Jennifer Smith and her husband were supposed to take their 10-year-old son Greyson to an Imagine Dragons concert last week.
But the morning of the concert, she logged into her Ticketmaster account and the tickets were gone. It appeared someone had hacked into her account and swiped them.
“Sure enough, the tickets we had purchased for a very expensive price were claimed by somebody named Codie Lee,” Smith said.
A family friend offered an extra ticket to Greyson, a die-hard fan of the band. And Smith’s husband bought another ticket to join them. But the family is out the $1,200 they paid for their original tickets.
“Our heart sank. A day that was supposed to be celebratory, almost like a holiday, was stressful,” she said.
Greyson and his family.
Ticketmaster customers across the country have shared the same experience with NBC.
“Between 4:16 am and 4:20 am, they took my tickets and successfully transferred them to themselves,” said Jess in Philadelphia.
“My tickets are gone. I said somebody just took them out of my account,“ said Brenda in suburban New York.
Ticketmaster experienced a data breach this summer. But it told customers that all accounts were secure and passwords were not compromised.
In a recent interview with NBC in Chicago, the company blamed the ticket theft on weak customer passwords.
“And if you haven’t updated your password recently, or if you’re using a password you use in a lot of different places, they might be able to get into your account,” said Dan Wall, an executive vice president at Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company.
In a statement to the I-Team, the company doubled down on that, and said security issues often originate with personal email accounts. It encouraged its users to create strong, unique passwords for both their email and Ticketmaster accounts.
It also said digital ticketing has greatly reduced fraud.
As for Smith, Ticketmaster said it’s looking into her case. She wants her money back, but she said she was robbed of something even greater – creating a memory with her son.
“My son had a great time. I’m happy for him. But I would have loved to be there with him,” she said.
Tips to keep your tickets safe:
Change your Ticketmaster password. Choose a strong and unique one, something you’re not using anywhere else.
Update the password on your personal email account, as well. Again, choose a unique one.
Make sure your cell number is linked to your Ticketmaster account. The company says you’ll receive a two-factor authentication request if someone tries to transfer tickets from your account.
Antioch Unified School District Director of Maintenance, Operations and Facilities Kenneth (Ken) Turnage has been placed on administrative leave following an NBC Bay Area investigation into employee bullying claims.
According to an AUSD board member, the district’s five board trustees received a message from their human resources director saying Turnage was placed on leave three days after this news organization’s report on April 17.
The story spotlighted allegations that Turnage moved a maintenance worker’s desk to a roof to humiliate him – on district time and using school resources. NBC Bay Area confirmed at least nine other district workers have reported Turnage to district officials for bullying. The accusations span months and include claims that Turnage constantly demeaned, insulted and shouted at them. Three workers said they had to go on medical leave for stress caused by Turnage. One employee said he felt physically threatened when it appeared Turnage charged at him during an argument.
AUSD Director Kenneth Turnage and the desk he’s accused of putting on a roof.
NBC Bay Area has reached out to Turnage several times but has not received a response.
Several of the workers who spoke with NBC Bay Area say Turnage was not held properly accountable, and they know why.
“Oh, because of his relationship with the superintendent,” said Steve Hessler who is a carpenter for AUSD.
“Because of this relationship with the superintendent’s husband and the superintendent,” said Bruce Courtemanche who said he was forced to retire early as the district’s locksmith after being mistreated by Turnage.
“Ken Turnage is still there because of his relationship with the superintendent,” said Jim Kesser who is the AUSD maintenance worker whose desk was moved to the roof.
Since NBC Bay Area’s report, the Board President Antonio Hernandez has called for Superintendent Stephanie Anello’s resignation, which she has not publicly responded to. In an internal email to other district officials, Anello said she called for two independent investigations into the allegations. One investigation will be on the overall employee concerns, Anello wrote, and another will look at specific complaints filed against Turnage detailed in NBC Bay Area’s report.
After concerns of Anello’s involvement in the investigations surfaced – since she would be one of the subjects of the investigation – Anello recused herself from the process. AUSD’s Human Resources Director Robert Martinez said in a press release that he will assume the responsibility of overseeing the investigations and communication with board members.
Both Anello and Martinez have said the investigations will be independent and conducted by a third party, but when the Investigative Unit repeatedly asked who will be conducting the investigations, neither Anello nor Martinez responded the question.
AUSD Superintendent Stephanie Anello
At the school district’s next school board meeting this Wednesday at 7pm, Board President Hernandez told NBC Bay Area he plans to call for a vote to remove Superintendent Anello from her position over these allegations.
NBC Bay Area has reached out to Anello for comment but has not received a response.
