Author: rpnadmin

AUSTIN, Texas — Democrats are doubling down on their fight to convince Americans that their transgender policies should return. The plan is to hammer home stories of transgender teens suffering discrimination and humiliation, gaining sympathy from voters and making a liability out of the expected onslaught of GOP ads attacking Democrats’ transgender policies. One DNC member described it as a “sling-shot” moment. The party laid out the strategy in an LGBTQ caucus meeting at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting in Austin. “Anti-trans attacks are going to be used in this election at the largest scale we have ever seen…

The prediction market platform Kalshi stormed onto the political scene in 2024, when it went toe-to-toe with the Biden administration and won the right to offer contracts on the outcome of elections. But in the two years since then, Kalshi’s legal woes have accumulated. Complaints of insider trading have abounded, with the White House even firing one of its own teleprompter operators after Kalshi said he was using his advance knowledge of speeches to make bets on what President Trump would say. Now Kalshi faces lawsuits in New York and California, which accuse the firm of wrongly sharing users’ personal…

A federal judge refused on Friday to block the Trump administration from taking steps to build 62 miles of international border wall along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation without its consent. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., denied the Tohono O’odham Nation’s request for a court-ordered halt to border wall construction on its 2.8-million-acre reservation. Leon ruled the tribe hasn’t established that a border wall will change its reservation boundaries without congressional authority. The judge also rejected the tribe’s claim that the planned border wall would illegally trespass on its reservation. “And in any event, I…

The Department of Homeland Security allegedly ran a sweeping, politically motivated surveillance campaign against protesters, unions and nonprofits with no criminal basis, according to a court filing by a lawyer for a defendant charged in the protests. Undercover agents posing as protesters are being accused of surveilling community meetings at churches, parks, libraries, schools and union halls in what one defense attorney calls an “unprecedented campaign” to “spy on Minnesotans.” The allegations came from a Thursday court filing in a criminal case against 15 people charged in June with conspiring to interfere with federal officers during protests against “Operation Metro…

PHOENIX — It’s been over eight decades since Thomas H. Begay, 101, and his fellow Navajo Code Talkers helped end World War II using the same language that he grew up speaking – at home and herding sheep, he said Friday after a commemoration in Phoenix. Begay, one of the last two living Code Talkers, made the eight-hour drive from his home on the Navajo Nation, the vast reservation extends into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, to the Arizona State Capitol. Dozens of descendants of the Navajo Code Talkers and others gathered to remember the Navajo military recruits who used…

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego man pleaded guilty to a federal charge after he was caught on video kicking and chasing a protected sea lion at a local beach. Tyler Muehl, an 18-year-old from the upscale neighborhood of La Jolla, pleaded guilty Thursday to violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act when he repeatedly kicked the animal as it tried to get away on July 22 at La Jolla Cove beach, U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement. The video, which went viral, shows Muehl throwing kicks at the sea lion that was sitting on a sea wall as…

CHICAGO — Four more belugas have arrived at a Chicago aquarium as part of a plan to move Canada’s last remaining captive whales from a shuttered theme park to aquariums in the United States and Spain. The four whales, named Caspian, Peekachu, Rain and Secord, were the second group of belugas sent to Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium from Marineland, in Ontario near Niagara Falls, after an initial four arrived in July. They are among a total of 30 whales and four dolphins that will be transported from Marineland after the Canadian government approved of the rescue plan, which might have saved…

BOISE, Idaho — A federal judge says Idaho can’t prosecute doctors who perform abortions to protect a pregnant person’s health or prevent self-harm. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill made the ruling Thursday, writing that Idaho’s “Defense of Life Act” and “Fetal Heartbeat Act” – which together create a near-total ban on abortion – violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. Physicians who violate the laws can lose their license and face up to five years in prison. Both laws include narrow exceptions, including abortions done to prevent the death of a pregnant woman or…

LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors will pursue fewer charges in their second attempt to convict a man accused of starting the deadly 2025 wildfire that became the most destructive in Los Angeles’ history. A jury deadlocked in June over whether to convict Jonathan Rinderknecht of intentionally sparking the fire that killed 12 people as it incinerated much of the Pacific Palisades and other neighborhoods in Malibu. Ten out of 12 jurors wanted to acquit him on all three felony charges, leading the judge to declare a mistrial. Federal prosecutors vowed to try again, and a second trial is set to…

A potential disaster was averted Friday when a Phoenix air traffic controller recognized two American Airlines jets mistakenly were flying the same flight number and acted quickly to avoid confusion and keep them a safe distance apart. Audio of the incident shortly after midnight Friday shows how he found a solution to ensure the planes that were both called American 2482 maintained proper separation as one plane arrived from Chicago shortly after the other had taken off in Phoenix. “I’ve been working air traffic for 25 years. I’ve never seen two aircraft pretty much merge with the same call sign.…