I love downtown St. Paul. But let’s be honest: it’s in bad, bad shape — like a beautiful old stage set abandoned after the final curtain.

Sometime this past fall, I went to meet a friend who still keeps an office in one of the bank buildings. I walked through eerily silent hallways. Every office I passed was dark and empty — except his, a cool corner space with the best office view I’ve ever seen. It felt like a scene from a dystopian film, like some invisible disaster had swept through and cleared out all life.

But I remember when it wasn’t like this.

The first time I visited St. Paul was in 1994. I was still living in Copenhagen, Denmark, and came to see my high school exchange-year friend, Reena, who had moved here from Texas. She was living downtown in a sweet condo with her fiancé, near a park. I remember the street-level cafés, the shops in the skyways, even a department store. And during the lunch hour, the streets were vibrant — almost European in their rhythm.

That trip was how I was first introduced to Minnesota. I met relatives I’d never known before. They introduced me to my future husband, and four years later, I moved to Minnesota at age 27. St. Paul became home.

Even after returning to Europe for two years to help my mother through her final chapter, I came back — because I love it here.

I grew up in Copenhagen, one of the most walkable, people-centered cities in the world. Tourists travel across oceans to experience its beauty and livability. And I believe — with the right vision — we could create something just as special right here in downtown St. Paul.

We already have the bones for it. I’ve always loved the Landmark Center square by Rice Park. Mears Park, The Saint Paul Farmers’ Market is still the most iconic and charming market I’ve seen — even compared to those in Europe. The surrounding cafés and bars used to buzz with life. Now, most have vanished.

For years, I was a member of the Saint Paul Athletic Club, housed on Cedar Street in a stunning 1920s-era building with vaulted ceilings and ornate details. Last I heard, it had gone up for auction. That building — like so many others — is just sitting there. Waiting. Wasting.

And here’s the hard truth: It’s a disgrace that our capital city, the symbolic heart of Minnesota, is now a place you’d avoid bringing out-of-town guests. We must do better.

City insiders acknowledge the problems. Madison Equities, which now owns a massive share of downtown property, has been called “a cancer” for the city — acquiring buildings while others bailed, only to let them sit in neglect. For years, city leaders looked the other way, hoping things would self-correct.

They didn’t.

Thankfully, it feels like we may be hitting bottom and starting to rebuild. Office-to-housing conversions are underway, including Landmark Towers, which officially reopens this month as apartments. But real estate professionals remind us: Conversions are expensive and only feasible for buildings with the right dimensions. Incentives like the new CUB tax credit can help, but it won’t be enough on its own. And we can’t just convert office buildings — we need to cultivate a culture. We need people. Residents. Artists. Students. Entrepreneurs. We need density, yes, but also soul and presence.

Let me remind you of something we did once before: around 25 years ago, certain homes along Selby Avenue were sold for one dollar. The catch? You had to live there and fix up your Victorian. People did. They showed up. They invested. Today, that area is one of the city’s most walkable and beloved neighborhoods.

So why not do something similar downtown?

What if the city or state purchased long-vacant buildings and turned them into deeply affordable housing for people under 30? Not a free-for-all, but an application-based program that vets for vision, diversity and community-mindedness. People who want to stay. Who want to plant roots and shape the neighborhood.

Offer these same young creatives ultra-low rent on street-level spaces to open cafés, yoga studios, vintage shops, bookstores, and pop-up galleries. And give them a path to ownership — let them buy into these buildings at ultra-low rates, as long as they agree to live and contribute there for a set number of years.

This isn’t just about real estate. It’s about culture, equity and livability. We don’t need to turn St. Paul into a mini-Minneapolis or a corporate hub — we can become something more human-scale, local, and uniquely alive.

Because right now it feels like downtown is being held hostage by vacancy and the wrong property owners.

But the bones are good. The opportunity is real. And we’ve done this before. We need the courage to bet on people’s presence, creativity, entrepreneurship again — then the business will follow.

Maria Toso is a yoga educator, writer and emotional healing coach, originally from Copenhagen, Denmark. She moved to Minnesota in 1998 and now calls St. Paul home. Maria teaches the Yoga Teacher Training program at Minneapolis College and is the founder of Heal What Hurts, a yogic process for transforming emotional triggers into sources of strength. Her forthcoming book by the same name will be published this September by local publisher Llewellyn Worldwide.

By TAMMY WEBBER

The Trump administration plans to eliminate habitat protections for endangered and threatened species in a move environmentalists say would lead to the extinction of critically endangered species due to logging, mining, development and other activities.

At issue is a longstanding definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act, which has included altering or destroying the places those species live. Habitat destruction is the biggest cause of extinction, said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service said in a proposed rule issued Wednesday that habitat modification should not be considered harm because it’s not the same as intentionally targeting a species, called “take.” Environmentalists argue that the definition of “take,” though, has always included actions that harm species, and the definition of “harm” has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The proposed rule “cuts the heart out of the Endangered Species Act,” said Greenwald. “If (you) say harm doesn’t mean significant habitat degradation or modification, then it really leaves endangered species out in the cold.”

