Lebanon Daily News
County OKs funding for prison fire system updates
Lebanon County officials approved funding for upgrades of the Lebanon County Correctional Facility systems, which were found to be aging out and in need of updating. County commissioners approved $186,000 in funds for upgrades to the facility’s fire...
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Palmyra apartments future still unclear
The fate of proposed luxury apartments in Palmyra is up in the air after zoning board members made their decisions on proposed exemptions and variations by the owner. The Palmyra Zoning Board on Monday, Feb. 9, voted to reject two of Ventura Real...
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Fractures loosen Socialist Party’s grip on Venezuela
On the edge of Venezuela’s main oil city Maracaibo, members of a local branch of the ruling socialist party went door to door in the weeks after U.S. forces captured President Nicolás Maduro, asking residents if they still supported the party that has...
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CURIOUS MIND?
Gretna Theatre’s Outreach Program is bringing its newest educational production to schools and libraries across Lebanon County during this winter. Framed as a wacky morning talk show, organizers said that “The Science of Stuff” invites audiences...
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Plastic turf will end up in PA landfill
Five years ago, a Danish company announced it was taking abroad its mission to save artificial athletic fields from the trash heap, rolling out an ambitious plan to build its first North American recycling plant in Pennsylvania. Officials in the...
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Social media reshaping research on substance use
When you think of tools for studying substance use and addiction, a social media site like Reddit, TikTok or YouTube probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Yet the stories shared on social media platforms are offering unprecedented insights...
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Trump attacking pillars of democracy, group says
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has attacked key pillars of U.S. democracy, Human Rights Watch warned on Feb. 4 in its annual report, citing the Republican president’s immigration crackdown, threats to voting rights and other policies. Human...
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Pedestrian deaths by trains persisting
In 2018, high-speed passenger trains branded as Brightline started running along the formerly freight-only Florida East Coast Railway. Initial service from Miami to West Palm Beach was extended to Orlando in 2023. h Unfortunately, the southern end of...
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USAID raised early alarm on Gaza crisis
WASHINGTON – U.S. Agency for International Development staffers in early 2024 drafted a warning to senior officials in Joe Biden’s administration: Northern Gaza had turned into an “Apocalyptic Wasteland” with shortages of food and medical aid. Three...
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New SNAP work requirements begin
Nearly 42 million low-income Americans on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program must now adhere to increased work requirements, major changes that took effect Feb. 1 as part of President Donald Trump’s law known as the One Big...
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City board discusses snow removal efforts
While finalizing a new salary contract with the police department, Lebanon City officials give an update about efforts to clear the roadways after winter storm Fern. As of Thursday, Jan. 29, city work crews removed 361 dump loads, or 5,415 tons of...
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ICE raids could hurt GOP in midterms
President Donald Trump’s stern nationwide campaign against illegal immigration has reached boiling temperatures that could scald Republicans in swing states and districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election. Outrage over immigration enforcement tactics...
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Trump actions worry free-speech advocates
The FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home on Jan. 14 was a rare and intimidating move by an administration focused on repressing criticism and dissent. In its story about the search at Hannah Natanson’s home, at which FBI agents said they...
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Can ‘Trump Accounts’ increase savings?
NEW YORK – “Trump Accounts” are tax-advantaged investment accounts designed to boost the savings of U.S. citizens under the age of 18. More than 500,000 families have signed up for the program. The government will launch the program in July. The U.S....
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Consumer-driven future seen for GLP-1 drugs
LONDON – Ask executives in the health care industry about the future market for weight-loss drugs and the analogies are telling: monthly GLP-1 medicine subscriptions like a streaming video membership; dose decisions managed on a smartphone app; access...
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Lebanon Fair Queen Olivia Morrissey crowned
Lebanon Area Fair Queen Olivia Morrissey was crowned the 2026 Pennsylvania Fair Queen on Saturday, Jan. 24 at the 113th annual convention of the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs and Pennsylvania State Showmen’s Association. Morrissey was...
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‘They didn’t leave us anything at all’
DEIR DIBWAN, West Bank – The Jewish settler outpost of Or Meir is small. A handful of prefabricated white shelters, it sits at the end of a short dirt track on a hill leading up from Road 60, a major route that dissects the Israeli-occupied West...
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Board members address backlash
After residents voiced their concerns about recent incidents that include the possibility of rejecting a popular French language reader, Palmyra school board members took time during their public meeting to address the backlash. School board members...
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House sends funding bills to the Senate
WASHINGTON – With just a week left to avoid another government shutdown, the House of Representatives voted Jan. 22 to send a $1.2 trillion spending package to the Senate. The appropriations bills passed despite widespread consternation from Democrats...
