The city of Woodbury recently donated $10,000 to local food shelf Open Cupboard using a new source of funding: money from its Lawful Gambling Contribution Fund.

The city made the donation as the U.S. Department of Agriculture was planning to freeze Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments because it said it could no longer keep funding it during the federal government shutdown. SNAP food assistance is flowing again, but many participants will have to abide by new work requirements.

“Normally, we couldn’t do something like this,” Woodbury mayor Anne Burt said. “It’s not really in our purview to be giving money to nonprofit organizations as a city; that’s not what we’re here to do, but because we have a Charitable Gambling fund, we were able to do it.”

The fund was created in August 2021, after the city redid its ordinance regarding charitable gambling.

“It is a very, very, very old ordinance, so it needed to be redone,” Burt said. “When we did, we opened up many more opportunities for charitable gambling to occur at bars or restaurants around the community.”

The fund uses proceeds from legal gambling activities like pull tabs. The money collected must then be used to support charitable initiatives and cannot be used for other kinds of city expenses.

Following the recent donation to Open Cupboard, the fund is estimated to stand at $107,000, according to the city.

Burt said the city council decides how to allocate the funds based on what kinds of needs the city has. She said funds could be used to help support things like public safety needs. The Open Cupboard donation happened to be the city’s first special request from an eligible organization, Burt said.

“Because the city had the funds that we were able to share out of our charitable gambling fund, we were more than happy to do that,” Burt said. “We also know that there are families in Woodbury that utilize Open Cupboard, and because they’re residents, that makes a difference as well.”

Washington and Ramsey counties also found money to support food shelves during the shutdown.

Burt said Woodbury is also hosting a winter food drive: Community members are encouraged to donate non-perishable food items at City Hall, 8301 Valley Creek Road, and M Health Fairview Sports Center, 4125 Radio Drive, through Dec. 5. Paper grocery bags are also needed.

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By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage edged higher for the third week in a row, though it remains close to its low point this year.

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The average long-term mortgage rate ticked up to 6.26% from 6.24% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.84%.

Three weeks ago, the average rate was at 6.17%, its lowest level in more than a year.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also inched up this week. The rate averaged 5.54%, up from 5.49% last week. A year ago, it was 6.02%, Freddie Mac said.

When mortgage rates rise they reduce homebuyers’ purchasing power. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has been stuck above 6% since September 2022, the year mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows.

That’s helped kept sales of previously occupied U.S. homes stuck at around a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023. Historically, sales have typically hovered around 5.2 million a year.

While sales have been sluggish this year, they received a boost this fall as mortgage rates eased, remaining below 6.4% since early September. Last month, they accelerated to their fastest pace since February.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

The 10-year yield was at 4.10% at midday Thursday. That’s down slightly from from a week ago, but up from around 3.95% on Oct. 22.

Mortgage rates began declining this summer ahead of the Federal Reserve’s decision in September to cut its main interest rate for the first time in a year amid signs the labor market was slowing. The Fed lowered its key interest rate again last month, although Fed Chair Jerome Powell cautioned that further rate cuts weren’t guaranteed.

Wall Street traders have reduced their bets that the Fed will cut its main interest rate at its next meeting in December, now giving it a roughly 44% probability, according to data from CME Group. That’s down from nearly 70% a couple of weeks ago, but better than the 30% chance before the release Thursday of the delayed September jobs report.

The central bank doesn’t set mortgage rates, and even when it cuts its short-term rates that doesn’t necessarily mean rates on home loans will necessarily decline.

Waymo, the driverless “robotaxi” rideshare company, has rolled into Minneapolis for testing — with humans at the wheel.

The Mountainview, Calif.-based company began mapping the city with a small fleet of “less than 10” Waymo vehicles to start, said company spokesperson Chris Bonelli, in anticipation of expanding their numbers and eventually taking human hands off the steering wheel.

“We’ll be driving them ourselves, by humans, in the early stages of testing,” he said.

Waymo, which first rolled out driverless ride-hailing service in downtown Phoenix in 2022, hopes to win city and state approval to begin offering autonomous ridesharing in the Twin Cities in coming months. That will take convincing state lawmakers and regulators that an autonomous vehicle can handle Minnesota winters, the third-coldest in the nation behind Alaska and North Dakota.

To date, most Waymo testing and all commercial launches have occurred in warm weather climates. The company services five cities — Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco — and will expand to Miami this week, followed soon by Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and Orlando. In addition to Minneapolis, the company has announced its intent to enter New Orleans, Tampa and Las Vegas, among other cities.

