Minnesota United vs. Austin FC

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Allianz Field
Stream: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
Radio: KSTP-AM, 1500
Weather: Partly cloudy, 65 degrees, 4 mph south wind
Betting line: MNUFC minus-130; draw plus-280; Austin plus-333

Form: Minnesota (7-3-4, 25 points) climbed into second place in the West with a 3-0 win over floundering St. Louis City last weekend. Austin (5-6-3, 18 points) extended its winless lull to three with a scoreless draw against Vancouver last weekend.

Recent matchups: United beat Austin 3-0 three weeks ago with Anthony Markanich and Joaquin Pereyra scoring for the Loons. The two clubs are 5-5-0 since 2021.

Context: Both clubs have good vibes after making the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open Cup midweek. Minnesota beat St. Louis; Austin topped Houston. If they win again, Loons vs. Chicago and Verde vs. San Jose, the two sides could meet again in the semifinals of the national tournament.

Quote: Loons striker Kelvin Yeboah felt “good” after scoring his first goal across more than 550 minutes played in eight injury-interrupted matches in the 3-2 U.S. Open Cup win Wednesday.

“After the injuries, it has been quite difficult, physically to come back in top shape, but thanks to the guys, they have been winning and contributing to make my life even easier,” he said Wednesday.

Update: With last week’s shutout of St. Louis, goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair was credited with his seventh clean sheet of the season. He has the MLS lead with Austin’s Brad Stuver and five others one behind.

Absences: Joseph Rosales is expected to be eligible after serving a three-game suspension. Kipp Keller (hamstring) is out.

Stats: Austin is 29th in the 30-team league with only nine goals scored this season. That is 20 behind top-scoring San Jose and 13 behind the Loons’ 22.

Scouting report: Brandon Vazquez — the only Austin player with multiple goals — is the man to stop. He has four on the season and is well below his 7.5 expected goals through 13 games.

Prediction: The Loons defense has allowed the third-fewest goals in MLS play this season — coupled with Austin’s struggles in front of net — it looks like more of the same. MNUFC, 2-0.

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration is accusing Columbia University of violating the civil rights of Jewish students by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward what it describes as rampant antisemitism on campus.

The finding was announced late Thursday by the Health and Human Services Department, marking the latest blow for an Ivy League school already shaken by federal cutbacks and sustained government pressure to crack down on student speech.

It comes hours after the Department of Homeland Security said it would revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in the administration’s monthslong attack on higher education.

The civil rights division of HHS said it had found Columbia in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which blocks federal funding recipients from discrimination based on race, color or national origin. That final category, the press release notes, includes “discrimination against individuals that is based on their actual or perceived Israeli or Jewish identity or ancestry.”

FILE – Students with the Gaza solidarity encampment block the entrance of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University after taking over it on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 in New York. Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine called for mobilization close to midnight. (Marco Postigo Storel via AP, file)

The announcement did not include new sanctions against Columbia, which is already facing $400 million in federal cuts by the Trump administration over its response to pro-Palestinian campus protests.

A spokesperson for Columbia said the university is currently in negotiations with the government about resolving its claims of antisemitism.

“We understand this finding is part of our ongoing discussions with the government,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Columbia is deeply committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of harassment and discrimination on our campus.”

The civil rights investigation into Columbia was based on witness interviews, media reports and other sources, according to HHS. The findings were not made public. A spokesperson did not response to a request for further information.

“The findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students at Columbia University have had to endure for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety, and well-being,” Anthony Archeval, acting director of the HHS civil rights office, said in a statement.

Related Articles

Harvard sues the Trump administration over ban on enrolling foreign students

Wall Street, European stocks and Apple fall following Trump’s latest tariff threats

Today in History: May 23, outlaws Bonnie and Clyde killed in police ambush

Microsoft fires employee who interrupted CEO’s speech to protest AI tech for Israeli military

Billion dollar pizza? Bitcoin soars on key anniversary of crypto’s growth

Last spring, Columbia became the epicenter of protests against the war in Gaza, spurring a national movement of campus demonstrations that demanded universities cut ties with Israel.

At the time, some Jewish students and faculty complained about being harassed during the demonstrations or ostracized because of their faith or their support of Israel.

