Latest from NBC News
NBC News
17 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- NBC News
Zohran Mamdani puts Democrats on notice, and fast food giants part ways: The news quiz
The Supreme Court gets out of town, two bears make an escape, and James Bond has a new director. Test your knowledge of the week in news, and take last week's quiz here.
NBC News
32 minutes ago
- NBC News
Oslo police announce rape and sexual assault charges against son of Norwegian crown princess
Oslo police on Friday announced charges against Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway's crown princess, on multiple counts including rape, sexual assault and bodily harm after a monthslong investigation of a case that involved a 'double-digit' number of alleged victims. Høiby, the 28-year-old son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 amid allegations of rape and on preliminary charges of bodily harm and criminal damage. Oslo Police Attorney Andreas Kruszewski said that Høiby was cooperative during police questioning, which is now complete. Evidence in the case was drawn from sources including text messages, witness testimonies and police searches, the police attorney said. The charges included one case of rape involving intercourse and two cases of rape without intercourse, four cases of sexual assault and two cases of bodily harm, Kruszewksi said at a news conference. 'I cannot go into further detail about the number of victims in the case beyond confirming that it is a double-digit number,' he said. Defense attorney Petar Sekulic, in an email to The Associated Press, said Høiby was 'absolutely taking the accusations very seriously, but doesn't acknowledge any wrongdoing in most of the cases — especially the cases regarding sexual abuse and violence.' The royal palace said 'the case is proceeding through the legal system and is following normal procedures. We have nothing further to add.' The case was top news in Norway, where the royals are popular. Høiby previously lived with the royal couple and their two children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, but now lives in a separate house nearby, according to Sekulic. Høiby remains free pending a possible trial and is entitled to a presumption of innocence until a court rules otherwise. Once known affectionately as 'Little Marius,' Høiby grew up in the public eye enjoying the same wealth and privilege as his royal siblings, although his biological father, Morton Borg, served time in prison for drugs and violent offenses. Hoiby has acknowledged cocaine use and addiction. Norway's future queen made headlines in 2001 when she married Haakon, because she was a single mother who had lived a freewheeling life with a companion who had been convicted on drug charges.
NBC News
35 minutes ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Detroit's mayor tries to capitalize on voter disdain for both parties with independent run for governor
With well over a year until the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats and Republicans are already gearing up for expensive fights in House, Senate and governor's races across the country. Enter Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who is betting that there is a path to becoming Michigan's next governor without embracing either of those party labels. Duggan, a longtime Democrat who has served for over a decade as Detroit's mayor, announced in December that he would run an independent campaign to succeed Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who cannot run for a third term next year. It's an audacious bet, in one of the nation's most tightly divided swing states, that voters who say they are fed up with both parties are ready to back another choice. But while some of the political conditions seem ripe, recent independents running in three-way elections haven't been able to push that sentiment to victory. 'Every place I go, the depth of anger at the two parties runs deep,' Duggan told NBC News in an interview. He said he decided to run as an independent to escape the political expectations that come with serving one party or the other in Lansing, describing the current environment in the state capital as 'toxic.' Michigan currently has a divided state Legislature, with Democrats narrowly controlling the state Senate (and the governorship) while Republicans control the state House after wresting it back from Democrats in 2024. 'Every single conversation in Lansing was, 'Will this bill help me keep the majority?' 'Will this bill help me get the majority?' And nobody was solving any problems,' Duggan said. 