MNC News https://www.mncnews.com/ MNC News — breaking news, politics, world, business, technology, entertainment, health and sport, with live coverage and video around the clock. en-us Mon, 24 Aug 2026 11:15:00 GMT Postal service sets new rules for mail-in ballots, but a court order keeps them on hold https://www.mncnews.com/article/2625752.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/2625752.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 11:15:00 GMT U.S. The changes would tighten the window for postmarking and tracking absentee ballots in the thirty-one states that accept them by mail. They cannot take effect until a federal judge lifts an injunction issued last month. Watch: the state emergency operations center briefing on the Hawk Ridge Fire https://www.mncnews.com/article/6877241.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/6877241.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:55:00 GMT Video Fire officials, the sheriff’s office and the utility give the morning update on containment, evacuation zones and the power shutoff. Full briefing, with the map walkthrough at 09:40. Fast-moving Hawk Ridge Fire grows to 13,000 acres, forcing 42,000 evacuations https://www.mncnews.com/article/3873600.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/3873600.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:40:00 GMT U.S. The fire doubled in size overnight as winds shifted onto a ridge above two subdivisions. Crews say containment is in single digits and the next twelve hours will decide whether the eastern flank holds. Senate clears a stopgap spending deal with hours to spare, pushing the real fight to December https://www.mncnews.com/article/6121570.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/6121570.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 01:50:00 GMT Politics The 68–31 vote funds the government through December 19 and leaves every contested item — disaster aid, health subsidies and a farm package — for a lame-duck session. The middlemen selling restaurant reservations you cannot get https://www.mncnews.com/article/6509613.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/6509613.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 20:20:00 GMT U.S. A three-week investigation found that booking systems at sought-after restaurants are being emptied within seconds by scripted accounts, and the tables resold in private chats for as much as $300. Week one preview: three rebuilt offensive lines and the quarterbacks who will find out first https://www.mncnews.com/article/7582854.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/7582854.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 19:40:00 GMT Sports Five teams start a lineman drafted this spring at left tackle. History says the adjustment shows up not in sacks allowed but in how early a play breaks down. Central bank holds rates for a third meeting, and drops the word markets were watching https://www.mncnews.com/article/8631885.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8631885.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 18:35:00 GMT Business The policy statement kept the target range unchanged but removed the phrase describing further tightening as “likely.” Two-year yields fell nine basis points within a minute of the release. Trade talks stall over a clause nobody wants to name, and the summit ends a day early https://www.mncnews.com/article/5618444.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/5618444.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 17:10:00 GMT International Negotiators worked through two nights on market access and left without a text. The sticking point, according to three delegations, is a dispute-settlement provision that neither side can concede without a domestic fight. A festival sold out in ninety seconds. Then the resale listings appeared for four times face value. https://www.mncnews.com/article/9360739.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/9360739.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 16:15:00 GMT Entertainment Organizers moved to a registration-only sale to stop bulk buying. About 340,000 people registered for 62,000 tickets, and the tickets still ended up on resale sites. School bus stop-arm cameras cut illegal passing by a third — and generated 91,000 tickets https://www.mncnews.com/article/8071807.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8071807.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 15:05:00 GMT U.S. Districts that installed cameras on bus stop arms saw a sharp drop in drivers passing a stopped bus. The programs also produced a revenue stream that several school boards say they did not plan for. Forecasters raise the hurricane season outlook, and explain why the number of storms is the least useful part https://www.mncnews.com/article/5257200.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/5257200.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 14:05:00 GMT Weather The updated outlook calls for 17 to 21 named storms. Emergency managers say the figure that should drive planning is landfall probability along a given stretch of coast, which the seasonal outlook does not provide. The grid is now the bottleneck for AI, and utilities are rationing connections https://www.mncnews.com/article/2206168.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/2206168.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 13:20:00 GMT Technology Three regional operators have queues of proposed data centers requesting more power than they can supply this decade. Two have begun approving projects only if they bring their own generation. Flu season started five weeks early, and the dominant strain is a poor match for the vaccine https://www.mncnews.com/article/8478615.