Grant Wahl, a longtime soccer sportswriter, died Friday in Qatar while covering the World Cup.NPR national supervising editor Russell Lewis tweeted that Wahl was covering the Argentina-Netherlands quarterfinal match when he died. Wahl was 48. Multiple news organizations reported Wahl collapsed in the press tribune and was tended to by paramedics. The cause of death was not immediately available. U.S. Soccer said in its statement that the team was “heartbroken” over Wahl’s death.” Fans of soccer and journalism of the highest quality knew we could always count on Grant to deliver

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as a political independent; she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive TV interview.“I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Sinema said in a Thursday interview with Tapper in her Senate office.“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she added. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, but I also think it’ll provide a place of

ABC will no longer be airing the Backstreet Boys’ Holiday special “A Very Backstreet Holiday.”The special, which was set to air on Dec. 14, was pulled after singer Nick Carter was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl during the boy band’s 2001 tour, according to Variety. Carter, along with fellow bandmates AJ McLean, Kevin Richarson, Brain Littrell, and Howie Dorough, had filmed the special earlier this month in Los Angeles, filled with songs from their 10th studio album, “A Very Backstreet Christmas,” to celebrate the holiday season.The special was also set to feature

And just like that, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” is a thing of the past.Noah hosted Comedy Central’s satirical news program for the final time on Thursday, an hour-long episode that was introduced to viewers as “a celebration of the fact that we fixed America.” When I started the show,” he said at the beginning of the episode, “I had three clear goals: ‘I’m going to make sure Hilary gets elected, I’m going to make sure I prevent a global pandemic from starting and I’m going to become best friends with Kanye West.’ I think it’s time to move on.”Most of Noah’s farewell adopted the same

Prosecutors have urged a federal judge to hold Donald Trump’s office in contempt of court for failing to fully comply with a May subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, according to people familiar with the matter — a sign of how contentious the private talks have become over whether the former president still holds any secret papers.In recent days, Justice Department lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell to hold Trump’s office in contempt, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sealed

After over half a century of production, the last Boeing 747 plane rolled off an assembly line in Washington state on Tuesday evening. The machine will head to Atlas Air to become a cargo plane, as the Chicago-based company retires the model that was known as the Queen of the Skies. The 747 model, distinctive for its massive size and prominent second-floor bulge, became Boeing’s most popular plane. Its size allowed it to be part of many iconic and revolutionary space-related projects over the years, including ferrying the Space Shuttle from a landing strip in California to a launch site

Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the first Gen-Z member, elected to Congress, said he was turned down for an apartment in Washington DC, because of his poor credit score. Frost, 25, expressed his frustration on Twitter, writing: ‘Just applied to an apartment in DC where I told the guy that my credit was really bad. He said I’d be fine. ‘Got denied, lost the apartment, and the application fee. This ain’t meant for people who don’t already have money.’ The Democrat, who is set to make $174,000 a year as a freshman in Congress, noted that his credit troubles stemmed from quitting

Donald Trump shot down Russian attempts to trade former Marine Paul Whelan for “Merchant of Death” arms dealer Viktor Bout, former national security adviser John Bolton said Thursday — as Trump ripped his successor for agreeing to send Bout home in exchange for the return of WNBA star Brittney Griner. Bolton recalled in an interview with CBS that he was in the midst of his 17-month tenure at the White House when Whelan was detained on concocted espionage charges in December 2018.“The possibility of a Bout-for-Whelan trade existed back then,” said Bolton, 74,

Former US Marine Paul Whelan has spoken out from Russian prison after four years behind bars, slamming the Biden administration for failing to secure his release in the prisoner swap that freed WNBA star, Brittney Griner. Whelan said he was being held as a ‘hostage’ of Russia, and pleaded for the White House to ‘do everything they could to get me home as he faces another 12 years in a Russian penal colony on spying charges he says are bogus. Thursday’s controversial prisoner swap saw Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman help broker Griner’s release in

