She said in an Instagram video that she was hurt when she went there to pay her respects on Friday, which would have been his 66th birthday, but was not let into a studio. She said that it “won’t take away the joy that he and I had together” at the studio in suburban Minneapolis, which is now a museum in his memory.

“I went in to celebrate him, and I wanted to go into the studio and do a live video, take a picture, and they said, ‘No.’ “ Sheila said. ”My heart’s broke. I can’t even walk into Paisley. That’s kind of messed up. … Not a nice way to celebrate his birthday.”

In a follow-up statement released through her publicist on Monday, Sheila said she now wants the museum to return her old drum kit, which she said Prince personally asked to “borrow” to display there. She said she even heard a tour guide say, “My idol, Sheila E. even has her drums setup in the studio!”

Paisley Park posted on its own Instagram account that it just needed some advance warning.

“Hello Sheila – We love and respect you, and we did offer for you to come in and film in the soundstage or other areas, but we couldn’t allow filming in the studios without prior knowledge and planning, especially with tours going on at the time. We hope to have you back to Paisley Park in the future — just give us a heads-up! Happy Prince Day,” the message read, ended by a purple heart emoji.

Sheila was in Minnesota for a concert with Morris Day & the Time on Saturday in the northern town of Walker. In her statement Monday, she said she was the first artist to record at Paisley Park with Prince and walked the grounds with him when “the foundation was mere dirt and rope.” So she thinks her history should count for something.

Prince had no will when he died in 2016 of an accidental fentanyl overdose, so his estate, including Paisley Park, went to his siblings, who later sold most of their shares. His estate is now owned by two corporations, the music management company Primary Wave and Prince Legacy LLC, with a 2% share still held by his sister, Tyka Nelson.

The death of officer Jamal Mitchell happened during a chaotic situation involving two crime scenes two blocks apart that left three people dead, two others hospitalized in critical condition and another officer and a firefighter with less serious injuries.

“I’ve seen the video, and he was ambushed,” Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said at an evening news conference. “I’m using the term for a reason.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said authorities are still investigating and asked people to “be patient with us as we do not know all the fact yet. We want to make sure that the investigation is completed and that we’re doing it the right way.”

Law enforcement provided a brief narrative of what transpired, starting when officers responded to a call of a double shooting at an apartment complex in the south Minneapolis neighborhood of Whittier.

As Mitchell was about two blocks from the complex, he noticed individuals who were injured. He got out of his car to provide aid to one man, who wound up shooting the officer.

Another officer arrived and exchanged gunfire with the shooter, who died despite life-saving efforts on the part of officers, Minneapolis Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell said.

That officer had non-life-threatening wounds. Evans said another person, believed to be an innocent bystander, was shot and taken to a hospital in critical condition. The firefighter also was shot and injured.

When other officers went to the apartment, they found two people inside who had been shot. One was dead and the other was hospitalized in critical condition, Evans said.

Evans said he believed the shooting was isolated to the two locations and that the people in the apartment “had some level of acquaintance with each other.”

The connection between the two shooting scenes wasn’t immediately clear. Police had said the public was not in any danger.

The shooting comes three months after two officers and a firefighter-paramedic in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville were killed while responding to a domestic violence call. In that case, a man began shooting from a home while seven children were inside. A third officer was wounded before the man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Minnesotans were feeling the trauma again of public safety officers dying when rushing to help people in need.

“That trauma quickly should turn to anger and a commitment that this cannot happen,” he said. “We do not have to live this way.”

Mitchell had been with the department about 18 months. He was a father who was engaged to be married. Police officers stood in a line outside Hennepin County Medical Center, where Mitchell was pronounced dead.

“The city of Minneapolis lost a hero in police officer Jamal Mitchell,” Frey said. “This officer gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect and save the lives of others. His life, his service and his name will forever be remembered in the city of Minneapolis.”

The Minneapolis Police Department posted on Facebook last year that Mitchell and another officer had rescued an elderly couple from a house fire.

On Feb. 7, 2023, Mitchell’s third day on the job, he and Officer Zachery Randall responded to a call and found a house on fire, the post said. The officers ran inside and got the couple out before the home was fully engulfed in flames and destroyed.

“Their quick actions … were truly heroic, as they prevented this fire from being even more tragic,” Chief Brian O’Hara said in the post.

