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A federal judge Wednesday sentenced "Smallville" actress Allison Mack to three years in prison for her role in a purported self-help group that prosecutors say doubled as a secret sex cult. Mack pleaded guilty in 2019 to various crimes, including extortion and forced labor, when she was a high-ranking member of NXIVM, the upstate New York group led by Keith Raniere, who is now serving a 120-year prison sentence.

Clare W. Bronfman, an heiress of the Seagram Company business empire, allegedly implanted a "key logger" virus on the computer of her late father, Edgar M. Bronfman Sr., so officials with the NXIVM corporation could secretly monitor his emails, including his exchanges with world leaders and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to court records. The extraordinary allegations are attributed to Kristen M. Keeffe, who was part of the inner circle that ran NXIVM, a "human development" organization that has been described by one expert as an "extreme cult." The accusations by Keeffe are contained in a transcript of a...

Smallville actress Allison Mack will plead guilty to charges related to her involvement with a controversial self-help group described as having a secret society of “masters” and sexually subservient “slaves” within it, PEOPLE confirms. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York tells PEOPLE that Mack was scheduled to appear in court at 1130 a.m. to plead guilty. The spokesman says she is pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy and racketeering. Prosecutors have accused her of recruiting sex slaves for Keith Raniere, who co-founded the controversial self-help group Nxivm and its subgroup, DOS, described as...

“Coding is easy!” “Anyone can learn to code!” “Everyone should learn to code!” Hogwash. Learning to code is exceptionally difficult. It’s true that it has never been easier to attempt to learn to code, but trying and doing are two completely different things. As someone with virtually no computer science or mathematics background, diving into the world of programming has been an eye opening experience. If you haven’t studied computer science already, I guarantee that you are underestimating just how vast the domain actually is. I’m not saying this to discourage anyone interested in learning to code, (quite the opposite!)...

Why is the term "self-help" so often used in a derogatory manner in mainstream media? Writing in the opinion journal Aeon, journalist and social critic Elizabeth Svoboda recently sized up today’s self-help field and concluded that some cognitively based self-help books are effective – and well worth defending -- whereas New Age and positive-thinking books are the product of "woo-peddlers" who cheapen the field. I stand with the "woo peddlers." Svoboda's piece demonstrates two assumptions that make it difficult to intelligently discuss self-help therapeutics in much of today’s media. First, the author groups together two different kinds of books: metaphysical...

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of fighters who were suspected of planning a fresh attack, the residents and a security official said. Locals in Nigeria's northern states have been forming vigilante groups in various areas to resist the armed group which has held more than 270 schoolgirls captive since last month. In Kalabalge, a village about 250km from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, residents said they were taking matters into their own hands because the Nigerian military was perceived as not doing enough to stem Boko Haram attacks. On...

On the evening of Good Friday, a man on the run from a death sentence wakes up in a dark forest, lost, terrified and besieged by wild animals. He spends an infernal Easter week hiking through a dismal cave, climbing up a grueling mountain, and taking what you might call the long way home. It all works out for him, though. The traveler returns from his ordeal a better man, determined to help others learn from his experience. He writes a book about his to-hell-and-back trek, and it's an instant best-seller, making him beloved and famous. For 700 years, that...

From the days of Ben Franklin and his chart-obsessed “Autobiography,” the American self has been a perpetual work in progress. (Franklin recommended keeping careful records of one’s observance of such virtues as industry, temperance and cleanliness.) For the bemused, anxious and thoughtful writer Jessica Lamb-Shapiro, however, this mania has been especially pervasive. Her father, a child psychologist, has been writing self-help books for parents and children since before she was born, and even started a mail-order catalog of therapeutic toys and games, most of which he tested on her. Here’s Lamb-Shapiro’s recollection of the first time he coaxed his little...

They were the ones who needed help. A Brooklyn couple famous for hosting a self-help radio show committed suicide by suffocating themselves with plastic bags in Park Slope, police sources and witnesses said. Psychotherapist Lynne Rosen, 46, and her motivational speaker husband John Littig, 48—who appeared on WBAI-FM’s “The Pursuit of Happiness”—were found dead in the living room of their President Street and Eighth Avenue apartment, sources said. …

Now celebrating 52 years of helping people on the radio! For over half a century Roy Masters has been helping people overcome their most difficult problems. As the nation’s first and longest running radio counselor, Roy Masters has advised callers with a unique ability to hear inner problems, heal fears and sexual stresses, and help people take charge of their own lives. Great show and exactly what the world needs! Here is a radio show stations page... http://www.fhu.com/radiostations.html

Richard Cornuelle coined the term “independent sector,” yet when he died on April 26, he was largely forgotten by that very sector. Better evidence of what’s wrong with the sector — and America in general – is hard to find. Cornuelle believed that ordinary people in ordinary places should have a large scope for action, whether they are raising their families, building their businesses, running local governments, or coming to the aid of their neighbors. The threat to such local independence comes from the “scientific,” centralized bureaucracies that from mid-twentieth century onward have grown ever more powerful – in government,...

