Santa to visit Levin

Santa to visit Levin

NILES

Santa Claus will visit Levin Furniture, 836 Youngstown-Warren Road, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 16 for a “photos with Santa” fundraiser benefiting Akron Children’s Hospital of the Mahoning Valley in Boardman.

Ohio gas price falls

YOUNGSTOWN

Gas prices in Northeast Ohio are 14 cents cheaper this week at $2.164 per gallon according to AAA East Central’s Gas Price Report. Last week the gas prices fell by 12 cents.

Gas price averages for every Great Lakes and Central state were cheaper Monday than they were one year ago, with Ohio showing the largest drop in the region and country on the week.

The average gas price the week of Nov. 26, 2018, was $2.304. The average gas price the week of Dec. 4, 2017, was $2.387. On Monday, the average price gas price in Youngstown was $2.05 per gallon.

Qatar to leave OPEC

DUBAI, United Arab EmirateS

The tiny, energy-rich Arab nation of Qatar announced Monday it will withdraw from OPEC in January, a rebuke of the Saudi-dominated cartel as the kingdom’s boycott of Doha continues unabated and a crucial meeting of the group looms this week.

The surprise declaration could make Qatar the first Middle East nation to leave the cartel since its founding in 1960. It again injects politics into an organization that long has insisted it is nonpartisan, stealing headlines just as the cartel deliberates production cuts to halt a slide in global crude oil prices.

US soldier from Pa. dies from wounds

WASHINGTON

The Pentagon says a fourth soldier has died from wounds suffered last week in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan.

Sgt. Jason Mitchell McClary, 24, died Sunday at the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. He was from Export, Pa., about 22 miles from Pittsburgh.

Three other service members were killed in the explosion last Tuesday near Ghazni, and two others were wounded. It was the deadliest attack against U.S. forces in Afghanistan this year. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

McClary was assigned to 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Carson, Colo.

Spy agency puts blame on Russia for cyberattacks

PRAGUE

A Czech spy agency says it’s “obvious” Russia was behind cyberattacks against the country’s foreign ministry, calling them the most serious case of cyberespionage to hit the European country.

The agency known as BIS said in its annual report Monday the attacks were part of the Turla campaign by Russia’s FSB intelligence agency and APT28 campaign by GRU military intelligence agency.

Other European countries have faced similar attacks.

BIS says 150 email accounts were hacked in an attack that began in early 2016 and was discovered last year. The Czechs then said it was a sophisticated attack and experts believed it was done by a foreign state. BIS says a separate cyberattack started in December 2016.

Staff/wire reports