The Scandia City Council is moving forward with plans for an extension of the Gateway Trail in the city despite some opposition.

The council voted 3-1 last week to go out for bids for a trailhead on city-owned land near Meister’s Bar & Grill along with a tunnel under Oakhill Road (Washington County Road 52) and a one-mile trail connecting the two. Council member Jerry Cusick voted against the measure; Kirsten Libby was not in attendance.

Bids are due on Nov. 19, and the Scandia City Council will decide Dec. 16 whether to accept and award the bid for the project, said City Administrator Kyle Morell.

The estimated cost: $4.6 million. Construction could start in May and should be complete by the end of 2026, he said.

The tunnel under Oakhill, which has an estimated price tag of $1.5 million, has been controversial. Officials from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the agency that will own, operate and maintain the trail, say it is a necessary safety measure.

Opponents say the tunnel is poorly planned and unnecessary.

The Gateway Trail is one of the state’s most heavily used trails, attracting an estimated 314,000 users in 2024. It currently runs 19 miles from St. Paul to Pine Point Park in Stillwater Township. Plans call for a four-mile extension of the Gateway Trail from William O’Brien State Park to downtown Scandia.

The council will hold a public listening session in early December to give residents opportunity to be heard, but the council won’t take any action at that time, Morell said. Bids will be presented to council at either the public listening meeting or at the Dec. 16 council meeting, Morell said.

The final vote on whether to accept and award the bid for the Gateway Trail Project will be at the Dec. 16 council meeting, he said.

Funding deadline

Scandia Mayor Steve Kronmiller (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The city got a $2.68 million grant from the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources to extend the trail from the trailhead behind Meister’s Bar & Grill to Oakhill Road. The money also will cover a realignment of 2,000 feet of Oakhill Road and the raising of the road by 6 feet to accommodate the tunnel.

Funding for the trail extension must be expended by June 30, 2027, said Mayor Steve Kronmiller. Terms and conditions of the grant appropriation specifically mention the tunnel.

“We do understand that if we were to vote to reconsider an alternate location or something of that sort, there is a distinct possibility that we wouldn’t be able to meet that deadline and therefore we would lose the funding, so that’s a concern of staff,” Kronmiller said.

If the city had to go back and re-request funds in a different way, it would have to pay a 25 percent matching contribution, he said. “That (matching contribution) doesn’t exist in the grant that we have now,” he said. “It’s 100 percent funded.”

County contribution

Washington County is contributing $800,000 for work related to the tunnel and the realignment of Oakhill; county officials will not allow the trail to cross Oakhill, a county highway, at grade, County Engineer Wayne Sandberg said. To support a grade separation, county officials agreed to contribute financially toward a tunnel option, he said.

“At the end of the day, the council has to make a decision one way or the other, and not everybody is going to be happy with that final decision,” Kronmiller said. “But I hope people understand we are putting in a lot of hard work to understand all of the issues and make the best decision for the community that we can.”

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In the meantime, officials also are working on a plan to finish the connection between downtown Scandia and William O’Brien State Park, Kronmiller said. Design and specifications for that portion of the trail should be completed sometime next summer, he said.

“We still have to acquire the funding, but I definitely see the connection all the way from William O’Brien to downtown Scandia happening,” Kronmiller said. “And when that happens, I expect to see a lot of visitors coming into the town and improving Scandia as a destination for tourism.”

Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards left the floor three minutes into Sunday’s home opener against Indiana and did not return with hamstring tightness.

Bones Hyland checked in for the all-star coming out of a Pacers’ timeout.

Edwards was questionable ahead of the season opener in Portland with back spasms, but played and scored 41 points against the Blazers. Edwards has generally been durable, playing 72-plus games in every season to date.

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You don’t need to glance at the team statistics to know that it has been a disappointing start to the season for veteran Minnesota Wild winger Marcus Foligno. The team’s injury report will tell you as much now as well.

While still offering his patented combination of on-ice intensity and off-ice levity, Foligno had registered no goals or assists through the Wild’s first nine games, and he was scratched from Sunday’s 10th game, versus San Jose, due to an upper body injury.

“He’s out, upper body,” Wild coach John Hynes said, speaking to the media prior to the date with the Sharks, adding that the severity of the injury is unknown currently. “He had some imaging done today and I don’t know the results of it.”

Foligno, 34, missed five games all of last season, chipping in with 14 goals in 77 games, and adding three more in the six-game opening round playoff loss to Vegas. In Saturday evening’s home loss to the Utah Mammoth, Foligno logged 14 minutes but left the game in the third period and did not return.

Already this season he had shown some physical resilience, taking a massive open-ice hit in a win versus the Rangers at Madison Square Garden last week, but returning to finish the game seemingly no worse for wear. But even before the injury suffered versus Utah, Hynes acknowledged that Foligno was one of the veterans they were looking for to contribute more on the score sheet. The coach had a one-on-one meeting with Foligno following the team’s Friday practice at TRIA Rink.

“He’s such a valuable member to the team. I think what he brings to the team is crucial,” Hynes said then. “He’s kind of a heartbeat type of guy. And sometimes he’s just looking at some things, almost like we did last year at the beginning of the year, getting back to the things that make him such an important player for us and such a good player.”

Keying on Celebrini

The Sharks came to Minnesota with just one win to their credit this season, and the franchise has not been a playoff participant since 2019, but all of those on-ice struggles did pay a notable dividend in 2024 when they won the draft lottery and used the first overall pick to grab Macklin Celebrini. Originally from Vancouver, Celebrini played two seasons of prep hockey at Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault, and logged one year at Boston University, where he won the Hobey Baker Award as a freshman.