“He was a wonderful human being,” Blackwell said. “He was exceptional in every way.”

Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.

Trump will headline the state GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner, which coincides with the party’s state convention, after attending his son Barron’s high school graduation in Florida.

Trump will use part of the day granted by the trial judge for the graduation to campaign in Minnesota, a state he argues he can win in the November rematch with President Joe Biden. No Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972, but Trump came close to flipping the state in 2016, when he fell 1.5 percentage points short of Hillary Clinton.

Trump returned to Minnesota several times in 2020, when Biden beat him by more than 7 points.

“I think this is something Trump wants to do. He believes this is a state he can win. We believe that’s the case as well,” David Hann, the chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota, said in an interview.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota, a Biden ally, said the Trump campaign is “grasping at straws” if it thinks he can win the state.

“The Biden campaign is going to work hard for every vote,” Smith said in an interview. “We’re going to engage with voters all over the state. But I think Minnesota voters are going to choose President Biden.”

Trump will appear at Friday’s dinner after going to see Barron Trump’s graduation from the private Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida. The former president had long complained Judge Juan M. Merchan would not let him attend the graduation before Merchan agreed not to hold court Friday.

Hann is co-hosting Friday’s dinner along with Trump’s state campaign chair, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who represents a central Minnesota district. Hann said Emmer was instrumental in bringing the former president to Minnesota.

The dinner coincides with the party’s state convention. Tickets started at $500, ranging up to $100,000 for a VIP table for 10 with three photo opportunities with Trump. Hann declined to say how much money he expects it will raise, but he anticipates a full house of around 1,400 people.

All the money from the dinner tickets will go to the state party, Hann said, though he added that some money from photo opportunities may go to the Trump campaign.

Experts are split on whether Minnesota really will be competitive this time, given its history and the strong Democratic Party ground game in the state. But Hann said there’s “great dissatisfaction with President Biden” in the state, noting that nearly 19% of Democratic voters in its Super Tuesday primary marked their ballots for “uncommitted.” That was at least partly due to a protest-vote movement over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war that has spread to several states.

In an interview aired Wednesday by KSTP-TV of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Trump said his speech would focus on economic issues. And he repeated a false claim he made in March to KNSI Radio of St. Cloud that he thought he actually won Minnesota in 2020, even though there’s no evidence that there were any serious irregularities in the state.

“We think we have a really good shot at Minnesota,” Trump told KSTP. “We have great friendships up there. We’ve done a lot for industry. We’ve done a lot for everything in Minnesota. Worked hard on Minnesota. Tom Emmer is very much involved.”

Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, 49, of Woodbury, was being held in the Becker County Jail on suspicion of first-degree burglary. Formal charges were still pending Monday afternoon, Detroit Lakes Police Chief Steve Todd said.

Mitchell did not immediately return a call left on the jail’s voicemail system for inmates. It’s not clear if she has an attorney who could comment on her behalf. The police chief said he didn’t know of one.

Mitchell was arrested while the Senate is on its Passover break. Her arrest comes at an awkward time for Senate Democrats, who hold just a one-seat majority with four weeks left in the legislative session. Her absence would make it difficult to pass any legislation that lacks bipartisan support.

Mitchell worked as a meteorologist with the U.S. military and for KSTP-TV and Minnesota Public Radio before she was elected to the Senate in 2022 from a suburban St. Paul district. She still serves as lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, commanding a weather unit, her official profile says. She worked for The Weather Channel earlier in her career, her profile says.

Dispatchers received a 911 call at 4:45 a.m. from a homeowner about “an active burglary in process at her residence,” Todd said in an interview. Officers searched the home and arrested Mitchell, Todd said.

The police chief said he could provide few other details because the case was still under investigation. He said he was waiting to hear back from the county attorney’s office, and that a complaint detailing the allegations might not get filed until Tuesday.

Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the case.

Public records and an obituary posted by a Detroit Lakes funeral home show that Mitchell’s father, who died last month, and stepmother lived on the same block of the same road in Detroit Lakes as where the senator was arrested. The stepmother did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Mitchell’s arrest took Senate leaders by surprise. The Senate Democratic Caucus said in a statement that it’s “aware of the situation and has no comment pending further information.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks, said he was shocked but knew very few details.

“The public expects Legislators to meet a high standard of conduct,” Johnson said in a statement. “As information comes out, we expect the consequences to meet the actions, both in the court of law, and in her role at the legislature.”

