In recognition of the 2022 Bicentennial of her birth, the commemorative program showcases Harriet Tubman’s life reflected in unique designs in gold, silver, and half-dollar coins.

Authorized by Public Law 117-163, the program celebrates the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

“Every coin produced by the United States Mint helps to tell a story that teaches us about America’s history or connects us to a special memory,” said Director of the Mint Ventris C. Gibson.

The public law directs the Mint to produce $5 gold coins, $1 silver coins, and half-dollar clad coins as part of the program.

“We hope this program will honor the life and legacy of Harriet Tubman and inspire others to learn more about this amazing woman,” adds the Mint director.

Introductory sales prices are in effect until February 5, 2024, at 3:00 pm EST, after which regular pricing will take effect. The household order limits of one for each gold option are in effect for the first 24 hours.

The Mint accepts orders at usmint.gov/ and 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468).

Who was Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was an abolitionist and social activist. She was known as the “Moses of her people.”  She was an active suffragist, speaking out for the right of women to vote. She also worked to provide care for newly freed people, young and old. Harriet Tubman’s life was characterized by her unwavering pursuit of freedom in every aspect of American life.

Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. She also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military. 

American Women Quarters Program

The American Women Quarters Program is a four-year program that celebrates the accomplishments and contributions made by women to the development and history of our country. Beginning in 2022, and continuing through 2025, the U.S. Mint will issue up to five new reverse designs each year. 

The American Women Quarters may feature contributions from a variety of fields, including, but not limited to, suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts. The women honored will be from ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse backgrounds.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Ballot measures pending in Michigan, Arizona, Ohio and Massachusetts, and a bill being reintroduced in Connecticut would eliminate a longstanding two-tiered pay system for tip-earning hourly workers like restaurant servers and bartenders, who earn a lower “subminimum” wage than their nontipped counterparts.

Only seven states already pay a single minimum wage regardless of tips. While more than two dozen others have raised subminimum pay for tip earners above the federal $2.13-an-hour floor — a rate last increased in 1991 — those workers still earn less in base pay than their states’ minimum wage.

Employers are required to make up the difference whenever tips don’t add up to the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, but labor advocates and researchers say that rarely happens consistently.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

The required inspections will take around four to eight hours per aircraft and will affect about 171 airplanes worldwide.

An Alaska Airlines jetliner blew out a window and a portion of its fuselage shortly after takeoff three miles above Oregon late Friday, creating a gaping hole that forced the pilots to make an emergency landing as its 174 passengers and six crew members donned oxygen masks.

No one was seriously hurt as the depressurized plane returned safely to Portland International Airport about 20 minutes after it had departed, but the airline grounded its 65 Boeing 737-9 Max aircraft until they can be inspected. The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday it will also investigate.

Passenger Evan Smith said a boy and his mother were sitting in the row where the window blew out and the child’s shirt was sucked off him and out of the plane.

“You heard a big loud bang to the left rear. A whooshing sound and all the oxygen masks deployed instantly and everyone got those on,” Smith told KATU-TV.

Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said the inspection of the company 737-9 fleet aircraft could take days to complete. They make up a fifth of the company’s 314 planes. It wasn’t immediately known Saturday how that would affect the company’s flight schedule.

“We are working with Boeing and regulators to understand what occurred … and will share updates as more information is available,” Minicucci said. “My heart goes out to those who were on this flight – I am so sorry for what you experienced.”

The Port of Portland, which operates the airport, told KPTV that the fire department treated minor injuries at the scene. One person was taken for more treatment, but wasn’t seriously hurt.

Flight 1282 had taken off from Portland at 5:07 p.m. Friday for a two-hour flight to Ontario, California. About six minutes later, the window and a chunk of the fuselage blew out as the plane was at about 16,000 feet (4.8 kilometers). One of the pilots declared an emergency and asked for clearance to descend to 10,000 feet (3 kilometers), the altitude where the air would have enough oxygen to breathe safely.

‘We need to turn back to Portland,” the pilot told controllers in a calm voice that she maintained throughout the landing process.

Videos posted by passengers online showed a gaping hole where the window had been and passengers wearing their masks. They applauded when the plane landed safely about 13 minutes after the window blew out. Firefighters then came down the aisle, asking passengers to remain in their seats as they treated the injured.

The aircraft involved rolled off the assembly line and received its certification just two months ago, according to online FAA records. The plane had been on 145 flights since entering commercial service on Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft’s third of the day.

Alaska Airlines 18 hours ago

Alaska Airlines plane loses window and chunk of fuselage mid-air, video shows

Alaska Airlines Dec 8, 2023

Pilot who tried to cut plane's engines is released from jail; must avoid aircraft

The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights. The plane went into service in May 2017.

The union representing flight attendants at 19 airlines, including Alaska Airlines, commended the crew for keeping passengers safe.

“Flight Attendants are trained for emergencies and we work every flight for aviation safety first and foremost,” the Association of Flight Attendants said in a statement Saturday.

Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people and leading to a near two-year worldwide grounding of all Max 8 and Max 9 planes. The planes returned to service only after Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

Last year, the FAA told pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system on the Max in dry conditions because of concern that inlets around the engines could overheat and break away, possibly striking the plane.

Max deliveries have been interrupted at times to fix manufacturing flaws. The company told airlines in December to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.

___

Associated Press reporters David Koenig in Dallas and Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.

Those who have who gambled — and lost — on a trial have received significantly longer prison sentences than those who took responsibility for joining the Jan. 6, 2021 attack, an Associated Press review of court records shows.

The AP’s analysis of Capitol riot sentencing data reinforces a firmly established tenet of the U.S. criminal justice system: Pleading guilty and cooperating with authorities carries a substantial benefit when it comes time for sentencing.

″On one hand, the Constitution guarantees the accused a right to a jury trial. It’s a fundamental constitutional right. But the reality is that if you exercise that right … you’re likely to be punished more severely than you would have been had you pled guilty to the offense,” said Jimmy Gurulé, a University of Notre Dame law professor and former federal prosecutor.

More than 700 defendants have pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the Jan. 6 attack, while over 150 others have opted for a trial decided by a judge or jury in Washington, D.C. It’s no surprise most cases have ended in a plea deal — many rioters were captured on video inside the Capitol and later gloated about their actions on social media, making it difficult for their lawyers to mount much of a defense.

The average prison sentence for a Jan. 6 defendant who was convicted of a felony after a contested trial is roughly two years longer than those who pleaded guilty to a felony, according to the AP’s review of more than 1,200 cases. The data also show that rioters who pleaded guilty to misdemeanors were far less likely to get jail time than those who contested their misdemeanor charges at a trial.

Lawyers for some Jan. 6 defendants who went to trial have complained about what has long been described as a “trial tax”— a longer sentence imposed on those who refused to accept plea deals. A defense lawyer made that argument last year after a landmark trial for former leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group convicted of seditious conspiracy.

A judge sentenced four ex-Proud Boys leaders to prison terms ranging from 15 to 22 years. Prosecutors had recommended prison terms ranging from 27 to 33 years for a plot to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

Capitol Riot 8 hours ago

On Jan. 6 many Republicans blamed Trump for the Capitol riot. Now they endorse his presidential bid

Capitol Riot 13 hours ago

Hundreds of convictions, but a major mystery is still unsolved 3 years after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot

After the sentencings, defense attorney Norm Pattis filed plea offers that prosecutors made before the Proud Boys went to trial. Prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations after the trial were three or four times higher than what they had estimated the defendants would face if they had pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy before the trial.

Prosecutors persuaded the judge to apply a “terrorism enhancement” that significantly increased the range of prison terms recommended under sentencing guidelines. Pattis argued that the government’s recommendations amounted to a trial tax that violated the Sixth Amendment.

“In effect, the defendants were punished because they demanded their right to trial,” he wrote.

In the federal court system overall, nearly 98 percent of convictions in the year that ended Sept. 30 were the result of a guilty plea, according to data collected by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Few criminal cases make it to a jury because defendants have a powerful incentive to plead guilty and spare the government from spending time and limited resources on a trial.

But advocates for reform have long complained that plea bargaining is unfairly coercive and can even push people who are innocent to take a deal out of fear of a lengthy prison sentence if they take their chances at trial.

As of Jan. 1, at least 157 defendants have been sentenced after pleading guilty to felony charges for serious crimes related to the Capitol attack. They received an average prison sentence of approximately two years and five months, according to the AP’s data.

At least 68 riot defendants have been convicted of a felony after trials with contested facts. They have been sentenced to an average of approximately four years and three months behind bars.

The AP’s comparison excludes 10 sentences for seditious conspiracy convictions because nobody who pleaded guilty to the same charge has been sentenced yet. The analysis also excludes convictions from over a dozen “stipulated bench trials,” in which the judge decided the cases based on facts that both sides agreed to before the trial started.

The gap is similarly wide for a subset of felony cases in which a Capitol rioter was convicted of assault. The average prison sentence for 83 rioters who pleaded guilty to an assault charge was approximately three years and five months. The average prison sentence for 28 rioters convicted of an assault charge at trial was roughly six years and one month.

The trend also applies to misdemeanor cases against Capitol rioters who didn’t engage in violent or destructive behavior. Of 467 riot defendants who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, more than half avoided jail time. Meanwhile, judges handed down terms of imprisonment to 22 of 23 defendants who went to trial and were convicted only of misdemeanors.

After the first trial for a Jan. 6 case, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced a Texas man to more than seven years in prison after a jury convicted him of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun, helmet and body armor. Prosecutors had recommended a 15-year prison sentence for Guy Reffitt, but before the trial, prosecutors presented him with a possible plea deal that would have recommended less than five years in prison.

Reffitt’s attorney, F. Clinton Broden, said in a court filing that the government’s 15-year recommendation “makes a mockery of the criminal justice system.”

“One of the things when we talk about our democracy and our Constitution is this idea that you have a right to go to trial. You’re not sentenced to three times as high of a sentence if you go to trial,” Broden said during the hearing, according to a transcript.

Justice Department prosecutor Jeffrey Nestler told the judge that the government wasn’t seeking “a trial penalty in any stretch of the imagination,” adding, “It’s because of the defendant’s conduct here.”

The judge said Reffitt’s sentencing guidelines range would have been roughly two years lower if he had accepted responsibility early and pleaded guilty.

“There’s a cost for going to trial, and the guidelines make pretty clear what that cost is,” Friedrich said.

The risks of going to trial also are illustrated by the case against Dr. Simone Gold, a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Gold entered the Capitol with John Strand, a boyfriend who worked for a group that Gold founded.

Both were charged with the same crimes. Gold pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Strand went to trial and was convicted of five charges, including a felony obstruction charge.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sentenced Gold to two months in prison and sentenced Strand to two years and eight months behind bars. Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of six years and six months in prison for Strand.

Strand’s lawyer, Stephen Brennwald, questioned why the government’s sentencing recommendation for Strand was nearly 40 times longer than Gold’s prison sentence. Strand was following Gold’s lead on Jan. 6, the attorney argued.

“It would stand to reason that Mr. Strand should receive a lesser sentence. After all, they both engaged in exactly the same conduct that day, though Dr. Gold was the reason that both of them went into the Capitol,” Brennwald wrote in court papers.

The judge told Strand that he wasn’t getting a trial penalty for exercising his constitutional rights. Unlike Gold, Strand didn’t get credit for accepting responsibility for his conduct on Jan. 6.

“And to the contrary, you’ve not accepted responsibility in a pretty remarkable way. You have professed not just that the government didn’t prove its case, but you have professed your innocence numerous times,” Cooper said, according to a transcript.

___

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, they write, only one U.S. political party “violated all three.”

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, and Donald Trump, the former president, is far-and-away the leading Republican candidate in 2024. He still refuses to acknowledge his earlier loss to President Joe Biden. Far from rejecting the rioters, he has suggested he would pardon some of those who have been convicted of violent crimes. Rather than distance himself from extremists, he welcomes them at his rallies and calls them patriots.

And Trump is now backed by many of the Republican leaders who fled for their lives and hid from the rioters, even some who had condemned Trump. Several top GOP leaders have endorsed his candidacy.

The support for Trump starkly highlights the divisions in the aftermath of the deadly storming of the Capitol and frames the question about whose definition of governance will prevail — or if democracy will prevail at all.

“If our political leaders do not stand up in defense of democracy, our democracy won’t be defended,” said Levitsky, one of the Harvard professors whose new book is “Tyranny of the Minority.”

“There’s no country in the world, no country on Earth in history, where the politicians abdicated democracy but the institutions held,” he told The Associated Press. “People have to defend democracy.”

The third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack comes during the most convulsive period in American politics in at least a generation, with Congress barely able to keep up with the basics of governing, and the start of the presidential nominating contests just over a week away.

Trump’s persistent false claims that the election of 2020 was stolen — which has been rejected in at least 60 court cases, every state election certification and by the former president’s one-time attorney general — continue to animate the presidential race as he eyes a rematch with Biden.

Capitol Riot 13 hours ago

Hundreds of convictions, but a major mystery is still unsolved 3 years after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot

decision 2024 Jan 5

Former Capitol Police officer outspoken about Jan. 6 launches run for Congress

Instead, Trump now faces more than 90 criminal charges in federal and state courts, including the federal indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith that accused Trump of conspiring to defraud the U.S. over the election.

Biden, speaking Friday near Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge, commemorated Jan. 6, saying on that day “we nearly lost America — lost it all.”

While the Congress returned that night to certify the election results and show the world democracy was still standing, Biden said Trump is now trying to revise the narrative of what happened that day — calling the rioters “patriots” and promising to pardon them. And he said some Republicans in Congress were complicit.

“When the attack on Jan. 6 happened there was no doubt about the truth,” Biden said. “Now these MAGA voices — who know the truth about Trump and Jan. 6 — have abandoned the truth and abandoned the democracy.”

At a quieter Capitol, without much ceremony planned for Saturday, it will be the last time the anniversary will pass before Congress is called upon again, on Jan. 6, 2025, to certify the results of the presidential election — democracy once more put to the test.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who led Trump’s impeachment over the insurrection, said Biden’s 306-232 electoral victory in 2020 remains “the hard, inescapable, irradicable fact that Donald Trump and his followers have not been able to accept — to this day.”

Raskin envisions a time when there will be a Capitol exhibit, and tours for visitors, to commemorate what happened Jan. 6, 2021. Five people died during the riot and the immediate aftermath, including Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police.

All told,140 police officers were injured in the Capitol siege, including U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick who died later. Several others died later by suicide.

One officer, Harry Dunn, has announced he is running for Congress to “ensure it never happens again.”

Trump’s decision to reject the results of the 2020 election was the only time Americans have not witnessed the peaceful transfer of presidential power, a hallmark of U.S. democracy.

A giant portrait of George Washington resigning his military commission hangs in the U.S. Capitol, a symbol of the voluntary relinquishing of power — a move that was considered breathtaking at the time. He later was elected the first U.S. president.

Trump opened his first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign with a popular recording of the J6 Prison Choir — riot defendants singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” recorded over a phone line from jail, interspersed with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

More than 1,200 people have been charged in the riot, with nearly 900 convicted, including leaders of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who are serving lengthy terms for seditious conspiracy.

Trump has called Jan. 6 defendants “hostages” and said there was so much love at the “Stop the Steal” rally he held near the White House that day before he encouraged the mob to march down Pennsylvania Avenue, assuring he would be with them at the Capitol, though he never did join.

Allies of Trump scoff at the narrative of Jan. 6 that has emerged. Mike Davis, a Trump ally sometimes mentioned as a future attorney general, has mocked the Democrats and others for turning Jan. 6 into a “religious holiday.”

Republican Kevin McCarthy, who went on to become House speaker, had called Jan. 6 the “saddest day” he ever had in Congress. But when he retired last month he endorsed Trump for president and said he would consider joining his cabinet.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has said he would back whomever becomes the Republican Party nominee, despite a scathing speech at the time in which he called Trump’s actions “disgraceful” and said the rioters “had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he lost an election.”

Asked about Trump’s second-term agenda, GOP lawmakers brushed off his admission that he would be a dictator on “day one.”

“He’s joking,” said Trump ally Byron Donalds, R-Fla.

“Just bravado,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. “There’s still checks and balances.”

Levitsky said when he and his colleague wrote their earlier book, they believed that the Republicans in Congress would be a “bulwark against Trump.”

