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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is being accused of invading the privacy of students using laptop computers powered by the Internet company’s Chrome operating system.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, depicts Google as a two-faced opportunist in a complaint filed Tuesday with the Federal Trade Commission.

Google disputes the unflattering portrait and says it isn’t doing anything wrong.

The complaint alleges that Google rigged the “Chromebook” computers in a way that enables the company to collect information about students’ Internet search requests and online video habits. The foundation says Google is dissecting the activities of students in kindergarten through 12th grade so it can improve its digital services.

The complaint contends Google’s storage and analysis of the student profile violates a “Student Privacy Pledge” that the company signed last year.

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Terrorism isn’t a new phenomenon, but the incidence and rate of terror attacks across the globe has quickly escalated over the past decade and a half. 

The use of terrorism has not been restricted to a single region on earth, a single organization, or a single ideology. The following video, created by Milan R. Vuckovic based on data from the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, shows every terrorist attack with more than 20 fatalities between December 1, 2000 and November 13, 2015.

Vuckovic notes that this video is not meant to be used as a definitive guide to every terrorist attack of the last 15 years. Instead, the video shows the general trend of increasing attacks.

The trend that Vuckovic visualizes has been corroborated by the Institute for Economics and Peace’s annual Global Terrorism Index. According to the 2015 edition of the Index, terrorism increased by 80% in 2014 compared to the year before. 

This sharp escalation in violence killed 32,658 people in 2014, compared to 18,111 in 2013, according to the Index.

The rise in terrorism since 2013 can largely be attributed to two groups: ISIS; and Boko Haram, the Nigerian jihadist group that pledged allegiance to ISIS in March of 2015. Combined, these groups were responsible for 51% of all terrorism-related deaths in 2014. 

Although terrorism has been increasing, rates of terrorism in the West are still incredibly low compared with other parts of the world.  If the September 11th attacks are excluded, CNN notes, only 0.5% of terrorism fatalities since 2000 have occurred in the West.

SEE ALSO: Here’s how Al Qaeda could also benefit from the Paris terror attacks

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NOW WATCH: The coolest phrases only people in the military use

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Although it looks like Microsoft Office 365 has been sprinting ahead of Google Apps these days, Google has been slowly creating an army of converts.

These are companies that ditched Microsoft Office and/or Office 365 for Google’s Apps for Work.

Business Insider spoke to one such director of IT, POPSugar’s Bjorn Pave who moved the company’s nearly 500 employees to Google Apps for Work in late 2013.

Pave took the job as POPSugar’s director of IT in early 2013, after a long career managing Microsoft software, including Office, Outlook and Exchange, for various other companies. 

When he arrived, POPSugar, which operates a network of news and entertainment websites, had been using a combination of old-fashioned installed Microsoft Office software, and the Office 365 cloud for email. 

Going Rogue

But the company’s LA production team had gone rogue and signed up for Google Apps. They needed real-time documents to help them manage their film shoots and other schedules. With Google Apps, multiple people could be in the same document at the same time and changes would show up on everyone’s phones as they were typed. No syncing, no attachments, no delays.

POPSugar’s cofounder husband and wife team (CEO Brian Sugar, editor and chief Lisa Sugar) wanted the whole company to switch to Google.

But Pave knew that canceling that Microsoft contract early would be “very costly,” in fines, he told us. So before he switched, the IT department did a shoot-out with Office 365 and Google Apps f0r Work. 

Google won. 

“We ran a test environment side-by-side,” he said and concluded Apps was “moving in the right direction.”

And it turned out, POPSugar could save some serious cash by switching, too.

The company had been paying Microsoft roughly $100,000 a year under an annual enterprise volume software license which, Pave says, included stuff the company neither wanted nor needed.

In comparison, Google Apps for Work is costing POPSugar about $30,000 a year. And there were other savings. For instance, employees could use Google Hangouts instead of a conference call line. 

All told, Apps for Work is saving POPSugar $110,000 a year over Microsoft Office, he says.

All told, Apps for Work is saving POPSugar $110,000 a year over Microsoft Office, he says.

Excel loyalists

The one department that wasn’t happy was the finance folks, who wanted Microsoft Excel. So POPSugar kept a few updated Office licenses for those folks.

