Midway neighborhood advocates who have longed for the demolition of the derelict CVS Pharmacy building at Snelling and University avenues will finally get to see the structure fall before the proverbial wrecking ball next Monday morning.

St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her plans to host a demolition watch party from the Spruce Tree Centre office building across the street, where she’ll be joined by representatives from the Midway Chamber of Commerce and others who have called for the CVS building to be taken down.

CVS closed at the location in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis triggered widespread riots, and then reopened briefly before permanently shuttering in April 2022. The site attracted vandals and groups of as many as 40 loiterers at a time before its parking lot was fenced off.

It’s since been pointed to as a symbol of neglect and poor oversight, even entering as a topic of debate in last November’s mayor’s race, which saw Her unseat two-term incumbent Melvin Carter.

The seven-member city council ordered the demolition of the building on Nov. 5, the day after the election.

The demolition is scheduled to take place between 10 a.m. and noon.

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By JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) — Keir Starmer has never had a bad word to say in public about Donald Trump.

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That is not being reciprocated now as the American president lambasts the British prime minister over his reluctance to join the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

The dispute is roiling a relationship that Starmer worked hard to forge, and further straining trans-Atlantic ties frayed by Trump’s “America first” foreign policy and transactional approach to international relations.

“This was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe,” Trump told British tabloid The Sun in an interview published Tuesday.

“I mean, France has been great. They’ve all been great,” Trump said. “The U.K. has been much different from others.”

“It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was,” he said.

Starmer initially blocked American planes from using British bases for the attacks on Iran that started on Saturday. He later agreed to let the United States use bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran’s ballistic missiles and their storage sites, but not to hit other targets.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer issues a statement at 10 Downing Street, London, on the latest developments in the Middle East, Saturday Feb. 28, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/Pool via AP)

Even after the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit by an Iran-made drone over the weekend, Starmer said that the United Kingdom “will not join offensive action.” He said Tuesday that a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, and helicopters with counter-drone capabilities were being sent to the region as part of “defensive operations.”

The British leader has offered a rare, though implicit, rebuke of the U.S. president, saying Monday that the U.K. government doesn’t believe in “regime change from the skies.”

“Any U.K. actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday.

“President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest,” Starmer added.

President Donald Trump speaks about Iran before a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Monday, March 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Financial Times called it Starmer’s “Love Actually moment” — a reference to the 2003 movie scene in which a British prime minister played by Hugh Grant stands up to a bullying U.S. president played by Billy Bob Thornton.

Friction between the two leaders has been building for months. Trump’s threat to take over Greenland was denounced by Starmer and other European leaders earlier this year. Recently, Trump has condemned Britain’s agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands, home to the Diego Garcia base, to Mauritius, despite his administration earlier backing the deal.

Peter Ricketts, a former head of the U.K. Foreign Office, told The Observer newspaper that under Trump, “the Americans have effectively given up on any effort to be consistent with international law.”

That is a red line for the law-abiding Starmer, a barrister and former chief prosecutor for England and Wales.

The spat is a setback for Starmer’s efforts to woo Trump since the president’s return to office in 2025. The British government rolled out the red carpet to the president for a state visit as the guest of King Charles III, and Starmer consistently has praised Trump’s efforts — so far unsuccessful — to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Iran war has also divided European leaders, who fall along a spectrum from condemnation to support.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that he unreservedly approves of Trump’s decision to attack Iran and kill its supreme leader, and called the war crucial for Europe’s security.

The U.K., France and Germany jointly said that they weren’t involved in the strikes, but were prepared to enable “necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the strikes as “unjustifiable” and “dangerous.”

Polling suggests many Britons are skeptical of the U.S. justification for war. But politicians to the right of Starmer’s Labour Party slammed the prime minister for not joining the offensive. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said that her party “stands behind America taking this necessary action against state-sponsored terror.”

Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty denied the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” was on the ropes.

“Our relationship with the United States is strong,” he said Tuesday in the House of Commons. “It has endured, it continues to endure, and it will endure into the future on both the economic and the security fronts.”

By MAYA SWEEDLER and ROBERT YOON

WASHINGTON (AP) — So, who won?

That’s a question The Associated Press has answered many thousands of times in U.S. elections held since shortly after the news organization was founded nearly 180 years ago.

Declaring a winner involves a careful and thorough analysis of the latest available vote tallies and a variety of other election data. The ultimate goal is to determine whether there is any circumstance in which the trailing candidate can catch up to the candidate who is leading the race. If not, then the leading candidate has won.

Here’s a look at the AP’s role and its process for determining the outcome of elections, also known as calling a race:

Why AP calls races

The United States does not have a nationwide body that collects and releases election results. Elections are administered locally, by thousands of offices, following standards set by the states. In many cases, the states themselves do not even offer up-to-date tracking of election results.

The AP fills this gap by compiling vote results and declaring winners in elections, providing critical information in the period between Election Day and the official certification of results, which typically takes weeks.

Collecting the vote

The AP’s vote count brings together information that otherwise might not be available online for days or weeks after an election or is scattered across hundreds of local websites. Without national standards or consistent expectations across states, it also ensures the data is in a standard format, uses standard terms and undergoes rigorous quality control.

The AP hires vote count reporters who work with local election officials to collect results directly from counties or precincts where votes are first counted. These reporters submit them, by phone or electronically, as soon as the results are available. If any of the results are available from state or county websites, the AP will gather the results from there, too.

