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Fugees rapper sentenced for illegal campaign donations

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Fugees rapper sentenced for illegal campaign donations



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Nov. 21, 2025, 5:49 PM ESTBy Tim StellohFor as long as she can remember, Heather Thiel believed her father was a killer.She was so convinced that she twice urged authorities to examine whether he was responsible for a horrific, unsolved double murder that shook rural Wisconsin more than three decades ago. But her role in the investigation into the slaying of Tim Mumbrue and Tanna Togstad led to an outcome she never could have imagined: three years ago, authorities concluded that her cousin, not her now-deceased father, fatally stabbed the couple on March 21, 1992.For more on the case, tune in to “Raising the Dead” on “Dateline” at 9 ET/8 CT tonight.DATELINE FRIDAY SNEAK PEEK: Raising the Dead01:59Just as head-spinning, that cousin, Tony Haase, was acquitted in the murders earlier this year. During a nearly monthlong trial, Haase’s lawyers made the case that the evidence pointed at Heather Thiel’s dead father, Jeff Thiel. For Heather Thiel, who is 40 and works at a group home for mentally ill adults, the whiplash of the last three years left her questioning longstanding beliefs and wrestling with a familiar feeling.“I wish there was a definite answer,” she said. “Now, I feel like we still don’t know for sure.”Fixated on murderOn March 11, 1995, Jeff Thiel pointed a shotgun at a law enforcement officer after he was pulled over in a traffic stop. The officer retreated to his car, and Jeff Thiel, who’d worked in the maintenance department of an iron foundry in a rural community east of Green Bay, escaped, Haase’s defense attorney said at trial. Heather Thiel. Courtesy DatelineHe blew through a roadblock and fled the state, said the attorney, John Birdsall. Nearly three months later, in a hotel room in Washington state, Jeff Thiel died by suicide, according to his daughter. He was 44. Heather Thiel, who was 11 when her mother told her the news, can still recall her response: “I said, ‘When’s the party?’”Heather Thiel described her father as a scary and abusive parent who killed neighborhood pets and would casually — and routinely — threaten to shoot her mother. Her mom, Marie Stanchik, also believed her ex-husband was a killer. In an interview with authorities three years ago, she recalled how his “ultimate dream was to kill somebody.”Jeff Thiel. Courtesy Dateline“He used to tell me that all the time,” Stanchik said, according to audio of the interview. “He’s had a gun in my face and said if I ever call the cops on him, he’s gonna use it.”Jeff Thiel also had a thing for knives, said Heather Thiel, who has memories of him sitting in a recliner with sharpening tools and blades. Because he worked at a foundry, she said she came to believe he easily could have brought a murder weapon to work with him and melted it down.And there was this comment, which she said her father made the day Togstad and Mumbrue were killed: “It’s funny how you can get away with murder these days.”A suspect from the start The murders were brutal. They were found in the bedroom of Togstad’s farmhouse. Mumbrue, 34, was stabbed 27 times, according to a forensic pathologist who testified at Haase’s trial. His throat had been cut. Togstad, 23, had been stabbed once in the chest and appeared to have been sexually assaulted. Tanna Togstad and Tim Umbrue.Courtesy DatelineEven Togstad’s dog, a terrier named Scruffy, was fatally stabbed. According to one of the original detectives who investigated the case, authorities focused on Jeff Thiel as a possible suspect early on. “With his background and build and strength, he was certainly a person that we had to go after,” said Al Kraeger, who retired from the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Department six years ago.But physical evidence soon cleared those suspicions for law enforcement, said Capt. Nick Traeger of the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Department. In 1996, just as DNA was revolutionizing forensic sciences, an analysis eliminated Jeff Thiel as the person who sexually assaulted Togstad, Traeger told “Dateline.” A blood sample taken from the clothes he was wearing at the time of his suicide did not match semen found on Togstad, the captain said.Heather Thiel said she knew none of this. And as the years passed and no arrests were made, she said she would tell anyone who would listen that her father was probably responsible for the murders.In 2010, she saw a billboard authorities had put up seeking information about the killings and called the listed phone number.According to a law enforcement summary of the interview that followed, Heather Thiel told investigators about her father’s habit of killing animals and his casual comments about murder. She told them that he’d wanted to be with Togstad and had an obsession with knives. And she told them that he’d taken his own life after fleeing from law enforcement. “I had spent my whole life thinking my dad did this and maybe I’d get answers,” Heather Thiel said. “But then, literally nothing came of it.”One of the investigators who interviewed Heather Thiel, Mike Sasse of the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation, said that they did nothing with her information because he already knew that DNA had eliminated Jeff Thiel as a suspect years earlier.