Ramsey County commissioners heard public feedback Tuesday on an initial list of projects that could be funded by money previously designated for the Riverview Corridor project.

The county had allocated around $730 million for the project, but canceled the project in September. The 12-mile corridor was to connect downtown St. Paul to the Mall of America in Bloomington through a potential streetcar.

A Transit and Transportation Investment Plan was presented to the county board last week and provides direction for how those funds may be reallocated. A vote on the projects is expected June 10.

Specific projects, funding amounts and anticipated year of construction will be approved through the county’s Transportation Improvement Program, which is adopted annually by the county board. Approval of the 2026-2030 Transportation Improvement Program is expected in the fall.

West Seventh funding

Some community members at Tuesday’s public hearing expressed concern that the Transit and Transportation Investment Plan does not include West Seventh Street, where the Riverview Corridor was to run.

City projects and other investments in West Seventh had been passed over “because it was always thought that a major investment was coming our way with Riverview,” said Meg Duhr, president of West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, a district council representing the West Seventh neighborhood.

“Individual community members and neighborhood organizations have spent years working for or against this project, wasting human capital and time while generating deep neighborhood conflict,” Duhr said. “And now here we are considering a transit and transportation investment plan that details all the ways that the county will spend the funds previously allocated for Riverview without a single project in our community and no mention of the remaining critical needs on West Seventh itself.”

Infrastructure conditions on West Seventh Street worsened as the area lost out on millions in infrastructure and transit investment, Duhr said.

Metro Transit in 2014, for example, backed off of plans for a $28 million rapid bus line from downtown St. Paul to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America. The change in plans came at the urging of St. Paul and county officials who were concerned that it might interfere with the Riverview Corridor.

Roads over public transit

Others at Tuesday’s meeting raised concerns with the plan’s focus on roads rather than public transit and also called for county support of the New West Seventh Corridor, a transportation plan that includes the city of St. Paul, Metro Transit, the state Department of Transportation and other partners.

Speakers included people from the Riverview Corridor’s citizen advisory committee, Sustain St. Paul and Highland District Council’s transportation committee.

In its Transit and Transportation Investment Plan, the county identified five project categories focused on roadways, transportation network improvement projects, corridor improvements, Union Depot and railroad safety and access and other areas. Potential projects, categories and prioritization methods were identified during internal staff workshops held earlier this year.

Community members can submit comments on the plan until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

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By KEN SWEET

NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that Wells Fargo is no longer subject to harsh restraints the Fed placed on the bank in 2018 for having a toxic sales and banking culture.

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It’s a win for Wells Fargo, which has spent nearly a decade trying to convince the public and policymakers that it had changed its ways.

“We are a different and far stronger company today because of the work we’ve done,” said Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf in a statement. Scharf also announced that each of the 215,000 employees at Wells Fargo would receive a $2,000 award for turning the bank around.

Wells Fargo used to have a corporate culture where it placed unreasonable sales goals on its branch employees, which resulted in employees opening up millions of fake accounts in order to meet those goals. Wells’ top executives called its branches “stores” and employees were expected to cross-sell customers into as many banking products as possible, even if the customer did not want or need them.

After an investigation by The Los Angeles Times in 2016, Wells Fargo shut down its sales culture and fired much of its leadership and board of directors. The fake accounts scandal cost Wells Fargo billions of dollars in fines and lost business, and permanently tarnished its reputation, particularly because the scandal broke only a few years after the Great Recession and financial crisis. It was later revealed that Wells Fargo opened up roughly 3.5 million accounts that were not wanted or needed by customers.

Wells Fargo, once thought to be the best run bank in the country, was now the poster child of the worst practices of banking in decades.

In order to push Wells to fix itself, the Federal Reserve took the unusual step of placing Wells Fargo in a program where the bank could grow no larger than it was in 2018. No bank had previously been placed into such a program, known as an asset cap. The Fed required Wells to fix it culture and redo its entire risk and compliance departments in order to address its problems.

Since taking over in 2019, Scharf’s goal has been to convince the Federal Reserve that Wells Fargo had fixed its toxic banking practices. With the asset cap removed, the bank can now pursue more deposits, new accounts and take on additional investment banking businesses by holding additional securities on its balance shet.

By JONATHAN MATTISE

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Congressional Republicans are investigating Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s response to federal immigration arrests during hundreds of traffic stops over several days in May.

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Rep. Andy Ogles is leading the charge, pitting the Republican who represents part of the Democratic-leaning city against a progressive mayor who has criticized immigration officials after they arrested nearly 200 people in the greater Nashville area.

The dayslong presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sent chills through well-known Nashville immigrant neighborhoods. Many Republicans, meanwhile, applauded ICE’s enforcement focus in the city.

Republicans have criticized Nashville officials for publicly documenting interactions between local authorities and federal immigration agents on an official city government website. Some of the entries included authorities’ names before city officials removed them. They have also blasted O’Connell for promoting a fundraiser for families affected by the ICE activity.

O’Connell has said the arrests caused long-lasting trauma for families and were led by people who don’t share Nashville’s values of safety and community.

Here is a look at the ICE activity and its fallout.

