Author: rpnadmin

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…

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the government from enforcing part of one of President Trump’s executive orders that directs agencies to withhold funds from cities and counties that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.In a brief order, the judge, William H. Orrick of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California, found himself retreading old ground, intervening to stop a tactic he described as nearly identical to one Mr. Trump tried early in his first term.“Here we are again,” he wrote.As he did eight years ago, Judge Orrick prohibited the government from “taking any action to…

The Trump administration said it will accelerate permit approvals for mining, drilling and fossil fuel production and transportation on public land, fast-tracking a review process that would normally take years. In announcing the emergency procedures Wednesday, the Department of the Interior, which oversees the management of federal lands and natural resources, said the permitting process will now take up to “28 days at most” — a drastic departure from the current one- to two-year timeline. The government agency said the move is in response to President Trump’s January 20 declaration of a national energy emergency. In an executive order on the first…

Activism / April 21, 2025 The US medical profession’s long history of complicity with state violence has prepared it for compliance with Trump’s authoritarian orders. Ad Policy Supporters of transgender youth demonstrate outside Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on February 6, 2025, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order threatening to pull federal funding from healthcare providers who offer gender-affirming care to children.(Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty Images) Authoritarian regimes always enlist medical systems to ensure their control over the means of life and death, but they do not do so overnight. Instead, medical fascism, by which I…

A brewing weeklong fight inside the Democratic National Committee burst into the open on Thursday as the party’s chairman, Ken Martin, rebuked one of his vice chairs and moved to stop him from intervening in Democratic primary races while serving as a top party official.The vice chair, David Hogg, 25, had announced last week that he planned to spend money in Democratic primaries through his outside group, Leaders We Deserve, and that he hoped to raise $20 million for the effort.That set off a storm of criticism from Democrats angry at the idea that a top party official would be…

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily halted her order requiring the Trump administration to provide information on its efforts so far to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month — just one day after accusing the administration of demonstrating “bad faith” in the proceedings. Earlier Wednesday, the Department of Justice asked Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to stay her directive to provide testimony and documents on Abrego Garcia for seven days, and Abrego Garcia’s lawyers filed a response. Hours later, Xinis granted a stay of the discovery process until April 30 at 5…