“Now, could he have been a peripheral character” in the murders? Sasse added. “At that time, yes, he could have been.”A confession from a night in a ‘drunken stupor’More than a decade passed and still, there were no arrests. Then, on April 8, 2022, Heather Thiel found herself speaking to law enforcement — again. This time, her mother was present for the interview, according to a case report from the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation. Authorities were interested in obtaining their DNA and learning about the family’s allegations against Jeff Thiel, the report states.During the interview, Heather Thiel said she raised the same concerns that she’d detailed for Sasse in 2010. She provided a buccal swab, she said, as well as access to a family tree she’d been developing on a genealogy site. “She turned on her profile, and it was like the Christmas tree lit up,” said Traeger, one of the investigators who interviewed her. The mystery DNA obtained from the crime scene did not match Jeff Thiel, Traeger said, but it did match someone else in the family — Heather Thiel’s cousin, Tony Haase, a father of four with no criminal record who worked at the same iron foundry as Jeff Thiel.Authorities confirmed the link by surreptitiously collecting Haase’s DNA from a pen during a traffic stop, Traeger said. During interviews with authorities, Haase, 54, denied that he had anything to do with the murders. When one of the officers told him that his DNA was found at the crime scene, he said: “I still don’t buy it,” a video of the interview shows.Tony Haase. Courtesy DatelineBut as investigators continued to press Haase, he admitted that over the years he’d had “little clicks” — or memories — that made him wonder if he’d been involved in the killings. He said he remembered a barbell in the house — crime scene photos showed one in the bedroom — then leaving the house and vomiting outside, according to the video. In an interview at the sheriff’s office, investigators said this latter detail was a natural human response following an extreme event.Haase described how his father had been killed in an accident while racing snowmobiles with Togstad’s father, and how on the night the couple was killed, he was drunk and all he could think about was the accident.“I didn’t go there to hurt nobody,” he told investigators. “I honestly can tell you that I don’t know what started, what happened, what started it all.”Asked why it took so long for him to acknowledge what he’d done, Haase said: “Because I didn’t want it to sound like I had this planned.”On Aug. 11, 2022, Haase was arrested for the murders of Togstad and Mumbrue. A probable cause affidavit filed in Waupaca Circuit Court said that at the time of the killings he’d been in a “drunken stupor.”Doubt surrounds murder trialHeather Thiel was shocked. She didn’t know her cousin well but said he didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body.The arrest also prompted some self-reflection.“I was like, how could I have had it wrong?” she said. “If I was wrong about my dad and it was actually my cousin — well, sorry, you should pay for what you did.”Jeff Thiel, however, continued to loom over the case as Haase’s trial approached. In a pretrial hearing in May, Haase’s attorneys said that because Jeff Thiel’s genetic profile had not been excluded from all of the blood evidence gathered at the crime scene, they should be able to argue at trial that he was still a possible suspect in the murders. Prosecutors objected, but the judge sided with the defense, a transcript shows. So the state asked to exhume Jeff Thiel’s remains to carry out additional DNA testing — a process that Waupaca County District Attorney Kat Turner said would allow them to exclude him from physical evidence gathered at the scene. In June, Jeff Thiel’s remains were disinterred from a Waupaca County cemetery.“The DNA analyst worked on nothing but that until he had the analysis complete,” Turner told “Dateline.” “And again, excluded Jeff Thiel from all of the blood evidence that was available.”In the pretrial proceedings, Haase’s lawyers sought to bar that evidence because they said they didn’t have time to prepare a response before trial, which was scheduled to start two weeks later. Prosecutors again objected, Turner said, but the judge ruled that if the trial started as scheduled, the state would be prohibited from presenting any DNA evidence related to Jeff Thiel.Instead of delaying the trial and challenging the ruling — a process that could have taken years, Turner said — the prosecution forged ahead. Turner said that decision was made after consulting with victims’ families and weighing the challenge of trying an old case in which investigators and scientists were becoming sick or dying.’Somebody who has no conscience’Haase’s trial began in July in a Waupaca County courthouse. His attorneys argued that Haase’s confession had been coerced — investigators planted false memories in an hourslong interrogation — and they said the male DNA found on Togstad’s body had been degraded by years of testing and storage. As evidence of Jeff Thiel’s involvement in the murders, attorney John Birdsall cited an apparent motive — Tanna had rejected Jeff Thiel’s advances — and he linked Jeff Thiel’s habit of killing pets to Scruffy’s death.