President Donald Trump attempted to provide those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol a fresh start last week with a broad set of pardons and commutations, but Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is preventing them from holding state positions. Pritzker ordered the state's Department of Central Management Services, which is in charge of hiring people, to limit the hiring of those involved in the Capitol attack by stating that their involvement was shameful and infamous and that it went against the state's mission late Thursday. In a formal order that NBC News was able to obtain, Pritzker said that these rioters attacked law enforcement officials defending citizens in the Capitol, interfered with the orderly handover of power, and weakened fundamental tenets of Americ...

According to some of the company's brand CEOs, sales of watches and jewelry at luxury behemoth LVMH surged in the most recent quarter and continued to shine into January after a year of decreases. Following a decline in the preceding quarters, LVMH announced a 3% improvement in sales for its watches and jewelry segment during its earnings call this week. The business did better than wine and spirits, which fell 8% during the quarter, and the company's main fashion and leather goods section, which fell 1%. During LVMH Watch Week in New York, the CEOs of a number of the company's jewelry and watch businesses expressed their growing optimism for 2025 in interviews. They claimed that although China is still slow, a resurgence in American spending in the US and Europe is fueling a robust demand...

Five Thai nationals who had been taken captive by Hamas since its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, were freed on Thursday. They were among the 31 Thais who were captured by the militant group; 23 of them have since been freed. Two more people have been officially declared dead, and it's unclear how one of them is doing. Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that 46 Thais, including the two who perished in Hamas captivity, had been slain in the fighting. Tens of thousands of Thai laborers were employed in Israel, including them. Israel used to rely mostly on Palestinian labor, but with the first Intifada, a Palestinian uprising that lasted from 1987 to 1993, it began to import a lot of migrant labor. The majority were from Thailand, and Thai people continue to make significantl...

Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, called for undocumented Colombians working in the United States to leave their jobs right away and go back to their country on Friday. In a post on X, he also mentioned that returnees who sign up for its programs would receive credits from the Department of Social Prosperity. This week, Colombian air force aircraft have landed in Bogota with U.S. deportees. After diplomats from his administration and the United States came to an agreement on deportation flights over the weekend, Petro avoided an economic catastrophe. The issue had threatened tariffs on both countries, and the U.S. had imposed visa restrictions.

According to a Commerce Department report released Friday, inflation ended 2024 strongly as a pricing indicator that the Fed watches came in much higher than the central bank's target. In December, the price index for personal consumption expenditures grew 2.6% year over year, which was 0.2 percentage points higher than the November reading and consistent with the Dow Jones estimate. Core PCE, excluding food and energy, showed a reading of 2.8%, which was in line with the previous month and met expectations. Historically, authorities have viewed core as a more accurate indicator of long-term inflation, even though the Fed takes into account both measures. Monthly headline PCE increased by 0.3% and core PCE increased by 0.2%, both of which were consistent with projections. The price measure...

The plane crash in D.C. raises new worries about flying mishaps in busy places. A novel nonopioid pain reliever for acute pain is approved by the FDA. Additionally, transgender service personnel who might be impacted by Trump's executive order are interviewed by NBC News. What to know today is as follows. Two black boxes recovered from crashed jet, to be sent to NTSB for analysis After an American Airlines flight struck an Army helicopter over the Potomac River close to Washington, D.C., killing all 67 passengers, federal investigators are still looking for answers. It's unknown what caused the incident. Air traffic control personnel was abnormal at the time of the disaster, according to a preliminary analysis from the Federal Aviation Administration. One person was in charge of both pl...

Understanding what transpired inside the Army Black Hawk helicopter and precisely what altitude it was flying at when it collided with a passenger jet will likely be crucial to solving the tragedy, according to aviation experts, as federal investigators continue to look into what caused the deadliest U.S. air crash in nearly 25 years. According to officials, a regular operation in clear weather on Wednesday involved two seasoned Army pilots at the controls and a third pilot sitting behind them. The mission was part of an annual evaluation to test a pilot's knowledge and skill in the cockpit. The flight path was also well-known: Over Washington, D.C., the sound of military helicopters is a constant. However, the UH-60 Black Hawk crashed into a commercial airplane carrying 64 people, leaving...

As part of the fourth hostage-prisoner exchange with Israel, Hamas claimed in a statement Friday that American Israeli Keith Siegelis is one of the hostages scheduled to be freed on Saturday. Hamas has said that Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon will also be freed. In a video released by Hamas in April, Siegel, 65, was last seen saying he was doing well while speaking directly to his family. Seigel, originally from Chapel Hall, North Carolina, was captured during Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, raid on kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1200 people and the kidnapping of nearly 250 others. Bibas, his wife Shiri, and their two kids—Kfir, who was nine months old at the time and would have turned two this month, and their now five-year-old son, Ariel—were all taken c...

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the recently named president of Syria, announced Thursday that he would choose a broad, inclusive transitional government to construct institutions and rule the nation until free and fair elections are held. In his first speech since being named president for the transitional phase by armed factions that overthrew former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a lightning strike last year, Sharaa spoke to the nation on Wednesday. Following 13 years of civil war, the armed group that spearheaded the offensive, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has subsequently established an interim government that has welcomed a constant flow of high-ranking Western and Arab diplomatic delegations eager to assist in stabilizing the nation. Following the dissolution of the Syrian parliament on Wednesday, S...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — As the state works through a backlog of inmates who have exhausted their appeals and the state is unable to locate lethal injection medications, South Carolina is getting ready to execute the third inmate to be put to death since September. The execution of Marion Bowman Jr. is set for Friday at 6 p.m. at a penitentiary in Columbia. Bowman, 44, was found guilty of murder in connection with the shooting death of a buddy whose charred body was discovered in a car's trunk. Since his imprisonment, Bowman has insisted on his innocence. According to his attorneys, he was found guilty based on the evidence of other acquaintances and family members who were offered deals or had allegations against them dropped by the prosecution. Bowman, who has spent more than half of his life on...