Author: rpnadmin

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge declared a mistrial Friday in the arson case against the man accused of sparking the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles after the jury said it could not agree on a verdict. Prosecutors said they will try again. Jurors said a day prior they had come to a standstill in deliberations in the trial of 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht on three federal charges: arson, malicious destruction by means of a fire and timber set aflame. “The court finds there is a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial because the jury is deadlocked,” Judge Anne…

Florida’s attorney general is seeking to impeach a judge who let a mother walk free after she claimed COVID-19-induced psychosis caused her to drown her baby and stab her family. The attorney general, James Uthmeier, said his office “will be drafting articles of impeachment” against Miami Circuit Court Judge Miguel M. de la O, who has presided on the bench since 2012. Last week, the judge let South Florida mom Precious Bland walk free from charges she drowned her 15-month-old daughter in a bathtub and stabbed other family members on Aug. 23, 2021. Ms. Bland was charged with second-degree murder,…

The Big Hole River, a blue-ribbon fishery that’s become a focal point in a years-long debate over nuisance algae growth, is poised to receive an impairment designation. At an open-house meeting in Divide on Tuesday, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality announced that the Big Hole, a mellow freestone river critical to southwest Montana’s outdoor recreation and agriculture economies, is struggling as a result of ecologically detrimental nutrient loading. The term DEQ is using in its discussion of the Big Hole is eutrophication, which describes the link between algae growth and excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. When there’s…

The opening of the Great American State Fair on Thursday offered a coast-to-coast showcase of the nation’s unique cultures and traditions as the United States was just days away from celebrating its 250th anniversary. Whether it was bouquets of chiles hanging inside New Mexico’s exhibit or a talking hologram of Abraham Lincoln greeting guests in Illinois’ pavilion, each state shared cherished parts of its character inside faux neoclassical facades lining the National Mall. Visitors dressed in an assortment of red, white and blue garb crisscrossed the grassy expanses of the Mall to collect stamps from each of the 50 states…

A family of four wastes nearly $3,000 worth of food every year. That figure, released in an April 2025 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report, nearly doubles the previous federal estimate of $1,500; a number that had been cited for over a decade but was based on 2010 grocery prices. The math has finally caught up. Food prices have risen more than 50% since that original calculation, and the cost of what Americans throw away has gone up along with them. Where the money goes The EPA report breaks it down to $728 per person annually, or about $14 per week.…

A federal appeals court on Thursday revived a lawsuit against a New York school district for socially transitioning a student behind her mother’s back, citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in favor of California parents. In a 3-0 ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to the district court to reconsider the legal claims made by Jennifer Vitsaxaki, the student’s mother, following the high court’s March 2 decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta. In Mirabelli, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of California parents who argued that their free speech, free exercise and due process rights…

LOS ANGELES — Attorneys are weighing their options after a jury said it could not decide whether to convict the man accused of sparking the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles after two days of deliberation. Jurors said Thursday they couldn’t reach a unanimous decision in the trial of 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht on three federal charges, a surprise development after less than 30 minutes earlier they said they had come to a unanimous verdict. They were asked to return to court Friday morning. “We have people on both sides that are dead set, unwavering and unwilling to change their…

A federal judge in Washington on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to release information redacted or withheld from the public Epstein files, including names of people prosecutors once identified as “co-conspirators” and more details about an FBI interview with a woman who claimed President Trump assaulted her. Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, ruled in favor of Katie Phang, a journalist who had argued the administration had skirted the Epstein Files Transparency Act by failing to release that information. Judge Sullivan also ordered acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to produce Epstein files that were in foreign languages, and to release…

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani barreled into City Hall vowing to tackle the city’s notoriously high cost of living, partly by fulfilling a campaign promise repeated with almost monomaniacal zeal in social media ads, speeches and rallies: “As your next mayor, I will freeze your rent.” On Thursday evening, a board he controls made good on that signature pledge. The city’s Rent Guidelines Board, an independent panel of mayoral appointees, approved a rent freeze covering both one-year and two-year leases for people living in about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The vote, while expected, is a big…

LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL MONUMENT, Mont. — The quiet, wind-swept hills of the Battle of Greasy Grass, known to many as the Battle of Little Bighorn, are the setting for Native Americans commemorating the battle’s 150th anniversary with horse rides, battle reenactments and a camp of hundreds of people this week. The battle, one of the most famous and symbolically charged events in American history, marked its anniversary Thursday. Allied tribes came together on that hot day near the banks of the Little Bighorn River in present-day Montana to hand the U.S. Army a rare defeat as they fought to…