“Our finance team stayed on Excel, and to this day still are on Excel on PCs. The entire company is a Mac shop over here, so it feels like the finance group is in a state of arrested development of some kind,” he jokes.

In the meantime, Microsoft would say that Office 365 sales are doing very well, and there’s quite a bit of evidence to support that.

POPSugar doesn’t run its own data center and keeps all of its data and apps in Amazon’s cloud, with no plans to use Microsoft’s cloud.

But it hasn’t shrugged off its relationship with Microsoft altogether, yet, he says.

He’s still using software known as Microsoft Active Directory, which tracks and assigns WiFi passwords and other IT resources to PCs, Macs and employees. He says he’s looking at alternatives to replace that, too.

It’s now been about a year and half since POPSugar made the switch and everyone is happy. The Macs still have the older paid-for copies of Office loaded on their PCs.

“But Office doesn’t get any use. You know how I know? It used to be that everyone clamored when latest version of Office came out, especially for Macs. But I haven’t gotten one request for the newer version,” he says.

The upshot is, companies simply don’t need to use Microsoft anymore if they don’t want to, he believes.

“It’s completely plausible to leave that Microsoft environment,” he says.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft Office 365 has sprinted ahead of Google Apps for Work — here’s why

SEE ALSO: 50 enterprise startups to bet your career on in 2016

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NOW WATCH: How Kobe Bryant spends his millions

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dave Roberts was welcomed back to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday as the first minority manager in franchise history.

“This is my dream job,” he said during a news conference at Dodger Stadium attended by first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, former manager Tom Lasorda, and Dodger greats Don Newcombe and Maury Wills.

Co-owner Magic Johnson handed Roberts a No. 30 jersey that he hastily buttoned up over his blue dress shirt and blue-and-white striped tie. Roberts took his new Dodger hat and bent the brim before donning it.

Roberts said he was so focused on landing the job that he didn’t realize the magnitude of being the club’s first minority manager. His father is black and his mother is Japanese.

“There’s a lot of people that paved the way for me to ultimately have this opportunity,” he said. “That isn’t taken lightly.”

Asked about the lack of minorities managing in baseball, Roberts said, “I have no idea. I’m very, very fortunate that it’s me.”

The 43-year-old former center fielder for the Dodgers was born in Okinawa, Japan, where his father was based with the Marines.

Roberts comes from the rival San Diego Padres, where he was bench coach the last two seasons.

He takes over a team that won three consecutive NL West titles under Don Mattingly, who mutually parted ways with the team last month and a week later became manager of the Miami Marlins. The Dodgers haven’t won a World Series since 1988 despite having baseball’s highest payroll last season.

“I don’t succumb to pressure,” Roberts said. “People should have expectations and goals. The goal is to be great.”

The Dodgers lost 3-2 to the New York Mets in a decisive Game 5 of the NL Division Series this year, having made the postseason in three straight years for the first time in franchise history.

“We are highly confident that he is going to play a significant role in us shaping a culture of sustained success here,” said Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations.

Friedman said the front office conducted an “exhaustive search” involving nine candidates. None of them bowled over Friedman, general manager Farhan Zaidi and the team’s ownership as much as the ebullient Roberts.

“After the first round interview it was almost like he had our answer key to the answers we would like to hear,” Friedman said. “It was incredibly impressive. To a man, everyone was blown away by who he is and what he represents. We’re thrilled with the result.”

Zaidi added, “There’s no way Dave walked out of that interview not thinking, ‘I totally nailed that’ because that’s how we all felt.”

Friedman didn’t give a direct answer when asked about speculation that Gabe Kapler was his first choice while ownership preferred Roberts. He said Kapler, another former major leaguer who is the team’s director of player development, “definitely will be” part of the club next season. Kapler played with Tampa Bay when Friedman was that club’s GM.

Roberts has already begun the process of getting to know the players, having talked with about 15 of them so far. He’s set to spend Sunday with ace Clayton Kershaw. He has yet to speak with outfielder Yasiel Puig, who sustained minor injuries in a scuffle at a Miami bar last week.

Last Sunday, Roberts received a welcoming call from Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, who turned 88 that day. Scully has indicated 2016 will be his final year in the booth.