'They wanted to create a moment that they could [use to] send out fundraising appeals off of some type of conflict.' Opportunity — and an uphill climb — for independent candidates Across the country, the appetite for third-party candidates is growing. A recent NBC News analysis found that Americans are increasingly registering to vote as unaffiliated voters, opting not to identify with a political party. Voters hold negative views of both parties, and the Democratic Party earlier this year notched its lowest ratings in 35 years of NBC News polling. Some prominent political figures have sought out a third option, away from both major parties. In the past three years, two former senators — Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — left the Democratic Party and registered as independents. More recently, Elon Musk, a tech mogul and former adviser to President Donald Trump who spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to help him in 2024, posted on X amid a feud with Trump about the appetite for 'a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle,' though it's unclear how serious Musk was. (Duggan wrote in response to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, 'Now you've got my attention…' alongside a smiley emoji.) That sentiment aside, turning the broad idea of unhappiness with the two parties into actual statewide victory for an independent candidate is difficult, as recent years of elections show. In Oregon, former state Sen. Betsy Johnson mounted a well-funded independent campaign for governor in 2022, at times receiving almost 20% of voters' support in public polling. But on Election Day, Johnson received under 9% of the vote, with Democrat Tina Kotek winning the race. Last year in Nebraska, Navy veteran Dan Osborn ran an independent campaign for Senate that gained national attention. Democrats didn't field a candidate in the race and Osborn lost to incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican, by over 6 points, though he held Fischer well below Trump's margin in the state. In Michigan, Duggan insists that he's received support from voters on both sides of the aisle, saying he's simply offering them a choice outside of the traditional two-party binary. 'This whole evenly divided, Republican and Democrat 'attack each other every two years in an election cycle' isn't working for Michigan, and maybe I give the voters a different choice,' Duggan said. A big race in a key state Duggan's presence adds another layer of complexity as both parties gear up for a competitive race. Though Whitmer won her second term by more than 10 points, Michigan is typically a tightly balanced battleground. In 2024, the state backed Trump for president by less than 2 points and Democrat Elissa Slotkin for Senate by an even slimmer margin. Four years earlier, Biden defeated Trump in the Great Lakes State by nearly 3 points. But Democrats and Republicans still have to sort out who their nominees for governor will be, and voters don't head to the polls in the state's primary until August of next year. On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson have launched campaigns to succeed Whitmer. Republican Rep. John James, state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, former state House Speaker Tom Leonard and former state Attorney General Mike Cox have all jumped into the GOP primary. '[Duggan] announced right at the beginning of the year, which gives him a full two years with no primary to get around the state and tell his story,' Jason Roe, a Republican strategist in Michigan who is not currently working for any gubernatorial candidate, told NBC News. With Democrats and Republicans focused on their own primaries, 'there's really no reward to any of those candidates to attack him,' Roe said, adding: 'And so I think he gets to go around, you know, talking about rainbows and unicorns' without getting attacked. Democrats have targeted Duggan recently, if not in a way many voters would have seen, accusing him of corruption in one digital ad funded by the Democratic Governors Association's Victory Fund in May. 'Duggan is running a self-serving campaign that has no path to victory,' DGA communications director Sam Newton told NBC News in a statement, adding: 'The DGA has beaten attention-grabbing third-party candidates before — and we're confident that we'll do it again in Michigan in 2026.' Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel also slammed Duggan, telling NBC News that the mayor is only running as an independent because he didn't want to run in the Democratic primary. 'I think most of this is about Mike's ego. It was bruised by the fact that he couldn't actually win a Democratic primary,' Hertel said. 'He has very thin skin.' On the other side of the aisle, Republicans haven't yet engaged in formal campaigning against Duggan. But one national Republican strategist noted that the Michigan race is going to be competitive — and expensive — next fall whether Duggan is drawing significant support or not. Roe noted Duggan's popularity in and around Detroit, adding that he's well-liked by Michigan's business leaders. 'People see the business community, the organized business community, migrating to him,' he said. Roe, who lives in the suburban Detroit area, said that Republicans in his area seem particularly attracted to Duggan's campaign as well. But he cautioned against drawing conclusions about Duggan's popularity among partisans until after next year's primary. 'There's a big but here. They don't have a binary choice. They don't know who the Republicans are. They don't know who Democrats are,' he said. Hertel compared Duggan's support now to that of early support for previous independent candidates elsewhere. 'What we've seen, a lot of times, with these independent candidates, is, you know, they get a lot of attention at first, but when we get closer to election time, people make different decisions,' Hertel said. 'Right now it's, 'Well, I know Duggan, and I feel Duggan has done some great stuff in Detroit. No clue about these other people,' right?' Roe said. 'Once there's nominees, and you have three people to choose from, that will likely change.'
