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.

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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.”

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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.”

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Harvard University is challenging the Trump administration’s decision to bar the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students, calling it unconstitutional retaliation for defying the White House’s political demands.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Boston, Harvard said the government’s action violates the First Amendment and will have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”

“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” Harvard said in its suit.

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The school said it plans to file for a temporary restraining order to block the Department of Homeland Security from carrying out the move.

Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most are graduate students and they come from more than 100 countries.

The department announced the action Thursday, accusing Harvard of creating an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, contending the school had hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.

Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism, He said Harvard would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation. Harvard has said it will respond at a later time to allegations first raised by House Republicans about coordination with the Chinese Communist Party.

The threat to Harvard’s international enrollment stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who demanded that Harvard provide information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.

Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.

The suit is separate from the university’s earlier one challenging more than $2 billion in federal cuts imposed by the Republican administration.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. 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 JOSH JACQUOT

Memorial Day weekend has long been one of the busiest times of year for car dealerships. Many car shoppers decide to pull the trigger on that long-considered purchase because of the major sales promotions and the symbolic start of summer. But things are a little different this year.

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Because of tariffs on offshore-built vehicles and components, confusion is setting in. Shoppers are rightly wondering: Will prices go up? Are the deals real? Should I buy now or wait?

Here’s some good news. With a little strategy and timing, you can score a great deal this Memorial Day weekend and avoid potential price hikes in the months ahead. Here are five tips from the experts at Edmunds that will help you decide and get the best deal.

Prioritize U.S.-assembled vehicles

Start close to home if you’re looking to insulate yourself from the effects of tariffs. The tariffs most affect vehicles that are not assembled in the United States. While many of these vehicles use components from abroad, the final assembly taking place in the U.S. means they’re not subject to the 25% import tariff.

How do you know which vehicles are assembled in the U.S? To start, you could consider vehicles from domestic automakers such as Ford, General Motors and Tesla. But you need to be careful: Not every domestic brand vehicle is assembled in the U.S. At the same time, many foreign automakers, such as BMW, Honda and Toyota, build some of their vehicles here.

You’ll want to check the window sticker of a vehicle you’re interested in. It will show where final assembly occurred as well as the percentage of U.S. and foreign parts. Keep in mind that even though a car is assembled in the U.S., it won’t escape tariffs on its foreign-made parts.

Seek out pre-tariff inventory

Many dealerships still have vehicles in stock that were imported or assembled before the April 2 effective date. Most dealers carry about 60 days of inventory, which means at least some of the cars on lots this Memorial Day weekend haven’t been affected by the new pricing yet.

So how do you find them? Simple: You ask.

Dealerships have inventory management systems that show exactly when each vehicle arrived. If you’re eyeing a specific model, request to see vehicles that landed before early April. This approach won’t work forever — by midsummer, that inventory will dwindle — but for now, it’s one of the smartest ways to shop.

Explore Memorial Day incentives and promotions

Major holidays mean major promotions, and this Memorial Day is no exception. For example, Ford is offering employee pricing to all customers through July 7 — an aggressive discount that essentially strips away dealer markups. That can mean thousands in savings on popular models like the F-150 or Explorer.

Other automakers are following suit. Expect to see 0% APR offers, cash-back bonuses, lease specials, and extended warranties advertised heavily this weekend.

But here’s the trick: These offers can vary significantly by region and dealer, so comparison shop online first. Automakers’ websites often have tools to search incentives by ZIP code.

Consider buying used

Used cars are not subject to tariffs. So if you want to avoid tariff-induced sticker shock, the used market might be your safest bet. The supply of used vehicles has been rising steadily post-pandemic. That means better selection, more competitive pricing, and a greater chance of finding a lightly used vehicle with low mileage.

Look for certified pre-owned models that come with factory warranties — they often strike a good balance between peace of mind and cost savings. And with interest rates still high, the lower principal of a used vehicle can significantly reduce your monthly payment if you finance.

Be flexible and move quickly

Finally, with the industry in flux, flexibility is your friend. That might mean settling for your second-choice color, choosing a different trim level, or opting for an in-stock configuration instead of ordering a custom build. In return, you’ll get the benefit of a better price.

And if you’ve been on the fence about buying? Don’t wait too long. Automakers and analysts agree: Prices are likely to rise later this summer if the tariffs continue.

Edmunds says

Between factory incentives, pre-tariff inventory, U.S.-built options and a growing used car market, there are plenty of ways to save this Memorial Day. Just be prepared and be informed.

This story was provided to The Associated Press by the automotive website Edmunds. Josh Jacquot is a contributor at Edmunds.