An administrative law judge has rejected a complaint filed by Peter Butler against Rick Varco, the sole remaining board member with the St. Paul DFL, alleging violations of the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act in advance of the Nov. 4 election.

Fliers for two “Vote Yes!” campaigns photographed on Oct. 27, 2025 show that the St. Paul DFL supported both the special school district property tax levy and a charter amendment related to administrative citations. (Frederick Melo / Pioneer Press)

The Oct. 27 complaint alleged that Varco violated a provision of the act when the “Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul” campaign sent out a recent mailer urging voters to approve a ballot amendment to the city charter that would allow the city council to create new administrative citations, or non-criminal penalties for violations of city ordinances. Varco serves as the campaign’s treasurer.

The mailer — like another mailer in support of a school district tax levy from the “Vote Yes For Strong Schools” committee — listed the St. Paul DFL among a series of labor unions and progressive organizations supporting a “yes” vote. Butler called the label misleading, noting the citywide DFL party unit is on hiatus, has no chair or vice chair and rescinded its constitution in August.

Butler, in his complaint, “alleges that Varco knew that this claim was false when the mailer was prepared and disseminated.”

On Thursday, Judge James LaFave of the Minnesota Court of Administrative Hearings found insufficient initial or “prima facie” evidence to allow a hearing to move forward, noting nothing in Butler’s complaint showed or even alleged Varco had any involvement with creating the mailers.

“The statute specifically prohibits a ‘person or candidate’ from making a false claim,” reads the judge’s opinion. “Yet, the complaint does not allege that respondent had any direct role in preparing the content of or distributing the mailer. In fact, the complaint does not allege any connection between respondent and the making of the allegedly false claim of support.”

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Acting in place of the St. Paul DFL, the Ramsey County DFL drew together some two dozen members of St. Paul’s four DFL Senate districts for a Sept. 28 vote of support for both ballot questions. Both votes of support passed unanimously.

In addition to the school district property tax levy and the charter amendment, the St. Paul ballot will feature the mayor’s race. The election is Tuesday.

More information about the Nov. 4 election — including how to vote — can be found at twincities.com/news/politics/elections.

By TODD RICHMOND

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Find a shady spot under a tree, take a breath of fresh air and call me in the morning.

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Health care providers have long suggested stressed-out patients spend time outdoors. Now hundreds of providers are going a step further and issuing formal prescriptions to get outside. The tactic is gaining momentum as social media, political strife and wars abroad weigh on the American psyche.

Of course, no one needs a prescription to get outside, but some doctors think that issuing the advice that way helps people take it seriously.

“When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful,” said Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who started issuing nature prescriptions after discovering time outdoors soothed her following her husband’s death.

Getting outdoors can improve your health

Spending time in natural areas can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones and boost immunity, multiple studies have found.

“Study after study says we’re wired to be out in nature,” said Dr. Brent Bauer, who serves as director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program focuses on practices that usually aren’t part of conventional medicine, such as meditation, acupuncture, massage and nutrition. “That’s more than just ‘Woo-woo, I think nature is cool.’ There’s actually science.”

Telling someone to go outside is one thing. The follow-through is something else. Starting about a decade ago, health care providers began formalizing suggestions to get outside through prescriptions.

Dr. Robert Zarr, who doubles as a nature guide, launched an organization called Park Rx America around 2016, offering providers protocols for prescribing nature outings. The guidelines call for talking with patients about what they like to do outside — walking, sitting under a tree, maybe just watching leaves fall — how often to do it and where to go. That all then gets included in a prescription, and Park Rx America sends patients reminders.

Nearly 2,000 providers have registered with the organization across the U.S. and a number of other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and Spain. They’ve issued more than 7,000 nature prescriptions since 2019, said Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer, Park Rx America’s associate medical director. About 100 other organizations similar to Park Rx America have sprung up around the U.S., she said.

A nature prescription can motivate

Bauer specializes in treating CEOs and other business leaders. He said he issues about 30 nature prescriptions every year. The chief executives he treats sometimes don’t even know where to begin and a prescription can give them a jump start, he said.

