, visual journalism, newsletters, social media, the daily Glean, audience analytics tracking, and audience and community engagement
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Relevant skills and qualifications:
3+ years of journalism experience in a digital media environment
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There are great candidates who might not check all these boxes or who hold important skills we haven’t listed. Don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.
To better reflect the communities we serve, we seek to recruit staff members from many backgrounds and with diverse identities. We strongly encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities.
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Since its founding in 2007, MinnPost has established itself as one of the nation’s largest and most successful regional nonprofit news organizations. Central to our work is our focus on writing about civic and cultural issues with depth, clarity and context, providing coverage that gives our readers a deeper understanding of the critical challenges and dynamics shaping public life in Minnesota.
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It was a spectacular year of celestial events for Southern Californians, including April’s solar eclipse and a rare Draconid meteor shower in October.
Next year will be another one of dazzling sky shows and offer opportunities for forging deeper connections with astronomy, said Vanessa Alarcon, an astronomical observer at Griffith Observatory.
Alarcon told The Times on Monday that throughout human history, people have by necessity been connected to the sky and stars because that’s how they were able to tell time, when to plant things and understand seasonal changes.
It’s our roots.
“We are inherently connected to the stars because we are a part of it,” Alarcon said. Each of the upcoming events “is an opportunity to jump into the world of astronomy.”
Before we dive into coming attractions, here are some expert tips for stargazers.
Stay away from light pollution. NASA experts say the darker the sky, the better your chances of seeing stars and celestial events. You may need to travel to make that happen, and if you need assistance in choosing destinations, you can consult your local astronomy club. The Griffith Observatory has an online list of Southern California astronomy clubs.
Search for viewing parties near you. You can also contact clubs and observatories to see whether they’re having a viewing of a celestial event that’s open to the public — most of these viewings are free. The Los Angeles Astronomical Society is hosting a star party that’s equipped with professional telescopes at the lawn area in front of the Griffith Observatory’s main entrance Jan. 4, for example. The observatory also has virtual viewing parties on its YouTube account, including one March 13 for the total lunar eclipse — an event that will last until 1 a.m., Alarcon said.
Check the weather, as it can impair your view. Preparing for any cosmic event should include checking the forecast. Many such events come with the warning, “weather permitting.” That means, for example, a night that’s cloudy or foggy probably will diminish your chances of catching a meteor shower.
Know where to look with your own two eyes. Not everyone has the money for telescopes or other equipment. But some events are visible to the naked eye. If you need assistance locating a specific planet, experts point to mobile apps such as SkySafari 7 and Night Sky, which enable users to find celestial objects simply by pointing their phones at the sky.
Find your binoculars. For an enhanced view, experts recommend that you grab a pair of binoculars that range in specifications from 7×35 to 10×50 that will allow you to have a clearer view of things, including the moon.
Next year’s events that are visible to Californians include planets that appear closer together, a total lunar eclipse, a tiny planet that is normally not visible making itself known, another planet’s disappearing rings, and a meteor shower.
January: Mars’ disappearing act
On Jan. 13 at 5:30 p.m., the moon is going to orbit in front of Mars, and Mars will disappear for a bit, reappearing on the other side of the moon. That’s known as occultation.
This event is a good Southern California special, Alarcon said. It’s viewable only from the West Coast.
The event can be viewed with binoculars, and you’ll see Mars’ brightness before it disappears for about an hour.
January: Venus and Saturn get close to each other
Venus and Saturn are hundreds of millions of miles apart depending on their positions in orbit, but on Jan. 18, the planets will appear “less than half a degree apart in the sky,” according to National Geographic.
This is happening because as Venus moves away from the sun, Saturn is moving toward it, and the apparent gap between the two planets is closing, as High Point Scientific explains.
You can see the planets’ close encounter by looking up at the sky (in a southwesterly direction) about 30 to 45 minutes after sunset.
Experts say you’ll be able to spot the planets with the naked eye on a relatively clear night. Venus will be shining brightly while Saturn will be slightly dimmer. If you choose to use a telescope, you’ll be able to see Saturn’s rings.
March: Total lunar eclipse
The most recent total lunar eclipse visible to Southern Californians occurred in 2022. This spectacular event happens when the moon moves into the Earth’s shadow and turns a blood-red color at and near and at totality.
The color is due to Earth’s atmosphere acting as a lens and preferentially directing red and orange light onto the lunar surface, according to the Griffith Observatory.
In 2025, the eclipse will occur March 14. Weather permitting, you’ll be able to see totality starting at 8:57 p.m. Pacific time.
March: Watch Saturn’s rings disappear
Bring out your telescope equipment for Saturn’s magic trick: its disappearing rings.