But with so many of the Trump detractors having retired or been voted out of office, “We were much less pessimistic than we are today.”

“Longevity, of course, is influenced by many factors,” says Dr. Frank B. Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“But diet is one of the most important factors that can impact chronic disease risk, mortality and longevity.”

DON’T MISS: People who live to 100 don’t eat like typical Americans: Here are ‘the 5 pillars of a longevity diet’

Here’s how Hu suggests you eat to up your chances of lengthening your healthspan.

4 simple ways to eat for longevity

1. Eat more whole foods

“Well, first of all, focus on whole and minimally processed foods, especially plant foods,” says Hu. Aim to incorporate more whole foods, like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes into every meal, he adds.

Hu strongly recommends a diet similar to the Mediterranean diet, healthy plant-based diets or the Okinawan diet, which are all rich in whole foods.

“Those dietary patterns have been shown to reduce the risk of chronic disease like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, some cancers, and also the risk of dementia,” he says.

“And because those are the major causes of death. That’s why those healthy dietary patterns have been shown to reduce the risk of premature death and lead to longer life expectancies.”

2. Reduce consumption of processed and ultra-processed foods

Once you’ve added more whole foods in your diet, Hu suggests cutting back on processed and ultra-processed foods.

“In the U.S. diet, almost 60% of the calories come from ultra-processed foods,” including foods like soft drinks, snacks and sweets, he notes. “That’s one of the reasons Americans consume too many unhealthy foods and too many calories.”

A study that examined the health outcomes of more than 11,000 adults over the span of 19 years found that those who ate ultra-processed foods the most within that time frame had a 31% higher risk of all-cause mortality than people who ate ultra-processed foods the least.

“So, I think it’s very important to minimize the consumption of those foods,” Hu adds.

3. Be flexible with your diet

“There is no rigid type of diet that everyone should follow to live longer [and] healthier,” Hu says. “I think there are different dietary patterns, and people can create their own fusion diet.”

Identify which of the whole foods you really enjoy and make your own healthy diet, he says. You can mix and match the elements of a Mediterranean diet and an Okinawan diet, or create an entirely new diet altogether.

“That’s how to actually improve their enjoyment and also long-term adherence to dietary patterns,” Hu notes. It’s important to “be more flexible and enjoy the healthy diet.”

4. Use meal time for social gatherings

When it comes to longevity, lifestyle factors like physical activity, managing stress and diet are all extremely important. But there is yet another vital component to consider as well, and that’s social connections.

Hu sees using meals as a time to gather socially as another way to maximize your chances of living longer.

“The connection between food and social connections is very natural, because food does bring people together,” he says.

By prioritizing meal time as a moment for social gathering, you can simultaneously incorporate two behaviors that are linked to longevity, Hu says.

“Eating healthy food together, not only nourishes our bodies, but also nourishes our souls.”

DON’T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter!

Get CNBC’s free Warren Buffett Guide to Investing, which distills the billionaire’s No. 1 best piece of advice for regular investors, do’s and don’ts, and three key investing principles into a clear and simple guidebook.

No wonder honey sales peak in January, according to the National Honey Board, the industry promotion board.

Made by bees from flower nectar, honey has been eaten and used for medicinal purposes by humans for thousands of years. But is honey really good for you?

Honey nutrition:

Honey is naturally about 80% sugar, so it’s calorie- and energy-dense. One tablespoon of honey contains the following, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

• 64 calories
• 17 grams of carbohydrates
• 17 grams of sugar

Honey has no fat, protein, fiber or cholesterol, but one tablespoon contains trace amounts of calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, selenium, vitamin C and folate.

In all, honey contains about 180 types of different compounds, including various phytochemicals, or plant-based bioactive compounds, studies have found.

What are the health benefits of honey?

If you’re choosing between different types of sweeteners, there might be some benefit of honey due to all the different compounds it contains, says Maya Vadiveloo, Ph.D., a registered dietitian and an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Rhode Island.

“There’s been some research showing that it has more antioxidants, and it’s relatively a better source of potassium and some minerals than, say, table sugar,” Vadiveloo tells TODAY.com.

“But I wouldn’t rush out to be eating honey as a health food… it’s still a source of added sugar.”

Honey contains antioxidants such as phenolic acid and flavonoids, which make it a slightly better choice than sugar, but both should be consumed in moderation, says Elisabetta Politi, a clinical dietitian at the Duke Lifestyle and Weight Management Center in Durham, North Carolina.

As a source of antioxidants, some studies suggest honey can help prevent heart disease, she adds.

A recent study found consuming around 2 tablespoons of honey a day alongside a healthy diet may improve cholesterol levels — reducing LDL cholesterol and triglycerides while increasing HDL cholesterol, says Diego Garzon, a clinical dietitian at UHealth, the University of Miami Health System.

“(But) honey is sugar like any other sugar,” Garzon tells TODAY.com. “At the end of the day, it should only be consumed in a very small amount.”

Which kind of honey is the best?

Darker honey generally has a higher antioxidant content than lighter honey, with Illinois buckwheat honey showing the highest antioxidant activity, according to the National Honey Board.

No matter what the floral source is, Garzon recommends eating raw honey, which hasn’t been heated or filtered, “so it tends to be a very pure form of honey without any of the nutritional content being compromised,” he says.

Foodborne pathogens don’t survive in honey so heating it doesn’t provide any food safety advantage, according to the Mayo Clinic.

How is honey used for healing?

Honey has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and wound healing properties.

Some of honey’s components might kill certain bacteria and fungi; it can keep skin from sticking to wound dressings and might provide nutrients that speed wound healing, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Honey is possibly effective for improving the healing of burns, cold sores, and the swelling and sores inside the mouth caused by chemotherapy or radiation, the agency notes, citing the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database.

Topical honey products might also improve the symptoms of rosacea, it adds.

Is honey effective for cough?

Yes, in head-to-head studies, honey either did as well or outperformed cough medicines, Dr. John Torres, NBC News senior medical correspondent, said in a TODAY segment that aired on Oct. 28, 2022.

“It did a really good job,” Torres noted.

When children with an upper respiratory tract infection were given either a dose of buckwheat honey, a cough suppressant or no treatment to relieve nighttime cough, their parents rated honey as the most effective remedy, a study published in JAMA Pediatrics found. It reduced cough and helped the kids sleep.

“The mechanism of cough suppression is not well understood, but honey has been shown to have both anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. … It may also just be that it coats a sore throat,” Dr. Cory Fisher, a family medicine physician at Cleveland Clinic, previously told TODAY.com.

Honey is “cheap, readily available, and has virtually no side effects, and doctors can recommend it as a suitable alternative to antibiotics” when it comes to upper respiratory tract infections in adults, researchers reported in the journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.

For cough relief, the experts suggested adding a bit of honey to some warm — not boiling hot — tea or water.

Does honey help with allergies?

No, this is a common myth, but honey doesn’t help with seasonal allergies, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

The theory is that local honey helps desensitize the body to pollen, but the pollen bees collect for honey is different from the pollens that cause allergies, the foundation noted.

The tiny amount of pollen allergens that might make it into honey would be broken down by the honey-making process and a person’s stomach enzymes during digestion so “you would not ingest enough intact pollen for your immune system to start becoming desensitized to it,” AAFA explains.

Health risks

Honey should never be given to babies younger than 12 months because of the risk of infant botulism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns. It’s safe for children who are at least 1 year old, the agency adds.

Honey might slow blood clotting, so it could raise the risk of bruising and bleeding if eaten by people who take medications that also slow blood clotting, the National Library of Medicine cautions.

Large amounts of honey might increase blood sugar levels in Type 2 diabetes patients, it adds. The glycemic index — a measure of how quickly a food raises blood glucose — of honey and sugar is about the same, Politi says.

Is it OK to have honey every day?

Honey is considered an added sugar, which should be limited to no more than 100 calories per day for women and 150 calories per day for men, the American Heart Association advises.

That’s across all sources of added sugar, which add up quickly, Vadiveloo cautions.

If you’re not eating any other sugar, 2 to 3 tablespoons of honey per day should be the maximum, she and the other dietitians interviewed by TODAY.com say.

The best way to use honey is as a replacement for other sweeteners since it does provide some slight benefits over white granulated sugar, Garzon advises.

“If you don’t mind the taste of honey and you already use sugar in your coffee or tea then yes, I think there can be some benefit of substituting to honey,” Vadiveloo agreed.

“(But) I wouldn’t say that you need to have honey as part of a balanced diet. It’s not one of the things to eat more of like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes — it’s not in that category.”

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Michael Bolton reveals he had surgery for brain tumor before the holidays
• Emily Blunt and John Krasinski on what parenting includes: ‘an existential crisis’
• Kate Hudson crashed a chef’s TODAY cooking segment — then dined at his restaurant that night

The rocket attack came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that his group must retaliate for the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas in a Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut. Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah did not strike back, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attack. He appeared to be making his case for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on.

Hezbollah said Saturday that it launched 62 rockets toward an Israeli air surveillance base on Mount Meron and that it scored direct hits. The group said rockets also struck two army posts near the border. The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were fired toward Meron and that a base was targeted, but made no mention of the base being hit. It said it struck the Hezbollah cell that fired the rockets.

The cross-border escalation came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was kicking off an urgent Middle East diplomatic tour, his fourth to the region since the Israel-Hamas war erupted three months ago. The war was triggered by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 hostages.

news Jan 3

Killing of senior Hamas leader in Lebanon stokes fears of Gaza war spreading beyond enclave

Israel-Hamas War Jan 2

Senior Hamas official killed in an Israeli drone strike in Beirut, officials say

In recent weeks, Israel has been scaling back its military assault in the north of the territory and pressing its heavy offensive in the south, vowing to crush Hamas. In the south, most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster, while still being pounded by Israeli airstrikes.

On Saturday, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 122 Palestinians were killed over the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the start of the war to 22,722. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. The ministry has said two-thirds of those killed have been women and children. The overall number of wounded rose to 58,166, the ministry said.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, the local European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in an overnight airstrike on a house in the city’s Maan neighborhood, said Saleh al-Hamms, head of the nursing department at the hospital. Citing witnesses, he said more than three dozen people had been sheltering in the house, including those displaced, when it was hit.

Israel has held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the group has embedded within in Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. Still, international criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war has grown more persistent because of the rising civilian death toll in Gaza. The United States has urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it keeps sending weapons and munitions while shielding its close ally against international censure.

Blinken began his latest Mideast trip in Turkey on Saturday. The Biden administration believes that Turkey and others can exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to tamp down fears of a regional conflagration. Those fears have spiked in recent days with incidents in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.

In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken will also be seeking Turkish support for still nascent plans for post-war Gaza that could include monetary or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a proposed multinational force that could operate in or adjacent to the territory.

From Turkey, Blinken will travel to Turkish rival and fellow NATO ally Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at his residence on the Mediterranean island of Crete. Mitsotakis and his government have been supportive of U.S. efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading and have signaled their willingness to assist should the situation deteriorate.

Other stops on the trip include Jordan, followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday. Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank next week before wrapping up the trip in Egypt.

__

Magdy reported from Cairo and Jobain reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Istanbul and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

They are among the hundreds of people who have been convicted in the massive prosecution of the Jan 6, 2021, riot in the three years since the stunned nation watched the U.S. Capitol attack unfold on live TV.

Washington’s federal courthouse remains flooded with trials, guilty plea hearings and sentencings stemming from what has become the largest criminal investigation in American history. And the hunt for suspects is far from over.

“We cannot replace votes and deliberation with violence and intimidation,” Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters on Thursday.

Capitol Riot Jan 4

3 years later, a $500,000 reward is still out for info on the Capitol Hill pipe bomber

Capitol Riot Jan 4

One attack, two interpretations: Biden and Trump both make the Jan. 6 riot a political rallying cry

Authorities are still working to identify more than 80 people wanted for acts of violence at the Capitol and to find out who placed pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic national committees’ offices the day before the Capitol attack. And they continue to regularly make new arrests, even as some Jan. 6 defendants are being released from prison after completing their sentences.

The cases are playing out at the same courthouse where Donald Trump is scheduled to stand trial in March in the case accusing the former president of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the Capitol attack.

“The Justice Department will hold all Jan. 6 perpetrators at any level accountable under the law, whether they were present that day or otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday. He said the cases filed by Graves and the special counsel in Trump’s federal case, Jack Smith, show the department is “abiding by the long-standing norms to ensure independence and integrity or our investigations.”

A look at where the cases against the Jan. 6 defendants stand:

By the numbers

More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes in the riot, ranging from misdemeanor offenses like trespassing to felonies like assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. Roughly 730 people have pleaded guilty to charges, while another roughly 170 have been convicted of at least one charge at a trial decided by a judge or a jury, according to an Associated Press database.

Only two defendants have been acquitted of all charges, and those were trials decided by a judge rather than a jury.

About 750 people have been sentenced, with almost two-thirds receiving some time behind bars. Prison sentences have ranged from a few days of intermittent confinement to 22 years in prison. The longest sentence was handed down to Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a plot to stop the transfer of power from Trump, a Republican, to Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Many rioters are already out of prison after completing their sentences, including some defendants who engaged in violence. Scott Fairlamb — a New Jersey man who punched a police officer during the riot and was the first Jan. 6 defendant to be sentenced for assaulting law enforcement — was released from Bureau of Prisons’ custody in June.

All eyes on the Supreme Court

Defense attorneys and prosecutors are closely watching a case that will soon be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court that could impact hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants. The justices agreed last month to hear one rioter’s challenge to prosecutors’ use of the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding, which refers to the disruption of Congress’ certification of Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.

More than 300 Jan. 6 defendants have been charged with the obstruction offense, and so has Trump in the federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Lawyers representing rioters have argued the charge was inappropriately brought against Jan. 6 defendants.

The justices will hear arguments in March or April, with a decision expected by early summer. But their review of the obstruction charge is already having some impact on the Jan. 6 prosecutions. At least two defendants have convinced judges to delay their sentencings until after the Supreme Court rules on the matter.

Rioters on the lam

Dozens of people believed to have assaulted law enforcement during the riot have yet to be identified by authorities, according to Graves. And the statute of limitations for the crimes is five years, which means they would have to be charged by Jan. 6, 2026, he said.

Several defendants have also fled after being charged, including a Proud Boys member from Florida who disappeared while he was on house arrest after he was convicted of using pepper spray gel on police officers. Christopher Worrell, who spent weeks on the lam, was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison.

The FBI is still searching for some defendants who have been on the run for months, including a brother-sister pair from Florida. Olivia Pollock disappeared shortly before her trial was supposed to begin in March. Her brother, Jonathan Pollock, is also missing. The FBI has offered a reward of up to $30,000 for information leading to the arrest of Jonathan Pollock, who is accused of thrusting a riot shield into an officer’s face and throat, pulling an officer down steps and punching others.

What about the pipe bomber?

Another defendant, Evan Neumann, fled the U.S. two months after his December 2021 indictment and is believed to be living in Belarus.

One of the biggest remaining mysteries surrounding the riot is the identity of the person who placed two pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees the day before the Capitol attack. Last year, authorities increased the reward to up to $500,000 for information leading to the person’s arrest. It remains unclear whether there was a connection between the pipe bombs and the riot.

Investigators have spent thousands of hours over the last three years doing interviews and combing through evidence and tips from the public, said David Sundberg, assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office.

“We urge anyone who may have previously hesitated to come forward or who may not have realized they had important information to contact us and share anything relevant,” he said in an emailed statement on Thursday.

The explosive devices were placed outside the two buildings between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 5, 2021, but officers didn’t find them until the next day. Authorities were called to the Republican National Committee’s office around 12:45 p.m. on Jan. 6. Shortly after, a call came in for a similar explosive device found at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The bombs were rendered safe, and no one was hurt.

Video released by the FBI shows a person in a gray hooded sweatshirt, a face mask and gloves appearing to place one of the explosives under a bench outside the DNC and separately shows the person walking in an alley near the RNC before the bomb was placed there. The person wore black and light gray Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers with a yellow logo.

Court cameras showed the moment Deobra Redden, 30, appeared to “Superman” over the bench during a hearing Wednesday and pushed Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus against a wall. A brawl between him and court officials ensued, and three people were injured.

Holthus was preparing to sentence Redden on a charge of attempted battery with substantial bodily harm when he rocketed across the room. 