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8478615.html Sun, 23 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Health Surveillance shows sustained community transmission already under way in the south and mountain west. Health officials still recommend vaccination, and are clear about what a partial match does and does not do. What the new tariff schedule actually changes at the checkout https://www.mncnews.com/article/8077512.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8077512.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 20:00:00 GMT Politics The headline rate applies to a narrower slice of imports than the announcement suggested. For most households the effect arrives slowly, through categories where a single supplier dominates. Fourteen minutes with a research storm chase team, from deployment to the last probe https://www.mncnews.com/article/3754675.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/3754675.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 19:30:00 GMT Video They are not filming the tornado. They are trying to place instruments in its path, which means being close enough to matter and far enough to leave. A subway line is being rewired one weekend at a time. Riders are noticing. https://www.mncnews.com/article/8790930.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8790930.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 18:30:00 GMT U.S. The signal system on the busiest line dates from the 1930s. Replacing it means closing sections every weekend for three years — and the first year is running four months behind. The trade market is frozen, and the reason is a rule change nobody wanted to test first https://www.mncnews.com/article/4552810.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/4552810.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 17:05:00 GMT Sports New restrictions on teams above the second apron have removed the mechanisms that made large deals possible. Executives say the market will not clear until someone proves what is still allowed. A heat dome settles over the southwest, and the overnight low is the dangerous part https://www.mncnews.com/article/5330518.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/5330518.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 16:50:00 GMT Weather Afternoon highs will reach 112°F in the desert valleys. Health officials say the greater risk is that overnight lows stay above 85, giving the body no chance to recover. A severed undersea cable, a ship that switched off its transponder, and a case that may never close https://www.mncnews.com/article/1865519.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/1865519.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:35:00 GMT International Two data cables were cut within nine hours of each other. Investigators have a vessel track, a drag mark on the seabed and no jurisdiction that clearly reaches the ship. A chip plant opens two years late, and the hard part is only starting https://www.mncnews.com/article/7822550.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/7822550.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:20:00 GMT Technology The fab has produced its first qualification wafers. Reaching the yields that make the economics work typically takes another eighteen months, and the plant needs 900 more technicians. Streaming services are raising prices and cutting catalogs. Subscribers are doing the math. https://www.mncnews.com/article/1982354.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/1982354.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 14:30:00 GMT Entertainment Four major services have increased prices this year while reducing the number of titles available. Churn is at a record, and a growing share of subscribers now cycle in and out around single shows. Districts that moved the high school bell later got 34 more minutes of sleep. Nothing else changed. https://www.mncnews.com/article/2695924.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/2695924.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:35:00 GMT Health A four-year study of 61 districts found the sleep gain persisted and did not come at the cost of bedtime drift. Attendance improved slightly; test scores did not move. The felony backlog is shrinking almost everywhere — except where it grew the most https://www.mncnews.com/article/9221719.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/9221719.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:15:00 GMT U.S. Court systems have cleared most of the case backlog built up over the past five years. But in the twelve largest urban districts the median time from arrest to trial is still six weeks longer than it was. The job market in eight charts https://www.mncnews.com/article/8905285.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8905285.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 12:45:00 GMT Business Payroll growth has slowed to about 84,000 a month. Underneath the headline, hiring has narrowed to three sectors and the quit rate has fallen to a level last seen a decade ago. School lunch changed this year. Here is what is actually different on the tray. https://www.mncnews.com/article/9198296.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/9198296.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 11:45:00 GMT Lifestyle New standards cut added sugar in breakfast cereals and flavored milk and phase in a sodium reduction over three years. Districts say the hard part is not the rules — it is the equipment. Five budget earbuds, tested on a two-week commute https://www.mncnews.com/article/4980908.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/4980908.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 10:30:00 GMT Shop We wore each pair for a full week on a train, a bus and a walk through traffic. Noise cancellation separated them far less than fit and call quality did. Border encounters fell for a fifth straight month. The composition changed more than the total. https://www.mncnews.com/article/4996705.