News

June unemployment rises in Valley

Business July 31, 2026

The Mahoning Valley’s unemployment rate rose in June, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Trumbull County had a rate of 4.1% in May and 5% in June. The city of Warren saw its 5.9% rate in May swell to 7.1% last month. Mahoning County’s 3.8% unemployment rate for May hit 4.6% in June. Youngstown’s rate bounced from 5.3% in May to 6.5% in June, according to the state. The rates have not been seasonally adjusted. They also do not reflect people who are not part of the labor force. The Youngstown-Warren-Salem statistical area has a population of 426,086, ...

Mummy DNA provides scientific evidence that colonization brought smallpox to the Americas

National News July 31, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — Ancient mummy DNA recovered in Chile has yielded the firmest evidence yet that European colonization brought smallpox to the Americas. Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases in human history before it was eradicated in 1980, largely thanks to vaccination. For centuries, the virus had killed about one-third of the people it infected and left most survivors with deep and sometimes disfiguring scars. Outbreaks struck Asia and Europe and eventually spread to the Americas, where colonial writings, administrative records and missionary reports documented how it killed ...

Boy drowns in New Jersey river, sister lives, and another child is missing

National News July 31, 2026

One child has died and another is missing after the two 10-year-olds went into a rain-swollen river while playing in a park in Passaic, New Jersey, on Wednesday, authorities said. An 11-year-old survived, the sister of the 10-year-old boy who drowned. “He put his hand on her head, trying to get up above the water, and he may have inadvertently saved her life without even knowing,” Passaic Mayor Hector Lora told reporters Thursday. As she went underwater, she felt rocks, Lora said. The other 10-year-old, a girl, was still missing early Thursday. Multiple boats and divers ...

The cycles of life

Local News July 31, 2026

GIRARD — A group of motorcyclists took to the road this week to raise funds to help a Niles girl battling cancer. The riders gathered at Army Navy Garrison 422, where they hosted a basket raffle fundraiser before heading on the road. Event organizers Kelley Beatty of Boardman and Bernie ...

Wildfires in France force George Clooney’s family to evacuate their home

International News July 31, 2026

PARIS (AP) — George Clooney and his family have been forced to evacuate their home in southeastern France because of a wildfire burning nearby, his agent said Thursday. The Hollywood star behind the “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise and other films made the statement in a letter to Didier Bremond, the mayor of the town of Brignoles, some 55 miles east of Marseille, publicist Guido Gotz told The Associated Press in an email. Addressed “Dear Didier,” the letter said Clooney and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, had “no idea whether our beautiful home makes it through this ...

A 150-year-overdue book resurfaces in an Australian library

International News July 31, 2026

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian public library has had a book returned an estimated 150 years late and has no way of tracking down the errant borrower, a librarian said on Thursday. The book “Antiquities of Athens,” published in 1858, was returned to the library in the seaside town of Kiama last week by a man who had found it during recent home renovations inside a tea crate bricked into a sealed fireplace, Kiama Library manager Michelle Hudson said. “We’ve never had anything that old come back to us,” Hudson said. “I follow lots of libraries on social media ...