Candice Nguyen is leading this news investigation. If you’d like to contact her about this story or have another investigative tip, e-mail candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.
Long hailed as an impossibility, harnessing nuclear fusion to power homes, businesses, cars, and even airplanes is now widely viewed by scientists and engineers as a very real prospect that would undoubtedly and dramatically reshape energy consumption around the world.
“It’s tremendously exciting in that we would have virtually limitless power,” said Carl Bass, chairman of the company Alpha Ring, which is working to capture the power of fusion through miniature nuclear reactors. “It will happen in our lifetime – really, the question for me is just the scale at which it happens.”
Carl Bass, chairman of Alpha Ring, invited Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban to tour his Berkeley manufacturing facility, where prototypes of Alpha Ring’s miniaturized nuclear reactors are being constructed.
Tech companies race to harness nuclear fusion
Globally, over 40 companies – including several in California – are now experimenting with more than 20 different methods to harness what is believed to be a cleaner and potentially cheaper energy alternative in nuclear fusion. The race to harness fusion comes as fossil fuels, including oil, coal, and gas, continue to drive climate change with the pollution they emit.
“We really can produce energy at a fraction of the cost with almost none of the problems of the current energy infrastructure,” Bass said. “You could imagine a small reactor in a vehicle, certainly in a boat or a ship – almost everywhere where we need to use either heat or electricity, we could produce it differently and much more cleanly.”
We really can produce energy at a fraction of the cost with almost none of the problems of the current energy infrastructure.
Carl Bass, chairman of Alpha Ring
Alpha Ring’s method, considered by industry leaders to be unconventional, is known as “electron-catalyzed fusion.” The process relies on what the company describes as “miniaturized” nuclear reactors, which are designed to be small enough to fit on a tabletop, but large enough to power entire communities.
“It’s a very complicated technology,” said Steve Hwang, chief operating officer for Alpha Ring, who oversees the company’s laboratories in Monterey, Los Angeles, and Taipei. “If we can produce abundant energy, that’s how we’re going to change the world.”
Steve Hwang, chief operation officer for Alpha Ring, oversees the company’s laboratories in Los Angeles, Monterey, and Taipei.
Can nuclear fusion ever be commercially viable?
Despite the benefits, one major complication remains – no one has ever been able to turn nuclear fusion into a viable and sustainable energy source. The only place fusion occurs regularly is among the stars – powering, most famously, the sun.
Today, America’s more than 50 nuclear power plants utilize nuclear fission, where atoms are split apart to produce massive amounts of energy, but the process can also emit harmful radiation. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, relies on atoms being fused together to create bursts of energy. Fusion doesn’t emit carbon or radioactive waste, and the materials needed to create the reaction are plentiful and found all throughout the world.
Unlocking the ability to harness nuclear fusion has largely remained a mystery, however, scientists believe we are the closest we have ever been to creating and sustaining that kind of power.
“Not a matter of if, but when,” said physicist John Edwards, who is a senior advisor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Edwards led the team of government scientists that made history in Dec. 2022 after achieving what was hailed to be the first-ever nuclear fusion reaction inside a lab, where more energy was produced than what it took to jump start the reaction.
“That showed, in principle, you could actually light this fusion fuel in a controlled environment on the earth, and that’s the first step that you would need to take to be able to potentially produce this clean, limitless energy for the future.”
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has successfully hosted five nuclear fusion reactions inside its Bay Area lab since Dec. 2022.
The ignition was sparked by 192 lasers, which used its beams to create temperatures topping 180 million degrees – six times hotter than the center of the sun. The Livermore lab was able to reproduce that success earlier this month, when it achieved a nuclear reaction for the fifth time in 14 months.
While the milestones have proved to be monumental, the amount of energy produced has been far from substantial. Even the lab’s most successful fusion ignition only produced enough power to barely heat up two pots of coffee. In addition, the actual reaction only lasted less than a billionth of a second. To be considered commercially viable, the process would need to generate about 100 times more energy, according to Edwards. Plus, the frequency of reactions would have to increase exponentially – essentially running nonstop.
During the lab’s most recent experiment on Feb. 12, the fusion reaction produced 5.2 units of energy, known as megajoules. That represented a net gain of energy when compared to the 2.2 megajoules the lasers “delivered” to spark the reaction, however, it took about 300 megajoules of power to energize the lasers enough to produce the ignition.
Edwards believes it will require more than just the work of the federal government to dramatically increase efficiency in the process and truly transform fusion into a major energy source that can be utilized across the globe.
“If we want to do this relatively rapidly, it’s going to be critical that we will be partnering with the private sector,” Edwards said. “It’s a consumer product, so without the private industry I don’t see how we get there.”