Authorities on Monday identified Shannon Gooden, 38, as the man who opened fire on police in the affluent suburb of Burnsville after they responded to a domestic disturbance call early Sunday. The call reported that he had barricaded himself in his home with family members, including seven children aged 2 to 15. He was found dead inside the home hours later.

Burnsville is a city of around 64,000 located about 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of downtown Minneapolis.

An order by Gov. Tim Walz took effect at sunrise Monday for flags to fly at half-staff at all state-owned buildings, with individuals, businesses and other organizations encouraged to join in to honor the three who gave their lives in service to their community. Speaking at a news conference Sunday, Walz urged Minnesotans who drive by these flags “to maybe pause and think about these first responders, these public safety officials. They’re moms and dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. They’re the world to a lot of people.”

A web page started by the city contained no fresh updates on the investigation Monday, and city spokespeople said they could not provide additional information.

Members of the Minnesota House and Senate stood with bowed heads for moments of silence Monday for the fallen officers and firefighter.

“Our police officers and medics and fire, they come to work every day,” said Rep. Jeff Witte, of Lakeville, who served in the Burnsville Police Department for 27 years. “They do it willingly to protect and serve our communities, knowing that they may have to give up their life for a partner or the community. And if you’re not in the profession, you can’t understand: the goal is to go home to their families.”

BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said Sunday that Burnsville police were called to the home around 1:50 a.m. Sunday about a “domestic situation where a man was reported to be armed and barricaded with family members in the home.” That included seven children ages 2 to 15. Evans declined to say which resident called. Arriving officers “spent quite a bit of time” negotiating with the suspect, he said.

At some point — he declined to specify when — the suspect opened fire, killing Officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and Adam Finseth, 40, a firefighter and paramedic who was assigned to the city’s SWAT team. Another officer, Sgt. Adam Medlicott, survived with injuries that were not life-threatening. He was released from a hospital and was recovering at home Monday, the city said.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Monday that Elmstrand, Ruge and Finseth died of gunshot wounds in the emergency room at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis shortly after 6:30 a.m. Sunday. A procession of emergency vehicles escorted Finseth’s body from the medical examiner’s office in Minnetonka to a funeral home in Jordan on Monday afternoon, passing under several bridges where firefighters stood on their parked engines and flew American flags in tribute.

Elmstrand’s wife, Cindy Elmstrand-Castruita, told WCCO-TV: “He had to do what he thought was right to protect those little lives even if it meant putting his at risk and it breaks my heart because now he’s gone. But I know that he thought what he did was right.”

Elmstrand joined the police department in 2017, and was a member of its mobile command staff. Ruge, hired in 2020, was on the department’s crisis negotiations team and was a physical evidence officer. Finseth, who had been with the fire department since 2019, was shot while aiding the first officer who was injured, Evans said. Medlicott, who joined the police department in 2014, supervises community service officers and is a drug recognition expert.

“Several officers” returned fire during the exchange, Evans said. The man fired from multiple places on both floors of the home. At least one officer was shot inside. An armored SWAT team vehicle sustained bullet damage to its windshield.

Evans said the suspect was armed with “several guns and large amounts of ammunition,” though he declined to provide details. He said there “have not been many calls for service at all” to the home or involving the suspect previously.

Neighbors were startled awake by loud pops about an hour before sunrise. Alicia McCullum, who lives two houses down from the source of the commotion, told The Associated Press she and her family dropped to the floor.

“I didn’t think it was a gunshot at first, but then we opened the windows and we saw police everywhere and police hiding in our neighbors’ yards,” McCullum said. “Then there were three more gunshots.”

The suspect was “reported to be deceased in the home” around 8 a.m., Evans said, and the children and other family members were later able to escape. McCullum said she saw a woman and a few children escorted out of the home.

The superintendent declined to say how long officers negotiated with the suspect, but the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association said the standoff lasted four hours before the SWAT team entered the home. Evans also declined to say whether the suspect killed himself or was shot by police. He said the medical examiner would determine that, and that autopsies were planned for Monday.

Investigators plan to review body camera and other videos of the incident, conduct interviews and gather all available evidence as they determine what happened, he said.

“I know everybody wants to know exactly what occurred and really what led up to these really terrible events that occurred today,” Evans told reporters. “But I ask that you have patience as we work though that to piece together everything that we can to provide the answers in due time.”