Our view of the planet and its rings changes as it moves through its orbit. That’s because the orbits of Earth and Saturn are tilted with respect toward each other, so when rings seem to disappear, it’s because we’re seeing them edge-on, according to NASA.
On March 23, the planet’s tilt aligns with Earth’s, making the thin rings appear to be nearly invisible. This will be the narrowest you’ll see the rings this year, and without equipment you probably won’t be able to see it.
June: Mercury takes a bow
Mercury is difficult to spot from Earth because of its close proximity to the sun. As NASA explains, the planet is only viewable at dawn or twilight when the sun’s brightness doesn’t outshine it.
That will change June 26, when our solar system’s smallest planet with be about 15 degrees above the horizon about 15 to 20 minutes after sunset, according to High Point Scientific.
This is the best chance you’ll have this year to see — using a telescope — both Mercury and the moon in the evening sky together, experts say.
August: Venus and Jupiter cozy up
Scientific experts are calling this rare August event a can’t-miss opportunity to see the two brightest planets in close proximity to each other. On Aug. 12, you’ll be able to see Venus and Jupiter in close conjunction at predawn in the eastern part of the sky.
Venus will outshine Jupiter with a brilliant white glow, according to High Point Scientific. Jupiter, by comparison, will be dimmer and have a golden glow.
By looking through a telescope, you’ll be able to see Jupiter’s banded atmosphere and four Galilean moons, which may appear as tiny dots lined up around the planet, National Geographic says.
September: Waning crescent moon, Venus and Regulus
Those on the East Coast who look up and to the east Sept. 19 about 45 minutes before sunrise will see a crescent moon, Venus and brilliant star Regulus aligned.
For Southern Californians, also 45 minutes before the sun comes up that day, the crescent moon and Regulus will be to the left or lower left of Venus in a possible triangle shape.
The trio will shine brightly, but Venus will outshine the other two, and Regulus will be emanating a blue-white hue.
Experts say the event will be visible to the naked eye, but binoculars or a telescope are recommended to enhance your view.
December: Geminid meteor shower
If you missed the Geminid meteor shower over the weekend, you’ll have a chance to catch it next year.
The debris causing the Geminids, an annual event, originated from an asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon, according to NASA.
About 10 days before the Geminids are expected to reach maximum, there will be a full moon. But by Dec. 13 and 14, the moon will be in a waxing crescent phase, and its brightness won’t overpower the skies. More important, it won’t interfere with viewing of the meteor shower, High Point Scientific says.
On Dec.13, two hours after sunset, you can look up at the sky — in a direction that’s away from the moon — and hunt for shooting stars. The show is predicted to continue until the early hours of the following day.
The Geminid meteor shower can produce up to 50 meteors an hour during the peak dates of Dec. 13-14 in a typical year.
As production at craft breweries declines, Minnesota brewers expanded the range of beverages and events they offer to attract younger generations.
That means less beer and more nonalcoholic drinks, cannabis beverages, and canned cocktails, as well as events where individuals would be comfortable in a taproom by themselves, like silent book clubs.
Craft brewers throughout the U.S. saw a 1% drop in production in 2023 compared to 2022, according to a report by the Brewers Association, a national trade association.
The numbers reflect a shift in tastes among younger millennials and older members of Generation Z that came to light during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Bob Galligan, director of government and industry relations for the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild.
“Beer in general has been trending down. … Taste preferences for a lot of people entering the market, they tend to prefer more fruitier, more exotic tastes, which is part of the reason why seltzers have taken a decent amount of beer’s market share,” Galligan said.
Industry adjusts
Laura Mullen, a co-founder of Bent Paddle Brewing Co. and its vice president of outreach and marketing, said the Duluth-based company noticed the shift among its customers.
“In terms of taste preferences, we do think that the younger generation hasn’t gravitated towards beer like previous generations have,” Mullen said.
Bent Paddle has hosted events at its taproom and offered non-alcoholic beverage options since it opened in 2013, Mullen said. The taproom hosts a food truck every day in the summer and customers can have food delivered to the taproom, as well.
In recent years, Bent Paddle added cannabis-infused drinks to its roster, Mullen said.
“We’re doing our best with the cannabis and just diversifying and interviewing people of different generations to see what might appeal to them in our lineup of what beers we’re offering or seltzers – all that kind of stuff,” she said. “But it really is a demographic shift that’s happening.”
Young people who are drinking alcohol tend to gravitate to seltzers, canned cocktails, and more exotic flavors, said Galligan.
An increasing number prefer non-alcoholic beer.
“The fastest growing category of beer the past couple of years has been non-alcoholic,” Galligan said, “and a lot of our members have entered that space, whether they are actually producing their own or if they’re selling a national brand.”
Habits change
Jack Pine Brewery in Baxter saw craft beer production drop for the first time in 2024, said Patrick Sundberg, owner, founder, and brewer. Like Bent Paddle, Jack Pine Brewery opened in 2013.
