National News - Page 62

Mother’s Day Flower Prices Rise Amid Trump Tariff Impact

By Kathleen Clancy With Mother’s Day approaching, you may be looking to buy a bouquet of flowers — and prices could be higher due to tariffs enacted by President Trump. “We’re going to do the best we can to sort of keep those prices where they need to be. But people can definitely expect to be paying a little bit more,” said Jody Costello, a florist in Royal Oak, Michigan. While Mr. Trump paused hefty tariffs he announced in early April for 90 days, a 10% baseline tariff on all U.S. imports is in effect. About 80% of flowers bought in the United States are grown

FAA Unveils New Air Traffic Control System to Ease Skies

By David K. Li and Jay Blackman The Federal Aviation Administration will embark on an ambitious three-year plan to modernize America’s air traffic control systems and phase out the “outdated technologies that are unable to meet” modern demands, officials said Thursday. The federal government has been under pressure to address mounting traveler concerns in the wake of fatal crashes, ongoing delays and an embarrassing recent revelation that the airspace controllers for Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey lost all contact with pilots last week after a failure of the copper wiring that transmits radar data from New York to Philadelphia TRACON. President Donald

USDA Struggles to Rehire After 15,000 Workers Exit

By Andrea Hsu In testimony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins confirmed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now looking to fill critical positions, after agreeing to pay more than 15,000 employees’ salaries and benefits through September in exchange for their resignations. “We are actively looking and recruiting to fill those positions that are integral to the efforts and the key frontlines,” Rollins told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. USDA is among the agencies that twice invited employees to quit their jobs through the deferred resignation program — once in

3 Ex-Memphis Cops Acquitted in Tyre Nichols Beating

By Adrian Sainz  Three former Memphis officers were acquitted Wednesday of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop, a death that sparked nationwide protests and prompted renewed calls for police reforms in the U.S. A jury, which appeared to be all white, took about 8 1/2 hours over two days to find Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith not guilty on all charges after a nine-day trial in state court in Memphis. After the jury’s verdict was read, the defendants hugged their lawyers as relatives of the former

REAL ID Now Required for US Air Travel: What to Expect

By Cindy Von Quednow The time has come. Starting Wednesday, passengers nationwide must use a state-issued ID or license that is “REAL ID” compliant to travel within the US. Aside from being used to board domestic flights, the identity cards are also federally complaint and are used to enter secure federal facilities. REAL IDs are marked with a star in the upper right-hand corner, no matter what state you live in. “State-issued driver’s licenses and IDs that are not REAL ID compliant are no longer accepted as valid forms of identification at airports,” the Transportation Security Administration explained. However, if passengers show up Wednesday

Cardinals Enter Secret Conclave to Begin Voting for New Pope

By Laura Gozzi On Wednesday evening, under the domed ceiling of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, 133 cardinals will vote to elect the Catholic Church’s 267th pope. The day will begin at 10:00 (09:00 BST) with a mass in St Peter’s Basilica. The service, which will be televised, will be presided over by Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old Cardinal Dean who was also the celebrant of Pope Francis’ funeral. In the early afternoon, mobile signal within the territory of the Vatican will be deactivated to prevent anyone taking part in the conclave from contacting the outside world. Around 16:15 (15:15 BST), the

New college grads face a tougher job market

By J.J. McCorvey and Maya Huter This year’s new college graduates are heading into a tougher job market than last year’s — who had it worse off than the class before that — just as the Trump administration cracks down on student loan repayments. Recent grads’ unemployment rate was 5.8% as of March, up from 4.6% a year earlier, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported last week. The share of new graduates working jobs that don’t require their degrees — a situation known as “underemployment” — hit 41.2% in March, rising from 40.6% that same month in 2024. “Right now things are pretty frozen,” Allison

Corporation for Public Broadcasting sues Trump over attempted firings

By Brian Stelter The Trump administration has sparked another fight against public media. In emails from the White House, three board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) were told on Monday that they were “terminated,” effective immediately, “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump.” In response, the corporation filed a lawsuit on Tuesday. Under the law that created the corporation in 1967, Trump does not have the authority to fire them, CBP argues. The corporation seeks a ruling that confirms the termination emails have “no legal effect,” according to its lawsuit filed in DC. The three board members who received

Trump administration reveals how it targeted thousands of international students on visas

By Kimmy Yam and Chloe Atkins After thousands of international students abruptly lost their legal statuses in the past few months, the Department of Homeland Security offered some insight Tuesday into how some of the terminations were decided. At a court hearing in Washington about the recent targeting of many international students across the country, the department said it used 10 to 20 employees to run the names of 1.3 million foreign-born students through the National Crime Information Center, an FBI-run computerized index that includes criminal history information. The process populated the 6,400 “hits.” And from there, many students experienced terminations of their

Student loan collections restart Today

By Melissa Chan The federal government on Monday will resume collecting defaulted student loan payments from millions of people for the first time since the start of the pandemic, officials said. The Trump administration said it would collect the debt through a Treasury Department program that withholds payments through tax refunds, wages and government benefits. The U.S. Education Department has not collected on defaulted loans since March 2020. Of the nearly 43 million people who owe money, only a little more than a third have made regular payments, the agency said. In the last five years, student debt has grown to

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