“That was a big moment for me,” Roberts said. “It was very humbling.”

After the news conference, Roberts warmly greeted Newcombe, grasping the 89-year-old former pitching great’s head in his hands and speaking to him. Newcombe later passed out and was taken by ambulance to a hospital for further examination.

Roberts started for the Dodgers from 2002-04. Gonzalez was on opposing teams back then and remembered Roberts’ best qualities from his playing days.

“His passion, his attention to detail, his work ethic, the way he hustled and played hard every day,” Gonzalez said. “He led by example.”

Roberts played college baseball at UCLA after growing up in the San Diego area.

“This was a long process and for me to have an opportunity to put the Dodger uniform on again, it’s come full circle,” he said. “I look at it as a responsibility to kind of continue forward and do things the right way.”

Roberts is perhaps best known for his stolen base in the 2004 AL playoffs that sparked the Red Sox to an elusive World Series championship.

In the AL Championship Series, Boston was three outs from being swept by the New York Yankees. Roberts pinch-ran after Kevin Millar drew a leadoff walk from Mariano Rivera. Roberts stole second and scored on Bill Mueller’s single.

Boston won 6-4 in 12 innings, then became the first team in major league history to overcome a 3-0 deficit and win a postseason series. Roberts did not play as the Red Sox swept St. Louis for their first championship since 1918, but will always be beloved in Boston because of that one play.

Roberts retired in 2008 after playing 10 years in Cleveland, Boston, San Diego and San Francisco besides Los Angeles. He was a career .266 hitter with 243 steals.

In 2010, he survived a bout with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

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KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Human remains found at a Kansas barn are those of a juvenile, but tests to determine if the remains belong to a missing 7-year-old boy could take weeks, a coroner said Tuesday.

Police found the remains after investigating a domestic disturbance, when they were notified that the boy — whom authorities identified as A.J. — was missing. His father, Michael A. Jones, was charged Monday with child abuse, aggravated battery and aggravated assault with a firearm and is being held on $10 million bond.

No charges have been filed in connection with the child’s disappearance or in connection with the discovery of the human remains.

Wyandotte County Coroner Dr. Alan Hancock said the remains belong to a juvenile, and they have been sent to a forensic anthropologist to confirm the approximate age and race of the child. Hancock said he hopes to further identify the child through DNA testing, but that the total process would take several weeks.

It was not clear how long the remains had been there when they were discovered last week.

“You can tell it’s been quite a while,” Hancock said.

It was unclear if Jones has a lawyer. His father, Jerome Jones of Baltimore, says his son would never hurt a child. Jones is being held in the Wyandotte County Detention Center, where officials said Tuesday he could not speak with a reporter.

The abuse and battery charges are related to an alleged attack on Jones’ wife, Heather Jones. Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome A. Gorman said Monday that the discovery of human remains launched a “much larger investigation.”

Gorman said the child abuse charge, described as “torturing or cruelly beating,” indicates the boy was abused between May 1 and Sept. 28. That charge is “the tip of the iceberg” in the case involving the boy, Gorman said.

He declined to address a media report that the remains had been fed to pigs but said investigators described the scene “as one of the worst things that they have ever seen.”

Six girls from age 10 to less than 2 were taken from the Jones home and are in state custody. They are healthy and safe and will be under court jurisdiction “for some time,” Gorman said. Investigators are trying to determine the parents of each child. Gorman said Heather Jones was not the mother of the child investigators are trying to locate.

The children were home-schooled and were not enrolled in any local schools. Ann Bush, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Education, said Michael Jones and his wife registered to home-school their children on July 17, 2012. The official name they used was the Jones Academy.

The state refers to such home-schooling operations as a non-accredited private school. After the registration via an online form, the state has no other connection to the school. Bush said home-schoolers do not have to meet any other state requirements.

Chris Schneider, an assistant district attorney, said Tuesday he couldn’t comment at length because the investigation is still going on. He said Jones’ next court appearance is Dec. 8.

Jerome Jones, 68, of Baltimore, said by telephone Tuesday that he is Michael Jones’ father and that his son “couldn’t do something like that.” He said he last saw his son about a year ago.

“Mike loved kids. Always loved kids,” Jerome Jones said. “He was a caring and outstanding person. He loved kids. Has a lot of kids.”

