US news

US news

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against multiple companies for their alleged involvement in an elaborate cryptocurrency scam that swindled more than $14 million from retail investors. The complaint charged crypto asset trading platforms Morocoin Tech Corp., Berge Blockchain Technology Co., Ltd., and Cirkor Inc., as well as investment clubs AI Wealth Inc., Lane Wealth Inc., AI Investment Education Foundation (AIIEF) Ltd., and Zenith Asset Tech Foundation, in connection with the operation.

Anyone charged with a crime is constitutionally entitled to do so, though judges typically and often without success try to convince defendants that it's a terrible idea. With his pro per status affirmed last July, Tilley's first big challenge was a Dec. 1 preliminary hearing, a pretrial hearing where prosecutors must reach the low legal threshold of probable cause in order to convince a judge to advance the case.

"particularly shocking,"

Fuck, fuck, fuck I just hit somebody.

The Notice is the result of an investigation into China's semiconductor industry that the Biden administration commenced in December 2024, and which focused on "foundational semiconductors (also known as legacy or mature node semiconductors), including to the extent that they are incorporated as components into downstream products for critical industries like defense, automotive, medical devices, aerospace, telecommunications, and power generation and the electrical grid."

A 34-year-old man was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Fall River on Sunday, the local prosecutor said. Fall River police received a call for a bicyclist who had been hit by a vehicle just after 5 p.m. on Dec. 21, the office of Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn said in a press release. Officers found Jordyn Lyttle, a Fall River resident, seriously injured near 214 Stafford Rd.

"They'll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built," Trump claimed during the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. According to Trump, the ship, the first of which will be named the USS Defiant, will be longer and larger than the World War II-era Iowa-class battleships and will be armed with hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, rail guns, and high-powered lasers - all technologies that are in various stages of development by the Navy.

"This is really important work that's moving embryo research forward an important advance in the search for scientific answers for what makes a pregnancy healthy," says Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at The Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank, who was not involved in the research. "However, it also presents a technology that could be used for other purposes that are concerning."

A financier has been extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States to face allegations that he cheated investors who were promised monthly 10% gains in what was actually a Ponzi scheme, authorities said. Matthew Melton, 61, of Boulder, Colorado, has remained jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after appearing in court Saturday to face securities fraud and wire fraud charges.

To cover an execution in Florida, John Koch, a 76-year-old radio correspondent, spends exactly $56.73. This is when, to save gas, he drives along rural roads from his home in the northern part of the peninsula to the state prison near Starke (about 62 miles south) without accelerating his old Honda above 43 mphabout 1,600 revolutions per minute. Koch has documented every execution in the state for the past 37 years.

Air travel is a hassle for wheelchair users. You don't need to look far for proof: Social media is awash with stories of wheelchairs lost or damaged in transit, often met with minimal accountability from airlines. As we've noted before, "An airline losing your luggage is bad; an airline losing your wheelchair is much, much worse." Given that reality, you'd think making air travel even marginally more accessible would be a priority. Instead, recent developments suggest things may actually be moving in the opposite direction.

Kile Glover was the entertainer in the family, the pride of his stepfather, the R&B superstar Usher. He sang, he danced he burned CDs of his own music, styled the covers with self-made art and was otherwise expressing his creativity in internet videos before it was trendy. He would've been a YouTube sensation by now, says his mother, the celebrity stylist Tameka Foster.

Fleming allegedly took the child's phone and purse, including her high school identification. The victim then had to dress in lingerie that Fleming gave her before taking her and another female to a street prostitution track in East New York, known as Penn Track, a stretch of roadway along Pennsylvania Avenue near Wortman and Georgia avenues. Here, the victim was forced to solicit men for sexual acts in return for money from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m.

More egregious is that Thomas's wife was the Dean at the school, [and] she was told of the sexual relationship by the victim and in turn blamed the victim,

Carmen Veneziano, 47, who leads the Totowa Police Department, faces one charge of kidnapping and three counts of domestic assault and battery in connection with the Sept. 14 incident. His bail was set at $25,000, with orders to stay away from the alleged victim and submit to GPS monitoring. According to prosecutors, Veneziano and the woman visited Boston for a Red Sox game in September, and the trip was going smoothly until an argument erupted at the hotel bar.

A related misstep is choosing between the lump sum and annuity on instinct instead of analysis, even though that decision locks in tax timing, investment options, and how long the money is likely to last. Financial writers note that many winners default to the lump sum without modeling scenarios with professionals and understanding that, after taxes, the headline $1.7 billion quickly shrinks.