Associated Press reporter Jack Dura contributed to this story from Bismarck, North Dakota.

BURNSVILLE, Minn. (AP) — A man armed with multiple guns and large amounts of ammunition shot at police officers from inside a suburban Minneapolis home that was filled with children on Sunday, killing two officers and a firefighter who was providing medical aid to one of the wounded, authorities said.

A third officer was wounded in the shooting in a tree-lined neighborhood of two-story homes in Burnsville, Minnesota. The suspect in the shooting also died, officials said.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said there was an exchange of gunfire, and authorities were still piecing together details of what he described as a “terrible day.”

The firefighter, who also works as a paramedic, was shot while providing aid to an injured officer, Evans said. He told a news conference the paramedic was a part of a SWAT team that had been called to a domestic situation at the home.

Inside, an armed man had barricaded himself with his family, including seven children ranging in age from 2 to 15, Evans said.

He said negotiations lasted for hours before the suspect opened fire. He wasn’t specific on the exact amount of time, but the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association said the standoff lasted four hours before a SWAT team entered the home.

Evans said the suspect had several guns and large amounts of ammunition and shot at the police officers from multiple positions within the home, including the upper and lower floors. Evans said at least one officer was shot inside the home.

“We still don’t know the exact exchange of gunfire that occurred,” Evans said. “Certainly several officers did return fire.”

He said that around 8 a.m. the suspect was found dead and the family and children were released from the home. None of them were hurt.

City officials identified the slain officers as Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27. Adam Finseth, 40, a firefighter and paramedic, also was killed.

Another police officer, Sgt. Adam Medlicott, was injured and being treated at a hospital with what are believed to be non-life-threatening injuries, the city said.

As the bodies of the dead left a hospital, officers saluted, before they were taken in a convoy to the medical examiner’s office. Medical staff watched in scrubs.

“We’re hurting,” said Police Chief Tanya Schwartz. “Today, three members of our team made the ultimate sacrifice for this community. They are heroes.”

Fire Chief BJ Jungmann said the community was grieving and asked for privacy for the families. None of the relatives of the officers or the firefighter immediately returned phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Evans said the medical examiner would identify the suspect and said autopsies were planned for Monday. There was no indication the home had been a source of troubles in the past.

“There have not been many calls for service at all,” Evans said.

As the investigation unfolded, the neighborhood was ringed with police cars to keep reporters and the public away. A police armored vehicle had bullet damage to its windshield, and Evans confirmed it sustained the damage in the gunfight.

Police scanner recordings on Broadcastify.com capture a rattled man saying, “I need any ambulance,” as he struggled to catch his breath. Someone later could be heard talking about three being loaded into ambulances, uttering the word “critical.”

As news spread, other law enforcement agencies immediately began posting messages of condolence on social media, including images of badges with blue bars through them. It is a mark of solidarity in mourning.

“In times like these, it is essential to come together as a community and support one another through the uncertainty and grief,” said Marty Kelly, the sheriff in neighboring Goodhue County.

Flags also were lowered to half-staff, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz urging urged those who walked past them to take a moment and think about the first responders who lost their lives.

“Minnesota mourns with you,” he said. “The state stands ready to assist in any way possible.”

Burnsville, a city of around 64,000, is located about 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of downtown Minneapolis.

___

Associated Press writers Rob Jagodzinski in New York City and Maysoon Khan in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.

For the first time, the global temperature pushed past the internationally agreed upon warming threshold for an entire 12-month period, with February 2023 to January 2024 running 2.74 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than pre-industrial levels, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Space Agency. That’s the highest 12-month global temperature average on record, Copernicus reported.

The globe has broken heat records each month since last June.

January 2024 broke the old record from 2020 for warmest first month of the year by 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit and was 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the late 1800s, the base for temperatures before the burning of fossil fuels. Even though it was record hot in January, the level above normal was lower than the previous six months, according to Copernicus data.

Climate scientists blame a combination of human-caused warming from the burning of fossil fuels and a natural but temporary El Nino warming of parts of the Pacific, saying greenhouse gases have a much bigger role than nature. This is the time of year that El Nino warming often peaks, said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler.

“This is both disturbing and not disturbing. After all, if you stick your finger in a light socket and get shocked, it’s bad news, sure, but what did you expect?” Dessler said.