He said a niece of his visited Michael Jones about a month ago and told him all was well. He also said Heather Jones spoke to his niece about wanting to get some pigs, but that his niece never saw them on the property.

“Mike is not the type of person that would do …what’s he’s accused of doing,” Jerome Jones said.

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Associated Press reporters Margaret Stafford and Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Internal Revenue Service criminal investigators will not continue to use cellphone-tracking technology without first seeking a warrant, the IRS commissioner told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday.

Commissioner John Koskinen said his agency is drafting a policy to abide by the Justice Department’s guidance on using the technology, which simulates cellphone towers to trick nearby phones into revealing their locations. The guidance requires a warrant — which requires probable cause and a judge’s signature —except in emergencies or exceptional circumstances.

Koskinen disclosed the new policy in a letter sent Nov. 25 letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

The IRS said it has used its one cell-site simulator to track 37 cellular devices as part of 11 federal investigations since 2011. The technology was also loaned out on four non-IRS investigations, including a Drug Enforcement Administration case and three state cases. Koskinen said the device is used only by trained law enforcement agents for criminal investigations and won’t be used again until the new policy is in place.

The agency started the process of buying a second cell-site simulator in July but hasn’t yet received it. The letter was sent in response to question Wyden asked during a Finance Committee hearing last month.

Wyden and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, have introduced a bill requiring a warrant for government tracking of Americans’ electronic data, which includes the cell tower simulators. Wyden said in a statement that the IRS efforts were “reasonable steps to protect due process.”

“The IRS has an important role to play in combating money laundering, drug trafficking, and international tax dodging, but tax enforcement and protection of personal privacy must not be mutually exclusive,” he said.

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Follow Tami Abdollah on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/latams .

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Mark Zuckerberg’s baby announcement may be the first to require regulatory oversight.

In a lengthy note posted to Facebook on Tuesday, Zuckerberg announced the birth of his daughter Max and his ambitious plan of “advancing human potential” that will be fueled by most of his stake in the company.

In his note, Zuckerberg said he and wife Priscilla Chan would give “99% of our Facebook shares — currently about $45 billion — during our lives to advance” the mission of a new entity called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. That passage potentially involves 424 million shares of Facebook stock.

Exactly what the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative would do besides initially focusing on “personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities” isn’t yet known, but investors at least have a sense of what’s happening to the Facebook CEO’s stock.

The company told the SEC that Zuckerberg will sell or gift “no more than $1 billion of Facebook stock each year for the next three years.” He also plans to retain his majority voting position “for the foreseeable future.”

Here’s the full 8-K filing with the SEC:

“On December 1, 2015, our Founder, Chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that, during his lifetime, he will gift or otherwise direct substantially all of his shares of Facebook stock, or the net after-tax proceeds from sales of such shares, to further the mission of advancing human potential and promoting equality by means of philanthropic, public advocacy, and other activities for the public good. 

For this purpose, Mr. Zuckerberg has established a new entity, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LLC, and he will control the voting and disposition of any shares held by such entity. He has informed us that he plans to sell or gift no more than $1 billion of Facebook stock each year for the next three years and that he intends to retain his majority voting position in our stock for the foreseeable future.

Any sale of shares by Mr. Zuckerberg will be conducted pursuant to a trading plan established pursuant to Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Sales and gifts of shares by Mr. Zuckerberg will be disclosed publicly in accordance with the rules established by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under Section 16 of the Exchange Act. As of the date of this filing, Mr. Zuckerberg beneficially owns approximately 4 million shares of Class A common stock and approximately 419 million shares of Class B common stock.”

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NOW WATCH: There’s a hidden map in your iPhone of everywhere you’ve been

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Following the downing of a Russian warplane last week by Turkey, Russia has shown no signs of letting up on its military operations near the Turkish-Syrian border.

Prior to the incident, Moscow ignored calls by Ankara to put an “immediate end” to its airstrikes on Turkmen rebel brigades operating along the border.

The tension culminated in Turkey’s decision to down the Su-24 fighter jet, which had been bombing units of Liwa Jabal al-Turkman — an ethnic Turkish group backed by Turkey — at the time it was downed.