The change Sundberg sees is the amount of beer people drink. The Brainerd Lakes brewery’s customers tend to be from the millennial generation and up, he said.
“People are just drinking less – that’s what we’re finding,” Sundberg said.
In addition to craft beer, Jack Pine Brewery offers sodas, locally-produced kombucha, and non-alcoholic beer in its taproom. Sundberg said he also has three seltzers on tap, and he started selling three THC-infused beverages in November.
Sundberg used to brew non-alcoholic beer. ABV Technology in St. Paul removed the alcohol. However, trucking the beer to and from the Twin Cities became too expensive, and Sundberg said he didn’t have enough demand for it from customers.
“We have … other brewers’ NA product available, because it just didn’t move well for us,” Sundberg said.
How to get people in the door
Dawn Finnie, co-owner of Little Thistle Brewing Company in Rochester, said she sees fewer people going out overall, and she hears the same thing from other business owners.
Little Thistle offers non-alcoholic beer from small producers, soda, seltzers, and THC-infused beverages in addition to its beer lineup. Like Jack Pine Brewing, Little Thistle tried brewing its own non-alcoholic beer, but stopped because it wasn’t selling as fast as they wanted.
Little Thistle has always hosted trivia, beer tastings, and live music, and now the taproom has added events where individuals would feel comfortable coming alone.
Community members packed the Little Thistle taproom in January 2024 for its first silent book club, Finnie said. She called the event a success.
“It’s hard to measure it, but we felt like it was successful because it got people out of the house,” she said.
Attendance dipped over the summer, but the silent book club will be back this winter, along with a few new offerings. Finnie mentioned nights where people can learn to play cards, for example.
“I think younger people like those experiences,” she said. “They value doing something new, or having experiences over just going out and having a beer.”
Future shifts
There’s a bit of a dichotomy at play among potential new tastes, with health-conscious customers interested in vitamin-infused beverages, for example, Mullen said.
“And then on the other flip of the hand, there’s the nostalgic want of candy flavors, so it’s almost like that’s totally opposite,” she said, “We’re just exploring all the things that the market and the people are interested in.”
The Minnesota Legislature could also change state laws to benefit craft brewers. Currently, craft brewers can only operate one taproom, for example, Mullen said.
“At some point, the breweries might be asking for public support of things to loosen some of the pretty outdated laws that have been keeping beer where it’s at in the state for quite a long time,” she said.
This story was edited and fact-checked by Nora Hertel.
Amid a surge in utility shutoffs, and in the face of a groundbreaking study finding racial disparities in those outcomes, Minnesota’s largest utility is taking a closer look at the issue.
In a November agreement with consumer groups and the state’s Public Utilities Commission, Xcel Energy has outlined a series of steps to provide more information to customers and make it easier for them to restore service.
Xcel also agreed to hire an outside consultant to conduct a one-year study of disparity issues related to disconnections and outages and, separately, do its own analysis of outages. The move came in response to a University of Minnesota study released earlier this year that found that people of color were more likely than White households to have their service disconnected for falling behind on bills, even when controlling for income and home ownership status.
The agreement falls short of a demand from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office for Xcel to institute a temporary moratorium on shutoffs until racial disparities are addressed, based on a recommendation from Fresh Energy and a coalition formed by Cooperative Energy Futures, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Sierra Club, and Vote Solar.
Erica McConnell, staff attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, represented the clean energy organizations advocating for grid equity. She supported the agreement but believes it will do little to help reduce disparities in shutoffs.
“These are very important improvements that don’t really address — and the commission didn’t discuss — the disparate impacts and the racial disparity (of disconnections) and how to address that specifically,” she said.
A temporary moratorium on disconnections would have allowed for time to study disparities and find ways to address them.
“The commission didn’t talk about that,” McConnell said. “They didn’t address it at all, so that was disappointing. I understand it’s uncomfortable and it’s a tough issue, but it’s disappointing they shied away taking it head on.”
Shutoffs soaring
Beyond the challenge of disparities, Xcel’s number of service disconnections has skyrocketed. More than 45,000 Xcel customers saw their power shut off this year, a number that has grown significantly over the last two decades.
Xcel agreed to many proposals from the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota, the Energy CENTS Coalition, clean energy organizations and the Public Utilities Commission to create more consumer protection against shutoffs.
Xcel Energy’s involuntary disconnection notices began rising significantly in 2023 before skyrocketing in 2024, when shutoffs doubled the prior year’s total for May through July. Despite Minnesota’s cold weather protection rules that limit disconnections during the winter through April 30, shutoffs even grew during the winter months.
