Better use of city resources

Gary Todd’s recent commentary on needless city spending decisions, in this case another bikeway that will cost over $10M for a one-mile section, got me thinking about what else we could get for that money. Don’t get me wrong. Being a bicyclist, I fully support building infrastructure to encourage environmentally friendly transportation, but we need to carefully consider all aspects of such decisions. The proposed improvements don’t seem to be viable high-capacity bike routes, given the constraints Todd points out in his piece, and other uses of the funds could and should be considered a higher priority.

Smoother roads that are already used by both cars and bikes would benefit both.

According to a retired public works professional of my acquaintance, $1M would pay for about a one mile of a “mill & overlay” (a method of smoothly and durably resurfacing worn asphalt roadways).  It turns out that the $7.4M available from MSAS funds would allow the city to resurface all of Summit and Grand Avenues in my stomping grounds. Note that Summit carries a lot of bike traffic as well as cars. I’m sure taxpayers on the East Side and North End also would have recommendations for streets that could use a resurfacing. Better yet, since according to St. Paul’s government website our residential streets are on a 124-year replacement cycle, my friends in Frogtown wouldn’t mind their streets being redone.

St. Paul has reached is maximum sustainable tax burden and needs to be more judicious about how it spends its funds. Todd is correct that our city government needs to be guided by rational priorities and accountable to the residents lest we lose more people and businesses to suburbs. Taking care of what we already have should be the highest priority, and only when those needs are met should we look to build more infrastructure, whether it be parks, bike lanes and trails, or buildings.

I believe the solution is to have broader, earlier and functional public input to public works decisions. This will avoid the perception that we have a misguided, unaccountable city government.|                                  |

Timothy R. Church, St. Paul

 

Cheer for good cheer

For those of us living daily with depression and/or anxiety, reading a newspaper or watching TV can be upsetting. So, if you’d like something to make you feel good, feel hopeful, read about and watch female athletic teams from Minnesota – Frost, Lynx, college-system teams, your local high schools.

Minnesota turns out an amazing number of excellent, skilled female athletes who compete in almost all sports, locally, nationally and internationally.

Cheer your life up a bit, by cheering for our incredible female athletes.

Nancy Lanthier Carroll, Roseville

 

Taking the low road

Our Minnesota governor and self-proclaimed “knucklehead” decided to take the low road during his recent commencement address to University of Minnesota Law School graduates.

His address, which more resembled a campaign speech, took aim at President Trump and his “tyrannical” immigration policies. Instead of encouraging the graduates to do their best in maintaining objectivity and casting prejudices aside in their law careers, Walz ripped into his worn-out and dangerously inciteful rhetoric of our 47th president.

Everything Tim Walz claims Trump has done to over-step his role as the leader of America, this “tyrannical” governor of ours is doing to our state.

Our governor issued his own dystopian orders when he closed down our schools and small businesses. This order put out of work thousands of our residents who needed the work most, forced many small businesses to shutter their doors for good and caused mental health issues for our students.

Gov, Walz overreached by forcing State of Minnesota employees to take the COVID vaccine or lose their jobs and encouraging other government agencies and private businesses to do the same.

And in an order that was truly draconian and in line with Walz’s socialist moves, he set up a tip line for state residents to report on neighbors violating his social-gathering restrictions. What better way to sow fear and mistrust among neighbors and mold your minions to be compliant with your autocratic decrees?

This is a governor who foolishly and unapologetically let an $18 billion surplus turn to mush after the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud slipped under his nose.

There was a recent news report that Tim Walz was a front-runner for the 2028 presidential race. Really?

Richard Rohland, Roseville

 

Scenario #2 is superior

Autocracy: a system of government by one person with absolute power.

The 35W bridge rebuild has a critically important lesson for today.

A new bridge was needed. Time was of the essence. There were two scenarios for how this project could go.

Scenario #1: One person running the job, making every decision. This leader makes all the decisions, so decisions can be made faster and the project is expedited.

Scenario #2: A group comes together made up of structural engineers, architects, environmentalists, people who will actually be doing the work to rebuild, OSHA and budget watchers. They will take time to analyze the failure, and weigh options for pros and cons.

We used Scenario #2, and were still able to replace the bridge in an unbelievably short time.

Why did we choose 2? Because Scenario #1 has no checks and balances. With only one voice, one decider, potential flaws can creep in unnoticed and unchallenged. Potential time and cost-saving ideas are unheard. And essential aesthetic and environmental issues are ignored.

Scenario #1 is autocracy. Today, we are safe on the 35W bridge because we chose the harder, messier, and, I would argue, demonstrably superior road to results.

Currently, it feels like our country’s economy, our constitutional rights, and our once lauded role in the world have been plunged into a deep and fast-moving river of chaos. And we are supposed to trust the bridge-building expertise of an autocratic executive.

