Author: rpnadmin

Five middle school students are being hailed as heroes after they took control of a runaway school bus and helped save their driver’s life when she lost consciousness behind the wheel last week. The April 22 incident unfolded shortly after Bus No. 22 departed Hancock Middle School in Hancock County with roughly 40 students on board. Driver Leah Taylor, 46, suffered a sudden asthma attack and reached for her medication — but blacked out before she could take it. Sixth-grader Jackson Casnave, 12, who was seated directly behind Ms. Taylor, was the first to react. Noticing the bus beginning to…

A Louisiana crime watchdog group is urging state officials to appoint judges rather than have voters elect them because the judges often run unopposed and are not held accountable for their judicial record. Rafael Goyeneche, president of the nonprofit watchdog Metropolitan Crime Commission, said that after appointed judges serve a four-year term, voters could then decide whether they keep their seats on the bench. “That provides more transparency and checks and balances against judges who have not performed to the level that the public expects,” Mr. Goyeneche told WWL-TV in New Orleans. He said it would curb the problem of…

Austin’s oldest continuously operating family business is shutting its doors after 141 years of selling pralines, chocolates and holiday treats to generations of Central Texas families. Lammes Candies, which traces its roots to 1878, announced it is winding down all retail operations, citing “the unprecedented economic pressures and current market conditions.” The Round Rock store closed Friday, and the flagship location at 5330 Airport Blvd. in Austin is expected to remain open for a limited time to allow customers a final chance to stock up on their favorite treats, according to CultureMap Austin. The closure caps a story inseparable from…

The House Judiciary Committee has invited the Southern Poverty Law Center to testify at a hearing on its role in “distorting federal civil rights policy in recent years.” Committee Chairman Jim Jordan asked Bryan Fair, the center’s interim president, to testify at the May 20 hearing, citing the federal indictment issued last week charging the Alabama-based organization with 11 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment accuses the SPLC of paying more than $3 million from 2014-23 to members of White-supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party of America,…

LOS ANGELES — Eight candidates for California governor prepared for another televised debate Tuesday in a crowded, muddled race, with mail ballots headed to voters in less than a week. Rival Democrats and Republicans – some still little-known to voters – will be making the case to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is barred from seeking a third term. The contest in the nation’s most populous state is unfolding at a time when Sacramento is struggling with a long-running homeless crisis, wildfire insurance shortages, projected budget shortfalls and staggering housing costs. Voters, meanwhile, are saddled with growing everyday…

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco has settled a two-year legal fight with its neighbor across the bay that will allow the city of Oakland to include “San Francisco” in its airport’s name if it doesn’t highlight the two words in any way. The settlement announced Tuesday allows Oakland’s airport to be called “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport,” but it bars the city from highlighting “San Francisco” or “San Francisco Bay” in fonts, highlights, different colors or any other way. It also requires Oakland to use the word “bay” right after “San Francisco,” and it bans the use of the word…

NEW YORK — The woman at the center of Harvey Weinstein’s repeatedly retried rape case testified – for the third time – Tuesday that the former Hollywood honcho trapped her in a New York hotel room and assaulted her, ignoring her pleas not to do anything sexual. “I said ‘no’ over and over, and I tried to leave,” Jessica Mann told jurors, sobbing. “He just treated me like he owned me.” Mann, 40, is a hairstylist and actor. She’s testifying six years after she first gave jurors her account of a consensual, if complicated, relationship that veered into rape. Weinstein…

A businessman accused of stealing more than $50 million from hundreds of people in upstate New York as part of a massive Ponzi scheme pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges stemming from the fraud, according to the state attorney general. Miles “Burt” Marshall faces four to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree grand larceny, securities fraud and first-degree scheme to defraud, according to the attorney general’s office, which secured an indictment against him last summer. Marshall, 74, prepared taxes and sold insurance in the quaint village of Hamilton, near Colgate University. For decades, he also took money for…

AUSTIN, Texas — One of the directors of Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian camp along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country, offered a tearful apology Tuesday to the families of the 25 campers and two counselors killed in a 2025 flood, as the camp faced tough questions from state lawmakers about its lack of emergency planning before the disaster and efforts to reopen in May. Edward Eastland’s words came as dozens of the girls’ family members sat just feet behind him during the second day of a special legislative hearing looking into the devastating July 4 flood. A…

NEWARK, N.J. — OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is set to be dissolved and replaced by a company focused on the public good by the week’s end, as a massive legal settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits takes effect. A federal judge on Tuesday delivered a criminal sentence to the company to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice probe – a last necessary step to clear the way for the settlement. U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo made her decision after listening to hours of impact statements from people who lost loved ones or struggled with addiction themselves and requested she reject…