After the attack, Redden told a marshal the “judge has it out for me” and “judge is evil,” according to a declaration of arrest report from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The marshal said he also apologized saying, “I’m sorry you guys had to see that,” the document said. 

In the melee, Redden slammed Holthus’ head against the wall, struck her once on the head and pulled out some of her hair, the document said. After the attack, one witness said the judge hid under her desk, “balled up covering her face,” the police document said.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com here.

Ryder said Friday that it’s not clear when Austin will be released from the hospital, but said the secretary is “recovering well,” adding that he expected “to resume his full duties” Friday.

The Pentagon’s failure to disclose Austin’s hospitalization is counter to normal practice with other senior U.S. and Cabinet officials, including the president. The Pentagon Press Association, which represents media members who cover the Defense Department, sent a letter of protest to Ryder and Chris Meagher, the assistant defense secretary for public affairs.

“The fact that he has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for four days and the Pentagon is only now alerting the public late on a Friday evening is an outrage,” the PPA said in its letter. “At a time when there are growing threats to U.S. military service members in the Middle East and the U.S. is playing key national security roles in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defense leader.”

Iranian-backed militias have repeatedly launched drones, missiles and rockets at bases where U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq and Syria, prompting the Biden administration to strike back on a number of occasions. Those strikes often involve sensitive, top-level discussions and decisions by Austin and other key military leaders.

The U.S. is also the chief organizer behind a new international maritime coalition using ships and other assets to patrol the southern Red Sea to deter persistent attacks on commercial vessels by Houthi militants in Yemen.

In addition, the Biden administration — particularly Austin — has been at the forefront of the effort to supply weapons and training to Ukraine, and he’s also been communicating frequently with the Israelis on their war against Hamas.

Ryder said this has been an “evolving situation,” and due to privacy and medical issues the department did not make Austin’s absence public. He declined to provide any other details about Austin’s medical procedure or health.

In a statement, Ryder said that at all times, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks “was prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the Secretary, if required.”

Austin, 70, spent 41 years in the military, retiring as a four-star Army general in 2016.

The billionaire and now-former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks announced to his team’s employees that he would be dishing out $35 million in bonuses, according to multiple reports.

Cuban sold his majority stake in the NBA franchise to the families that run the Las Vegas Sands casino company for $3.5 billion this past December. The deal gives the “Shark Tank” mogul a minority ownership stake in the team and will allow him to continue running basketball operations.

“As a thank you for all your hard work making the Mavs an amazing organization, each of you will be receiving a bonus from myself, and the Adelson and Dumont families,” Cuban’s message to employees read, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “In total, we will be paying out approximately $35 plus Million Dollars in bonuses to you all.”

The message goes on to say that the amount of pay will be calculated with a “framework that took into consideration how long you have worked for the Mavs.”

Cuban’s sale of the Mavs came as a shock to the NBA world, given that he is known as a basketball junkie. He is routinely seen courtside for Mavs games.

Part of Cuban’s reasoning for selling the team was to facilitate a partner to help get a new arena and casino in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with an aim toward downtown Dallas.

Although gambling remains illegal in Texas, it has been a pursuit of the Las Vegas Sands and Resort company to get a casino in the Lone Star State for some time.

“It’s a partnership. They’re not basketball people, I’m not real estate people. That’s why I did it,” Cuban told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth after the sale was approved.

The sale was also announced shortly after Cuban said he would be leaving “Shark Tank” after season 16, citing the time taping takes from his family as his reason.

“I feel like in doing ‘Shark Tank’ all these years,” Cuban told the hosts of Showtime’s “All the Smoke” podcast at the time, “we’ve trained multiple generations of entrepreneurs that, if somebody can come from Iowa or Sacramento or wherever, and show up on ‘Shark Tank’ and show their business and get a deal, it’s going to inspire generations of kids.”

The incident occurred shortly after takeoff and the gaping hole caused the cabin to depressurize. Flight data showed the plane climbed to 16,000 feet (4,876 meters) before returning to Portland International Airport.

The airline said the plane landed safely with 174 passengers and six crew members.

“Following tonight’s event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement.

Each of the aircraft will be returned to service after full maintenance and safety inspections, which Minicucci said the airline anticipated completing within days.

The airline provided no immediate information about whether anyone was injured or the possible cause.

The plane was diverted about about six minutes after taking off at 5:07 p.m., according to flight tracking data from the FlightAware website. It landed at 5:26 p.m.

The pilot told Portland air traffic controllers the plane had an emergency, was depressurized and needed to return to the airport, according to a recording made by the website LiveATC.net.

A passenger sent KATU-TV in Portland a photo showing the hole in the side of the airplane next to passenger seats. Video shared with the station showed people wearing oxygen masks and passengers clapping as the plane landed.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was investigating an event on the flight and would post updates when they are available. The Federal Aviation Administration also said it would investigate.

The Boeing 737-9 MAX involved in the incident rolled off the assembly line and received its certification just two months ago, according to online FAA records.

The plane had been on 145 flights since entering commercial service on Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft’s third of the day.

Boeing said it was aware of the incident, working to gather more information and ready to support the investigation.

The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights. The plane went into service in May 2017.

Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people and leading to a near two-year worldwide grounding of all Max 8 and Max 9 planes. The planes returned to service only after Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

Last year, the FAA told pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system on the Max in dry conditions because of concern that inlets around the engines could overheat and break away, possibly striking the plane.

Max deliveries have been interrupted at times to fix manufacturing flaws. The company told airlines in December to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The meat products were packaged on Oct. 27 and Oct. 30, 2023 and were shipped nationwide with “PARKVIEW TURKEY POLSKA KIELBASA” and “USE BY APR 24 24” or “USE BY APR 27 24” printed on the package.

The recalled products will also have the establishment number “P-32009” printed on the package.

The recall was initiated after multiple consumer complaints of bone fragments in the turkey kielbasa. One minor oral injury has been reported due to the contamination.

The FSIS is urging anyone with the recalled products to throw them out or return them to the place of purchase.

Recall Alert 21 hours ago

Lead-tainted applesauce pouches also contained another possible toxic substance, FDA says

Recalls Jan 4

Nearly 50,000 massage guns recalled in US due to fire and burn hazards

New government data posted Friday for last week — the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s — show 38 states with high or very high levels for respiratory illnesses with fever, cough and other symptoms. That’s up from 31 states the week before.

The measure likely includes people with COVID-19, RSV and other winter viruses, and not just flu. But flu seems to be increasing most dramatically, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We expect it to be elevated for several more weeks,” said the CDC’s Alicia Budd. So far, though, this is a moderate flu season, she said.

Interpreting flu reports during and after the holidays can be tricky, she noted. Schools are closed. More people are traveling. Some people may be less likely to go see a doctor, deciding to just suffer at home. Others may be more likely to go.

The flu season generally peaks between December and February; CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said she expects it to peak by the end of this month. Officials say this season’s flu shots are well-matched to the strain that is spreading the most.

According to CDC estimates, since the beginning of October, there have been at least 10 million illnesses, 110,000 hospitalizations, and 6,500 deaths from flu so far this season. The agency said 27 children have died of flu.

COVID-19 illnesses may not be as escalating as quickly as flu this winter. CDC data indicates coronavirus-caused hospitalizations haven’t hit the same levels they did at the same point during the last three winters. Still, COVID-19 is putting more people in the hospital than flu, CDC data shows.

Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas, said the nation is seeing a second rise in COVID-19 after a smaller peak in September.

“There is a lot of uncertainty about when and how high this current surge will peak,” said Meyers, who runs a team that forecasts COVID-19, flu and RSV trends

A new version of the coronavirus, called JN.1, is accounting for nearly two-thirds of U.S. cases, according to a CDC estimate. But health officials say there’s no evidence that that it causes more severe disease than other recent variants,

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

That means the Free Application for Federal Student Aid students can usually fill out starting in October isn’t yet available to everyone.

Since the soft launch was announced, there has been limited availability and some students and their families have experienced glitches.

“Even by soft launch standards, this weekend’s rollout was challenging and students, families, and financial aid administrators who have been waiting for this release for months are understandably frustrated,” said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the department hopes to keep the application open for longer stretches as it resolves issues with the new form.

As of 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the department had received over half a million successful submissions, according to a spokesperson. Every year, more than 17 million students fill out the FAFSA, which uses financial information from students and their families to determine whether they can get financial aid from the federal government to pay for college.

The relaunch brings major changes such as fewer questions, the ability to list more colleges and availability in more languages. However, the update means students will get their financial aid offers later than usual.

Here’s what you need to know:

How does the FAFSA work?

The FAFSA is a free government application that uses financial information from you and your family to determine whether you can get financial aid from the federal government to pay for college.

The FAFSA will send your financial information to the schools you say you are interested in attending. It previously only allowed you to send your information to 10 schools, but the new application will allow you to send your application to up to 20. Each school that admits you will send you a financial aid package. The amount of financial aid you get depends on each institution.

The application is also used to determine eligibility for other federal student aid programs, like work-study and loans, as well as state and school aid. Sometimes, private, merit-based scholarships also require FAFSA information to determine if you qualify.

When will the 2024-2025 FAFSA be available?

The Education Department announced a soft launch period in late December.

“During the soft launch, the FAFSA form will be available to students and families periodically while we monitor site performance and form functionality,” according to the department website.

The Department of Education did not initially say when or for how long the application would be available. But the department announced on its social media Thursday that the application would be opened Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Who should fill out the FAFSA?

Anyone planning to attend college next year. Both first-time college students and returning students can apply for the FAFSA. Many decide not to apply thinking their family’s income is too high to be considered, but all students are advised to fill out the application.

Students and parents can use the federal student aid estimator to get an early approximation of their financial package.

What are the key changes for the new FAFSA?

In general, the relaunch of the application is meant to make the process smoother for students and their families. The Education Department also said the relaunch will increase eligibility for financial aid for low- and middle-income students.

“Most students and families will be able to complete the process in less time and we’ll see more students qualify for need-based aid,” Draeger said.

Here are the key changes:

— FSA IDs

Starting this year, everyone who needs to provide information for the FAFSA must create an FSA ID.

In previous years, only the student and one parent needed to have an FSA ID. For the 2024-2025 form, anyone who needs to provide information, such as the student’s spouse, biological or adoptive parent, or the parent’s spouse, must have an individual FSA ID.

To create an FSA ID, contributors need their Social Security number and email address.

— Student Aid Index

The new FAFSA will replace the Expected Family Contribution with a different formula called the Student Aid Index that will help determine the amount that each student can receive in financial aid.

Both formulas consider the income and assets of the student and their parents and include both taxed and untaxed income. But unlike the old formula, the new one won’t benefit families with multiple students in college. The new formula will allow students from families that are not required to file federal income taxes to automatically be considered for a high financial aid amount.

— IRS Data Retrieval Tool

The updated FAFSA will include fewer questions, which will make the application quicker to fill out. However, all contributors must give their consent for their IRS information to be directly imported into the FAFSA.

In previous years, it was optional to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. Now, if a contributor doesn’t consent to having their information imported, the student will not be eligible for financial aid.

— More languages available

The FAFSA will be available in the 11 most common languages. Previously it was only available in English and Spanish.

— More eligibility for Federal Pell Grants

In the 2024-2025 award year, more students will be eligible to receive a federal Pell Grant. According to the Education Department, an estimated 610,000 new students will be eligible for a grant. It will also allow 1.5 million more students to receive the maximum Pell Grant award, which will bring the number of students who are eligible for the maximum award to over 5.2 million. The maximum federal Pell Grant award available last year was $7,395.

What can I do while I wait to fill out my application?

While you wait to fill out the FAFSA, make sure that you create an FSA ID for yourself and all contributors.

When you create your FSA ID, it will take one to three days for your information to be confirmed. So, it’s important that every contributor creates their FSA ID before the student starts filling out the application.

When can I expect to know my financial aid award?

Since the process has been delayed this year, students will begin to receive their offers later than usual. If a student fills out the application as soon as it’s available, their listed colleges won’t receive their information until potentially the end of January, Draeger said.

“There will be a bit of a gap and potentially delay so we ask for a little bit of patience,” Draeger said.

In previous years, colleges would get information about students shortly after they started submitting the FAFSA in October. That meant students would receive their financial aid awards along with their acceptance letters in January.

Draeger recommends that students regularly check their desire college’s website for new relevant deadlines.

___

The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

They fled their comfortable three-bedroom home in northern Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war broke out nearly three months ago. The 10-person family now squeezes into a 16-square meter (172-square foot) tent on a garbage-strewn sandy plot, part of a sprawling encampment of displaced Palestinians.

Every family member is assigned daily tasks, from collecting twigs to build a fire for cooking, to scouring the city’s markets for vegetables. But their best efforts can’t mask their desperation.

At night “dogs are hovering over the tents,” said Awatif Abu Jarad, an older member of the family. “We are living like dogs!”

Palestinians seeking refuge in southern Gaza say every day has become a struggle to find food, water, medicine and working bathrooms. All the while, they live in fear of Israeli airstrikes and the growing threat of illnesses.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, now in its 13th week, have pushed almost all Palestinians toward the southern city of Rafah along the Egyptian border. The area had a prewar population of around 280,000, a figure that has bulged to over 1 million in recent days, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

Rafah’s apartment blocks are crammed with people, often extended families who have opened their doors to displaced relatives. West of the city, thousands of nylon tents have sprung up. Thousands more people are sleeping in the open, despite the cool and often rainy winter weather.

Most of northern Gaza is now under the control of the Israeli army, which early in the war urged Palestinians to evacuate to the south. As the war progressed, more evacuation orders were issued for areas in the south, forcing Palestinian civilians to crowd into ever smaller spaces, including Rafah and a nearby sliver of land called Muwasi. Even these purportedly safe spaces are often hit by airstrikes and shelling.

The war broke out on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and abducting 240 others. The fighting has killed over 22,400 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

According to Nouman, Awatif’s brother, the conflict drove the family the entire length of Gaza. They fled their home in the northern border town of Beit Hanoun on the first day of the war and stayed with a relative in the nearby town of Beit Lahia.

Six days later, the intensity of Israeli strikes in the border area sent them south to Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City. As people started to evacuate the hospital two days later, they traveled to the Nuseirat urban refugee camp in central Gaza, making the 10-kilometer (6-mile) journey on foot.

They stayed in a cramped U.N. school building in Nuseirat for over two months, but left on Dec. 23 as the Israeli army turned its focus toward Hamas targets in central Gaza refugee camps.

They escaped to Muwasi on Dec. 23, believing it was the safest option. On the first night, they slept out in the open. Then they bought nylon and wood in a Rafah market to build a tent.

Nouman, an accountant, sleeps on the nylon-covered floor with his wife, sister, six daughters and one grandchild. They sleep on their sides to conserve space.

He said the tent cost 1,000 shekels, about $276. “It is completely crazy,” he said. In Rafah’s demand-driven war economy, larger pre-built family tents now range from $800 to $1,400.

The family’s hardship begins at 5 a.m. Nouman said his first job is to start a small fire to cook breakfast, while his wife and daughters knead dough for flatbread and then wash their utensils and metal cooking griddle.

After eating, their attention turns to fetching water and food, tasks that take up most of the daylight hours.

Nouman said he and several of his younger relatives collect jugs of water from one of the public pipes nearby, water that is exclusively used for washing and not suitable for drinking. Next, they head to one of the dozens of drinking water tankers dotted across the city, where they wait in line for hours.

A gallon of drinking water costs one shekel, or 28 cents. Some, so desperate for cash, wait in line just to sell their space.

After the water is fetched, family members move between several open markets to hunt for vegetables, flour and canned food for that evening’s meal. Meanwhile, Nouman busies himself with scouring the ground for twigs and bits of wood to make a fire.

Food prices have soared. Gaza is facing acute food and medicine shortages and is dependent largely on aid and supplies that trickle in through two crossings, one Egyptian and one Israeli, and what has been grown in the recent harvest. More than half a million people in Gaza — roughly a quarter of the population — are starving, the United Nations said in late December.

Dalia Abu Samhadana, a young mother sheltering with her uncle’s family in a crowded house of 20 in Rafah, says the only food staples at her local market are tomatoes, onions, eggplants, oranges and flour. All are virtually unaffordable.

