WASHINGTON: White House hopeful Donald Trump vowed Wednesday in a speech in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania to unleash American energy and “drill, baby, drill” as he misrepresented America’s blockbuster record on fossil fuel production.
Wooing blue-collar voters in Scranton, the former coal mining hub where President Joe Biden grew up, the Republican ex-president assailed his Democratic election rival Kamala Harris on US drilling for oil and accused her of forcing the closure of dozens of power stations.
“On day one I will tell Pennsylvania energy workers to frack, frack, frack, and drill, drill, drill, baby, drill. We’re going to frack, frack, frack,” Trump said.
“We will have energy independence and energy dominance, as we did just four short years ago. We were energy independent four years ago. Can you believe now we get our energy from Venezuela?“
Trump demonized migrants, flung baseless accusations of Democratic election fraud and misled his audience about his criminal prosecutions and polling, his opponent’s policies, US border security, the hurricanes, wind power and much else, too.
But his focus was on the economy — a top issue in the campaign — and he promised to slash household energy bills by 50 percent as he warned: “If Kamala is reelected, your costs will go up and your lights will go out.”
Under Trump the United States exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it imported, but was never close to genuine independence from foreign energy, with imports from Russia in particular spiking.
The country has been smashing records for production of oil, natural gas and renewable power under Biden, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
Trump is polling neck-and-neck with Harris in the Keystone State, the once-thriving epicenter of the US industrial heartland, which is considered one of the biggest prizes in the Electoral College system that decides US elections.
Although Biden’s family base is in Delaware, he grew up in Scranton and remains enormously popular in the county where it is located, which he won by nine points on the way to claiming the state in 2020.
Harris, Biden’s vice president, has maintained a nationwide polling lead of two to three points since mid-August and has been gaining on Trump on the economy, boosted by easing inflation and a robust jobs report last week.
But the polls in Pennsylvania and the other six swing states likely to decide the election have been much closer.
And with four weeks to go until Election Day on November 5, new Gallup polling shows Trump outperforming Harris 54 percent to 45 percent on the economy as he touts proposals for a tariff-led manufacturing “renaissance.”
Pennsylvania is seen as a bastion of the working class vote, and both candidates have visited regularly.
The former president, 78, has a second event Wednesday in Reading, 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia.
Trump was last in the Keystone State just four days ago for a defiant return to the site of a campaign rally where he was grazed on the ear by an assassin’s bullet in July, joined onstage by billionaire backer Elon Musk.
Harris heads there next week but former president Barack Obama arrives first for a rally on Friday, part of a blitz of key swing states, adding his star power to the Democrat’s White House bid in the final month of the campaign.
Harris heads to Nevada later Wednesday for a campaign event in Las Vegas on Thursday. She then hits Arizona, where she will campaign in Phoenix on Friday.
Trump vows in Biden’s back yard to ‘drill, baby, drill’
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Trump vows in Biden’s back yard to ‘drill, baby, drill’
World welcomes 2026 with fireworks after year of turmoil
- Australia holds defiant celebrations after its worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years
- Hong Kong holds a subdued event after a deadly fire in tower blocks
PARIS, France: People around the globe toasted the end of 2025 on Wednesday, bidding farewell to one of the hottest years on record, packed with Trump tariffs, a Gaza truce and vain hopes for peace in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his traditional New Year address to tell his compatriots their military “heroes” would deliver victory in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, while his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was “10 percent” away from a deal to end the fighting.
Earlier, New Year celebrations took on a somber tone in Sydney as revellers held a minute of silence for victims of the Bondi Beach shooting before nine tons of fireworks lit up the harbor city at the stroke of midnight.
Seeing in the New Year in Moscow, Natalia Spirina, a pensioner from the central city of Ulyanovsk, said that in 2026 she hoped for “our military operation to end as soon as possible, for the guys to come home and for peace and stability to finally be established in Russia.”
Over the border in Vyshgorod, Ukrainian beauty salon manager Daria Lushchyk said the war had made her work “hell” — but that her clients were still coming regardless.
“Nothing can stop our Ukrainian girls from coming in and getting themselves glam,” Lushchyk said.
Back in Sydney, heavily armed police patrolled among hundreds of thousands of people lining the shore barely two weeks after a father and son allegedly opened fire on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting for almost 30 years.
Parties paused for a minute of silence an hour before midnight, with the famed Sydney Harbor Bridge bathed in white light to symbolize peace.
Pacific nations including Kiribati and New Zealand were the first to see in 2026, with Seoul and Tokyo following Sydney in celebrations that will stretch to glitzy New York via Scotland’s Hogmanay festival.
More than two million people are expected to pack Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach for what authorities have called the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.
In Hong Kong, a major New Year fireworks display planned for Victoria Harbor was canceled in homage to 161 people killed in a fire in November that engulfed several apartment blocks.
Truce and tariffs
This year has brought a mix of stress and excitement for many, war for others still — and offbeat trends, with Labubu dolls becoming a worldwide craze.
Thieves plundered the Louvre in a daring heist, and K-pop heartthrobs BTS made their long-awaited return.
The world lost pioneering zoologist Jane Goodall, the Vatican chose a new, American, pope and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk laid bare America’s deep political divisions.
Donald Trump returned as US president in January, launching a tariff blitz that sent global markets into meltdown.
Trump used his Truth Social platform to lash out at his sliding approval ratings ahead of midterm elections to be held in November.
“Isn’t it nice to have a STRONG BORDER, No Inflation, a powerful Military, and great Economy??? Happy New Year!” he wrote.
After two years of war that left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, US pressure helped land a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October — though both sides have accused each other of flagrant violations.
“We bid farewell to 2025 with deep sorrow and grief,” said Gaza City resident Shireen Al-Kayali. “We lost a lot of people and our possessions. We lived a difficult and harsh life, displaced from one city to another, under bombardment and in terror.”
In contrast, there was optimism despite abiding internal challenges in Syria, where residents of the capital Damascus celebrated a full year since the fall of Bashar Assad.
“There is no fear, the people are happy, all of Syria is one and united, and God willing ... it will be a good year for the people and the wise leadership,” marketing manager Sahar Al-Said, 33, told AFP against a backdrop of ringing bells near Damascus’s Bab Touma neighborhood.
“I hope, God willing, that we will love each other. Loving each other is enough,” said Bashar Al-Qaderi, 28.
Sports, space and AI
In Dubai, thousands of revellers queued for up to nine hours for a spectacular fireworks and laser display at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
After a build-up featuring jet skis and floating pianos on an adjacent lake, a 10-minute burst of pyrotechnics and LED effects lit up the needle-shaped, 828-meter tall (2,717-feet) tower.
The coming 12 months promise to be full of sports, space and questions over artificial intelligence.
NASA’s Artemis II mission, backed by tech titan Elon Musk, will launch a crewed spacecraft to circle the moon during a 10-day flight, more than 50 years since the last Apollo lunar mission.
After years of unbridled enthusiasm, AI is facing scrutiny and nervous investors are questioning whether the boom might now resemble a market bubble.
Athletes will gather in Italy in February for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
And for a few weeks in June and July, 48 nations will compete in the biggest football World Cup in history in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
