Author: rpnadmin

Produced by Susan Mallie and Jennifer Terker  [This story previously aired on August 17, 2019. It was updated on February 22, 2020.]The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month on whether a father and daughter convicted of second-degree murder should get a new trial. In August 2015, former FBI agent Tom Martens and his daughter Molly Corbett admitted killing her Irish-born husband Jason Corbett, insisting they beat him in self-defense with a brick paver and a baseball bat because Jason was choking Molly and threatening to kill her. Prosecutors said Corbett’s death was murder.Now, Tracey Lynch is trying to…

The U.S. Capitol on April 21, 2025. Democratic lawmakers are asking the National Labor Relations Board to respond to a recent whistleblower disclosure that documents concerns that officials with the Department of Government Efficiency team may have taken sensitive information about workers. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images Over fifty Democratic lawmakers have signed a letter demanding answers from senior U.S. government officials about a recent potential exposure of sensitive data about American workers. The letter is addressed to the acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, William Cowen. The…

Gov. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota vetoed a bill this week that would have required most libraries in the state to keep material considered sexually explicit in areas difficult for minors to access. Under the measure, librarians who do not comply could have faced prosecution.Mr. Armstrong, a Republican former congressman in his first year as governor, said in his veto message that the bill “represents a misguided attempt to legislate morality through overreach and censorship.”“The bill imposes vague and punitive burdens on professionals,” Mr. Armstrong added in a letter dated Tuesday, “and opens the door to a host of unintended…

Washington — Hundreds of U.S. universities and colleges, including Harvard, Princeton, Penn, Brown, MIT, Cornell and Tufts issued a joint letter Tuesday condemning President Trump’s “political interference” in the nation’s education system. The move comes a day after Harvard University sued the Trump administration, which announced an initial funding freeze of $2.2 billion and later signaled its intention to suspend an additional $1 billion in grants. The moves came after weeks of escalation between the administration and Harvard, which had rejected the administration’s demands to change many of the school’s policies and leadership, including auditing the student body and faculty for “viewpoint diversity.””We speak…

The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows each week. Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world economy and set up yet another constitutional crisis at home. Plainclothes officers continue to abduct university students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown abroad to a mega prison against the orders of the courts. And Signalgate promises to be the first of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence at the core of the American empire. At a time when elite universities, powerful law firms, and influential media outlets are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation,…

The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to let it start enforcing a ban on transgender troops serving in the military that has been blocked by lower courts.The administration’s emergency application was the latest in a series of requests asking the justices to pause decisions by trial judges that prevent it from moving forward with the blitz of executive orders Mr. Trump has signed. The Supreme Court has allowed some initiatives to proceed and temporarily blocked others, issuing orders that have for the most part been technical and tentative.The new case concerns an order issued on the first…

The stock market surged early Wednesday but then steadily lost momentum as investors digested news of a possible trade deal with China and President Trump’s dismissal of any plans to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.After gaining more than 1,000 points in early trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 420 points, 1.1%, to close at 39,607. Wednesday marked the second consecutive day the index soared over 1,000 points. The S&P 500 gained 88 points, or 1.7% to close at 5,376, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.5%.”Stocks saw strong gains as Trump backed off his Powell threats and opened the…

Every Monday, Maurine Gentis, a retired teacher, waits for a delivery from Meals on Wheels South Texas.“The meals help stretch my budget,” Ms. Gentis, 77, said. Living alone and in a wheelchair, she appreciates having someone look in on her regularly. The same group, a nonprofit, delivers books from the library and dry food for her cat.But Ms. Gentis is anxious about what lies ahead. The small government agency responsible for overseeing programs like Meals on Wheels is being dismantled as part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Roughly half its staff…

A federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to take steps to seek the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan man who was deported to El Salvador last month, ruling that his removal violated a previous court settlement intended to protect young migrants with pending asylum cases.The decision on Wednesday by the judge, Stephanie A. Gallagher, came two weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the White House to seek the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, another migrant who was wrongfully sent to El Salvador as part of the same deportation operation.Judge Gallagher’s ruling, which cited Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case,…

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order aiming to change the college accreditation process so colleges are accredited based on “results,” with the president wondering aloud about looking into the math capabilities of students admitted to Harvard University and Yale University. The president also signed an order to enforce laws on the books requiring universities to disclose when they accept large foreign gifts, with one of Mr. Trump’s top aides specifically calling out Harvard as a school they believe has violated the law. Federal law requires higher education institutions that receive federal funds to disclose any gifts or contracts from…