The demolition of the vacant CVS Pharmacy building at Snelling and University avenues, which had been planned for Monday, has been rescheduled to March 16.

“Our office just got word from the contractor that it will be next Monday,” wrote St. Paul City Council Member Molly Coleman, on social media, late Sunday night. “For those who had parties planned for tomorrow, I’m sorry to say it will be one more week.”

The city has hired Veit Construction to handle the structural removal and costs will be assessed to the property owner as part of their property tax bill. Monday’s demolition was dependent on the weather and contractor availability.

CVS closed at the site in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis triggered widespread riots, vandalism and looting, and then reopened before permanently shuttering in April 2022 as the national pharmacy chain retrenched from urban areas nationally.

The site, a flashpoint for debate in last year’s mayoral election, drew as many as 40 loiterers at a time, open air drug sales and frequent vandalism before its parking lot was fenced off.

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By ALEXANDRA OLSON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Uber launched a feature Monday to allow both women riders and drivers across the U.S. to be matched with other women for trips, expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its riding-hailing platform.

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The new feature is being rolled out nationwide despite an ongoing class action lawsuit against the policy in California, filed by Uber drivers who argue that it is discriminatory against men. Rival ride-hailing company Lyft is also facing a discrimination lawsuit over a similar offering that it introduced nationwide in 2024.

The feature, announced in a blog post, allows women to request a female driver through an option on the app called “Women Drivers.” Passengers can opt for another ride if the wait for a woman is too long, and they can also reserve a trip with a woman driver in advance. A third option allows female users to set a preference for a woman driver in their app settings, which would increase the chances of being matched with a female driver, though it would not guarantee it. Uber is also allowing its teen account users to request women drivers.

Uber’s women drivers can set the app’s preferences to request trips with female riders, and they can turn off that preference at anytime.

Uber, based in San Francisco, says about one-fifth of its drivers in the U.S. are women, thought the ratio varies by city.

Two California Uber drivers filed a class-action lawsuit against Uber in November, arguing that its Women Preferences feature violates California’s Unruh Act, which prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises. The lawsuit charges that the feature gives its minority female drivers access to the entire pool of passengers, while leaving its majority male drivers to compete for a smaller pool of passengers. The lawsuit also argues that Uber’s policy “reinforces the gender stereotype that men are more dangerous than women.”

Uber filed a motion to compel arbitration in the case, citing an agreement the plaintiffs signed when joining the app as drivers. In the motion, Uber disputed that its new feature violates the Unruh Act, saying it “serves a strong and recognized public policy interest in enhancing safety.”

“This feature is a common sense solution to a long-standing request from both women Drivers and Riders who told Uber they would feel more comfortable and safer if they could choose to ride with another woman,” the company said in the court filing.

Two Lyft drivers have filed a similar lawsuit against that company against its “Women+Connect” feature, which allows women and nonbinary riders to match with drivers of the same identification.

Uber piloted the “Women Preferences” feature in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Detroit last summer and expanded it to 26 U.S. cities in November. The company first launched a version of the feature in Saudi Arabia in 2019 following the country’s landmark law granting women the right to drive. It now offers similar options in 40 other countries, including Canada and Mexico.

FILE – An Uber sign is displayed at the company’s headquarters, in San Francisco, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Both Uber and Lyft have for years faced criticism over their safety records, including thousands of reports of sexual assaults from both passengers and drivers. In February, federal jury found Uber to be legally responsible in a 2023 case of sexual assault and the company was ordered to pay $8.5 million to an Arizona woman who said she was raped by one of its drivers.

Uber maintains that because its drivers are contractors and not employees, it’s not liable for their misconduct. But Uber says has taken multiple steps in efforts to improve safety, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers ousted from their ride-hailing services for complaints over sexual assault and other crimes.

Uber says sexual assault reports have decreased over the years. According to reports from Uber, 5,981 incidents of sexual assault were reported in U.S. rides between 2017 and 2018 — compared to 2,717 between 2021 and 2022 (the latest years with data available), which the platform says represented 0.0001% of total trips nationwide.

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By MATT O’BRIEN, AP Technology Writer

Anthropic is suing the Trump administration, asking federal courts to reverse the Pentagon’s decision designating the artificial intelligence company a “ supply chain risk ” over its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its technology.

