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  • Wyoming troubled teen ranch settles suit for $2.3 million after forced labor accusations

    Wyoming troubled teen ranch settles suit for $2.3 million after forced labor accusations


    A federal judge last week approved a $2.3 million settlement in a class action lawsuit against a small program for troubled teens in Wyoming, ending four years of litigation over allegations of forced labor.

    Trinity Teen Solutions promised to help girls with mental health and behavioral problems, but a group of women who’d been placed there as teens by their parents accused the now-defunct ranch of forcing them to perform manual labor. Tasks included repairing barbed wire fences, castrating animals and laying irrigation pipes, the suit alleges. Injuries were disregarded, it states, and the girls were subjected to humiliating punishments if they did not do the work as ordered.

    Attorneys for Trinity Teen Solutions declined to comment. The settlement stipulates that Trinity Teen Solutions and its owners are not admitting wrongdoing. In previous court filings, the ranch said it did not violate the law and that “chores and physical exercise were part of its program.”

    An NBC News investigation in 2022 revealed that the former clients had tried to report their concerns about Trinity Teen Solutions to state officials and law enforcement, and described them on social media and business review websites like Yelp. State officials allowed Trinity Teen Solutions to keep its license, and its owners were never charged with a crime. A Wyoming Department of Family Services senior administrator told NBC News at the time that the state was hesitant to shut down youth facilities unless children were in danger.

    Participants lift lumber at Trinity Teen Solutions in 2011.
    Participants lift lumber at Trinity Teen Solutions in 2011.Courtesy Kelsie VanMeveren

    Trinity Teen Solutions also sued three women who’d criticized the ranch online in 2016 for defamation, in a case that settled without details being made public.

    The new settlement, which was submitted in court last month, will be open to anyone who’d been placed at the ranch from November 2010 until it closed in 2022, and performed “agricultural labor” — more than 250 people in all. Each person’s cut of the settlement will be based on how long they were at the ranch, which was typically one or two years.

    Those who join the class and receive a settlement check will have to adhere to a nondisparagement agreement, meaning they cannot bash Trinity Teen Solutions or its owners online, but the court filings state they are not prevented “from making true statements about their experiences.”

    Amanda Nash, one of the lead plaintiffs, who was sent to Trinity Teen Solutions 10 years ago, said she felt relieved by the settlement. “I was just very happy to be able to give the 15-year-old me a voice, and be able to try my best and represent dozens of other girls — whether they wanted to be involved or not — to try and speak up for them as well,” she said.

    But Anna Gozun, who was sent to the ranch in 2012, said she won’t take part in the settlement because of the nondisparagement agreement and the fact that Trinity Teen Solutions’ owners didn’t have to admit wrongdoing. The settlement “does not reflect true accountability or justice,” she said.

    “It’s disheartening beyond words,” Gozun continued. “Many of us came forward at great personal cost, reliving trauma in hopes of stopping a cycle of abuse. This settlement feels more like a forced ending than a fair resolution.”



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  • As egg prices decline, inflation hits another breakfast staple: Bacon

    As egg prices decline, inflation hits another breakfast staple: Bacon



    Move over, eggs. There’s a new expensive breakfast item in town.

    Bacon prices have risen almost 20% since last year, and experts say these prices may not be coming down, thanks to a confluence of market factors.

    Pork bacon prices in May were up 5.7% from April and 18% from May 2024, according to an analysis of grocery price data from NIQ.

    Bacon prices tend to swing more wildly than other grocery staples tracked by NBC News. But Jim Eadie, the founder and publisher of the pork industry publication Swineweb.com, said it’s possible that bacon’s new, higher costs are here to stay.

    “It’s just the cost of doing business,” Eadie said. “With tariffs, wages going up, product supply and demand, the cost to produce a pig … everything combines into that inflation for bacon.”

    NIQ’s data, collected from real checkout prices paid at stores across the country, shows that prices for a pound of bacon range significantly depending on where you live, from $4.03 in Dallas to more than $7.00 in Los Angeles.

