Author: rpnadmin

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Actor and comedian Tiffany Haddish avoided additional jail time Tuesday when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor alcohol-related driving charge that stemmed from her 2022 arrest in Georgia after someone called 911 about a driver asleep at the wheel at a traffic light. Other charges were dropped. After entering the plea by video, Haddish was placed on 12 months’ probation and told to avoid drugs and alcohol and complete a substance abuse evaluation. She was credited for the brief time she spent in jail following her arrest. Haddish’s films include the comedy “Girls Trip,” “Night School,” “Like…

President Donald Trump’s administration said that Medicaid will stop paying for gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments for transgender minors and the state Children’s Health Insurance Program won’t pay for the treatments for those under 19. The announcement is the latest in a series of policies from the administration aimed at transgender people that began the day Trump returned to office last year. The policy is to take effect Oct. 13. It is not clear how much taxpayer funding is going to cover gender-affirming treatments for transgender youth now. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not respond to questions…

PORTLAND, Maine — Firefighters who responded to a fire at a Maine lumber mill used tactics that inadvertently contributed to a massive explosion that killed three people, according to a report from federal investigators. The fire companies tried to extinguish the May 15 fire inside a silo at the Robbins Lumber mill in rural Searsmont, Maine, by injecting it with water – unaware of warnings from the manufacturer that doing so would be dangerous. The silo then blasted skyward like a rocket as flames and a shock wave from the explosion hurled workers and firefighters away. The firefighters didn’t know,…

The operator of a jet boat that capsized in New York, causing the deaths of a 27-year-old woman and her 5-month-old baby, is now facing federal negligence charges. Defendant Manuel Hernandez, 46, was piloting a jet boat in New York Harbor as part of a paid tour arranged through a tour company, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a release. After sailing for over three hours Saturday, Mr. Hernandez made a U-turn while heading towards the Statue of Liberty. The maneuver brought the boat into a swell, which engulfed its bow and caused…

NEW YORK — Late mob boss John Gotti’s reality TV star grandson has reported to federal prison after trying to stave off his sentence on fraud charges by saying he was going to donate a kidney to his ailing mother, Victoria Gotti. The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Tuesday that Carmine Agnello began his 15-month prison term the previous day at the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in southern New Jersey. Agnello, who starred on “ Growing Up Gotti ” in the mid-2000s, was originally scheduled to report to prison in July. But U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury agreed to…

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma plan to execute inmates Thursday in what would be the first time in nearly 16 years that three people are put to death on the same day in the United States. The executions come as a small number of states, including the three with scheduled lethal injections Thursday, drive execution numbers in the United States. “You look at the country as a whole, you’ve just got this little pocket of five or six states that are using the death penalty, executing people, and a small number of states that are still imposing new…

Civil rights groups and researchers at a public hearing Tuesday called on a federal agency to continue its annual collection of workplace demographic data, arguing that a proposal to end the practice will undermine efforts to fight discrimination. Twenty-two speakers testified at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s hearing, which lasted more than two hours. Most opposed the proposal to toss a 60-year-old requirement for tens of thousands of private sector employers to submit annual workforce demographic reports to the EEOC, which is responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws. Six speakers, however, spoke out in favor of the proposal, siding with the…

Jackie, the bald eagle whose decade-plus reign over a livestreamed nest in California’s San Bernardino Mountains turned her into an unlikely global celebrity, has died at a Ventura County animal hospital, wildlife officials said Monday. The Ojai Raptor Center, which had treated the eagle for more than three weeks, said her condition continued to deteriorate despite intensive care, and that she died in the early hours of the morning. Center staff wrote in a social media post that Jackie had been “critically ill, receiving oxygen therapy, supportive treatment, and around-the-clock monitoring in our intensive care unit.” Jackie was believed to…

A great white shark off the coast of Maine bit the rescue device attached to a 71-year-old lifeguard and pulled the man underwater over the weekend. On Saturday, the lifeguard was working at Scarborough Beach State Park in Scarborough, Maine, 92 miles northeast of Boston, when he was pulled 5 to 6 feet underwater via the rescue device that was strapped to him, town officials said on Facebook. “The amount of force that pulled me under, I’ve never felt anything like that, never,” Greg Wilfert, who has more than 50 years of lifeguard experience, told Boston area TV station WBZ-TV.…

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed legislation Monday eliminating the state’s gestational limit on abortion, making Massachusetts the 10th state with no statutory gestational limit on abortion. The Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act replaces the state’s prior 24-week general restriction with a standard giving physicians discretion to perform abortions later in pregnancy based on their professional medical judgment, according to Ms. Healey’s office. The law also strips away reporting and facility requirements that providers said hindered care, and takes effect in 90 days. Ms. Healey said the change was designed to keep patients facing serious pregnancy complications from having to…