July 18, 2025 9:34 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a day after the newspaper published a story reporting on his ties to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. The controversy has created a major fissure between Trump and his loyal base, with some of his most vocal supporters slamming the White House for the way it has handled the case, and questioning why Trump would not want the documents made public. The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in Miami. It seeks at least $10 billion in damages. The move came shortly after the Justice Department asked a federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in Epstein’s sex trafficking case. The Trump administration is trying to contain a firestorm that erupted after it previously announced it would not be releasing additional government files from the case.
July 18, 2025 8:57 pm
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela has released 10 jailed Americans in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The arrangement represents a diplomatic achievement for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad. El Salvador will send back some 300 Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration agreed to pay $6 million to house in a notorious Salvadoran prison. The arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law to quickly remove men his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang.
July 18, 2025 3:29 pm
(WPXI) PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Regional Transit is reminding drivers that enforcement on the new red bus lanes in Downtown Pittsburgh will begin on Sunday. PRT said that Port Authority Police have been issuing warnings since the lanes were installed last month. According to Pennsylvania law, drivers using bus-only lanes may be issued a citation of $25 with associated fees that will bring the total cost to nearly $200. All private vehicles are prohibited from entering, stopping or parking in the bus lanes, even if it’s briefly. “These dedicated bus lanes are reserved exclusively for buses and emergency vehicles and are clearly marked to ensure the smooth and efficient flow of public transit. Drivers should pay close attention to street signage and lane markings to avoid violations,” PRT said in a release.
July 18, 2025 3:09 pm
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor, his press office has confirmed. The development on Friday came as federal police conducted searches at his home and his party’s headquarters in Brasília. The former president is facing trial at the Supreme Court for allegedly leading a coup attempt to overturn the 2022 election. Bolsonaro has called the trial a “witch hunt,” echoing statements by former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has defended him. On Tuesday, Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet said in a report to the Supreme Court that the “evidence is clear: the defendant acted systematically, throughout his mandate and after his defeat at the polls, to incite insurrection and the destabilization of the democratic rule of law.” (Photo: AP)
July 18, 2025 2:25 pm
Two Weirton residents, 29 year old Ashley Shelton and 34 year old Joshua Lockerbie, were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the drowning of Reese Hanshaw in the Ohio River last month. Hanshaw was a 13 year old girl from Burgettstown. On June 30, police said the pair brought six children, as young as 4 and as old as 13, to swim in the river near the Veterans Memorial Bridge. According to Weirton Police, Officer Adam Mortimer responded quickly and entered the river to bring Reese ashore. Life-saving efforts were immediately performed by first responders transporting Reese to Weirton Medical Center, where she later died. Family members said that Reese was pulled away by the current while trying to help her younger cousin out of the water. Authorities said there were no flotation devices, and both Lockerbie and Shelton knew that none of the children were strong swimmers. They’ve been charged with child neglect causing death and gross neglect of a child creating a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury. They’re being held in a West Virginia jail on $150,000 bail.
July 18, 2025 2:06 pm
(AP) An explosion early Friday at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles that left three people dead was being investigated as a possible training accident. Officials said the explosion was reported around 7:30 a.m. at the Biscailuz Training Facility. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Nicole Nishida said three members of the department died. It was not immediately known what caused the explosion or what the department members were doing at the time. An early line of the investigation was looking at a possible training accident, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the matter who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. (Photo: AP)
July 18, 2025 5:23 am
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are in merger talks to create the largest railroad in North America that would connect the East and West Coasts. A person familiar with the talks who isn’t authorized to discuss them publicly said the merger discussions began during the first quarter of this year. Both railroads declined to comment. Within the industry there is widespread debate over whether such a merger would be approved by the Surface Transportation Board even though those regulators approved the deal that created CPKC railroad two years ago. The bar for major railroad mergers in the U.S. was raised substantially after several disastrous deals in the 1990s that snarled traffic.
July 18, 2025 5:19 am
CBS is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May, shuttering a decades-old TV institution and removing from air one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent late-night critics. The announcement came three days after Colbert spoke out against Paramount Global settling with Trump over a “60 Minutes” story, against the backdrop of a pending corporate merger. Network executives praised Colbert in a statement that noted the cancellation was “purely a financial decision” and “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” David Letterman began hosting “The Late Show” in 1993 and Colbert took over in 2015.
July 18, 2025 5:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will gain access to personally identifiable information for all of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees. That’s according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press. ICE officials plan to track immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States. The agreement was signed Monday between officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. Direct access will be given to the addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates as well as the ethnicity and race of all Medicaid enrollees.
July 18, 2025 5:14 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has approved President Donald Trump’s request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid. Democrats argued that the Republican administration’s animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America’s standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill. The White House argued that the cuts best served the taxpayer and would incentivize other nations to do more to address humanitarian crises. The cancellation of $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Pubic Broadcast represents the full amount it is due to receive during the next two budget years. Some lawmakers voiced concern about what the cuts could mean for local public stations in their state.
