Latest news with #KeithEllison
CBS News
7 hours ago
- CBS News
Man convicted for role in southern Minnesota drive-by shooting that killed 1, injured 2
A 30-year-old man was convicted for his role in a 2023 drive-by shooting in Austin, Minnesota, that left a man dead and injured two others. A jury convicted Cham Obang Oman of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder following a two-week trial. Oman drove a car from which his codefendant fired over 20 rounds. Gumdel Gilo was killed in the shooting. The man who fired the rounds pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 37.5 years in prison. "The actions of Cham Oman and his accomplices are shocking and appalling, and my heart goes out to their victims," said Attorney General Keith Ellison. Ellison prosecuted the case at the request of the Mower County attorney.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Minnesota gets more opioid settlement dollars; what does that mean for Stearns County?
More opioid settlement dollars are making its way to Minnesota. The state's attorney general announced another settlement deal July 10. Eight opioid pill manufacturers agreed to settlements totaling $720 million nationwide, of which Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said $9.37 million could go to the North Star State. 'No amount of money can undo the tremendous harm that opioid manufacturers and peddlers have inflicted on families across Minnesota,' Ellison wrote in a statement. More: St. Cloud's increase in deadly overdoses: How families, officials are fighting back The deals would bring Minnesota's total opioid settlement yield to $633 million, according to the attorney general's office. The state made an agreement with Minnesota's cities and country's in 2024 where 75% of the settlement funds are allocated to local government bodies while 25% goes to the state. This agreement between municipalities, counties and the state requires funds to be used to combat the opioid crisis. Stearns County has the Opioid Community Advisory Committee, which helps fund community initiatives to combat opioid use. Overdoses have increased in St. Cloud from two in 2018 to 14 in 2024, with a high of 21 overdoses in 2023, according to St. Cloud Police Department data obtained by the St. Cloud Times. The first round of Stearns County opioid settlement grants sent $621,000 to eight groups. These groups were the Central Minnesota Violent Offenders Task Force, Effective Living Center, Hooyo Hour Organization, Metro Treatment of Minnesota, Sartell Police Department, Too Much Talent, Ultimate Success and the YES Network. More: Meet the Minnesota potter behind popular whimsical vending machine artworks The eight defendants in the settlement are Mylan (Viatris), Hikma, Amneal, Apotex, Indivior, Sun, Alvogen and Zydus, according to the Ellison's office. "It is still important that we hold wrongdoers accountable for their actions and help those who are suffering, which these settlements do," Ellison wrote. "I will continue to aggressively pursue accountability from these companies and ensure the money they made by pushing opioids is brought back to Minnesota and used on treatment, recovery, and prevention.' Sign up for our alerts to receive the latest updates on important news. Corey Schmidt covers politics and courts for the St. Cloud Times. He can be reached at cschmidt@ This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Minnesota could get $9.37 million in nationwide opioid settlement
Politico
5 days ago
- Politics
- Politico
Justice Department opens investigation into Minnesota for alleged hiring discrimination
The investigation represents one in a series of clashes between the state and Trump's DOJ. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (left) and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (right) await the arrival of then-Vice President Kamala Harris at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on March 14, 2024. | Stephen Maturen/AFP via Getty Images By Jacob Wendler 07/10/2025 05:14 PM EDT The Department of Justice announced Thursday that its Civil Rights Division is investigating the state of Minnesota for possible hiring discrimination, setting up another clash between the Trump administration and the state's Democratic leadership. The investigation hinges on a policy issued earlier this month by the Minnesota Department of Human Services mandating that hiring supervisors provide a 'hiring justification when seeking to hire a non-underrepresented candidate,' according to a Thursday letter sent to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison from Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division. Attorney General Pam Bondi's DOJ has pursued an aggressive crackdown on states and universities that engage in affirmative action policies, opening similar investigations into Rhode Island and the University of California.
Miami Herald
02-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
‘Speech-police regime': Big Tech trade group sues Minnesota over social media transparency law
Social media companies like Meta, Snapchat and X are scheduled to start sharing more information with consumers about usage rates and content practices under a new Minnesota transparency law that took effect Tuesday. A powerful trade association and lobbying firm representing Big Tech wants to block the requirements, arguing in a federal lawsuit that the state's regulations violate free speech rights protected by the First Amendment. The law requires social media companies to publicly disclose user engagement statistics, content assessment, notification practices, interaction rates between user accounts and product experiments. It passed in 2024, as Minnesota and other states have sought to regulate some aspects of online conduct. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has released two reports showing the potential harms of artificial intelligence and social media on the mental health of Minnesotans. Children were found to be frequent targets of harassment and online bullying, the latest report found, and other users frequently receive graphic or disturbing content or become targets of unwanted contact and fraud. The lawsuit challenging Minnesota's law mirrors other legal challenges that have come up across the country in recent years as state lawmakers seek to regulate social media and Big Tech, absent broader federal oversight. Similar to lawsuits filed by Big Tech against laws in New York and California, the trade group NetChoice argues in the Minnesota case that the First Amendment's wide protections on free speech shield social media companies from making mandatory disclosures. Many of the arguments draw on court precedents on free speech protections involving news publications. Minnesota's law is unconstitutional because it requires sharing information about "editorial" decisions in order to publish content, the lawsuit contends. NetChoice also argues the state is attempting to dictate which messages are publicized and which are not, a core part of a Supreme Court case last year involving the Big Tech lobby. The lawsuit also cites several provisions of Minnesota's law as being vague and likely unenforceable. NetChoice accuses Ellison of running a "speech-police regime" by requiring the disclosures. In a statement Tuesday, Ellison said the reforms in Minnesota came after residents of all ages expressed the need and he looks forward to defending the law in court. "For too long, social media companies have tested powerful and addictive new algorithms and features on Minnesotans effectively in secret, and with no oversight by their parents or the public," Ellison said, adding that state residents - and especially kids - "deserve better than to be manipulated and exploited for profit by Big Tech." One key difference in Minnesota's law compared with others is a required disclosure of the specific algorithms that social media companies use, said Paul Taske, NetChoice's associate director of litigation. These algorithms dictate how companies disseminate content to users, Taske said, and if made publicly available could enable bad actors or hamper U.S. companies from remaining competitive. The tech trade group has said Minnesota's law would force social media companies to compromise trade secrets. Taske said Minnesota's law puts government pressure on websites with the goal of changing how machine algorithms disseminate posts to social media users. "What the Supreme Court has been very clear on in the past and in recent years is that the government can't do that directly, and it can't do it indirectly either," Taske said. Minnesota's law contains a broad enforcement provision allowing the attorney general to take unspecified actions against companies that fail to comply. Jane Kirtley, a media ethics and law professor at the University of Minnesota, said challenges that say a law is vague or overly broad have been successful in the past, with courts finding that the laws violate the First Amendment. If a person cannot be sure what expressive activities are prohibited under the law, she said, the Supreme Court has concluded that people would be more likely to self-censor or avoid conduct that might run afoul with a law - thereby chilling free speech. Kirtley also said that as states have attempted to regulate social media, judges have ruled that First Amendment protections must remain intact even as new technology changes the way people communicate and find information online. "Just because you're dealing with these new digital platforms doesn't mean that the First Amendment principles go away," she said. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Axios
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Local officials grow wary of helping ICE detain immigrants
A growing number of local law enforcement officials are alarmed about their jails and prisons holding immigration detainees without warrants, saying it exposes their departments to legal risks. Why it matters: It's the latest sign of tension between local authorities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, whose strong-arm tactics in arresting immigrants have shocked communities across the nation. Zoom in: As part of President Trump 's push to deport "millions" of unauthorized immigrants, ICE has leaned on local agencies to help arrest and temporarily detain unauthorized immigrants. Over the past decade most of ICE's arrests involved people who already were in law enforcement custody, according to a review of 10 years of data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). But with ICE arrests soaring to more than 2,000 a day under Trump, local jail and prison officials are increasingly concerned about being liable for detainees' care — particularly when ICE leaves them in local facilities for lengthy periods. The officials note that in the past, lawsuits filed on behalf of ICE detainees wrongly left languishing in local jails have cost local governments enormously — $92.5 million in one New York City case involving 20,000 people who were held in prison for ICE without due process between 1997 and 2012. How it works: ICE can ask a local agency to hold someone they believe isn't legally in the U.S., using a request called a detainer. Usually there's a 48-hour limit on this request. A detainer request from ICE isn't the same as a warrant issued by a judge, which local agencies require to hold their suspects. "The ICE administrative warrant is not enough to hold somebody's liberty away," Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) told Axios. "It's essentially holding somebody and locking them up when there's no legal, lawful authority to do so." "The risk to the institution that's holding them is civil liability," he added. "They could end up paying a lot of money — and not just money, but injunctive relief." The National Sheriffs' Association has asked the Trump administration to clarify how long someone should be held on ICE's behalf, and has raised the issue with Border Czar Tom Homan. The group also has been lobbying Congress to pass a law addressing the issue for sheriffs, who often manage jails. Between the lines: A few law enforcement officials have spoken publicly about their concerns for ICE detainees' civil liberties under Trump's deportation push — and have faced a backlash from GOP officials for doing so. In February, Sheriff Dan Marx of Winneshiek County, Iowa, aired his concerns about cooperating with ICE detainers in a since-deleted Facebook post. "The only reason detainers are issued is because the federal agency does not have enough information or has not taken the time to obtain a valid judicial warrant," Marx wrote. "These detainers are violations of our 4th Amendment protection against warrantless search, seizure and arrest, and our 6th Amendment right to due process." Marx's post led Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds — a Republican who has ordered the state's local law enforcement to "fully cooperate" with Trump's deportation mission — to file a formal complaint against the sheriff. Marx was investigated by Iowa's attorney general over whether he violated a state law mandating such cooperation. He deleted his first post and issued another statement that said in part: "I do not believe law enforcement officials should have to choose between upholding their sworn duty to the Constitution and following the state statute." He declined to be interviewed because of the investigation. "From a constitutional standpoint, if we're going to hold somebody in jail or detain them, we want to be doing so lawfully and have legal grounds to do so. And I think for a sheriff to ask for a judicial warrant is reasonable," Michael Tupper, a former police chief in Marshalltown, Iowa, told Axios. In a New Orleans court, the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office is being sued by Louisiana's attorney general for not honoring ICE detainers. Orleans Parish has a policy of honoring ICE detainers only when a detainee has a warrant for a violent offense. The policy stems from has a legal settlement from 2010, when two men in the Orleans jail were held without due process for two months longer than their sentences, waiting for ICE. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) argues it amounts to a sanctuary policy, in violation of state law. The case is ongoing. Several other jurisdictions nationwide have faced similar lawsuits when people have been held on ICE detainers longer than their sentences or after their cases were dismissed. Some, like Orleans Parish, are changing their policies to limit their exposure to such suits. Montgomery and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania, for example, now require judicial warrants in addition to an ICE detainers to hold immigration detainees. What they're saying: " When a sheriff or a police chief stands up and voices concerns, they are oftentimes painted as soft on crime, or, you know, they don't care about keeping their community safe," Tupper said. "It's really the opposite. These folks are trying to do the right thing for the community."