This chart, based on Xcel Energy data and submitted by consumer and clean energy groups to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, shows a sharp increase in utility shutoffs in 2023 and 2024, which the groups attribute to the utility’s new ability to use smart meters to disconnect customers remotely. Credit: Minnesota PUC Docket E002/M-24-27
Clean energy and consumer organizations point to Xcel’s ability to remotely disconnect customers who have smart meters as a major reason for the shutoffs, along with inflation, escalating rate increases and challenging repayment requirements. Xcel had demanded customers pay 50% of what they owe to reconnect, which may have violated Minnesota law, according to the Citizens Utility Board.
Xcel’s pact with the Citizens Utility Board and Energy CENTS “is going to make payment agreements more affordable and hopefully help households that are behind on their bills avoid getting shut off and get caught back up,” said Annie Levenson-Falk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota.
The utility board and Energy CENTS Coalition forged the agreement with Xcel under the purview of the Public Utilities Commission, which will issue a final order later. The agreement requires the following:
Customers will pay 10% of what they owe to have the power turned back on, instead of 50%.
The amount due will have to be at least $180 before Xcel can send a disconnect notice.
Xcel cannot shut off power until a customer reaches a $300 past due balance. Xcel’s data from this year showed disconnected customers were $441 in arrears on average in October and much higher in other months.
The utility must wait at least 10 days after a shutoff notice has been sent to disconnect, up from five days.
Xcel must post clear disconnection and payment policies on its website, along with information about customers’ right to develop an affordable repayment plan. Any changes Xcel makes to shutoff policies and repayments have to be reported to the commission, and it must collect data on repayments and customer agreements.
A variance allowing remote disconnections without field visits from Xcel remains, but the utility must contact customers via voicemail and use at least one other form of electronic communication.
Xcel spokesperson Kevin Coss said the utility believes “this agreement is a great step toward reducing disconnections for some of our customers who continue to struggle economically.”
Options for customers
George Shardlow, Energy CENTS executive director, said he thought a clearer explanation of the disconnection process on Xcel’s website brings a transparency that had been lacking.
“I don’t think the average person even knows that they have a right to negotiate when they’re struggling to pay their bills,” he said. “It’s all sort of opaque. We’re excited to see better documentation of people’s rights on Xcel’s website.”
Minnesota law says utility customers are “entitled” to a payment plan they can afford, Shardlow said. Customers who cannot afford the 10% down payment can still negotiate for a settlement that fits their budget, he added.
Shutoffs have been growing. This year Xcel sent disconnection notices to 51,000 customers in January and 71,000 in July. But not all notices result in shutoffs. The highest month for disconnections, May, saw more than 10,000 shutoffs. By August, slightly more than 8,400 customers had been disconnected.
Coss said Xcel works with customers to avoid disconnection by starting a nine-week process of contacting them through multiple channels to “point them to available options for energy assistance — both through the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and our own affordability programs — and offer flexible payment plans tailored to their circumstances.”
Minnesota also has cold weather protections that greatly reduce utilities’ ability to disconnect customers in winter months. But people who fail to pay their bills in winter see their balances grow, leading to higher disconnections in summer when they fail to catch up.
Xcel agreed to monitor progress and collect more data on racial disparities involving customers involuntarily shut off. The utility has already hired a third party evaluator, as the agreement requires, to study its shutoff policies and hold stakeholder engagement meetings during the year-long process.
Coss said disparities result in inequities throughout society and Xcel has been doing its part to address them. The utility has worked with the study’s authors and advocacy groups to identify actions to reduce disparities, he said.
Earlier this year, the commission also approved a proposal by Xcel for a pilot program that will provide bill credits to select census tracts with high levels of disconnections. Coss said Xcel will provide $500 bill credits to customers in low-income census areas who have a greater than $2,000 past-due balance, using money available from a quality of service program.
Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Joe Sullivan said he believed the agreement negotiated among the nonprofits and utility would reduce the financial strain on households facing disconnections and assist Xcel in recovering debt.
“I thought that in that docket people came together and were constructive,” he said. “I feel like I’m hopeful that the order will make some progress.”
PUC Chair Katie Sieben said the commission is “always looking at affordability, and especially as it pertains to low-income customers, I think we have a great track record on working with stakeholders and with utilities to provide robust low-income assistance to customers.”
She mentioned the commission’s role in approving an Xcel pilot to decrease payments for low-income, low-usage customers and a September decision that used a penalty for the utility’s service quality underperformance to provide bill credits to around 1,000 customers with the oldest outstanding balances in low-income census tracts.
‘Still more work to do’
The agreement does not solve the problem of low-income customers struggling to pay utility bills. Shardlow said Energy CENTS and the Citizens Utility Board lobbied the state legislature to allow households to apply for energy assistance funding the entire year instead of the current policy of having a deadline of May 31. Only 20% of eligible Minnesota households participate in the program, he said.