Just because the globe exceeded the 1.5-degree warming threshold for 12 months, that’s not what scientists mean by reaching the warming limit of 1.5 degrees, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, co-author of a United Nations science report about the harms of exceeding more than 1.5 degrees. The 1.5-degree limit, adopted by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, is more about 30-year averages.

“These are much more than numbers, ranks and records — they translate to real impacts on our farms, families and communities from unprecedented heat, changing growing seasons and rising sea levels,” said North Carolina State Climatologist Kathie Dello.

International Falls, a Minnesota city on the Canadian border that proudly bills itself as the “icebox of the nation,” recorded its first-ever 50-degree high for January on Jan. 31, when the temperature hit 53 Fahrenheit. Minneapolis has already set a record for the number of 50-degree days for a winter.

About 70% of the Minnesota currently has bare ground, with most of the state so far getting less than 25% of normal snowfall.

Authorities have rescued dozens of ice anglers from normally solid northern Minnesota lakes after ice floes broke off and carried them along. The annual Art Shanty Projects festival on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis in January had to be cut short due to open water and unsafe ice.

The Montgomery National Golf Club, about 45 miles south of Minneapolis, should be blanketed under a thick layer of snow this time of year. Instead, it’s doing a booming business.

“We did about a thousand golfers in January. If we had had just one golfer, that would have been a record,” owner Greg McKush said. “After today, we will have had about a thousand golfers for February, which is unheard of.”

McKush said he reopened two Saturdays ago and figures he might be able to stay open all winter if temperatures continue to reach at least into the 40s.

It seems like the fairways are trying to green up, he said, and a lot of the frost has come out of the ground. Most golfers are telling him conditions are “better than expected.”

In Wisconsin, fourth in the U.S. in maple syrup production, the mild winter weather prompted many farms in the state’s northern and central regions to begin tapping their trees in mid-January — up to two months earlier than normal, depending on the area, said Theresa Baroun, executive director of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association.

“There’s a wide range of the state that are tapped and cooking syrup already. It’s very unusual. This is one of the most abnormal weather patterns for starting out the maple season we’ve seen,” she said Wednesday. “For maple trees to run, it needs to be freezing at night, above freezing during the day. And this weather has been perfect for the maple trees to run.”

Baroun, whose family has about 1,200 maple trees at their Maple Sweet Dairy in De Pere, Wisconsin, just south of Green Bay, said the farm began cooking sap this week and that’s the earliest her family can remember since production began in 1964.

The February sturgeon season on Michigan’s Black Lake was canceled for the first time due to lack of ice for safe fishing.

At Isle Royal National Park, an island in Lake Superior between Michigan, Minnesota and Canada, scientists couldn’t conduct their annual wolf and moose count because the ice was so weak they couldn’t land ski-planes on it to get there.

One of the stranger consequences has been the early emergence of ticks. The Metropolitan Mosquito Control District in Minnesota reported its first deer tick of 2024 on Monday, posting a creepy photo on social media of a tick in a vial against the backdrop of Feb. 5 on a calendar. District officials said they haven’t found any mosquito larvae yet — but it’s not from a lack of searching.

Karnowski reported from St. Paul, Minnesota, and Borenstein from Kensington, Maryland. Ed White contributed from Detroit and Rick Callahan from Indianapolis.

Three and a half centuries later, vestiges of the so-called “marital rape exemption” or “spousal defense” still exist in most states — remnants of the English common law that helped inform American legal traditions. Legislative attempts to end or modify those exemptions have a mixed record but have received renewed attention in the #MeToo era.

The most recent efforts to roll back protections for spouses focus on rapes that happen when a partner is drugged, unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. Minnesota is the latest to take action. The state Legislature this week voted to eliminate the exemption, which had prevented prosecutions in those cases.

“No longer will this antiquated and shameful law be on our books,” Gov. Tim Walz said as he signed the bill into law on Thursday. “The concept of a pre-existing relationship defense should have never been part of our criminal statutes.”

In Ohio, determined opponents plan to re-introduce a marital rape bill this month, after two earlier attempts failed.

Former lawmaker and prosecutor Greta Johnson was the first to introduce the Ohio legislation in 2015. She said having to address whether a woman was married to her attacker as part of sexual assault prosecutions struck her as “appalling and archaic.”