NBC News
35 minutes ago
- Business
- NBC News
How a small Ohio town became the 'center of gravity' in the GOP's realignment
The effort to save the mill, or to at least ensure a new employer can take it over as quickly as possible, hit a snag this month. H.I.G. and Pixelle reneged on an agreement to pause the shutdown timeline and keep the factory open through the end of the year — a reprieve that would have bought time to identify a new tenant or use for the property. It had been the one shred of good news Moreno delivered at his April rally. 'Bernie has been the face of this,' said Jai Chabria, a longtime Republican strategist in Ohio. 'Whether he's successful or not is not the measure of where we are. If you look back at the Republican Party of 20 years ago, this is certainly not where a wealthy Republican senator would be expected to lead. Bernie has really embraced where the party has gone.' Even so, Katie Seewer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party, faulted Republicans for 'the latest in a long streak of bad economic news' in the state, noting that Moreno had raised hopes that the mill's closure wouldn't happen this year. 'Republicans own these failures and many others that have created an economy that isn't working for Ohio,' Seewer added. Pixelle is scheduled to end all Chillicothe operations by Aug. 10. The workers there — many of them second- and third-generation paper mill employees — are now waiting to see how much of the tough talk from Moreno and his colleagues leads to action. 'Bernie's railing against private equity,' said Scott Wiesman, who has worked at the mill for 30 years. 'But if you Google it, he's invested in private equity. So how evil is it, Bernie?' Mayor Luke Feeney, a Democrat, gives Moreno more credit. 'My hope and belief is that his efforts have been genuine and sincere,' Feeney said. 'All of those guys that got up there and on that stage said, 'We will sue them if they do this to you' — I hope they stick to it, and until they don't, I'm good with it.' But, Feeney added, 'if it turns out that it was just a dog-and-pony show, then I'll be pretty frustrated, because we're left with the aftermath here.' 'We were Mead kids' Chillicothe, about an hour's drive south of Columbus, has a proud history as Ohio's first state capital. Today, it has a population of roughly 22,000, a promising tourist economy boosted by the nearby Hopewell earthworks and mounds, and a redeveloped downtown that Feeney holds up as a small-town success story. Less than a mile from Pixelle, bustling Paint Street features two craft breweries, a boba house and other trendy businesses tucked into tidily restored storefronts. The name of a hip cafe, Paper City Coffee, pays tribute to one of the town's top employers. (Countywide, the mill is the third-largest source of jobs, behind the regional hospital system and a Kenworth Trucks plant.) The mill is 'as much a part of the scenery as the hills and everything else around here,' said Michael Throne, the head of the Chillicothe Ross Chamber of Commerce, who recalled his first glimpse of the smokestack when driving to town for a job interview years ago. 'I'd seen smokestacks before,' Throne said. 'But nothing that towered over the landscape of the city.' Chillicothe's papermaking days date to 1812. For more than 100 years, the city was a hub for Mead, a company that would become a household name in school and office supplies. 'The paper mill really supported southeast Ohio,' said Jeff Allen, president of the United Steelworkers Local 731, which represents Pixelle workers. 'They used to tell us that for every job in the mill, there were three outside the mill.' Over time, Mead's name slowly disappeared. Market forces — a world less reliant on paper, a tangle of mergers and acquisitions — kept bouncing the old mill into new investment portfolios. In 2022, H.I.G. purchased what four years earlier had been rebranded as Pixelle. 'We were Mead kids. Our kids were Mead kids,' said Tim Jenkins, a mill employee for 38 years. 'With the strike in '75, you walked through the lunch line, you could get a free lunch when you said, 'I'm a Mead kid.'' 'Little things like that you never forget.'
NBC News
38 minutes ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Driven to starvation, Sudanese people eat weeds and plants to survive as war rages
With Sudan in the grips of war and millions struggling to find enough to eat, many are turning to weeds and wild plants to quiet their pangs of hunger. They boil the plants in water with salt because, simply, there is nothing else. Grateful for the lifeline it offered, a 60-year-old retired school teacher penned a love poem about a plant called Khadija Koro. It was 'a balm for us that spread through the spaces of fear,' he wrote, and kept him and many others from starving. A.H, who spoke on the condition his full name not be used, because he feared retribution from the warring parties for speaking to the press, is one of 24.6 million people in Sudan facing acute food insecurity —nearly half the population, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Aid workers say the war spiked market prices, limited aid delivery, and shrunk agricultural lands in a country that was once a breadbasket of the world. Sudan plunged into war in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary the Rapid Support Forces escalated to fighting in the capital Khartoum and spread across the country, killing over 20,000 people, displacing nearly 13 million people, and pushing many to the brink of famine in what aid workers deemed the world's largest hunger crisis. Food insecurity is especially bad in areas in the Kordofan region, the Nuba Mountains, and Darfur, where El Fasher and Zamzam camp are inaccessible to the Norwegian Refugee Council, said Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the group based in Port