Governing well requires Scenario #2. That’s why the founding fathers created three separate and coequal branches. No kings. No autocrats.

We all have strengths and flaws. No one person, party, or branch of government has all the answers. Only by working together, questioning, offering ideas, and respecting each other will we remain worthy of our country’s rich heritage and able to safely and securely meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Bonnie Bakkum, Lake City

 

Couldn’t get there from here

Late last month my wife and I decided to have a nice dinner at a restaurant on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. I soon found that I couldn’t get there from here. In fact, I don’t think I could have gotten there even if using the Mars rover, although the terrain looked similar. Road construction or rather destruction made our chosen establishment somewhat inaccessible.

I reached out by phone and was told I might find parking somewhat proximate to their location. But walking across that ditch of destruction formerly known as Grand Ave. was a greater challenge than a couple celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary wished to embark on. Sadly I had to inform the restaurateur that they would have to manage without my meager contribution to their bottom line, and wish them well. I’m hoping they can survive this period of dirt, dust, assessments and business decline. Then to reap the reward of a road, a road not unlike what they had, before this all began.

Bob Emery, Mendota Heights

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By LEAH WILLINGHAM

BOSTON (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons on Monday defended the use of masks by his agents and expressed frustration at sanctuary jurisdictions that he said are hindering the detainment of immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Lyons said his agents wear masks because they and their families have been doxxed and “targeted” with death threats.

“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” he said.

Lyons made the comments during a press conference at the Boston federal courthouse to announce the completion of a May operation in which nearly 1,500 immigrants were taken into custody across Massachusetts. He was leaving the room when a reporter asked him about the masks. He turned around and returned to the podium to answer it.

“Is that the issue here that we’re just upset about the masks?” he asked the room of journalists. “Or is anyone upset about the fact that ICE officers’ families were labeled terrorists?”

As part of last month’s operation, authorities in Massachusetts detained 1,461 immigrants living in Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lowell, Lawrence, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and other communities. ICE said 790 of those immigrants had criminal histories, including the crime of reentering the U.S. after deportation, and that 277 had previously been ordered to be removed from the country by a federal immigration judge.

Lyons, who is from Boston, said these operations wouldn’t be necessary if “sanctuary cities would change their policy.” There’s no legal definition for sanctuary city policies, but they generally limit cooperation by local law enforcement with federal immigration officers. Courts have repeatedly upheld the legality of sanctuary laws.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security published a widely anticipated list of “ sanctuary jurisdictions ” on its website, only to receive widespread criticism for including localities that have actively supported the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.

As of Monday, there was a “Page Not Found” error message in its place.

During a March congressional hearing, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and other Democratic mayors defended sanctuary city policies. Brandon Johnson of Chicago said “mischaracterizations and fearmongering” were obscuring the fact that crime in Chicago is trending down.

“This federal administration is making hard-working, taxpaying, God-fearing residents afraid to live their lives,” Wu said.

During Monday’s press conference, a poster board with mug shots of unnamed immigrants was displayed. A full list of those arrested was not made available, nor was information about the crimes specific individuals are accused of committing.

Lyons called them “dangerous criminals” who are “terrorizing family, friends and our neighbors.”

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White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the key driver of immigration policy in the Trump administration, has said that the administration is setting a goal of 3,000 arrests by ICE each day and that the number could go higher.

Lyons said during an interview with Fox & Friends on Sunday that the agency was averaging about 1,600 arrests per day. He said they can and will do more. That marks an increase from previous ICE arrest data that showed that the agency arrested 78,155 people between Jan. 20 and May 19 — an average of 656 arrests per day.

Lyons heads an agency at the center of Trump’s mass deportations agenda. Just last week, the agency underwent its second major reorganization since Trump took office, as the head of the Enforcement and Removal Operations section of ICE retired and the head of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations section transitioned to another role.

AP journalist Rebecca Santana contributed to this report from Washington.

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

A three-year exercise program improved survival in colon cancer patients and kept disease at bay, a first-of-its-kind international experiment showed.

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With the benefits rivaling some drugs, experts said cancer centers and insurance plans should consider making exercise coaching a new standard of care for colon cancer survivors. Until then, patients can increase their physical activity after treatment, knowing they are doing their part to prevent cancer from coming back.

“It’s an extremely exciting study,” said Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who wasn’t involved in the research. It’s the first randomized controlled trial to show a reduction in cancer recurrences and improved survival linked to exercise, Meyerhardt said.

Prior evidence was based on comparing active people with sedentary people, a type of study that can’t prove cause and effect. The new study — conducted in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States — compared people who were randomly selected for an exercise program with those who instead received an educational booklet.

