Officials in Oak Park Heights have declared a state of emergency as crews work to repair a municipal water main break between Lookout Trail and Peacan Avenue.

The break has caused underground water loss and excessive pumping of water from the city’s wells, with water losses appearing to be in excess of tens of thousands of gallons per day, city officials said, leading to the risk of underground erosion and loss of water service to residents if the condition worsens.

The repair, which is expected to cost $175,000, is complicated because the water main traverses between private properties and the topography is challenging, said City Administrator Jacob Rife. The water main is buried more than 20 feet deep in one area, requiring a larger excavation pit than normal, he said.

Making the repair even more complicated is the fact that excavators encountered large pieces of concrete and rebar construction debris – believed to be part of an old, demolished highway project — buried in the area, he said. In addition, there is a private garage directly adjacent to the dig site that complicated the excavation, he said.

Because of the challenges, city officials have decided to use a more-expensive “cured-in-place” polymer pipe liner to ensure the section is properly repaired, he said. Because there are only a few contractors who do that kind of work, city officials needed to declare a state of emergency to allow the city to move forward with a contract that is not subject to normal purchasing and competitive-bidding requirements, according to Rife.

“We want to make sure it gets fixed promptly and also want to make sure we have a solution that will last for the long term,” Rife said.

The current pipe was constructed in 1976, and “it’s had a good run,” he said. “It’s just in a unique location. You don’t expect a water main to be running in the road right of way and running through people’s back yards.”

The repair project is expected to start April 22 and continue until the end of the month, he said.

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When the Twin Cities were chosen as host for the 2026 World Junior Hockey Championship, St. Paul and Minneapolis checked every box the organizers needed to put on a top-notch show for fans from around the world.

For USA Hockey, one of the boxes checked was an experienced coach on-site who already has a World Juniors gold medal on his resume.

On Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center, site of the World Juniors finale in January 2026, Gophers coach Bob Motzko traded in his maroon and gold for familiar shades of red, white and blue as he was announced as the American squad’s head coach. It will be his third turn running the team comprising the nation’s top players under age 20.

“I’m so grateful to USA Hockey to have this opportunity,” Motzko said during a news conference in the Xcel Energy Center lobby. “I’ve been able to coach in this tournament before and … it is truly the greatest tournament, outside of the Olympics, in all of hockey.”

Motzko offered a memory of the 2017 tournament when the U.S. beat Canada in Montreal for the gold medal. The challenge prior to that was trying to stop a talented Russian teenager named Kirill Kaprizov.

In addition to his seven seasons as the Gophers’ head coach, and his 13 seasons running the St. Cloud State program, Motzko was Team USA’s head coach for World Juniors in 2017 and 2018, winning gold and bronze medals, respectively. Retired legendary American goalie John Vanbiesbrouck, general manager of Team USA, joked that he needed to get Motzko in a headlock to convince him to take the job a third time.

“We’ve been on a lot of foreign soil for this tournament in the past few years, and we haven’t hosted,” Vanbiesbrouck said. “We needed somebody with his experience, his leadership, and obviously it was a perfect fit.”

During his time with the Gophers, Motzko has a 161-82-21 record, winning Big Ten titles in four of the past five seasons, and taking Minnesota to the Frozen Four twice.

In addition to being the “home” team for World Juniors, which are being held in the Twin Cities for the first time since 1982, Team USA enters the tournament as the two-time defending gold medalists, with University of Denver coach David Carle leading the Americans to the title in 2024 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and earlier this year in Ottawa, Ontario.

Motzko’s staff is expected to include Gophers assistant coach Steve Miller, who has worked with Team USA in eight of the past nine World Juniors, and has amassed a resume that includes a bronze medal, a silver medal and four gold medals.

The process of picking the 25 or so players who will represent USA Hockey begins in earnest in late July when the World Junior Summer Showcase will be held over the course of a week at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis. The tournament will include teams from the USA, Canada, Finland and Sweden playing a series of scrimmages. Schedule and ticket information for those games will be available later this month.

“Outside of pro hockey, it’s probably the most intense tournament and most highly publicized tournament,” said Minnesota Wild coach John Hynes, who coached Team USA at the 2008 World Juniors. “The opportunity to represent your country, to work with the best junior players, and then going against the best junior players around the world in a best-on-best tournament, it’s an awesome experience.”

