Author: rpnadmin

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. — The search for a teenage girl swept away by a big wave while walking on a Southern California beach expanded Wednesday as high surf kept battering the coast. The girl, her mom and brother were walking along the sand at Treasure Island Beach in the city of Laguna Beach Tuesday evening when they were swept into the ocean, Laguna Beach Marine Safety Chief Kai Bond said Wednesday. Two people who saw the family being swept away were able to rescue the mother and son, who are in stable condition. One man who helped the family then…

MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday they will not seek the death penalty as part of a plea agreement with the man accused of killing the top Democrat in the Minnesota House along with her husband, as well as wounding a state senator and his wife. The defendant, Vance Boelter, was scheduled for a change-of-plea hearing Thursday morning in federal court in Minneapolis. Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, were shot by a man who came to their doors in the early hours of June 14,…

SAN FRANCISCO — Betting that people will soon grow more comfortable having artificial intelligence agents shop for groceries, plane tickets or diapers on their behalf, payments giant Visa said Wednesday that it has embedded its payment network inside of ChatGPT, empowering the chatbot to independently shop and complete transactions. It means AI agents can not only recommend products but complete the purchase on the user’s behalf at potentially any merchant that accepts Visa. The payment network’s previous attempts at this technological leap were confined to a single retailer or a small set of enrolled merchants. It is not OpenAI’s first…

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump has named Brian Johnson as his choice to be the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, turning to a former official who helped run the CFPB during his first term to now run the bureau for the test of his second term in office. Johnson was the deputy director of the bureau under Trump’s first CFPB director, Kathy Kraninger, and was known for being a powerful aide to Kraninger during her tenure who had significant leeway in deciding what the bureau should or should not work on. If confirmed by the Senate,…

Prediction market platform Kalshi said Tuesday that it added measures, including verification of employment for certain wagers, to stop insider trading. Kalshi said that in addition to collecting employment information to screen for possible insiders placing bets, the company will create scores “assigned to markets with heightened insider trading or manipulation risk.” Under the score system, new prediction markets posted on Kalshi will be evaluated to see if they are: related to corporate key performance indicators or the release of new products. dependent on “a decision by a single individual or opaque group with broad discretion” versus “broad, decentralized processes…

A large U.S. flag flown at World Wrestling Entertainment headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, blew off its pole and hit power lines, causing electricity to go out for thousands. The blackout started Saturday amid a storm that ripped off the 3,000-square-foot flag and sent it straight into the electric lines, the Stamford Fire Department said, according to New York City’s WCBS-TV. “There’s very little we could do other than monitor it and notify utility companies,” Stamford Fire Department Deputy Chief Matt Palmer told the Stamford Advocate. The blackout affected 5,000 people, with 3,000 getting their power back within 20 minutes, Kaitlyn…

A Department of Health and Human Services scholarship is illegally paying for indigenous Hawaiians to earn healthcare degrees, according to a complaint filed with the agency’s Office of Civil Rights. The federal agency launched the Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program in 1991 “to increase representation of Native Hawaiian health professionals dedicated to serving the needs of Native Hawaiian Communities.” The complaint from the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation notes the program has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in full-ride college scholarships to more than 300 “aboriginal descendants” studying to become doctors, nurses, dentists, psychologists, dietitians, social workers and physician…

Prices rose 4.2% for the year ending in May as inflation hit a three-year high, the government said Wednesday in a report that underscored the impact of war-related shocks to energy costs. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5% for the month, which was largely in line with Wall Street expectations. But it was the third straight monthly increase in the midterm election year. The annual reading from the Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded the 3.8% reading in April and was the highest yearly inflation number since April 2023. Energy costs stood out as the main driver of inflation, accounting for…

NEW YORK — The prediction market platform Kalshi will start collecting customer employment information for trading in certain markets that are at heightened risk of insider trading, the company said. The Tuesday announcement follows several incidents where traders have used inside information to profit on prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. Just last week, it was disclosed that former Congressman George Santos was under investigation for allegedly illegally betting he wouldn’t attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address after initially saying he would. In April, a U.S. Army soldier was charged with using classified information to make…

RALEIGH, N.C. — A state judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by 31 former N.C. State male athletes alleging sexual abuse under the guise of treatment and harassment by the Wolfpack’s former director of sports medicine. In orders filed Tuesday, Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins dismissed claims against Robert M. Murphy Jr., as well as multiple N.C. State athletics officials tied to their oversight rules, citing procedural reasons. The lawsuit was filed in February in state court in a case that began with a federal lawsuit from a single athlete filed in 2022. That complaint alleged years of…