Lindsey Graham returns home one last time for his funeral in South Carolina

July 30, 2026

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Sen. Lindsey Graham returned for the last time Wednesday to South Carolina, where powerful friends remembered him as someone who never stopped working for the state he loved. After Graham was eulogized Tuesday in the nation’s capital as an indefatigable dealmaker by the president, vice president and others, mourners in Columbia recalled the son of pool hall owners who “was born with a plastic fork in his mouth,” as former Rep. Trey Gowdy put it. Graham seemed to know every small-town mayor and police chief and the location of every Chick-fil-A across ...

Watergate Haldeman, 1973

July 30, 2026

AP Photo H.R. Haldeman, former top aide to President Nixon, smiles as he begins testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee in Washington, by reading a prepared statement, July 30, 1973.

Austria’s 16th-century bell foundry adds modern technology to keep the casting process alive

July 30, 2026

INNSBRUCK, Austria (AP) — Wearing protective gear to shield from the extreme heat of molten bronze, workers at one of the last bell foundries in Europe are casting bells weighing several tons. One after another, the artisans carefully pour the molten metal into specially shaped molds ...

Federal Reserve votes 9-3 to leave key rate unchanged despite persistently high inflation

July 30, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve left its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday despite persistently high inflation and a spike in energy prices caused by the Iran war. The Fed’s rate-setting committee reached the 9-3 decision after two days of deliberations, marking the fifth straight meeting at which the benchmark rate was kept at around 3.6%. Dissenting in favor of a quarter-point interest rate hike were Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland; Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed; and Lorie Logan, president of the Dallas ...

Fauci repeatedly invokes the Fifth Amendment in a contentious Senate committee hearing

July 30, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer dozens of questions from senators in a Republican-led committee hearing about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision, at least for now, shielded Fauci from answering questions that could expose him to accusations of lying under oath. Though he received a pardon in early 2025 from Democratic President Joe Biden, some Republicans pursuing a yearslong campaign for his arrest had suggested he could still face charges for any perjury committed during Wednesday’s ...

Today in History

July 30, 2026

On July 30, 1976, Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner, set a world record of 8,618 points and won the gold medal in the Olympic decathlon at the Montreal Summer Games. Also on this date: In 1619, the first representative assembly in colonial America convened in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony. In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Virginia, by exploding a gunpowder-laden mine shaft beneath Confederate defense lines; the attack failed. In 1916, German saboteurs blew up a munitions plant on Black Tom, an island near Jersey City, New Jersey, killing ...