Author: rpnadmin

Schools shuttered early and cities warned of probable power outages, as potentially dangerous thunderstorms threatened the Upper Midwest late Monday afternoon.In northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota and western Wisconsin, residents were bracing for storms that could bring high winds, tornadoes and hail the size of Ping-Pong balls. The Upper Midwest is accustomed to severe weather, but the high level of risk for very large hail and strong tornadoes caused alarm for state and local officials, who activated emergency operations centers and closed nonemergency city buildings.“We always have severe weather, I guess, in Iowa,” said Superintendent Joe Carter of the Algona Community…

Getting a college education has traditionally been seen as a way to move up the economic ladder. But an analysis by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the cost of a degree may not always be worth it.The value of a college education has increasingly come into question in recent years, especially as tuition costs steadily climb and millions of Americans grapple with student loans. As a result, only one in four U.S. adults say it’s extremely or very important to have a four-year college degree to get a well-paying job, according to a 2024 Pew…

Workers stand inside a special chamber at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The chamber is used to test new conventional explosives used to detonate advanced nuclear weapons designs, and the data produced from such experiments is considered restricted. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory hide caption toggle caption Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Two members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been given accounts on classified networks that hold highly guarded details about America’s nuclear weapons, two independent sources tell NPR. Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern, and Adam Ramada, a Miami-based venture capitalist, have had accounts on the computer systems…

The textile mills that once served as the backbone of Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, have long been shuttered, and officials believed federal money would be key to the town’s overdue revitalization. They hoped an improved stormwater drainage system and secured electrical wires – funded through a program to help communities protect against natural disasters and climate change – would safeguard investments in new businesses like a renovated historic theater to spur the largely rural economy. Source link

Canadians headed to the polls on Monday for an election widely considered the most significant in a generation, as voters will determine who is best suited to manage the economy — and U.S. President Trump.Canadians are deciding whether to continue the Liberal Party’s hold on power by picking new Prime Minister Mark Carney or transfer control to the Conservatives and their populist leader Pierre Poilievre.Mr. Trump’s threat to annex Canada and his sweeping tariffs, which undermine the country’s economy, have dominated the campaign and influenced voters’ choices. Additionally, domestic issues such as affordability, immigration, jobs and crime remain significant factors.According…

His policies and behavior may often baffle, but he is a developer at heart. Ad Policy The future president in Trump Tower circa 1987.(Getty) Architecture may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Donald Trump. But real estate development is so central to his backstory that the built environment may be key to deciphering his whole political project—and, crucially, the difference between his two administrations. After all, from tariffs to deportations to attacks on the academy to environmental deregulation, there is not a single action he’s taken as president that does not affect architecture.…

Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia, an eight-term Democrat, announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election and would soon relinquish his position as the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, as he faces cancer.Mr. Connolly, 75, announced late last year that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus but planned to fight the disease while continuing to do his job in Washington, saying he was “very confident of a successful outcome.”In a letter to his constituents on Monday, he said that the disease, “while initially beaten back, has now returned,” prompting his decision to step…

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, says it has saved $160 billion through its push to root out wasteful or fraudulent government spending. But that effort may also have come at a cost for taxpayers, with a new estimate from a nonpartisan research and advocacy group estimating that DOGE’s actions will cost $135 billion this fiscal year. The analysis seeks to tally the costs associated with putting tens of thousands of federal employees on paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly fired workers and lost productivity, according to the Partnership for Public Service (PSP), a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on the federal…

President Trump declared on Sunday that he would bring “Columbus Day back from the ashes” and reinstate its celebration as a holiday.“I am hereby reinstating Columbus Day under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before!” the president said in a post on Truth Social, referring to the federal holiday named for Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who sailed to the Americas on behalf of Spain more than 500 years ago.The holiday has long been criticized by those who condemn the explorer for paving the way for European colonialism, which brought…

Top colleges in the cross hairs of President Trump have sharply increased their spending on lobbying, according to an analysis by The New York Times.Ten universities that have been singled out by the administration for scrutiny spent a combined $2.8 million lobbying the federal government in the first three months of 2025, which is more than those institutions spent in any quarter at least since 2008, according to the analysis. A federal task force that says it is devoted to rooting out antisemitism on campuses targeted those schools in February for investigation.One of the 10, Columbia University, more than tripled…