A 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of flour before Oct. 7 cost around $10. Since then it has fluctuated between $40 and $100.

“My money has almost run out,” said Abu Samhadana, unsure of how she will be able to feed her daughter.

Displaced Palestinians in Rafah are entitled to free aid if they register with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which hands out flour, blankets, and medical supplies at 14 spots across southern Gaza. They often spend hours in line waiting for the aid to be distributed.

Abu Samhadana, who is originally from the nearby southern town of Khan Younis, said she has tried to register for free aid several times but has been turned away due to the lack of available supplies.

The U.N. agency is simply overwhelmed and is already providing support to 1.8 million people in Gaza, according to Juliette Touma, its communications director. She said she did not know if the agency had stopped registering new aid seekers.

With few options left, some hungry Palestinians in Rafah have resorted to grabbing packages from aid trucks as they pass by. The U.N. refugee agency confirmed that some supplies of aid had been snatched from moving trucks but did not provide any details.

Hamas police escorting aid trucks from border crossings to U.N. warehouses have been seen beating people, mostly teenagers, as they try to grab what they can. In some cases, they have fired shots into the air. In one incident, a 13-year-old boy was killed when Hamas police opened fire.

Meanwhile, health officials warn of the growing spread of diseases, especially among children.

The World Health Organization has reported tens of thousands of cases of upper respiratory infections, diarrhea, lice, scabies, chickenpox, skin rashes and meningitis in U.N. shelters.

The rapid spread of disease is mainly due to overcrowding and poor hygiene caused by a lack of toilets and water for washing.

The Abu Jarad family dug its own makeshift toilet attached to the tent to avoid communal bathrooms. Still, the family is vulnerable to disease.

“My granddaughter is 10 months old, and since the day we came to this place, she has been suffering from weight loss and diarrhea,” said Majeda, Nouman’s wife.

Going to the pharmacy offers little help. “We can’t find any (suitable) medicines available,” she said.

Besides lead, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said investigators detected “a high level” of the chemical element chromium, which can be toxic, in WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree and in cinnamon collected from the Ecuador factory where the pouches were manufactured.

The additional details come as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 287 confirmed, probable or suspected lead poisoning cases from 37 states in the outbreak first detected in October. At least one adult has reported high blood lead levels after eating the lead-tainted pouches, but the median age of those sickened is 1, the FDA said.

It’s not clear what type of chromium was detected in the products, FDA investigators said.

Chromium is a naturally occurring element with traces typically found in the human diet. One form, called chromium III, is considered an essential nutrient. Another, chromium VI, is known to cause cancer.

The lead-to-chromium ratio found in the factory is consistent with lead chromate, a compound that has been previously reported as a contaminant in certain spices, officials said. But that finding is not definitive evidence that the substance was the contaminant in the pouches, they said.

Anyone who consumed the recalled pouches should consult with a health care provider, the CDC said. There is no safe level of lead consumption, the agency emphasized.

The recalled pouches include those sold under the WanaBana brand at Dollar Tree stores and online and under the Schnucks and Weis brands in stores. Because they have a long shelf life, they may still be in consumers’ homes. Consumers should not eat or serve the pouches and should discard them.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The officer, Randy Roedema, was the first and most senior law enforcement member on the scene of McClain’s death and the only one found guilty. A jury convicted him in October of criminally negligent homicide, which is a felony, and third-degree assault, which is a misdemeanor.

The 23-year-old’s killing on Aug. 24, 2019, received little attention at the time but gained renewed interest the following year as mass protests swept the nation over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. McClain’s death became a rallying cry for critics of racial injustice in policing.

In a separate trial, two paramedics were recently convicted for injecting McClain with an overdose of the sedative ketamine after police put him in a neck hold. Sentencing for the paramedics will come later this year.

Before Judge Mark Warner handed down the sentence, McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, raged against Roedema after he expressed remorse but stopped short of apologizing.

“Randy Roedema stole my son’s life,” she said, “All the belated apologies in the world can’t remove my son’s blood from Randy Roedema’s hands.”

Protecting the community was “the furthest thing from his mind” the night her son was stopped walking home from the store, she said.

Roedema also spoke at the hearing, as well as his sister and former military colleagues. Roedema was a U.S. Marine who was wounded in Iraq.

“I want the McClain family to know the sadness I feel about Elijah being gone. He was young,” Roedema said.

Roedema suggested Friday that first responders get more training in how to deal with situations such as the one that led to McClain being given an overdose.

“Ultimately the situation has caused a lot of pain, and we are faced with the choice of how to deal with it,” Roedema said.

Roedema’s lawyer Don Sisson declined to comment on the sentence as he left court with Roedema and his wife. A deputy escorted them to their cars.

McClain was stopped by police after a 911 caller reported that he looked suspicious. Another officer put his hands on McClain within seconds, beginning a struggle and restraint that lasted about 20 minutes before paramedics injected him with the ketamine.

Experts say the sedative ultimately killed McClain, who was already weakened from struggling to breathe while being pinned down after inhaling vomit into his lungs.

Roedema helped hold McClain down while paramedics administered the ketamine. He was often visible in the body camera footage shown over and over to jurors, and he could be heard directing others how to restrain him.

Roedema had faced anywhere from probation to up to three years in prison for criminally negligent homicide, defined as killing someone by failing to recognize a substantial risk to their life. The assault conviction was punishable by probation up to two years in jail.

The same jury that convicted Roedema acquitted former officer Jason Rosenblatt, whose lawyers stressed that he wasn’t close to McClain when the ketamine was injected.

A different jury acquitted officer Nathan Woodyard a few weeks later, after he testified that he put McClain in a neck hold, briefly rendering him unconscious. Woodyard testified that he feared for his life after Roedema said McClain had grabbed for one of their guns. Prosecutors say the gun grab never happened.

Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec were convicted last month. Cichuniec, the senior officer, was found guilty of the most serious charge faced by any of the first responders: felony second-degree assault. It carries a mandatory prison sentence of between five and 16 years in prison.

Police confirmed they were responding to a large fight that broke out among a group of teenagers, which resulted in multiple arrests on Monday.

However, some users have taken to social media to share theories about whether something more was going on to spark such a large fleet of officers.

Conspiracy theories ranged from airport shutdowns to — the most popular hunch — alien invasions.

After days of social media buzz, the City of Miami Police Department set the record straight on Friday, telling NBC6 that, “Nothing is being withheld from the public.”

Police reiterated that the heavy presence was, as previously reported, caused by the brawl that broke out among a group of juveniles.

According to an arrest report, the teens were also lighting loud fireworks, which caused panic among patrons in the mall. The chaos also disrupted and damaged local businesses.

To put rumors to rest, Miami police also added that there were quote, “No aliens, UFOs, or ET’s. No airports were closed. No power outages.”

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Wang also promised that giant pandas would return to the U.S. — and specifically California — by the end of the year.

“China-U.S. cooperation is no longer a dispensable option for the two countries or even for the world, but a must-answer question that must be seriously addressed,” he said.

Wang struck a relatively positive note at a lavish banquet marking the anniversary with 300 guests at a hall in the sprawling Diaoyutai state guest house complex in the Chinese capital.

The two countries are trying to navigate — and avoid a war — in what may be their most difficult waters since the U.S. ended official ties with Taiwan and recognized the communist government in Beijing as the government of China on Jan. 1, 1979.

pandas Nov 16, 2023

President Xi signals China could send new pandas to the US: ‘Envoys of friendship'

pandas Aug 30, 2023

Why are the pandas at the National Zoo going to China?

China’s rise as an economic and military power is challenging long-standing American leadership in the Asia region and globally.

“The world is currently undergoing profound changes unseen in a century,” Wang said. “We must think about how to calibrate the direction of the large ship of China-U.S. relations (and) avoid hidden reefs and dangerous shoals.”

Both Wang and David Meale, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy, cited congratulatory letters exchanged by Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday’s anniversary.

Meale, who spoke after Wang, said Biden expressed his commitment to managing the relationship responsibly and said he looked forward to building on the progress made by past leaders of the two countries.

Wang did criticize the use of “the big stick of sanctions” and engaging in power games, charges that China often levels at the United States. He denied that China seeks to supplant any other country and called on the U.S. to respect China’s development path and core interests.

The giant pandas in Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., returned to China last year, and some feared that China would stop lending pandas to American zoos because of the tensions between the two countries.

But Xi raised hope for California in November when he told an audience in San Francisco that China was ready to continue cooperating with the U.S. on pandas and “do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians.”

Wang told Friday’s banquet audience that “preparations are ready for a giant panda return to California within the year.”

___

Associated Press researchers Yu Bing and Wanqing Chen and video producer Caroline Chen contributed.

Millions of single Americans seeking a fresh start in their romantic life are expected to flood dating apps this Sunday, marking the unofficial “Dating Sunday” – the year’s busiest day for online romance.

Fueled by New Year’s resolutions and a surge in optimism, dating platforms anticipate a dramatic spike in activity. Tinder, the self-proclaimed “Super Bowl of apps,” expects a 22% increase in messages and an 18% jump in likes compared to a typical Sunday.

It’s a time for new beginnings, and finding love is at the top of many people’s lists, according to dating experts. Tinder says, “Dating Sunday is a chance to put your best foot forward in the digital world.”

What is Dating Sunday?

The first Sunday of January has organically emerged as the busiest day for online dating. Tinder reports a 20-minute faster average response time on Dating Sunday compared to other Sundays, reflecting heightened user engagement.

Platforms capitalize on the increased traffic with dedicated marketing campaigns. Tinder, for example, launches its “It Starts with a Swipe” campaign coinciding with Dating Sunday, encouraging users to take the first step towards potential connections.

How to navigate Dating Sunday like a pro:

• Freshen up your profile: Update your bio with recent hobbies, interests, and goals. Include attractive photos that showcase your personality.
• Keep it concise and original: Aim for a 25-word bio that captures your essence and sparks conversation.
• Ditch the filters: Use authentic photos that accurately represent you.
• Be upfront about your intentions: Are you seeking casual dates or a long-term relationship? Clearly communicate your expectations.
• Showcase your passions: Highlight your hobbies and interests to attract like-minded individuals.

Tinder says it sees relatively high usage leading up to Valentine’s Day, with usage leveling out after the holiday.

During the six weeks leading up to Feb. 14, the dating app says there are about 58.7 million more likes compared to the rest of the year.

The ordeal happened Thursday night in front of shocked shoppers in the town just outside Birmingham, Leeds Police Chief Paul Irwin said.

The 42-year-old Alabama man did a “cannonball” leap into the aquarium and then stood under a waterfall. He left the water to yell at two officers, then dove back into the aquarium, police said.

The man eventually climbed over the side of the aquarium and fell to the concrete floor below, where he appeared to have been knocked unconscious during the fall, according to news outlet AI.com.

Police then apprehended him, the news site Al.com reported.

He faces several charges including public lewdness, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief.

The man was in the water for about five minutes before officers arrived, Irwin said.

The justices acknowledged the need to reach a decision quickly, as voters will soon begin casting presidential primary ballots across the country. The court agreed to take up a case from Colorado stemming from Trump’s role in the events that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Underscoring the urgency, arguments will be held on Feb. 8, during what is normally a nearly monthlong winter break for the justices. The compressed timeframe could allow the court to produce a decision before Super Tuesday on March 5, when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs in a single day, including in Colorado.

The court will be considering for the first time the meaning and reach of a provision of the 14th Amendment barring some people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office. The amendment was adopted in 1868, following the Civil War. It has been so rarely used that the nation’s highest court had no previous occasion to interpret it.

Colorado’s Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, ruled last month that Trump should not be on the Republican primary ballot. The decision was the first time the 14th Amendment was used to bar a presidential contender from the ballot.

Trump is separately appealing to state court a ruling by Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, that he was ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot over his role in the Capitol attack. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine secretary of state’s rulings are on hold until the appeals play out.

The high court’s decision to intervene, which both sides called for, is the most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore in 2000, when a conservative majority effectively decided the election for Republican George W. Bush. Only Justice Clarence Thomas remains from that court.

Three of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Trump, though they have repeatedly ruled against him in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as his efforts to keep documents related to Jan. 6 and his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees.

At the same time, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have been in the majority of conservative-driven decisions that overturned the five-decade-old constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights and struck down affirmative action in college admissions.

Some Democratic lawmakers have called on Thomas to step aside from the case because of his wife’s support for Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Thomas is unlikely to agree, and there was every indication Friday that all the justices are participating. Thomas has recused himself from only one other case related to the 2020 election, involving former law clerk John Eastman, and so far the people trying to disqualify Trump haven’t asked him to recuse.

Capitol Riot Jan 4

One attack, two interpretations: Biden and Trump both make the Jan. 6 riot a political rallying cry

news Jan 4

‘Mnuchin has not been in the room': Trump Treasury secretary absent from 2024 campaign

The 4-3 Colorado decision cites a ruling by Gorsuch when he was a federal judge in that state. That Gorsuch decision upheld Colorado’s move to strike a naturalized citizen from the state’s presidential ballot because he was born in Guyana and didn’t meet the constitutional requirements to run for office. The court found that Trump likewise doesn’t meet the qualifications due to his role in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. That day, the Republican president held a rally outside the White House and exhorted his supporters to “fight like hell” before they walked to the Capitol.

The two-sentence provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states that anyone who swore an oath to uphold the constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it is no longer eligible for state or federal office. After Congress passed an amnesty for most of the former confederates the measure targeted in 1872, the provision fell into disuse until dozens of suits were filed to keep Trump off the ballot this year. Only the one in Colorado was successful.

Trump had asked the court to overturn the Colorado ruling without even hearing arguments. “The Colorado Supreme Court decision would unconstitutionally disenfranchise millions of voters in Colorado and likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

They argue that Trump should win on many grounds, including that the events of Jan. 6 did not constitute an insurrection. Even if it did, they wrote, Trump himself had not engaged in insurrection. They also contend that the insurrection clause does not apply to the president and that Congress must act, not individual states.

Critics of the former president who sued in Colorado agreed that the justices should step in now and resolve the issue, as do many election law experts.

“This case is of utmost national importance. And given the upcoming presidential primary schedule, there is no time to wait for the issues to percolate further. The Court should resolve this case on an expedited timetable, so that voters in Colorado and elsewhere will know whether Trump is indeed constitutionally ineligible when they cast their primary ballots,” lawyers for the Colorado plaintiffs told the Supreme Court.

The issue of whether Trump can be on the ballot is not the only matter related to the former president or Jan. 6 that has reached the high court. The justices last month declined a request from special counsel Jack Smith to swiftly take up and rule on Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, though the issue could be back before the court soon depending on the ruling of a Washington-based appeals court.

And the court has said that it intends to hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against Trump.

Donald Trump sometimes ate meals at the Florida home of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, but the former president never received massages from women there, a housekeeper for Epstein once testified, according to court records unsealed Friday.

The testimony was one of several times Trump’s name has appeared in court documents that since Wednesday have been made public in New York.

None of the documents suggest wrongdoing by Trump, who had been friends for years with Epstein before they had a falling out in the 2000s.

Epstein, who died in 2019 by suicide in jail after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges, had an obsession with receiving multiple massages each day from young women at his residences in Florida, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands, other court records and testimony have previously shown.

Multiple women have said Epstein sexually abused and exploited them.

The document unsealed Friday in Manhattan federal court was filed in connection with a since-settled lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite who procured young women to give massages to Epstein.

The document contains a transcript of a legal deposition of Epstein’s housekeeper, Juan Alessi.

“Now, Mr. Trump had a home in Palm Beach [Florida], correct?” a lawyer asked Alessi.

Alessi answered, “Uh-huh.”

The lawyer asked, “So he didn’t come and stay there, did he?”

“No, never,” Alessi answered.

The attorney then asked, referring to Trump, “He would come for a meal?”

The housekeeper said, “He would come, have dinner. He never sat at the table. He eat with me in the kitchen.”

The lawyer asked, “Did he ever have massages while he was there?”

Alessi answered, “No. Because he’s got his own spa.”

“Sure,” the lawyer said.

CNBC has requested comment on Alessi’s interview from a lawyer for Trump.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence on charges related to recruiting and grooming women to be abused by Epstein.

Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

• These stocks will be the biggest S&P 500 winners of 2024, according to analysts
• Here’s where to invest $50,000 in the new year, according to the pros
• Could a bitcoin ETF approval be a sell-the-news event? Here’s what to expect if it happens
• These stocks will be the biggest Dow winners of 2024, according to analysts
• Oprah’s flip on weight loss drugs is a sign of what’s to come for the ‘Ozempic trade’ in 2024

The judge said Franco is allowed to leave the Dominican Republic but must return once a month to meet with authorities.

Franco, who was expected to be released early Saturday, did not speak to reporters after the hearing ended.

The 22-year-old All-Star is accused of commercial sexual exploitation and money laundering.

The girl’s 35-year-old mother faces the same charges as Franco. The AP is not naming the woman in order to preserve her daughter’s privacy.

Franco, who was detained Monday in the northern province of Puerto Plata, hasn’t been charged with any crimes. The judge has received a nearly 600-page document detailing the evidence that prosecutors gathered during a monthslong investigation.

The athlete’s lawyers have not commented other than saying that Franco was “doing fine.”

Prosecutors said the investigation began after they received an anonymous tip in July 2023 stemming from someone who saw a media post alluding to the relationship. The AP has not been able to verify the reported post.

Authorities accuse Franco of taking the minor away from her home in Puerto Plata in December 2022 and having a four-month relationship with her with consent from the girl’s mother.

They accuse Franco of sending the mother monthly payments of $1,700 for seven months and buying her a car “in order to allow the relationship and let her go out with him wherever she wanted,” according to the document, which quoted the girl.

The girl also was quoted as saying that she had demanded for a local digital media site to publish an item about her alleged relationship with the baseball player because she was “tired” of her mother, whom she accused of taking Franco’s money and not sharing any of it with her.

Days later, Franco published a live video alleging it was a scheme to extort money from him, the document stated.

In September 2023, authorities raided the home of the girl’s mother and seized 800,000 Dominican pesos ($13,700) as well as $68,500 they said was found hidden behind a frame. Another seizure at a different home found a guarantee certificate from a local bank for 2.1 million Dominican pesos ($36,000) that they said was delivered by Franco for the “commercial and sexual exploitation” of the girl.

In addition, they seized a Suzuki Swift worth $26,600, according to the document. Authorities noted that days before the car was bought, the teenager’s mother had the equivalent of $821 in her bank account. The mother also bought property in Puerto Plata worth $36,000, they said.

Authorities also state that Franco’s mother had sent money to the girl’s mother, but she has not been charged in the case even though they said she got involved “to avoid traces of her son with the accused.”

Franco arrived at a court in Puerto Plata on Friday morning and remained silent while being escorted through a group of journalists that peppered with him questions. The girl’s mother, who works at a local bank and was wearing sunglasses, also declined comment as she was escorted to a courtroom.

Outside, a small group of young Dominican players donned in baseball attire gathered to support Franco, carrying posters that read, “Free Franco,” and “We all are Franco.”

Franco was having an All-Star season before being sidelined in August, when authorities in the Dominican Republic began investigating claims he had been in a relationship with a minor. Major League Baseball launched its own investigation, placing Franco on the restricted list on Aug. 14 before moving him to administrative leave on Aug. 22. Both investigations are ongoing.

Franco signed a $182 million, 11-year contract in 2021. His salary last year and this year is $2 million per season.

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico

On Dec. 29, Ford posted a video update on TikTok and Instagram with details about the house he just closed on in Western Nevada.

“I’m trying to get through without crying but I wanted to show you something, something you made possible,” Ford says in the video. “I know it’s not a mansion, but it’s mine.”

In the video, Ford takes viewers through his three bedroom, two bathroom house in Pahrump, Nevada.

Ford’s life was forever changed, when in June 2022, a viral video showed him receiving a gift from management for his dedication to his job at Burger King, after not missing a shift in 27 years.

The gift from HMSHost, the company from which Burger King hires, included a Starbucks reusable tumbler, a bag of Reese’s candy, pens and two rolls of Lifesavers and other items. Ford, who expressed his gratitude in the video he originally posted on Instagram, garnered quite the response online, with many feeling he deserved more.

His daughter Seryna started a GoFundMe in his honor, and it has raised nearly $450,000 to date. Ford says he used a sizable chunk of the donations to buy the house.

“I want to thank everyone all around the world for what you’ve done for me, something I have never thought would be possible for me: homeownership,” Ford says in the video. “Now my kids and my grandkids have someplace to come visit me.”

Ford concludes his video by showing viewers through his outdoor deck, kitchen and living room — complete with a nod to his visit to the TODAY Show when he reunited with his daughter and grandkids after four years apart.

“It’s got a nice backyard and I don’t have any neighbors to my right,” Ford tells TODAY.com over the phone at the start of the new year, adding that his new neighbors are a very kind family. “Everything’s really nice. Now the only thing I have to get used to is it is quiet out there.”

Ford told TODAY.com in December 2022 that he had used some of the funds raised to buy his dream car and help out his family, saying at the time that he gave his daughter a sizable portion, which she used to buy herself a house. Now, Ford has one of his own.

“It feels so great to be independent,” he says.

Ford says his attendance record is still going strong, and that the drive to work from his new house is a peaceful one. He adds that he is continuously planning for his future, setting some money aside to hopefully open his own “little restaurant” one day.

The donations to Ford’s GoFundMe are still regularly coming in more than a year and a half after his daughter started it. Many people have donated $27 in honor of Ford’s now more than 27 years on the job.

“When I try to think of how I feel, it’s very difficult because this is unbelievable, it still feels like a dream that this is happening to anybody, let alone me,” says Ford. 

“I tell people all the time that if you have lost faith in your God, your beliefs or just life, you can hold me up as an example. Just look at what the world has done for a perfect stranger.”

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Husband cries over heart-shaped cake he got for wife: ‘I feel like I just ruined (her) birthday’
• Need motivation to get moving? Jumpstart your fitness routine with the 100-mile challenge
• Divorce registry helps the newly single rebuild their lives

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Marburger was one of five people injured Thursday when a 17-year-old student at Perry High School in Iowa opened fire. A sixth grade student at the middle school, which is connected to the high school, was killed. Police have not released the names of the victims.

The gunman, identified as Dylan Butler, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.

“For those of you who have reached out regarding Dad, I am sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. Please don’t take it personally it has just been a day for us, for Dad, and for the community,” Marburger’s daughter, Claire Marburger, wrote. “Dad was in surgery all day, and is currently stable.”

Claire Marburger said that her father is known to be a “gentle giant” and an “amazing Dad and just amazing person.”

“He does anything for us kids, including driving 7 hrs round trip on school nights to catch my college games in Decorah. Stayed long enough to slip me a $20 tell me I played well, give me a hug, and head out,” she said.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

Once you start Social Security retirement benefits, you are generally guaranteed to receive monthly checks for life.

But that will stop once you die — with some exceptions for your loved ones.

A one-time lump-sum death payment of $255 may be available, provided your survivors meet certain requirements.

For example, a surviving spouse may be eligible for the death payment if they were living with the person who passes away. If the spouse was living apart from the deceased, but was receiving Social Security benefits based on their record, they may also be eligible for the $255 sum.

If there is no surviving spouse, children of the deceased may instead be eligible for the payment, so long as they qualify to receive benefits on their deceased parent’s record when they died.

More from Personal Finance:
This strategy can help you meet New Year’s resolution goals
Student loan borrowers won’t face missed payments penalties
Will there be a recession in 2024? Here’s what experts say

The Social Security Administration should be notified as soon as possible when a beneficiary dies to cancel their benefits. Funeral homes often report a death to the agency. But it would be wise for survivors to also report it, according to Jim Blair, vice president of Premier Social Security Consulting and a former Social Security administrator.

Other benefit payments may need to be returned

Though a one-time death payment may be available, any benefit payments received by the deceased in the month of death or after must be returned, according to the Social Security Administration.

However, how this rule is handled depends on the timing of the death.

Social Security checks are paid for the benefits earned the month before. The schedule of the monthly Social Security payments depends on a beneficiary’s date of birth, and mostly fall on either the second, third or fourth Wednesday.

If someone receives their monthly Social Security payment and then dies, the Social Security Administration may not take the money back, according to Blair.

But if instead the beneficiary dies and then receives their monthly Social Security check, it may have to be paid back, he said.

The Social Security Administration cautions against cashing any checks or keeping direct deposits received in the month of death or later.

If a deceased beneficiary was due a Social Security check or a Medicare premium refund when they died, a claim may be submitted to the Social Security Administration.

Plan ahead for survivor benefits

But financial planning should not stop there.

“People need to take into account how important Social Security is in their estate planning,” Blair said.

For example, if you claim retirement benefits at age 62, your benefits are reduced, and so are the survivor benefits that become available when you die, Blair said. If you wait to claim benefits until age 70, the maximum age until which you can delay monthly Social Security retirement checks and see your benefits increase, the survivor benefit is also increased.

What’s more, that added income may help you preserve other assets that you can leave behind.

“Your other wealth you can pass on to your spouse and other children and your loved ones,” said Bruce Tannahill, a director of estate and business planning with MassMutual.

‘One of the most frequently missed benefits’

Certain family members may be eligible to receive survivor benefits based on the deceased beneficiary’s earnings record starting as soon as the month they died, according to the Social Security Administration.

That may include a surviving spouse age 60 or older.

When both spouses have claimed Social Security benefits and one dies, the rule of thumb is the larger benefit continues and the smaller benefit goes away, according to Joe Elsasser, a certified financial planner and president of Covisum, a Social Security software claiming company.

But there can be pitfalls, particularly for couples who have been together for years but never married, he noted.

Some states will treat those unions as common law marriages, which are recognized by the Social Security Administration. However, other states may have no such arrangements, which means survivor benefits would not be available to the living partner should their significant other die.

In many cases, Elsasser said he would recommend those couples get married, particularly when one member of a couple has a very high Social Security benefit and the other doesn’t.

Of course, marriage does not always make sense financially for all couples, he said.

Another pitfall may emerge for younger widows or widowers who remarry by age 59, for example.

“That could be a very bad thing, because it can prevent you from accessing the widow benefit under your ex,” Elsasser said.

If instead someone remarries after age 60, they are still entitled to a survivor benefit from a deceased spouse, according to Blair.

Others who may be eligible for benefits on a deceased beneficiary’s record include:

• A surviving spouse 50 or older who has a disability

• A surviving divorced spouse if they meet certain qualifications

• A surviving spouse who is caring for a deceased’s child under age 16 or who has a disability

• An unmarried child of the deceased who is under 18, or up to 19 if they are a full-time elementary or secondary school student, or age 18 and older with a disability that began before age 22.

“Divorced widow benefits are actually one of the most frequently missed benefits by people because they don’t know they’re available,” Elsasser said.

For example, if you’re 70 and were divorced 20 years ago, you may not know that your ex has died, nor think to check with the Social Security Administration to see if their benefit would be higher than yours, he said.

Importantly, the Social Security Administration will not notify you those benefits are available, Elsasser said.

Note the family maximum, and other tips for survivors

In certain circumstances, other family members may be eligible for survivor benefits, including adopted children, stepchildren, grandchildren or step-grandchildren.

Parents age 62 or older may also be eligible for benefits if they were a dependent of the deceased for at least half of their support.

A family maximum limits how much can be collected when there are multiple family members claiming on one record, such as a surviving mother and three children, according to Elsasser. However, this rarely affects retirees, because exes do not count as part of a family maximum, he noted.

Additionally, in some cases an earnings test threshold may offset the amount of benefits you receive if you also have earned income.

Here are some important tips for survivors to keep in mind:

• Claimants may want to file a restricted application. It is possible to claim a widow’s benefit while letting your own retirement benefit grow, or vice versa, according to Elsasser. For example, you may claim a widow’s benefit at 60, and then switch to your own retirement benefit at age 70.

• Social Security can provide a “benefit matrix” comparing benefit options. The document may show you how your monthly benefit and your survivor benefits compare. “We always tell folks, if they’re looking to determine the best course of action between their own benefit and or a surviving spouse benefit, contact SSA and get the benefit matrix report that will give you the information you need to make a decision,” said Marc Kiner, president of Premier Social Security Consulting.

• Social Security will not tell you what strategy will give you maximum lifetime benefits. While Social Security personnel may tell you how to get the highest benefit on the day you visit an office or call, they will not necessarily tell you how to get the maximum benefits over your lifetime, Elsasser said. Consequently, it is best to seek more personalized outside advice to identify the best strategy for your situation.

Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

• These stocks will be the biggest S&P 500 winners of 2024, according to analysts
• Here’s where to invest $50,000 in the new year, according to the pros
• Could a bitcoin ETF approval be a sell-the-news event? Here’s what to expect if it happens
• These stocks will be the biggest Dow winners of 2024, according to analysts
• Oprah’s flip on weight loss drugs is a sign of what’s to come for the ‘Ozempic trade’ in 2024

In an Instagram post, the Dodgers announced that the donation from the organization in conjunction with Guggenheim Baseball, the team’s ownership group, is a collaboration with Ohtani, who will be making his own personal contribution.

“Our thoughts are with all of Japan in the wake of this tragedy,” the team wrote on Thursday.

Ohtani, who is from Japan and has been competing in the U.S. since 2018, said his donation will be separate from the team’s.

“I would like to thank those who have joined in the recovery effort, and my hope is that we continue to come together to support those whose lives have been upended,” Ohtani said in a statement on social media. “I hope for the rapid rescue of missing persons and the reconstruction of the disaster-stricken areas.” 

MLB Dec 9, 2023

Los Angeles Dodgers win Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes with record-breaking contract

Los Angeles Dodgers Dec 24, 2023

Shohei Ohtani surprises teammate Joe Kelly's wife with a new Porsche

A series of earthquakes hit the Ishikawa coast, the most severe of which reached a magnitude of 7.6, that killed 94 people, forced about 33,000 people to leave their homes and left over 200 people unaccounted for.

Ohtani keeps up his relations with Japan. When the two-way MLB star signed a record-breaking 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers in December, his homeland honored him with a stamp and postcard collection.

Back in November, Ohtanu donated more than 60,000 baseball gloves to 20,000 elementary schools in Japan. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he donated to the Japan Mask Project, an initiative to supply masks to medical workers.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president and chief executive officer, said his departure is effective Jan. 31. The trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him, the NRA and others who’ve served as executives is scheduled to start Monday. LaPierre is among the witnesses expected to testify. The NRA said it will continue to fight the lawsuit.

“With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said in a statement released by the organization, which said he was exiting for health reasons. “I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”

James, a Democrat, heralded LaPierre’s resignation as an “important victory in our case” and confirmed that the trial will go on as scheduled. His exit “validates our claims against him, but it will not insulate him or the NRA from accountability,” James said in a statement.

Andrew Arulanandam, a top NRA lieutenant who has served as LaPierre’s spokesperson, will assume his roles on an interim basis, the organization said.

LaPierre, 74, has led the NRA’s day-to-day operations since 1991, acting as the face and vehement voice of its gun-rights agenda and becoming one of the most influential figures in shaping U.S. gun policy. He once warned of “jack-booted government thugs” busting down doors to seize guns, called for armed guards in every school after a spate of shootings, and condemned gun control advocates as “opportunists” who “exploit tragedy for gain.”

In recent years though, the NRA has been beset by financial troubles, dwindling membership and infighting among its 76-member board, along with lingering questions about LaPierre’s leadership and spending. In 2021, at LaPierre’s direction, the NRA filed for bankruptcy and sought to incorporate in Texas instead of New York — but a judge rejected the move, saying it was a transparent attempt to avoid culpability in James’ lawsuit.

Gun control advocates lauded LaPierre’s resignation, mocking his oft-repeated talking point in the wake of myriad mass shootings over the years.

“Thoughts and prayers to Wayne LaPierre,” said Kris Brown, president of the gun control advocacy group Brady. “He’s going to need them to be able to sleep at night. Wayne LaPierre spent three decades peddling the Big Lie that more guns make us safer — all at the expense of countless lives. He has blood on his hands, and I won’t miss him.”

James’ lawsuit accuses LaPierre and other executives of abusing their power and spending tens of millions of dollars in organization funds on personal trips, no-show contracts and other questionable expenditures.

The suit claims LaPierre spent millions on private jet flights and personal security and accepting expensive gifts — such as African safaris and use of a 107-foot (32-meter) yacht — from vendors.

