May 31, 2024 5:02 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts marks the end of his historic hush money trial but the fight over the case is far from over. Now comes the sentencing and the prospect of a prison sentence. A lengthy appellate process. And all the while, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee still has to deal with three more criminal cases and a campaign that could see him return to the White House. The Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records after more than nine hours of deliberations over two days. Trump angrily denounced the trial as a “disgrace,” telling reporters he’s an “innocent man.”
May 31, 2024 4:57 am
Two people were trapped on the second floor of a burning home in Westmoreland County on Thursday morning and had to be rescued. The fire broke out just after 4 a.m. in the 400 block of Silvis Farm Road in Youngwood. The owner of the house told Channel 11 there are two apartments in the two-story building, with five people living there. A woman who lives on the first floor said she heard a popping noise in the garage, then saw flames. The fire quickly spread to the house. Youngwood Fire Chief Lloyd Crago said there were about eight motorcycles in the garage, as well as tires, propane and gas tanks. The two people who lived upstairs couldn’t get out, so the downstairs tenants took swift action, putting a ladder up so they could climb down. A woman was taken to an area hospital with burns on her arms. The fire chief told Channel 11 the house is a total loss.
May 31, 2024 4:52 am
DERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. — (WPXI) – A confirmed EF-0 tornado touched down in Westmoreland County Wednesday evening, the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh says. NWS said it touched down in the Mcchesneytown-Loyalhanna area, East of Labtrone, around 6:16 p.m. An aerial survey by NWS showed damage along Route 982, including tree limbs snapped and shingles removed from a home.
May 30, 2024 5:13 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hopes for interest rate cuts this year by the Federal Reserve are steadily fading, with a stream of recent remarks by Fed officials underscoring their intention to keep borrowing costs high as long as needed to curb persistently elevated inflation. A key reason for the delay in rate cuts is that the inflation pressures that are bedeviling the economy are being driven largely by lingering forces from the pandemic — for items ranging from apartment rents to auto insurance to hospital prices. Though Fed officials say they expect inflation in those areas to eventually cool, they’ve signaled that they’re prepared to wait as long as it takes.
May 30, 2024 5:13 am
ConocoPhillips is buying Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $17.1 billion as energy prices soar and big oil companies reap massive profits. The deal announced Wednesday is valued at $22.5 billion when including $5.4 billion in debt. Marathon Oil shareholders will receive 0.2550 shares of ConocoPhillips common stock for each share of Marathon Oil common stock that they own. ConocoPhillips said Wednesday that the transaction will add highly desired acreage to its existing U.S. onshore portfolio.
May 30, 2024 5:11 am
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico goes into Sunday’s election deeply divided: friends and relatives no longer talk politics for fear of worsening unbridgeable divides. Drug cartels have divided the country into a patchwork quilt of warring fiefdoms. The atmosphere is literally heating up, amid a wave of unusual heat, drought, pollution and political violence. It’s unclear whether Mexico’s next president — both major-party candidates are female — will be able to rein in the underlying violence and polarization. Soledad Echagoyen, a Mexico City doctor who supports President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party, says she can no longer talk about politics with her colleagues, noting “there have been personal attacks already.”
May 30, 2024 5:10 am
HONG KONG (AP) — Fourteen pro-democracy activists have been convicted in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case by a court that said their plan to effect change through an unofficial primary election would have undermined the government’s authority and created a constitutional crisis. After a 2019 protest movement that filled the city’s streets with demonstrators, authorities have all but silenced dissent in Hong Kong through reduced public choice in elections, crackdowns on media and the Beijing-imposed security law under which the activists were convicted.
May 30, 2024 5:09 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — A string of security, logistical and weather problems has battered the plan to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza through a U.S. military-built pier. Broken apart by strong winds and heavy seas just over a week after it became operational, the project faces criticism it hasn’t lived up to its initial billing or its $320 million price tag. U.S. officials say, however, that the pier is being repaired, then will be reinstalled and working again soon. Aid groups have mixed reactions, welcoming the aid yet calling the pier a distraction that takes pressure off Israel to open more land routes. The Biden administration has said from the start that the pier wasn’t meant to be a total solution.
May 30, 2024 5:07 am
The Israeli military says two soldiers have been killed in a car-ramming attack in the occupied West Bank. Violence in the West Bank has surged throughout the war in Gaza as Israel raids Palestinian towns in the territory to crack down on militancy, with incursions resulting in the deaths of more than 500 Palestinians. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians in the border city of Rafah reported heavy fighting Wednesday. Israel’s military said it seized control of the entire length of Gaza’s border with Egypt. Fighting in Rafah has already spurred more than 1 million Palestinians to flee. They now seek refuge in other war-ravaged areas. The United Nations says they lack shelter, food, water and other essentials for survival.
May 30, 2024 5:06 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump has been convicted in his New York hush money trial, a landmark jury verdict making him the first former American president to be found guilty of felony crimes in the nation’s nearly 250-year history. The jury’s judgment Thursday caps a trial centered on lurid claims of sex and financial coverups and exposes Trump to prison time. The verdict represents a stunning courtroom reckoning for Trump, who was indicted in three other felony cases but wasn’t convicted until now. Coming six months before the presidential election in which Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, the verdict will test voters’ willingness to elect for the first time a candidate with a criminal record related to hush money payments to a porn star. Sentencing has been set for July 11th.