The generation that twirled the first plastic hula hoops and dressed up the first Barbie dolls, embraced the TV age, blissed out at Woodstock and protested the Vietnam War the cohort that didn't trust anyone over age 30 now is contributing to the overall aging of America. Boomers becoming octogenarians in 2026 include actor Henry Winkler and baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, singers Cher and Dolly Parton and presidents Donald Trump, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

An electric scooter rider died after slamming into two minivans in Brooklyn, cops announced Monday. Ilya Perloff, 41, was maneuvering his electronic, stand-up scooter west along Fillmore Avenue when he collided with a 2015 Toyota Sienna traveling north on E. 38th Street in Marine Park around 11:51 a.m. Sunday, cops said. The impact sent the victim flying, first into the Sienna minivan before striking a Chrysler minivan parked nearby,

Each and every Holocaust survivor alive today is a miracle of our time. And since Hanukkah is a time for celebration and remembering the miracles of the past, organizations throughout South Florida honored these survivors during the holiday season - hosting events for them to gather, enjoy and revel in community support. Child Survivors/Hidden Children of the Holocaust, a Palm Beach County-based nonprofit group, hosted a luncheon for survivors on Dec. 7.

Moving at superspeed isn't limited to SpaceX's rockets. Elon Musk's satellite and rocket company has secured one million new customers for its Starlink internet in under seven weeks and is now active in 155 markets, the company wrote in a post on X on Monday evening. "Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets," the company said.

Another point that has ABC feeling good: it was WNT's biggest win in total viewers over Nightly News in 30 years. The good news for NBC is that Llamas who replaced veteran host Lester Holt in June had a good end to the year. Nightly News was the only newscast among the three networks to increase total viewers from the third quarter to the fourth quarter adding 477,000 total viewers; that put the show at 6.20 million viewers for the quarter solidifying its full-year viewership.

But some analysts are starting to worry about how much of that growth is concentrated in AI.A recent note from Pantheon Macroeconomics said that private fixed investment-a measure of how much companies are spending-"is rising only due to AI-related spending." Analyst Oliver Allen published a chart this morning showing that all other private fixed investment is actually in decline: "Capex intentions remain depressed, suggesting investment outside of AI-linked sectors remains weak," he told clients in a note seen by Fortune.

US real gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 4.3% in the third quarter, exceeding the 3.3% expected and more than the 3.8% growth in the second quarter. "The increase in real GDP in the third quarter reflected increases in consumer spending, exports, and government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in investment," the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.

The retirement of the Atlas V and Delta IV led to a period of downsizing for United Launch Alliance, with layoffs and facility closures in Florida, California, Alabama, Colorado, and Texas. In a further sign of ULA's troubles, SpaceX won a majority of US military launch contracts for the first time last year. Bruno, 64, served as a genial public face for ULA amid the company's difficult times.

That news came in the middle of a press conference about the Trump administration relaxing fuel economy rules a change that will make it easier for Americans to buy more of the big, fuel-guzzling trucks and SUVs that car buyers love. Trump's endorsement surprised, delighted and somewhat confused American kei car enthusiasts. It is not actually illegal to build tiny cars for the U.S. auto market.

A nerdy economics essay recently went viral. It asserted that the federal measure for the poverty line was woefully outdated and that for a family of four, the income needed today to function in American society was $140,000. The essay, by Michael Green, a financial market strategist, struck a nerve and set off another round of debate about affordability, focused this time on whether people with six-figure incomes should feel strapped.

The pause, effective immediately, is the latest step the administration has taken to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump's executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful. The administration said the pause will give the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind, time to work with the Defense Department and other agencies to assess the possible ways to mitigate any security risks posed by the projects.

The Trump administration says the U.S. Coast Guard is pursuing an oil tanker linked to Venezuela. This action is the latest in the Trump administration's pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government. The move is also part of the administration's effort to enforce a blockade against sanctioned oil tankers traveling to and from Venezuela. A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, informed NPR yesterday that the Coast Guard was in "active pursuit of a ship."

Rice, who was Black, was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot and killed by Loehmann seconds after the officer and his partner arrived. The white officers told investigators Loehmann had shouted three times at Rice to raise his hands. The shooting sparked an outcry about police treatment of Black people and systemic racism, especially after a grand jury decided not to indict Loehmann or his partner.

Impact isn't always immediate or easily quantified. It can surface quietly in an email from a listener, a shift in public understanding, or a decision made differently because someone finally has the information they need. In a nonprofit newsroom, those moments matter as much as any headline. Over the past year, NPR's reporting has met audiences where they are, reflecting the realities they're living every day.

Earlier this month, billionaire Elon Musk, the one-time DOGE leader and Trump adviser, sat down with Katie Miller on her podcast to reflect on his time with the administration. He called DOGE's work "a little bit successful" but said he wouldn't do it again if given the chance. "We were somewhat successful, Musk said. "I mean we stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense, that was just entirely wasteful."