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/4996705.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 21:40:00 GMT U.S. Monthly encounters at the southwest border are down 41% from a year ago. Inside that number, the share of single adults has risen and the share of families has fallen by more than half. A launch scrubbed four times in nine days shows how narrow the window really is https://www.mncnews.com/article/6469246.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/6469246.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:45:00 GMT Technology The payload must reach a specific orbital plane at a specific local solar time. That leaves a launch opportunity of eleven minutes a day — and weather has cooperated on none of them. The expanded playoff produced better games and a scheduling problem it cannot solve https://www.mncnews.com/article/2138520.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/2138520.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 19:15:00 GMT Sports A larger field delivered closer margins and higher ratings. It also pushed the championship deep into January and added two games for players already at the limit of a compressed season. The summer finished ahead of last year on fewer films, and one weekend explains most of it https://www.mncnews.com/article/4573751.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/4573751.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:20:00 GMT Entertainment Total gross rose 6% on 22% fewer wide releases. Cinema operators say the concentration is the problem: a full house in July does not pay for an empty room in June. Telehealth kept rural clinics open. The broadband it depends on is still missing. https://www.mncnews.com/article/8253399.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8253399.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 17:50:00 GMT Health Remote consultation has become a core service rather than a stopgap. In the counties where it matters most, a quarter of households cannot sustain a video call. Three governor’s races are inside the margin, and the polling is telling two different stories https://www.mncnews.com/article/3963425.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/3963425.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 16:40:00 GMT Politics Live-caller surveys and online panels disagree by six to nine points in the same states. The gap is largest among voters under 35, which is exactly where turnout is hardest to model. The four-day week is quietly winning, one Friday at a time https://www.mncnews.com/article/3494648.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/3494648.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 15:15:00 GMT Lifestyle Few employers have formally adopted a compressed week. A great many have stopped scheduling anything on Fridays, which is producing similar traffic and childcare effects without a policy. A poor harvest, a closed corridor and a funding gap: three things turning a bad year into an emergency https://www.mncnews.com/article/7253549.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/7253549.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 14:45:00 GMT International Aid agencies say 4.1 million people face crisis-level food insecurity in the region this season, and that the shortfall is less about food availability than about the roads it cannot travel. Builders have the lots and the permits. They are not pouring the foundations. https://www.mncnews.com/article/3081596.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/3081596.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 13:50:00 GMT Business Single-family permits are running well ahead of starts, a gap that has widened for five months. Builders say the constraint is buyer traffic, not financing or labor. Body cameras were on. The footage was released, on average, 71 days later. https://www.mncnews.com/article/8813327.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8813327.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:10:00 GMT U.S. Nearly every large department now issues body cameras. A review of 210 critical incidents found that the median release time has barely moved in five years, and that written policy explains almost none of the variation. Federal officials order steeper water cuts, and agriculture takes almost all of them https://www.mncnews.com/article/8168657.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8168657.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:55:00 GMT Weather Reductions of 18% to 23% will apply to three states next year. About 78% of the water in the system goes to irrigation, which is where any meaningful cut has to come from. Thirty-six hours at a container terminal, from the last ship of Tuesday to the first of Thursday https://www.mncnews.com/article/3014950.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/3014950.html Thu, 20 Aug 2026 21:10:00 GMT Video Filmed across three shifts: the crane operators, the yard planners and the truck drivers who wait, and who explain what the waiting is actually about. A late-night show is dropping the monologue. The clips economy already did. https://www.mncnews.com/article/8818661.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/8818661.html Thu, 20 Aug 2026 20:05:00 GMT Entertainment The format that defined the genre for sixty years is being replaced with a longer interview and a shorter run time, after producers found that almost nobody watches the opening live. War-risk premiums have tripled on one route. The ships are still sailing. https://www.mncnews.com/article/6229866.html https://www.mncnews.com/article/6229866.html Thu, 20 Aug 2026 19:20:00 GMT International Insurers have reclassified a stretch of water used by roughly a tenth of container traffic. Carriers are paying the premium rather than rerouting, because the alternative costs more.