For example, he said spotted owls and Florida panthers both are protected because the current rule forbids habitat destruction. But if the new rule is adopted, someone who logs in a forest or builds a development would be unimpeded as long as they could say they didn’t intend to harm an endangered species, he said.

The proposed rule was expected to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday, kicking off a 30-day public comment period.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman referred The Associated Press to the Department of Interior, which declined to comment.

Environmental groups will challenge the rule in court if it is adopted, said Drew Caputo, an attorney at Earthjustice.

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He said the proposal “threatens a half-century of progress in protecting and restoring endangered species,” including bald eagles, gray wolves, Florida manatees and humpback whales. He said that’s because the current rule “recognizes the common-sense concept that destroying a forest, beach, river, or wetland that a species relies on for survival constitutes harm to that species.”

The question is whether the Trump administration is entitled to repeal a rule that was upheld specifically by the Supreme Court and therefore subject to precedent, said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School who has handled endangered species cases.

Because of the current definition of harm, “many, many millions of acres of land has been conserved” to help keep species alive, he said.

The issue is of particular concern in Hawaii, which has more endangered species than any other state — 40% of the nation’s federally listed threatened and endangered species — even though it has less than 1% of the land area, according to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Birds are among the most vulnerable. Since humans arrived, 71 birds have gone extinct, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. Thirty-one of the 42 remaining endemic birds are listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the department said and ten of these haven’t been seen in decades.

Associated Press reporter Audrey McAvoy in Hawaii contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By SAM MEDNICK

BINYAMINA, Israel (AP) — Rachel Dancyg never thought she would see her dog again after it disappeared in the Hamas attack that sparked the ongoing war with Israel.

Her ex-husband and brother were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel and killed. She thought her beloved pet had suffered the same fate. So when a soldier called the family on Tuesday night, telling them that Billie had been found alive in Gaza, it was hard to believe.

“It’s a miracle,” Dancyg told The Associated Press on Wednesday, hours after being reunited with her now 3 1/2-year old Cavalier King Charles spaniel. “It doesn’t make sense … People didn’t survive. How did she?”

The reunion brought a rare touch of joy in Israel after 18 months of devastating war.

The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people and resulted in more than 250 others being kidnapped. Nearly 60 hostages remain in Gaza, more than half of whom are believed to be dead. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

An Israeli offensive launched after the attack has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities, and reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble. U.S.-led efforts to broker a ceasefire and bring home remaining hostages appear to be at a standstill.

Nir Oz was one of the hardest hit communities, with nearly a quarter of the approximately 400 residents killed or captured in the 2023 attack. For Israelis, it stands out as the embodiment of their country’s vulnerability that day. Soldiers took hours to respond. Some families have said they saw Hamas fighters killing or kidnapping animals.

It’s unclear how Billie ended up in Gaza. When Hamas entered Dancyg’s home, she hid in the safe room with her family for eight hours, holding the door shut. But she fled so quickly there was no time to find the dog. For months, the community looked everywhere for Billie, but there was no trace of her.

The family later moved to northern Israel.

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Then, on Tuesday night, Dancyg’s daughter received a phone call from a soldier who had just returned from Gaza. He said he had their dog.

“I couldn’t believe it. I asked for a photo. I was really confused,” said her daughter, Lee Maor.

The soldier said he found Billie in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah — about 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the Kibbutz — days earlier, and she immediately gravitated toward his troops, not leaving their side. It might have been because Billie heard them speaking Hebrew, he told them.

Speaking to Israeli television, reserve soldier Aviad Shapira said he found Billie among the rubble and called out to her. “I said ‘shalom’ and she jumped on me,” he said.

He had a feeling that she didn’t belong in Gaza and that there was a story behind her, Shapira said. He brought the dog to a veterinarian and found the family’s contact information on a chip inside the animal.

Stroking Billie on her lap, Dancyg says it will take time to see how the odyssey has affected her. Billie appears happy to be home, but she seems disoriented and has lost weight, Dancyg said.

While Israeli media happily reported Billie’s return, the Nir Oz community reminded people not to forget what the family went through. In a Facebook post, the kibbutz called the reunion a “little light in a lot of sorrow.”

The body of Dancyg’s ex-husband, Alex, 76, was recovered by the army and returned in August. The body of her brother Itzhak Elgarat, 68, was returned earlier this year as part of a ceasefire.

For Dancyg, Billie’s return gives her some sense of closure. Yet she said it is bittersweet knowing there are hostages still in Gaza.

“I can’t get out of this trauma as long as they are there,” she said.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, MARK SHERMAN and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge’s ruling that the Trump administration appears to have willfully violated his order to turn around planes of migrants headed for El Salvador increases the prospect of officials being held in criminal contempt of court and potentially facing possible prosecution.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in his ruling on Wednesday that probable cause exists to hold the administration in contempt over its defiance of his order in the case involving migrants sent to a notorious El Salvador prison. The judge is giving the administration a chance to remedy the violation first before moving forward with such an action.