Amazon is the latest tech company to take a page out of TikTok’s playbook. The e-commerce giant announced it was launching a new feed in the Amazon app with photos and videos of items users can purchase, first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The feed, which Amazon is calling Inspire, is the company’s attempt at getting app users to make purchases as they’re seeing products in online content — something other tech companies are also attempting to do. TikTok has long been working on its own in-app shopping features, including Livestream shopping, and YouTube added affiliate

House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters told the panel’s Democrats she doesn’t plan to subpoena former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at a Dec. 13 hearing about the crypto exchange’s rapid demise, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation. Waters informed committee members of her decision at a private meeting Tuesday with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on Capitol Hill, these people said, declining to be named in order to speak freely about the private discussion. Waters said she wants committee staff to try

The FTC has filed a legal challenge to try and block Microsoft’s plan to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, according to a press release from the regulator. The lawsuit was filed today after weeks of back and forth between Microsoft, Sony, and regulators over competition concerns and the future of Call of Duty. The FTC argues that the acquisition would “enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business.”The vote from the FTC commissioners today means Microsoft now faces

Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder evaded questions by saying more than 100 times that he did not know or could not recall information and gave “misleading” answers when he testified remotely in July as part of a congressional investigation of his team’s workplace, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said Thursday in its final report after a nearly 14-month probe.The 79-page report on the Democratic-led investigation gave the strongest indication yet that the team or someone working on its behalf leaked the inflammatory emails that prompted Congress to

The House passed legislation Thursday that enshrines federal protections for marriages of same-sex and interracial couples. The vote of 258-169 sends the Respect for Marriage Act to President Joe Biden, who has championed the bill and is expected to sign it into law. It comes after the Senate passed the same bill last week by a vote of 61-36. Democrats were unified in favor of the bill, while most Republicans in both chambers voted against it. Thirty-nine House Republicans supported the legislation Thursday and one voted present. “Your love is your choice, House

A Guatemalan court has found a former president and his vice-president guilty on two charges of corruption, in one of the most high-profile corruption cases in the Central American country. The ruling against former president Otto Pérez Molina and his vice-president, Roxana Baldetti, on charges of illicit association and customs fraud comes as a relief amid what is seen as the rollback of anti-corruption efforts. But the two were absolved of charges of illicit enrichment, due to lack of evidence. The decision comes over seven years after the two were forced to resign from office,

Three Southern University marching band members were killed when a semi-truck crashed into their car as they were changing a flat tire on the side of a Louisiana highway Tuesday night. The tragedy occurred after the students — Tyan Williams, 19, Dylan Young, 21, and Broderick Moore, 19 — stopped a 1999 Jeep Laredo on the shoulder of northbound I-49 in Natchitoches to fix the flat, according to Louisiana State Police. While they were working to replace the tire, a 1997 Freightliner drifted onto the shoulder and slammed into the left side of the Jeep, cops said. The three

Police have launched a homicide investigation after a 47-year-old woman was found dead in a Miami Beach hotel that caters to flight crews – and the door to her room was blocked by a mattress.The victim, identified by relatives as Marelbi Ruiz Lara, was found Tuesday evening at the posh oceanfront Sherry Frontenac Hotel on Collins Avenue, WPLG reported.“MBPD received a call from a woman requesting a welfare check for her coworker, who was last seen Saturday, December 3,” police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez told the outlet in an email on Wednesday. He told the Miami

Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who was held for months in Russian prisons on drug charges, was released Thursday in a one-for-one prisoner swap for international arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to a U.S. official. The one-for-one exchange agreement negotiated with Moscow in recent weeks was given final approval by President Biden within just the last week, according to sources familiar with the deal. The swap, first reported by CBS News, took place on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates.Five former U.S. officials told CBS News the agreement had been reached

