NBC News

Tsarnaev's last appearance was in July 2013 arraignment

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is expected to step out of solitary and into a courtroom Thursday in his first public appearance in 17 months. The pretrial status update will be the final conference hearing ahead of his Jan. 5 trial. The 21-year-old has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges related to the horrific twin bombings during the April 2013 Boston Marathon that left three dead and more than 250 injured.

Tsarnaev, a Russian immigrant who had been attending college, faces the death penalty if convicted of carrying out the plot with his older brother, Tamerlan, who died in a police shootout four days after the blast…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

Some 57% of Latinos now say they approve of the job that Obama is doing

President Barack Obama’s approval rating with Latinos has jumped 10 points since he announced a new policy of deportation relief for millions of undocumented immigrants, a new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll shows.

The new survey of 250 Latino adults shows that 57% now say they approve of the job that Obama is doing, compared with 47% of Latino voters who said the same in September, before the immigration announcement.

And, when asked if they approve of how Obama is handling the issue of immigration specifically, 56% give the president a thumbs up…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

Cuban MiGs shot down their two small, private planes in February 1996

The South Florida families of pilots fatally shot down by Cuba in 1996 are speaking out against the Wednesday release of three members of the convicted spies known as the “Cuban Five” in a prisoner swap — among them one who had been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder over the shootdown.

“For the only person that we had responsible for what happened to be let go — it’s a slap in the face to my dad,” Marlene Alejandre-Triana said at a news conference.

Alejandre-Triana’s father Armando Alejandre, a Vietnam veteran, was one of four pilots killed when Cuban MiGs shot down their two small, private planes in February 1996 in international waters…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

George Stinney Jr. was convicted of killing two girls in the small town of Alcolu, South Carolina, in 1944

Seventy years after South Carolina executed a 14-year-old boy so small he sat on a phone book in the electric chair, a circuit court judge threw out his murder conviction.

On Wednesday morning, Judge Carmen Mullins vacated the decision against George Stinney Jr., a black teen who was convicted of beating two young white girls to death in the small town of Alcolu in 1944.

Read more American Held in Cuba Released After 5 Years

Civil rights advocates have spent years trying to get the case reopened, arguing that Stinney’s confession was coerced. At the time of his arrest, Stinney weighed just 95 pounds. Officials said Stinney had admitted beating the girls…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

The President and First Lady opened up in a recent interview about racial prejudices they've experienced

The Obamas opened up about their experiences with racial prejudice in an interview with People magazine.

“There’s no black male my age who’s a professional who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys,” President Barack Obama said in an excerpt released Wednesday.

He said that it had happened to him, too. First lady Michelle Obama said that another time her husband “was wearing a tuxedo at a black-tie dinner, and somebody asked him to get coffee.”

The president said that the indignities that the first couple…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

The studio said it would support theaters' decisions not to show the movie

Some movie theater chains are pulling Sony’s film The Interview from their lineups in the face of the threat of a Sept. 11-style attack against theaters who screen the upcoming movie. Hackers who go by the name Guardians of Peace and who stole untold amounts of sensitive data from Sony Pictures Entertainment made the threat on Tuesday. The hackers oppose the release of Sony’s comedy, which portrays the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Sony reached out to movie theater owners following the threat to say the studio is going forward with plans to release the film, but that it would support theaters’ decisions not to show the movie…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

The data showed a dramatic slide from just 18 months ago

A majority of Americans now say that race relations in the United States are bad, according to the latest NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll, which showed the most pessimistic assessment of racial issues in almost two decades.

In the wake of protests over the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police, just four in ten Americans told pollsters that they believe race relations in the United States are “good,” while 57 percent disagreed. And nearly a quarter — 23% — classified the current state of the country’s racial issues as “very bad.”

The data showed a dramatic slide from just 18 months ago…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

The suspect's dead body was found in the woods near his home

Bradley Stone, the man prosecutors say is responsible for killing his ex-wife and five of her family members and shooting one other before going on the run, has been found dead in the woods near his home, law enforcement sources tell NBC10.

His body was discovered near W. 4th Street and Schoolhouse Road in Pennsburg. The location is just yards from the former Marine’s home where SWAT teams have been methodically searching for the man for the past two days.

Sources said it appears Stone killed himself.

Officials will be holding a news conference within the next 30 minutes. You can…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

"They should have put him away and thrown away the key"

More than a year before the Sydney hostage siege, Man Haron Monis was arrested for accessory to the murder of his ex-wife — who was repeatedly stabbed and set on fire — and then released on bail.

“They should have put him away and thrown away the key,” said Ayyut Khalik, godfather to the slain woman, Noleen Hayson Pal.

Khalik said Pal, 31, was like one of his own children. He traveled from California to Australia for her 16th birthday, for her wedding to Monis in 2005 and for her funeral …

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News