Everyone, at one point or another will encounter a person who, no matter what the situation, thinks he knows best. It may be a boss or even a family member. This is someone who believes that their point of view is the only valid one and their prejudiced outlook seems unassailable. For today’s exercise, let’s say that this difficult person is your President. Though you may instinctively wish to ignore this person to avoid the negative reaction they bring out in you, sometimes it just isn’t possible. When the difficult person in your life is the leader of the free...

I have discovered the ultimate weapon against any TSA screener who wants to cop a cheap feel as I fly during the Thanksgiving holiday. The weapon is Kielbasa. It's Aunt Blogdona’s annual Thanksgiving treat of kielbasa and sautéed onion borsch. One bowl of this stuff in an untrained bowel and your gut produces enough gas to drive the family car home from Hamtramck, Michigan to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If the EPA ever smelled this stuff, everyone’s arse would have to be pasted with federally-mandated warning stickers. If a lawyer from the EU ever smelled it in a closed room, Auntie...

JOINT SECURITY STATION CHILAT, Iraq, Nov. 18, 2009 – Soldiers here have taken the adage “Improve your foxhole” to heart as they strive to improve this small security station in southern Iraq. Army Spc. Damon Krach builds a set of shelves for a tent at Joint Security Station Chilat, Iraq, Oct. 5, 2009. U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Nathan McEwen  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The station’s remote location means soldiers of C Troop, 2nd Squadron, 13th Cavalry Regiment, often have to rely on themselves to do the improvements. This involves many different types of manual labor, such...

The young woman stood naked in her downtown office building, swaying next to an open window. Her final words were sudden and calm: ''I know I am going to jump.'' Rebekah Lawrence -- so modest and shy she often blushed around others -- burst into song and leaped out the window. Lawrence died that day. But her mind had begun to show cracks a few days before, as she finished an intense self-help seminar called The Turning Point. The course had pledged to change her life. Instead, some say, it led to her death. Lawrence's death was not the first...

<p>HOUSTON — Except for her sunglasses and cell phone, the woman in the white cap and long flowing skirt looked like a pioneer from another era as she swung a hammer to secure barbed wire to a fence post.</p> <p>She is among the Amish volunteers who have traveled to the Gulf Coast to rebuild hundreds of miles of fence torn down by Hurricane Ike on Texas cattle ranches.</p>

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Blame-Bush buffoonery Tim Schieferecke Hi, my name is Tim Schieferecke and I'm a native western Kansas farmboy. No, I don't know anyone from Greensburg as I'm from northwest Kansas, but I do know what rural folks from anywhere in Kansas are like. Apparently my current leftist Governor Kathleen Sebelius doesn't though, nor does she comprehend the availability of heavy equipment assets. It was hard for me to hold my lunch down when I heard her craft an anti-Bush spin on the disaster that befell the good people of Greensburg. Slow recovery? This statement is disingenuous at best but in local...

Doesn't it seems like it was a lot longer than two years ago when President Bush, fresh off his 2004 victory, said to a roaring crowd of supporters: "I have earned political capital and I intend to spend it"? Now it's the same story every day--The president's popularity "reaches another all time low" according to a survey by ZogbyGallupRasmussenFieldWSJMSNBCFoxABC. Then, at the next press briefing, the White House spokesman dismisses it as irrelevant. Polls aren't everything but obviously the Bush Administration has to stop the bleeding. The left is energized, the "mainstream" press smells blood in the water, and the...

When two halves don't make a wholeA Christian Science perspective on daily lifeIt was going to be the perfect visit. My girlfriend and I curled up on either end of our living room sofa, each with a cup of tea, in anticipation of some needed girl talk. We'd both recently come through some difficult times. Intuitively we knew that the thread of love we felt for each other was perfect for mending some of our ragged edges. As we started talking, I was taken aback by a flood of tears, regrets, and fear of the future, which poured out of...