Just off St. Paul’s Rice Street, the glass door entrance to the new North End Community Center is no accident of design. Treated glass rings the exterior of the $30.8 million, multi-level facility, allowing a clear line of sight from within the building out to Rice Street and surrounding amenities like the Rice Street Library, which sits just across the street.

The tired old baseball diamond at Rice Street and Lawson Avenue no longer exists, and neither does the weathered teen room that once lived half-hidden inside the Wellstone Elementary School down the path behind it. Instead, the gleaming new facility at 154 Lawson Ave. W. — a glassy, art-infused tribute to neighborhood residents of all ages — now holds the street corner, directly in front of a new playground and artificial turf, multi-purpose sports field.

Some 25,000 square feet of athletic and community space carries a number of state-of-the-art touches, from bird-safe glass imbued with a ceramic frit that reduces solar heat gain, to an indoor gymnasium lined for at least six different sports, including futsal, pickleball to the Thai sport of katow, or indoor volleyball.

A grand opening celebration for what’s being hailed as one of the city’s largest and most modern rec centers is scheduled for Saturday morning.

“We try to think of this as a community campus — the elementary school, the rec center and the library,” said Chris Stark, an architect and project manager for St. Paul Parks and Recreation, which worked with Snow Kreilich Architects on the facility’s design.

Mural running all three levels

Passersby may assume they’re looking at two buildings, but the facility is technically a single continuous structure bisected by an outdoor patio, which is protected by a gate decorated with faces from the community. Elsewhere throughout the structure, a mural running all three levels features painted faces of additional community members, a project led by Twin Cities artist Peyton Scott Russell.

One building houses the more social aspects of the community center, including meeting rooms, the Parks and Rec system’s largest commercial-grade kitchen and an upstairs teen room, which is decorated with wall art designed by St. Paul teens. In glass-enclosed meeting rooms, glue-laminated timber beams and cross-laminated wood paneling is intended to evoke natural elements. Community surveys identified the kitchen, which can be leased, as a priority for a neighborhood with a growing refugee and immigrant population and some entrepreneurial zeal.

The second building houses a gym ringed by more than 30 large, electric drapes that can be adjusted to allow in more light, allowing clear views of the outdoors from four sides.

Installing the three-level building took roughly six years of planning and a year of construction, with a wide variety of funding partners, ranging from the state and federal government to the National Football League, which put $250,000 toward the artificial turf field. Some of the priciest elements aren’t visible to the public, including a geothermal heating system and an array of underground tubing with the capacity to collect up to 1 million gallons of storm water, “almost like a bathtub,” Stark said.

Those tubes, each four or five feet in diameter, are situated below the playing field and designed to collect up to 14 inches of rain within 48 hours, or two back-to-back century storms, from the surrounding 70-acre area, making them a benefit for the entire neighborhood.

A bright spot

In addition to the library, the new building sits directly across from two new businesses — the year-old Golden Palace grocery and deli and a new coin-operated laundry, Wow Wash, which is approaching its own grand opening. For the North End, that mixture of public and private sector investment doesn’t happen everyday — a bright spot in the eyes of residents pining for a win.

“I’m so excited to see the grand opening,” said Nyan Lin, a Realtor who opened the Golden Palace with family.

A few finishing touches are yet to come.

The playground is days away from completion, and some greenery has yet to be installed directly behind the building. A solar array will be installed on top of the gym building when the weather warms.

Within Wellstone Elementary, the two-room rec center that was once attached to the gym has been given back to the school district.

If you go:

WHAT: Grand opening of the new North End Community Center, a $30.8 million facility

WHERE: 154 Lawson Ave. W., Rice Street and Lawson Avenue

WHEN: Saturday, 12 to 2 p.m.

SPEAKERS PLANNED: St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, St. Paul Parks and Recreation Director Andy Rodriguez, and other elected officials

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By AAMER MADHANI and MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is betting that a beleaguered Iran is so vulnerable following a tumultuous 18 months in the Middle East that it might finally be ready to abandon its nuclear program.

The renewed push to solve one of the most delicate foreign policy issues facing the White House and the Mideast will begin in earnest Saturday when Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi gather in Oman.

Trump says he prefers a diplomatic solution, even as he warns that Iran will face “great danger” if talks don’t go well. But Iran’s nuclear advances since Trump scrapped an Obama-era agreement during his first term make finding a pathway to a deal difficult, and experts warn that the prospects of U.S. military action on Iranian nuclear facilities appear higher than they have been in years.