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Anthropic filed two separate lawsuits Monday, one in California federal court and another in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., each challenging different aspects of the Pentagon’s actions against the company.

The Pentagon last week formally designated the San Francisco tech company a supply chain risk after an unusually public dispute over how its AI chatbot Claude could be used in warfare.

“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful,” Anthropic’s lawsuit says. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech. No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here. Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.”

The Defense Department declined to comment Monday, citing a policy of not commenting on matters in litigation.

Anthropic said it sought to restrict its technology from being used for two high-level usages: mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials publicly insisted the company must accept “all lawful uses” of Claude and threatened punishment if Anthropic did not comply.

Designating the company a supply chain risk cuts off Anthropic’s defense work using an authority that was designed to prevent foreign adversaries from harming national security systems. It was the first time the federal government is known to have used the designation against a U.S. company.

President Donald Trump also said he would order federal agencies to stop using Claude, though he gave the Pentagon six months to phase out a product that’s deeply embedded in classified military systems, including those used in the Iran war.

Anthropic’s lawsuit also names other federal agencies, including the departments of Treasury and State, after officials ordered employees to stop using Anthropic’s services.

Even as it fights the Pentagon’s actions, Anthropic has sought to convince businesses and other government agencies that the Trump administration’s penalty is a narrow one that only affects military contractors when they are using Claude in work for the Department of Defense.

Making that distinction clear is crucial for the privately held Anthropic because most of its projected $14 billion in revenue this year comes from businesses and government agencies that are using Claude for computer coding and other tasks. More than 500 customers are paying Anthropic at least $1 million annually for Claude, according to a recent investment announcement valued the company at $380 billion.

Anthropic said in a statement Monday that “seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners.”

By DAVID FISCHER

MIAMI (AP) — Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the U.S. federal trial of four men charged in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

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Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages are charged with conspiring in South Florida to kidnap or kill Haiti’s former leader, plus related charges. They face possible life sentences. They all pleaded not guilty.

Christian Sanon was set to go on trial, but his attorney confirmed Monday that Sanon’s case was severed from the others because of medical reasons. A separate trial for Sanon will be scheduled for a later date.

The trial against all five defendants was previously set for last year, but U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra in Miami agreed to delay the case because of discovery challenges and the large volume of evidence.

Five others have already pleaded guilty in the conspiracy and are serving life sentences. A sixth person, who officials believe didn’t know about the assassination plot, was sentenced to nine years behind bars after pleading guilty to providing body armor to the conspirators.

Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince, officials said. Moïse’s wife, Martine, was wounded during the attack and flown to the U.S. for emergency treatment.

According to court documents, South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone of the conspirators’ choosing.

Ortiz and Intriago were principals of Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, collectively known as CTU, and Veintemilla was a principal of Worldwide Capital Lending Group. Both companies were based in South Florida.

FILE – In this April 7, 2018, file photo, Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise, center, leaves the museum during a ceremony marking the 215th anniversary of revolutionary hero Toussaint Louverture’s death, at the National Pantheon museum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)

Sanon is a dual Haitian-American citizen who investigators say was initially favored by the conspirators to replace Moïse. Solages was a CTU representative in Haiti who coordinated with Sanon and others, officials said.

The conspirators met in South Florida in April 2021 and agreed that, once in power, Sanon would award contracts to CTU for infrastructure projects, security forces and military equipment, investigators said. Worldwide Capital agreed to help finance the coup, extending a $175,000 line of credit to CTU and sending money to co-conspirators in Haiti to purchase ammunition, officials said.

FILE – In this Aug. 28, 2019, file photo, Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview in his office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)

CTU initially retained about 20 Colombian nationals with military training to provide security for Sanon. But by June 2021, the conspirators realized Sanon had neither the constitutional qualifications nor sufficient popular support to become president. They then backed Wendelle Coq Thélot, a former Haitian Superior Court judge. She died in January 2025 while still a fugitive.

Besides the 11 people arrested and prosecuted in the U.S., another 20, including 17 Colombian soldiers and three Haitian officials, face charges in Haiti. Gang violence, death threats and a crumbling judicial system have stalled an ongoing investigation.