“This is about as high a quality of evidence as you can get,” said Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “I love this study because it’s something I’ve been promoting but with less strong evidence for a long time.”

The findings were featured Sunday at ASCO’s annual meeting in Chicago and published by the New England Journal of Medicine. Academic research groups in Canada, Australia and the U.K. funded the work.

Researchers followed 889 patients with treatable colon cancer who had completed chemotherapy. Half were given information promoting fitness and nutrition. The others worked with a coach, meeting every two weeks for a year, then monthly for the next two years.

Coaches helped participants find ways to increase their physical activity. Many people, including Terri Swain-Collins, chose to walk for about 45 minutes several times a week.

“This is something I could do for myself to make me feel better,” said Swain-Collins, 62, of Kingston, Ontario. Regular contact with a friendly coach kept her motivated and accountable, she said. “I wouldn’t want to go there and say, ‘I didn’t do anything,’ so I was always doing stuff and making sure I got it done.”

After eight years, the people in the structured exercise program not only became more active than those in the control group but also had 28% fewer cancers and 37% fewer deaths from any cause. There were more muscle strains and other similar problems in the exercise group.

“When we saw the results, we were just astounded,” said study co-author Dr. Christopher Booth, a cancer doctor at Kingston Health Sciences Centre in Kingston, Ontario.

Exercise programs can be offered for several thousand dollars per patient, Booth said, “a remarkably affordable intervention that will make people feel better, have fewer cancer recurrences and help them live longer.”

Researchers collected blood from participants and will look for clues tying exercise to cancer prevention, whether through insulin processing or building up the immune system or something else.

Swain-Collins’ coaching program ended, but she is still exercising. She listens to music while she walks in the countryside near her home.

That kind of behavior change can be achieved when people believe in the benefits, when they find ways to make it fun and when there’s a social component, said paper co-author Kerry Courneya, who studies exercise and cancer at the University of Alberta. The new evidence will give cancer patients a reason to stay motivated.

“Now we can say definitively exercise causes improvements in survival,” Courneya said.

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

When a team of doctors diagnosed former President Joe Biden with an aggressive form of prostate cancer last month, it cast the most commonly occurring cancer among men into the national spotlight.

But for as common as it is, there remain questions, even confusion, about all prostate cancer entails, borderline controversy surrounding how it should be diagnosed, and the processes by which it is treated.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris arrive for the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States takes place inside the Capitol Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Kenny Holston/Getty Images North America/TNS)

Or, in perhaps a surprising amount of cases, the reasons it isn’t.

“I think a real disservice, speaking as an oncologist, when we label prostate cancer is, it’s a little confusing,” said Dr. Christopher Peters, the medical director of Northeast Radiation Oncology Centers in Dunmore, Lackawanna County, and a board of directors member at the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. “Low-grade, low-risk prostate cancer acts very, very differently than high-risk, high-grade prostate cancer. But, they’re all called prostate cancer. This is a problem, because some people’s prostate cancers are very aggressive; they may cause mortality and morbidity, such as bone metastasis, which may be painful and may cause the patient’s death. There are also other prostate cancers that are low-grade that we may be able to diagnose and watch, for many years, without any treatment. And then, there’s everything in between.”

The trick for men, and their doctors, is discovering where they land on that spectrum.

What is prostate cancer?

By definition, prostate cancer is a growth of cells that starts in the prostate, a walnut-sized gland that is part of the male reproductive system and located just below the bladder.

By the statistics, it can be considered quite a bit more intimidating.

According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 314,000 new cases of prostate cancers are estimated to be diagnosed in 2025. It also estimates prostate cancer-related deaths will top 35,700 this year. Since 2014, the incidence rate for diagnoses has increased by 3% per year. About one in eight American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and ultimately, it will kill one in 44.

That said, those numbers tell more of a story about how common the cancer is than how fatal it can be.

More than 3.3 million men living currently in the United States were, at one point in their lives, diagnosed with a form of prostate cancer, many of which are highly treatable and even curable when detected early.

President Joe Biden speaks to union workers at the Carpenters Local Union 445 in Scranton on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024.
(Christopher Dolan / Staff Photographer)

What are the symptoms?

“As far as symptoms, unfortunately with prostate cancer, there usually are none,” said Dr. Angelo Baccala, deputy physician in chief, innovation and program development, Institute for Surgical Excellence, and chief of the division of urology at Lehigh Valley Health Network, part of Jefferson Health.

That’s why, oncologists and urologists agree, it’s important for men to understand their own personal risk factors.

Those risks vary based on several things, like age, race and ethnicity, and especially family history.

The risk is also statistically higher for men of African ancestry than it is for men of other races.

So for men between the ages of 50 and 69 — and even a few years earlier for those with extreme risk factors — who find themselves in those categories, awareness of potential warning signs for prostate cancers remains important.