“This was killed by somebody who has no conscience, who has absolutely no problem killing anything in its path,” he said in his closing argument. “That’s Jeff.”Amy Ohtani, the assistant attorney general who also prosecuted the case, described the defense’s strategy as an effort to “weave together a fantasy to keep you from paying attention to the actual evidence.” The DNA had been properly collected, preserved and tested, she said in her closing argument, and the idea that Haase’s admissions were false was a “distraction.” Jeff Thiel, she said, was the “perfect scapegoat.”Jeff Thiel. Courtesy DatelineAt trial, she said, he’d been described by family members as an “absolutely terrible person” — but wasn’t there to defend himself and there was no evidence actually linking him to the crime. “Jeff Thiel sounds like he was a terrible guy,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean he killed Tim and Tanna.”On the fourth day of deliberations, the jury acquitted Haase of the murders.For his cousin, that decision was the right one. Heather Thiel had come to doubt the forensics that excluded her father from the murders and linked her cousin to them, she said, and she believed Haase had been coerced into making a false confession.Although the trial produced no definitive answers, Heather Thiel said, the proceedings prompted her to return to a long-held position about who killed Mumbrue and Togstad.“Until proven otherwise, I will always believe it’s my dad,” she said.Tim StellohTim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 27, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Monica AlbaWASHINGTON — The country’s largest union representing federal workers is calling for lawmakers to pass a short-term spending measure to end the government shutdown immediately, urging Democrats to abandon their current position and join Republicans in supporting a stopgap solution.“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement first shared with NBC News. “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”The statement could increase pressure on Democrats to budge from their current stance. Senate Democrats have insisted that they won’t vote to reopen the government without a commitment from Republicans and President Donald Trump on extending health care subsidies through the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire at the end of the year. Without them, health insurance premiums on Obamacare markets will skyrocket for many individuals and families. AFGE is calling on Congress to pass a clean continuing resolution.Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images file“It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for a shutdown that Americans dislike,” Kelley said, stressing there should be a “resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues” like growing costs and a dysfunctional federal funding process in Congress.“Because when the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren’t looking for partisan spin,” he added. “They’re looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they’re being cheated out of it is a national disgrace.” AFGE represents 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers across almost every agency. The group is suing the Trump administration on several fronts connected to the shutdown: first over the mass layoffs organized by Trump budget chief Russell Vought and second over partisan out-of-office email messages blaming Democrats for the shutdown that were set by the Education Department, without employees’ permission or foreknowledge. The union believes the government should reopen now and workers should receive their back pay, both those who have had to work without pay and those who have been furloughed for the last 26 days. “None of these steps favor one political side over another. They favor the American people — who expect stability from their government and responsibility from their leaders,” Kelley said. The House-passed continuing resolution, which has failed 12 times in the Senate so far, would expire on Nov. 21. The group says it would support either that resolution or one that would fund the government for a longer period. Three senators who caucus with Democrats have voted with Republicans to pass the bill: John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine. Five more would be needed to reach the 60-vote threshold required. There are no signs of negotiations between the two parties to end the stalemate, which will hit the one-month mark this week. Trump has said he’s willing to meet with Democrats only once they’ve voted to reopen the government. “These are patriotic Americans — parents, caregivers, and veterans — forced to work without pay while struggling to cover rent, groceries, gas and medicine because of political disagreements in Washington,” Kelley wrote. “That is unacceptable.” #embed-20251002-shutdown-milestones iframe {width: 1px;min-width: 100%}Monica AlbaMonica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.