Levenson-Falk wants Xcel to consider eliminating the 1.5% late fee it charges customers on their balance, or consider donating the money to affordability programs.
The Citizens Utility Board also wants Xcel to develop a plan to reconnect customers quickly on days of high heat or poor air quality. Coss said Xcel will evaluate reconnecting customers disconnected during days of air quality alerts.
Levenson-Falk said the agreement at least makes progress. “I think we resolved everything that we had discussed with Xcel but that’s not to say that we think this is going to solve the problem, because, of course, there are still going to be continuing shutoffs, and those are still very concerning,” she said. “There’s still more work to do.”
This story was updated to include a statement from Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Chair Katie Sieben.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that his policies would reduce high borrowing costs and lighten the financial burden on American households.
But what if, as many economists expect, interest rates remain elevated, well above their pre-pandemic lows?
Trump could point a finger at the Federal Reserve, and in particular at its chair, Jerome Powell, whom Trump himself nominated to lead the Fed. During his first term, Trump repeatedly and publicly ridiculed the Powell Fed, complaining that it kept interest rates too high. Trump’s attacks on the Fed raised widespread concern about political interference in the Fed’s policymaking.
On Wednesday, Powell emphasized the importance of the Fed’s independence: “That gives us the ability to make decisions for the benefit of all Americans at all times, not for any particular political party or political outcome.”
Political clashes might be inevitable in the next four years. Trump’s proposals to cut taxes and impose steep and widespread tariffs are a recipe for high inflation in an economy operating at close to full capacity. And if inflation were to reaccelerate, the Fed would need to keep interest rates high.
Why is there so much concern that Trump will fight Powell?
Because Powell won’t necessarily cut rates as much as Trump will want. And even if Powell reduces the Fed’s benchmark rate, Trump’s own policies could keep other borrowing costs — like mortgage rates — elevated.
The sharply higher tariffs that Trump has vowed to impose could worsen inflation. And if tax cuts on things like tips and overtime pay — another Trump promise — quickened economic growth, that, too, could fan inflationary pressures. The Fed would likely respond by slowing or stopping its rate cuts, thereby thwarting Trump’s promises of lower borrowing rates. The central bank might even raise rates if inflation worsened.
“The risk of conflict between the Trump administration and the Fed is very high,” Olivier Blanchard, former top economist at the International Monetary Fund, said recently. If the Fed hikes rates, “it will stand in the way of what the Trump administration wants.”
But isn’t the Federal Reserve cutting rates?
Yes, but with the economy sturdier than expected, the Fed’s policymakers may cut rates only a few more times — fewer than had been anticipated just a month or two ago.
And those rate cuts might not reduce borrowing costs for consumers and businesses very much. The Fed’s key short-term rate can influence rates for credit cards, small businesses and some other loans. But it has no direct control over longer-term interest rates. These include the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which affects mortgage rates. The 10-year Treasury yield is shaped by investors’ expectations of future inflation, economic growth and interest rates as well as by supply and demand for Treasuries.
An example occurred this year. The 10-year yield fell in late summer in anticipation of a Fed rate cut. Yet once the first rate cut occurred on Sept. 18, longer term rates didn’t fall. Instead, they began to rise again, partly in anticipation of faster economic growth.
Trump has also proposed a variety of tax cuts that could swell the deficit. Rates on Treasury securities might then have to rise to attract enough investors to buy the new debt.
“I honestly don’t think the Fed has a lot of control over the 10-year rate, which is probably the most important for mortgages,” said Kent Smetters, an economist and faculty director at the Penn Wharton Budget Model. “Deficits are going to play a much bigger role in that regard.”
OK, so Trump fights with Powell — so what?
Occasional or rare criticism of the Fed chair isn’t necessarily a problem for the economy, so long as the central bank continues to set policy as it sees fit.
But persistent attacks would tend to undermine the Fed’s political independence, which is critically important to keeping inflation in check. To fight inflation, a central bank often must take steps that can be highly unpopular, notably by raising interest rates to slow borrowing and spending.
Political leaders have typically wanted central banks to do the opposite: Keep rates low to support the economy and the job market, especially before an election. Research has found that countries with independent central banks generally enjoy lower inflation.
Even if Trump doesn’t technically force the Fed to do anything, his persistent criticism could still cause problems. If markets, economists and business leaders no longer think the Fed is operating independently and instead is being pushed around by the president, they’ll lose confidence in the Fed’s ability to control inflation.
And once consumers and businesses anticipate higher inflation, they usually act in ways that fuel higher prices — accelerating their purchases, for example, before prices rise further, or raising their own prices if they expect their expenses to increase.
“The markets need to feel confident that the Fed is responding to the data, not to political pressure,” said Scott Alvarez, a former general counsel at the Fed.
Could Trump just fire Powell?