While it tends not to show any signs in its early forms and can be relatively slow-growing compared to other forms of cancer, men may notice at least one of the following as early stage prostate cancer progresses:

Blood in the urine or semen.
A weak urine flow, or one that stops and starts.
Pain or burning while urinating.
The need to urinate more often, and waking up during the night more often to do so.
Difficulty getting started while trying to urinate.

Advancing stages can come with other symptoms as well, including pain in the back or bones, loss of bladder or bowel control, unintended weight loss, extreme fatigue and erectile dysfunction.

Of course, doctors point out that many of those conditions are symptomatic of maladies not related to prostate cancer, but a general rule is encouraged among those in the age group and with the risk factors who are concerned by changes in how they feel: Call your doctor or another health care professional if there are any symptoms that concern you.

FILE – Former President Joe Biden speaks at a conference in Chicago, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

How is it diagnosed?

Just about every process when it comes to diagnosing potential prostate cancer issues starts with a basic prostate exam, one that can be done by a primary care doctor, a urologist or any other physician.

“Basically, what they do is look at the size of the prostate and see if the prostate is big or not,” said Dr. Ahmad Hanif, the division chief of hematology oncology at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre. “Even if the prostate is found to be bigger than normal, it doesn’t mean that it is cancer. But it would mean that further workup is needed, especially if you’re having symptoms.”

The main method by which prostate cancers are screened remains the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test.

When detected early, prostate cancer is highly survivable: Upward of 99% live five years or more if the cancer is detected while still localized to the prostate or has not spread beyond nearby structures or lymph nodes, according to the American Cancer Society. Baccala points out that number drops to 37% if the patient’s cancer is advanced or metastatic, stressing the importance of consistent PSA screenings.

“Catching it early is really important, and it’s easy,” he said. “It’s a blood test at an exam. It takes all of three seconds to do, and you’re getting blood drawn by your primary care doctor anyway, so it should be included.”

Baccala said screening should be recommended up to age 70, with some going a few years beyond if there is any concern on recent PSA results.

Understanding the results

If the test reveals higher levels of the antigen in the bloodstream, it is an indicator of a potential cancer presence. However, increased PSA levels are not uncommon in older men, and they also could be a sign of noncancerous diseases or even other factors that could raise the levels.

The question doctors face is whether benefits to consistent screening outweigh potential risks.

“Ordering the test is not a problem. Cost of the test is not a problem. It’s the understanding of the test that is the problem,” Hanif said.

The longer PSA screening recommendations put in place in the early 2010s have been followed, the number of advanced prostate cancer cases that have been diagnosed have decreased. That, Hanif added, is plenty of evidence that screening works.

However, it can be a double-edged sword if patients walk into a PSA screening without the full knowledge of what the results could mean. High results on the test don’t necessarily mean the type of cancer needs to be treated immediately, if ever, given how slowly the cancer can grow. There’s also a chance that a high test result doesn’t result in a positive test for cancer.

“As long as there is a discussion between you and your doctor regarding what a high PSA means and someone can be comfortable living with the fact that they have prostate cancer and a doctor isn’t doing anything about it, then yes, a PSA should be ordered and is a great screening tool,” Hanif said. “It has been shown to reduce the number of advanced cases being detected, so prostate cancer in the early stages can be detected. But, there has to be a discussion.”

What are the treatments?

Research has led to a boon over the last 15 years both in prostate cancer treatments and ways it can be managed.

Peters said that, in addition to testing for PSA, doctors now have multiparametric MRIs that can, noninvasively, more effectively detect aggressive tumors in the prostate that are more likely to need a biopsy. There is also a Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen that can determine if a cancer has spread or returned after treatment.

“We do a lot better in treating prostate cancer in men, on average,” Peters said. “And, that’s the key here. On average, men live longer with prostate cancer.”

There are also potentially curative treatments for more localized, less-advanced prostate cancers that can be handled with surgery or through radiation treatments, like ones Peters specializes in at NROC.

Hanif said that, for less aggressive forms of prostate cancer, living with it can be much more simple: A few visits to the oncologist every year, simply to make sure there aren’t drastic changes that need more immediate attention.

More than anything, the key to beating prostate cancer is detecting it early. And the key to detecting it early is honest, open conversation between men and their doctors about what steps make the most sense for their individual lifestyle.

“If I had a take-home conversation on this, it would be, discuss matters with your doctor,” Peters said. “Ask your doctor, who you trust, ‘What are the pros and cons for me with prostate cancer screening, not on a population-based level, but on an individualized level?’

“Of course, as an oncologist, I recommend some screening, because my goal is to keep people out of my office, right? We want to keep people not having prostate cancer, or having it detected at the earliest possible stage so we can have a shared decision-making conversation as far as, what do we do with this prostate cancer from here?”