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On November 6, the U.S. Army Office of Special Trial Counsel preferred four additional charges against Private First Class Dewayne Arthur Johnson, stemming from the disappearance of his pregnant wife. Mischa Johnson last spoke to family on July 12, 2024. Michelle McCaskill, Director of Communications for the OSTC, told Dateline in an email that the charges were brought about “based on evidence obtained through the on-going investigation.” The investigation began three months ago when 19-year-old Mischa Johnson vanished from Oahu, Hawaii. Dateline reported on her disappearance in August as part of our “Missing in America” series, and spoke with her sister, Marianna Tapiz. Marianna says she and Mischa had plans to meet for dinner on the evening of July 12 to celebrate both being...

WASHINGTON — Republicans are gearing up to lock in their remake of the judiciary under President-elect Donald Trump and a new Senate majority, including potentially installing several more conservative Supreme Court justices. Having already picked three Supreme Court justices in his first term — who were critical in overturning abortion rights — Trump will have appointed a majority of the court if he lands two more. Trump made the Supreme Court and lower courts priorities in his first term. He worked with Senate Republicans to help reshape the entire judiciary by naming 234 federal judges. Republicans will hold at least 52 Senate seats, having flipped Democratic-held seats in West Virginia, Montana and Ohio. The number may grow, with several other races still too close to call. Ei...

Twelve students at Salisbury University in Maryland have been charged with hate crimes after they allegedly targeted a man over his sexual orientation by inviting him to an off-campus apartment where they beat him and used derogatory names, police said. The students, aged 18 to 21, have been charged with first-degree assault, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment and associated hate crime charges, the Salisbury Police Department said in a news release Thursday. They are: Ryder Baker, 20; Bennan Aird, 18; Riley Brister, 20; Cruz Cespedes, 19; Dylan Earp, 20; Elijah Johnson, 19; Zachary Leinemann, 18; Cameron Guy, 18; Jacob Howard, 19; Eric Sinclair, 21; Patrick Gutierrez, 19; and Dylan Pietuszka, 20. All are from Maryland, except Aird, who is from Delaware. Police said t...

The wife of an Illinois judge was arrested and charged with fatally shooting her husband, according to Illinois State Police. Megan Valentine, 44 of Albion, was arrested Tuesday after the body of Illinois Second Judicial Circuit Court Judge Michael J. Valentine was found outside of a home, per a news release from police. She was charged with first degree murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm, aggravated battery with a firearm and aggravated domestic battery, according to court documents filed in Edwards County Thursday. The Edwards County Sheriff's Office responded to a home in Albion Tuesday at around 12:14 p.m. "Upon arrival, an ECSO deputy observed the body of Michael Valentine laying outside the residence," police said, adding Megan Valentine was then taken into custody...

WASHINGTON — The judge overseeing Donald Trump's federal election interference case has granted a request from special counsel Jack Smith to hit pause on the process and give him a month to formally request how to move forward — likely the first step in ending the prosecution. In a filing on Friday, Smith said that "as a result of the election" the prosecution "respectfully requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance." "By December 2, 2024, the Government will file a status report or otherwise inform the Court of the result of its deliberations," the filing said, adding that Trump's attorneys do not object to the request. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted the m...

Tesla returned to the $1 trillion club Friday, after its stock surged in the days following Donald Trump's presidential election victory. Shares in the electric automaker have soared approximately 23% since Wednesday — a sharp turnaround from a year in which its stock price had otherwise been moving sideways. The new valuation also increases Tesla CEO Elon Musk's net worth to some $300 billion, according to Forbes — increasing his net worth as the world's richest person by more than $30 billion. Musk campaigned aggressively for Trump, who has signaled he intends to appoint the Tesla chief to a role tasked with increasing government "efficiency" that would cut programs deemed wasteful. Through his rocket company SpaceX, Musk has been the beneficiary of billions in government con...

“ Gladiator ” director Ridley Scott recently told The New York Times that Russell Crowe said Joaquin Phoenix was being “terribly unprofessional” on set when Phoenix was getting cold feet and had to be convinced to stay on the movie. Crowe headlined “Gladiator” as Maximus, with Phoenix starring as the villainous Commodus. Both actors earned Oscar nominations, with Crowe winning the best actor prize. “[Joaquin] was in his prince’s outfit saying, ‘I can’t do it,’” Scott recalled, “I said, ‘What?’ And Russell said, ‘This is terribly unprofessional.’” When asked how he convinced Phoenix to stay on the film, Scott asked: “I can act as a big brother or dad. But I’m quite a friend of Joaquin’s. ‘Gladiator’ was a baptism of fire for both of us in the begi...

Five people, including two juveniles, were found dead in Minnesota, in what appears to be a quadruple murder-suicide spread across two homes. Officers responded to a welfare check at a home on the 6000 block of Tacony Street in Duluth shortly after 2 p.m., the Duluth Police Department said in a release. An employee with the city of Superior was concerned that a coworker had not shown up for work, police said. They found two people, 47-year-old Erin Abramson and her son, 15-year-old Jacob Nephew, dead from apparent gunshot wounds. Police said they identified a suspect, 46-year-old Anthony Nephew, and set up surveillance at his residence, located about a mile northeast of the initial shooting scene. Officers made entry with drones and found two more victims, 45-year-old Kathryn N...

Beyoncé made Grammys history Friday by becoming the most nominated artist. The music icon, who released her debut country album, "Cowboy Carter," this year, received 11 nods, bringing her career total to 99. From Sabrina Carpenter to Chappell Roan, female artists behind some of this year's biggest hits also received industrywide recognition from the Recording Academy, which announced its nominees for the 67th Grammy Awards during a livestream. Carpenter and Roan snagged nominations in the best new artist category. Each has reached major breakthroughs this year, drawing huge festival crowds and inching up various Billboard charts . Taylor Swift, who broke the record for most wins for album of the year, also received a handful of nods for " The Tortured P...

For laptops , MacBooks and desktop PCs , good audio can often seem like an afterthought. It’s hard to get quality sound from built-in speakers, which have to be crammed inside a hyper-thin chassis alongside the keyboard, battery and processors that make up a personal computer. That’s where the best computer speakers come in handy. By using an external accessory to ramp up your audio output, you can get louder, higher-quality sound for whatever you’re listening to. Good computer speakers can be the difference between hearing a colleague clearly and missing crucial information during a Zoom call, while others may want a better computer speaker setup so that games, music and movies sound better. For a good audio solution read on for the best computer speakers in 2024. ...