The Petersburg Post
Top News Stories for Friday, January 30th 2026
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders were scrambling on Friday to save a bipartisan spending deal and prevent a partial government shutdown this weekend as Democrats demanded new restrictions on federal immigration raids across the country. Democrats struck a rare deal with President Donald Trump to separate funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a broad government spending bill and provide money ...
Source: apnews.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
In Minneapolis and communities nationwide, trust is built on reporting that follows the facts wherever they lead -- even when powerful institutions resist scrutiny. Support journalism that stands firmly for the public's right to know. Already a member? President Donald Trump on Friday announced he will nominate Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve. "I have known Kevin for a long period of time, ...
Source: huffpost.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
Ginger Conlon at Genesys explores why AI will be the foundation of customer experience in 2026 and how organisations can prepare for the shift. In 2026, customer experience will define brand success more than product, price, or convenience. In the experience economy, every interaction influences loyalty and lifetime value. Customers no longer compare you to your direct competitors; they compare you to the best ...
Source: callcentrehelper.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
FBI raid in Georgia has little legal basis – but serves Trump's goal to weaken trust in election results Raid on Fulton county election office is part of the Trump administration's wider US push to fuel false claims of fraud The FBI raid on the Fulton county election office Wednesday was an aggressive new front in Donald Trump's effort to use his 2020 election loss to continue to sow doubt about American ...
Source: theguardian.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
At least five world leaders have visited Beijing in January alone. The high-level visits come as countries navigate tense U.S. relations. Business executives are also using the opportunity for China deals. In this article China's President Xi Jinping (R) and Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer shake hands before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on January 29, 2026. BEIJING — ...
Source: cnbc.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
What is a Trump Account? Trump Accounts are investment accounts for kids. The federal government will contribute $1,000 for newborns to kick-start the account. Parents or guardians can then add their own money — up to $5,000 a year — to maximize growth, but contributing isn't required. Adults will have control of the account until their child turns 18. At age 18, the child can either withdraw the funds ...
Source: insider.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion, as he accuses the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president's tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020. The suit, filed in a Florida federal court Thursday, includes the president's sons Eric Trump and, Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump organization as plaintiffs. The filing alleges ...
Source: cleveland.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
Google AI lets you explore any virtual world you can dream up instantly Google's just begun opening up access to an AI model I can actually get behind. This one lets you generate a virtual world of any kind and travel through it with a vehicle or character like in a video game – all with text prompts or images you upload. That could be a spaceship flying over an alien planet, a blimp over a European city set ...
Source: newatlas.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
Artificial intelligence helps doctors spot more cases of breast cancer when reading routine scans. Artificial intelligence helps doctors spot more cases of breast cancer when reading routine scans, a world-first trial found Friday. The results suggest countries should roll out programmes taking advantage of AI's scanning power to ease the workload of short-staffed radiologists, the Swedish lead researchers said. ...
Source: digitaljournal.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba , a move that could further cripple an island plagued by a deepening energy crisis. The order would primarily put pressure on Mexico , a government that has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba and has constantly voiced solidarity for the U.S. adversary ...
Source: nbcnews.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that he expects the United States to respect the country's sovereignty after reports that Alberta separatists have met several times with officials of the Donald Trump administration. The Financial Times reported that US State Department officials held meetings with the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), a group calling for a referendum on whether the energy-rich western ...
Source: aljazeera.com
Friday, Jan 30th, 2026 -
As of January 26, over 100,000 Arizona students are making use of the state's Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the local implementation of education savings accounts (ESAs). The popularity of the program, under which education funding follows children rather than being attached to an institution, is evidence of growing acceptance of school choice and of the diversity of education opportunities available for ...
Source: reason.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
One analyst estimates Tesla could ultimately make $25 billion a year by selling Optimus robots manufactured on former Model S and Model X production lines Tesla CEO Elon Musk used to refer to the company's electric-vehicle lineup as a " S3XY " suite of cars. But he'll need a new moniker as Tesla does away with its Model S and Model X vehicles, which have become casualties of Musk's artificial-intelligence goals. ...
Source: marketwatch.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced Thursday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has informed her that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ceased enhanced operations in Maine, something Collins had repeatedly discussed with Noem in recent days. "I can report that Secretary Noem has informed me that ICE has ended its enhanced activities in the State of Maine," the senator wrote in a ...
Source: thehill.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
SPRINGFIELD — A white former sheriff's deputy convicted of murdering an unarmed Black woman in her Springfield area home was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison, marking a capstone in a racially charged case of police brutality that drew national headlines. A jury in October found Sean Grayson, 31, guilty of second-degree murder for fatally shooting Sonya Massey, 36, in the face in July 2024. The mother ...
Source: chicago.suntimes.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
The Federal Reserve paused its easing cycle at the January meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. It held the short-term federal funds rate at a top rate of 3.75%, which is the level set in December. This is the first policy pause since the Fed resumed its easing in September. The Fed's January statement described the economy as being in solid health: "Available indicators suggest that economic activity has ...
Source: nahb.org
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Days after ordering the leader of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to appear before him, a federal judge in Minnesota has ripped into the agency, accusing it of violating roughly 100 court orders since the start of 2026. "ICE is not a law unto itself," Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz declared in a relatively terse four-page order on Wednesday. While acknowledging that the Trump ...
Source: lawandcrime.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened Canada with a 50% tariff on any aircraft sold in the U.S., the latest salvo in his trade war with America's northern neighbor as his feud with Prime Minister Mark Carney expands. Trump's threat posted on social media came after he threatened over the weekend to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if it went forward with a planned ...