“His ultimate goal and the ultimate objective is to ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Friday.

“But he’s made it very clear to the Iranians, and his national security team will as well, that all options are on the table and Iran has a choice to make. You can agree to President Trump’s demand or there will be all hell to pay,” she added.

The moment is certainly fraught, but the White House is seeing hopeful signs that the timing might be right. The push comes as Iran has faced a series of enormous setbacks that has ostensibly left Tehran in a weaker negotiating position.

Iran’s recent challenges

The military capabilities of Iranian-backed proxy forces Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been dramatically degraded by Israeli forces. U.S. airstrikes, meanwhile, targeting Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have hit oil refineries, airports and missile sites.

Israel also carried out strikes against Iran in October that damaged facilities linked to Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. And in December, Iran saw Syrian leader Bashar Assad — Tehran’s closest Mideast ally — ousted after more than two decades in power.

The leaders of the Islamic Republic also face domestic pressure as years of international sanctions have choked the economy. The U.S. Treasury Department announced a new round of sanctions earlier this week targeting five entities and an individual that American officials say play key roles in Iran’s nuclear program.

“All eyes are on Oman by Iranians following this very closely and potentially hoping that this would impact the state of the economy,” said Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based think tank.

But it remains to be seen if the U.S. can entice Iran with a big enough carrot for it to make concessions to meet Trump’s demands that any potential deal go further in ensuring Tehran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons than the agreement forged during Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iran could only maintain a small stockpile of uranium enriched to 3.67%. Today, it has enough to build multiple nuclear weapons if it chooses and has some material enriched up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

It’s not clear if talks will be face to face

At the meeting Saturday in Oman’s capital city of Muscat, Iran will be represented by Araghchi and the United States by Witkoff. It’s unclear if the two will speak directly.

Trump has said the two sides will have “direct” negotiations. But Iranian officials have insisted that the plan is for “indirect talks,” meaning an intermediary from Oman would shuttle messages between Witkoff’s and Araghchi’s teams holed up in different rooms.

Either way, the decision for the two sides to talk — announced by Trump in the Oval Office this week alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — came as a bit of a surprise.

Trump has been calling for direct talks, while threatening “consequences” for Iran if it doesn’t move to get a deal done.

Iran, meanwhile, has given mixed signals about the utility of the talks, arguing that engaging would be useless under the shadow of threats.

After Trump recently sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for direct negotiations, Tehran rejected the entreaty while leaving open the possibility of indirect negotiations.

President Masoud Pezeshkian again pledged this week that Iran’s “not after a nuclear bomb” and even suggested Tehran could be open to the prospect of direct American investment in the Islamic Republic if the countries can reach a deal.

That was a departure from Iran’s stance after its 2015 nuclear deal, in which Tehran sought to buy American airplanes but in effect barred U.S. companies from coming into the country.

How much room is there for negotiation?

National security adviser Mike Waltz has said Trump wants the “full dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear program, adding, “That’s enrichment, that is weaponization, and that is its strategic missile program.”

But Trump left greater space for negotiations: “ The only thing that they can’t have is a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters as he met with his Cabinet secretaries Wednesday.

Witkoff also has signaled that the administration could be amenable to a deal that is less than full nuclear disarmament.

“Where our red line will be, there can’t be weaponization of your nuclear capability,” Witkoff said in a Wall Street Journal interview published Friday.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu, who met with Trump on Monday, said he would welcome a diplomatic agreement along the lines of Libya’s deal with the international community in 2003. The Israeli leader is known for his hawkish views on Iran and in the past has urged Washington to take military action against Iran.

The Libya deal saw late dictator Moammar Gadhafi give up all of his clandestine nuclear program. Iran has insisted its program, acknowledged to the International Atomic Energy Agency, should continue.

But Trump has notably not embraced Netanyahu’s push for the Libya model, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, another Washington-based think tank.

“If it’s narrow, if it’s focused on the nuclear program, if the goal of the U.S. is to prevent a nuclear weapon, then there is a likelihood for success,” Parsi said. “And it’s under those circumstances that I suspect that you will see talks, perhaps in rather short order, be elevated.”

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Muscat, Oman, contributed to this report.

By KATHY McCORMACK

A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey is demanding her release after she was detained by immigration officials near her Massachusetts home, detailing how she was scared when the men grabbed her phone and feared she would be killed.

