Retail sales up a solid 0.7% in September as American consumers defy rising prices, interest rates
NEW YORK — Americans kept spending in September at a solid pace even as they grappled with higher prices and interest rates. Retail sales rose 0.7% in September, more than twice what economists had expected, and close to a a revised 0.8% bump in August, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday....
$1.4M speeding ticket surprised Georgia man before officials clarified the situation
SAVANNAH, Ga. — A Georgia man was left reeling after receiving a $1.4 million speeding ticket, but city officials say the figure was just a placeholder, not the actual fine. Connor Cato told WSAV-TV in Savannah that he received the citation after getting pulled over in September for driving 90...
Legal challenge to dethrone South Africa’s Zulu king heads to court
JOHANNESBURG — The battle for the throne of South Africa’s ethnic Zulu nation has reached the courts as a faction of the royal family seeks to dethrone the king after less than a year. The North Gauteng High Court in the capital Pretoria is hearing legal arguments this week in...
Man gets up to 5 years in prison for Bedford County crossbow death
A Northumberland County man has been sentenced in Bedford County court to spend 15 months to five years behind bars for fatally shooting another man with a crossbow in 2021. Alec Rhoads, 26, formerly of Mount Carmel, was sentenced last week after pleading no contest to one count of involuntary...
Long covid study links lingering virus with bowel-to-brain havoc
Covid may trigger complex biological reactions from the bowel to the brain, leading to persistent neurological symptoms in some people, according to a study that points the way toward a treatment. Viral vestiges in the gastrointestinal tracts of a subset of long-covidpatients may drive chronic inflammation that interferes with a...
Pennsylvania House tackles ‘bot’ problem that left Swifties ticketless for Eras Tour
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Monday passed legislation that seeks to avoid the difficulty Taylor Swift fans encountered this year when they tried to buy tickets to her Eras Tour. By a vote of 193-10, the chamber sent to the Senate a bill that would make it illegal to...
Biden will travel to Israel amid concern that Israel-Hamas conflict could expand
TEL AVIV, Israel — President Joe Biden will travel to Jordan on Wednesday to meet with Arab leaders following his trip to Israel as concerns increase that the raging Israel-Hamas war could expand into a larger regional conflict. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday evening that...
Settlement over Trump family separations at the border limits future separations for 8 years
SAN DIEGO — The federal government would be barred from immigration policies that separate parents from children for eight years under a proposed court settlement announced Monday that also provides families that were split under the Trump administration with temporary legal status and short-term housing aid. The settlement between the...
Penn State hires architect, construction managers for $700M renovation of Beaver Stadium
Penn State has awarded a contract for architectural work on its planned $700 million renovation of Beaver Stadium to a firm versed in major sports construction projects, including on Texas A&M University’s Kyle Field and the NFL’s Buffalo Bills stadium now being built. Monday’s announcements of hiring Populous to handle...
Pepper X marks the spot as South Carolina pepper expert scorches his own Guinness Book heat record
FORT MILL, S.C. — Ed Currie, the South Carolina hot pepper expert who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper that’s hotter than most pepper sprays police use to subdue unruly criminals, has broken his own world record with a pepper that’s three times hotter. Pepper X was publicly named the...
Blackthorne Investors files appeal against township’s vote on construction of new clubhouse
Blackthorne Investors is appealing a vote by Penn Township to deny construction of a new clubhouse in the Blackthorne Estates golf course community. The commissioners voted 4-1 on Aug. 16 against construction of a new facility, citing the possibility of increased traffic in a residential area near the proposed site....
GOP’s Jim Jordan shoring up support and peeling off detractors ahead of a House speaker vote
WASHINGTON — With a push by allies of Donald Trump, far-right firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan appeared Monday to be shoring up support to become U.S. House speaker, winning over reluctant Republicans who have few options left two weeks after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. One by one, Jordan, the hard-charging Judiciary Committee...
Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford calls on autoworkers to end strike, says company’s future is at stake
DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford on Monday called on autoworkers to come together to end a monthlong strike that he says could cost the company the ability to invest in the future. In a rare speech coming during contract talks in the company’s hometown of Dearborn,...
