September 1, 2026 5:03 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is stepping down after 18 months on the job. That’s according to the White House on Monday. No reason was given for Driscoll’s departure, but tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been widely reported. It marks the latest in a series of shakeups of the military leadership, with the Army especially seeing major upheaval. A Driscoll ally was ousted as the service’s top uniformed leader in April. Under the new acting Army chief of staff, the service is pulling the plug on a drone modernization program that Driscoll had heralded. Driscoll is a friend of Vice President JD Vance and an Iraq war veteran.
August 31, 2026 7:23 am
A whistleblower for the U.S. Postal Service is warning that a new mail ballot system being hastily built to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting that method of voting could lead to the rejection of huge numbers of mail ballots. The whistleblower made the allegation anonymously in documents submitted by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal to the Postal Service. Blumenthal says the disclosure shows Trump is trying to sabotage mail voting. A federal judge has barred the Postal Service from making the changes for the midterms, but that case is being appealed, possibly to the Supreme Court.
August 31, 2026 5:05 am
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants to rally the world’s largest economies this week at a summit in Asheville, North Carolina. The G20 finance ministers are meeting at a time when the U.S. has disrupted the international order with aggressive tariffs and an unpopular war on Iran. Bessent said he wants to focus on economic growth and debt issues, and wants to enlist support to isolate Iran. He met on the sidelines with Russia’s finance minister, but told his counterpart that Moscow needed to end its war on Ukraine before the U.S. would give it any economic relief, according to a source familiar with the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity.
September 1, 2026 3:45 pm
PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — The judge in the Lindsay Clancy trial has told jurors to keep deliberating after they said they can’t reach a unanimous decision on whether to hold the Massachusetts mother criminally responsible for killing her three young children. Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse, admits to the 2023 killings but claims postpartum psychosis drove her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing. The jury is in its fourth day of deliberations. Tuesday was the first time they indicated they were at an impasse. If there’s a hung jury and a mistrial is declared, prosecutors will need to decide whether to try Clancy again.
September 1, 2026 5:01 am
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — The bodies of two friends — a Texas chiropractor and a martial arts studio owner — have been found after a major flash flood swept through the Grand Canyon. Officials said Monday that one person remains unaccounted for after about 80 others were rescued over the weekend. Park officials did not release identities, but the families of the two deceased men identified them as John Giusti and Brent Rosenkranz. THey say their buddy Saturday’s flash flood severely damaged the only water pipeline into the canyon. Officials have barred tourists from staying at lodges and hotels inside Grand Canyon National Park and issued emergency water restrictions for year-round residents. Officials say they used the park’s permit system to track the number of missing people.
September 1, 2026 4:59 am
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Rescue teams are searching for thousands of people still missing after catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China. The disaster has left over 1,000 dead. Nepal’s disaster agency reported 987 deaths and 3,916 missing, including 583 foreigners. Chinese authorities reported 16 deaths and 546 missing. The scale of last week’s disaster is hampering rescue efforts, with landslides and destroyed roads cutting off remote areas. In Nepal, rescuers are racing to reach hundreds of hydropower workers trapped in tunnels. The Aug. 26 disaster began with a chain of events high in the Himalayas. A glacial collapse sent large amounts of rock, ice and meltwater into valleys below, triggering powerful floods downstream.
September 1, 2026 5:02 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has launched a large aerial assault in and around Ukraine’s capital that has killed at least 11 people. The attack that began Monday evening and continued into Tuesday also wounded more than a dozen other people including three children. It was the sixth consecutive day of Russian attacks on Kyiv. The strikes hit civilian infrastructure and residential buildings. Odesa also faced attacks which damaged infrastructure and wounded one person. Ukrainian forces said they destroyed or suppressed 199 aerial targets.
September 1, 2026 5:00 am
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A jury has found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty of orchestrating the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. The verdict Monday marks the first and only conviction in a case that has gripped hip-hop fans for years. In 1996, Shakur was on his way to perform at a club in Las Vegas when a Cadillac pulled up beside him and music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight. Gunfire erupted. Shakur was shot multiple times and died a week later. Davis is the only person ever charged in Shakur’s death. The case went cold until recent years, when interviews Davis gave and his 2019 tell-all memoir revived it.
August 31, 2026 5:12 am
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — The bodies of a Texas chiropractor and at least one other person have been found after a major weekend flash flood swept through the Grand Canyon, and forecasters warned more flooding was possible as heavy rain shrouded the canyon walls. Saturday’s flash flood severely damaged the only water pipeline into the canyon. Officials have barred tourists from staying at lodges and hotels inside Grand Canyon National Park and issued emergency water restrictions for year-round residents. More than a dozen hikers, including two on a dream trip with their chiropractor friend, remain missing Monday following waves of rain in the Bright Angel Creek area of the tourist destination that hosts 4.4 million visitors a year.
August 31, 2026 2:14 pm
Gas prices are a penny lower in Western Pennsylvania this week at $4.332 per gallon, according to AAA East Central’s Gas Price Report. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is one cent lower than last week at $4.08, but there’s been little movement on the crude oil front. Due to continued volatility in the Strait of Hormuz, crude oil prices remain in the $85 per barrel range. For the first time ever, the national average in August has been above $4 per gallon every day. This month is poised to set a new record as the most expensive August at the pump, surpassing the previous August record set in 2022. The average price per gallon in Washington is four-dollars and thirty-four cents.
