Author: rpnadmin

Every Monday, Maurine Gentis, a retired teacher, waits for a delivery from Meals on Wheels South Texas.“The meals help stretch my budget,” Ms. Gentis, 77, said. Living alone and in a wheelchair, she appreciates having someone look in on her regularly. The same group, a nonprofit, delivers books from the library and dry food for her cat.But Ms. Gentis is anxious about what lies ahead. The small government agency responsible for overseeing programs like Meals on Wheels is being dismantled as part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Roughly half its staff…

A federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to take steps to seek the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan man who was deported to El Salvador last month, ruling that his removal violated a previous court settlement intended to protect young migrants with pending asylum cases.The decision on Wednesday by the judge, Stephanie A. Gallagher, came two weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the White House to seek the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, another migrant who was wrongfully sent to El Salvador as part of the same deportation operation.Judge Gallagher’s ruling, which cited Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case,…

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order aiming to change the college accreditation process so colleges are accredited based on “results,” with the president wondering aloud about looking into the math capabilities of students admitted to Harvard University and Yale University. The president also signed an order to enforce laws on the books requiring universities to disclose when they accept large foreign gifts, with one of Mr. Trump’s top aides specifically calling out Harvard as a school they believe has violated the law. Federal law requires higher education institutions that receive federal funds to disclose any gifts or contracts from…

Ronald Reagan, Amelia Earhart, Kobe Bryant and Albert Einstein will be among those honored in the National Garden of American Heroes. Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Getty Images The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is issuing a call for artists interested in creating statues for President Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes. The federal agency says the grant is part of “the preparation for the nation’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026” and will include “life-size statues of 250 great individuals from America’s past who have contributed to our cultural, scientific, economic,…

The man who opened fire from a rooftop at a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb in 2022 was sentenced on Thursday to seven consecutive life sentences, one for each of the people he killed.The man, Robert Crimo III, was also sentenced to a 50-year term in prison for attempted murder for each of the 48 people who were wounded at the parade but survived. He is not eligible for parole.In reading the sentence, Judge Victoria A. Rossetti of Lake County Circuit Court called Mr. Crimo “irretrievably depraved,” a man who has demonstrated no remorse for his crimes.“No…

A private equity executive turned his New York City apartment into a torture chamber of “grotesque sexual violence,” Manhattan prosecutors said Thursday. Ryan Hemphill is accused of raping six women over five months in a depraved rampage in which he allegedly punched, waterboarded and shocked victims with a cattle prod and kept recordings of the assaults as trophies.Hemphill, who remains jailed after his arrest last month, pleaded not guilty to a 116-count indictment charging him with predatory sexual assault and other crimes dating to last October. The 43-year-old, who is also a lawyer, threatened to have victims arrested or disappeared…

It took Donald Trump less than 70 days to turn decades of close alliance with Europe into an abusive relationship. First, Elon Musk celebrated Trump’s victory with a Nazi salute—a symbol so noxious that it’s been banned in several European countries. Then, Trump scorned the allies as “freeloaders,” moving to cut a deal with Putin over Ukraine over their heads (while making it clear that he’d grab Ukraine’s mineral resources and stick the allies with the bill for rebuilding what is left). Vice President JD Vance shamelessly lectured Europeans on democracy, while embracing the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party.…

Driving through the gently sloping terrain of northeast Iowa, there is little to distinguish Jim Conlan’s land, a stretch of light brown dirt sprinkled with tallgrass and maples, from the other fields where soybeans and cornstalks will soon sprout from the ground.But if Mr. Conlan has his way, his plot in Delaware County will lead to a permanent change in how farmland is used across the country.For 40 years, to remain eligible for federal crop insurance and other government programs, American farmers have been required to preserve wetlands on their properties. That federal provision, known as Swampbuster, has been credited…

President Trump’s meme coin, which had slumped 88% from its most recent high, got a boost Wednesday after its website invited the top 220 holders of the digital token to an “intimate private dinner” with the president.After the dinner offer was posted on the $TRUMP meme coin website and X account, the value of the meme coin surged as much as $5.32, or 58%, to $14.32 on Wednesday afternoon. That gain only partially erased the meme coin’s decline in value, which hit a peak of $75.35 on January 19 the day before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. The dinner offer promises $TRUMP coin…

President Trump on Thursday directed his sons to fire an outside ethics counsel for the family business because the lawyer also represents Harvard University, one of Mr. Trump’s targets in his crackdown on the nation’s top colleges.In a social media post, Mr. Trump said the lawyer, William A. Burck, should go because of his ties to Harvard. The university sued the Trump administration after it threatened to slash billions in funding unless the school complied with a list of demands.“Harvard is a threat to Democracy, with a lawyer, who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or…