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U.S singer, R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for using his status to run a scheme to sexually abuse children and women.
In September, a jury in New York convicted the R&B artist, 55, of racketeering and sex trafficking crimes.
The Chicago native – whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly – was also fined $100,000 (£82,525).
He currently faces separate criminal charges in three other cases.

Kelly – known for hit songs like I Believe I Can Fly and Ignition – was found to have used his celebrity status and sphere of influence to lure women and children into sexual abuse over two decades.
At his sentencing on Wednesday, US District Judge Ann Donnelly said the celebrity had used sex as a weapon, forcing his victims to do unspeakable things and saddling them with incurable diseases.
The sentence, she said, would act as a deterrent from committing similar crimes in the future.

Jurors at Kelly’s six-week trial in Brooklyn heard how he trafficked women between different US states, assisted by managers, security guards and other members of his entourage.
The court also heard how Kelly had illegally obtained paperwork to marry singer Aaliyah when she was 15 in 1994, seven years before the singer died in a plane crash.

The certificate, leaked at the time, listed Aaliyah’s age as 18. The marriage was annulled months later.
Federal prosecutors had recommended that Kelly be sentenced to more than 25 years in prison, given the seriousness of his crimes and “the need to protect the public from further crimes”.

But his lawyers called for a sentence of 10 years – the mandatory minimum for his conviction – or less.
They portrayed Kelly as growing up poor in a household rife with domestic violence and suffering sexual abuse from a young age.
Credit: BBC News

About 22 people were found dead in a South African nightclub, early Sunday morning, South Africa’s Daily Dispatch is reporting.
An official, however, told another South African medium that 17 bodies were found.

According to Daily Dispatch, emergency services were called in the early hours of Sunday to the Enyobeni Tavern in Scenery Park, on the edge of East London, Eastern Cape province, where they witnessed “bodies lying bizarrely as if they collapsed to the floor suddenly while dancing or in the middle of a conversation, some seemingly in the social circles they were engaging with. Other bodies are slumped across chairs and lying over tables.”

However, Eastern Cape police spokesperson Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana told the Newsroom Afrika rolling news channel that “The SAPS confirms that about 17 children were found dead inside a local tavern in Scenery Park, in the area of East London.

“We received this report in the early hours of Sunday. The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation as we speak,” he told Newsroom Afrika, adding that “we do not want to make any speculations at this stage. Our investigation is continuing.”

According to the Daily Dispatch, initial speculation was that the patrons were either exposed to some form of poison or an incident resulted in a large number being killed in a stampede, but with a lack of any visible injuries and the positioning of the bodies, commentators have suggested that it could not have been a stampede.

News24, another South African news service, reports the Eastern Cape Department of Health as saying the bodies have been taken to various state mortuaries, and post-mortem examinations would get underway “as soon as possible”.

Families who have their wards missing were asked to go to the Woodbrook mortuary to confirm and identify if their wards were part of the incident.
The MEC for Community of Safety in the Eastern Cape, Weziwe Gxothiwe, requested that families assist in identifying those killed.