Those who participated in Columbia’s protests, including some Jewish students, have said they are protesting Israel’s actions against Palestinians and have forcefully denied allegations of antisemitism.

Many have also accused the university of capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands — including placing its Middle East studies department under new leadership — at the expense of academic freedom and protecting foreign students.

At a commencement ceremony earlier this week, a speech by Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, was met with loud boos by graduates and chants of “free Palestine.”

Despite months of neighborhood opposition, a trash truck depot will indeed move forward on Randolph Avenue.

West Seventh Street residents opposed to a planned compressed natural gas refueling station and trash truck maintenance facility at 560 Randolph Ave. were dealt a decisive setback on Wednesday when the St. Paul City Council voted 6-0 to deny their appeal of FCC Environmental’s site plan following its approval by the Planning Commission.

Members of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation had hoped to add a series of conditions to the site plan, beyond two technical items tacked on by the Planning Commission on May 2, which included further review of the location’s stormwater management system. They were unsuccessful Wednesday. Council President Rebecca Noecker recused herself from the vote on the advice of the city attorney’s office, after asking the trash hauler to consider more community benefits.

“If FCC wishes to claim Public Works status, they should abide by that standard,” said Julia McColley, executive director of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, addressing the city council. “If West Seventh is to bear the burden for the entirety of St. Paul, all of your wards, the negative impacts on our neighborhood must be mitigated.”

Days after presenting the Texas-based trash hauler with a sweeping list of demands, members of the Fort Road Federation limited their asks on Wednesday to four key areas. “We ask that FCC stop inappropriate traffic patterns to and from the site, particularly cutting through the Schmidt (Brewery) site,” McColley said.

She also asked that the hauler limit the total number of trash trucks to 36, and not expand to as many as 80 trucks to serve nearby cities, a goal that company officials have called entirely possible. She asked the city to prohibit other businesses from refueling at the compressed natural gas station, and to block FCC Environmental employees from parking along Randolph Avenue.

The trash hauler has not publicly agreed to any of those items, and neither the Planning Commission nor the city council expressed interest in formally requiring them.

“I do really encourage more communication between FCC Environmental and the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation,” said Council Member Nelsie Yang, urging the two sides to negotiate face-to-face.

Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher told the council that FCC Environmental has expressed willingness to meet with the federation and consider “solutions that work for everyone,” but caselaw made it inappropriate to saddle the site plan with conditions removed from the zoning code.

As for future meetings with FCC, “we intend to help facilitate that,” Tincher said. “We absolutely believe they can be addressed in a meeting following the site plan process. … The residents’ concerns, from what I’ve heard, they’re valid. We want this to be good for everybody.”

A former tow lot, the four-acre site at 560 Randolph Ave. has been the subject of tough scrutiny and heated debate between neighborhood residents, the international trash hauler, the city council and mayor’s office. On April 14, Mayor Melvin Carter vetoed the city council’s decision to support a zoning appeal filed by the federation, which had questioned whether the privately-owned site met the zoning definition of a public works yard.

FCC Environmental began citywide residential trash collection on April 1, but only after the mayor declared a state of local emergency to effectively bypass the zoning dispute.

On May 19, Noecker’s legislative aide shared a laundry list of asks with FCC Environmental, on behalf of the neighborhood organization, including an air quality monitor, local organics drop-off and for the city to establish a nearby park.

“We were supposed to meet on Tuesday of last week, and FCC pulled out of the meeting and said they wanted to wait until the site plan process was done,” Noecker said Thursday. “Clearly, there’s a lot of anger and frustration on the part of the community. I texted the mayor this morning, I spoke with the director of the Fort Road Federation this morning. They’re ready and eager to meet.”

The future trash depot, which currently consists of two administrative buildings and a gravel lot, relies on a septic system and will need to be connected to the city’s sanitary sewer system, said Tia Anderson, a city planner and project manager. Randolph Avenue, which is a county road, will gain some landscape buffering, a six-foot-tall decorative screening fence, infill sidewalks and boulevard trees along the site’s property lines, and as a condition of the site plan, the Capitol Region Watershed District will conduct further review of any stormwater and watershed issues.

