By DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation said Friday she trusts the Trump-appointed chairman of a federal planning commission to do his job and give serious review to President Donald Trump’s proposal to add a ballroom to the White House.

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Carol Quillen said in an interview that she takes Will Scharf, chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, “at his word” after he said at the panel’s December meeting that the review process would be treated seriously once the White House submits the plans.

Scharf said at that meeting that he expected to receive the plans sometime this month, and the panel’s review process would happen at a “normal and deliberative pace.”

Quillen said she trusted that would be the case.

“I take him at his word that the process will be conducted as it always is, deliberately and seriously, and that the commission will do its job,” she said.

The White House has not responded to multiple queries about when the ballroom plans will be shared with Scharf’s panel as well as the Commission of Fine Arts. The planning commission on Friday released the agenda for its January meeting and the “East Wing Modernization Project” is listed for an “information presentation,” often the first step in its review of a project.

The National Trust last week asked a federal court to halt the ballroom construction until it is subjected to multiple independent reviews, public comment and wins approval from Congress. The government argued in court that the lawsuit was premature.

A federal judge this week denied the National Trust’s request for a temporary restraining order but scheduled a January hearing on its motion for a preliminary injunction. Such a step would halt all construction until the reviews, which could take months, are completed.

Quillen said her private nonprofit organization was not asking for the Republican president’s proposal to go through reviews just for the sake of doing so. She said the process inevitably leads to a better project because multiple independent parties get to comment on it.

The National Trust was chartered in part to ensure the public participates in decisions that affect the country’s historic resources, she said, “and the White House is arguably the nation’s most iconic building.”

She said the organization did not sue earlier because legal action is “our last resort” and because of its history of working with administrations.

In Trump’s first term, the administration submitted plans to the National Capital Planning Commission for new fencing for the White House perimeter and a tennis pavilion on the south grounds.

Quillen declined to speculate about why Trump had not already done so for a White House ballroom he has long desired and has moved quickly to build since he returned to office. He complains regularly that the East Room and State Dining Room — two of the largest public spaces in the White House — are too small and has criticized the practice of hosting foreign leaders at state dinners in tents on the south grounds.

Trump has proposed building a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, big enough to accommodate 999 people, where the East Wing of the White House stood for decades until he had it torn down in October in a move that “caught us by surprise,” Quillen said.

He recently upped the construction cost estimate to $400 million, double the original $200 million price, and has said no public money will pay for it. The White House has said the ballroom will be ready before Trump’s term ends in January 2029.

The National Trust asserted in its lawsuit that the ballroom plans should have been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts and Congress before any action.

The lawsuit notes that the organization wrote to those entities and the National Park Service, which oversees the White House grounds, on Oct. 21, after the East Wing demolition began, asking for the projects to be paused and for the administration to comply with federal law. It received no response, the lawsuit said.

The government said in its written response that the ballroom plans have not been finalized despite continuing demolition and other work to prepare the site for eventual construction, which is not expected to begin until April 2026, at the earliest.

The administration also argued that Trump has authority to modify the White House and included the extensive history of changes and additions to the Executive Mansion since it was built more than 200 years ago. It also asserted that the president is not subject to statutes cited by the National Trust.

A St. Paul public school focused on Hmong culture and language will remain at its current campuses following a school board meeting Thursday that drew dozens of parents and students concerned about how best to deal with overcrowding at the school.

The board’s 6-1 vote Thursday means Txuj Ci HMong lower campus is to continue serving pre-K students while 5th through 8th grader will attend the upper campus for the 2026-27 school year.

School board members were expected to determine a “mid-term plan” for the upper and lower campuses that could have moved students with its Hmong Studies program to a temporary location in order to ease overcrowding. The move was supported by a district workgroup as part of long-term plans to eventually move all pre-K through 8th grade students to one unified building.

Parents supporting the temporary location weren’t pleased with decisions by district officials, who they say have delayed plans for the unified building.

