WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service is seeking a rate increase this summer that includes hiking the cost of a first-class stamp from 73 cents to 78 cents.

The request was made Wednesday to the Postal Regulatory Commission, which must OK the proposal. If approved, the 5-cent increase for a “forever” stamp and similar increases for postcards, metered letters and international mail would take effect July 13.

The proposed changes would raise mailing services product prices approximately 7.4%.

The Postal Service contends, as it did last year when it enacted a similar increase, that it’s needed to achieve financial stability.

Former U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy previously warned postal customers to get used to “uncomfortable” rate hikes as the Postal Service seeks to become self-sufficient. He said price increases were overdue after “at least 10 years of a defective pricing model.”

DeJoy resigned in March after nearly five years in the position, leaving as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had floated the idea of privatizing mail service.

Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino has taken on the role of postmaster general until the Postal Service Board of Governors names a permanent replacement for DeJoy.

Trump has said he is considering putting USPS under the control of the Commerce Department in an effort to stop losses at the $78 billion-a-year agency, which has struggled at times to balance the books with the decline of first-class mail.

At the NHL trade deadline a month ago, Wild general manager Bill Guerin didn’t make any blockbuster moves, insisting that the big additions for his club would be the return of Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek before regular season’s end.

With four games left, Guerin and Wild fans finally get some semblance of their full team back tonight when the San Jose Sharks come to St. Paul for a visit. On Wednesday afternoon, the Wild officially activated Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek from injured reserve.

After Wednesday’s morning skate, coach John Hynes said he was hopeful the pair could play against the Sharks.

“Obviously, it changes the dynamic of your lines and you have to move some things around,” Hynes said. “I think the most important thing is those guys have been off for a while and have worked hard to get back and we want them to come back and get into the game and bring what they can bring.”

The projected lineup sent out by the Wild’s social media team on Wednesday afternoon has Eriksson Ek centering the team’s top line between Marcus Foligno and Matt Boldy, and Kaprizov playing left wing on a line with Marco Rossi at center and Mats Zuccarello on the other wing.

The Wild reassigned forwards Devin Shore and Brendan Gaunce to Iowa to make room on the active roster.

Kaprizov has played in just three games since Christmas while dealing with a lower body injury and was shut down to have the ailment surgically repaired in late January. Eriksson Ek has played one game since returning from the 4 Nations Face-Off, where he was part of Team Sweden. He has been out with a lower body injury since Feb. 25.

The Wild have gone 8-10-3 since then, and their once-comfortable lead in the playoff race has shrunk to just four points over Calgary for the final Western Conference postseason spot. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Flames have a game in hand on Minnesota, and host the Wild on Friday night in Calgary.

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An elderly Forest Lake man lost almost $1 million after scammers persuaded him to withdraw cash from his bank and deposit it into a cryptocurrency ATM.

Another resident told police he lost $600,000 before he realized he was being scammed.

Cryptocurrency ATMs, like this one at a gas station in Woodbury, are sometimes used by scammers as a means of collecting money from victims, who have little hope of ever getting it back. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“It’s sad. They get in a panic, they just get tunnel vision, and they lose all sense of reasonableness,” said Det. Nathan Olstad of the Forest Lake Police Department.

Once the cash is deposited into a cryptocurrency ATM, it is almost impossible to recover the funds, Olstad said.

The Forest Lake City Council is expected to vote on a new ordinance next week that could help others from being scammed. The proposed ordinance would require that all cryptocurrency ATMs located within the city be registered.

City officials already register businesses that pose obvious public health or safety concerns, such as liquor stores, cannabis shops and tattoo parlors, said City Attorney Amanda Johnson. Cryptocurrency ATMs are no different because of the amount of fraud running through the machines, the vulnerable population groups targeted and the inability to recover the stolen funds, Johnson said.

Cryptocurrency ATMs

Cryptocurrency ATMs or kiosks resemble conventional ATMs, but they focus on cryptocurrency-related transactions. People can use them to withdraw funds from their cryptocurrency accounts or purchase more cryptocurrency.

