Author: rpnadmin

TORRANCE, Calif. — A judge on Wednesday suspended criminal charges against a former U.S. Marine arrested at President Donald Trump’s Los Angeles-area golf course with ammunition and a gun in his vehicle. He is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. Los Angeles County Judge John Lonergan Jr. sent Jeanine John Taele, 38, to a mental health court in Hollywood based on statements he made in a pretrial evaluation indicating he wasn’t mentally fit to stand trial. In the evaluation, Taele falsely insisted he had been a State Department official for 14 years. When Taele was arrested earlier this month, he was seen…

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Commissioner Roger Goodell said the NFL is looking into whether San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York will be punished for violating the league’s personal conduct policy after he was caught in a prostitution sting in Ohio. “It’s being reviewed under the personal conduct policy,” Goodell said Wednesday at the owners’ meetings in Atlanta. “We’ll do that and when there’s something to be reported we’ll talk.” York was arrested in a mobile home park by the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force after police said he was attempting to pay $160 for sex with a woman he…

BILLINGS, Mont. — Shovelful by shovelful, investigators sifted through the charred remnants of a Montana home where four generations of a family were killed as they gathered for Sunday dinner, searching for evidence that might help explain what happened and why. Alan Smith, 44, killed his grandmother, his parents, his younger sister and her children before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound just after police arrived, authorities said. Multiple fires were set inside the suburban home on the outskirts of Billings. Smith had lived there before being asked to move out weeks earlier, according to accounts from police and surviving…

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said Tuesday he plans to keep a chunk of President Trump’s White House ballroom as a desk paperweight once the structure is demolished, telling a crowd at an annual slavery commemoration event that “we’re gonna blow it up.” Mr. Krasner made the remarks while speaking at the 24th annual slavery commiseration at the President’s House site in Philadelphia’s Old City, according to NBC10 Philadelphia. “In about 10 to 15 years, we are all going to be sitting here with smiles on our faces,” Mr. Krasner said. “And I’m going to have a paper weight sitting…

Customs and Border Protection agents at Chicago O’Hare International Airport have arrested three people from Senegal accused of trying to smuggle more than a half-ton of the illegal drug khat into the U.S. The seizure of the drug and the arrests occurred in two stings at the Chicago airport Aug. 19-20, Customs and Border Protection said in a release. Customs officials did not name any of the suspects. Khat, also called “African salad” or “Abyssinian tea,” is grown mostly in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Users can chew khat leaves or boil them into a tea for its stimulant…

A federal judge in Georgia sentenced a former U.S. Postal Service mail carrier to two years in prison Tuesday for stealing checks and gift cards from the mail. Starting in August 2022, Melissa McAfee, 44, worked as a mail carrier in part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Postal service officials began investigating her after customers along her postal route made complaints that their mail was stolen, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said in a release. Surveillance footage showed McAfee stealing mail, and a further probe found that she took 171 checks worth over $1 million.…

The U.S. economy grew at a sluggish 1.5% pace from April through June. But consumer spending stayed strong. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that growth in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of a goods and services — decelerated from a 2.1% pace from January through March. The second-quarter growth number was unchanged from the department’s first estimate. Still, consumer spending — which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity — increased at a healthy 3.4% annual clip, up from 0.5% in the January-March period. The reason for the lackluster growth number was imports. They are subtracted from…

The man who roamed the streets of Philadelphia and threatened people, all while wearing a Halloween-style mask from the horror movie “Chucky,” has been taken into custody in Las Vegas, authorities said late Tuesday. U.S. Marshals said they arrested Zymire Hughes, 22, around 8 p.m. local time on charges of terroristic threats, harassment, simple assault and intimidation in connection with the menacing encounters toward at least 15 people this month in the Pennsylvania city. Philadelphia police said he approached one female jogger and asked, “Are you ready to die?” and then chased her. She fell while trying to flee and…

OAKLAND, Calif. — Adam Mosseri, the Meta executive at the helm of Instagram, defended the platform’s safety record in testimony Tuesday and took issue with a plaintiff attorney’s emphasis on low usage numbers for a feature designed to encourage young users to take breaks. Mosseri was appearing at a trial that pits Meta against the states of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which accuse the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms. Jason Slothouber, a senior prosecutor for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office,…

NEW YORK — A prominent Sikh separatist said Tuesday that the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have warned him that he faces a new credible threat to his life even as a man from India faces sentencing later this year for a 2023 death plot against him. Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for Sikhs For Justice, said he was warned by FBI agents who visited him last Thursday that he should not travel until the threat is resolved, and, if he does, the agency should be notified in advance of his plans. He said the Royal Canadian Mounted…