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☆ Danny Masterson sentenced to 30 years to life in prison
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Angela Yang | Corky Siemaszko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

"That '70s Show" star Danny Masterson was sentenced Thursday to 30 years to life in prison for raping two women more than two decades ago at his Hollywood Hills home. Masterson had been charged with raping three women — identified at trial as Jane Doe #1, Jane Doe #2 and Jane Doe #3 — between 2001 to 2003. His second trial ended with the actor being convicted of raping Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 but not Jane Doe #3. All three accusers are former members of the Church of Scientology, to which Masterson still belongs. Both trials focused unwanted attention on the controversial church, which the women have accused of trying to cover up the allegations.

Persons: Danny Masterson, Masterson, —, Jane Doe, Read, NBC News Masterson's, Judge Charlaine Olmedo, Karin Pouw Organizations: Hollywood, NBC News, of Scientology, Scientology Locations: Los Angeles

In an aerial view, burned cars and homes are seen a neighborhood that was destroyed by a wildfire on August 17, 2023 in Lahaina, Hawaii. A young boy walks through wildfire wreckage Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. Search and recovery team members check charred buildings and cars in the aftermath of the Maui Fires in Lahaina, West Maui, Hawaii, August 17, 2023. Lahaina, Maui, Wednesday, August 16, 2023 - Homes and businesses lay in ruins after last week's devastating wildfire swept through town. A woman walks through wildfire wreckage Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Persons: Patrick T, Fallon, Fred Abad, Louise Abihai, Ellie Erickson —, Richard Zubaty, Richard Bissen, Harold, Justin Sullivan, Lynn Ouano, Faias, Jay Ouano, Rick Bowmer, Kuulei Barut, Losano, Leona Castillo, Castillo, Yuki Iwamura, haven't, Erickson, Robert Gauthier, Julie French Organizations: Kahului, AFP, Getty, NBC, Maui, Facebook, Los Angeles Times Locations: Maui, Kahului, Hawaii, Maui County, Instagram, Palm Springs, Texas, Lahaina , Hawaii, Washington, U.S, Pennsylvania, Lahaina, Lahaina , West Maui, Kihei, Australia

☆ Robert Hanssen, FBI agent who spied for the Russians, dies in Supermax prison
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Corky Siemaszko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

FBI Agent Robert Philip Hanssen is shown in this undated file photo, released by the FBI February 20, 2001. FBI Agent-turned-traitor Robert Hanssen, who spied for the old Soviet Union and later the Russians, died Monday in the cell where he was serving 15 consecutive life sentences for betraying his country, federal prison officials said. Hanssen, 79, was "found unresponsive" around 6:55 a.m. at the federal "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado, the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. Hanssen began spying for the Soviets in 1979, three years after he joined the FBI. "He ultimately became the most damaging spy in Bureau history," the agency said.

Persons: Robert Philip Hanssen, Robert Hanssen, Hanssen Organizations: FBI, Soviet Union, of Prisons Locations: Florence , Colorado, Supermax

☆ Seven waiting at bus stop in Texas bordertown killed when struck by vehicle
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Ken Dilanian | Corky Siemaszko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A section of the Border Wall is under construction just south of the UT-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College campus next to the Rio Grande River. The 20-foot high concrete and steel wall is being built in sections throughout south Texas. Seven people waiting at a bus stop in a Texas border city were killed and a dozen more were injured early Sunday when a vehicle rammed into them in what investigators believe was an intentional act, officials said. The victims were at a stop located near a Catholic Charities facility in the city of Brownsville when they were struck, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News. One of the injured was airlifted to Valley Baptist Medical Center in nearly Harlingen, the department said.