“Certainly, there was a marital exemption lifted years ago, but it was just for what in the prosecutorial world we call the force element — by force or threat of force,” she said. “You could still drug your spouse and have sex with them, and it’s not rape. You could commit sexual imposition against your spouse, and it’s not a crime. It was really troubling.”

All 50 states had laws making marital rape a crime by 1993, whether as a result of the two preceding decades of activism by women’s rights groups or because of a pivotal court ruling. Nearly 9% of women and 0.8% of men have been raped by an intimate partner, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National surveys have placed the percentage of women raped within marriage between 10% and 14%.

Still, many states’ marital rape laws have loopholes — not only involving the victim’s capacity to consent, but related to age, relationship, use of force or the nature of the penetration. Some impose short timeframes for victims to report spousal rape.

A recent Maryland bill sought to erase the marital exemption for all sex crimes.

During a discussion of the bill, one skeptical male lawmaker wondered whether a spouse might be charged with sexual assault for “smacking the other’s behind” during an argument. Maryland Del. Frank Conaway Jr., a Baltimore Democrat, raised religious concerns.

“If your religion believes if you’re married, two are as one body, then what happens? Can you get a religious exemption?” he asked.

“No, I would actually say that the First Amendment would prevent the state from getting entangled in that sort of judgment,” replied Lisae Jordan, executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “So you would have to rely on your faith and your commitment to that to not bring those charges. But that’s no place for the General Assembly.”

The bill died in March.

Professor D. Kelly Weisberg of the University of California Hastings College of the Law said the Maryland debate touched on some of the common rationales for the marital rape exemption over the centuries.

One is Hale’s premise from the 1670s that marriage implies irrevocable consent and even property rights by the husband over his wife and her body. Those ideas have never truly disappeared, said Weisberg, author of a new reference book on domestic violence law.

She said other arguments for such laws are that marital privacy is a constitutional right, as when spouses can’t be forced to testify against one another in court, that marital rape isn’t serious enough to criminalize and that it would be difficult to prove.

For those and other reasons, Weisberg said marital rape laws have not kept pace with other domestic violence laws. That means in some cases an unmarried domestic partner has more legal protections against attack than a spouse.

Changing attitudes — and laws — about marital rape is what drove Jenny Teeson to go public this year with her story.

The 39-year-old from Andover, Minnesota, was going through a divorce in 2017 when she discovered a flash drive with videos taken by her husband. They showed him penetrating her with an object while she lay drugged and unconscious. In one, their 4-year-old lay next to her on the bed.

Teeson turned the videos over to the police. After an investigation, her husband was charged with third-degree criminal sexual assault against an incapacitated victim. Charges were brought in the morning — but dropped by afternoon because of the state’s marital rape exemption.

“I was beside myself,” she told The Associated Press.

Her ex-husband ultimately pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor charge of invading her privacy and served 30 days in the county jail. Still shocked that he could not be charged with a felony because of the state law, Teeson decided to take action.

“I thought if I can’t have the law be in place to keep myself, my kids and my community safe, I could wallow in it, or I could do something about it,” she said.

The AP does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, but Teeson has shared her story publicly, including during testimony before legislative committees. Democratic state Sen. Karla Bigham credited Teeson’s advocacy for persuading lawmakers to pass the bill.

“She had to relive the trauma every time she shared her story,” Bigham told her colleagues during a debate in the Senate chamber this past week. “Her voice speaks loudly to those women who deserve justice. Let’s do the right thing. Let’s right this wrong.”

AEquitas, a resource for prosecutors, reported last month that 17 states still maintain some form of the exemption for spouses who rape partners when they are drugged or otherwise incapacitated: Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington and Wyoming.

In Ohio, state Rep. Kristin Boggs, a Democrat, said she’s not optimistic the upcoming version of the marital rape bill will be any more successful in the Republican-controlled Legislature than it has been in the past.

But at least one past opponent — the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association — has evolved on the issue. Executive Director Lou Tobin said he expects the group will support a bill that seeks to eliminate the exemption.

“In the past, I know that there’s been some concern that these cases are difficult to prove; they can be a lot of he-said, she-said back and forth,” Tobin said. “But sorting through those things is what prosecutors are for.”

Boggs’ bill would again call for removing references to the marital exemption throughout Ohio’s criminal code. Her argument in favor of it is straightforward.