John Edwards is a physicist and senior advisor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Private companies received $6 billion in investments last year to solve nuclear fusion dilemma
Last year alone, private companies centering on fusion saw an influx of $6.2 billion in investments – that was $1.4 billion more than the previous year, according to the Fusion Industry Association, which represents more than 100 companies activity experimenting on nuclear fusion or working to support the industry, including Mitsubishi Corp. and Google.
“This was something that was always done by governments,” said Andrew Holland, the association’s CEO. “Now the private industry is coming in and saying we see a pathway to making money on this — and not in 30 years, but in the timeline of a normal venture capital fund, which is a 10 to 15-year fund.”
Holland believes “pilot plants” could begin to pop up over the next 15 years, which would be the first to introduce energy generated by nuclear fusion into the power grid, meaning the process could finally be used to create electricity for homes and businesses.
“Solving that problem would change life in a fundamental way,” said Ed Morse, a Berkeley Professor, engineer, and author on nuclear fusion. “It changes a lot of things.”
Morse, however, said he remains skeptical about tech companies touting scientific solutions to complicated problems that have remained unsolved for decades.
“If anything sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” he said. “Some of these concepts are really bad…others are passable.”
If anything sounds too good to be true, it probably is
Ed Morse, Berkeley professor and engineer, commenting on the surge of tech companies touting their own scientific solutions for how to harness nuclear fusion into a commercial energy source
Engineer and Berkeley Professor Ed Morse said he remains skeptical about whether an influx of tech companies hoping to tackle nuclear fusion will be successful in figuring out how to actually commercialize the energy source.
Alpha Ring vows to submit findings to independent researchers for review
Alpha Ring said its science has led to more than 15 nuclear reactions inside two of its labs. The energy generated each time has generally only been enough to power a light bulb overnight, but the company says some of its reactions have lasted more than 19 hours – which represents a significant increase from the reaction time achieved at the nation’s premiere government lab in Livermore that measured less than a fraction of a second.
“The accomplishment of this is just such a big deal,” Bass said, who also acknowledged the skepticism he and his company face in asserting such a milestone. “One of the important things when you make a claim like this, where many people will be skeptical, is that this will be able to be reproduced by others.”
To prove the company’s nuclear fusion reactions can, in fact, be reproduced, Alpha Ring plans to submit its findings to a slew of scientific journals for review. The company hopes independent researchers will eventually vouch for the technology and its ability to bring star power to Earth.
“This is a huge claim,” Bass said. “So they rightfully are going to take their time, be very skeptical, try to poke holes in it in every way they can because the accomplishment of this is just such a big deal.”
PALM BEACH, Fla., July 15, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Building on 15 years of pioneering undercover journalism, training over 200 reporters, and developing three distinct journalism organizations, James O’Keefe is now unveiling the secretive world of investigative reporting to the public with the launch of O’Keefe Academy.
The Academy’s official launch was announced amidst a festive celebration of journalistic excellence attended by citizen journalists and guests, who enjoyed handcrafted cocktails and gourmet cuisine. The O’Keefe Academy, a first-of-its-kind endeavor, democratizes the intricate art of exposing corruption through undercover methodologies.
The Academy’s curriculum comprises five initial classes, each based on O’Keefe’s unique experiences, abilities, successes, perseverance, and even his failures. O’Keefe’s unmatched expertise, distinctive skills, and limitless creativity bring these classes to life.
Enrolling in the Academy equips you with the skills and knowledge necessary to break life-changing stories, investigate surrounding corruption, and expose the rot undermining our society. Students will learn about the stamina required in investigative journalism, the strength needed to uphold justice, and the principles of a citizen dedicated to preserving freedom.
The O’Keefe Academy’s program is divided into five classes: Ethics, Legal, What is a Story, Tradecraft, and Technology. Each class explores different facets of O’Keefe’s journey and the key elements necessary to bring a story to life, providing the tools to do it repeatedly with consistency and finesse. With malfeasance, corruption, illegal activity, deceit, and fraud prevalent in our society, the Academy aims to empower you to expose these atrocities.
O’Keefe Academy is committed to training, enabling, and encouraging individuals to contribute to creating a transparent, truthful, and honest society. Start your journey towards changing the future with O’Keefe Academy today.
James O’Keefe states, “The media has abdicated its responsibility to hold the powerful accountable; it’s now up to all of us.”
O’Keefe Media Group, led by CEO James O’Keefe, is dedicated to promoting citizen journalism and equipping individuals with the tools and skills needed to contribute effectively to the democratic process.