    California’s Proposition 12, which went into effect in 2022 and mandates minimum living requirements for farm animals, also increased pork, and thus bacon, prices, Eadie said.

    Egg prices, meanwhile, continued their recent decline in May, falling 6.6% from April. Prices are still up 41% over May 2024.



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  • Russian scientist Kseniia Petrov released from ICE custody following accusations of smuggling frog embryos

    Russian scientist Kseniia Petrov released from ICE custody following accusations of smuggling frog embryos



    Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard scientist who was arrested last month on a federal smuggling charge, has been released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody following a detention hearing in Boston Wednesday.

    Petrova, a Russian citizen, was taken into federal custody in May after prosecutors in Massachusetts filed a complaint accusing her of smuggling frog embryos into the United States without properly declaring them.

    She was released on conditions agreed to by both sides. A probable cause hearing is tentatively set for June 18.

    Petrova has been in immigration custody since February, when her visa was revoked at Logan Airport.

    Initially held in a Vermont facility, she was transferred to a Louisiana immigration detention center, where she filed a petition arguing her detention was unlawful and that she fears persecution if returned to Russia because she participated in protests against the war in Ukraine. She was moved to federal criminal custody in May after being charged with smuggling.

    At the time of her arrest, Petrova was working at a Harvard lab, where she developed computer scripts to analyze images from a microscope that scientists say could transform cancer detection. Her colleagues previously told NBC News she was the only person on the team with the rare combination of skills needed to interpret the data. “That was only her. It was only her,” Leon Peshkin, her mentor and a principal research scientist at Harvard, previously said.

    Petrova described being confused and isolated after her arrest, saying she was held in a cell without contact with her lawyer or colleagues. “Nobody knew what was happening to me,” she previously said. “I didn’t have any contact, not to my lawyer, not to Leon, not to anybody.”

    In late May, a federal judge in Vermont ordered her release from immigration custody citing concerns about the legal basis for her visa revocation and extended detention. She faces a separate smuggling charge in Massachusetts.



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  • Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds press conference

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds press conference


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  • Houston Texans safety Jimmie Ward arrested on felony assault charge

    Houston Texans safety Jimmie Ward arrested on felony assault charge



    Houston Texans safety Jimmie Ward was arrested on Thursday morning on a third-degree felony assault charge, according to Montgomery County Jail records.

    The details of Ward’s arrest, which occurred just after 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning in Magnolia, Texas, is unknown. Jail records describe the assault charge as family-related.

    “We are aware of the report involving Jimmie Ward,” said Texans senior director of communications Omar Majzoub in a statement. “We are gathering more information and have no further comment at this time.”

    The 33-year-old NFL player was booked into the Montgomery County Jail around 6:30 a.m. and is being held without bond. It is not immediately clear if Ward has an attorney.

    “We are aware of the matter and have been in contact with the club,” the NFL said in a statement, providing no further comment at this time.

    NBC News reached out to Ward’s agent for additional comment.

    NBC Sports reported that Ward is in his third season with the Texans but has not been practicing this spring after foot surgery. He entered the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers in 2014 before signing with the Texans as a free agent in 2023.



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  • Harvey Weinstein trial ends in mistrial on final rape charge after jury foreman refuses to deliberate

    Harvey Weinstein trial ends in mistrial on final rape charge after jury foreman refuses to deliberate


    The retrial of Harvey Weinstein ended abruptly Thursday when the jury foreman refused to join the deliberations on the remaining rape charge against the disgraced movie mogul.

    New York state Judge Curtis Farber declared a mistrial and prosecutors vowed to try Weinstein again on the charge the jury had been deadlocked on, namely the third-degree rape charge that accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting former actor Jessica Mann.

    The dramatic ending came a day after the jury announced it had unanimously found Weinstein guilty of sexually assaulting one woman and not guilty of assaulting another more than a decade ago.

