logo
Claudette Stefanian

Claudette Stefanian

CBS News30-04-2025
Email Claudette
Claudette Stefanian joins CBS13 as a general assignment reporter.
Stefanian has worked as a television news reporter up and down the state of California for the past several years and spent the last three years working as a reporter and fill-in anchor at FOX40 in Sacramento.
Before that, she joined NBC7 in San Diego as a reporter just as the pandemic was taking the world by storm.
Stefanian had a brief stop in Fresno and has also reported in Bakersfield. While in Bakersfield, she was frequently pulled to cover breaking news in California as a breaking news correspondent, going live every few minutes for different sister stations across the country. She has done wall-to-wall coverage on the Carr Fire and covered the tragic mass shooting at Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks.
Stefanian is proud of her Armenian heritage and has spent most of her life in California.
She attended the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated with a degree in rhetoric. She also attended the University of Southern California, receiving a master's degree in journalism.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Kash Patel's country singer girlfriend fends off ‘disheartening' conspiracy theories she's honeypotting the FBI boss
Kash Patel's country singer girlfriend fends off ‘disheartening' conspiracy theories she's honeypotting the FBI boss

New York Post

time31-07-2025

  • New York Post

Kash Patel's country singer girlfriend fends off ‘disheartening' conspiracy theories she's honeypotting the FBI boss

FBI director Kash Patel's girlfriend Alexis Wilkins has been forced to fend off the 'incredibly disheartening' conspiracy theories that she is honeypotting the bureau's head honcho for a foreign government. The 26-year-old country artist said the skeptics are contorting her backstory, even as she acknowledged she can 'understand' it. 'I think people see certain pieces and I get it,' Wilkins told the 'Megyn Kelly Show' on Wednesday. Advertisement 'They want to connect things, they want to justify, some of the pain that they've been through watching the last four years, and there's pieces of this that, you know, I can understand,' she continued. 'I think that they've taken just these pieces of evidence that you laid out and tie them together in all of the wrong ways.' 4 FBI director Kash Patel's girlfriend Alexis Wilkins denied being a spy for a foreign government. Getty Images Advertisement 4 Alexis Wilkins expressed her frustrations at dealing with conspiracy theories about her relationship with FBI Director Kash Patel. The Megyn Kelly Show / YouTube Conspiracy theories about Wilkins exploded on the internet after the Justice Department and FBI's July 6 memo about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which concluded that the evidence suggests Epstein killed himself in prison and did not keep an 'incriminating client list.' Some of the trolls speculated that the Arkansas-raised singer was a Mossad agent intended to compromise Patel, 45, and at least one of them misidentified her as Jewish. Advertisement One thread used to make that conspiratorial leap is Wilkins' work for PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that seeks to educate the public on key political issues. The CEO of PragerU, Marissa Streit, previously served in the Israeli army. Wilkins is Armenian and Christian and does not appear to have any known ties to Israel. 4 Alexis Wilkins began dating FBI Director Kash Patel years before he began leading the bureau. Getty Images Advertisement When Kelly asked point-blank whether she was a spy for any foreign government, Wilkins replied, 'Definitely not, that is a firm no on that front.' Earlier this month, the country singer ripped into the online conspiracy theorists, raging that they are 'farming' for attention 'because their engagement dried up after Trump's win.' 'It's disappointing to see people with no real contribution to political discourse spin ridiculous conspiracy theories out of thin air,' Wilkins bemoaned in an X post. 'These accusations are obviously insanely ridiculous.' Patel and Wilkins met at a friend's event in Nashville in 2022 and began dating several months later in early 2023. 'We just happened to meet,' Wilkins recounted, noting that the 19-year age gap she has with him always felt irrelevant. 'I have always liked [him], when I met him, I just liked that he was so, so honest,' Wilkins gushed. 'He's exactly who he is all the time. His character is incredible. His values are incredible. 'We both are very patriotic. So obviously there are things there that we definitely agree on, but he's just the most honest, you know, most integrity I've really experienced in a person, he's fantastic.' Advertisement The country singer, who hosts a Rumble show, acknowledged there's 'not enough information out there about me to glean a real conclusion on all of this kind of vigilante research.' She mused that those gaps have given room for internet trolls to fill with conspiracy theories, which she lamented as 'incredibly disheartening.' Patel has been 'very frustrated' and 'unhappy' with the hate and suspicion directed her way over the Epstein drama, Wilkins said. 4 Alexis Wilkins revealed that FBI Director Kash Patel is frustrated that she's taking heat. Getty Images Advertisement She also underscored that Patel's work on the Epstein drama is 'limited to the government side' and that she has 'no awareness besides what everyone else is seeing.' 'If people stop calling me a spy, absolutely,' she replied when asked if she wants to see more Epstein files released.

