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.
July 16, 2025 5:26 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he has finally found a way to achieve his goal of removing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, accusing him of mismanaging the U.S. central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project. The push comes after a monthslong campaign by Trump to try to rid himself of the politically independent central banker. Powell has resisted the president’s calls to slash interest rates out of concerns about the administration’s tariffs sparking higher levels of inflation. But the president indicated Tuesday that Powell’s handling of an extensive renovation project on two Fed buildings in Washington could be grounds to take the unprecedented and possibly legally dubious step of firing him.
July 16, 2025 5:24 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities say two people in New Jersey were killed after their vehicle was swept up in floodwaters during a storm that moved across the U.S. Northeast overnight. Authorities said Tuesday their names haven’t been released yet. Meanwhile, York City’s subway system is fully operational following overnight heavy rains. But some roads in New Jersey and Pennsylvania remained closed and there were dozens of flight delays and cancelations at area airports, including 159 total cancelations at Newark Liberty Airport.
July 16, 2025 5:23 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Officials say Russian weapons pounded Ukrainian cities overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, injuring at least 15 people in an attack that mostly targeted energy infrastructure. The latest bombardment in Russia’s escalating aerial campaign against civilian areas came ahead of a Sept. 2 deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump for the Kremlin to reach a peace deal in the three-year war, under the threat of possible severe Washington sanctions if it doesn’t. No date has yet been publicly set for a possible third round of direct peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine. Two previous rounds delivered no progress apart from prisoner swaps.
July 16, 2025 5:01 am
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump is lashing out at his own supporters as he tries to clamp down on criticism over his administration’s handling of much-hyped records in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation. And Trump told reporters Wednesday that “it’s all been a big hoax” that, in his words, has been ”perpetrated by the Democrats.” He says “some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans” have fallen “into the net.” There is no evidence Democrats played any role in promoting conspiracies about the files, which members of Trump’s administration stoked for years. The rhetoric marks a dramatic escalation for the Republican president, who has broken with some of his most loyal backers on issues in the past, but never with such fervor.
July 16, 2025 4:57 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is gaining some key backing on Capitol Hill from Republican senators. They fear the repercussions if President Donald Trump follows through with threats to try and remove the politically independent central banker. As Trump seemingly waffled back and forth between moving to dismiss the Fed chair this week, some Republicans in Congress began to speak up to warn that such a move would be a mistake. Still, plenty of other Republicans think that dismissing Powell is a fine idea.
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 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 4:50 am
WEST PITTSTON, Pa. (AP) — Vice President JD Vance made the Trump administration’s first big pitch to sell the public on President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget-and-policy package in the swing political turf of northeastern Pennsylvania. The vice president, whose tiebreaking vote got the bill through the Senate, touted the legislation’s tax breaks and cast Democrats as opponents of the cutting taxes because of their unanimous opposition to the legislation. Democrats who’ve decried the law’s cuts to Medicaid and food stamps are expected to try to use it against Republicans in closely contested congressional campaigns next year, including one expected to play out in the working class-area where Vance promoted the legislation.
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.