He can try, but it would likely lead to a prolonged legal battle that could even end up at the Supreme Court. At a November news conference, Powell made clear that he believes the president doesn’t have legal authority to do so.
Most experts think Powell would prevail in the courts. And from the Trump administration’s perspective, such a fight might not be worth it. Powell’s term ends in May 2026, when the White House could nominate a new chair.
It is also likely that the stock market would tumble if Trump attempted such a brazen move. Bond yields would probably rise, too, sending mortgage rates and other borrowing costs up.
Financial markets might also react negatively if Trump is seen as appointing a loyalist as Fed chair to replace Powell in 2026.
Haven’t previous presidents criticized the Fed?
Yes, and in the most egregious cases, it led to stubbornly high inflation. Notably, President Richard Nixon pressured Fed Chair Arthur Burns to reduce interest rates in 1971, as Nixon sought re-election next year, which the Fed did. Economists blame Burns’ failure to keep rates sufficiently high for contributing to the entrenched inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s.
Thomas Drechsel, an economist at the University of Maryland, said that when presidents intrude on the Fed’s interest rate decisions, “it increases prices quite consistently and it increases expectations, and … that worries me because that means inflation might become quite entrenched.”
Since the mid-1980s, with the exception of Trump in his first term, presidents have scrupulously refrained from public criticism of the Fed.
“It’s amazing, how little manipulation for partisan ends we have seen of that policymaking apparatus,” said Peter Conti-Brown, a professor of financial regulation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “It really is a triumph of American governance.”
Do other countries have independent central banks?
Yes, most advanced economies do. But in some recent cases, as in Turkey and South Africa, governments have sought to dictate interest-rate policy to the central bank. And soaring inflation has typically followed.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for years pressured the country’s central bank to cut interest rates even as prices spiked. He even fired three central bankers who had refused to comply. In response, inflation skyrocketed to 72% in 2022, according to official measures.
Last year, Erdogan finally reversed course and allowed the central bank to raise rates.
The notion floated a couple of weeks ago by President-elect Donald Trump that to avoid tussles over tariffs the United States might want to annex Canada warrants more than a passing snicker, eh.
His overture recalls a similar idea that he propounded during his first administration to acquire Greenland, which never was seriously pursued.
But this one might have more legs.
Purchasing the nation to the north would more than slightly double the United States land mass and make the U.S. the largest country on the globe — unless the Russians try to militarily annex more land from its neighbors. The acquisition would also add another 40 million people to the population, an 11% increase.
But one wonders where the money would come from for such a transaction. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would shudder as they try to reach their goal of cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget through their (so-far unofficial) Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
It would take a major financing arrangement with a consortium of lenders; maybe the growing number of billionaires that the incoming president is tapping for his cabinet or high positions in his next administration can pitch in some spare change to underwrite the purchase.
But rather than buying land, it might be a better seller’s market.
Trump administration II might consider raising money to reduce the amount the DOGE duo pledge to slice. It could begin by putting on the market a number of blue states that lean Democratic, like those in New England and along the Atlantic Coast corridor that are stocked with Democrats. Canada might be an interested buyer for the territory from the tip of Maine through Virginia. That would include Washington, D.C., which could remain intact through a lease-back arrangement.
Marshall H. Tanick
The Canadians might also want to pick up Minnesota, a reliable blue state with some streaks of purple, and maybe snare bordering Wisconsin and Michigan, which vacillate from blue to red in national politics. Moving westward, it could buy Oregon and Washington, two states carved out of territory that the U.S. acquired from Great Britain before Canada gained its independence from that country.
To the south, Mexico might be in the market to purchase the land it lost in military conflicts with the U.S. nearly two centuries ago — especially California — and maybe the southwest border states that went north as a result of those skirmishes, even red ones like Texas, blue New Mexico, and purple Arizona and Nevada.
In addition to ridding itself of some politically-adverse jurisdictions, the cash infusion from these transactions and the money saved from having to provide social services and benefits to those states and their residents could be worth trillions to this country.
With those deals, Musk and Ramaswamy might be able to supplement the federal coffers to pay for the programs that fall prey as they undertake their cost-cutting endeavor.
Marshall H. Tanick is a constitutional and employment law attorney with the Twin Cities law firm of Meyer Njus Tanick.
Elliot Hughes at the Star Tribune is reporting two spray-painted swastikas were found outside Minneapolis’ Temple Israel, the largest synagogue in Minnesota, on Monday morning.
Felicity Dachel at KARE 11 and the Associated Press report that Derek Chauvin is arguing his attorney Eric Nelson gave ineffective counsel. According to the judge’s order, Nelson was reached out to by a doctor who said it was his opinion Floyd died “due to a catecholamine crisis.” Nelson did not consult with Chauvin on this issue and the opinion was not tested, the order says.