    After the partial verdict was announced, Mann released a statement saying, “I would never lie about rape or use something so traumatic to hurt someone.”

    “I didn’t speak up to ruin his life,” Mann said of Weinstein. “He did that. I spoke because mine matters.”

    This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

    Emily Berk

    Emily Berk is a producer for NBC News.

    Corky Siemaszko

    Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.



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  • Man convicted of posing as flight attendant to score over 120 free flights

    Man convicted of posing as flight attendant to score over 120 free flights



    A man who posed as a flight attendant for four different airlines scammed 120 free flights over the course of years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced Tuesday.

    Tiron Alexander, 35, was convicted on June 5 of entering the secure area of an airport under false pretenses and wire fraud. Federal prosecutors said that between 2018 and 2024, Alexander booked free flights only available to pilots and flight attendants on an airline carrier’s website. The application process required applicants to provide their employer, date of hire and badge number.

    Alexander flew 34 times with that airline, claiming to be a flight attendant, falsifying employment with seven airlines, and submitting about 30 different badge numbers, prosecutors said in the press release. The Transportation Security Administration investigated the case.

    “The evidence at trial also showed that Alexander posed as a flight attendant on three other airline carriers,” prosecutors said. “Ultimately, Alexander booked more than 120 free flights by falsely claiming to be a flight attendant.”

    Alexander’s indictment from October stated he had worked for an airline headquartered in Dallas since November 2015, but was never a pilot or a flight attendant. Public defenders representing Alexander did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

    According to the indictment, the maximum sentence for wire fraud is 20 years in prison, and 10 years for entering the secure airport areas under false pretenses. Both charges carry a maximum of three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

    Alexander’s sentencing is set for Aug. 25.



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  • Your VPN could be giving your browsing data to China, watchdog says

    Your VPN could be giving your browsing data to China, watchdog says



    Using a free app to hide your internet traffic? The company behind it could be quietly tied to China, where the government maintains the ability to surveil all user data, according to a report published Thursday by the Technology Transparency Project.

    The report accuses 17 Apps — six on Apple’s App Store, four on the Google Play Store and seven on both — of having undisclosed ties to China. In several cases, the TTP linked the app developers to a prominent Chinese cybersecurity company, Qihoo 360, which is under U.S. government sanctions.

    The apps are all virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow a user to divert their internet traffic through a company’s internet connection. With names like VPNify, Ostrich VPN and Now VPN, none of them make overt references to China or Chinese ownership on the app stores.

    VPNs are primarily used to either protect a user’s privacy by making it harder for a website to know who’s visiting them, or to skirt around censorship measures. But unless a VPN company takes significant steps to automatically and permanently delete its users’ search histories, a company is likely to keep records of its customers’ internet activity.

    That is particularly notable if the company is Chinese, as national law there stipulates that intelligence and law enforcement agencies do not need a warrant to view any personal data that is stored there.

    “VPNs are of particular concern because anyone using a VPN has the entirety of their online activity routed through that application,” said Katie Paul, the TTP’s director.

    “When it comes to Chinese-owned VPNs, that means this data can be turned over to the Chinese government based on China’s state laws,” Paul said.

    Justin Sherman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who studies data privacy, told NBC News that using a Chinese-owned VPN would be tantamount to handing over one’s browsing history to Beijing.

    “Capturing data via a VPN could let the Chinese government see everything from websites a person is reading that criticize the Chinese state, to the corporate databases and private portals that person might pull up (and then log into) on the internet for work,” he said.

    The TTP, a tech-focused arm of the Campaign for Accountability, an investigative nonprofit that seeks to expose “corruption, negligence, and unethical behavior,” previously published a report on Chinese VPN apps on April 1. Apple soon took down three of the apps with alleged ties to Qihoo 360: Thunder VPN, Snap VPN and Signal Secure VPN. The other apps — Turbo VPN and VPN Proxy Master, which are also available on the Google Play Store, as well as three others that Google offers — are all still available.