He is also accused of setting himself up with a $17 million contract with the NRA if he were to exit the organization, spending NRA money on travel consultants, luxury car services, and private jet flights for himself and his family — including more than $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over a three-year span.

NRA Apr 28, 2021

Video Shows NRA Chief Struggling to Kill Elephant in Botched Hunt

National Rifle Association Apr 6, 2021

NRA Exec Sheltered on Borrowed Yacht After Mass Shootings

Phillip Journey, an ex-NRA board member who clashed with LaPierre and is expected to testify at the New York trial, said LaPierre’s resignation doesn’t resolve open questions before the court or fix persistent rot within the organization.

“Honestly, the grifters are a snake with many heads and this is just one,” said Journey, a Kansas judge who is running to rejoin the NRA board.

Journey also testified at the NRA’s bankruptcy trial in Texas and said he anticipates there is enough evidence for the James to prove her case. “It’s a tragic end to a career that had many high points,” Journey said of LaPierre stepping down. “It’s one of his own making.”

James is seeking to ban LaPierre and the other executives from serving in leadership positions of any not-for-profit or charitable organization conducting business in New York, which would effectively remove them from any involvement with the NRA.

Some of the NRA’s excess spending was kept secret, James’ lawsuit said, under an arrangement with the organization’s former advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen. The advertising firm would pick up the tab for expenses for LaPierre and other NRA executives and then send a lump sum bill to the organization for “out-of-pocket expenses,” the lawsuit said.

Though now headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit charity in New York in 1871 by returning Union Army officers who sought to improve marksmanship among soldiers. It remains incorporated in the state.

LaPierre has defended himself, saying in previous testimony that cruising the Bahamas on a yacht was a “security retreat” because he was facing threats after mass shootings. He conceded not reporting the trips on conflict-of-interest forms, testifying: “It’s one of the mistakes I’ve made.”

“He’s been the leading political force of the NRA for over 30 years,” said Robert Spitzer, a political science professor at the State University of New York-Cortland and author several books on gun politics. “He has been the leading edge of the very sharp political voice of the organization.”

Bleiberg reported from Dallas, Texas. Whitehurst reported from Washington, D.C.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

While Iowa has played an outsize role in presidential politics for generations, the details of how the caucuses actually work can surprise and mystify even hard-core political junkies. The Republican process this year is largely unchanged, but there are significant changes to the traditional voting schedule on the Democratic side. Much of what you think you know about the Iowa caucuses may no longer be applicable in 2024.

Since the contested Iowa caucuses of 2016 and 2020 may seem like a long time ago, here’s an update of what they are, how they work and why they matter.

What is a caucus?

A political caucus is a gathering of people with a shared interest or goal. The Iowa caucuses are a series of local meetings held throughout the state where participants conduct party business and usually indicate their preference for a presidential nominee to represent the party on the November ballot.

It’s also the first step in a months-long process to select people to serve as delegates to the national party conventions this summer.

How are caucuses different from primaries?

One of the main differences between caucuses and primaries is the amount of time allotted for voting to occur and the methods by which people can vote.

In a primary, people can show up at the polls and cast ballots throughout Election Day, from the early morning until polls close in the evening. They have the option of casting an absentee ballot if they can’t make it to the polls on Election Day, and in some states, people may vote before Election Day.

The Iowa caucuses, on the other hand, are held in the evening and voters must attend in person in order to participate, except in a few isolated instances. Caucuses are run by political parties, whereas primaries are usually (but not always) run by the state.

Are both the Republicans and Democrats holding caucuses in Iowa this year?

Sort of. While both the state Republican and Democratic parties will hold caucuses on Jan. 15, only the Republican event will have an immediate, binding impact on the presidential race.

In a departure from previous years, the Democratic caucuses will be held only to conduct administrative party business and to start the process of choosing delegates to the national conventions. Iowa Democrats will express their preferences for their party’s presidential nominee through a mail-in voting process, the results of which will not be known until March.

How will the Republican caucuses work in 2024?

There will be two main agenda items at every Republican caucus site: holding a binding vote for the party’s presidential nominee and electing delegates to attend county conventions, which is the next step in the multi-tiered process of electing delegates to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer.

The binding presidential vote functions essentially like a party-run primary, only with very limited polling hours and no accommodation for absentee voting, except for a tiny handful of overseas and military voters. There are speeches on behalf of various candidates before the voting and a variety of party business after the vote. Individual caucus chairs are allowed to exercise some discretion in how to conduct the vote, but the voting is done by secret ballot and there is no set list of candidates. Voters must be given the option to vote for any candidate they choose. In the past, some caucus sites have pre-printed the names of major candidates and provided a write-in option, but typically, voters vote by writing the name of a candidate on a blank slip of paper.

There is no walking around the caucus room to form candidate preference groups. That voting method was a feature of Democratic caucuses from 1972 to 2020 but is no longer in use by either party in 2024.

The Republican caucuses will convene statewide at 7 p.m. local time (8 p.m. EST), and begin with the election of a caucus chair and secretary. Only registered Republicans may participate in the caucuses and only in their designated home precincts. However, Iowans may register or change their party affiliation on caucus day. Voters must turn 18 by the November general election in order to participate.

How will the Democratic caucuses work in 2024?

Iowa Democrats had to completely redo their caucus and presidential delegate selection process after their 2020 caucuses devolved into chaos and failed to produce a clear, undisputed winner.

This year, Iowa Democrats will still hold caucuses on the same day as Republicans, but unlike in previous years, caucus-goers will not vote or indicate their pick to represent the party on the November presidential ballot. Instead, they will vote for a party nominee through a mail-in voting process that begins Jan. 12 and concludes on March 5.

The Democratic caucuses on Jan. 15 will elect delegates to the county conventions in March, which is the next step in selecting the individuals to serve as delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. National convention delegates will be required to vote for a presidential nominee in accordance with the results of the mail-in voting process.

What’s at stake?

For Democrats, nothing is at stake, since the 2024 caucuses will have no bearing on the presidential race.

For Republicans, there are usually two prizes in the Iowa caucuses: delegates and bragging rights. Iowa Republican voters will indicate their picks for the party’s presidential nominee, and the results of that vote will determine how many of the state’s 40 convention delegates each candidate will receive. Candidates win national convention delegates in direct proportion to the percentage of the vote they receive. There is no minimum threshold required to qualify for delegates.

However, Iowa makes up a minuscule share of the total number of Republican delegates nationwide (only 1.6%). So, in theory, a candidate who performs poorly in Iowa has plenty of opportunities in the remaining states and territories to more than make up the difference. But because of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation placement in the presidential campaign calendar, the caucus results often give a disproportionate boost to the winners and to those who perform strongly or surpass expectations, while often having a winnowing effect on the field by nudging underperforming candidates out of the race. They can also signal to voters in other states, fairly or unfairly, which candidates are possibly on a better footing in the race for the nomination and have momentum (or the “Big Mo” as candidate George H.W. Bush called it after winning the 1980 caucuses) heading into the next contests.

As the new year kicks off, some workers could see a slightly bigger paycheck due to tax bracket changes from the IRS.

The IRS in November unveiled the federal income tax brackets for 2024, with earnings thresholds for each tier adjusting by about 5.4% higher for inflation.

While it’s lower than the tax bracket changes for 2023, “it’s still a pretty handsome increase,” said certified financial planner Roger Stinnett, managing director of wealth planning for First Foundation Advisors in Irvine, California.

More from Personal Finance:
High earners have a little-known option to turbocharge 401(k) savings
State-run ‘auto-IRA’ programs aim to close retirement savings gap
New change to 529 college savings plans has ‘so many caveats,’ advisor says

If your wages are similar to last year, the 2024 tax bracket adjustment could result in a small paycheck increase, depending on your withholding, experts say.

Of course, prolonged higher costs can chip away at tax savings.

Annual inflation declined slightly in November, but many Americans are still feeling the pinch of elevated prices for housing, motor vehicle insurance and other day-to-day expenses.

Keep a ‘running total’ of your income

“You always want to keep a running total in your mind of how your income is changing, because it’s complex,” said Stinnett, who is also a certified public accountant.

The federal income tax brackets show how much you owe on each portion of your “taxable income,” which is calculated by subtracting the greater of the standard or itemized deductions from your adjusted gross income.

For 2024, the standard deduction also increased for inflation, rising to $14,600 for single filers, up from $13,850 in 2023. Married couples filing jointly may claim $29,200, up from $27,700. That change could reduce taxable income for some filers.

Check your paycheck withholding

Your federal and state paycheck withholdings affect how much taxes you pay throughout the year. You can expect a refund when you've overpaid or a tax bill when you haven't paid enough.

Even if your paycheck increased in 2024, "new tax changes could still place you in a lower or higher bracket," warned CFP Ashton Lawrence, director at Mariner Wealth Advisors in Greenville, South Carolina.

It's important to keep track of tax law and life changes that may affect your situation and adjust your paycheck withholding via Form W-4 with your employer as needed, he said.

Life changes that can affect your taxes may include marriage, divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, retirement, buying a home, filing for bankruptcy and more, according to the IRS.

One "quick check" could be last year's tax return, Stinnett said. If you had a large refund or owed a sizable balance, that may signal it's time to review your withholding.

Don't miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

• These stocks will be the biggest S&P 500 winners of 2024, according to analysts
• Here's where to invest $50,000 in the new year, according to the pros
• Could a bitcoin ETF approval be a sell-the-news event? Here's what to expect if it happens
• These stocks will be the biggest Dow winners of 2024, according to analysts
• Oprah's flip on weight loss drugs is a sign of what's to come for the 'Ozempic trade' in 2024

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Keith Edward Fagiana faces charges of interfering with a flight crew and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He is scheduled to make his first federal court appearance Monday in Amarillo, Texas.

Fagiana was a passenger on an American Airlines flight Wednesday from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to Bozeman, Montana. Pilots landed the plane in Amarillo instead.

The FBI agent’s account was in unsealed court documents Friday.

A flight attendant told the FBI that another passenger complained that Fagiana was violently kicking their seat. The flight attendant said when he asked Fagiana to stop, the man swore at him, punched him in the stomach, then stood up and hit him three more times.

The attendant and other passengers subdued the man and put flex cuffs on him until the plane landed in Amarillo.

An FBI agent said in an affidavit that while officers were putting steel cuffs on Fagiana, he spit at officers and kicked one. They put a “spitting mask” on his face.

The agent wrote that Fagiana said he didn’t remember anything about the flight but “admitted he had drunk some ‘Captain Morgans’” — a brand of rum — at bars before the flight.

It was not clear whether Fagiana has a lawyer; court records Friday did not list one.

Video taken by another passenger captured the confrontation with the flight attendant.

“Stop, stop, stop. What the (expletive) are you doing?” the flight attendant yelled at a man hitting him.

Airlines reported more than 2,000 incidents of unruly passengers to the Federal Aviation Administration. That is down from a peak of nearly 6,000 in 2021 when far fewer people were traveling because of the pandemic.

In one of the most serious cases, a California woman was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $26,000 in restitution for punching a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in the mouth and breaking her teeth.

According to a website set up for the settlement, Verizon agreed to pay out $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by several customers.

In the lawsuit, customers claimed Verizon charged certain account holders a “monthly administrative charge” or “administrative and telco recovery charge,” which they described as “unfair and not adequately disclosed.”

Verizon denied any wrongdoing and said the suit had no merit, according to the settlement site.

“Verizon clearly identifies and describes its wireless consumer Admin Charge multiple times during the sales transaction, as well as in its marketing, contracts and billing,” Verizon told NBC Chicago in a statement. “This charge helps our company recover certain regulatory compliance, and network related costs. As always, our Company stands committed to transparency and the clear disclosure of all consumer charges and fees.”

So, are you eligible and how much could you get? Here’s what to know:

Who is eligible to file a claim?

According to the settlement website, customers who were eligible for a check were notified by mail or email as they were identified by Verizon. That included account holders for the company’s post-paid inidvidual consumer wireless service who were charged such fees between Jan. 1, 2016 and Nov. 6, 2023.

The website describes the settlement class as “all current and former individual consumer account holders in the United States (based on account holders’ last known billing address) who received postpaid wireless or data services from Verizon and who were charged and paid an Administrative Charge and/or an Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge between January 1, 2016 and November 8, 2023.”

What is the deadline to file a claim?

The deadline to file a claim is April 15, 2024. 

How do I file a claim?

Those who are eligible can file a claim via mail or online.

To file online, click here.

To file by mail, print a paper claim form, available here, fill it out, and mail it to the address listed on the form. 

How much could I get?

Payments of up to $100 are expected, but the final amount may vary depending on how long you were a Verizon customer and how many claims are filed.

According to the settlement website, eligible claimants will get $15 for their account, plus $1 for each month they were charged the fees cited in the lawsuit, up to a maximum of $100.

“If the Settlement Fund is not sufficient to pay all the filed valid claims after deducting any Court-approved amounts for the cost of settlement administration, attorneys’ fees and costs, and incentive awards to the class representatives, then the payments made to the Settlement Class Members who filed valid claims will be decreased from the initial allocated amount on a pro-rata basis,” the site states.

How will I receive my payment?

According to administrators, settlements will be paid by check or electronic payment once the settlement is approved and finalized.

When will the settlement be approved and when could checks arrive?

A hearing over the settlement is scheduled for March 22, but may be moved. Once the hearing is held, objections are possible.

It remains unclear when a final decision will in fact be made and checks issued.

Lynda Bluestein, who had terminal cancer, ended her life by taking prescribed medication.

Her last words were ‘I’m so happy I don’t have to do this (suffer) anymore,'” her husband Paul wrote in an email on Thursday to the group Compassion & Choices, which was shared with The Associated Press.

The organization filed a lawsuit against Vermont in 2022 on behalf of Bluestein, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Diana Barnard, a physician from Middlebury. The suit claimed Vermont’s residency requirement in its so-called patient choice and control at end of life law violated the U.S. Constitution’s commerce, equal protection, and privileges and immunities clauses.

The state agreed to a settlement last March that allowed Bluestein, who is not a Vermont resident, to use the law to die in Vermont. And two months later, Vermont made such accommodations available to anyone in similar circumstances, becoming the first state in the country to change its law to allow terminally ill people from out of state to take advantage of it to end their lives.

“Lynda was an advocate all the way through, and she wanted access to this law and she had it, but she and everybody deserves to have access much closer to home because the need to travel and to make arrangements around the scheduling to come to Vermont is not something that we wish for people to have, ” Barnard said.

Barnard said it’s a sad day because her life came to an end, “But more than a silver lining is the beauty and the peace that came from Lynda having a say in what happened at the very end of her life.”

Vermont May 2, 2023

Vermont Allows Out-of-Staters to Use Assisted Suicide Law

Sep 26, 2023

Dying to Know

Ten states allow medically assisted suicide but before Vermont changed its law only one state — Oregon — allowed non-residents to do it, by not enforcing the residency requirement as part of a court settlement. Oregon went on to remove that requirement this past summer.

Vermont’s law, in effect since 2013, allows physicians to prescribe lethal medication to people with an incurable illness that is expected to kill them within six months.

Supporters say the law has stringent safeguards, including a requirement that those who seek to use it be capable of making and communicating their health care decision to a physician. Patients are required to make two requests orally to the physician over a certain timeframe and then submit a written request, signed in the presence of two or more witnesses who aren’t interested parties. The witnesses must sign and affirm that patients appeared to understand the nature of the document and were free from duress or undue influence at the time.

Others express moral opposition to assisted suicide and say there are no safeguards to protect vulnerable patients from coercion.

Bluestein, a lifelong activist, who advocated for similar legislation to be passed in Connecticut and New York, which has not happened, wanted to make sure she didn’t die like her mother, in a hospital bed after a prolonged illness. She told The Associated Press last year that she wanted to pass away surrounded by her husband, children, grandchildren, wonderful neighbors, friends and dog.

“I wanted to have a death that was meaningful, but that it didn’t take forever … for me to die,” she said.

“I want to live the way I always have, and I want my death to be in keeping with the way I wanted my life to be always,” Bluestein said. “I wanted to have agency over when cancer had taken so much for me that I could no longer bear it. That’s my choice.”

Rathke reported from Marshfield, Vt.

Christopher Gibbons and Tyrone Patten-Walsh espoused racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, homophobic and misogynistic views and encouraged listeners of their “Lone Wolf Radio” podcast to commit violent acts against ethnic minorities, authorities said.