Otherwise, “FCC’s site plan meets all the standards required through the law and the St. Paul legislative code,” said Greg Revering, a general manager for the trash hauler, noting the Planning Commission gave the site plan its unanimous approval May 2.

Related Articles

Climate action group schedules first Ward 4 candidate forum for Tuesday

Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary likely to be renamed Wakan Tipi

Letters: Preventing landlords from screening tenants is a one-sided view of our housing problem

Ben Shardlow: The soon-to-close recycling plant and environs are places we should love, or learn to

St. Paul: At Highland Bridge, Weidner Homes, Ryan Cos. win concessions

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

The group run by Elon Musk and his aides to cut federal spending in the second Trump administration is targeting some surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau it claims are “wasteful,” worrying users of federal data already concerned about the health of the nation’s statistical infrastructure.

The Department of Government Efficiency said on social media this week that five surveys costing $16.5 million that are conducted by the statistical agency for other federal agencies have been “terminated” but didn’t specify which ones. Some of the questions on the eliminated surveys asked about alcohol consumption and the frequency that respondents used the internet in their home, according to the post.

Other surveys are being reviewed “one-by-one,” said Tuesday’s post on DOGE’s X account. The Census Bureau didn’t respond this week to an inquiry seeking comment.

Based on the post, it’s highly possible that the eliminated surveys included the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, which gathered information on inmates for the Department of Justice, and the Ask U.S. Panel, an internet survey conducted with the Department of Defense, said Beth Jarosz, a senior program director at the Population Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan research organization.

There is a public process for changing government surveys that involves giving notice and seeking public comment, and anything that is canceled without going through that process may be violating the law, Jarosz said.

“These data belong to the public,” Jarosz said. “The taxpayers paid for the data and they should get the data unless they don’t want it to be collected anymore.”

The Census Bureau asks the public survey questions in order to help Congress and federal agencies implement laws or develop policies, said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former congressional staffer who consults on census issues.

“Just picking isolated questions doesn’t make any point DOGE has intended to make, which is, I guess, that the Census Bureau isn’t doing serious work or necessary work, which they are,” Lowenthal said. “I think that tweet suggests the DOGE staff has very little knowledge about data collection and the set purpose of the Census Bureau’s mission.”

Related Articles

Trump threatens 50% tariffs on EU and 25% penalties on Apple as his trade war intensifies

Iran and US hold a fifth round of nuclear negotiations in Rome with enrichment a key issue

Tax bill passed by House Republicans would gut Biden-era clean energy tax credits

A look at the deportees on plane that headed for South Sudan from US

Supreme Court declines to reinstate independent agency board members fired by President Donald Trump

The bigger concern is whether the Census Bureau is going to be ready for test run-throughs next year of the once-a-decade census, given federal government hiring freezes by the Trump administration and public silence from the bureau about the schedule, Lowenthal said.

Tests next year for the 2030 census are slated for six places: western Texas; tribal lands in Arizona; Colorado Springs, Colorado; western North Carolina; Spartanburg, South Carolina; and Huntsville, Alabama. The census is used to determine how many congressional seats each state gets and helps guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual federal funding.

“The time lost in planning for a census can’t be made up easily, if at all,” Lowenthal said. “The timeline of a census is very tight. Each step builds upon what has been done previously.”

Researchers and users of federal data are grappling with broader concerns about the health of the U.S. statistical system, given disruptions to federal agencies by DOGE that have led to canceled contracts and the departures of longtime staffers with vast institutional knowledge, Georgetown professor Amy O’Hara, president of the Association of Public Data Users, said during a recent online forum.

For instance, the Census Bureau’s roster of top leaders and their staff showed 18 vacancies as of the beginning of the month. The statistical agency’s leader, Ron Jarmin, has been filling the job in an “acting” capacity since Census Bureau director Rob Santos resigned earlier this year.

An Inspector General’s report last March warned that the bureau has had difficulties hiring and retaining workers to carry out its surveys. Earlier this year, the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, eliminated advisory committees made up of demographers, statisticians and advocacy group leaders who provided expertise to the statistical agency.

“There’s a lot of anxiety. There’s a lot of frustration because information is potentially threatened due to changes in agencies or changes in programs,” O’Hara said. “There’s just this fear that what you had relied on is not going to be available.”