Sudan. Some people survive on just one meal a day, which is mainly millet porridge. In North Darfur, some people even sucked on coal to ease their hunger. On Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Sudanese military leader Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and asked him for a week-long ceasefire in El Fasher to allow aid delivery. Burhan agreed to that request, according to an army statement, but it's unknown whether the RSF would agree to that truce. A.H. said aid distribution often provided slight relief. His wife in children live in Obeid and also struggle to secure enough food due to high prices in the market. His poem continued: 'You were a world that sends love into the barren time. You were a woman woven from threads of the sun. You were the sandalwood and the jasmine and a revelation of green, glowing and longing.' Fighting restricted travel, worsening food insecurity Sudanese agricultural minister Abu Bakr al-Bashari told Al-Hadath news channel in April that there are no indicators of famine in the country, but there is shortage of food supplies in areas controlled by the paramilitary forces, known as RSF. However, Leni Kinzli, World Food Programme Sudan spokesperson, said 17 areas in Gezeira, most of the Darfur region, and Khartoum, including Jebel Aulia are at risk of famine. Each month, over 4 million people receive assistance from the group, including 1.7 million in areas facing famine or at risk, Kinzli said. The state is suffering from two conflicts: one between the Rapid Support Forces and the army, and another with the People's Liberation Movement-North, who are fighting against the army and have ties with the RSF, making it nearly impossible to access food, clean water, or medicine. He can't travel to Obeid in North Kordofan to be with his family, as the Rapid Support Forces blocked roads. Violence and looting have made travel unsafe, forcing residents to stay in their neighborhoods, limiting their access to food, aid workers said. A.H. is supposed to get a retirement pension from the government, but the process is slow, so he doesn't have a steady income. He can only transfer around $35 weekly to his family out of temporary training jobs, which he says is not enough. Hassan, another South Kordofan resident in Kadugli said that the state has turned into a 'large prison for innocent citizens' due to the lack of food, water, shelter, income, and primary health services caused by the RSF siege. International and grassroots organizations in the area where he lives were banned by the local government, according to Hassan, who asked to be identified only by his first name in fear of retribution for speaking publicly while being based in an area often engulfed with fighting. So residents ate the plants out of desperation. 'You would groan to give life an antidote when darkness appeared to us through the window of fear.,' A.H. wrote in his poem. 'You were the light, and when our tears filled up our in the eyes, you were the nectar. Food affordability Vu warned that food affordability is another ongoing challenge as prices rise in the markets. A physical cash shortage prompted the Norwegian Refugee Council to replace cash assistance with vouchers. Meanwhile, authorities monopolize some markets and essential foods such as corn, wheat flour, sugar and salt are only sold through security approvals, according to Hassan. Meanwhile, in southwest Sudan, residents of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, rely on growing crops, but agricultural lands are shrinking due to fighting and lack of farming resources. Hawaa Hussein, a woman who has been displaced in El Serif camp since 2004, told the AP that they benefit from the rainy season but they're lacking essential farming resources such as seeds and tractors to grow beans, peanuts, sesame, wheat, and weika — dried powdered okra. Hussein, a grandmother living with eight family members, said her family receives a food parcel every two months, containing lentils, salt, oil, and biscuits. Sometimes she buys items from the market with the help of community leaders. 'There are many families in the camp, mine alone has five children, and so aid is not enough for everyone … you also can't eat while your neighbor is hungry and in need,' she said. El Serif camp is sheltering nearly 49,000 displaced people, the camp's civic leader Abdalrahman Idris told the AP. Since the war began in 2023, the camp has taken in over 5,000 new arrivals, with a recent surge coming from the greater Khartoum region, which is the Sudanese military said it took full control of in May. 'The food that reaches the camp makes up only 5% of the total need. Some people need jobs and income. People now only eat two meals, and some people can't feed their children,' he said. In North Darfur, south of El Fasher, lies Zamzam camp, one of the worst areas struck by famine and recent escalating violence. An aid worker with the Emergency Response Rooms previously based in the camp who asked not to be identified in fear of retribution for speaking with the press, told the AP that the recent wave of violence killed some and left others homeless. Barely anyone was able to afford food from the market as a pound of sugar costs 20,000 Sudanese pounds ($33) and a soap bar 10,000 Sudanese pounds ($17). The recent attacks in Zamzam worsened the humanitarian situation and he had to flee to a safer area. Some elderly men, pregnant women, and children have died of starvation and the lack of medical treatment, according to an aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he's fearful of retribution for speaking publicly while living in an area controlled by one of the warring parties. He didn't provide the exact number of those deaths. He said the situation in Zamzam camp is dire—'as if people were on death row.' Yet A.H. finished his poem with hope:
