National Roundup

Minnesota
Lawsuit could have courts redraw state’s political maps

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Legislature has yet to begin serious work on redrawing the state’s congressional and legislative district boundaries but the always contentious issue is already before the courts.

A lawsuit filed in Carver County and a parallel action in the Minnesota Supreme Court seeks to prevent the current maps from being used in 2022 and potentially have the courts take over the job, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

The case was filed by former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice James Gilbert on behalf of retired legislative redistricting expert Peter Wattson, retired Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky and others on Friday. It says the courts should redraw the political maps if nothing clears the Legislature by this time next year.

Political maps must be redrawn every 10 years to account for population shifts, with a goal of making each type of district roughly equal in size. Since the 1970s in Minnesota, the process has spilled into the courts because the Legislature has been unable to reach agreement, so judges have dictated the layout.

That’s a concern this time around because figures from the 2020 census have been delayed until fall, and the Legislature has divided party control. Adding to the complications is that Minnesota could also lose a congressional seat.

Washington
Suit blames Saudi Arabia for attack at Florida military base

WASHINGTON (AP) — Victims of a 2019 shooting at a Florida military base and their families are suing Saudi Arabia, claiming the kingdom knew the gunman had been radicalized and that it could have prevented the killings.

The suit, filed Monday, also claims that Saudi trainees knew in advance about plans for the shooting but did nothing to stop it.

The suit centers on the Dec. 6, 2019, shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola in which Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani shot and killed three U.S. sailors. It comes nine months after U.S. officials revealed that Alshamrani, a Saudi Air Force officer, had communicated with al-Qaida operatives about planning and tactics in the weeks leading up to the attack and that he had been radicalized abroad before coming to the U.S. to participate in a military training program.

The lawsuit casts a wide net of blame beyond Alshamrani. It alleges, for instance, that Saudi Arabia knew about Alshamrani’s associations with al-Qaida and his radicalization and yet failed to monitor, supervise or report him. It also says the gunman told fellow Saudi trainees at a dinner party the night before the attack that he planned to carry out the shooting the following day, but instead of reporting it, they called out sick morning of the killings. One recorded the shootings while standing outside the building; two others watched from a car nearby.

“None of the Royal Saudi Air Force trainees at the scene of the attack reported Al-Shamrani’s behavior nor did they try to stop” it, the lawsuit says. “Because they supported it.”

The complaint also says Alshamrani’s Saudi trainees were aware that he had purchased and stored firearms and ammunition in his barracks, and that he had posted and shared extremist material on social media and screened videos of mass shootings before the attack.

“Al-Shamrani was a Trojan Horse sent by his country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and its proxy, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, for flight training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, under the auspices of a program tied to billions of dollars in military arms sales from the United States to the Kingdom,” the lawsuit states. “Little did the American people know that such an arrangement would soon devolve into a horrific, Faustian bargain.”

One month after the shooting, then-Attorney General William Barr announced that 21 Saudi trainees found to have had jihadist or anti-American sentiments on social media pages or “contact with child pornography” were being sent home.

The complaint seeks monetary damages against Saudi Arabia under an exemption of the law that allows for lawsuits against foreign countries arising from acts of terrorism. Though then-President Donald Trump told reporters that he had spoken with Saudi Arabia’s king and that the kingdom would help the victims’ families “very greatly,” the kingdom breached the agreement by failing to compensate or engage with them, according to the lawsuit.

The suit comes as the Biden administration has signaled a tougher stance on Saudi Arabia after a mostly cozy relationship for the last four years between Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden made good on a campaign commitment to end U.S. support for a five-year Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. He made clear, however, that the U.S. would not completely abandon military assistance for the kingdom.

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Florida on behalf of the families of the three who were killed and 13 others who were injured, including sheriff’s deputies.


South Dakota
Governor urges state AG to resign after fatal crash

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Tuesday called on the state’s attorney general to resign as he faces misdemeanor charges for striking and killing a man with his car.

Jason Ravnsborg, the state’s top law enforcement officer, has indicated he will not step down while he waits for the case against him to proceed. Prosecutors have charged him with three misdemeanors but no felonies in the September death of 55-year-old Joseph Boever.

“Now that the investigation has closed and charges have been filed, I believe the Attorney General should resign,” Noem said in a statement. She promised to release more details from the crash investigation.

Republican legislators are also weighing whether to impeach Ravnsborg if he does not step down.

The attorney general, who was elected to his first term in 2018, was driving home to Pierre from a Republican fundraiser late on Sept. 12 when he struck and killed Boever, who was walking on the shoulder of the highway.
Ravnsborg initially told authorities that he thought he had struck a deer or another large animal and said he searched the unlit area with a cellphone flashlight. He said he didn’t realize he had killed a man until the next day when he returned to the accident scene.

After an investigation that stretched over five months, prosecutors said they still had questions about the crash but were unable to file more serious criminal charges against Ravnsborg. They charged him with careless driving, driving out of his lane and operating a motor vehicle while on his phone.

Prosecutors found he was not using his phone at the time of the crash, but had been using it while driving about one minute before. The attorney general could face up to 30 days in jail and up to a $500 fine on each charge, if convicted.