In many cases, counties will update vote totals as they count ballots throughout the night. The AP is continually updating its count as these results are released. In a general election, the AP will make as many as 21,000 vote updates per hour.

Analyzing the vote

As votes are coming in, the AP will analyze races to determine the winners.

One key piece that the AP considers is how many ballots are uncounted and from what areas. In cases in which official or exact tallies of the outstanding vote are unavailable, the AP estimates the turnout in every race based on several factors and uses that estimate to track how much of the vote has been counted and how much remains.

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The AP also tries to determine how ballots counted so far were cast and the types of vote, such as mail ballots or ballots cast in person on Election Day, that remain.

That is because the method that voters choose can be correlated to the party they voted for. Since voting by mail became highly politicized in the 2020 election, Democrats have been more likely to vote by mail, while Republicans have been more likely to vote in person on Election Day.

In many states, it is possible to know which votes will be counted first, based on past elections or plans announced by election officials. In others, votes are clearly marked by type when released.

This helps to determine if an early lead is expected to shrink or grow. For example, if a state first counts votes cast in person on Election Day, followed by mail-in votes, that suggests that an early Republican lead may narrow as more mail ballots are tabulated. But if mail ballots are counted first, an early Republican lead could be the first sign of a comfortable victory.

Calling races

In almost all cases, races can be called well before all votes have been counted. The AP’s team of election journalists and analysts will call a race as soon as a clear winner can be determined.

In competitive races, AP analysts may need to wait until additional votes are tallied or to confirm specific information about how many ballots are left to count.

Competitive races in which votes are actively being tabulated — for example, in states that count a large number of votes after election night — might be considered “too early to call.” A race may be “too close to call” if a race is so close that there is no clear winner even once all ballots except for provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots have been counted.

The AP’s race calls are not predictions and are not based on speculation. They are declarations based on an analysis of vote results and other election data that one candidate has emerged as the winner and that no other candidate in the race will be able to overtake the winner once all the votes have been counted.

Follow along as the AP tabulates votes and calls races. Check out results pages and notes from the AP Decision Team.

By DEEPA BHARATH

Holi, widely known as the Hindu festival of colors, is a joyful annual celebration at the advent of spring with cultural and religious significance.

Typically observed in March in India, Nepal, other South Asian countries and across the diaspora, the festival celebrates love and signifies a time of rebirth and rejuvenation — a time to embrace the positive and let go of negative energy.

For one of Holi’s most well-known traditions, celebrants clad in all white, come out to the street and throw colored powders at each other, leaving behind a kaleidoscope of pigments and joy. Festivities with music, dancing and food ensue.

Holi is celebrated at the end of winter and the beginning of spring, on the last full moon day of the Hindu luni-solar calendar month of Falgun. The date of the festival varies depending on the lunar cycle. Typically, it falls in March, and will be celebrated this year on March 4.

Holi has its origins in Hindu mythology and lore

In many parts of India, people light large bonfires the night before the festival to signify the destruction of evil and victory of good. Different mythological tales point to the reason behind this observance.

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In one story, the king, Hiranyakashipu, ordered everyone in his kingdom to worship him and was irked when his own son Prahlad, a devotee of Lord Vishnu, disobeyed his command. So, he ordered his sister Holika who was immune from fire to take the child, Prahlad, into a bonfire while holding him in her lap. However, when the pyre was lit, the boy’s devotion to Lord Vishnu protected him and left him unscathed while Holika, despite her immunity, burned to death.

In another southern India tradition, the event is known as Kama Dahanam to commemorate Lord Shiva burning Kamadeva, the god of love, with his third eye. It symbolizes the destruction of lust and other earthly attachments for a higher spiritual purpose, preceding the joy of colors.

Some also consider Holi a reference to Lord Krishna and his love for his beloved, Radha, and his cosmic play with his consorts and devotees called “gopikas,” who are also revered for their unconditional love and devotion to Krishna.

How is the festival of colors celebrated?

On the day of Holi, entire streets and towns are filled with people who throw colored powder in the air. Some fling balloons filled with colored water from rooftops and others use squirt guns. For one day, it’s all fair game. Cries of “Holi hai!” which means “It’s Holi!” can be heard on the streets. Holi has also been romanticized and popularized over the decades in Bollywood films.

The colors seen during Holi symbolize different things. Blue represents the color of Lord Krishna’s skin while green symbolizes spring and rebirth. Red symbolizes marriage or fertility while both red and yellow — commonly used in ritual and ceremony — symbolize auspiciousness.

An array of special foods are part of the celebration, with the most popular food during Holi being “gujia,” a flaky, deep-fried sweet pastry stuffed with milk curd, nuts and dried fruits. Holi parties also feature “thandai,” a cold drink prepared with a mix of almonds, fennel seeds, rose petals, poppy seeds, saffron, milk and sugar.

Holi is celebrated in the diaspora with worship and social gatherings

In North America and in any country with a Hindu population, people of Indian descent celebrate Holi with Bollywood parties and parades, as well as a host of public and private gatherings. Several U.S. temples will observe Holika Dahan this year on Feb. 2 or Feb. 3 to coincide with the full moon day and a total lunar eclipse, which is rare.

It is also common for Hindu temples and community centers in the U.S to organize cultural programs, friendly cricket matches and other festivities around the holiday.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.