North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jerome Powell delivered a tough message at the start of a news conference Wednesday: Inflation is way too high, and the Federal Reserve is laser-focused on taming it with higher borrowing costs.

Yet despite his resolute words, the Fed chair also said for the first time that the central bank’s actions are already having an effect on the economy in ways that could slow the worst inflation the nation has endured in four decades.

(AP) --- JetBlue Airways has agreed to buy Spirit Airlines for $3.8 billion and create the nation’s fifth-largest airline if the deal can win approval from antitrust regulators.

The agreement Thursday capped a months-long bidding war and arrives one day after Spirit’s attempt to merge with fellow budget carrier Frontier Airlines fell apart.

Spirit CEO Ted Christie is being thrust into the awkward position of defending a sale to JetBlue after arguing vehemently against it, saying that antitrust regulators would never let it happen.

NEW YORK (AP) — The head of the nation’s financial watchdog is having second thoughts about how useful fines are in deterring illegal behavior in the financial industry, saying some companies have gotten so big that the money makes little difference.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rohit Chopra signaled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to deploy an array of tools that could limit the ability of a bank or financial firm to conduct business if they violate the law.

ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder has begun testifying before a congressional committee investigating the NFL team’s history of workplace misconduct.

A spokesperson for the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform confirmed Snyder began giving his deposition Thursday morning virtually and in private. The hearing is not public.

(AP) --- In his extensive papal travels, Pope Francis has never journeyed farther north than Iqaluit, capital city of the Inuit-governed territory of Nunavut. On Friday, it will be the final stop of his somber six-day visit to Canada.

It is a distinctive destination – home to about 7,500 people but not a single traffic light, with no road or rail links to the outside world. Its lone Catholic church serves parishioners from at least five continents; more than 100 of them routinely fill the pews each Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping held the fifth conversation of their presidencies on Thursday, speaking for more than two hours as they chart the future of their complicated relationship at a time of simmering economic and geopolitical tensions.

WASHINGTON (AP) — What started as a $4 trillion effort during President Joe Biden’s first months in office to rebuild America’s public infrastructure and family support systems has ended up a much slimmer, but not unsubstantial, compromise package of inflation-fighting health care, climate change and deficit reduction strategies that appears headed toward quick votes in Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy shrank from April through June for a second straight quarter, contracting at a 0.9% annual pace and raising fears that the nation may be approaching a recession.

The decline that the Commerce Department reported Thursday in the gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of the economy — followed a 1.6% annual drop from January through March. Consecutive quarters of falling GDP constitute one informal, though not definitive, indicator of a recession.

27 July 2022; MEMO: An Israel-based pharmaceutical company has announced a $4.35 billion nationwide settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits filed against it for its alleged major role in the US's opioid epidemic, which has killed over 500,000 overdose deaths throughout the past two decades.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has strongly condemned an attack on the peacekeepers serving in the Stablization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which took place during violent demonstrations at the mission’s base on Tuesday.

Two Indian police officers and a Moroccan ‘blue helmet’ were killed, and an Egyptian police officer injured.