The Txuj Ci middle school in St. Paul on Thursday, Dec, 19, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Concerns over temporary locations

However, members of the school board cited concerns that the two temporary locations being considered brought their own downsides and costs for the district. Instead, they also voted for a resolution to open a new pre-K through 8th grade building no later than the 2032-2033 school year, add at least one specialist to support the 5th graders at the school’s upper campus and identify ways to better utilize the school’s campus spaces, including its cafeteria, busing and community areas.

Jim Vue, currently the only Hmong member of the board, was the sole vote approving the temporary move and against the board’s resolution on reexamining current campus spaces.

As it became clear Thursday night the board would not move forward with the workgroup’s recommendation of temporary sites, angry parents got up and left.

“Two years,” one parent said, which is the number of years since the workgroup was formed and began working on a plan for the Txuj Ci facilities.

In October, board members heard about the two interim location options for Txuj Ci students with the intention of eventually moving all pre-K through 8th grade students, including those in its Hmong Dual Language program, to one location. The plan was prepared by a district workgroup consisting of parents and district members to help address overcrowding. It was finalized in March.

The two options involved one that recommended using a closed district building on Prosperity Avenue and another to use existing Hazel Park Preparatory Academy. The workgroup recommended the site at Prosperity Avenue

Superintendent cites costs, expected lower enrollment

Superintendent Stacie Stanley, citing a projected drop in enrollment for the district in the future and costs associated with the temporary move, said at the time that she couldn’t recommend either option.

The meeting, and the prospect of more delays, frustrated parents who organized a “Stay Home” demonstration earlier this week ahead of Thursday’s meeting and called for the district to vote for an interim location. Parents also expressed frustration with the time between the workgroup’s March decision and the board’s Thursday decision.

At the school’s upper and lower campuses, 59% of students were absent Monday, according to the district, 629 students in total. Districtwide, 1,416 students, or 33%, whose home language is Hmong were absent, which includes overlap with the student absences at Txuj Ci campuses. On average, 11% of students with Hmong as their home language are absent each in the district.

Shela Her, a parent of Txuj Ci students, said at the time of the October meeting that while parents are working with the district and being asked for proposals, the delays and a lack of transparent decision-making indicates the district is not collaborating.

“I feel like this has become a pattern and it really does undermine the trust that they have with us,” Her said. “It definitely wastes community effort, definitely my effort and it really does suggest that the initiative is really more about optics and not really that they actually want meaningful change.”

Parents also have expressed frustrations with what they see as a moving timeline of when a pre-K through 8th grade building will be available. District officials originally indicated it would be in five years, before saying it would take much longer, according to Sai Thao, one of the organizers of the demonstration. Thao is married to board member Vue.

Costs of temporary locations

A move to Prosperity would have meant reduced academic programming due to its size, with fewer specialists and course offerings. Hazel Park in the East Side brought the possibility for more staffing, but also for disruptions for existing students.

Costs to operate the Hmong Studies program at the Prosperity location was estimated to cost $2.59 million. A move to Hazel Park was estimated to cost $1.72 million.

Board members and district officials in the time leading up to Thursday’s meeting visited the Txuj Ci campuses and Hazel Park to have conversations and hold listening sessions.

One concern brought up by a Hazel Park parent during a public comment period — the impact on special education students.

If Hmong Studies moved to Hazel Park, two of the elementary special education classes would have needed to be relocated to make room for the two Hmong Studies special education classes, according to district officials.

Parents say Txuj Ci faces overcrowding for teachers and students, limiting the schools room for growth, making school programming for families standing room-only and stretching out lunch rotations, leaving students hungry at school.

Txuj Ci has adjusted its student body mix, moving fifth-grade classes from the lower campus to the upper campus in 2024. Parents, who saw the move as a temporary change, were supportive of that decision at the time as it allowed the pre-k to return to the lower campus, Thao said. The Pre-K program had previously been moved to another building, but parents wanted to have their youngest children in the same building as their older siblings and not have their children separated among three buildings.

Thursday meeting

At Thursday’s meeting dozens of parents, students and community members spoke to the board about concerns with overcrowding and their desire to see the board approve the workgroup recommendation for a temporary location.

Ramsey County Commissioner Mai Chong Xiong, a parent of Txuj Ci students, said her daughter eats lunch at 2 p.m. because the cafeteria is too small.