Using aliases on their show, the pair said “the white race was likely to be ‘genocided’ unless steps were taken to fight back.” They approved of a day when so-called race traitors would be hanged, particularly those in interracial relationships. Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan, is biracial.

In one episode, Gibbons said the Duke of Sussex should be “prosecuted and judicially killed for treason” and called Harry’s son, Archie, who is now 4, a “creature” that “should be put down.”

Gibbons, 40, was sentenced to eight years in prison, the Metropolitan Police said. Patten-Walsh, 34, was given a seven-year term. Both will be on the equivalent of probation for three years after their release.

“The evidence demonstrates that you desire to live in a world dominated by white people purely for white people. Your distorted thinking is that the white race has ceded too much influence to Blacks and Asians, to Jews and Muslims, to gays, to white liberals and to white people in mixed-race relationships,” Judge Peter Lodder said.

While Patten-Walsh and Gibbons were entitled to hold their beliefs — regardless of being “as preposterous as they are offensive to a civilized society” — Lodder said they had gone too far.

Celebrity News Dec 27, 2023

‘The Crown's Dominic West details fallout with pal Prince Harry

Prince Harry Dec 15, 2023

Prince Harry wins phone hacking lawsuit against British tabloid publisher, awarded 140,000 pounds

The London men started “Lone Wolf Radio,” which had 128 subscribers and around 9,000 views of its 21 episodes in June 2020.

The two celebrated right-wing extremists who carried out mass murders in Norway, Christchurch, New Zealand and Charleston, South Carolina. They also posted images of a Nazi executing a Jewish man at the edge of a pit of corpses and Nelson Mandela being lynched.

A Kingston Crown Court jury convicted them in July of eight counts of encouraging terrorism.

Gibbons was also convicted of two counts of disseminating terrorist documents through his online neo-Nazi “radicalization” library that had more than 2,000 subscribers, authorities said.

Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, who heads the Met’s counter terrorism unit, said the material they disseminated “is exactly the kind that has the potential to draw vulnerable people — particularly young people — into terrorism.”

The next morning, Hayden’s dad couldn’t wake him. The tot had become one of several hundred seemingly healthy U.S. toddlers and preschoolers each year who suddenly die in their sleep and autopsies can’t tell why. But Hayden’s crib cam was recording all night — and offered a clue.

Seizures during sleep are a potential cause of at least some cases of sudden unexplained death in childhood, or SUDC, researchers at NYU Langone Health reported Thursday after analyzing home monitoring video that captured the deaths of seven sleeping toddlers.

Similar to SIDS in babies, SUDC is the term when these mysterious deaths occur any time after a child’s first birthday. Little is known about SUDC but some scientists have long suspected seizures may play a role. In addition to some genetics research, scientists also have found that a history of fever-related seizures was about 10 times more likely among the children who died suddenly than among youngsters the same age.

The new study is very small but offers the first direct evidence of a seizure link. Five of the toddlers died shortly after movements deemed to be a brief seizure by a team of forensic pathologists, a seizure specialist and a sleep specialist. A sixth child probably also had one, according to findings published online by the journal Neurology.

“It’s hard to watch,” said Dr. Orrin Devinsky, an NYU neurologist and the study’s senior author. “We have video which is in some ways the best evidence we may ever get of what’s happened to these kids.”

The recordings can’t prove fevers triggered the seizures but researchers noted several toddlers had signs of mild infections. One, Hayden, previously had such febrile seizures when he’d catch childhood bugs.

That raises a big question: Fever-related seizures are hugely common in young children, affecting 2% to 5% of tots between ages 6 months and 5 years. While scary, they’re hardly ever harmful. So how could anyone tell if occasionally, they might be a warning of something more serious?

“I thought he would be fine and it was just a matter of letting this run its course,” said Justin Fell, explaining how multiple doctors told the Bel Air, Maryland, family not to worry whenever Hayden had a fever-sparked seizure. Instead, “it was every parent’s nightmare.”

Laura Gould, one of the NYU researchers, understands that agonizing frustration. In 1997 she lost her 15-month-old daughter Maria to what later was named SUDC — the toddler woke up one night with a fever, was her usual happy self the next morning but died during a nap. Gould later co-founded the nonprofit SUDC Foundation and helped establish NYU’s registry of about 300 deaths — including the first seven videos offered by families — for research.

Recommended:

May 25, 2023

New Clues Emerge About Possible Factors Behind Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

CDC Nov 1, 2023

The US infant mortality rate rose last year — the largest increase in two decades, CDC says

Gould doesn’t want families to be scared by the new findings — they won’t change advice about febrile seizures. Instead, researchers next will have to determine if it’s possible to tease out differences between those very rare children who die and the masses who are fine after an occasional seizure.

“If we can figure out the children at risk, maybe we can change their outcome,” she said.

It’s hard for autopsies to find evidence of a seizure so using video from home monitors to reevaluate deaths “is actually very clever,” said Dr. Marco Hefti, a neuropathologist at the University of Iowa who wasn’t involved with the study but has also investigated SUDC.

“It’s not that parents need to be stressing out, panicking about every febrile seizure,” he cautioned. But Hefti said it’s time for additional research, including animal studies and possibly sleep studies in children, to better understand what’s going on.

SUDC is estimated to claim over 400 lives a year in the U.S. Most occur during sleep. And just over half, about 250 deaths a year, are in 1- to 4-year-olds.

Sudden death in babies occurs more often and gets more public attention — along with more research funding that in turn has uncovered risk factors and prevention advice such as to put infants to sleep on their backs. But SUDC happens to youngsters long past the age of SIDS. The Fells had never even heard of it until Hayden died.

Hayden experienced his first seizure shortly before his first birthday, when a cold-like virus sparked a fever. Additional mild bugs triggered several more but Hayden always rapidly bounced back — until the night in November 2022 when he died.

Other recent studies, at NYU and by a team at Boston Children’s Hospital, have hunted genetic links to SUDC — finding that some children harbored mutations in genes associated with heart or brain disorders, including irregular heartbeats and epilepsy.

Heart problems, including those mutations, couldn’t explain the deaths of the toddlers in the video study, Devinsky said. He cautioned that far more research is needed but said epilepsy patients sometimes experience difficulty breathing after a seizure that can lead to death — and raised the prospect that maybe some SIDS deaths could have seizure links, too.

Hayden’s mom, Katie Czajkowski-Fell, hopes the video evidence helps finally lead to answers.

“His life, it was too precious and too important for us to not try and do something with this tragedy.”

The event was set to be hosted by the Republican Party of Osceola County at the Westgate Resorts in Kissimmee. It was originally pitched to Westgate as a small book-signing event featuring Greene, without mention of Jan. 6.

“Please be advised that Westgate was not made aware of the purpose of this event when we were approached to host a book signing,” Westgate Resorts said in a statement. “This event has been canceled and is no longer taking place at our resort.”

Greene refused to discuss the development when asked for her reaction to the cancellation by NBC News in Iowa, where she was doing an event for former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all method of getting started, one of the worst things you can do is nothing, says Anne Lester, a retirement expert and author of “Your Best Financial Life: Save Smart Now for the Future You Want,” which will be released in March.

“Give up this notion that there’s a perfect answer,” she tells CNBC Make It. “There’s pretty good to terrible. Pretty good is saving 15% of your money for retirement while terrible is not saving at all.”

But don’t panic if saving 15% of your annual income is a bit out of reach right now. It’s OK to start small.

In fact, you could start by setting aside $20 a day, five days a week.

Say you begin doing this at age 25. By putting what amounts to $100 a week into a retirement investment account that generates a 7% annual rate of return, you’d have about $1,057,681 saved up by the time you reach age 65, according to CNBC’s calculations.

In this example, you’re setting aside $400 a month. But thinking about it as $20 a day can feel a lot less daunting when you’re looking for money to divert toward your retirement savings.

“Whenever you have a big goal, you don’t do it by starting and finishing, right?” Lester says. “You break it up into small, digestible pieces.”

With that in mind, CNBC calculated how a $100 weekly contribution to a retirement investment account could grow exponentially over time if you started at ages 25, 30 and 35. These calculations assume the account generates a 7% annual rate of return and don’t account for unpredictable factors such as market volatility or periods of unemployment.

The results: If you started saving $100 a week at age 25, you’d have over $1 million by age 65. If you start at age 30, your retirement savings would have grown to around $726,000 by 65. And if you began contributing $100 a week when you turned 35, you’d have close to $500,000 by retirement.

As the chart above demonstrates, when you start early, you give your contributions a longer amount of time to grow through the power of compound interest. Using this example, waiting just five years to begin saving at age 30 instead of 25 results in a difference of more than $330,000.

Saving for retirement doesn’t mean depriving yourself

Finding a small amount of money in your budget to put toward your retirement goals doesn’t necessarily mean giving up little luxuries like lattes or dining out with your friends.

“I’m not going to ‘latte shame’ anyone. If it’s a big, incredibly powerful part of your life then go buy the latte, just budget for it,” Lester says.

It’s important to take a look at your finances and get a clear idea of how you’re spending your money, she says. That way, you can accurately figure out if you’re spending money on things that may not be important to you. You may find that you’re paying for a subscription you’re not actually using and be able to save that money for retirement instead.

And the sooner you start, the better. When it comes to saving for retirement, “time is the single most important part of the investing equation,” Lester says.

“The earlier you can start, even if it’s small, the less you will actually have to save to hit that same goal in your 60s,” she says. “It may be a sacrifice now, but it’s saving you from a much bigger sacrifice later.”

However, it’s not the worst thing in the world if you can’t afford to save for retirement until you’re in your 30s or later, Lester says. 

If that’s the case, it may mean you’ll need to make larger contributions in order to meet your retirement goals since your money will have less time to compound. But be aware of the latest retirement contribution limits.

Ultimately, no matter what age you are, getting started is crucial, Lester says.

“It’s about taking small steps when you set this huge goal,” she says. “It’s a goal to get to, but you don’t have to get there tomorrow.”

DON’T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter!

Get CNBC’s free Warren Buffett Guide to Investing, which distills the billionaire’s No. 1 best piece of advice for regular investors, do’s and don’ts, and three key investing principles into a clear and simple guidebook.

CHECK OUT: Want to retire at 65 with $2 million? Here’s how much to save each month

On Friday, the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, Dunn launched a campaign in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District, joining a crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring Democratic Rep. John Sarbanes.

“Because of Jan. 6 and everything that happened afterwards, it’s clear how much of a threat the extinction of our democracy is — it’s very present right now,” Dunn said in a phone interview Thursday ahead of his announcement. 

“I do believe that we’re literally one election cycle away from the extinction of our democracy,” he added.  

Dunn, a 15-year veteran of the U.S. Capitol Police force, spent the months after the Capitol riot recounting his story from that day, when he was physically attacked by the mob, which also hurled racial slurs at him.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

At least 14 of the 42 Iowa state legislators who have endorsed DeSantis received donations from the leadership PAC, ranging in individual sums from $2,500 to $15,000. The first donations were made in early October, followed by several more in November and another three in December, the campaign finance records show.

While other campaigns and leadership PACs have done this in the past, the practice is not overwhelmingly common. A search of Iowa’s campaign finance system for other PACs affiliated with GOP presidential candidates came up empty for donations to state legislative candidates, suggesting these contributions to DeSantis’ supporters are the only ones of their kind in this election, at least so far.

The disclosures provide the first glimpse at Great American Comeback’s spending since the DeSantis campaign began to use the vehicle last summer. It can raise money in concert with DeSantis’ campaign, but it has restrictions on how it can be spent — and it doesn’t have to file a campaign finance disclosure detailing its activity since July until the end of Jan. 31, after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.

Iowa state Senate President Amy Sinclair and state House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl — two of the governor’s most high-profile legislative endorsers — received the largest single donations to their campaign committees, at $15,000 each. Both contributions came in late Dec. 2023, according to Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board data.

While the leadership PAC “is a separate entity from the campaign, Ron DeSantis strives to make sure the party succeeds as a whole,” DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo said in a statement in response to an inquiry about the donations. “Rising tides lift all boats — just as Republicans were victorious up and down the ballot in Florida under his leadership, as president, he will end the Republican Party’s culture of losing and make winning contagious,” he added.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

Daisy Link, 28, has been held at TGK on a second-degree murder charge since June 2022. She was also charged with battery by a detainee on a visitor or other detainee, according to jail records.

Her mother, Josie Ramos, told NBC6 she was surprised by the news of the pregnancy.

“December the 25th she confirms to me that she is expecting, and this is on Christmas Day,” Ramos said. “We were shocked.”

The inmate’s mother said her daughter told her a 23-year-old prisoner with a long rap sheet, including second-degree murder and who she did not know, reportedly passed semen inside of a glove three times through an air conditioning vent in the jail wall.

Link was later with child.

“I know this did not happen,” Ramos said. “I heard what they said happened which is the A/C vent thing which is ludicrous and ridiculous.”

Link’s attorney told NBC6 the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department said her client got pregnant by some unconventional method while Link and the other inmate were both at TGK. He has since been moved to Metro West.

“The care, safety, and rehabilitation of all those in our custody remains our top priority,” MDCR said in a statement. “While there is no evidence of sexual battery against our inmate at this time, the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy are currently under active investigation.”

Link is three months pregnant now, but Ramos worries not only how her daughter got pregnant, but if she is safe and getting the proper medical care because she is being held in the jail’s mental health ward.

“I want to see if someone in the courthouse can see this and let her out so she can get proper prenatal medical care because you don’t come out of a jail impregnated by anyone while you’re still awaiting a trial,” Ramos said.

MDCR told NBC6 that “pregnant inmates receive timely and appropriate prenatal care, specialized obstetrical services, when indicated by the CHS, and time for postpartum recovery.”

Ramos said she has demanded an internal affairs investigation into how her daughter became pregnant and if she is receiving adequate care for her and her baby.

Former Delta Air Lines pilot Jonathan J. Dunn, 42, made his first federal court appearance Thursday in Salt Lake City after he was indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 18, 2023, and charged with interfering with a flight crew. His lawyer, John W. Huber, who was once Utah’s top federal prosecutor, tried to characterize the altercation as “a misunderstanding,” while prosecutors described it as a “grave offense.”

The heated argument had erupted in the cockpit of a 2022 flight from Atlanta to Salt Lake City, on which Dunn was the first officer, or co-pilot.

The captain, who is not named in court documents, had proposed diverting their commercial flight to Grand Junction, Colorado, if the passenger’s condition worsened, the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges. Dunn objected and threatened multiple times to shoot the captain, whom he accused of “going crazy,” the documents state.

If convicted, Dunn could face up to 20 years in prison. Judge Jared C. Bennett set his trial date for March 12.

Dunn acknowledged threatening the captain but said his remarks were intended as a joke, according to new court documents detailing the altercation. The captain did not perceive the threats as a joke and told authorities that he was concerned Dunn would use his firearm to “relieve” him of command of the aircraft.

Huber, Dunn’s attorney, argued Thursday that he should not be considered dangerous, reminding the judge that his client has no criminal history.

The new court documents reveal that Dunn seemed to recognize the gravity of his actions, telling Delta officials, “This could have been much worse. In hindsight if I had been threatened, I would not be able to operate.”

Dunn, of Rapid City, South Dakota, had been authorized by the Transportation Security Administration to carry a firearm on board. The TSA has since revoked that authority, and Delta says Dunn no longer works for the airline.

The program authorizing some pilots to carry guns on domestic flights emerged as an security measure after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, said Ross Aimer, an aviation expert and the CEO of Aero Consulting Experts. After the government realized it would be too expensive to have an air marshal on every flight, it allowed pilots such as Dunn to volunteer for a training program to become federal flight deck officers.

Participating pilots must be vetted and attend a training course at a federal law enforcement center in New Mexico before they’re authorized to carry a gun on board, according to the TSA. And all pilots undergo regular medical exams in which they’re required to disclose whether they have depression or anxiety, as well as their use of medications, drugs and alcohol.

“There are extensive protocols attached to how you carry this weapon,” Aimer said of the officers’ training. “You’re not supposed to take it out of the cockpit, or even out of the holster, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

All commercial pilots receive training on how to calmly settle disagreements and are required to immediately report if a colleague is showing signs of any concerning behavior, he said.

