The International Woodturning Symposium, billed as the world’s largest gathering of woodturners, is spinning into St. Paul at the RiverCentre from Thursday, June 12 to Sunday, June 15 with a variety of free activities open to the public.

The annual event is organized by the American Association of Woodturners, which is based in St. Paul and operates the Gallery of Wood Art at Landmark Center, but the symposium is typically held in a different city each year: This is only the third time in the organization’s nearly 40-year history that the gathering has been held in St. Paul.

For those who are green to woodturning, the craft involves making items like bowls, pens and other decorative or functional objects on a lathe, a machine not unlike a pottery wheel that spins wood at high speeds while the woodturner uses carving tools to shape the item.

The symposium at RiverCentre, which officially begins Thursday, June 12 but most activities run Friday, June 13 to Sunday, June 15, is partially free to attend. Visitors can reserve a wristband online or pick one up at the registration desk at no cost to visit the vendor marketplace and a massive exhibition gallery of wood art from woodturners around the world. Saskatchewan woodturner Michael Hosulak will give a free artist talk at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, June 13 in the main gallery hall.

In the free zone, there’ll also be an interactive turning station, where expert woodturners will guide visitors — no matter their experience level — in creating their own wooden pen from a kit purchased on-site. This is open to the public with no pre-registration required.

Expert woodturners will also be giving demonstrations on various skills and techniques, but those are not included with the free wristband. Registration to access these more specialized workshops are $242 per day or $425 for the weekend and can be purchased online.

These demos will be presented by woodturners from Australia, France, elsewhere in the U.S. and several from Minnesota, including Jim Sannerud of Grand Marais, Phil Holton of Eagan and Jeff Luedloff of Shakopee.

The symposium, including the free trade show and gallery, is open 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 13, 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. June 14 and 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 15 at RiverCentre; 175 Kellogg Blvd. More info at aawsymposium.org.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the United States will get magnets and rare earth minerals from China under a new trade deal and that tariffs on Chinese goods will rise to 55%.

In return, Trump said, the U.S. will provide China “what was agreed to,” including allowing Chinese students to attend American colleges and universities. The Republican president had recently begun to clamp down on the presence of Chinese nationals on U.S. college campuses.

The new 55% tariff rate would mark a meaningful increase from the 30% levy set in Switzerland during talks in May.

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“OUR DEAL WITH CHINA IS DONE, SUBJECT TO FINAL APPROVAL WITH PRESIDENT XI AND ME.,” Trump wrote Wednesday on his social media site.

He said full magnets and any necessary rare earths will be supplied up front by China.

“WE ARE GETTING A TOTAL OF 55% TARIFFS, CHINA IS GETTING 10%. RELATIONSHIP IS EXCELLENT!” Trump wrote.

Senior U.S. and Chinese negotiators announced late Tuesday in London that they had agreed on a framework to get their trade negotiations back on track after a series of disputes that threatened to derail them.

The announcement came at the end of two days of talks in the British capital that wrapped up late Tuesday.

It came as an international rights group said that several global brands are among dozens of companies at risk of using forced labor through their Chinese supply chains because they use critical minerals or buy minerals-based products sourced from the far-western Xinjiang region of China.

The report by the Netherlands-based Global Rights Compliance says companies including Avon, Walmart, Nescafe, Coca-Cola and paint supplier Sherwin-Williams may be linked to titanium sourced from Xinjiang, where rights groups allege the Chinese government runs coercive labor practices targeting predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities.

The report found 77 Chinese suppliers in the titanium, lithium, beryllium and magnesium industries operating in Xinjiang. It said the suppliers are at risk of participating in the Chinese government’s “labor transfer programs,” in which Uyghurs are forced to work in factories as part of a long-standing campaign of assimilation and mass detention.

Asked about the report, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that “no one has ever been forcibly transferred in China’s Xinjiang under work programs.”

The named companies didn’t immediately comment on the report.

By PAUL WISEMAN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday hailed a favorable decision by a federal appeals court over his sweeping tariff policy as a “great” win for the United States.

Trump said on his social media site that the court’s decision Tuesday night to let the government keep collecting his sweeping import taxes while challenges to his signature trade policy continue on appeal means the U.S. “can use TARIFFS to protect itself against other countries.”

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“A great and important win for the U.S.,” Trump wrote.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit extends a similar ruling it made after another federal court struck down the tariffs May 28, saying Trump had overstepped his authority. Noting that the challenges to Trump’s tariffs raise “issues of exceptional importance,″ the appeals court said it would expedite the case and hear arguments July 31.

The case involves 10% tariffs the Republican president imposed on almost every other country in April and bigger ones he imposed and then suspended on countries with which the United States runs trade deficits. It also involves tariffs he plastered on imports from China, Canada and Mexico to pressure them to do more to stop the illegal flow of immigrants and synthetic opioids across the U.S. border.

In declaring the tariffs, Trump had invoked emergency powers under a 1977 law. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled he had exceeded his power.

That ruling from the Court of International Trade came after several lawsuits arguing Trump’s tariffs exceeded his authority and left the country’s trade policy dependent on his whims.

The tariffs upended global trade, paralyzed businesses and spooked financial markets.

Elon Musk stepped back from his explosive feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, writing on X that he regrets some of his posts about his onetime ally and that they went “too far.”

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Early Wednesday morning, he posted “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”

Musk’s break with a president whom he spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect appeared to put an end to his influence in the White House and prompted concerns about effects on his companies. As a major government contractor, Musk’s businesses could be particularly vulnerable to retribution, and Trump has already threatened to cut Musk’s contracts.

Musk earlier deleted a post in which he claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about the president’s association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, other posts that irritated Trump, including ones in which Musk called the spending bill an “abomination” and claimed credit for Trump’s election victory, remained live.

On Sunday, Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker that he has no desire to repair their relationship and warned that Musk could face “ serious consequences ” if he tries to help Democrats in upcoming elections.