Towns said the lawmakers could have until early spring, otherwise, to develop and fine tune any proposals that emerge from Nichols' death. Share this -Link copiedMemphis police’s vaunted Scorpion unit is deactivated after Tyre Nichols' death Memphis police’s vaunted Scorpion unit has been permanently deactivated. Share this -Link copiedNFL calls for change after 'senseless death' of Tyre Nichols A day after the release of video showing the police beating of Tyre Nichols, the NFL on Saturday condemned the violence. Demonstrations continued Saturday in Atlanta, Boston and Charlotte following the release of video footage showing five former Memphis police officers beating Tyre Nichols, who died on Jan. 10. Attorney Blake Ballin’s comments follow the release of video footage showing the officers punching and kicking Tyre Nichols during a Jan. 7 traffic stop.

Al Sharpton: 'This video should be all a jury needs to convict'Civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton released a statement on Twitter early Saturday, ahead of speaking at a New York rally condemning Nichols’ death. “Nearly three years after the murder of George Floyd shook the world, here we are. This video should be all a jury needs to convict each of the five officers who relentlessly beat Tyre Nichols to death,” Sharpton said. He added “the sad reality is that police brutality will be an ever-present threat for Black and Brown Americans unless cops continually see that those who use blunt force will go to jail.”Sharpton, who will be delivering the eulogy at Nichols’ funeral on Wednesday, echoed the family’s pleas for non-violence and warned “the more you act up, the more these cops will use it as an excuse for their despicable actions.”

Following the brutal beating on Jan. 7, Nichols was hospitalized in critical condition and died three days later. This is what we know about the five Memphis police officers at the center of this latest storm:Demetrius Haley, 30Officer Demetrius Haley. Memphis Police Department via APBefore Haley joined the Memphis Police Department in August 2020, he worked as a corrections officer for the Shelby County Corrections Department. Memphis Police Department via APBean's family was thrilled when he was hired in August 2020 by the Memphis Police Department. Memphis Police Department via APSmith was hired by the Memphis Police Department in March 2018.

SAN GABRIEL, Calif. — The elderly gunman responsible for the dance hall massacre in Monterey Park was out of step with other Asian immigrants who found joy and companionship in venues like the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, former friends said. “His ex-wife also likes to dance, so, many times, they would bump into each other in the party or at events. I don’t think his ex-wife was the cause of his massacre.”Nevertheless, Tran often blamed his ex-wife for the demise of his trucking business. Records show that Tran registered a business called Tran’s Trucking in Monterey Park in 2002 and that it was dissolved two years later. He also recalled seeing a white van parked on the modest property, not unlike the one in which Tran died.

Monterey Park Police officers at the scene of a mass shooting on Jan. 22, 2023 in Monterey Park where 10 people were killed at a dance hall. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)The gunman behind the deadly dance hall shooting in the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park may have been targeting his ex-wife on the Lunar New Year, the California city's mayor said Monday. A vigil will be held Tuesday in Monterey Park in memory of the dead. And about a dozen hours after the bloodshed in Monterey Park, police tracked Tran's white van to a car park 30 miles away in the suburb of Torrance where the suspect killed himself. "I tried to reach her, but I didn't get any response," Monterey Park resident Vivian King said of a friend she last heard from earlier in the weekend.

Minnechaug is the only high school in its district and serves 1,200 students from the towns of Wilbraham and Hampden. The original high school building, which dates back to 1959, was replaced with the current 248,000-square foot structure in 2012. One of the cost-saving measures the school board insisted on was a “green lighting system” run on software installed by a company called 5th Light to control the lights in the building. But in August 2021, staffers at the school noticed that the lights were not dimming in the daytime and burning brightly through the night. “The lights that are being referred to are the classroom lights, not the outdoor lights.

These are just some of the items that investigators seized from the apartment of 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger, the former doctoral student charged with killing four University of Idaho college students, according to a search warrant released Wednesday. The warrant was served Dec. 30, the same day Kohberger was arrested at his family home in Pennsylvania. The other hair samples aren't specifically identified as human in the warrant signed by Washington State University Assistant Police Chief Dawn Daniels. The quadruple murder shocked the country and stymied police for seven weeks before Kohberger was arrested. But the four charges of first-degree murder carry sentences that could include life in prison to the death penalty.

