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Federal Reserve is expected to raise its benchmark rate, defying Trump’s demands

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is widely expected to lift its short-term interest rate Wednesday for the first time in three years to fight stubbornly high inflation, a move that would put the central bank at odds with President Donald Trump’s support for a cut. A quarter-point increase in the Fed’s rate, currently about 3.6%, isn’t guaranteed because Fed Chair Kevin Warsh doesn’t provide the signals about next moves that his predecessors did. Still, most analysts and economists expect a hike after a speech two weeks ago at the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson ...

American incomes finally top pre-pandemic levels, fighting against inflation all the way

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. household income finally topped pre-pandemic levels last year, a stark sign of how the past five years of rising prices have limited Americans’ earnings and purchasing power. Median U.S. household income rose a healthy 2.6% in 2025 from the previous year, after adjusting for inflation, to $87,460, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That is a record high, topping 2019 household income of $85,320. The median is the level at which half of households had higher earnings and half had less. The figures show that even after taking into account higher prices, the ...

Birmingham bombing, 1963

AP Photo Ambulance attendants load the body of an African American girl, one of four killed in the bombing of the 16th Avenue Church in Birmingham, Ala., on Sept. 16, 1963

Well-preserved tooth from Pacific mastodon found in a creek in San Francisco Bay Area

Brigid Lynch was working along a wooded creek in a mountainous part of the San Francisco Bay Area when something that didn’t look like the rocks she’d been studying caught her eye. It turned out to be the fossilized tooth of a Pacific mastodon. “I keep joking it wasn’t hard to find,” Lynch, a geomorphologist at Balance Hydrologics, said Friday. “It was just sitting there in the middle of the creek, halfway in, half out of the water.” Lynch made the discovery earlier this year while working on a habitat restoration project for the threatened California red-legged frog in ...

Competitors dig deep in Hungarian grave-digging contest

NYERGESUJFALU, Hungary (AP) — Like death itself, this was no joke. A grave-digging contest in a Hungarian cemetery may sound like the opening line of a comedy sketch. It proved to be anything but as 38 competitors grabbed picks and shovels on Saturday. The Hungarian Association of Cemetery Maintainers and Operators organizes the contest to showcase the grave-digging trade and its skills, and shake off death-related taboos. The dry summer-baked soil in the public cemetery in Nyergesujfalu, northern Hungary, proved a worthy adversary for the 19 two-man teams. They huffed and puffed ...

Kennedy Center board votes to close over financial woes, Trump branding dispute, AP sources say

WASHINGTON (AP) — The board of the Kennedy Center voted Tuesday to close the facility amid financial issues and a dispute over putting President Donald Trump’s name on the iconic performing arts venue, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick participated in the board meeting, according to one of the people. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss a private meeting. Lutnick’s wife, Allison, is a member of the Trump-appointed board. Prior to Tuesday’s board meeting, a federal judge ...