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‘VERY DISAPPOINTING’
CHICAGO – In Chicago’s workingclass Pilsen neighborhood, a 1960s-era oil-fired power plant rises up from an industrial lot behind Dvorak Park, which in warmer weather is packed with children climbing on its colorful playground and zooming down...
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Lebanon County history recognized in event
Statewide America250Pa organizers joined with local government and community leaders Jan. 17 at the Lebanon County Historical Society as part of a kickoff tour for the United States’ semiquincentennial anniversary. The event at the Cumberland Street...
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Freight rail industry dirtier than coal power plants
BNSF Railway, one of the crown jewels of Warren Buffett’s sprawling Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, calls itself an environmental leader in the U.S. rail industry with the cleanest locomotive fleet in North America. “When you see our orange...
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PA locals weigh in on Trump’s first year
Ryan Sprankle says his western Pennsylvania grocery stores definitely ended 2025 on better financial footing than they entered it. Sales numbers were looking good for Sprankle’s Neighborhood Market as the holidays approached, and he said grocery costs...
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Lebanon Transit seeks new facility
Lebanon Transit officials are seeking $280,703 in county funds towards construction cost for a project that will consolidate the transportation organization’s various facilities. Officials spoke to Lebanon County Commissioners during their workshop...
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‘They understand what works and what doesn’t’
Former government workers seeking seats in Congress CAPE MAY, NJ – It was Megan O’Rourke’s dream job. As a top climate scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she oversaw grants for research projects aimed at making food production healthier...
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Palmyra residents cast doubts over apartment plan
The Palmyra Municipal Building was standing room only as residents voiced their concerns and outrage about updated plans for proposed luxury apartments Monday, Jan 12. More than 65 residents attended a five-hour Palmyra Zoning Hearing Board meeting on...
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U.S. has tried to acquire Greenland for decades
President Donald Trump said he wants to acquire Greenland sooner rather than later, before Russia or China have the chance. The president has long said he wants to acquire Greenland for U.S. national security. Trump has raised the idea since his first...
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Protesters shout ‘ICE Out For Good’ in Annville
People driving through the town square of Annville Jan. 11 were greeted by signs that included “Keep the immigrants, deport the racists,” “The America I know welcomes immigrants & expels tyrants,” and “ICE Out for Good.” Palmyra area resident...
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100-year-old projections, predictions for 2026
AKRON, OH – We’ve waited a century for this. Nearly 100 years ago, a group of futurists dared to imagine what life would be like in 2026. Some of their prognostications turned out to be completely wrong while others proved to be eerily true. Let’s...
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AI frenzy driving supply chain crisis
An acute global shortage of memory chips is forcing artificial intelligence and consumer-electronics companies to fight for dwindling supplies, as prices soar for the unglamorous but essential components that allow devices to store data. Japanese...
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Java Journey begins on Jan. 15
The Java Journey, Visit Lebanon Valley’s annual coffee trail, is set to begin on Thursday, Jan. 15, according to officials. Running through March 28, the coffee trail will feature 14 coffee shops across the Lebanon Valley, including three new...
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Congress mulls larger role for HSAs
Created more than two decades ago, health savings accounts are a popular way for consumers to get tax breaks while saving for medical expenses. But could these accounts take on a larger role in how consumers pay for and get health care? Senate...
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Democrats face scrutiny over Israel-Gaza war
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker recently visited New Hampshire, where he met with activists and spoke at a town hall meeting, sparking speculation about a potential 2028 presidential run. The trip also underscored a political reality confronting Booker...
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‘DEEP CONNECTION’
The places Indigenous peoples call home have intertwined with their ways of life for millennia. Their stories, foodways and cultures relate directly to their homelands. Lands, waters, plants and animals, the creatures that inhabit the waters below and...
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Arizona traffic stops lead to deportations
On a heavily patrolled stretch of Interstate 10 south of Phoenix, people pulled over for having a cracked windshield or an object dangling from their rear view mirror have ended up in deportation proceedings. The stated goal of the traffic stops is to...
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Trump announces Venezuela strikes
President Donald Trump bragged in recent days about the United States’ first reported land strike on Venezuela, letting slip a CIA-led operation in what retired intelligence experts branded an unusual move. The United States has made covert incursions...
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‘Help’s farther away’
In the 1960s, doctors believed heart muscle died instantly during a heart attack, like throwing a light switch, according to the American Heart Association. Dr. Eugene Braunwald’s research proposed a heart attack was more like a dimmer – the damage...