Prep for wintry climates

To prep for the wintry challenge that is Minnesota, Waymo tested cars in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, California’s Sierra Nevada and upstate New York. According to Waymo, the fleet of Jaguar I-PACE and Zeekr RT vehicles feature “sixth-generation” Waymo drivers — a combination of artificial intelligence and self-cleaning mechanisms designed to sustain the cars through snow and ice.

“We don’t need permits to begin this testing operation, but we do look forward to working with the state and city officials as we define a path toward operating this commercial ride-hailing service in Minneapolis,” Bonelli said. “We’re laying the groundwork for a future operation.”

Some lawmakers are already on board, so to speak.

A written statement released by Waymo on Thursday has supportive words from state Rep. Erin Koegel, a DFLer, and Rep. Jon Koznick, a Republican, who both co-chair the Minnesota House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee. Koegel said she looked forward to “a more efficient, environmentally sustainable, and equitable transportation future for our communities” and said the “deployment in Minneapolis is a great step forward.”

Koznick hailed the future of a “cleaner, more efficient transportation system.”

Lauren Johnson, regional executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Minnesota, said “autonomous vehicles play an important role by providing another tool in the toolbox to help end impaired driving.”

Will it service the entire city?

If Waymo does get the green light to roll into Minneapolis, will it service the entire city? Can it cross city borders and head to St. Paul or the Mall of America in Bloomington? How about hitting the highway to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport?

To answer those questions, Bonelli pointed to the example of San Francisco, where Waymo started a consumer testing program in a small pilot area in 2021. In June 2024, the company began offering Waymos across all 49 square miles of the city. As of last week, the driverless cars can now take passengers from San Francisco by freeway to San Jose and San Jose Mineta International Airport.

“We just last week expanded and connected our territory,” Bonelli said.

The company has had a similar progression in Phoenix, where it began circulating downtown and now serves Tempe, Scottsdale and the airport.

“Last week, we announced we’ve started to allow riders on the freeway,” Bonelli said. “We’re currently doing that in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix.”

Getting a similar foothold in Minneapolis would allow proof of concept to lawmakers, local elected officials and the general public, laying the groundwork for expansion to surrounding areas — if the driverless cars can maneuver safely through snowy, pothole-encrusted Twin Cities roads.

Given how quickly technology is changing, Waymo officials believe the question is “when,” not “if.” Bonelli said the company already has offices in Europe, where it has its eyes on London, Tokyo and other potential international markets, with the goal of taking autonomous ridesharing worldwide.

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By MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has been changed to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism, spurring outrage among a number of public health and autism experts.

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The CDC “vaccine safety” webpage was updated Wednesday, saying “the statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”

The change is the latest move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to revisit — and foster uncertainty about — long-held scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.

It was immediately decried by scientists and advocates who have long been focused on finding the causes of autism.

“We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted, and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism,” the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday.

Widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between vaccines and autism. “The conclusion is clear and unambiguous,” said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement Thursday.

“We call on the CDC to stop wasting government resources to amplify false claims that sow doubt in one of the best tools we have to keep children healthy and thriving: routine immunizations,” she said.

The CDC has, until now, echoed the absence of a link in promoting Food and Drug Administration-licensed vaccines.

But anti-vaccines activists — including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who this year became secretary of Health and Human Services — have long claimed there is one.

It’s unclear if anyone at CDC was actually involved in the change, or whether it was done by Kennedy’s HHS, which oversees the CDC.

Many at CDC were surprised.

“I spoke with several scientists at CDC yesterday and none were aware of this change in content,” said Dr. Debra Houry, who was part of a group of CDC top officials who resigned from the agency in August. “When scientists are cut out of scientific reviews, then inaccurate and ideologic information results.”

The updated page does not cite any new research. It instead argues that past studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.

“HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links. Additionally, we are updating the CDC’s website to reflect gold standard, evidence-based science,” said HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon, in an email Thursday.

A number of former CDC officials have said that what CDC posts about certain subjects — including vaccine safety — can no longer be trusted.

Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who also resigned from the agency in August, told reporters Wednesday that Kennedy seems to be “going from evidence-based decision making to decision-based evidence making.”

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, earlier this year played a decisive role in approving Kennedy’s nomination for HHS secretary. Cassidy initially voiced misgivings about Kennedy, but in February said Kennedy had pledged — among other things — not to remove language from the CDC website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.

The new site continues to have a headline that says “Vaccines do not cause autism,” but HHS officials put an asterisk next to it. A note at the bottom of the page says the phrasing “has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.”

Cassidy’s spokespersons did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.