“I recommend a lot of things to a lot of patients,” he said. “I’m not under the illusion all of them get enacted. When I get a prescription, someone hands me a piece of paper and says you must take this medication … I’m a lot more likely to activate that.”

Hackenmiller, the Iowa gynecologist, said she’s having more discussions with patients about getting outside as a means of escaping a world locked in perpetual conflict.

“When so many things are out of our control, it can be helpful to step away from the media and immerse ourselves in nature,” she said. “I think time in nature often resonates with people as something they have found solace in and have gravitated to in other times in their life.”

Getting outside is the important part

The effectiveness of nature prescriptions is unclear. A 2020 joint study by the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University concluded that more work was needed to gauge follow-through and long-term health outcomes.

But unless you’re choking on wildfire smoke or swatting swarms of mosquitoes, getting outside — no matter what motivates you — can be helpful.

FILE – In this March 5, 2020 photo, hikers head across a dune in White Sands National Park at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)

At William & Mary college in Williamsburg, Virginia, students issue nature prescriptions to their peers. “Patients” obtain prescriptions by filling out online applications indicating how far they’ll travel to get to a park, times they can visit, whether they need a ride and favorite outdoor activities.

Students issued an average of 22 online prescriptions per month in 2025, up from 12 per month in 2020.

Kelsey Wakiyama, a senior, grew up hiking trails around her home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with her family and their dog, Duke. When she started her freshman year in Williamsburg, she didn’t know where to walk. She saw an advertisement for nature prescriptions in the weekly student email and eventually got one that helped her find trails near campus.

“I love the greenery,” Wakiyama said. “When you’re sitting inside — I was in the library for four hours today — the fresh air feels very nice. It calms my nervous system, definitely. I associate being outside with a lightness, a calmness, good memories. That kind of comes back to me when I’m outside.”

By JILL LAWLESS and BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — British politicians, the public and the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre praised King Charles III’s decision to strip his brother Andrew of his princely title and spacious home, a banishment that has left the disgraced royal increasingly exposed to political and legal scrutiny over his finances and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

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The king acted to stem mounting public disapproval as damning new details emerged about Andrew’s relationship with the convicted sex offender. Charles moved to preserve the monarchy from the fallout by forcibly removing a British prince’s title for the first time in a century.

Julian Payne, a former communications secretary to the king and queen, said that, as the scandal around 65-year-old Andrew grew and grew, the royal family had decided that “a tipping point had been reached.”

The former Prince Andrew is now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. As of Friday, he was no longer listed on the roll of the peerage, where he had previously appeared as Duke of York, another of his titles.

He also will move out of Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle where he has lived for more than 20 years, and into a more remote home funded by his brother on the king’s 20,000-acre (8,100 hectare) Sandringham Estate in eastern England.

Locals were not overjoyed about their soon-to-be neighor.

“Well, he’s got to go somewhere. It is what it is, isn’t it?” said Vanessa Beech. She said the king had “most certainly” made the right decision about Andrew.

Politicians welcome move

The British government, which was consulted but not directly involved, welcomed the king’s decision.

“We warmly, I warmly support what the king is doing today,” trade minister Chris Bryant told the BBC. “I think the vast majority of people in this country will think that it’s the right thing to do.”

Andrew surrendered his use of the title Duke of York earlier this month over new revelations about his friendship with Epstein and renewed sexual abuse allegations in Giuffre’s posthumous memoir. Andrew denies all her claims.

But the king went even further to punish him for serious lapses of judgment by removing the title of prince that he has held since birth as a child of a monarch, the late Queen Elizabeth II. Andrew also lost the designation “his royal highness,” making the former prince effectively a commoner now.

“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace said. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

It is almost unprecedented for a British prince or princess to be stripped of that title. It last happened in 1919, when Prince Ernest Augustus, who was a U.K. royal and also a prince of Hanover, had his British title removed for siding with Germany during World War I.