Still just 19, Celebrini came to St. Paul averaging better than a point per game for San Jose, and had a familiarity with the Bay Area even before San Jose employed him. His father Rick, a former pro soccer player, worked for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors as their director of sports medicine. Hynes acknowledged that part of the game plan versus the Sharks was to be on alert whenever Celebrini was on the ice.

“He’s a driving player. Even though he’s young he’s got good speed, he’s strong, he’s tenacious on the puck, he can shoot it, but he also can pass,” Hynes said, admitting part of the game plan was to have a committed defensive pair on the ice to counter San Jose’s top line which had Celebrini centering Tyler Toffoli and Will Smith.

Celebrini had five goals and seven assists in the Sharks’ first eight games. He was one of three finalists for NHL Rookie of the Year last season. Sunday’s game was barely five minutes old when Celebrini got his 13th point of the season, assisting on San Jose’s first period power play goal.

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By Daniel Flatley and Josh Xiao, Bloomberg News

Top trade negotiators for the U.S. and China said they came to terms on a range of contentious points, setting the table for leaders Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to finalize a deal and ease trade tensions that have rattled global markets.

After two days of talks in Malaysia wrapped up Sunday, a Chinese official said the two sides reached a preliminary consensus on topics including export controls, fentanyl and shipping levies.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking later in an interview with CBS News, said Trump’s threat of 100% tariffs on Chinese goods “is effectively off the table” and he expected the Asian nation to make “substantial” soybean purchases as well as offer a deferral on sweeping rare earth controls. The U.S. wouldn’t change its export controls directed at China, he added.

“So I would expect that the threat of the 100% has gone away, as has the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export control regime,” Bessent said. He separately told ABC News he believed China would delay its rare-earth restrictions “for a year while they reexamine it.”

Bessent telegraphed a wide-ranging agreement between Trump and Xi that would extend a tariff truce, resolve differences over the sale of TikTok and keep up the flow of rare earth magnets necessary for the production of advanced products from semiconductors to jet engines. The two leaders are also planning to discuss a global peace plan, he said, after Trump said publicly he hoped to enlist Xi’s help in resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The encouraging signals from both sides of the negotiations were a marked contrast from recent weeks, when Beijing’s announcement of new export restrictions and Trump’s reciprocal threat of staggering new tariffs threatened to plunge the world’s two largest economies back into an all-out trade war.

Signs of an impending deal lifted sentiment in markets. Risk-sensitive currencies like the Australian and New Zealand dollars climbed against the greenback in early trading, outperforming major peers, while havens including the Swiss franc and Japanese yen edged lower. Bitcoin rose a fourth day.

Staving off China’s rare-earth restrictions is “one of the major objectives of these talks, and I think we’re progressing toward that goal very well,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Trump himself predicted a “good deal with China” as he spoke with reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kuala Lumpur, saying he expected additional leader-level follow-up meetings in China and the US.

“They want to make a deal, and we want to make a deal,” Trump said.

Still, markets will be closely watching the details of the ultimate agreement, after nearly a year of head-spinning changes to trade and tariff policies between the U.S. and China.

Chinese trade envoy Li Chenggang indicated his belief that the sides had reached consensus on fentanyl — suggesting the U.S. might lift or reduce a 20% tariff it had imposed to pressure Beijing to halt the flow of precursor chemicals used to make the deadly drug. He said the nations would also address actions the Trump administration took to impose port service fees on Chinese vessels, which prompted Beijing to put retaliatory levies on U.S.-owned, operated, built or flagged vessels.

Li, whom Bessent called “unhinged” earlier this month, described the talks as intense and the U.S. position as tough, but hailed progress in the discussions. Both sides will now report the outcome back to their leaders ahead of a planned summit between Trump and Xi on Thursday.

“The current turbulences and twists and turns are ones that we do not wish to see,” Li told reporters, adding that a stable China-US trade and economic relationship is good for both countries and the rest of the world.

The reopening of soybean purchases, if realized, could provide a significant political win for Trump.

China imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. farm goods in March, effectively slamming the door shut on American soybeans before the harvest even began. The Asian nation last year purchased $13 billion of U.S. beans — more than 20% of the entire crop — for animal feed and cooking oil, and the freeze has rocked rural farmers who represent a key political base for the president.

Perhaps more important is resolving the U.S.’s rare-earths tussle with China, which fought back against Trump’s trade offensive earlier this year by cutting off supplies of the materials. Although flows were restored in a truce that saw tariffs lowered from levels exceeding 100%, China this month broadened export curbs on the materials after the U.S. expanded restrictions on Chinese companies.

The negotiations took place at the skyscraper Merdeka 118 as Trump met with Southeast Asian leaders at a nearby convention center, where he brokered a series of framework trade agreements seeking to diversify U.S. trade away from China.

The Chinese delegation was led by He, China’s top economic official, and included Vice Finance Minister Liao Min. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was also part of the talks.

Trump’s meeting with Xi this week will be their first face-to-face sitdown since his return to the White House. The U.S. leader has said direct talks are the best way to resolve issues including tariffs, export curbs, agricultural purchases, fentanyl trafficking and geopolitical flashpoints such as Taiwan and the war in Ukraine.

“We’ll be talking about a lot of things,” he said. “I think we have a really good chance of making a very comprehensive deal.”

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(With assistance from Sam Kim, Tony Czuczka and Matthew Burgess.)

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©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.