The arrests

ICE has said that it arrested 196 people alongside the Tennessee Highway Patrol during a weeklong effort in and around Nashville. ICE said 95 had criminal convictions, were facing criminal charges or both, but didn’t provide a more detailed breakdown, including the type of crimes. It said about 30 had entered the country after previously being deported, some of whom are included in the 95.

The Highway Patrol said it made more than 580 traffic stops in the joint operation with ICE. ICE highlighted seven cases, including two gang members, one of whom was wanted in an El Salvador killing, and people with convictions such as drug offenses, rape or assault.

Lisa Sherman Luna of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition criticized the effort as “at a scale we’ve never seen before.” She said officers were arresting some people who were going home to their children or heading to work.

The mayor’s response

Early into ICE’s operation in Nashville, the mayor held a news conference to assure that Nashville’s police force was not involved in the immigration crackdown.

Mayor Freddie O’Connell speaks with members of the Rotary Club of Nashville, Monday, June 2, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

He said the immigration enforcement approach “is not our understanding of what a Nashville for all of us looks like.”

At the news conference, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee also announced the fundraising effort to provide child care, transportation, housing aid, food and more for families impacted by the ICE activity.

O’Connell’s administration has sent letters asking Tennessee Highway Patrol and ICE to identify those arrested and their charges. He told the Nashville Rotary Club this week he still hasn’t received that information.

O’Connell is facing particular scrutiny because of a policy requiring city agencies to report communications with federal immigration authorities to the mayor’s office. Nashville has had similar orders under two prior mayors, and O’Connell added quicker reporting deadlines last month. He said the goal is transparency.

Republicans’ investigation into O’Connell

Congressman Ogles declared that House committees would be investigating O’Connell during a Memorial Day news conference at Tennessee’s Capitol in Nashville — a venue that raised eyebrows because it’s closed to the public on the holiday. Noise from protesters carried from outside the building.

A subsequent letter signed by Ogles and three other House committee and subcommittee chairmen requests documents and communications about O’Connell’s executive order and the ICE enforcement efforts. Ogles and others have also cried foul that the names of some immigration officials in the Nashville operation were made public. The agents’ names were removed, with O’Connell saying it wasn’t the intent of the executive order to release them.

O’Connell has said Nashville isn’t trying to obstruct federal or state laws, and has no reason to be concerned about the congressional investigation.

Ogles first won his seat in 2022 after Republicans redistricted Nashville to flip a Democratic congressional district.

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told Fox News last week that agents will “flood the zone” in Nashville due to O’Connell’s response.

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn is requesting that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate O’Connell.

Last week, the Trump administration listed Nashville among its so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, before the list was removed. O’Connell said he’s “puzzled” by the city’s inclusion and that Nashville, by definition, is not a sanctuary city.

Laws toughened over so-called sanctuary policies

In 2019, sanctuary cities became illegal in Tennessee, threatening noncomplying governments with the loss of state economic development money. Tennessee economic development officials say they aren’t aware of any warnings, denials or withholding of state money under that law to date.

Early this year, lawmakers and Republican Gov. Bill Lee approved legislation to aid the Trump administration with immigration enforcement. It features a potential Class E felony against any local elected official voting for or adopting a so-called sanctuary policy. This could include voting in favor of local government restrictions that impede ICE efforts to detain migrants in the U.S. without permission.

Critics believe the criminal penalty — effective July 1 — could be unconstitutional due to state and federal protections afforded lawmakers at various levels of government.

The law also created a new state immigration division, but shielded its records from public disclosure.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would revoke guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions for women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition.

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That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the U.S. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe hemorrhaging, among other serious complications.

The Biden administration had argued that hospitals — including states with near-total bans — needed to provide emergency abortions under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. That law requires emergency rooms that receive Medicare dollars to provide an exam and stabilizing treatment for all patients. Nearly all emergency rooms in the U.S. rely on Medicare funds.

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would no longer enforce that policy The move prompted concerns from some doctors and abortion rights advocates that women will not get emergency abortions in states with strict bans.

“The Trump Administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive life-saving abortions,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “In pulling back guidance, this administration is feeding the fear and confusion that already exists at hospitals in every state where abortion is banned. Hospitals need more guidance, not less, to stop them from turning away patients experiencing pregnancy crises.”

Anti-abortion advocates praised the move, however. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, said in a statement that the Biden-era policy had been a way to expand abortion access in states where it was banned.

“Democrats have created confusion on this fact to justify their extremely unpopular agenda for all-trimester abortion,” she said. “In situations where every minute counts, their lies lead to delayed care and put women in needless, unacceptable danger.”

An Associated Press investigation last year found that, even with the Biden administration’s guidance, dozens of pregnant women were being turned away from emergency rooms, including some who needed emergency abortions.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which investigates hospitals that are not in compliance, said in a statement that it will continue to enforce the federal law that, “including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy.”

But CMS added that it would also “rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration’s actions.”

The Biden administration sued Idaho over its abortion law that initially only allowed abortions to save the life of the mother. The federal government had argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last year that Idaho’s law was in conflict with the federal law, which requires stabilizing treatment that prevents a patient’s condition from worsening.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a procedural ruling in the case last year that left key questions unanswered about whether doctors in abortion ban states can terminate pregnancies when a woman is at risk of serious infection, organ loss or hemorrhage.