    None of the apps are listed as being developed directly by Qihoo 360. Instead, they are developed by Singapore-based companies including Lemon Seed, Lemon Clove, Autumn Breeze and Innovative Connecting. The TPP cited business filings in China that show Qihoo 360 saying it had acquired those companies in 2019, and Corporate registration documents for those companies in the Cayman Islands from March that all list the director as a top Qihoo 360 employee.

    NBC News reached out to developers listed for the 17 apps. Only one claimed not to have ties to China: WireVPN, where an employee claimed in an email that the company is “an independent service” with “no ties to Chinese entities or government organizations.”

    “We are neither affiliated with Qihoo 360 nor any other PRC-based enterprises, and our operations are entirely autonomous,” the employee said.

    However, WireVPN’s privacy policy makes clear that users are expected to adhere to Chinese law and bans them from “Violating the basic principles established by the Chinese Constitution” and “Violating the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation, social morality, rational morality, and socialist spiritual civilization.”

    Qihoo 360 didn’t respond to a request for comment. But China Daily, a state-run newspaper, has reported that its cybersecurity clients include the Chinese military and “at least eight ministries” of the Chinese government. In a 2016 press release, the company seemed to indicate it was in the VPN business, saying “Qihoo 360 also provides users with secure access points to the Internet via its market leading web browsers and application stores.”

    Both Apple and Google declined to address the specific apps that TTP highlighted as tied to Qihoo 360 and told NBC News that they follow U.S. laws regarding sanctions. Neither bans VPN app developers simply for following Chinese law.

    Peter Micek, general counsel at Access Now, a tech policy and human rights advocacy nonprofit, told NBC News that he was surprised to see the tech companies had potentially overlooked a sanctioned company offering apps under innocuous developer names.

    “It seems like this project has done the homework and due diligence that Apple and Google should have done, and it does seem like those ties would constitute indirect contact with, transactions with folks who are sanctioned,” he said. Tech companies can sometimes face significant fines for violating sanctions, Micek said.

    Sanctions are put in place by the federal government as a penalty on foreign entities and individuals, preventing U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with them. They are often imposed after a foreign entity or individual is shown to have conducted some sort of condemned behavior or have links to condemned groups, such as cybercriminals or terrorist organizations. Qihoo 360 faced sanctions from the Commerce Department in 2020, which said the company could become involved in supplying materials to the Chinese military. The sanctions prevent American companies from exporting technology or software to Qihoo 360. It’s not clear if app stores hosting apps tied to Qihoo could be in violation of those sanctions.

    The Commerce Department did not respond to a request for comment.



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  • The smallest player on the floor had one of the biggest impacts in Game 3 of the NBA Finals

    The smallest player on the floor had one of the biggest impacts in Game 3 of the NBA Finals



    INDIANAPOLIS — Early in the second quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the Indiana Pacers’ home crowd was in a bit of a lull.

    After leading nearly the entire first quarter, the Oklahoma City Thunder began the second period with an eight-point advantage, a sobering continuation from Game 2, which the Thunder led for the last 38 minutes of play.

    Despite it being the first finals game in Indiana in 25 years, the energy in the arena was fading.

    But then T.J. McConnell went to work.

    In the first three and minutes and 52 seconds of the second, Indiana went on a 15-4 run, taking its first lead of the finals since the first quarter of Game 2.

    In that time, McConnell recorded four assists, three steals, two points and one offensive rebound — a scintillating stretch of play that brought a tense home crowd back to life.

    “He’s a guy that inspires a lot of people,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said postgame. “He inspires our team a lot.”

    “His energy is unbelievable,” guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “You guys know he’s definitely a crowd favorite. I joke with him, I call him the ‘Great White Hope.’ He does a great job of bringing energy in this building.”

    “He’s just so dynamic in terms of running the floor for us,” forward Pascal Siakam added. “And when you add those steals and just bringing the crowd into the game the way he does, he was special tonight.”