Calls for further investigation

Giuffre’s family declared victory on behalf of Andrew’s accuser, who died by suicide in April at the age of 41. She said that in the early 2000s, when she was a teenager, she was caught up in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring and exploited by Andrew and other influential men. Epstein was found dead in a New York City jail cell in 2019 in what investigators called a suicide.

“Today, an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family, brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage,” Giuffre’s family said in a statement.

Her brother Sky Roberts said Andrew should face further investigation.

“We need to take it one more step further: he needs to be behind bars, period,” Roberts told the BBC.

Bryant, the government minister, said that Andrew was now an “ordinary member of the public,” and should agree to answer questions about Epstein in the U.S.

“If Andrew is asked to do something by a Senate committee, then I would have thought that he would want to comply,” Bryant said.

Andrew could face legal trouble in Britain, where police are investigating a claim that he asked one of this police bodyguards to dig up dirt on Giuffre.

A committee of U.K. lawmakers is also looking into how Andrew paid for Royal Lodge, which he leased for a nominal annual fee — known as a “peppercorn rent.”

Andrew’s is the most dramatic royal exit since 1936, when King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. The couple were given the titles Duke and Duchess of Windsor and lived the rest of their lives in exile.

Prince Harry, despite renouncing his royal role, feuding with his family and moving to California, remains a prince and the Duke of Sussex.

Andrew faced a new round of public outrage after emails emerged earlier this month showing he had remained in contact with Epstein longer than he previously admitted.

Then came publication of “Nobody’s Girl,” by Giuffre, who alleged she had sex with Andrew three times, the first when she was 17. She said he acted as if he believed “having sex with me was his birthright.”

Andrew has long denied Giuffre’s claims, but stepped down from royal duties after a disastrous November 2019 BBC interview in which he attempted to rebut her allegations.

In 2022, Andrew paid millions to settle a civil suit filed by Giuffre in New York.

Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said the king and senior royals were “fearful of remaining out of step with public opinion” as they “attempt to restore credibility and trust in an ancient institution.”

A few weeks ago, I was about to pay the HVAC technician who had repaired my home’s heat pump. Out of habit, I pulled a credit card from my wallet — I figured I’d earn rewards on this pricey transaction — but then the tech warned me that his company assesses a 3% surcharge on credit card payments. Thankful for the heads-up, I wrote him a check instead.

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Credit card surcharges aren’t new, but they’re becoming more common. According to J.D. Power’s 2025 U.S. Merchant Services Satisfaction Study, “34% of merchants are adding surcharges for customer purchases made using credit cards.” Compare that number to just a year before, when 20% of merchants reported assessing surcharges, per a 2024 State of the Industry Report from CMSPI, a payments consultancy firm.

Surcharging at restaurants, in particular, can at times feel like the rule, not the exception. One Reddit thread from August 2025 pointedly asked: “Since when did 3% CC [credit card] fees at restaurants become the new normal?” In other words, why now?

Several factors are at play, but a short version is that it’s simply become more expensive, over time, for businesses to accept credit cards, and surcharges help offset those costs.

The practice, though, is changing the math for users of rewards credit cards. While it used to be a no-brainer to pick up the tab with a card that earns a flat 2% back, now that same decision on a bill with a 3% surcharge could result in a loss.

“We’re approaching a tipping point where consumers are actively saying they won’t pay the surcharge,” says Don Apgar, director of the merchant payments practice at Javelin Strategy & Research.

In the moment — stuck in the restaurant booth when the check arrives — you don’t exactly have much of a choice. But you do have longer-term options.

» MORE: NerdWallet’s best credit cards for restaurants

Why surcharges exist

The payment processing company Stripe defines a surcharge as “an additional fee that a business may add to a transaction when a customer pays with a credit card,” meant to recoup “the costs that the business incurs for processing credit card payments.” These costs to businesses, known as interchange fees, totaled more than $160 billion in 2022, according to Stripe.

Interchange fees are set by the payment networks that credit cards run on: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. The rewards that your credit card earns — cash back, points or miles — are largely funded by those interchange fees. As such, merchants generally pay more in interchange fees to accept rewards cards as a payment method. Apgar estimates that 75% of the credit cards that consumers pay with today earn rewards.