Source: apnews.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Apple on Thursday evening reported a blowout holiday quarter, driven by a 23% increase in iPhone sales. A strong revenue guide for the current March quarter suggests this strong device cycle will continue. Revenue in Apple's fiscal 2026 first quarter, which ended back on Dec. 27, rose 16% year over year to $143.76 billion, exceeding the $138.48 billion consensus estimate compiled by LSEG. Earnings per share of ...
Source: cnbc.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
In Minneapolis and communities nationwide, trust is built on reporting that follows the facts wherever they lead -- even when powerful institutions resist scrutiny. Support journalism that stands firmly for the public's right to know. Already a member? CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday signed a law that will open the nation's oil sector to privatization, ...
Source: huffpost.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Turkey hosts urgent mediation as Trump's threats mount and Tehran weighs painful compromises to avoid conflict Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will travel to Ankara for talks aimed at preventing a US attack, as Turkish diplomats seek to convince Tehran it must offer concessions over its nuclear programme if it is to avert a potentially devastating conflict. Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , ...
Source: theguardian.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
The outrage over Bill Belichick getting stuffed at the golden jacket goal line is palpable and understandable. But this outcome was always a possibility, and some of us tried to warn about it when Patriots owner Robert Kraft kept getting turned aside for the call to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Kraft was the canary in the Canton coal mine when he was blocked with Spygate and Deflategate used as part of the ...
Source: bostonglobe.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
The Trump administration is barred from arresting and detaining legal refugees in Minnesota , a federal district court has ruled. Earlier this year, amid a widespread immigration crackdown in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — along with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — began an effort aimed at targeting and reexamining the legal status of ...
Source: lawandcrime.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Infections had turned his lungs to soup and had to be cleared before transplant. Humans can't live without lungs. And yet for 48 hours, in a surgical suite at Northwestern University, a 33-year-old man lived with an empty cavity in his chest where his lungs used to be. He was kept alive by a custom-engineered artificial device that represented a desperate last-ditch effort by his doctors. The custom hardware solved ...
Source: arstechnica.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Reading time 2 minutes As robotaxis become more mainstream and spread across American cities, accidents are bound to happen. Unfortunately, we're already starting to see some. A Waymo robotaxi struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23. Luckily, the child suffered only minor injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Wednesday that the incident happened ...
Source: gizmodo.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Polar bears are the poster children of climate change—and for good reason. These giant bears hunt, mate and spend their days hanging out on Arctic sea ice, which is rapidly disappearing as the climate warms. But some polar bears, it seems, are far more resilient than we realized: new research suggests that in one region, the bears are adapting to the declining sea ice. Researchers took more than 1,000 body ...
Source: scientificamerican.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
The Justice Department filed charges Thursday against a man who is accused of trying to spray Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., with a substance from a syringe during a town hall in Minneapolis this week. Anthony Kazmierczak faces a count alleging that he "forcibly assaulted, opposed, impeded, intimidated and officer and employee of the United States" while she was engaged in official duties. In a separate case, federal ...
Source: nbcnews.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
The Trump administration's deployment of troops to five different U.S. cities last year cost roughly $496 million through the end of December, according to estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office this week. Keeping Guard forces deployed at the same levels as late December could cost about $93 million per month going forward, the nonpartisan office estimated. The Pentagon in June 2025 deployed ...
Source: cbsnews.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
. With improved tracking capabilities and louder sound, this new item tracker might look almost identical to its predecessor. However, it can be a great upgrade if you have some of Apple's latest products, such as the iPhone 16, iPhone 17, iPhone Air, or an Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, or newer. Still, even if you're relying on an older iPhone, Apple is using a new Bluetooth specification to increase ...
Source: bgr.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
An outbreak of the Nipah virus in India's eastern state of West Bengal has heightened concerns in China and several Southeast Asian countries, prompting them to tighten health screening operations at airports as millions prepare to travel for the Lunar New Year holiday. Since December 2025, two confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in West Bengal, India's health ministry said on Wednesday. The ministry ...
Source: aljazeera.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Google says it's exploring the option of letting publishers opt out of having their website content used to generate AI Overviews at the top of search results. In a blog post published on Thursday, the company addressed its approach to the controls it provides to websites in order to manage how their content appears in Search AI features. The post was Google's response to the fact that the UK's Competition and ...
Source: cnet.com
Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 -
Elon Musk's SpaceX is considering a potential merger with Tesla as well as an alternative combination with artificial-intelligence company xAI, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Tesla's shares were up 3% after the bell following the report. SpaceX and xAI are in discussions to merge ahead of a blockbuster public offering planned for later ...
Source: nypost.com
Wednesday, Jan 28th, 2026 -
In Minneapolis and communities nationwide, trust is built on reporting that follows the facts wherever they lead -- even when powerful institutions resist scrutiny. Support journalism that stands firmly for the public's right to know. Already a member? Bruce Springsteen seems equal parts outraged and inspired by the unrest and violence in Minneapolis. So much so that on Saturday — the same day that Alex ...
Source: huffpost.com
Wednesday, Jan 28th, 2026 -
Reading time 3 minutes Six months into its big AI turnaround, Meta believes 2026 will be the year it starts reaping the benefits. The tech giant has spent billions upon billions on Meta Superintelligence Labs, poaching top talent from the likes of OpenAI, Apple, and more in the hopes of revitalizing its failing AI initiatives. The company is hoping to prove that it's finally eating the fruits of that commitment ...
Source: gizmodo.com