The 2026 World Juniors will begin in December with a series of pre-tournament games played in Mankato, Bemidji and two other sites yet to be named. The official tournament schedule is not available yet, but ticket packages are on sale at the mnsportsandevents.org website.

The tournament’s round robin round begins on Dec. 26. In total, there will be 29 games played at Xcel and at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis over the course of 10 days featuring teams from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, Czechia, Latvia and Denmark. The gold medal game is scheduled for Jan. 5, 2026, in St. Paul.

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By JUAN A. LOZANO

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas judge on Tuesday threw out a federal rule that would have capped credit card late fees after officials with President Donald Trump’s administration and a coalition of major banking groups agreed that the rule was illegal.

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The ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth came a day after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a collection of major industry groups that had filed a lawsuit last year to stop the rule announced they had come to an agreement to throw out the rule. The groups that sued included the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The banks and other groups had alleged the new rule — proposed last year under the administration of President Joe Biden — violated the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure or CARD Act of 2009, which was enacted to protect consumers from unfair practices by credit card companies. The groups claimed the new rule did not allow credit card issuers “to charge fees that sufficiently account for deterrence or consumer conduct, including with respect to repeat violations.”

“The parties agree that, in the Late Fee Rule, the Bureau violated the CARD Act by failing to allow card issuers to ‘charge penalty fees reasonable and proportional to violations,’” attorneys with the CFPB wrote in a joint motion on Monday with the banking groups to vacate the rule.

The banks have been pushing hard to stop the late fee rule, due to the potential billions of dollars the banks would lose in revenue. The CFPB estimated when it issued the proposal last year that banks brought in roughly $14 billion in credit card late fees a year.

“This is a win for consumers and common sense. If the CFPB’s rule had gone into effect, it would have resulted in more late payments, lower credit scores, higher interest rates and reduced credit access for those who need it most. It would have also penalized the millions of Americans who pay their credit card bills on time and reduced important incentives for consumers to manage their finances,” the banking groups and others said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Even if the lawsuit had gone forward, the banking groups had a good chance of winning as Pittman in a December ruling had said they would have likely prevailed as he found that the new rule violated the CARD Act by not allowing credit card issuers to charge penalty fees that are reasonable and proportional to violations.

The CFPB has been in turmoil since the Trump administration earlier this year began dismantling it, targeting it for mass firings and dropping various enforcement actions against companies like Capital One and Rocket Homes. A federal judge last month issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily stopped the agency’s demise.

The CFPB was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices by a wide range of financial institutions and businesses.

Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at juanlozano70

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has been placed on administrative leave and was escorted out of the Pentagon by security on Tuesday, two defense officials said.

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The officials said Caldwell’s sudden downfall was tied to an investigation into unauthorized disclosure of department information. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Caldwell, who served in the Marine Corps, was one of several senior advisers who worked closely with Hegseth. Caldwell’s ties to the secretary go back to Hegseth’s time as the head of Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit that fell into financial difficulty during his time there. Caldwell worked at CVA beginning in 2013 as policy director and later as executive director.

AUSTIN, TX – JULY 6: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), right, with moderator Dan Caldwell, Director of Concerned Veterans of America, holds a town hall meeting to address veteran’s and health care issues on July 6, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)

He also was the staff member designated as Hegseth’s point person in the Signal messaging chat that top Trump administration national security officials, including Hegseth, used to convey plans for a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen. The chat, set up by national security adviser Michael Waltz, included a number of top Cabinet members and came to light because Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, was added to the group.

The officials did not disclose what leaks are being investigated, but there has been a crackdown across the Pentagon and the Trump administration on the disclosure of sensitive or classified information.

Caldwell’s ouster was first reported by Reuters.

On March 21, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, said in a memo that the Pentagon was investigating what it said were leaks of national security information. Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs.

The memo referred to “recent unauthorized disclosures” but provided no details. Kasper warned that the investigation would begin immediately and result in a report to Hegseth.

“I expect to be informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution,” Kasper said in the memo.

Caldwell, who graduated from Arizona State University in 2011, also worked as a public policy adviser at Defense Priorities, a think tank based in Washington.