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Lebanon City’s 2025 New Year’s Eve Bologna Drop
Lebanon City’s New Year’s Eve Bologna Drop is just days away. Here’s what residents need to know about the Dec. 31 event: The New Year’s Eve Bologna Drop will be held on South 8th Street, between Chestnut and Cumberland Street, starting at 10 p.m....
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Three-alarm blaze involving several homes
Four residents were displaced and two animals killed after Lebanon fire crews were dispatched to the scene of a three-alarm fire in the 200 block of South 5th Street. Fire crews were dispatched to 229 South 5th St. at 3:09 p.m. for a reported...
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Federal agents pull back in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO – President Donald Trump vowed this year to flood San Francisco with federal agents – and even soldiers – to crack down on crime. Instead, his administration has quietly taken law enforcement away, leaving the city with less help to fight...
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Teens drive election support
High School students addressed the Lebanon County Commissioners about the efforts of student poll workers during the municipal elections, with officials looking towards efforts to expand the program in 2026. Lebanon High School seniors Julia Perez and...
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New Epstein files spotlight Trump
WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton had his moment in the spotlight on Dec. 19 when the first batch of the Epstein files were released. On Dec. 23, it was sitting President Donald Trump’s turn. His name surfaced repeatedly in a new tranche of...
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‘FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE’
LONDON – The West’s push to build a homegrown magnets supply chain to reduce its reliance on China – led by massive U.S. backing for Nevada-based MP Materials – is running into a critical problem: the scarcity of so-called heavy rare earth...
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New state laws that will take effect in 2026
Several new state laws are set to go into effect in early 2026, laws that offer new tax credits to laws that ban hair discrimination and force schools to be more transparent about weapons incidents. The Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit is part of the...
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Turning Point USA gains ground on campuses
Apair of students stood in the Indiana University Indianapolis student center asking a simple legal question: “Is ‘hate speech’ protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution?” Students slowed to read the white board, and many shuffled toward...
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Lawmakers push for pause on nuclear plan
A pair of lawmakers exhorted the Energy Department’s top official to consider reining in a major nuclear arsenal modernization program amid long-running concerns over its cost and schedule performance. In a Dec. 16 letter shared with USA TODAY, Sen....
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States take up conservation goals terminated by Trump
WASHINGTON – With a snappy title and a laudable goal, “30 by 30” was a landmark plan hatched to help save at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. Alongside this multinational push, the United States had its own trailblazing version of...
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Guard honored before deployment to Europe
More than two hours before coming to the Keystone Conference Center in Fort Indiantown Gap Dec. 13, Sgt. David Thomson was in full cap and gown at Shippensburg University graduating with a degree in communication journalism. The West Chester resident...
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‘Their legacies remembered’
Hundreds of volunteers headed out to Indiantown Gap National Cemetery to place wreaths on veterans’ graves during the annual Wreaths Across America ceremony on Saturday, Dec. 13. Volunteers placed more than 31,547 wreaths on the graves of service...
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Lebanon fire crews tackle huge Cumberland St. blaze
A four-alarm fire engulfed multiple buildings in the 800 block of Cumberland Street Saturday, Dec. 13, drawing most Lebanon County fire departments to tackle the blaze that displaced 14 people and two animals. At 9:36 p.m., Lebanon city fire crews...
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America250PA Liberty Bell unveiled at Expo Center
Government and community leaders joined with America250PA organizers Dec. 10 to unveil a custom-designed Liberty Bell sculpture painted to celebrate the United States’ semiquincentennial anniversary. The sculpture, unveiled during a ceremony at the...
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‘SEEING PEOPLE AS PEOPLE’
When Elizabeth Dalzell’s daughter Liesl complained of severe pain in her left shoulder in June by using sign language, it began a nearly monthlong odyssey through New Jersey’s health care system before the young woman with multiple disabilities...
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Mobile homes
I’m a poverty law attorney in Virginia, and many of my clients are residents of mobile home parks. Over the past four years, I’ve watched their communities get sold, one by one, to large investment firms. Many of them are desperately struggling to...
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NY Archdiocese creates $300M fund for victims
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, the second-largest diocese in the nation, has agreed to negotiate a settlement that will pay a “large number of victims-survivors” who said priests sexually abused them as children. In a letter published on...
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United Way fundraisers collect over $28,000
The United Way of Lebanon County reports collecting more than $28,000 total in funds to support first responders and the families of victims involved in the fatal Church Street duplex fire. Organizers reported Dec. 5 that the Fire Relief Fund to help...
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Delivery drivers face different conditions
American households have become dependent on Amazon. h The numbers say it all: In 2024, 83% of U.S. households received deliveries from Amazon, representing over 1 million packages delivered each day and 9 billion individual items delivered same-day or...