“Our rationale for introducing this legislation is simply that your legal relationship to another human being shouldn’t give you permission to rape them,” she said.

Karnowski reported from St. Paul, Minnesota. Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, and News Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York also contributed to this report.

Jake Patterson, 21, sniffled and his voice caught as he pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped a count of armed burglary. Patterson faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced May 24; Wisconsin does not have the death penalty.

Patterson had said he would plead guilty in a letter sent this month to a Minneapolis TV station, saying he didn’t want the Closs family “to worry about a trial.”

Patterson admitted kidnapping Jayme after killing her parents, James and Denise Closs, on Oct. 15 at the family’s home near Barron, about 90 miles northeast of Minneapolis. Jayme escaped in January, after 88 days in Patterson’s cabin in near the small, isolated town of Gordon, some 60 miles from her home.

The plea, coupled with an earlier decision by prosecutors not to bring charges in the county where Jayme was held, increases the chances that the details of her time in captivity will remain private.

Patterson stoically answered “yes” and “yeah” to repeated questions from Barron County Judge James Babler about whether he understood what he was doing. Later, as he responded “guilty,” to each count, he could be heard sniffling. He paused for several seconds after the judge asked him about the kidnapping charge before stuttering, “guilty.”

Defense attorney Richard Jones told Babler that Patterson “wanted to enter a plea from the day we met him” and brushed off strategies presented to him, including trying to suppress his statements to investigators.

“He rejected all that and has decided this is what he wants to do,” Jones said.

Members of the Closs family and Patterson’s father and sister all left the courthouse without commenting.

According to a criminal complaint , Patterson told authorities he decided Jayme “was the girl he was going to take” after he saw her getting on a school bus near her home. He told investigators he plotted carefully, including wearing all-black clothing, putting stolen license plates on his car and taking care to leave no fingerprints on his shotgun.

Jayme told police that the night of the abduction, the family dog’s barking awoke her, and she went to wake up her parents as a car came up the driveway. While her father went to the front door, Jayme and her mother hid in the bathroom, clutching each other in the bathtub, with the shower curtain pulled shut.

Patterson shot Jayme’s father as he entered the house, then found Jayme and her mother. He told detectives he wrapped tape around Jayme’s mouth and head, taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together, then shot her mother in the head. He told police he dragged Jayme outside, threw her in the trunk of his car, and took her to his cabin, the complaint said.

During Jayme’s time in captivity, Patterson forced her to hide under a bed when he had friends over and penned her in with tote boxes and weights, warning that if she moved, “bad things could happen to her.” He also turned up the radio so visitors couldn’t hear her, according to the complaint.

Authorities searched for Jayme for months and collected more than 3,500 tips. On Jan. 10, Jayme escaped from the cabin while Patterson was away. She then flagged down a woman who was out walking a dog and pleaded for help. Patterson was arrested minutes later.

Authorities have not released any additional details about Patterson’s treatment of Jayme. Soon after he was charged in Barron County, prosecutors in Douglas County — where Jayme was held — announced they had no plans to charge him for crimes there. It was a move widely seen as aimed at sparing Jayme further pain, and one that University of Wisconsin law professor Cecelia Klingele praised Wednesday.

“People are always interested in hearing salacious details, but there is no ‘right to know’ the details of a crime victim’s suffering,” Klingele said in an email about Patterson’s plea.

Patterson grew up in the cabin where he held Jayme. He wrote in his high school yearbook of plans to join the Marines after graduation, but he was kicked out barely a month after joining up. He worked just a single day at a turkey plant in 2016 before quitting; he told investigators he spotted Jayme while heading to work at a cheese factory where he already planned to quit after two days.

The day Jayme escaped, Patterson had applied online for a job at a liquor store with a resume that misrepresented his experience.

Laura Tancre, of nearby Star Prairie, said she was relieved by Patterson’s plea and “happy for the little girl.” Tancre, 57, worked at the same plant as Jayme’s parents and called them “very nice people.”

“I think he should get life for killing both parents,” she said. “I’d hate for him to get out and be able to do it again.”

Associated Press writers Todd Richmond and Amy Forliti contributed from Minneapolis.

“It’s a strategy that’s working,” he said.

