Author: rpnadmin

Politics / April 25, 2025 The latest press scandal shows how plutocracy props up authoritarianism. The latest press scandal shows how plutocracy props up authoritarianism. Ad Policy Still frame from Donald Trump’s interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl on October, 25, 2020.(CBS via Getty Images) Since 2016, Bill Owens has led 60 Minutes—he was only the third executive producer in the CBS News show’s history. When he addressed his staff on Tuesday in a memo announcing his resignation, he began, “The fact is that Sixty Minutes has been my life.” This is not an exaggeration. Owens has been at…

On a busy stretch of Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, three orange-and-white traffic cones sit atop the dirt in grates on the sidewalk where three trees once stood.It’s not a construction site. It’s a kind of crime scene.The three trees were some of the victims of one man’s bizarre eight-day tree-killing spree that destroyed more than a dozen mature trees in and around downtown Los Angeles, blocks from City Hall and Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.The man, the authorities said, roamed the streets in the middle of the night and used a chain saw to cut elm, ficus…

The Pentagon set up a system in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office that enabled him to check messages on the encrypted messaging app Signal while at the office, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. Two of the sources said the system bypasses standard Defense Department security protocols. A computer monitor in Hegseth’s office was installed to give him remote access to the Signal app and text messages from his personal cellphone, the sources said. Hegseth has used the system to check and respond to those messages at his desk, multiple sources said. The Associated Press earlier reported that Hegseth has…

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday said that federal authorities may once again seek reporters’ phone records and compel their testimony in leak investigations, reversing a Biden administration policy meant to protect journalism from intrusive efforts to identify and prosecute leakers.An internal Justice Department memo from Ms. Bondi said that the change was necessary to safeguard “classified, privileged and other sensitive information” — a far broader set of government secrets than is protected by the criminal code, which focuses primarily on making it illegal to share classified information.From his first days in the White House in 2017, President Trump has…

The Trump administration on Friday abruptly moved to restore thousands of international students’ ability to study in the United States legally, but immigration officials insisted they could still try to terminate that legal status despite a wave of legal challenges.The decision, revealed during a court hearing in Washington, was a dramatic shift by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as the administration characterized it as only a temporary reprieve.The back and forth only contributed to the anxiety and confusion facing international students as the administration has moved to cancel more than 1,500 student visas in recent weeks.On Friday morning, Joseph F.…

Small businesses are begging for relief from steep new U.S. tariffs on foreign goods, saying the higher import taxes imposed on dozens of key trading partners Senator Ed Markey, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a letter to the Small Business Administration (SBA) on Friday that smaller enterprises deserve exemptions from the Trump administration’s tariffs, which the Massachusetts Democrat criticized as “recklessly imposed.”Markey also noted that the Trump administration has moved to shield corporate giants such as Apple and Google from the impact of some its trade policies, and he pressed the White…

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attends an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store at the Oval Office on April 24. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Normally the names of senior staff at the Pentagon don’t make the news, but the precarious position of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth means that every move is drawing scrutiny. NPR reported this week that the White House is looking for possible replacements with Hegseth under fire for putting sensitive military attack plans into at least two insecure group chats. In-fighting over alleged leaks…

The Wisconsin judge who was arrested on Friday morning on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement spent most of her legal career working on behalf of low-income people and marginalized groups.Federal authorities arrested the judge, Hannah C. Dugan of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, on suspicion that she “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from” an immigrant being pursued by federal authorities, Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote on social media. The authorities said that earlier this month, Judge Dugan directed an undocumented immigrant through a side door in her courtroom while the agents waited in a public hallway to apprehend him.Judge…

Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg thinks the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs will be catastrophic for both his family-owned toy business and for the broader U.S. economy. That’s why he’s suing President Trump.Woldenberg’s business has 500 employees and sells thousands of learning-based toys like Spike the Fine Motor Hedgehog and the Pretend & Play Calculator Cash Register. Its lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., accuses Mr. Trump and other members of his administration of overreaching the president’s authority in imposing the broad-based import duties. Congress has historically held the power to authorize new tariffs or make…

Ad Policy Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez speaks during a town hall event at Centralia College, on April 22, 2025, in Centralia, Washington. (Lindsey Wasson / AP Photos) It is no secret that Democrats face a growing threat: a Republican Party competing for the votes of working-class Americans not just on the issues of crime, immigration, and race, but also on economic issues that once reliably belonged to Democrats. This shift was clear in the 2024 election results and key new Republican policy initiatives. The problem is not the Republican competition, but more significantly… we do not know that Democrats are…