Celine Dion has been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS), which causes her muscles to tense uncontrollably.The condition ultimately leaves sufferers as ‘human statues’ as it progressively locks the body into rigid positions, leaving people unable to walk or talk. While there is no cure for SPS, there are treatments to slow down the progression, with Celine revealing she is doing all she can to minimize symptoms. The 54-year-old singer addressed her fans in a tearful Instagram post on Thursday as she revealed it has forced her to cancel her European tour. She penned: ‘Hello

Let’s jump straight to the chase: “Wordle” was Google’s most searched term globally in 2022. The stat was revealed as part of Google’s annual Year in Search report, which highlights the top trending search terms in both individual countries as well as globally. This year, Google is offering an even more granular look at searches in the USA with a new hub that lets you type in your city or ZIP code and see what people in your area specifically are searching for. As you might expect, the year’s top searches were dominated by terms relating to 2022’s big news events, with

The president of Peru was ousted by Congress Wednesday after he sought to dissolve the legislative body and take unilateral control of the government, triggering a grave constitutional crisis.Vice President Dina Boluarte replaced Pedro Castillo and became the first female leader in the history of the republic after hours of wrangling between the legislature and the president.Boluarte, a 60-year-old lawyer, called for a political truce and the installation of a national unity government.”What I ask for is a space, a time, to rescue the country,” she said.Lawmakers voted 101-6 with 10

Theranos Inc.’s former No. 2 executive, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison for his involvement in an elaborate fraud scheme at the blood-testing company, capping a yearslong saga that became synonymous with the worst of Silicon Valley culture. Mr. Balwani’s sentencing comes more than four years after the collapse of Theranos, which promised to revolutionize healthcare but peddled faulty technology to patients and investors, along the way delivering inaccurate health results and squandering hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Balwani helped lead

Indiana filed a pair of lawsuits against TikTok Wednesday, alleging the platform is deceiving consumers about its content and data security, the latest in a growing number of moves by state officials to push back against the platform’s influence on children and its connections to China.The state said its lawsuits are the first of their kind against the popular app and its owner, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd. In one of the complaints, Indiana alleged that TikTok’s algorithm is designed to addict young users and promotes harmful content that isn’t appropriate for them. The lawsuit cites

The House Ethics Committee is investigating Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the congressional panel confirmed Wednesday. The eight-member committee provided no details about the nature of the investigation, saying only that it had decided to extend its consideration of a matter brought to its attention on June 23 of this year, and would announce its ultimate course of action sometime next year. But socialist darling AOC was the subject of two complaints submitted to the Office of Congressional Ethics over her attendance at last year’s Met

Hundreds of journalists and other employees at The New York Times began a 24-hour walkout Thursday in what would be the first strike of its kind at the newspaper in more than 40 years. Newsroom employees and other members of The NewsGuild of New York say they are fed up with bargaining that has dragged on since their last contract expired in March 2021. Union announced last week that more than 1,100 employees would stage a 24-hour work stoppage starting at 12:01 a.m. Thursday unless the two sides reach a contract deal. The NewsGuild tweeted Thursday

Meghan and Harry’s Netflix bombshell documentary series is released today at 8 am.Buckingham Palace will be braced for the worst after two trailers revealed the couple will claim they had no protection from royal officials and that aides actively leaked and ‘planted stories’ against them as part of a ‘dirty game.’King Charles and Prince William are poised to issue a ‘swift and robust response to any unjust claims in Harry and Meghan’s upcoming Netflix series – but William and his wife Kate are not likely to watch it themselves, sources said.Senior royals are said to be bracing for the

The Florida legislator who sponsored legislation critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was accused of illegally obtaining tens of thousands of dollars in Covid-relief funds, authorities said Wednesday. Joseph Harding, 35, was indicted on six counts of wire fraud, money laundering, making false statements and other crimes, the U.S. attorney’s office for Northern Florida said in a release. Harding, a Republican whose district is south of Gainesville, is accused of seeking Covid-relief loans from the Small Business Administration in 2020 for two companies, Vak Shack