Harris, the former American Idol contestant whose soulful voice wowed the judges and whose sweet demeanor won him legions of fans, has died of an apparent heart attack. Harris was an incredible talent, and the news of his passing deeply saddens us," a statement posted on American Idol's official Instagram page read. Harris told The Hollywood Reporter in a 2014 interview that his mother was his first musical influence. It wasn't until 2014 that Harris made his musical mark when he placed sixth in American Idol's 13th season. "You sing because you have to sing, not because you want to sing," Urban told Harris.

The worried parents spoke out last week after learning that the Boone County Board of Education had allowed the 14-year-old suspect to return to school despite having been charged with second-degree terroristic threats. Conner High School in Hebron, Ky. Google MapsParent Rob Bidleman, who said his child was on the teenage suspect’s “active kill list,” struggled to contain his emotions as he described hearing about the development from Andy Wyckoff, the Conner High School principal. “I think it puts an unnecessary burden on Mr. Wyckoff with his own son on that list. Wyckoff was also adamant that his son will remain at Connor High School even though he was one of the threatened students. "Conner High School remains a safe school."

The software that failed and forced the Federal Aviation Administration to ground thousands of flights on Wednesday is 30 years old and not scheduled to be updated for another six years, according to a senior government official. This system was installed in 1993 and runs the Notice to Air Missions system, or NOTAM, which sends pilots vital information they need to fly, the official said. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., was busy Wednesday after an FAA outage canceled and delayed flights. ET “to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information” as it worked to restore the NOTAM system. The FAA lifted the ground stop around 8:50 a.m., and normal air traffic operations began resuming gradually.

Passengers stuck at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago greeted the latest air travel disruption with a collective shrug. And our nation’s economy depends on a best-in-class air travel system. "We call on federal policymakers to modernize our vital air travel infrastructure to ensure our systems are able to meet demand safely and efficiently," he said. "An FAA system outage is causing ground stops at AUS and other airports across the country," the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said in a tweet. Air France said all of its U.S.-bound flights were operating as planned and were not affected by the FAA computer outage.

NBC News’ longtime president, Noah Oppenheim, is stepping down but will stay with NBCUniversal to produce movies and scripted television shows, the company announced Wednesday. Rebecca Blumenstein, a deputy managing editor of The New York Times since 2017, will step into the new role of president of editorial, Conde said. “We are excited for his new chapter and that he will continue to work closely with NBCUniversal in this new role,” Conde said of Oppenheim. In addition, Janelle Rodriguez, who helped develop NBC News’ highly successful and profitable news streaming service, is joining the leadership team as executive vice president of NBC News NOW. “Under her leadership, NBC News NOW has been the largest and fasted growing streaming news network and provides more live programming than any other streaming news service,” the company said in a statement.

A Tennessee police department was in turmoil Tuesday following allegations that at least five of its male officers had sex with a female officer both on and off the job. The officers spoke about sharing cellphone photos of their genitals, having sex in the police station on duty and taking part in “Girls Gone Wild”-type parties. Officer Maegan Hall being sworn in at the La Vergne Police Department in Tennessee on Aug. 19, 2021. Under questioning, Powell, Magliocco, Holloday, Shields and Lugo-Perez all admitted to having had sex with Hall, the report states. Hall also admitted having had sex with those officers and with McGowan, as well, the report says.

It’s a plot twist the romance writers did not see coming. “I saw the auction that was going on to help raise funds for her funeral,” romance writer T.E. “To find out that it was a hoax, two-and-a-half years later, was just a slap in the face to everybody,” fellow romance writer Samantha A. Cole told NBC News. Cole said she met Meachen around 2017 in one of several online romance writer and reader groups that proliferate on Facebook and elsewhere on the web. Some angry romance writers confronted Meachen online and demanded an explanation, screenshots of the exchanges revealed.