The altercation occurred on the last leg of a three-day cross-country rotation that Dunn and the captain completed together. The captain reported having problems with Dunn questioning his decisions throughout the entire rotation and attempting to be, what he called a “right-seat captain.”

Dunn is an Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel who was demoted from his previous position for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. The Air Force suspended his access to sensitive information and to the air operations center because of the midflight altercation, a spokesperson said.

His indictment came a few days before an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot riding in a cockpit jump seat tried, midflight, to shut off the engine of a Horizon Air jet. Joseph David Emerson, who told police he was suffering from depression and had taken psychedelic mushrooms, was subdued by the captain and co-pilot and arrested after the plane diverted to Portland, Oregon. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder in an Oregon state court.

The judge outlined conditions that would allow Dunn to return home before the trial — prompting him to turn and smile at his wife and four young children. His two daughters shared nervous glances throughout the hearing while his youngest son squirmed on his mom’s lap.

Bennett instructed Dunn to remain at his current residence — he has been living at his in-laws’ house in South Dakota — and to surrender his passport as well as any firearms. He cannot access guns before the trial or contact any witnesses in the case.

___

This story has been edited to correct that Rapid City is in South Dakota, not North Dakota.

Relatives of over 60 young people who died from fentanyl overdoses sued Snap in October 2022 over its messaging platform Snapchat’s disappearing message feature. An extended version of the complaint filed in April 2023 said that “Snap and Snapchat’s role in illicit drug sales to teens was the foreseeable result of the designs, structures, and policies Snap chose to implement to increase its revenues.”

The complaint said that Snapchat’s disappearing messages allow those engaging in illegal conduct to obscure their actions. Social media companies have typically been shielded from many lawsuits under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that gives many online tech companies like Snap protection from legal claims stemming from activities that occur on their platforms. However, parts of this lawsuit appear to have sidestepped Section 230 for now.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. 

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lawrence P. Riff overruled Snap’s objections to 12 claims in the suit alleging negligence, defective product, misrepresentation and wrongful death. 

Snap spokesperson Ashley Adams said the company is “working diligently to stop drug dealers from abusing our platform, and deploy technologies to proactively identify and shut down dealers, support law enforcement efforts to help bring dealers to justice, and educate our community and the general public about the dangers of fentanyl.”

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

George County Deputy Jeremy Malone was killed after he stopped a vehicle around 5:15 p.m. on U.S. Route 98 in Rocky Creek, George County Sheriff Mitchell Mixon said in a statement.

The suspect, who was not immediately identified, led police on a chase out of the county and the suspect was killed by police as the pursusit ended, Mixon said.

After the suspect left George County, the chase went through Greene County into Perry County before the suspect was fatally shot on U.S. 98 near Beaumont, WLOX-TV reported.

The Mississippi Department of Investigations will oversee investigations into the shootings.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves confirmed the deputy’s death in a social media post.

“Mississippi will always remember Deputy Malone,” Reeves wrote. “Our state remains deeply thankful for all our law enforcement officers who bravely place their lives on the line every day in defense of our communities.”

The candy company is selling a limited edition of Situationship Boxes for those who may not be in the “Marry Me” or “You & Me” categories this year.

The newly designed boxes contain blurry and misprinted heart-shaped candies and will be available to purchase starting on Jan. 8 at the company’s website.

Sweethearts is trying to give singles a reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day and let ‘situationships’ be in the spotlight on the day of lovers.

“Singles are taking ‘situationships’ to the next level this year, and Sweethearts is here for them,” said Evan Brock, vice president of marketing for Spangler. “The printing on Sweethearts isn’t always perfect. This is our way of embracing those imperfections in a way that taps into pop culture.”

‘Situationships’ are romantic entanglements where the participants haven’t established the nature of their relationship, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

The department gave no more details of Pistorius’ release. The announcement came at around 8:30 a.m., indicating corrections officials had released the world-famous double-amputee Olympic runner from the Atteridgeville Correctional Center in the South African capital, Pretoria, in the early hours.

Pistorius has served nearly nine years of his 13 years and five months murder sentence for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013. He was approved for parole in November.

Serious offenders in South Africa are eligible for parole after serving at least half their sentence.

The Department of Corrections said in a two-sentence statement announcing Pistorius’ release that it was “able to confirm that Oscar Pistorius is a parolee, effectively from 5 January 2024. He was admitted into the system of Community Corrections and is now at home.”

OLYMPICS Apr 3, 2023

Oscar Pistorius' Lawyer: ‘Mistake' to Deny Parole, Appealing

South Africa Jul 2, 2022

Oscar Pistorius Meets With Murdered Girlfriend's Father as He Seeks Parole

Pistorius was expected to initially live at his uncle’s mansion in the upscale Waterkloof suburb of Pretoria, and a police van was seen parked outside of that house.

Department of Corrections officials had said Pistorius’ release time would not be announced in advance and he would not be “paraded” because they hoped to keep him away from the media glare that has trailed him since he shot Steenkamp multiple times through a toilet door at his home in the predawn hours of Feb. 14, 2013.

He will live under strict parole conditions until the remainder of his sentence expires in December 2029.

Steenkamp’s mother, June Steenkamp, said in a statement earlier Friday that she had accepted Pistorius’ parole as part of South African law.

“Has there been justice for Reeva? Has Oscar served enough time? There can never be justice if your loved one is never coming back, and no amount of time served will bring Reeva back,” June Steenkamp said. “We who remain behind are the ones serving a life sentence.”

“With the release of Oscar Pistorius on parole, my only desire is that I will be allowed to live my last years in peace with my focus remaining on the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation, to continue Reeva’s legacy.”

The Department of Corrections has emphasized that the multiple Paralympic champion’s release — like every other offender on parole — does not mean that he has served his time.

Some of Pistorius’ parole conditions include restrictions on when he’s allowed to leave his home, a ban on consuming alcohol, and orders that he must attend programs on anger management and on violence against women. He will have to perform community service.

Pistorius will also have to regularly meet with parole officials at his home and at correctional services offices and will be subjected to unannounced visits by authorities. He is not allowed to leave the Waterkloof district without permission and is banned from speaking to the media until the end of his sentence. He could be sent back to jail if he is in breach of any of his parole conditions.

South Africa does not use tags or bracelets on paroled offenders so Pistorius will not wear any monitoring device, Department of Corrections officials said. But he will be constantly monitored by a department official and will have to inform the official of any major changes in his life, such as if he wants to get a job or move to another house.

Pistorius has maintained that he shot Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law graduate, by mistake. He testified that he believed Steenkamp was a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom and shot through the door with his licensed 9 mm pistol in self-defense.

Prosecutors said he killed his girlfriend intentionally during a late-night argument.

Steenkamp’s family did not oppose his parole application in November, although June Steenkamp said in a victim statement submitted to the parole board that she didn’t believe Pistorius had been fully rehabilitated and was still lying about the killing.

Before the killing, Pistorius was held up as an inspiring role model after having had both of his legs amputated below the knee as a baby because of a congenital condition. He became a champion sprinter on his carbon-fiber running blades and made history by competing at the 2012 London Olympics.

But his murder trial destroyed his image. He was accused of being prone to angry outbursts and acting recklessly with guns, while witnesses testified about various altercations he had with others, including an argument in which he allegedly threatened to break a man’s legs.

Pistorius was first convicted of culpable homicide — a charge comparable to manslaughter — and sentenced to five years in prison for killing Steenkamp. After appeals by prosecutors, he was ultimately found guilty of murder and had his sentence increased, although that judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal still didn’t definitively rule that he knew it was Steenkamp behind the toilet door.

Pistorius was first sent to prison in 2014, was released on house arrest in 2015 during an appeal and was sent back to prison in 2016. He was initially incarcerated at the maximum security Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria but was moved to Atteridgeville early in his sentence because it is better suited to holding disabled prisoners.

Reaction to Pistorius’ parole has been muted in South Africa, a stark contrast to the first days and months after Steenkamp’s killing, which sparked angry protests outside of Pistorius’ court hearings calling for him to receive a long prison sentence. There is no death penalty in South Africa.

“He has ticked all the necessary boxes,” said Themba Masango, secretary general of Not In My Name International, a group that campaigns against violence against women. “And we can only wish and hope Oscar Pistorius will come out a better human being.”

“We tend to forget that there is a possibility where somebody can be rehabilitated.”

___

Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

With international criticism of Israel’s operations in Gaza mounting, growing U.S. concerns about the end game, and more immediate worries about a recent explosion in attacks in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, Blinken will have a packed and difficult agenda. He leaves just days after a suspected Israeli attack killed a senior Hamas leader in Beirut and, while a White House spokesman said “nobody should be shedding a tear” over his death, it could further complicate Blinken’s mission.

“We don’t expect every conversation on this trip to be easy,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “There are obviously tough issues facing the region and difficult choices ahead. But the secretary believes it is the responsibility of the United States of America to lead diplomatic efforts to tackle those challenges head on, and he’s prepared to do that in the days to come.”

Blinken leaves late Thursday on his latest extended Mideast tour, which will take him to Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.

news Jan 3

Killing of senior Hamas leader in Lebanon stokes fears of Gaza war spreading beyond enclave

Iran Jan 3

At least 95 people killed in bombing at ceremony honoring Iranian general killed in US drone strike

Apart from Gaza-specific priorities he will bring to Israel — including pressing for a dramatic increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, a shift toward less intense military operations and a concerted effort to rein in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Jewish settlers — Blinken will be seeking regional assistance in calming the situation.

“It is in no one’s interest, not Israel’s, not the region’s, not the world’s, for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza,” Miller said. The key elements to preventing this will be deterring attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on commercial Red Sea shipping, deterring attacks on Israel by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah and deterring attacks on U.S. military facilities and interests by Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.

Yet, U.S. influence with Iran is minimal and it must rely either on its own military deterrence or on partners to make the case with Iran that a regional war would be catastrophic.

“Strategically, Iran is winning,” said Paul Salem, head of the Washington-based Middle East Institute. He said Hezbollah and the overall network of Iranian-allied groups are pleased with what the current level of hostilities has achieved.

“Iran is sitting pretty,” he said. “It doesn’t need to do anything dramatic. It is kind of on the winning side.”

Since the Gaza war erupted with Israel’s response to the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, the Biden administration has been seriously concerned about a potential spread in the conflict.

It had breathed a sigh of relief in the weeks following the start of the the Israeli operation, when it successfully counseled Israeli officials not to mount pre-emptive strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and sent two aircraft carrier strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean to serve as a deterrent.

Two and a half months later, though, the chances of a regional war have increased with Israel determined to strike Hamas operatives and leaders no matter where they are. Meanwhile, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and pro-Iran militias have been stepping up attacks on U.S., Israeli and international interests.

As with his previous Mideast visits, Blinken will be concentrating on expanding humanitarian aid to Gaza, pressing Israel to minimize civilian Palestinian casualties, pushing for the release of hostages held by Hamas and stressing the importance of planning for the administration of a postwar Gaza.

But, his agenda has been clouded by recent developments, including a drone strike attributed to Israel that killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh Arouri in Beirut’s southern suburbs, explosions in Iran that targeted a memorial service for U.S.-assassinated Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Suleimani, a drone attack on a pro-Iranian Iraqi militia group in Baghdad and U.S. and allied responses to Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

For example, the first speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during the Israel-Hamas war, nearly a month into the conflict, was widely seen by analysts as telegraphing that his group had no interest in engaging in a full-on war with Israel.

On Wednesday, however, following the killing of Arouri, Nasrallah took a more belligerent tone and appeared to be making a case to the Lebanese people that a wider war might be necessary.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah had so far calibrated between “the need to support Gaza and to take into account Lebanese national interests,” which have limited its military involvement. But he said in the event that “war is launched on us, then Lebanese national interests require that we take the war to the end, without limits.”

On Thursday, an armed unmanned surface vessel launched from Houthi-controlled Yemen got within a “couple of miles” of U.S. Navy and commercial vessels in the Red Sea before detonating, just hours after the White House and a host of partner nations issued a final warning to the Iran-backed militia group to cease the attacks or face potential military action.

And, in Baghdad on Thursday, a U.S. airstrike on the headquarters of an Iran-backed militia killed a high-ranking commander, identified as Abu Taqwa, with the Popular Mobilization Force, or PMF. A U.S. defense official said Taqwa was targeted because he was actively involved in attacks on U.S. personnel.

An Iraqi military spokesman, Yehia Rasool, said the Iraqi army blames the U.S.-led International Coalition Forces for the “unprovoked attack on an Iraqi security body operating in accordance with the powers granted to it by” the Iraqi military.

The primary mission of the U.S.-led coalition is to fight the Islamic State, the Sunni group that many believe was behind Wednesday’s bombing in Iran.

___

Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed.

The firing exercises are expected to escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Experts say North Korea will likely intensify a run of weapons tests and its warlike rhetoric ahead of South Korea’s parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired 200 rounds in the waters north of their western sea boundary on Friday morning. It was North Korea’s first front-line maritime firing exercise in about a year.

Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Lee Sung Joon told a televised briefing that the North’s artillery firing was “an act of provocation that threatens peace and heightens tensions on the Korean Peninsula.” Lee said South Korea suffered no damage.

In a tit-for-tat step, South Korea had its troops on two border islands fire artillery rounds south of the sea boundary later Friday, but North Korea’s military didn’t immediately respond. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the military will maintain a firm readiness to strongly punish any provocations by North Korea.

North Korea’s state media haven’t made any comments.

North Korea Dec 30, 2023

North Korea's Kim says country will build more nuclear weapons in 2024

North Korea Dec 17, 2023

North Korea fires long-range ballistic missile into sea in resumption of launches

Ahead of the South Korean drills, authorities blared broadcasts via street loudspeakers and sent text messages to residents on the five major border islands, asking them to evacuate to safe places. They worried North Korea could conduct a new round of firing training in response but lifted the evacuation order a few hours later as they detected no suspicious activities by the North’s military, according to local officials.

The Koreas’ poorly marked western sea boundary witnessed bloody naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009. The North’s alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship killed 46 South Korean sailors in March 2010, and the North’s artillery bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island — one of the five border islands where the evacuation order was issued on Friday — killed four South Koreans in November 2010.

The 2018 agreement requires the two Koreas to halt live-fire exercises and aerial surveillance in buffer and no-fly zones that they established along their border. But the deal is in danger of collapsing after both Koreas took steps to breach the accord amid bickering over the North’s first successful military spy satellite launch in November.

South Korea resumed front-line aerial surveillance in protest at the North’s satellite launch. North Korea responded that it would deploy powerful weapons at the border and won’t abide by the 2018 deal any longer. South Korea later accused North Korea of restoring front-line guard posts that it had dismantled under the 2018 deal.

South Korea has previously accused North Korea of having already breached the deal numerous times with firing drills at the buffer zones, including one as recently as December 2022 off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast.

“North Korea is now in the stage of finding a justification for provocation after scrapping the 2018 military agreement,” said Lee Sang Sook, a research professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security. “There is a possibility for North Korea to ramp up provocation steadily, so big and small provocations along the western sea boundary and the land border are expected this year.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un fired off fierce, derisive rhetoric against South Korea in a key ruling-party meeting at the end of December. He said South Korea must not be considered as a partner for reconciliation or unification, and ordered the military to use all available means — including nuclear weapons — to conquer South Korea in the event of a conflict.

Experts say Kim likely believes that a boosted military capability would increase his chances of wresting U.S. concessions if former President Donald Trump is reelected in the U.S. presidential election.

Earlier Friday, North Korea’s state media said Kim ordered authorities to increase production of mobile launch vehicles for missiles during a visit to a munitions factory. Kim said the role of the factory producing transport erector launchers, or TELs, is “very important” in bolstering North Korea’s national defense because of a looming military showdown with its rivals.

TELs are mobile launch vehicles that give North Korea the ability to move missiles around its territory. This makes it more difficult for adversaries to detect launches in advance. Some South Korean experts have estimated that North Korea has about 100-200 such vehicles.

In the recent ruling party meeting, Kim also vowed to expand the country’s nuclear arsenal, launch three additional military spy satellites and take other steps to build up the military this year to acquire “overwhelming” war readiness to cope with what he called U.S.-led confrontation. He cited the expansion of U.S.-South Korean military drills that sometimes involve U.S. long-range bombers and a nuclear-armed submarine.