“For years, our Hmong families in St. Paul have worked with the district to grow and support Txuj Ci, a program that has helped students learn Hmong, English, and connect with our elders, maintain cultural pride and succeed academically,” Xiong said. “This program is a success story. It is not a problem. This is a good problem to have. And right now, our children are being held back by severe overcrowding and a lack of space.”

Board members said they wanted to continue working with the Txuj Ci community and show a commitment to the plans for a unified building, but could not support the temporary locations.

“Due to the current financial state of the district, it would be against my values to commit to a decision here and now that I know will create additional reductions for other school communities and at the same time then creating additional inequities and barriers in the ability to learn for more students in this district,” said board member Carlo Franco.

Menards will pay the state more than $632,000 in a settlement filed in Ramsey County District Court on Wednesday after several states claimed that the retailer misled or confused consumers about its rebate program and engaged in price gouging during the pandemic.

The settlement between the Minnesota Attorney General’s office and those of nine other states claims that the particulars of Menards’ rebate advertising practices were not disclosed and that the company raised prices on essential goods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s office announced the deal, saying Menards denied wrongdoing but agreed to settlements with the attorneys general of Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Authorities alleged that Menards, based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, failed to clearly disclose key limitations of its rebate program. The program was formally called the “merchandise credit check program.”

The nine states alleged that Menards did not adequately disclose that the rebate was “only an in-store credit on a future purchase that is only redeemable in-person at physical store locations, and that the (rebate) requires a mail-in rebate submission form.”

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The settlement said that some of the advertising about the rebate program labeled it “11% off” or listed the item’s actual price leading people to think the discount would be applied immediately at checkout. In addition, the lawsuit alleged that Menards didn’t clearly state that the rebate credits couldn’t be used online.

In the settlement, Menards agreed to no longer advertise in those ways. In the future, all limits to the rebate must be stated including how customers apply for the rebate, deadlines to submit the rebate and how long it typically takes to receive it.

In addition, the settlement addressed emergency pricing by the store during the pandemic. Minnesota authorities alleged that Menards raised prices on essential goods such as rubbing alcohol, garbage bags and dish soap during the pandemic in violation of a 2020 executive order banning price gouging. Menards denied the allegation but agreed not to price essential goods at excessive prices during future emergencies.

Menards will pay Minnesota $632,167.13, which the state can use for purposes including future consumer protection or privacy enforcement, consumer education or redress, litigation or local consumer aid fund or a revolving fund.

Two decades after Jeffrey Epstein was first reported to police, the Justice Department has started to release its investigative files on the late millionaire, who was accused of repeatedly sexually abusing underage girls.

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Enacted last month, the Epstein Files Transparency Act requires disclosure of government records on Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell by Friday — though it’s possible more records will be released on a rolling basis.

Among questions surrounding the release: how much light the documents shed on Epstein’s crimes, his interactions with influential friends in business, politics and academia and whether anything in the documents will support — or debunk — one accuser’s claims that other powerful men participated in or knew about Epstein’s misconduct.

Here is a timeline of the Epstein investigations and the efforts to open up the government’s files:

The investigation begins

March 2005: Police begin investigating Epstein after the family of a 14-year-old girl reports she was molested at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Multiple underage girls, many of them high school students, would later tell police Epstein hired them to give sexual massages.

May 2006: Palm Beach police officials sign paperwork to charge Epstein with multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor, but the county’s top prosecutor, State Attorney Barry Krischer, takes the unusual step of sending the case to a grand jury.

July 2006: Epstein is arrested after a grand jury indicts him on a count of soliciting prostitution. The relatively minor charge upsets Palm Beach police leaders, who publicly accuse Krischer of giving Epstein special treatment. The FBI begins an investigation.

2007: Federal prosecutors prepare an indictment, but for a year Epstein’s lawyers engage in talks with the U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, about a deal that would avoid a federal prosecution. Epstein’s lawyers decry his accusers as unreliable.

Secret deal leads to a light jail term

June 2008: Epstein pleads guilty to state charges: one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He is sentenced to 18 months in jail. Under a secret arrangement, the U.S. attorney’s office agrees not to prosecute Epstein for federal crimes. Epstein serves most of his sentence in a work release program that allows him to leave jail during the day.