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine has sued Amazon for using drivers’ tips to pay their standard wages, attempting to exact a punishment that federal consumer protection agencies couldn’t.Amazon settled with the Federal Trade Commission last year after a lawsuit asserted it had withheld more than $60 million (or about one-third of total customer tips) from Amazon Flex drivers over the course of two and a half years. But while the FTC took that money to distribute back to drivers, it had no mechanism to issue greater penalties. “Amazon has thus far escaped any other

American League MVP Aaron Judge has agreed to a new nine-year, $360 million contract with the New York Yankees, who persuaded their homegrown star not to defect in free agency—and increased the pressure on themselves to get back to the World Series for the first time since 2009.Judge’s agreement with New York was pending a physical as of Wednesday afternoon, but his All Rise Foundation announced on Twitter that he would be returning to the Yankees.Judge’s return to New York, first reported by MLB Network early Wednesday, comes after a season when he hit 62

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was arrested by the authorities after he dissolved the Congress of Peru on Wednesday. The accused as the leader of a “criminal organization” was approached in the street, in downtown Lima, by police officers when he was leaving the Government headquarters, it was reported by local media. Hours before Congress was to vote on a new motion to depose Pedro Castillo Terrones as President of Peru, the incumbent head of state Wednesday dissolved Parliament and announced he was starting an “emergency government.”The following measures are

A cartel leader and hitman fond of videotaping torture sessions and decapitating his enemies has gone missing from a federal prison in Florida, where he was serving a 49-year sentence. As of November, Edgar Valdez-Villareal, a Mexican American cartel leader, had been mysteriously removed from the federal Bureau of Prisons website. He is now listed as “not in BOP custody” even though his release date is not until July 27, 2056. Valdez-Villareal, 49, is known by his underworld moniker “La Barbie,” and headed up the Los Negros, an enforcement group of the Beltran Leyva cartel

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo said Wednesday that he would dissolve Congress hours before he faced a third impeachment vote. Mr. Castillo, who faced removal from office while under investigation for corruption by prosecutors, said in a televised address that he would install an “exceptional emergency government” and that he would rule by decree while new elections for the legislature are organized. He also called for writing a new constitution and said that a national curfew would be imposed on this country of 33 million people. Peru, once one of Latin America’s star

Authorities in Germany arrested 25 people on Wednesday who are suspected of planning to violently overthrow the government in a far-right extremist plot.More than 3,000 police officers, including special forces, made 130 early morning searches across 11 of Germany’s 16 federal states in one of the biggest counterterrorism operations in the country’s history.Suspects from the so-far unnamed group include a nobleman with a historic royal title and various armed forces veterans. It is centered on the so-called Reichsbürger or Reich Citizens, movement which is motivated by

The House Ethics Committee has directed Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) to pay more than $15,000 in fines and fees for encouraging people to purchase a cryptocurrency in which he had a financial interest that was not properly disclosed. According to the committee’s 81-page report released Tuesday, Cawthorn has until the end of the month to pay $14,237.49 — “reflecting the approximate value of the gift he received” — to “an appropriate charitable organization,” and an additional $1,000 in late filing fees to the Treasury Department within 14 days of the report’s release.

Time magazine named Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 2022’s ‘Person of the Year on Wednesday, saying he inspired Ukrainians and won global accolades for his courage in resisting Russia’s devastating invasion. Refusing to leave Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv at the outbreak of the war as Russian bombs rained down, the former comedian rallied his compatriots in broadcasts from the capital and traveled across his war-torn nation, the publication noted in bestowing its annual title.Zelensky has also been heralded on the world stage as British Winston Churchill.Tesla Inc Chief

Juul Labs, the e-cigarette manufacturer, announced on Tuesday that it has reached settlements covering more than 5,000 cases with nearly 10,000 plaintiffs. The sweeping resolutions, which litigators say will address youth e-cigarette usage, come after more than three years of legal battles. The settlements include compensation for those suffering from nicotine addiction and other health problems as well as reimbursement for those who purchased Juul products. School districts, cities, counties, and Native American tribes will also receive resources to fight nicotine