October 14, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 14, 2025, 7:00 AM EDTBy David IngramInstagram said Tuesday that it would overhaul its approach to teenagers’ accounts and try to crack down on their access to objectionable content after a firestorm of bad publicity over how teens use the social media app.Instagram, which is owned by Meta, announced a series of changes that it said were aimed at making teens’ experience on Instagram similar to viewing PG-13 movies, with equivalent restrictions on sexualized content and other adult material.One new restriction that Instagram said it would adopt is called age-gating: If an Instagram account regularly shares content that is age-inappropriate — for example, content related to alcohol or links to pornographic websites — then, the company said, it will block all teen accounts from being able to see or chat with that account. The age-gating could apply even to celebrities or other widely followed adult accounts, Instagram said. But it did not say precisely where it would draw the line for adult accounts that do not want to be age-gated. A company representative said sharing one piece of age-inappropriate content would not be enough for an adult-run account to lose access to the teen audience.Other apps, such as YouTube, also use age-gating to restrict access to certain types of content.A second new restriction on Instagram will block teens’ search results for a wider range of adult search terms, going beyond its current list of restricted terms, it says.The changes apply only to teen-specific accounts, which are accounts that teens have created using their truthful birth dates or accounts that Instagram has determined through its own investigation are likely to be those of people under 18 years old.It is common for teens to lie about their ages online to avoid certain restrictions. A 2024 survey of U.K. teens by the media regulator Ofcom found that 22% of 17-year-olds said they lied on social media that they were 18 or older.A representative for Instagram said it tries to catch teens who lie about their ages but declined to say how often it finds them doing so.In announcing the latest changes, Instagram said it was borrowing the thinking behind the PG-13 movie rating, which suggests “parental guidance” because of “some material parents might not like for their young children.” The film industry voluntarily released the modern film rating system in the 1960s when it, too, was facing the threat of government regulation.“Just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a PG-13 movie, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram — but we’re going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible,” Instagram said in a statement.The company said that for teen accounts, it would hide or not recommend posts with strong language, certain risky stunts, sexually suggestive poses or marijuana paraphernalia. It also said artificial intelligence experiences for teens would be “guided by PG-13 ratings by default,” with limits on the types of responses given.It said the same content restrictions would apply until account holders become adults, providing the same experience to 17-year-olds as to 13-year-olds.Some parents have complained for years that Instagram, TikTok and other social media apps do not do enough to protect teens’ well-being. Last year, during a Senate hearing, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to parents in the gallery who said Instagram contributed to their children’s deaths or exploitation.Instagram does not verify self-reported ages at sign-up in the United States, and Meta is a member of two trade associations, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, that have sued to block state laws that would require age verification. In June, the trade groups won injunctions against state-mandated age checks in Florida and Georgia.Instagram allows kids as young as 13 years old to create accounts. Last year, it introduced teen-specific accounts, saying all minors would be routed into such accounts automatically with limits on messaging and tagging.Instagram says teens have created millions of teen-specific accounts, although it has declined to say how many of those accounts remain active after they are created.Instagram is rolling out the overhaul after a withering year in the public spotlight. In August, Reuters reported that an internal Meta document permitted children to engage in “romantic or sensual” AI chats, including on an Instagram chatbot.In September, two former employees of Meta testified before Congress that the company blocked their research into teen safety in virtual reality and avoided adopting certain safety measures if those measures would mean fewer teens use the company’s apps, including Instagram and Facebook.“Children drive profits,” one of the former employees, Jason Sattizahn, said in an interview last month. “If Meta invests more in safety to get kids off of them, engagement goes down, monetization goes down, ad revenue goes down. They need them.”Meta at the time criticized Sattizahn’s testimony and the testimony of another former employee, Cayce Savage, saying that their claims were “nonsense” and they were “based on selectively leaked internal documents that were picked specifically to craft a false narrative.” It said it had no “blanket prohibition on conducting research with young people.”A report last month from several child safety groups, including Fairplay, criticized Instagram’s teen account features as failing to deliver substantial safety benefits. The report also urged that “recommendations made to a 13-year-old Teen Account should be reasonably PG rated.” Meta said that the report was misleading and that it misrepresented the company’s efforts.David IngramDavid Ingram is a tech reporter for NBC News.
September 30, 2025
Sept. 29, 2025, 10:30 PM EDT / Updated Sept. 30, 2025, 4:16 PM EDTBy Tim StellohNicole Kidman and Keith Urban are separating after nearly two decades of marriage.The Academy Award-winning actor filed for divorce Tuesday from the Grammy Award-winning country singer, according to a complaint in Davidson County Circuit Court in Tennessee.In the filing, Kidman cites irreconcilable differences. TMZ was first to report the separation Monday. Kidman and Urban, 57, were married in 2006 and share two daughters. The complaint asks that Kidman be named the primary parent.Kidman has two other children with Tom Cruise, to whom she was previously married. Keith Urban talks new album, upcoming tour, being a girl dad, more04:29She recently wrapped the filming of “Practical Magic 2” and had a series “summer memories” on Instagram, which noticeably did not include Urban.The Australian actor has appeared in dozens of films and shows and nominated for several Oscars. She won the award for best actress in 2003 for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in “The Hours.”Urban, who was born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, won four Grammy Awards from 2005 to 2010 for best male country performance.He is on his High and Alive World Tour and has been sharing photos and videos from his time on the road.Tim StellohTim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.Carla Kakouris contributed.
November 5, 2025
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