Nathan O’Neal at FOX News reports when former 3M lab scientist Kris Hansen found the company’s chemicals were in human blood in 1997, she said it was “like finding the big red 3M logo in the blood of the general population.” Hansen believed it was the first time the Minnesota-based manufacturer became aware of the “alarming” discovery. It was not.
Paul Walsh at the Star Tribune is reporting a fiery two-vehicle crash Monday morning in a North Minneapolis neighborhood left two people dead, others injured and a Metro Transit bus shelter destroyed.
Dana Thiede at KARE 11 writes police in St. Paul are looking for suspects after a man was shot in the city’s east side early Monday, leading to a busy crime scene that stretched out for hours.
Dan Niepow at Twin Cities Business reports Minnetonka-based health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group has agreed to pay $69 million to settle a class action suit alleging the company violated its fiduciary duties to its employees’ retirement plans.
This spring, bass singer David Leigh will be performing at the historic Palais Garnier with the Paris Opera, singing the role of Virgilio (Virgil) in Pascal Dusapin’s 2022 adaptation of “Il Viaggio, Dante,” (Dante’s Divine Comedy.)
And that’s just part of a globe-trotting season for the graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, with additional stints in New York, Washington, Nashville and Prague during this season alone.
Lucky for us, the son of Mitch Leigh, who wrote the music for the musical “Man of La Mancha,” stops by Minneapolis on Wednesday for a recital with the Minnesota Opera’s own head of music and pianist Mario Antonio Marra. The two met as music students and are gleeful at the chance to collaborate on an evening of American and Russian songs. Here’s an interview with the two musicians about their history together and the upcoming concert. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sheila Regan: I kind of wanted to hear about how you guys met.
Mario Antonio Marra: We met at the Music Academy of the West, which is a phenomenal summer program for young classical musicians. We put on an opera there — the “Magic Flute,” and we also did a lot of recitals together. And there’s a competition, and David and I were paired to make music together that summer. We met there in the dormitory overlooking the grassy field of the Cate school.
Sheila: Were you the same age?
David Leigh: Roughly, but Mario was a baby. Mario was 21 and I think I was 24 or something. Mario shows up at Music Academy and the first day, there’s what they call Death by Aria in classical music. Everyone sings one aria, and you just listen to all these people. It’s always terrible music making. Mario is sitting there making music because he’s 21 and still an idealist. Mario is really making deep music, and I’m just sitting there in the front row because they made us sit in the front row, and I’m thinking, this guy is next level. What is his deal? I made it my mission to befriend Mario, and then we got to be friends, and we worked together a bunch that summer.
MAM: I really should bring David around as my hype man. I’m finding this out very clearly through this process.
Minnesota Opera’s head of music and pianist Mario Antonio Marra: “The first thing that I remember about David [Leigh] is his voice, the quality of David’s voice at that time was just kind of astonishing.” Credit: Courtesy of the Minnesota Opera
SR: What was it that you were experiencing that made you connect so much to his music?
DL: When you hear Mario play — we had a running gag about it — he breathes like a singer, and actually he breathes better than a singer, and he breathes louder than a singer. He’s just this crazy over-the-top artist, you can’t miss it. The way that he’s thinking about the music comes across even before he presses the keys.
MAM: David and I really got to know each other musically that summer. I think it would be fair to say that our friendship developed in the years that we were back in New York and were able to kind of see each other. But the first thing that I remember about David is his voice, the quality of David’s voice at that time was just kind of astonishing. It was loud, it was beautiful and there was this visceral passion that just grabbed you when you were listening to it, and that kind of raw power, this kind of primal thing is hard to come by, quite honestly.
And the second thing that struck me about David was the brain of this man. He studied composition at Yale when he was an undergrad, and I got to see some of these early things that he was writing that summer, one of which we’re going to play on the program.
David: It was written for Mario, yeah.
Mario: One of the things you may not know about David is that he is very popular on Quora.
SR: Quora… that’s like Reddit, right?
DL: It was an early Reddit competitor. People would ask questions about, how does an opera singer think about high notes? What’s a performance day routine? I was told that you needed to have two forms of social media when I was at the Met. Well, the problem is I’m not a photo person. I’m a long form content person. So I was like, I guess I’m on Quora. People still come to my concerts and are like, I know you from Quora.
SR: So the program that you guys are going to do together includes songs that you wrote, David?
DL: It includes American folk songs that I wrote the arrangements for. I have a composition background, like Mario said. I’m a big believer that even if you don’t have a composition background, singers should be comfortable making their own clothes. You have to be a tailor, fitting it to your own body.
But, yeah, I wrote the arrangements, and some of them are sort of unconventional. Given that, I would say they’re accessible. Often when I’ve done them, people are not like, “Wow, what a weird thing Schoenberg wrote.”