Lawmakers on Tuesday ended what had been an effort to allow media organizations to band together to negotiate revenue-sharing deals with tech giants, leaving the provisions out of a massive spending bill amid intense pushback from industry and advocacy groups. The measure, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), was omitted from a bicameral agreement on Congress’s sprawling defense-spending legislation, according to the bill’s text released late Tuesday. The JCPA provisions had been considered for potential inclusion, according to two people familiar

Five women who have long accused Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting them early in their careers have filed the latest lawsuit against the 85-year-old comedian and this one calls NBCUniversal, a studio and a production company, complicit in the abuse. The lawsuit comes more than a year after Cosby left prison after his 2018 sexual assault conviction in Pennsylvania was overturned. This year, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a woman who said Cosby had sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a teenager. The lawsuit filed Monday under New

Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged on Tuesday through a spokesperson that he met with indicted ex-Rep. David Rivera to discuss a potential deal to normalize relations between the United States and Venezuela but didn’t know that his one time friend and long time political ally was working on behalf of Nicolás Maduro. Rubio’s dealings with Rivera emerged Monday night after federal authorities arrested and charged the former Miami lawmaker with eight criminal counts, including money laundering, conspiracy and failing to register as a foreign agent for work allegedly connected to

The Chinese government announced on Wednesday a broad easing of its exceptionally stringent Covid restrictions, an implicit concession to public discontent after mass street protests in more than a dozen cities a week ago challenged Beijing’s authority.The changes are not a complete dismantling of China’s “zero Covid” policy, but still represent a considerable loosening of measures that have dragged down the economy by disrupting daily life for hundreds of millions of people, forcing many small businesses to shutter and driving youth unemployment to nearly 20 percent, a

Despite “credible allegations” of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s involvement in the 2018 killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. federal judge on Tuesday ordered a lawsuit against the Saudi royal to be dismissed. The basis for the decision, wrote Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was the legal protections the prince is entitled to in his new role as Saudi Arabia’s prime minister.“The United States has informed the court that he is immune, and Mohammed is, therefore ‘entitled to head of state immunity … while he remains in

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s office said late Tuesday that his daughter is OK and asked for privacy for the family after Houston police and fire personnel were called to his home.”This is a family matter, and thankfully their daughter is okay,” Cruz’s representatives said in a statement to ABC affiliate KTRK and other outlets.”There were no serious injuries. The family requests the media respect their daughter’s privacy at this time,” Cruz’s office said.According to KTRK, the Houston Police Department said they received reports just before 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday of a 14-year-old with

Sen. Raphael Warnock has defeated GOP challenger Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff, giving Democrats a 51 seat majority next year and capping off an extraordinary defense of the chamber that saw every incumbent win reelection. Warnock, who won a special election runoff in early 2021 and has now earned a full six year term finished narrowly ahead of Walker in the November general election. But because neither reached the majority mark, they advanced to this week’s one-on-one runoff, extending one of the most expensive and hard-fought campaigns in the country.

Argentina’s vice president and former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has been sentenced to six years in prison and given a lifelong ban on holding public office after being found guilty in a $1bn fraud case related to public works. Fernández – who was president of Argentina for two terms between 2007 and 2015 – was found guilty on Tuesday, though she is unlikely to serve any prison time soon as she has immunity thanks to her government roles and is expected to launch a lengthy appeals process that could take years.A three-judge panel rejected a charge of running

The Trump Organization was convicted Tuesday of multiple crimes, including tax fraud, falsifying business records and conspiracy after a trial in New York City.The convictions come weeks after the company’s owner, former President Donald Trump, declared his candidacy for the White House in the 2024 election.A jury in Manhattan Supreme Court began deliberations in the case this week.The Trump Organization faces fines of up to $1.6 million at sentencing in the case.The verdicts also could harm the company’s ability to obtain loans.One of the subsidiaries charged in the

