Minnesota Senate Republicans call on GOP colleague to resign after prostitution arrest

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Fellow Republicans called Tuesday on a Minnesota state senator to resign after police in suburban Bloomington arrested him for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution.

GOP Sen. Justin Eichorn, 40, of Grand Rapids, was arrested Monday after detectives communicated with a man who was led to believe that he was talking to a 17-year-old girl, the department said in a news release. A detective arranged to meet with him, and he was arrested outside his vehicle without incident.

He remained jailed in Bloomington on Tuesday afternoon pending his transfer to the Hennepin County Jail in Minneapolis, Deputy Chief Kim Clauson said. She said she did not know if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf or if he had spoken with an investigator. Jail staff would not take a message for him.

The department said a felony charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution was pending, but the Hennepin County Attorney's Office said it had not yet received the case.

A message left at Eichorn's Senate office was not immediately returned. According to his Senate profile, he's married with four children. He lists his profession as entrepreneur and was first elected in 2016. His chair on an environment committee sat empty during a Tuesday hearing.

Senate Republicans as a group called on Eichorn to step down, as did House Republicans.

“We are shocked by these reports, and this alleged conduct demands an immediate resignation," his Senate GOP colleagues said in a statement. "Justin has a difficult road ahead, and he needs to focus on his family.”

Senate Democratic leaders stopped short of calling for him to quit. They have also stood up for Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, of Woodbury, who was arrested last spring on a felony charge for allegedly burglarizing her estranged stepmother's home. Senate Democratic leaders have said she deserves to have the legal process play out first.

“The felony allegation against Senator Eichorn is deeply disturbing, and raises serious questions that will need to be answered by the court, as well as his caucus and constituents,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, of St. Paul, said in a statement that echoed what she has said about Mitchell.

Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges leveled sharp criticism of Eichorn.

“As a 40-year-old man, if you come to the Orange Jumpsuit District looking to have sex with someone’s child, you can expect that we are going to lock you up,” Hodges said in a statement. “I have always advocated stiffer penalties for these types of offenses. ... We need our state legislature to take this case and this type of conduct more seriously.”

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This story was first published on Mar. 18, 2025. It was updated on Mar. 19, 2025 to correct the age of the girl that detectives said Sen. Justin Eichorn believed he was communicating with. Police said Eichorn believed the girl was 17, not 16.

The chair for Minnesota state Sen. Justin Eichorn, a Republican from Grand Rapids, sits empty in a Senate hearing room in the State Capitol complex in St. Paul on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, a day after his arrest in Bloomington for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

LONDON (AP) — Inflation in the U.K. spiked to its highest level for more than a year in April amid a raft of higher domestic bills, such as energy and water, official figures showed Wednesday.

The Office for National Statistics said that its key measure of inflation, as measured by the consumer prices index, rose by 3.5% in the year to April, up from 2.6% in March.

April's rate was the highest since January 2024 and above expectations for a more modest increase to 3.3%.

The scale of the rise was also the largest since October 2022, at the height of the energy crisis in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Economists had anticipated a sizeable increase as April saw hefty annual price rises for an array of household bills, as well as the impact of higher taxes on businesses and a sizeable increase in the minimum wage.

Inflation is widely expected to stay above 3% for the rest of the year, which could rein in expectations of further interest rate reductions from the Bank of England, whose target for inflation is 2%.

On Tuesday, the bank's chief economist, Huw Pill, said that borrowing rates have been cut too quickly, in a sign that he's concerned about underlying inflation pressures.

Since it started cutting borrowing costs last August from the 16-year high of 5.25%, the bank has proceeded on a gradual basis by lowering its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point every three months. Earlier this month, it reduced it to 4.25%.

Following the latest inflation update, Rob Wood, chief U.K. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said that cuts on a “precise quarterly schedule” are “far from certain.”

Even though inflation is expected to run above the bank's target this year, economists expect it to fall next year, partly because of the recent trade deal between the U.S. and the U.K. which will mean many of the tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump had planned have been ditched.

FILE - View of the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange from the Lookout viewing point, in London, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)