The Supreme Court orders makers of gun parts to comply with rules on ghost guns
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ordered two internet sellers of gun parts to comply with a Biden administration regulation aimed at ghost guns, firearms which are difficult to trace because they lack serial numbers. The court had intervened once before, by a 5-4 vote in August, to keep...
Proud Boys member pleads guilty to obstruction charge in Jan. 6 attack on Capitol
WASHINGTON — A Proud Boys member who joined others from the far-right group in attacking the U.S. Capitol pleaded guilty on Monday to obstructing the joint session of Congress for certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. William Chrestman, 49, of Olathe, Kansas, also pleaded guilty to threatening to assault a...
LinkedIn cuts more than 600 workers, about 3% of workforce
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — LinkedIn said Monday it is laying off hundreds of employees amounting to about 3% of the social media company’s workforce. The Microsoft-owned career network is cutting about 668 roles across its engineering, product, talent and finance teams. “Talent changes are a difficult, but necessary and regular part...
Mourners in heavily Palestinian Chicago suburb remember Muslim boy killed as kind, energeticVideo
CHICAGO — Crowds of mourners in a heavily Palestinian Chicago suburb paid respects Monday to a 6-year-old Muslim boy killed in an alleged hate crime, hours after authorities revealed new details about the evidence used to charge the family’s landlord with stabbing the child and his mother. Wadea Al-Fayoume, who...
Trump has narrow gag order imposed on him by federal judge overseeing 2020 election subversion case
WASHINGTON — The federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case against Donald Trump in Washington imposed a narrow gag order on him on Monday, barring the Republican former president from making statements targeting prosecutors, possible witnesses and court staff. The order from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan marks a...
New Jersey man arrested in airport parking garage shooting that killed 1 Philadelphia officer, wounded 2nd
PHILADELPHIA — One man has been arrested and at least two other people are being sought in an airport parking garage shooting that killed a Philadelphia police officer and injured another last week, authorities said. Yobranny Martinez Fernandez, 18, of Camden County, New Jersey, was arrested before dawn Monday in...
FBI report: Violent crime decreases to pre-pandemic levels, but property crime is on the rise
ST. LOUIS — Violent crime across the U.S. decreased last year — dropping to about the same level as before the onset of the covid-19 pandemic — but property crimes rose substantially, according to data in the FBI’s annual crime report released Monday. The report comes with an asterisk: Some...
Israel-Hamas war has roiled U.S. campuses. Students on each side say colleges aren’t doing enough
America’s colleges aspire to be places where ideas meet and common ground emerges. As the death toll rises in the Israel-Hamas war, they have become seats of anguish. Many Jewish students and their allies, some with family and friends in Israel, have demanded bold reckonings and strong condemnation after the...
Hezbollah destroys Israeli surveillance cameras along the Lebanese border as tension soars
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said Monday it has started destroying surveillance cameras on several Israeli army posts along the border as tension rose following the Israel-Hamas war that began Oct.7. Hezbollah’s military media arm released a video showing snipers shooting at and destroying surveillance cameras placed on five...
Bushy Run adapts annual hayride to haunted museum play, citing state hayride policy update
Bushy Run is adapting its annual haunted hayride event to a night of scary stories in the museum in light of state policy changes for hayride attractions. The Penn Township historical site had hosted a hayride each October, wheeling visitors along the trail as 18th-century reenactors tell the story of...
Jim Jordan’s rapid rise has been cheered by Trump and the far right. Could it soon make him speaker?
WASHINGTON — Rep. Jim Jordan has such a reputation as a political brawler that former House Speaker John Boehner once said he’d never met someone “who spent more time tearing things apart.” Now, nearly a decade after Boehner stepped down in the face of a conservative revolt, it is Jordan...
Humanitarian aid stuck at Gaza-Egypt border as Israeli siege strains hospitals, water supply
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Truckloads of aid idled at Egypt’s border with Gaza as residents and humanitarian groups pleaded Monday for water, food and fuel for dying generators, saying the tiny Palestinian territory sealed off by Israel after last week’s rampage by Hamas was near total collapse. U.S. President Joe...