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, who has since been moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana, provided an updated account of what happened to her as she walked along a street on March 25, in a document filed by her lawyers in federal court Thursday.

Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities whose visas were revoked or have been stopped from entering the U.S. after they were accused of attending demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians. On Friday, a Louisiana immigration judge ruled that the U.S. can deport Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil based on the federal government’s argument that he poses a national security risk.

FILE- This contributed photo shows Rumeysa Ozturk on an apple-picking trip in 2021. (AP Photo)

‘I felt very scared and concerned’

“I felt very scared and concerned as the men surrounded me and grabbed my phone from me,” Ozturk said in the statement. They told her they were police, and one quickly showed what might have been a gold badge. “But I didn’t think they were the police because I had never seen police approach and take someone away like this,” she said.

Ozturk said she was afraid because her name, photograph and work history were published earlier this year on the website Canary Mission, which describes itself as documenting people who “promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.”

She said the men didn’t tell her why they were arresting her and shackled her. She said at one point, after they had changed cars, she felt “sure they were going to kill me.” During a stop in Massachusetts, one of the men said to her, “We are not monsters,” and “We do what the government tells us.”

She said they repeatedly refused her requests to speak to a lawyer.

Hearing scheduled on Ozturk’s case in Vermont

A petition to release her was first filed in federal court in Boston and then moved to Burlington, Vermont, where a hearing on her case to resolve jurisdictional issues is scheduled on Monday.

Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process. They have asked that she be released from custody.

U.S. Justice Department lawyers say her case in New England should be dismissed and that it should be handled in immigration court. Ozturk “is not without recourse to challenge the revocation of her visa and her arrest and detention, but such challenge cannot be made before this court,” government lawyers said in a brief filed Thursday.

She recalled that the night she spent in the cell in Vermont, she was asked about wanting to apply for asylum and if she was a member of a terrorist organization. “I tried to be helpful and answer their questions but I was so tired and didn’t understand what was happening to me,” she stated.

Ozturk, who suffers from asthma, had an attack the next day at the airport in Atlanta, as she was being taken to Louisiana, she said. She was able to use her inhaler, but unable to get her prescribed medication because there was no place to buy it, she said she was told.

Ozturk says she wasn’t let outside for a week

Once she was put in the Louisiana facility, she was not allowed to go outside during the first week and had limited access to food and supplies for two weeks. She said she suffered three more asthma attacks there and had limited care at a medical center.

Ozturk said she is one of 24 people in a cell that has a sign stating capacity for 14.

“When they do the inmate count we are threatened to not leave our beds or we will lose privileges, which means that we are often stuck waiting in our beds for hours,” she said. “At mealtimes, there is so much anxiety because there is no schedule when it comes. … They threaten to close the door if we don’t leave the room in time, meaning we won’t get a meal.”

Ozturk said she wants to go back to Tufts so she can finish her degree, which she has been working on for five years.

Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said federal authorities detained Ozturk after an investigation found she had “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” The department did not provide evidence of that support.

Ozturk is supported by coalition of Jewish groups

A coalition of 27 Jewish organizations from across the United States is objecting to Ozturk’s arrest and detention.

The organizations say those actions and possible deportation of Ozturk for her protected speech “violate the most basic constitutional rights,” such as freedom of expression.

“The government … appears to be exploiting Jewish Americans’ legitimate concerns about antisemitism as pretext for undermining core pillars of American democracy, the rule of law, and the fundamental rights of free speech and academic debate on which this nation was built,” the groups say in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Friday in her case.

By CLAUDIA LAUER and SALLY HO

All sense of survivors’ guilt was fleeting for those residents whose homes remained standing after wildfires ripped through the Los Angeles area three months ago.

Many worried that smoke from the Eaton wildfire that destroyed more than 9,000 structures and killed 18 people may have carried toxins, including lead, asbestos and heavy metals, into their homes. But they struggled to convince their insurers to test their properties to ensure it was safe to return.

Nicole Maccalla, a data scientist, said embers burned more than half of her roof, several windows and eaves were damaged, and her house in Altadena was left filled with ash, debris, soot and damaged appliances. She said her insurance adjuster said USAA would pay for contamination testing, but after choosing a company and coming back with the results, her claim was rejected. The adjuster said the company only covered testing in homes with major damage.

“Every single item is a battle,” said Maccalla. “It’s denials and appeals and denials and appeals, and you wait weeks and weeks and weeks for responses.”