May 2009: One of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, files a lawsuit claiming Epstein and Maxwell arranged for her to have sexual encounters with “royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen” and others. The lawsuit doesn’t name the men.

July 2009: Epstein is released from jail. For the next decade, Epstein’s accusers wage a legal fight to get his federal non-prosecution agreement voided.

News media and lawsuits keep public interest high

March 2, 2011: The Daily Mail publishes an interview with Giuffre in which she describes traveling with Epstein to London at age 17 and spending a night dancing with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Prince Andrew. The story and a photo of the prince with his arm around Giuffre creates a crisis for the royal family. FBI agents subsequently interview Giuffre.

Dec. 30, 2014: Giuffre’s lawyers file court papers claiming she had sexual encounters with Mountbatten-Windsor and other men, including “foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister, and other world leaders.” All those men deny the allegations.

November 2018: The Miami Herald revisits the handling of Epstein’s case in a series of stories focusing partly on the role of Acosta — who by this point is President Donald Trump’s labor secretary. The coverage intensifies public interest in Epstein.

New York prosecutors revive case

July 6, 2019: Epstein is arrested on sex trafficking charges after federal prosecutors in New York conclude they aren’t bound by the terms of the earlier non-prosecution deal. Days later, Acosta resigns as labor secretary.

Aug. 10, 2019: Epstein kills himself in his jail cell in New York.

July 2, 2020: Federal prosecutors in New York charge Maxwell with sex crimes, saying she helped recruit and abuse Epstein’s victims.

Dec. 30, 2021: After a monthlong trial, a jury convicts Maxwell of sex trafficking and other crimes.

June 28, 2022: Maxwell is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

January, 2024: Public interest in the Epstein case surges again after a judge makes more court records public in a related lawsuit. Conspiracy theories flourish, pushed by people who believe Epstein ran an international sex traffic network that served rich and powerful men.

A new president and a fresh political crisis

Jan. 20, 2025: Trump, who was friends and neighbors with Epstein for years, becomes president again. During his 2024 campaign, he had suggested that he’d seek to open more government files on Epstein.

February 2025: Attorney General Pam Bondi suggests in a Fox News Channel interview that an Epstein “client list” is sitting on her desk. The Justice Department distributes binders marked “declassified” to far-right influencers, but much of the information had long been public.

April 25, 2025: Giuffre dies by suicide.

July 7, 2025: The Justice Department says Epstein didn’t maintain a “client list” and it won’t make any more files related to his sex trafficking investigation public.

July 15, 2025: Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduce the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

July 17, 2025: The Wall Street Journal describes a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump denies writing the letter and sues the newspaper.

July 24-25, 2025: In an effort to put a political crisis to rest, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviews Maxwell. She denies wrongdoing and says she never saw Trump involved in any sexually inappropriate activity. Afterward, she is moved from a low-security prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.

A prince loses his royal title

This redacted photo released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual offender registration form, documented on Aug. 12, 2019, during a search of Epstein’s home on Little St. James island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP)

Oct. 21, 2025: Giuffre’s posthumous memoir is published. In it, she revisits her claims that Epstein and Maxwell sexually trafficked her to powerful men, including Mountbatten-Windsor.

Oct. 30, 2025: King Charles III strips Mountbatten-Windsor of his remaining titles, meaning he can no longer be referred to as “prince,” and evicts him from his royal residence.

Nov. 12, 2025: A House committee releases a trove of email correspondence between Epstein and others, including Mountbatten-Windsor, Trump ally Steve Bannon, ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. In one 2019 email to a journalist, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls” but didn’t explain what he meant by that.

Nov. 14, 2025: At Trump’s urging, Bondi announces that the U.S. attorney in Manhattan will investigate Epstein’s ties to some of the Republican president’s political foes, including former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat; Summers; and Hoffman, a prominent Democratic donor. None of those men has been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s victims.

Nov. 18, 2025: Congress passes the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Trump signs it into law the next day.

Dec. 19, 2025: The Justice Department begins releasing records.

Follow the AP’s coverage of Jeffrey Epstein at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.