It’s become a flashpoint in the payments industry, pitting credit card companies against merchants. The former argue they’re providing an essential service and that interchange fees are simply the cost of doing business, while the latter argue that those costs are spiraling out of control.

Lawmakers, too, are paying attention. In 2022, the Credit Card Competition Act was introduced in Congress. It aims to create more competition in the credit card payment network market, which supporters argue would lead to lower interchange costs for merchants. The bill hasn’t passed, but supporters continue to push for it every year.

Why they’re ‘becoming de facto’

So for now, merchants are leaning on surcharges to defray interchange fees, when they can. Some states ban surcharging outright, while others allow it as long as merchants abide by certain rules.

For example, businesses must tell their customers — through written or verbal notices — if they impose a surcharge for credit card payments. And in general, surcharges cannot exceed the limit set by the payment network that the card runs on. (You may have encountered such language on a restaurant bill: “Non-cash adjustments are not greater than our cost of acceptance.”)

It’s a patchwork system that can be hard to follow for both customers and merchants. And on top of that, rewards credit cards are getting even more generous for consumers — and thus more expensive for businesses to accept.

“U.S. cardholders have an insatiable appetite for rewards and benefits,” says John Cabell, managing director of payments intelligence at J.D. Power. “We continue to see an upward spiral for rewards, cash back percentages [and] the number of rewards categories.”

Cabell also believes the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the surcharging trend. “Since the pandemic, additional fees and charges have become more commonplace,” he says. For instance, some restaurants that remained open during the pandemic tacked on a COVID-related surcharge to make up for the extra costs required to operate safely.

Today, restaurants may be more inclined to surcharge with the recent memory that their patrons were willing to pay extra fees before.

“Surcharging was few and far between … but now it’s becoming de facto,” Apgar says.

What are your options?

‘Do the math’

When faced with a surcharge, you could opt to pay the bill with cash, check or debit card, instead of credit. You won’t be alone. J.D. Power’s 2025 U.S. Merchant Services Satisfaction Study found that “41% of credit card users … decided not to use a card payment method at a large or small business because of a surcharge.”

If you insist on paying with a credit card, try to use one whose rewards outweigh the surcharge. And remember, it’s not always about the percentages. To come out ahead on a restaurant tab with a 3% surcharge, a card that earns 3% cash back on dining would cover you — but so might a card that earns 2 points back per $1 at restaurants, depending on how much those points are worth. For that matter, so might a card with a large welcome bonus that you’re trying to snag.

“You have to do the math to figure out if it’s worth it based on the type of rewards and benefits you’re pursuing,” Cabell says.

Stack rewards

Use a card that earns bonus rewards on dining, then “stack” those savings with a cash-back app or card-linked offer.

Chain restaurants and local eateries alike are often featured in both.

Flag improper charges

If you suspect a restaurant is illegally surcharging, you can dispute the charge by filing a complaint with the card issuer, who will escalate it to the payment network and then the payment processor for that particular merchant.

You could also file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or your state’s attorney general. To recover a surcharge, you could ask for a refund from the restaurant, or go to small claims court. However, Cabell warns that it could “take a real effort for a very small amount of money.”

Go next door

If you see a sign on the door or menu mentioning a “non-cash service fee” or a “discount for all cash purchases,” you could walk out and take your business elsewhere.

That’s cold comfort to, say, foodies who love trying out the latest trendy spots, surcharges be darned. In that case, it may help to keep in mind that rewards are only one benefit of paying with a credit card. You’ll also get stronger fraud protections, easier budget tracking and opportunities for credit-building. Depending on the card and the purchase, you may also get insurance coverage or extended warranties.

Whether it’s worth paying a surcharge for those benefits is up to you.

Jae Bratton writes for NerdWallet. Email: jbratton@nerdwallet.com.

The article Restaurant Surcharges Are Changing the Math for Credit Card Rewards originally appeared on NerdWallet.