Crowdsourcing contamination data

Maccalla and others banded together as Eaton Fire Residents United, sharing indoor environmental testing data and compiling the results in an online map. Of 81 homes tested so far for lead, all show elevated levels, according to the group.

“I’ve already had multiple people reach out and say: ‘Thank you for publishing this map … because my insurance company has changed their mind and approved testing,’” said Maccalla, who helped design the data collection to verify results and maintain privacy.

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Many homeowners paid privately for the testing after their insurance companies refused, revealing gaps in coverage. The group hopes the data will help residents who can’t afford it to convince their insurers to cover testing and remediation.

“If I can prove my community is not fit for human habitation then maybe I can show my home won’t be,” said Jane Lawton Potelle, founder of Eaton Fire Residents United.

It’s not easy to understand how and when it is safe to return home, Potelle said. The fine print of insurance policies can be frustrating and confusing, and the government has not stepped in to help.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has no plans to conduct widespread environmental testing. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is tracking environmental testing largely by academic researchers and a handful from government agencies, but most studies assess outdoor contamination.

Toxic air and limited coverage

Reports from other urban wildfires, in which building materials, appliances, cars and more burn at incredibly high temperatures, show increased levels of heavy metals including lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benzene that are tied to negative health risks. But insurance companies haven’t standardized testing for those contaminants.

Home insurance broadly covers fire damage, but there is a growing dispute over what damage must be covered when flames don’t torch the property.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara released a bulletin in March that put the onus on companies to properly investigate reported smoke damage, saying they cannot deny such claims without investigating thoroughly, including paying for professional testing as warranted. But many residents have been left to fight for coverage anyway.

Janet Ruiz, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute that represents many major insurance companies, said it’s hard to compare neighbors because every claim is unique due to each home’s physical structure, actual damage and defined insurance coverage limits.

“It can vary and insurance companies are sensitive to what the claim is,” Ruiz said. “You have to work with your insurance companies and be reasonable about what may have happened.”

Dave Jones, director of the Climate Risk Initiative at University of California, Berkeley, and former state insurance commissioner, said testing should be covered even though some insurance companies disagree.

“It’s perfectly reasonable for people to have some kind of environmental test done so that their home is safe and their property is safe,” Jones said. “We’re talking about very catastrophically high temperature fires where all sorts of materials are melted and some of them become toxic.”

State plan struggles

The state’s insurer of last resort, known as the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, has been scrutinized for years over how it handles smoke damage claims. A 2017 change to the FAIR Plan limited coverage to “permanent physical changes,” meaning smoke damage must be visible or detectable without lab testing for claims to be approved. State officials said that threshold was too high and illegal, and ordered a change.

Dylan Schaffer, an attorney leading a class action lawsuit challenging FAIR Plan’s threshold, said he was surprised private carriers are disputing similar fire damage claims.

“The damage is not due to smoke, the damage is contamination from fire,” Schaffer said. “They make it complicated because it saves them money.”

Meanwhile, Altadena residents on the FAIR Plan say their claims are still being denied. Jones believes the debate will only end when lawmakers take action.

FAIR Plan spokeswoman Hilary McLean declined to comment on the ongoing litigation and individual cases, but said the FAIR Plan pays all covered claims based on the adjusters’ recommendations.

“Our policy, like many others, requires direct physical loss for there to be coverage,” McLean said.

Worries over kids’ safety

Potelle said the first inkling that her house might be toxic came after meeting with her AAA insurance adjuster in the days after the fire. Even though she had worn a mask, her chest still ached and her voice rasped, and she wondered whether her home was safe for her 11-year-old.

Stephanie Wilcox said her toddler’s pediatrician recommended testing their home. Her Farmers Insurance policy includes coverage for lead and asbestos in addition to her wildfire coverage, but after multiple denials, she paid out of pocket.

“After the initial inspection, (Farmers) had told us remediation would cost about $12,000 and that it would be habitable, like we could move back in tomorrow,” she said. “But now there’s no way.”

She plans to ask for a new estimate including lead abatement and other costs, citing the results.

Similarly, Zach Bailey asked in late January for contamination testing. The house he shares with his wife and toddler sits in an island of largely spared homes among blocks wiped out by the fire. After months of denials, State Farm agreed to pay for lead and asbestos testing because the remediation company cited federal worker safety regulations.

It shouldn’t have been that hard, he said.

“It feels like the insurance companies should have a playbook at this point,” he said. “They should have a process to keep people safe because this isn’t the first disaster like this.”