October 18, 2024 5:05 am
This year has seen President Vladimir Putin repeatedly brandish the nuclear sword, reminding everyone that Russia has the world’s largest atomic arsenal in order to deter the West from ramping up support for Ukraine. He ordered his military to hold drills involving battlefield nuclear weapons with ally Belarus. He announced Russia will start producing ground-based intermediate range missiles that were outlawed by a now-defunct U.S.-Soviet treaty in 1987. And last month, he lowered the threshold for using that arsenal by revising the country’s nuclear doctrine. Putin is relying on those thousands of warheads and hundreds of missiles that carry them as an enormous doomsday machine to discourage what he sees as threats to Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
October 18, 2024 5:03 am
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s killing of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ top leader and the mastermind of the group’s Oct. 7 2023, attack, is a dramatic turning point in the brutal yearlong war that it touched off. Sinwar’s killing on Thursday decapitates the Palestinian militant group that has already been reeling from months of assassinations up and down its ranks. And it is a potent symbolic achievement for Israel in its battle to destroy Hamas. The killing could set the stage for how the remainder of the war plays out, or even prompt its conclusion — depending on how Israel and Hamas choose to proceed.
October 18, 2024 5:01 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a trend that has surprised many: Why, despite being squeezed by high prices, have Americans kept spending at retail stores and restaurants at a robust pace? One key reason is a relatively simple one: Wealthier consumers, boosted by strong gains in income, home equity and stock market wealth, have increasingly driven the spending. That trend represents something of a shift from the pre-pandemic period. And it suggests that consumer spending, the primary driver of the U.S. economy, could help sustain healthy growth this year and next. Lower-income consumers, by contrast, have been disproportionately squeezed by higher-priced rent, groceries and other necessities, leaving them less able to spend on discretionary items than they were before the pandemic.
October 18, 2024 4:59 am
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will both be scouring for votes in Michigan on Friday as they try to lock down support in this key political battleground. Harris is scheduled to begin her day in Grand Rapids before holding events in Lansing and Oakland County, which is northwest of Detroit. Trump has his own event in Oakland County in the afternoon before holding a rally in Detroit in the evening. Michigan is one of three “blue wall” states that, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will help decide the election.
October 18, 2024 4:58 am
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court has halted the scheduled execution of a man who would have become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. The late-night ruling to spare for now the life of Robert Roberson capped a flurry of last-ditch legal maneuvers and weeks of public pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say he is innocent and was convicted based on flawed evidence. Roberson was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002.
October 18, 2024 4:56 am
NEW YORK — (AP) — PPG Industries plans to lay off about 1,800 employees amid efforts to cut costs, with the paints and coatings maker also inking a deal to sell a sizeable chunk of its architectural business. Pittsburgh-based PPG said Thursday that the job cuts would primarily impact positions in the U.S. and Europe. The timing of the layoffs was not immediately disclosed, but the company said the cuts were part of a larger multiyear program aimed at reducing structural worldwide — noting that this will also include “various facility closures,” without specifying further. “While these decisions are difficult, they are necessary to adjust our fixed cost base and to right-size our company,” Tim Knavish, PPG chairman and CEO, said in a prepared statement — pointing to two recently-announced business divestitures. PPG also announced that it had agreed to sell all of its U.S. and Canadian architectural coatings business — which houses brands like Liquid Nails, Glidden and Olympic and made up $2 billion in net sales for PPG last year — to private equity firm American Industrial Partners. The sale, expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025, is valued at $550 million.
October 17, 2024 2:08 pm
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military confirms that Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by its forces in Gaza. Troops appeared to have run across him in a battle on Wednesday, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was the man Israel has hunted for more than a year. Authorities conducted DNA tests on a body to determine if it was him. Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has “settled its account” with Sinwar but “war is not yet ended.” (Photo: AP)
October 17, 2024 12:46 pm
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor-dancer Mitzi Gaynor has died at age 93. Gaynor starred as Nellie Forbush in the 1958 film of “South Pacific” and appeared in other musicals with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in the 1950s and early 1960s. She starred in the musicals “Golden Girl,” “The I Don’t Care Girl” and Bloodhounds of Broadway.” Gaynor, among the last survivors of the so-called golden age of the Hollywood musical, died of natural causes in Los Angeles on Thursday morning, her long-time managers Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda confirmed in a statement to The Associated Press. In the all-star “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” Gaynor danced with Donald O’Connor but was overshadowed by a rising star, Marilyn Monroe. (Photo: AP)
October 17, 2024 5:14 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades. An attorney says it is the largest single child sex abuse settlement with a Catholic archdiocese. Attorneys for 1,353 people who allege that they suffered horrific abuse at the hands of local Catholic priests reached the settlement after months of negotiations with the archdiocese. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say there is justice in accountability. After the announcement of the agreement in principle, Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a statement, “I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart.”
October 17, 2024 5:13 am
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge has declared that seven new election rules recently passed by the State Election Board are “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox issued the order Wednesday after holding a hearing on challenges to the rules. The rules that Cox invalidated include three that had gotten a lot of attention — one that requires that the number of ballots be hand-counted after the close of polls and two that had to do with the certification of election results. He ordered the board to immediately remove the rules and to inform all state and local election officials that the rules are void and not to be followed.