People use cryptocurrency for many reasons: quick payments, to avoid transaction fees that traditional banks charge or because it offers some anonymity, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Once you pay with cryptocurrency, you can usually only get your money back if the person you paid sends it back, according to the FTC.

In 2023, crypto fraud cost Americans an estimated $5.6 billion, according to a report from the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

“Since cryptocurrencies eliminate the need for financial intermediaries to validate and facilitate transactions, criminals can exploit these characteristics to support illicit activity such as thefts, fraud and money laundering,” the report states.

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The proposed Forest Lake ordinance would require owners of businesses where cryptocurrency ATMs are located to register each machine with the city; complete an application; pay a $2,000 fee, and provide written confirmation from the Forest Lake Police Department that the cryptocurrency ATM operator “has had no more than two instances of substantiated fraud, as determined by the FLPD involving any kiosk owned or operated by that kiosk operator within the city in the past six months,” according to the proposed ordinance.

“Basically, if you’ve been behaving badly, you don’t get to play here,” Johnson said. “As long as you’re keeping it clean, fine.”

Other proposed requirements for registration: the posting of a city-provided sign warning of the danger for fraud and scams; the installation of a dedicated, closed-circuit camera, positioned as required by police; agreeing to provide video footage to the police department within 48 hours of request, and passing compliance checks.

In addition, if a business has had a previous registration denied, suspended or revoked, the owner of the business may not apply for a new registration for two years, Johnson said.

The goal of the ordinance is to balance the protection of the community without instituting a ban on the cryptocurrency ATMs, Johnson said. “If you are not doing something that’s harming the people who live or work or play in Forest Lake, then you get to continue,” she said.

‘Tough to swallow’

In 2023 and 2024, residents reported losing $300,000 in scams involving cryptocurrency ATMs, and the majority of the victims were elderly, Olstad said.

“It’s tough to swallow when you know that money more than likely is not just not-recoverable — it’s out of the country,” he said.

Police have investigated a number of reports involving the Bitcoin Depot ATM at the Holiday Station at 1208 Broadway Ave. in Forest Lake.

In one case, a Forest Lake Police Department employee spotted a woman about to deposit $16,000 in cash into the Bitcoin Depot ATM.

The woman told police she was working on a laptop computer when a pop-up message appeared stating that she had a virus in her system and to call the provided phone number. Scammers convinced the woman that her computer had a virus related to child pornography and persuaded her to download an app onto her cell phone and then log into her U.S. Bank account.

They then persuaded her to withdraw all her money from U.S. Bank, go to the Bitcoin Depot ATM and deposit the money into a “safekeeping account” that they set up for her, the reports state.

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“The woman admitted she didn’t know how to use the ATM and didn’t know the person she was on the phone with,” the report states. “She stopped her transaction and went to US Bank to deposit her funds back into her account and then came to the police department to file a report.”

Two other cities in Washington County also are working on measures to protect residents from scams involving cryptocurrency ATMs. Like Forest Lake, officials in Woodbury are considering an ordinance that would require the registration of the business that hosts the ATMs. The Stillwater City Council, meanwhile, is moving forward with a plan to ban crypto ATMs within city limits.

The Forest Lake City Council will vote on its proposed ordinance on Monday.

By DIDI TANG and ZEKE MILLER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The tariff fight between the world’s two largest economies spiraled into greater peril Wednesday as President Donald Trump tried to narrow his global trade war into a direct — and risky — faceoff with Beijing.

As Trump reversed his larger “reciprocal” tariffs on most of the world in the face of recession fears, he nonetheless hiked his tariffs on China once again — to 125%. The move locks the strategic rivals into a deepening standoff that endangers both their economies and interests around the world. The stakes are higher than ever, as the U.S. and China are already embroiled in competition on everything from artificial intelligence to monetary policy to overall global influence.

Each nation dares the other to blink first. But the rounds of escalation are raising concerns that the window for diplomacy has narrowed even further, while the economic pain on both economies intensifies.

