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A brand-new Disney cruise ship rushed to the aid of a catamaran taking on water in the Atlantic on Sunday and plucked four people to safety, authorities said. The 50-foot Serenity was 265 miles from Bermuda when it called for help at 8:30 a.m., prompting the Coast Guard out of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to alert nearby vessels, according to an agency statement . The Disney Treasure responded, saying it was 80 miles from Serenity, before heading to the catamaran and arriving between 1 p.m. and 1:45 p.m., according to the Coast Guard. Once Treasure got close enough, it launched a lifeboat and got all four Serenity passengers off the disabled craft, officials said. “We are pleased that the Disney Treasure was able to provide aid to the boat passengers in p...

A brand-new Disney cruise ship rushed to the aid of a catamaran taking on water in the Atlantic on Sunday and plucked four people to safety, authorities said. The 50-foot Serenity was 265 miles away from Bermuda when it called for help at 8:30 a.m., prompting the Coast Guard out of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to alert nearby vessels, according to an agency statement . The Disney Treasure responded, saying it was 80 miles from Serenity, before heading to the catamaran and arriving between 1 p.m. and 1:45 p.m., according to the Coast Guard. Once Treasure got close enough, it launched a lifeboat and got all four Serenity passengers safely off the disabled craft, officials said. “We are pleased that the Disney Treasure was able to provide aid to the boat passengers...

WASHINGTON — A looming battle among Senate Republicans over who to pick as their next majority leader is turning into an early test of how much power President-elect Donald Trump's “MAGA” movement will exert in his second term. The three-way fight to replace outgoing Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pits Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., against Sen. John Cornyn, a former McConnell deputy, and underdog candidate Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. The battle will gauge the staying power of long-serving senior Republicans grounded in an institutionalist view of the Senate, like Thune and Cornyn, against an emboldened pro-Trump wing looking to smash any vestiges of the old GOP as he returns to power. Scott's seeking to claim the latter mantle and told NBC News in an inter...

After the viral sensation that was New York City’s Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest , the South Asian guys of the Bay Area also heard their siren call. On Sunday, a Dev Patel look-alike competition drew hundreds of people to San Fransisco’s Dolores Park. Many messy-haired brown men put forth their faces for judgment: singing, dancing and parading themselves in front of the massive crowd of screaming girls. Eventually, a doppelganger of the “Slumdog Millionaire” actor was anointed. San Jose resident Jaipreet Hundal, 25, took home a giant check for $50, a “Monkey Man” statue and a bouquet of flowers, organizers confirmed. “Shoutout to all the Dev Patel look-alikes,” Hundal said in a speech following his win . “If the real Dev Patel shows up, I don’t know who wou...

A verdict has been reached in the trial of Richard Allen , the Indiana man charged with killing two middle school girls near a popular small town trail seven years ago, NBC affiliate WTHR of Indianapolis reports. The jury’s decision on Monday came after a four-week trial in which Allen, 52, pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the Feb. 13, 2017 slayings of close friends Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14. The pair had been hanging out at Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, north of Indianapolis, when prosecutors said Allen used “power and fear" to force them down a hill and cut their throats. During his closing argument Thursday, Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland identified Allen as "the bridge guy" — a man seen in a Snapchat video ...

Former President Donald Trump has clinched a second term in the White House, and his Republican Party has won control of the Senate. But control of the House of Representatives is still up for grabs, as is the size of the incoming Senate majority. In the fight for the House, Democrats are facing an uphill climb to net the four seats needed to flip the chamber, while Republicans only need to win a handful more competitive races to hold onto the majority. With more than a dozen House races still uncalled and many looking close, Democrats would need to hang onto all of their competitive seats and flip a few Republican-held seats to get to the 218 seats needed for the majority. With votes still being counted, here's a look at the key races that remain uncalled by the NBC News Decision De...

WASHINGTON — As a candidate, Donald Trump promised to relieve consumers of high interest rates. As president, doing so will likely be a slow process largely outside of his control. Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that he would bring down interest rates without elaborating on how. He has suggested the president should have a say in determining rates set by the Federal Reserve and publicly berated the central bank and its chairman, Jerome Powell, for not lowering rates sooner. But while Trump has put a lot of emphasis on the Federal Reserve as a way to reduce the interest paid by consumers or businesses, the rates on mortgages and other longer-term loans are outside of any one person’s or institution’s control. Instead, those rates are largely determined by the bond market, w...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda could face pushback from an institution he has done much to shape: the Supreme Court. With a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees, the court has spent the last few years buffeted by criticism from the left. But if the justices stick true to their stated jurisprudential principles, the new administration could end up on the losing side at least some of the time, legal experts say. “I think if President Trump’s executive agencies tried to stretch the law beyond the breaking point in the same kind of way that the Biden administration has done then, yes, the courts will be a check on that power,” said John Malcolm, a lawyer at the Trump-allied Heritage Foundation. Brianne Gorod, a lawyer with the left-l...

WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he immediately issued a provocative executive order banning travel from Muslim-majority countries that led to chaos, confusion and a flurry of lawsuits that ended up at the Supreme Court. If he wins the election in November, he has pledged to follow a similar course on another contentious policy proposal: ending birthright citizenship. In May of last year, Trump released a campaign video renewing his call to end the long-standing constitutional right, saying he would sign an executive order on day one of his presidency that would ensure that children born to parents who do not have legal status in the U.S. will not be considered U.S. citizens. “The United States is among the only countries in the world that says even if neither p...

The price of bitcoin hit an all-time high this weekend, a rally that started shortly after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election. Major indexes showed bitcoin's price hitting more than $85,000 on Monday. That's up from $68,000 last Tuesday, Election Day in the U.S. Year to date, bitcoin has gained more than 90%, though most of those gains came in the early part of the year. From March to November, the price has been mostly confined to a range of $50,000 to $70,000. Trump's election has been heralded by some as a positive sign for the prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He has promised to quash the aggressive stance taken by the current leadership of the Securities and Exchange Commission against cryptocurrency firms and products it has deemed...