If farmers are worried, so are Republican politicians, who depended on small-town America to hand them control of Congress and know how quickly those voters could take it away. Just seven months before the 2018 midterm elections, Trump’s faceoff with China over trade has exposed an unexpected political vulnerability in what was supposed to be the Republican Party’s strongest region: rural America.

The clash with China poses a direct threat to the economies in both red and blue states, from California’s central valley to eastern Washington through Minnesota’s plains and across Missouri and Indiana and into Ohio.

They are regions in which the GOP’s quest to retain its House and Senate majorities this fall is tied directly to Republican voters’ views about their pocketbooks and Trump’s job performance. The signs of fear and frustration about both are easy to find.

In southwestern Minnesota, soybean farmer Bill Gordon says the volatility in the markets makes it harder for farmers like him to market their crop and lock in profitability. The state is the country’s fourth-largest exporting state, and the state’s top farm export market is China.

A Trump voter, Gordon said right now he’s disappointed, not angry, over what’s happening. But the trade tensions could affect his vote in the open race for the region’s congressional seat, where the farm vote is significant.

“I vote for the people who represent rural America,” he said. “It’s not a party line.”

Trump says he’s simply fighting against unfair business practices with a geopolitical rival.

After the Trump administration announced plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports Tuesday, China lashed back within hours, matching the American tariffs with plans to tax $50 billion of U.S. products, including soybeans, corn and wheat.

Trump escalated the standoff further on Thursday by asking the U.S. trade representative to consider $100 billion in additional tariffs against China, which had previously released plans to impose retaliatory tariffs on frozen pork, nuts and wine in response to Trump’s intent to apply duties to imported aluminum and steel.

The soybean industry, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the potential harm to Republican candidates in the fall.

Soy production is concentrated in the Midwest. Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana and Missouri account for over half of all soy produced in the United States. And more than 60 percent of U.S. soy exports have been sent to mainland China in recent years.

Trump won 89 percent of America’s counties that produce soy, according to an Associated Press analysis of Agriculture Department and election data. In those counties, on average, two out of three voters supported Trump in 2016.

Many Republican candidates who represent rural areas Trump won in 2016 are being forced to choose between his trade policies and community interests. Vulnerable Republicans are walking a tightrope.

In eastern Washington, seven-term Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers had already found herself in an unexpectedly tight race. She has urged the White House to “reverse course” on the Chinese tariffs in recent days.

Jared Powell, a spokesman for McMorris Rodgers, said her office had asked the Trump administration for clarification on the effects of the tariffs.

“She is doing what she can to speak out publicly,” Powell said.

Overall, an estimated 2.1 million jobs could be affected by the trade dispute nationally, with a majority coming from counties that Trump won, according to an analysis by Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

“We’re in kind of a farm crisis,” said Bob Worth, who grows soybeans, corn and spring wheat with his son on 2,200 acres (3.4 square miles) near Lake Benton in southwestern Minnesota. He wouldn’t say how he voted in 2016, but he offered kind, if measured, words for Trump.

“I’m going to believe in the man,” added Worth, who’s also on the board of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association. “He’s doing this for business reasons only. I don’t know if he knows how much he’s hurting agriculture.”

Matt Aultman, a grain salesman and feed nutritionist in Greenville, Ohio, west of Columbus, said farmers there are keeping a close watch on the talk in Washington. Farmers pay attention to two things: prices and weather. And a trade fight that affects prices won’t go unnoticed.

“It directly affects our pocketbooks and the way we plan for the following years,” he said. “Are we going to pay all the bills this year? Are we going to buy a new piece of equipment? Do you get your kids a couple new pair of shoes?”

In California’s central valley, Republican Rep. Jeff Denham has avoided the issue altogether in recent days. His opponent, Democrat and longtime family farmer Michael Eggman, said Trump’s trade policies would shatter his community.

The district is home to Blue Diamond Almonds, among smaller nut producers, who send much of their product to China and suddenly face the prospect of 15 percent tariffs.

“We all know how hard it is to make ends meet as a small family farmer, and Trump is not making it easier,” Eggman said. “Jeff Denham, who claims to be a local farmer, hasn’t said one word about it. Where’s the outrage?”

Denham, through a spokeswoman, did not address the president’s moves directly but said the congressman supports “free and fair trade” and a plan that’s “carefully thought out.”

Nick Geranios, Steve Peoples and Steve Karnowski are Associated Press reporters. Larry Fenn in Seattle contributed to this report.