Behind it all, as usual, geopolitics lurks — the concerns about regional and global security that are always in play when economic relations between two of the world’s most powerful nations turn aggressive.

“When you punch the United States of America,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, “President Trump is going to punch back harder.”

A back-and-forth approach

After Beijing responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 34% “reciprocal” tax on China with the same 34% rate on American goods, Trump raised the tariff by another 50 percentage points, only to be met by the same tariff hike by Beijing on Wednesday morning. U.S. products going to China are now to be taxed 84%.

Hours later, Trump declared that Chinese imports to the United States would be “immediately” taxed at 125%, citing “lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets.”

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted this had been Trump’s strategy all along and that Beijing has “shown themselves to the world as the bad actors.”

While the financial markets rebounded from their deepest lows at the news that China would be facing the brunt of Trump’s wrath, the real-world prospects of the intensifying trade war with China were still set to be significant.

On Wednesday, the U.S.-China Business Council urged the two leaders to “come to the table” and talk. “Targeted tariffs to encourage China to come to the negotiating table are one thing, but these sweeping tit-for-tat tariffs are in no one’s interests. They will significantly harm the global, U.S., and Chinese economies as well as American businesses, farmers, and consumers,” the council said.

Trump has left little room to negotiate an off-ramp with China, short of that country capitulating — which would be anathema to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Xi will not be forced into a call,” said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center. Only once in recent history, she noted, has a Chinese leader phoned the United States without invitation — after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The trade tensions, if unchecked, could spill into other domains, she warned.

Craig Singleton, the senior China fellow at another Washington-based think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, agreed that a phone call from Beijing is “unlikely in this climate.”

“Each side believes time is on its side, which raises the risk that neither moves to de-escalate until real damage is done,” he said. “This is no longer about tariffs alone. It’s a test of wills.”

Both sides have their calculations

Before Trump’s announcement, Bessent called it “unfortunate that the Chinese actually don’t want to come and negotiate.”

“And I can tell you that this escalation is a loser for them,” Bessent said on Fox Business Network’s “Morning with Maria” on Wednesday. “Their exports to the U.S. are five times our exports to China. So, they can raise their tariffs. But, so what?”

China has its own calculations. Its leadership, overseeing the world’s second-largest economy, has vowed not to surrender to U.S. bullying.

While Trump’s higher-than-expected tariffs caught other countries by surprise, China says it has been prepared, having learned a lesson from its previous tariff dealings during Trump’s first term. In response to Trump’s several rounds of tariff raises, Beijing has responded swiftly each time with a package of tariff and non-tariff measures.

“We have been in a trade war with the United States for eight years and have accumulated rich struggle experience,” said an editorial by the ruling party’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily, dated Monday. The newspaper assured the Chinese public that “the sky will not fall.”

“Facing the impact of U.S. tariff bullying, we possess strong resilience,” the party newspaper said, citing the country’s reduced dependence on exports to the U.S. market and new measures to boost domestic consumption.

Since Trump imposed his first round of tariffs on China in 2018, Beijing’s leaders have developed a toolkit of tariffs, import curbs, export controls, sanctions, regulatory reviews and measures to limit companies from doing business in China. All are designed to inflict pain on the U.S. economy and businesses in response to any trade move by the U.S. government.

Melanie Hart, senior director of the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council, said Beijing is now “throwing the entire toolkit against” the United States, blacklisting companies, hitting American farmers and cutting the nation off from critical minerals.

“They have a bunker that they’ve been building for this moment,” Hart said. “They’re in the bunker. And if I’m Xi Jinping, I’m feeling a lot more comfortable than Donald Trump today.”

But People’s Daily also made it clear that Beijing remains open to talks. “Faced with volatility and extreme pressure from the United States,” it said, “we have not closed the door to negotiations.”

The country’s official Xinhua News Agency, in an editorial, insisted as well that China doesn’t want a trade war — but can fight one.

“There are no winners in a trade war,” it said. “But China is not afraid of a trade war.”