July 17, 2025 8:48 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Connie Francis, the wholesome pop star of the 1950s and 1960s whose hits include “Pretty Little Baby” and who would later serve as an ironic title for a personal life filled with heartbreak and tragedy, has died at age 87. Her death was announced Thursday by her friend and publicist, Ron Roberts, who didn’t immediately provide additional details. Francis was a top performer of the pre-Beatles era, rarely off the charts from 1957-64. Able to appeal to both young people and adults, she had more than a dozen top 20 hits, starting with “Who’s Sorry Now?” and including the No. 1 songs “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You” and “The Heart Has a Mind of Its Own.”
July 16, 2025 2:35 pm
KUT, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi officials say a fire engulfed a newly opened shopping center in eastern Iraq, killing more than 60 people in eastern Wasit province. Iraq’s Ministry of Interior said civil defense teams rescued more than 45 people who became trapped when the fire broke out late Wednesday in the city of Kut. The ministry says 14 charred bodies remain unidentified. The provincial governor declared three days of mourning and says the cause of the fire is still under investigation but that legal cases were filed against the building owner and shopping center owner. He did not specify what the charges were. He also said that no government official has resigned or been dismissed as a result of the fire, and that they are currently awaiting the results of the investigation. The results of the preliminary investigation will be released within 48 hours, he said.
July 16, 2025 3:36 pm
LONDON (AP) — Britain has announced plans to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 before the next national election. The center-left Labour Party pledged before it was elected in July 2024 to lower the voting age for elections to Britain’s Parliament. The government announced the move on Thursday as part of efforts to boost democratic participation. Scotland and Wales already allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections. Britain will join the short list of countries where the voting age is 16, alongside the likes of Austria, Brazil and Ecuador. Additional reforms include automatic voter registration and allowing bank cards as voter ID. Officials also aim to tighten campaign financing rules in an attempt to prevent foreign interference. The changes still require parliamentary approval. The next election is due by 2029.
July 16, 2025 2:13 pm
SOUTH STRABANE TOWNSHIP, Pa. — A man is facing charges of endangering the welfare of children, recklessly endangering another person and leaving a child unattended in a vehicle, after police said he left an infant and a toddler inside a hot car in the parking lot of the Trinity Point Walmart in Washington. Police said two girls, 9 months old and 3 years old, had been in the car for about 45 minutes. The 3-year-old was unresponsive. The children were taken to a hospital to be cared for. The girls’ mother told police that the children were left in the care of Fritzson Charles. Charles was arrested and taken to the Washington County Prison, where he was denied bail
July 16, 2025 1:29 am
A Canon McMillan High School teacher and former varsity golf coach has been arraigned on charges of allegedly having a sexual relationship with one of his students. Forty-eight-year-old Justin Harry White is facing several charges, including 13 counts of institutional sexual assault. Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh says an investigation by North Strabane Township Police uncovered thousands of texts and emails between White and the victim, which were described as a “daily sexual, romantic and inappropriate for a student-teacher relationship.” Authorities said White and the victim, who was a senior at the time, had multiple sexual encounters, including in White’s classroom, a parking lot three miles from the high school and at the soccer fields in North Strabane Township. North Strabane Township Police say White is being held in the Washington County Jail on a 150-thousand-dollar straight bond. His preliminary hearing has been set for August 5th. (Photo: WPXI)
July 16, 2025 2:07 am
The idea of a personal warehouse development has been working its way to reality for more than a year in North Strabane Township. One additional step has been accomplished. Supervisors held a public hearing about amending the ordnance that permits a personal warehouse in the C-1 commercial district with regards to parking limits. Supervisors will entertain passage of the amendment that states that parking must be provided for one car for every 400 square feet of warehouse space. That is up from the original one car per 300 square feet of warehouse space. Additionally, a parking space in front of the door of each unit will not be counted in the total parking requirement. Township Manager Andrew Walz says the purpose is to try an minimize a “sea of asphalt” that is created when the parking is not utilized. He says it creates difficulty with storm water management. Another change is that there will be a five-acre minimum lot size for any personal warehouse development. CC Realty Advisors is the developer of the personal warehose. It is proposed for the corner of Morganza and Curry Roads. Supervisors could possibly vote on the changes in their August meeting.
July 16, 2025 4:50 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) — President Donald Trump is touting tens of billions of dollars of energy and tech investments at a new summit focusing on energy and innovation. At the event Tuesday in Pittsburgh helmed by Republican Sen. David McCormick, Trump boasted of a “true golden age for America” in energy policy and artificial intelligence. Pennsylvania is a swing state critical to Trump’s wins in 2016 and 2024, and is at the forefront of his energy agenda. In a panel discussion, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Trump administration won’t let the U.S. lose the artificial intelligence race. Participating companies at the conference included Blackstone, Bridgewater, SoftBank, Amazon Web Services and ExxonMobil.
July 16, 2025 4:52 am
Vice President JD Vance was in the swing political turf of northeastern Pennsylvania to begin selling President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget-and-policy package. Vance’s stop Wednesday in West Pittston is in a working-class district that could see a ferocious congressional campaign next year. Vance’s tiebreaking vote got the bill through the Senate, and he has promoted the bill’s passage as another example of the Trump administration’s “promises made, promises kept.” Debate over the package is expected to shape the 2026 midterm battle for control of the House of Representatives, which Democrats see as their best opportunity to block Trump’s agenda in his final two years in the Oval Office.
July 16, 2025 5:30 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he plans to place tariffs of over 10% on smaller countries, including nations in Africa and the Caribbean. “We’ll probably set one tariff for all of them,” Trump said Tuesday, adding that it could be “a little over 10% tariff” on goods from at least 100 nations. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick interjected that the nations with goods being taxed at these rates would be in Africa and the Caribbean, places that generally do relatively modest levels of trade with the U.S. and would be relatively insignificant for addressing Trump’s goals of reducing trade imbalances with the rest of the world.
July 16, 2025 5:27 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation rose last month to its highest level since February as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs push up the cost of a range of goods, including furniture, clothing, and large appliances. Consumer prices rose 2.7% in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday, up from an annual increase of 2.4% in May. Worsening inflation poses a political challenge for Trump, who promised during last year’s presidential campaign to immediately lower costs only to engage in a whipsawed frenzy of tariffs. Trump has declared that the U.S. effectively has no more inflation as he has attempted to pressure Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell into cutting short-term interest rates.
