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Local Business July 29, 2026

First Commonwealth reports Q2 income First Commonwealth Financial Corp. on Tuesday reported second-quarter net income of $44.6 million. The Indiana, Pennsylvania-based bank said it had earnings of 44 cents per share. The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 42 cents per share. The financial holding company posted revenue of $186.3 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $139.4 million, also surpassing Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected ...

Daily briefing

International News July 29, 2026

Nation District of Columbia Senate confirms intelligence director WASHINGTON — The Senate has confirmed Jay Clayton to become head of the nation’s intelligence agencies, putting a permanent director in place weeks after President Donald Trump sought to delay his nomination. Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, was confirmed 51-47 along party lines. Massachusetts eBay agrees to settlement with couple BOSTON — eBay Inc. agreed to pay almost $50 million to a Massachusetts couple who ...

Teen gets life for killing 4 at school

National News July 28, 2026

A judge on Tuesday sentenced a teenager who killed two students and two teachers in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, calling his crimes “deliberate, contemplated evil.” Colt Gray, 16, had pleaded guilty Friday to 55 counts, including murder, in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta. Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm handed down the sentence after hearing from family members of those killed and victims, as well as investigators, Gray’s grandmother and ...

Zelenskyy has ‘good meeting’ with Trump

International News July 28, 2026

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Tuesday ahead of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral, with the two leaders discussing ways for Ukraine to produce its own powerful weapons and “other ideas that could help” in its ongoing war against Russia. The sit-down in the Oval Office, which was closed to the media, followed a consequential meeting at the NATO summit earlier this month in Ankara, Turkey, where Trump announced that the U.S. will give Ukraine a license to make Patriot defense systems — a long-running request from Kyiv to counter ...

Thousands evacuated in wildfires

International News July 28, 2026

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — French authorities ordered 4,000 more people evacuated from tourist sites along its Atlantic coast on Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of ...

Florida executes two men in a day, including an octogenarian

National News July 28, 2026

STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida’s death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term, saying too many families have waited too long to see justice. The lethal injections several hours apart were the first nearly ...