SR: Are you doing a folk song by Schoenberg?
DL: No, sorry, that was a joke. Just standard American folk songs. So we’re doing, “O Waly, Waly.” We’re doing “Joshua Fit the Battle,” We’re doing “Go Down Moses,” and we’re doing “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.” I arranged them in a way that I hear them in my head.
SR: And Russian folk songs?
DL: We talked about doing a Russian folk song group, and then decided it was too many folk songs. We’re doing a Russian set by Shostakovich, which is amazing. He wrote them for his own birthday party, and it’s hilarious. And then we’re doing a set of deeply beautiful Russian art songs. And then we’re doing a set of Charles Ives. Mario and I have a New Haven connection. I went to school for six years at Yale, and Mario grew up in New Haven. Charles Ives is a famous composer from New Haven, and we had bonded over love for Charles Ives many, many years ago.
SR: What do you two like about Charles Ives?
DL: Oh my God. He was a lunatic.
MAM: Ives was a composer and an actuary. He has the most interesting kind of compositional sensibility. His father was a band leader. There’s a story of him hearing these two bands playing in different keys, crossing each other, and understanding music through that kind of sound. So you get this very American town square band at a parade idea from a lot of his works. And then you layer on top of that this sense of dissonance and the modernist kind of movement of that period.
The songs are about patriotism and mothers and fathers. The way that Ives finds the discordant colors in the piano part to offset the beauty and the simplicity of the language I think is very relevant to today. It’s very relevant for us to to hear words like “Over there, Over there,” the old war song, or to hear “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” which is the text that has been set by so many composers, and ask questions about how we feel about our mother, how do we feel about our father? How do we feel about our country? Ives created this world in which these questions are possible.
DL: You listen to Ives’ music, and it sounds like a New England Christmas card by a person who couldn’t just paint a New England Christmas card, he just couldn’t bring himself to just do that. He had to include these Easter eggs all over the place. I think for us, it’s very rewarding as an artist to engage with this type of music, which is sort of infinitely dimensional.
SR: David, I heard you wanted the title of this show to be “A Small Subset of the Music I’m Desperate to Make with Mario.”
DL: Yes, this should have been the title. I got overruled, and now I’m making it happen. We have been wanting to do a recital together since we met that summer. A full recital. We’ve done recital-ish stuff.
MAM: I just feel so lucky that Minnesota Opera is going to be the place that brings David to Minnesota, and that Minnesota and people in the Twin Cities can experience him in such an intimate environment, because the power of that voice and the power of this artist is something that I really don’t think we get the chance to hear all that often.
SR: Mario, I know you’re at the opera, but you also do recitals and programs outside, but for musicians that end up with an institution and more fixed in geographically, compared to a career focused on touring more and working with a lot of different companies — how much choice is that? How much is it fate?
MAM: I spent a good amount of time bopping around between places and doing that, and that was great. And then I was fixed in Germany for three seasons, and that was great. And then I decided to come here and be fixed here at Minnesota Opera, and this has been great. They’ve all been different challenges. For me, it has always been a choice. The reason that I chose to come to Minnesota Opera, quite frankly, was because this job came with the opportunity to be the director of the resident artist program, which is the company’s training program for young singers and pianists. And that was something that I knew interested me and that I had not had the chance to do yet in my kind of young career, and that was what clinched me being in Minnesota.
DL: It’s a different question for a singer. I think, past a certain level. As a singer, you really can’t be fixed in one place. In Europe, it’s a little more possible. But if you’re having a really top tier career, there’s really no way of being just at one company. I have two kids now, that’s kind of hard. And I think this concept of place as an operatic artist is really interesting as a result, because, so I’m based in New York now. The year I met my wife, I was in New York for two weeks, and I was traveling for 11 and a half months, and I met her during those two weeks. Now, my agents hate me, and I’m home for three, four months.
This concept of place becomes so central to who we’re able to be, because otherwise everything is just in flux. If you don’t feel an attachment to Minnesota when you’re there, then you can’t look out at an audience and feel empathy for them, and feel love for the audience, and feel therefore, that you’re able to give your best performance. You’re sort of finding attachment to different places all the time. And I think Mario, in that sense, is very lucky to have attachment to Minnesota, a place in America that feels comfortable, but also that feels like a jumping off point for a major career. And I feel really blessed to get to do my first thing in Minnesota. I feel already an affinity for the place.
An Evening of Russian and American Songs, part of the MNOP+ Recital series, takes place Wednesday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m. ($25). More information here.
![Minnesota Opera’s own head of music and pianist Mario Antonio Marra: “The first thing that I remember about David [Leigh] is his voice, the quality of David’s voice at that time was just kind of astonishing.”](https://www.minnpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/MarioAntonioMarra740.png)