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Companies sue to get tariffs refunded
As the Supreme Court weighs a challenge to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, American business owners are waiting to see what will happen to the money they spent importing goods – and whether they can offer their customers a reprieve from raised...
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REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR
Since Aug. 23, 1994, Congress has designated Dec. 7 as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, and all flags across the United States are flown at half staff in remembrance.
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Police seek ‘owner’ of deer painted with ‘PET’
Officials are asking for help in identifying the “owner” of a deer with a spray painted message that visited a West Cornwall Township business over the weekend. On Saturday, Nov. 29, an antlerless male deer wandered in the township, according to the...
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Afghans in U.S. fearful, anxious
LOUISVILLE, KY – More than four years after a harrowing escape from Afghanistan in 2021 as Kabul fell to the Taliban, Tamim Bedar finally got his green card in March. Bedar, 45, who spent years supporting U.S. goals during America’s 20-year war in...
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CIA-backed units hired DC shooting suspect
WASHINGTON – The Afghan man accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers blocks from the White House served with CIA-backed “zero units” in Afghanistan – paramilitary groups that carried out secret raids against suspected terrorists and U.S. enemies...
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Lebanon Rescue Mission sells Agape Shelter
In 1985, the Lebanon Rescue Mission, in cooperation with Lebanon County Christian Ministries and Catholic Social Services, sought to provide a homeless shelter for women. Restoring a historic mansion at 9th and Walnut Streets, the Agape Family Shelter...
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Drunken Smithy to host Yule Bazaar
Drunken Smithy announced the return of its annual Yule Bazaar, a festive holiday market featuring winter themes and timeless traditions at the Lebanon Valley Mall. Organizers of this year’s Bazaar are inviting the community to support local makers and...
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But increase in attendance brings conflicting feelings for some
Mackey remains “cautiously optimistic” the surge in church attendance will bring more people to God, though he worries it could instead connect people to “Christian nationalism,” which he defined as people placing the nation before God. The...
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Goodwill expands reach
Goodwill Keystone staff celebrated the grand opening of the organization’s relocated store and donation center in North Cornwall Township Monday, Nov. 24. Located at a 1860 Quentin Road plaza with Giant and Staples, officials said the new donation...
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HAPPY THANKSGIVING
There is no print edition of the paper today, but you can find today’s puzzles, comics, national news and sports here in the eNewspaper.
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Community rallies
On the evening of Nov. 5, Charles Z. was seen taking leftovers from his free meal at the Lebanon Church of the Brethren home. He asked the Lebanon Daily News not to use his last name for this story, saying he didn’t want people thinking he was a...
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Political violence support overstated
Aseries of recent events has sparked alarm about rising levels of political violence in the United States. These episodes include the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10; the murder of a Democratic Minnesota state legislator...
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Election officials praise voter turnout, workers
Election officials reported a surprisingly high turnout for Lebanon County during the Nov. 4 municipal elections, while touting the efforts by high school students working at the polls. Lebanon County’s Bureau of Voter Registration and Elections...
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Lebanon fire crews rescue 385-pound black bear
Lebanon County fire crews assisted in the Pennsylvania Game Commission in rescuing a male black bear from a tree in Millcreek Twp over the weekend, according to officials. The Womelsdorf Volunteer Fire Company reported that emergency crews responded...
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Officials: U.S. aid cuts curtail malaria fight
BOGO, Cameroon – Nine-month-old baby Mohamat burned with fever for three days before his family took him to the closest health center in northern Cameroon, but it was too late. He died of malaria that day. Mohamat’s death was part of a spike this year...
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Budget deadlock
As the Pennsylvania 2025-26 budget impasse continues, Lebanon County officials say the delay could result in major impacts for residents for 2026. Officials reported to the county commissioners during their Nov. 6 meeting that if they don’t have a...
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Family’s fate hinges on ICE decision
It was a Sunday like any other for the Brunty-Barojas family. Breakfast croissants for six kids. Coffee brewing in the kitchen. Video games in the living room. Soccer in the backyard. h But while the kids ate and played, Chelsea Brunty-Barojas was...
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SNAP disruptions could hurt grocers
Like the millions of Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, retailers are bracing for the effects of reduced or delayed funding to a program that typically injects billions of dollars into the U.S. economy each month. The...
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Silicon Valley ‘warlord’ gets Pentagon’s attention
NEW YORK – “I’m a warlord now, (expletive)!” Steven Simoni, wearing a $4,000 Celine track suit unzipped to reveal a bare chest and a silver chain, was holding court at a recent film premiere in the East Village of Manhattan, joking with a reporter...
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