    McConnell’s energy boost and clutch play played a critical role in Indiana’s 116-107 win, which also gave the team a 2-1 lead in a series that very few expected the Pacers to win. McConnell finished the game with 10 points, five assists and five steals, the first player in NBA history to post those numbers off the bench in a finals game. He was also a plus-12 in only 15 minutes.

    Three of McConnell’s five steals came via what’s become his signature play — lurking in the backcourt and taking advantage of unsuspecting and/or lazy inbounds passes for turnovers. Two of those steals led to points for Indiana, including a game-tying bucket in the fourth quarter, and all of them drew huge reactions from the crowd.

    McConnell, who is listed at 6’1”, is the shortest player on either team in the finals. But despite taking up little space on the court, and playing the second-fewest bench minutes on the team, his impact was outsized.

    “In a series like this what’s so important is the margins,” Haliburton said. “You have to win in the margins. It’s not necessarily who can make the most shots or anything. It’s taking care of the ball, rebounding, little things like that…[McConnell] did a great job of consistently getting there and making hustle play after hustle play, and sticking with it, and I thought we did a great job of just feeding off of what he was doing.”

    The entire Indiana bench, in particular, seemed to feed off McConnell.

    The Pacers’ backups made a massive difference in Game 3, outscoring the Thunder reserves 49-18. Pacers guard Bennedict Mathurin was the game’s leading scorer, racking up 27 points in only 22 minutes.

    A 10-year veteran in his sixth season with Indiana, McConnell has always been the type of player to make the most of his opportunity. He hasn’t started more than eight games in a season since 2017, and he’s never averaged more than 26.3 minutes a night in his career.

    On Wednesday, though, he changed the course of the game, and perhaps even the series.

    “He’s been like a big brother to me since I’ve gotten here,” Haliburton said. “You look at T.J. McConnell and his story is unbelievable. So I just enjoy being able to play alongside him and the energy he gives his teammates in this building is — he’s a lot of fun.”



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  • Oklahoma prepares to execute a man transferred from federal custody by Trump officials

    Oklahoma prepares to execute a man transferred from federal custody by Trump officials



    McALESTER, Okla. — Oklahoma prepared to execute a man Thursday whose transfer to state custody was expedited by the Trump administration.

    John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, is set to receive a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Hanson was sentenced to die after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.

    Hanson, whose name in some federal court records is George John Hanson, had been serving a life sentence in federal prison in Louisiana for several unrelated federal convictions. Federal officials transferred him to Oklahoma custody in March to follow through on President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty.

    Hanson’s attorneys argued in a last-minute appeal that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month, claiming that one of the board members who denied him clemency was biased because he worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office when Hanson was prosecuted. A district court judge this week temporary halted the execution, but an appeals court later cleared the way for it.

    The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday rejected a separate appeal that alleged a key witness testified against Hanson in exchange for favorable treatment from prosecutors in a criminal case, information that was never disclosed to his defense team.

    Prosecutors allege Hanson and accomplice, Victor Miller, kidnapped Mary Bowles from a Tulsa shopping mall. Prosecutors allege the pair drove Bowles to a gravel pit near Owasso, where Miller shot and killed property owner Jerald Thurman. The two then drove Bowles a short distance away, where Hanson shot and killed Bowles, according to prosecutors. Miller received a no-parole life prison sentence for his role in the crimes.

    During last month’s clemency hearing, Hanson expressed remorse for his involvement in the crimes and apologized to the victims’ families.

    “I’m not an evil person,” Hanson said via a video link from the prison. “I was caught in a situation I couldn’t control. I can’t change the past, but I would if I could.”

    Hanson’s attorneys acknowledged he participated in the kidnapping and carjacking, but said there was no definitive evidence that he shot and killed Bowles. They painted Hanson as a troubled youth with autism and who was controlled and manipulated by the domineering Miller.



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