Holiday retail sales rise, report says
Holiday retail sales rise, report says
YOUNGSTOWN
Holiday retail sales during November and December increased 4 percent over 2015 to $658.3 billion, as a strengthening economy encouraged consumers to spend even more freely than expected, the National Retail Federation said last week.
The number includes $122.9 billion in nonstore sales, which were up 12.6 percent over the year before.
The numbers exceeded NRF’s forecast of $655.8 billion, which would have been an increase of 3.6 percent. NRF had forecast that online sales would grow between 7 and 10 percent to as much as $117 billion. The numbers exclude automobiles, gasoline stations and restaurants.
Ribbon-cutting event
canfield
The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. Wednesday for The Master’s Touch Healing and Training Center/Lucille Orr Ministries located at 5357 S. Raccoon Road.
Healing services are at 6 p.m. every Sunday with Bishop Jim Erb. Healing rooms are available at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays.
Teen abducted as a newborn meets her birth parents
WALTERBORO, S.C.
An 18-year-old woman abducted from a Florida hospital hours after her birth has met her biological parents for the first time.
Kamiyah Mobley met her birth parents Saturday at the police department in Walterboro, the South Carolina city where she was raised under a false name, multiple media outlets reported. Walterboro is 50 miles west of Charleston.
Craig Aiken said after the 45-minute meeting he is still in shock about suddenly being reunited with his long-lost daughter, but their first meeting couldn’t have gone better.
Mobley was only eight hours old in 1998 when she was taken from a Jacksonville, Fla., hospital by a woman posing as a nurse. A massive search and thousands of tips produced nothing until DNA evidence proved Mobley’s lineage.
Police this week charged Gloria Williams, 51, of Walterboro with kidnapping.
Ice storm falls short of dire forecasts
kansas city, mo.
Sleet and drizzle glazed swaths of the central U.S. on Sunday, extending icy weather that some meteorologists acknowledged fell short of dire forecasts.
Much of the region remained under an ice storm warning on the eve of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as stretches continued getting pelted by rain, often in areas where temperatures hovered around freezing. A National Weather Service ice storm warning for the Kansas City and St. Louis areas expired Sunday afternoon as temperatures exceeded freezing. An identical warning remained in effect until this morning to the north, as the storm pressed into Nebraska and Iowa.
Authorities say ice contributed to a southwestern Kansas wreck Saturday night that killed a 35-year-old Oklahoma man and injured several others.
Shelling kills 12
beirut
Syrian government forces shelled a village in a rebel-controlled area near Damascus on Sunday, killing at least 12 civilians and injuring several others who were taking shelter in a banquet hall.
On Sunday, shells fell on al-Reem banquet hall in Deir Qanoun village in the valley that houses hundreds of civilians who had escaped the intensified fighting. The activist-operated Wadi Barada Media Center said 12 were killed and more than 20 were injured.
Abu Hattab said the center has served as a shelter for displaced civilians who escaped the ongoing violence in the valley and other parts of rural Damascus.
Staff/wire reports