Author: rpnadmin

The House Judiciary Committee has invited the Southern Poverty Law Center to testify at a hearing on its role in “distorting federal civil rights policy in recent years.” Committee Chairman Jim Jordan asked Bryan Fair, the center’s interim president, to testify at the May 20 hearing, citing the federal indictment issued last week charging the Alabama-based organization with 11 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment accuses the SPLC of paying more than $3 million from 2014-23 to members of White-supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party of America,…

LOS ANGELES — Eight candidates for California governor prepared for another televised debate Tuesday in a crowded, muddled race, with mail ballots headed to voters in less than a week. Rival Democrats and Republicans – some still little-known to voters – will be making the case to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is barred from seeking a third term. The contest in the nation’s most populous state is unfolding at a time when Sacramento is struggling with a long-running homeless crisis, wildfire insurance shortages, projected budget shortfalls and staggering housing costs. Voters, meanwhile, are saddled with growing everyday…

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco has settled a two-year legal fight with its neighbor across the bay that will allow the city of Oakland to include “San Francisco” in its airport’s name if it doesn’t highlight the two words in any way. The settlement announced Tuesday allows Oakland’s airport to be called “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport,” but it bars the city from highlighting “San Francisco” or “San Francisco Bay” in fonts, highlights, different colors or any other way. It also requires Oakland to use the word “bay” right after “San Francisco,” and it bans the use of the word…

NEW YORK — The woman at the center of Harvey Weinstein’s repeatedly retried rape case testified – for the third time – Tuesday that the former Hollywood honcho trapped her in a New York hotel room and assaulted her, ignoring her pleas not to do anything sexual. “I said ‘no’ over and over, and I tried to leave,” Jessica Mann told jurors, sobbing. “He just treated me like he owned me.” Mann, 40, is a hairstylist and actor. She’s testifying six years after she first gave jurors her account of a consensual, if complicated, relationship that veered into rape. Weinstein…

A businessman accused of stealing more than $50 million from hundreds of people in upstate New York as part of a massive Ponzi scheme pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges stemming from the fraud, according to the state attorney general. Miles “Burt” Marshall faces four to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree grand larceny, securities fraud and first-degree scheme to defraud, according to the attorney general’s office, which secured an indictment against him last summer. Marshall, 74, prepared taxes and sold insurance in the quaint village of Hamilton, near Colgate University. For decades, he also took money for…

AUSTIN, Texas — One of the directors of Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian camp along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country, offered a tearful apology Tuesday to the families of the 25 campers and two counselors killed in a 2025 flood, as the camp faced tough questions from state lawmakers about its lack of emergency planning before the disaster and efforts to reopen in May. Edward Eastland’s words came as dozens of the girls’ family members sat just feet behind him during the second day of a special legislative hearing looking into the devastating July 4 flood. A…

NEWARK, N.J. — OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is set to be dissolved and replaced by a company focused on the public good by the week’s end, as a massive legal settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits takes effect. A federal judge on Tuesday delivered a criminal sentence to the company to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice probe – a last necessary step to clear the way for the settlement. U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo made her decision after listening to hours of impact statements from people who lost loved ones or struggled with addiction themselves and requested she reject…

Two former Fordham basketball players were permanently banned by the NCAA on Tuesday for their roles in a point-shaving scheme that was the subject of a sprawling federal indictment unsealed in January. According to the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions, Elijah Gray and Will Richardson each agreed with a bettor to throw a game against Duquesne on Feb. 23, 2024, in exchange for $10,000 to $15,000. Gray cooperated with NCAA investigators, while Richardson did not, the NCAA said. Gray was one of more than two dozen people accused by federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania of conspiring to fix games. He…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The spacecraft that flew four astronauts around the moon is back where its record-breaking journey began. NASA’s Artemis II capsule returned to Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, almost a month after blasting off on humanity’s first lunar trip in more than a half-century. Following its splashdown in the Pacific on April 10, the Orion capsule was trucked from San Diego to Cape Canaveral. Engineers will examine the capsule’s heat shield in more detail along with everything else in preparation for next year’s Artemis III docking demo in orbit around Earth. The capsule’s electronic boxes will…

More than 3 out of 4 Americans plan to dine out this Mother’s Day, making it the busiest day of the year for restaurants. Behind that staggering number is a holiday tradition that has become more stressful, more expensive and less meaningful than the occasion deserves. The appeal is understandable. Mother’s Day comes with one unwritten rule: Mom does not cook. Restaurants have been cashing in on that rule for decades. The problem is that millions of families showing up for brunch during the same four-hour window does not produce the relaxed, celebratory morning anyone had in mind. The numbers…