MOSCOW, Idaho -- The father of one of four slain University of Idaho students vowed Monday that when the Pennsylvania man accused of the killings finally appears in their courthouse, he and the other parents will be there to stare him down. Steve Goncalves, father of Kaylee Goncalves, speaks with NBC News. Kaylee Goncalves, one of four University of Idaho students found stabbed to death on Nov. 13. Three of the victims — Goncalves, Mogen and Kernodle — were roommates at the home where they died, police have said. Gadi Schwartz and Deon J. Hampton reported from Moscow, Idaho, Minyvonne Burke reported from Monroe County, Pennsylvania, and Corky Siemaszko reported from New York City.

The priest sex-abuse scandal was the albatross around the neck of Pope Emeritus Benedict’s brief eight-year reign as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, according to Vatican analysts. Like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict also apologized to the victims and then took some steps to punish the predators. They say Benedict should have known better, because, before he became pope, he ran, for 24 year, the Vatican department that dealt directly with priest sex abuse allegations — the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). “He had an inside view of what was going on,” said David Gibson, the director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, who is the author of “The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World.” “His office dealt with these accusations. When John Paul II’s native Poland was part of the old Soviet bloc, accusations against priests were routinely dismissed as fabrications by the communist secret police to undermine the church.

☆ Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at 95
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Corky Siemaszko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

"With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican," the statement said. Benedict was the longest-living pope, having surpassed Pope Leo XIII in September 2020. "We must think about what Pope Benedict said — 'It's the epoch of sin against God the Creator,'" Francis said at a gathering of Polish bishops. Unlike most priests, Benedict logged little time in parishes. In 2005, his first year as pope, he was accused in a lawsuit of having personally covered up a priest's abuse of three boys in Texas.

The Pennsylvania man charged in the killing of four University of Idaho students was a doctoral student at nearby Washington State University studying in the criminal justice and criminology department. Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was booked into custody on an arrest warrant out of Moscow, Idaho, charging him with first-degree murder, court records show. He was listed as a Ph.D. student in the department of criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University (WSU), which is 10 miles west and just across the state line from the University of Idaho. Kohberger graduated from nearby DeSales University in 2020 with a degree in psychology and earned a master of arts in criminal justice from DeSales in the spring, DeSales University said in a statement Friday. At the time, the person identified himself a "student investigator" at DeSales University and was using a school-issued email address.

“We were using Facebook Messenger to communicate with her parents and coached them through the delivery, so I watched her being delivered on my cellphone," Blackburn told NBC News. Davon Thomas with his wife, Erica Thomas, and their newborn, Devynn Brielle Thomas. Erica and Davon Thomas were trapped in their house by snow when Erica suddenly went into labor, Blackburn said. She had also instructed him to help his wife take a hot shower to ease her pain and help her move around “to get the gravity going,” Blackburn said. Moments later, Erica squatted down and when the baby came out, Davon Thomas was there to receive his daughter with towels in his arms.

Detectives probing the "targeted attacks" on two power stations last weekend that left thousands of North Carolina residents in the dark have been searching online for a possible motive, two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told NBC News. Officials are also looking at other theories, such as the possibility that the attack was carried out by an ex-employee or another motive that has yet to present itself. Less than an hour later, Emily Rainey wrote on her Facebook page, "The power is out in Moore County and I know why." Patrons dine by candlelight at Red's Corner during the Moore County power outage on Dec. 5, 2022, in Southern Pines, N.C. Kaitlin McKeown / The News & Observer via APOfficials have announced that a $75,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the shooter or shooters. Meanwhile, Duke Energy reported Wednesday that power had been restored to all customers.

A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent accused of kidnapping and repeatedly sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in Arizona was caught on police video saying what appears to be a threat against his accuser. “I cannot believe this s---,” Mitchell, who worked for CBP for 10 months and who is the son of two retired Florida police officers, could be heard saying, according to federal court papers. Mitchell worked for the CBP at a border post in Douglas, Arizona, according to the court papers. He tossed her backpack into a dumpster, the court papers state. Although Mitchell denied assaulting the teenager, “DNA recovered from the girl’s genitalia was consistent with Mitchell’s DNA,” the papers state.

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