Russia insisted the plane had been bombing “terrorists” in the area.

Burned by the incident, Russia deployed an advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system to the coastal province of Latakia and ordered that all Russian Su-24s be equipped with air-to-air missiles. Russian warplanes have continued pounding Turkmen rebels — the Turkish aid convoys along the border that supply them — with airstrikes.

These provocative moves are evidently meant as a message to deter Turkish jets from shooting down Russian planes in the future. But Russia has financial and geopolitical interests in keeping its retaliation asymmetrical — specifically, by bombing Turkish-backed rebel groups in Syria while refraining from engaging with Turkey in a military confrontation directly.

Asymmetrical or not, Turkey could feasibly perceive Russia’s military build-up along the Turkish-Syrian border as a serious threat and invoke its most valuable trump card: the Turkish Straits. 

The straits, which consist of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosphorus, are a series of waterways in Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea — and the Mediterranean — to the Black Sea.

Turkey, which has full control over the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus under the 1936 Montreux Convention, acts as the the straits’ custodian and regulates the passage of naval ships belonging to Black Sea states.

Russia currently depends on the unrestricted access to the straits afforded it under the Montreux Convention. Through the straits, it sends supplies to Syria from its Novorossiysk naval base in the Black Sea to Russian ports in Tartus and Latakia.

Historically, Russian ships have enjoyed unfettered access to the Mediterranean via the straits. Under Montreux, however, Turkey may legally block Russian military vessels from passing through the straits under two conditions: if it is at war with Russia, or if it considers itself to be “threatened with imminent danger of war.”

As Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council told Business Insider on Tuesday, it remains unlikely that Turkey would go as far as to close the straits — even in these tense times. 

“I think this scenario would only kick in a World War II type situation,” Stein said in an email. “Turkey will keep the straits open per the convention and its historical practice.”

But against the backdrop of Russia’s escalating military presence along the Turkey’s southern border is Ankara’s legal authority, under Article 21 of Montreux, to cut off one of Russia’s most vital links to Syria if it feels threatened with war.

Turkey has already reportedly signaled it is willing to take some steps of retaliation with the straits. Leonid Bershidsky, a Bloomberg View columnist, reported on Tuesday that Turkey is “making Russian cargo ships wait for hours before they’re allowed to pass through the Bosphorus.”

That Russia has continued to target Turkmen villages and rebel brigades along the Turkish-Syrian border, despite Turkey’s demands that it stop, would theoretically be enough for Turkey to invoke Article 21.

“It was the targeting of these Turkmen groups, villages, and convoys that led to Turkey summoning the Russian ambassador and demanding a halt to the strikes,” The Soufan Group noted on Monday. “Less than a week after, Turkey shot down the Russian jet.”

Though Russia wants to weaken the Turkmen rebels so that they do not return to central Asia and strike Russia (and so they are less capable of fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces), Erdogan is equally if not more invested in the continued well-being of the Syrian Turkmen, who are ethnically Turkish.

“Erdogan’s determination to create a pan-Turkic sphere of influence is matched by Russia’s to target Syrian Turkmen,” the group added. “It is difficult to overstate how much this issue resonates with Turkey’s President Erdogan and his government.”

It is also difficult to overstate how important the Turkish straits are to Russia’s continued military campaign in Syria.

“The so called Syrian Express deployments of Russian Ropucha and Alligator class landing ships and auxiliaries are vitally important to keep Russian troops inside Syria supplied,” Cem Devrim Yaylalı, a Turkish naval analyst, wrote on his blog over the weekend.

“If Russia cannot send its ships through the Turkish Straits for any reason, the Russian soldiers deployed in Syria may find themselves in a very similar position of General Paulus’ Army.”

General Paulus was a Nazi commander in World War II who led Germany’s drive on Stalingrad beginning in 1942. He and his troops were ultimately forced to surrender after their assistance from Germany’s Sixth Army was cut off by strong Soviet Army formations. 

The Germans’ defeat at Stalingrad is said to have marked a turning point in the war, leading to the Allies’ victory in 1945.

Yaylalı implied that Russia and Russian-backed troops in Syria could suffer the same fate if Russian naval ships are blocked from reaching the eastern Mediterranean and can’t re-supply their troops. Given how much pro-regime elements have benefited from Russian weapons and supplies since the war erupted in 2011, it is not an unreasonable prediction.

Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted how keeping its access to the straits — and to Syria — and avoiding a larger-scale conflict with NATO has likely factored in to Russia’s decision to keep its retaliation limited and asymmetrical.

“Putin’s options are limited,” Zilberman said in an email, which is why he is “taking action on the margins/asymmetrically.”

“That being said … the Russian-Turkish relationship is a tinderbox,” he added. “The deterioration in the relationship is a loss for both Moscow and Ankara. The egos of Putin and Erdogan may spin any future incident beyond control.”

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NOW WATCH: Donald Trump learned his aggressive legal style from ‘the king of intimidation,’ Roy Cohn

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The way viewers are watching TV is rapidly evolving.  

Every year, more viewers are ditching their expensive pay-TV subscriptions and opting instead for subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video, as well as premium services from HBO and Showtime. Rising demand for SVOD services, which allow viewers to stream the programming they want anywhere, has led many to question what the future of video entertainment looks like — and whether traditional pay-TV has a place. 

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we examine how the growth of SVOD services is coming at the expense of the pay-TV industry. We analyze the state of the pay-TV industry and map out which demographics are more likely to stop buying traditional TV packages. We also discuss the user base, original content offerings, and subscription models of the major subscription streaming services available today, including Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video. Finally, we look at how traditional pay-TV companies and premium channels like HBO and Showtime are addressing the shift to digital viewing, as well as the implications of their response for advertisers. 

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Those abandoning pay-TV packages fall into three main groups: cord-nevers, cord-cutters, and cord-shavers. Whereas video streaming services have found favor with younger viewers in particular, an increasing portion of older subscribers also are leaving behind their pay-TV packages. Still, younger viewers watch four times as much video content online than older viewers. 
• Netflix is the largest SVOD service and will continue to dominate the industry with an impressive original content lineup and aggressive expansion plans. 
• Amazon is trying to compete with Netflix by investing significant resources in original content.
• Hulu is the third-largest SVOD service, but the only one to offer ad-supported membership tiers. Hulu has been the slowest to roll out original and exclusive content, but it has inked numerous deals in the past year to boost its content library. 
• Pay-TV companies are responding to the rise of SVOD services by offering subscribers “skinny bundles” and their own streaming services.

In full, the report:

• Illustrates the fall of the traditional TV package and the rise of broadband only cable subscriptions. 
• Lays out the different types of viewers that are leaving behind pay-TV: cord-cutters, cord-shavers, and cord-nevers.  
• Examines the leading SVOD services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and premium channel offerings from HBO and Showtime. 
• Explains the various ways that pay-TV companies are responding to the rise of SVOD services, notably skinny bundles and standalone streaming services.
• Considers what the migration to SVOD services means to marketers.  

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
2. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you’ll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A cast member of the VH1 reality show “Love & Hip Hop” was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in federal prison for drug trafficking.

Mendeecees Harris, 37, also agreed to forfeit the $171,000 he made from the television show, along with a 2011 Audi R8 sports car worth $111,000.

Harris pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to distribute and possess heroin and cocaine. Prosecutors said the 37-year-old New York City resident was involved in drug trafficking from 2005 until 2012, including from 2006 to 2008 when he was part of an operation that distributed drugs in the upstate city of Rochester, where he was prosecuted.

The sentence was the lowest possible term under a plea agreement that included a maximum prison sentence of just over 10 years.

Harris’ attorney said the judge recognized the work Harris has been doing since his arrest to deter young people from crime.

“The possibility of a jail sentence has been well known in the community,” attorney Donald Thompson said by phone after the sentencing, “and he’s talked about that with kids who are coming up in difficult situations and have to make life choices, whether it’s a good idea to make a whole lot of money selling drugs or make less money and not have to be looking over your shoulder.”

Harris’ wedding to fellow “Love & Hip Hop” cast member Yandy Smith was televised live on Memorial Day, May 25.

In a tweet posted on the VH1 website, Smith thanked followers for their support.

“We finally have closure and are prepared and ready for all the future holds,” she wrote.

Harris is expected to begin his prison sentence in four to six weeks.

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