More than 7 in 10 voters want President Joe Biden to honor a commitment he made last year and release the final trove of JFK assassination records on Dec. 15, according to a poll released Tuesday in coordination with a research group that sued the administration to force more document disclosure.About 16,000 of the most closely guarded government secrets into the assassination nearly 60 years ago still remain hidden — including 44 records that would shed light on a covert Cuba-related CIA program that involved Lee Harvey Oswald less than four months before he shot

King Charles had an egg hurled at him for the second time in a month today, with police arresting a man for common assault. Bodyguards quickly intervened to move the monarch away from the scene of the disturbance on St George’s Square in Luton. Bedfordshire Police confirmed a suspect had been arrested and is now being questioned. Charles, 74, appeared unfazed by the incident and quickly resumed shaking hands with members of the public after being moved to a different area. The incident comes four weeks after 23-year-old Patrick Thelwell was arrested for throwing an egg at the

Special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed local officials in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin — three states that were central to former president Donald Trump’s failed plan to stay in power following the 2020 election — for any and all communications with Trump, his campaign, and a long list of aides and allies.The requests for records arrived in Dane County, Wis.; Maricopa County, Ariz.; and Wayne County, Mich., late last week, and in Milwaukee on Monday, officials said. They are among the first known subpoenas issued by Smith, who was named last month by Attorney

Like most nerds who read science fiction, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how society will greet true artificial intelligence, if and when it arrives. Will we panic? Start sucking up to our new robot overlords? Ignore it and go about our daily lives.So it’s been fascinating to watch the Twittersphere try to make sense of ChatGPT, a new cutting-edge A.I. chatbot that was opened for testing last week.ChatGPT is, quite simply, the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public. It was built by OpenAI, the San Francisco A.I. company that is also responsible

The Police Chief of Tampa, Florida resigned on Monday after body cam footage showed her asking a deputy to “just let us go” from a traffic stop. Mayor Jane Castor said in a statement that she’d requested and received the resignation of Chief Mary O’Connor following an internal affairs investigation into the incident.”It is unacceptable for any public employee, and especially the city’s top law enforcement leader, to ask for special treatment because of their position,” Castor wrote.”Public trust in Tampa’s police department is paramount to our success as a city and community

The suspect in last month’s deadly rampage at a Colorado LGBTQ nightclub was charged with 305 criminal counts in a case that will have a “voluminous” amount of evidence, prosecutors said Tuesday. Anderson Lee Aldrich is suspected of killing five people and wounding 17 others on Nov. 19 at Club Q in Colorado Springs. Five more were injured but not by gunshots. Twelve others were victims with no visible injuries, police said. The 305 charges filed in court include accusations of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault, and bias

Authorities in Honduras will partially suspend constitutional rights as part of an effort to combat an apparent rise in extortion, raising fears of human rights violations and warnings of creeping authoritarianism in Central America. Under the plan, which will come into effect late on Tuesday and will be in effect for at least 30 days, thousands of security forces will be deployed to 162 gang-infested neighborhoods in the country’s two largest cities, San Pedro Sula and the capital, Tegucigalpa.“[Extortion] is one of the main causes of insecurity, migration, displacement, loss of freedom,

Facebook warns it could ban news in the US if Congress passes a bill that would require the platform to negotiate with and compensate publishers for their content. Andy Stone, Meta’s head of policy communications, said on Twitter that Facebook will “be forced to consider removing news” from Facebook if the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is passed. Facebook previously threatened to block news in Canada and Australia when similar laws were proposed. Introduced last year with bipartisan support, the JCPA would allow publishers to negotiate with platforms like

Disgraced former celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti was sentenced Monday in a California federal court to 14 years in prison for stealing millions of dollars from four former clients. U.S. District Judge James Selna handed down the sentence to Mr. Avenatti, who earlier this year pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud and one count of obstructing the Internal Revenue Service. Federal prosecutors said Mr. Avenatti, 51 years old, lied to his former clients about settlement agreements he had negotiated for them and secretly spent some of the proceeds. He also obstructed the