The White House says it’s planning to appeal.

It’s the latest standoff between the administration and the judiciary, which has blocked a slew of President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive actions around immigration and other matters.

Here’s what to know about the judge’s ruling, contempt of court and what happens next:

The judge’s order and the administration’s violation

The case stems from Trump’s invocation of a 1798 wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants it accuses of being gang members. During an emergency hearing last month after several migrants sued, Boasberg had ordered the administration not to deport anyone in its custody under the act.

When told there were already planes in the air headed to El Salvador, which has agreed to house deported migrants in a notorious prison, the judge said the aircraft needed to be returned to the United States. That didn’t happen.

Hours later, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, announced that the deportees had arrived in his country. In a social media post, he said, “Oopsie…too late” above an article referencing Boasberg’s order.

The Justice Department has argued the judge’s order didn’t apply to planes that had already left U.S. airspace by the time his command came down.

Boasberg said the government’s “actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order.” Even though the Supreme Court earlier this month vacated Boasberg’s ruling that blocked the deportations, the judge said that does not “excuse the government’s violation.”

Judge warns of possible contempt of court prosecution

Boasberg said the administration can avoid contempt proceedings if it attempts to remedy the violation by retaking custody of the deportees, who were sent to the El Salvador prison in violation of his order, so they have a chance to challenge their removal. The judge wrote that the government “would not need to release any of those individuals, nor would it need to transport them back to the homeland,” but it’s unclear how that would work.

Boasberg said if the administration chooses not to remedy the violation, he will move forward with trying to identify the official or officials who made the decision not to turn the planes around. The judge said he would start by asking the government to submit written declarations in court, but he could turn to hearings with live witnesses under oath or depositions.

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Then, he could refer the matter for prosecution. Since Trump’s Justice Department leadership would almost certainly opt not to bring a case, the judge said he would appoint another attorney to prosecute the contempt case should the government decline to do so.

Rory Little, a law professor of constitutional law at UC Law San Francisco, believes the government could easily avoid a contempt finding.

“Boasberg doesn’t suggest it, but if they put those 200 people back on a plane and brought them back, that would purge the contempt for sure. It’s just that we don’t think Trump’s going to do that,” Little said.

Little said Boasberg suggested a “much less intrusive method” for the administration to comply with his order.

“He is being as careful as he can be to avoid the face-to-face, ugly confrontation that we all think must be coming sooner or later,” he said.

The administration could also be facing possible contempt of court in another case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man whom the administration has acknowledged was mistakenly sent to the El Salvador prison. The judge in that case has said she is determining whether to undertake contempt proceedings, saying officials “appear to have done nothing to aid in Abrego Garcia’s release from custody and return to the United States” despite a Supreme Court ruling that the administration must “facilitate” his release.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, right, stands with supporters during a news conference at CASA’s Multicultural Center in Hyattsville, Md., Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Criminal contempt cases are rare

Judges have been willing to hold officials and agencies in contempt for failing to abide by rulings, even occasionally seeking to impose fines and imprisonment. But higher courts have almost always overturned them, Yale law professor Nicholas Parrillo wrote in a 2018 Harvard Law Review article that surveyed thousands of cases and turned up 82 contempt findings by federal judges since the end of World War II.

In a long-running dispute over money, the federal government holds in trust for Native American tribes, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held interior secretaries Gale Norton, a Republican, in 2002, and Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, in 1999, in contempt and twice ordered the Interior Department to disconnect its computers.

The federal appeals court in Washington overturned the contempt charge against Norton and finally removed Lamberth from the case in 2006.

Even without sanctions, though, contempt findings “have a shaming effect that gives them substantial if imperfect deterrent power,” Parrillo wrote. But he acknowledged that the potency of contempt rests on the widely shared view that officials comply with court orders.

In 1987, a divided Supreme Court ruled that district court judges have the authority to appoint private attorneys to prosecute criminal contempt actions. Justice Antonin Scalia, who disagreed with the majority decision, concluded that the courts don’t have the power to appoint attorneys to conduct contempt prosecutions.

Stanford Law School professor Robert Weisberg, who teaches criminal procedure, said Boasberg’s claim that the government flagrantly violated his order is “very convincing.”

“This looks so sound to me that I think it will be difficult to win a reversal, which means we may have a standoff,” he said.

Weisberg said he is concerned that the showdown between the judge and administration could move the government even closer to a constitutional crisis.

“I’m supposed to say, because everybody else does, that we have to be careful about using the term ‘constitutional crisis.’ It means too many things, it’s overused,” he said. “That aside, what the country has been waiting for … some with happy anticipation, is for a flat-out refusal to obey a legal court order. This is pretty close.”