Author: rpnadmin

The opening of the Great American State Fair on Thursday offered a coast-to-coast showcase of the nation’s unique cultures and traditions as the United States was just days away from celebrating its 250th anniversary. Whether it was bouquets of chiles hanging inside New Mexico’s exhibit or a talking hologram of Abraham Lincoln greeting guests in Illinois’ pavilion, each state shared cherished parts of its character inside faux neoclassical facades lining the National Mall. Visitors dressed in an assortment of red, white and blue garb crisscrossed the grassy expanses of the Mall to collect stamps from each of the 50 states…

A family of four wastes nearly $3,000 worth of food every year. That figure, released in an April 2025 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report, nearly doubles the previous federal estimate of $1,500; a number that had been cited for over a decade but was based on 2010 grocery prices. The math has finally caught up. Food prices have risen more than 50% since that original calculation, and the cost of what Americans throw away has gone up along with them. Where the money goes The EPA report breaks it down to $728 per person annually, or about $14 per week.…

A federal appeals court on Thursday revived a lawsuit against a New York school district for socially transitioning a student behind her mother’s back, citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in favor of California parents. In a 3-0 ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to the district court to reconsider the legal claims made by Jennifer Vitsaxaki, the student’s mother, following the high court’s March 2 decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta. In Mirabelli, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of California parents who argued that their free speech, free exercise and due process rights…

LOS ANGELES — Attorneys are weighing their options after a jury said it could not decide whether to convict the man accused of sparking the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles after two days of deliberation. Jurors said Thursday they couldn’t reach a unanimous decision in the trial of 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht on three federal charges, a surprise development after less than 30 minutes earlier they said they had come to a unanimous verdict. They were asked to return to court Friday morning. “We have people on both sides that are dead set, unwavering and unwilling to change their…

A federal judge in Washington on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to release information redacted or withheld from the public Epstein files, including names of people prosecutors once identified as “co-conspirators” and more details about an FBI interview with a woman who claimed President Trump assaulted her. Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, ruled in favor of Katie Phang, a journalist who had argued the administration had skirted the Epstein Files Transparency Act by failing to release that information. Judge Sullivan also ordered acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to produce Epstein files that were in foreign languages, and to release…

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani barreled into City Hall vowing to tackle the city’s notoriously high cost of living, partly by fulfilling a campaign promise repeated with almost monomaniacal zeal in social media ads, speeches and rallies: “As your next mayor, I will freeze your rent.” On Thursday evening, a board he controls made good on that signature pledge. The city’s Rent Guidelines Board, an independent panel of mayoral appointees, approved a rent freeze covering both one-year and two-year leases for people living in about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The vote, while expected, is a big…

LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL MONUMENT, Mont. — The quiet, wind-swept hills of the Battle of Greasy Grass, known to many as the Battle of Little Bighorn, are the setting for Native Americans commemorating the battle’s 150th anniversary with horse rides, battle reenactments and a camp of hundreds of people this week. The battle, one of the most famous and symbolically charged events in American history, marked its anniversary Thursday. Allied tribes came together on that hot day near the banks of the Little Bighorn River in present-day Montana to hand the U.S. Army a rare defeat as they fought to…

A Las Vegas man charged with murdering his wife two decades ago at Zion National Park died in custody Thursday, just days after his arrest, before he could appear in court on the charges. David Vander Meer, 49, a former youth pastor who was working as a school counselor at the time of his arrest, was arrested Monday on charges of murder and insurance fraud in connection with the Aug. 22, 2006, death of his wife, Bernadette Vander Meer, who fell from Angels Landing at Zion National Park in Utah. He had been held at the Clark County Detention Center…

Did the founders of the United States intend to create a Christian nation? Political leaders who addressed a prayer rally on the National Mall on May 17, 2026, seem to think so: House Speaker Mike Johnson led the crowd in “rededicat(ing) the United States of America as one nation under God.” Some, and perhaps many, scholars would say no: that while many founders were religious, as a group they concluded that the national government should not support any particular faith. As a scholar of Colonial North America, I believe that history provides an answer. European colonizers in lands that became…

A five-term congressman lost his seat Tuesday to a 32-year-old community organizer backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — and the margin of victory came from just 7% of the district’s registered Democrats. Darializa Avila Chevalier won the Democratic primary in New York’s 13th Congressional District with roughly 32,700 votes to incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s 30,400, according to preliminary results reported by the Associated Press. The district has approximately 449,000 active registered Democrats. That means Ms. Avila Chevalier — poised to hold a seat in the United States House of Representatives — secured the nomination with the support…