Author: rpnadmin

President Trump said Monday he would like to suspend the federal gas tax to alleviate costs during the war with Iran. Mr. Trump said gas prices would drop “like a rock” once the Middle East conflict was over, though he will push for a pause in the tax in the meantime. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel. “It’s a small percentage, but it’s, you know, it’s still money,” Mr. Trump said. Suspending the tax requires congressional action. Some lawmakers said they are ready to act on Mr. Trump’s…

Virginia Democrats made a Hail Mary attempt to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to revive the state’s Democratic-friendly congressional map. State Attorney General Jay Jones sought to set aside the Virginia Supreme Court ruling last week that struck down the Democrats’ map, finding that the legislature broke procedural rules in rushing it to voters. Mr. Jones said the state court misinterpreted the meaning of “Election Day” in its ruling. He said the federal justices must correct that. “By forcing the commonwealth to conduct its congressional elections using districts different from those adopted by the General Assembly…

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is leaving women’s access to a widely used abortion pill untouched until at least Thursday, while the justices consider whether to allow restrictions on the drug, mifepristone, to take effect. Justice Samuel Alito’s order Monday allows women seeking abortions to continue obtaining the pill at pharmacies or through the mail, without an in-person visit to a doctor. It prevents restrictions on mifepristone imposed by a federal appeals court from taking effect for the time being. The court is dealing with its latest abortion controversy four years after its conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade and…

FLINT, Mich. — A man in Michigan who got married and then ran over his best friend that same day, killing him, after an alcohol-fueled argument was sentenced Monday to least 30 years in prison. “The only thing I can do for the rest of my life is express my apology and remorse. … I will forever be sorry,” James Shirah said in Genesee County court. Shirah, 24, was driving when his vehicle struck Terry Taylor Jr. in Flint, about an hour’s drive northwest of Detroit, on Aug. 30, 2024. He and Savanah Collier were married earlier that day and…

The model of cargo plane that crashed in Kentucky last fall after an engine fell off a UPS jet as it was taking off resumed flying over the weekend. The Federal Aviation Administration said it approved Boeing’s proposed fix for the workhorse MD-11s “after extensive review.” And then FedEx started flying them to deliver packages again Sunday. The UPS plane crashed in November 2025 shortly after taking off once the left engine flew off the wing as the plane rolled down the runway. Three pilots on the plane that was headed for Hawaii loaded with packages and fuel were killed…

BILLINGS, Mont. — The Interior Department is canceling a rule that put conservation on equal footing with development, as President Donald Trump’s administration eases restrictions on industries and seeks to boost drilling, logging, mining and grazing on taxpayer-owned land. The 2024 rule adopted under former President Joe Biden was meant to refocus the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 10% of land in the U.S. It allowed public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the rule could have blocked…

LOS ANGELES — A Southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, and has resigned from her city position, officials said Monday. Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, was charged in April with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the U.S. government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from…

MIAMI — Two South Florida police officers claim Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent action thriller “The Rip” used too many real-life details in its fictionalized narrative, causing harm to the officers’ personal and professional reputations, according to a defamation lawsuit. Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court earlier this month against Artists Equity, a film production company owned by Affleck and Damon. Court filings don’t say how much the officers are suing for, but the civil complaint says they’re seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees, as…

A growing number of users of popular GLP-1 drugs for weight loss are experiencing foul-smelling breath as an unexpected side effect, driving up gum and mint sales as they seek relief. Online influencers have dubbed it “Ozempic breath,” referring to the anti-diabetes medication that made GLP-1s a household name. Experts describe it as a mix of dry mouth, rotten-egg burps and “a funky smell” that arises as the appetite-suppressing drugs slow digestion, leaving food to ferment in the stomach as the gastrointestinal equivalent of cabbage turning into sauerkraut. “Some users describe it as fishy smelling, while others say sulfuric or…

Two kittens who were rescued from the rubble of a tornado-flattened Mississippi trailer park now have a new family. Tornado and Twister, as they’ve been aptly named, are in the hands of two young girls, 10-year-old Mia Whittington and her 7-year-old sister Airlie Whittington. Tornado, a four-week-old dark-colored kitten, was discovered by storm chaser Ashton Lemley early Thursday morning as he was aiding in search-and-rescue efforts at a trailer park in Bogue Chitto, Mississippi. Lemley gave the kitten to United Cajun Navy Incident Commander Josh Gill. During the search-and-rescue, a second kitten, Twister, who is white and two weeks old,…