Jealous ex-wife allegedly spied on former husband, new family inside home for over 700 hours by tapping into Ring cameras: report
Jealous ex-wife allegedly spied on former husband, new family inside home for over 700 hours by tapping into Ring cameras: report

New York Post

time10-07-2025

  • New York Post

Jealous ex-wife allegedly spied on former husband, new family inside home for over 700 hours by tapping into Ring cameras: report

An envious ex-wife allegedly spied on her former husband and his new family by tapping into their home security system — racking up over 700 hours of watched footage. Yantzy Villefranche and his fiancée, Acacia Young, accused Villefranche's ex-wife of spying on them through the indoor Ring cameras they set up because one of their children began sleepwalking, according to court records and NBC San Diego. 'There's no way to describe how violated you feel,' Young told the outlet. 'It feels like someone touched me. It feels like I found somebody in my house, physically in my house. Like she had been in my house for months, and we had no idea.' Advertisement 4 Acacia Young speaks out after allegedly finding out her fiancé's ex-wife had been spying on her family inside their home. NBC 7 The cameras were set up inside the mixed family's home in the San Diego neighborhood of Rancho Peñasquitos. Young became skeptical of the newly installed technology in May when she noticed the camera's blue light, indicating recording and live view mode being on when she says it shouldn't have been. Advertisement 'I just started to feel kinda crazy,' Young said. 'Like what the hell is going on?' Young claims it didn't take long for her suspicions to be confirmed. The family was sitting together in the living room when a female's voice came over one of the camera's speakers. 'It was his ex-wife's voice — it was her voice,' Young told NBC San Diego. 'And I looked up and the blue light was on and the camera was rolling.' Advertisement 4 Young recorded on one of the cameras inside her San Diego home on May 14, 2025. NBC 7 Young pulled down the cameras and the couple soon discovered Villefranche's ex-wife's name was attached to their Ring account. The Ring cameras were connected to several Amazon devices that listed the ex-wife's name and the couple didn't own, according to NBC San Diego. Villefranche had owned the cameras when he was still married to his ex-wife and she had access to the cameras at the time. Advertisement He had believed he had removed her from the devices during their divorce. 4 Yantzy Villefranche and Acacia Young recorded on the Ring Camera inside their home. NBC 7 Villefranche sent a cease-and-desist letter to his ex-wife along with a restraining order aimed at protecting him, Young and their three children. The ex-wife had allegedly recorded hundreds of clips, including some featuring Young breastfeeding the couple's newborn, videos featuring partially undressed and nude children and Villefranche's 10-year-old stepson in 'vulnerable settings,' according to the restraining order viewed by the local outlet. 'Ring device logs show that she accessed my account … and viewed video footage for approximately 44,640 minutes … over the span of two months,' Villefranche wrote in a restraining order filed in May. Young accused the woman of recording up to 12 hours of footage a day for several weeks. She says she recognized Villefranche's ex-wife's voice in at least 13 clips recorded and saved to the account. 4 Young and her newborn inside their home after allegedly being spied on. NBC 7 Advertisement Some of the moments the ex-wife allegedly eavesdropped on were private, sensitive conversations the couple had discussing finances, Social Security numbers and bank account information, the outlet reported. 'She watched the most intimate things,' Young said. 'You don't want your fiancé's ex-wife watching these moments, like us living our lives together. 'It doesn't matter if you're breaking in behind a screen. You broke into our home,' she added. Advertisement Two restraining orders filed against the ex-wife have been dismissed in court, according to court records viewed by The Post. San Diego Police investigated the claims made by Young and Villefranche, transferring the case to the San Diego District Attorney's Office. Police recommended several charges that the ex-wife could face including eavesdropping, wiretapping and stalking, the outlet reported. Criminal charges have not been filed as of Wednesday night.

Delta plane diverted when unruly passenger undresses mid-flight
Delta plane diverted when unruly passenger undresses mid-flight

Yahoo

time08-07-2025

  • Yahoo

Delta plane diverted when unruly passenger undresses mid-flight

A Delta flight traveling from Atlanta to San Diego made an unplanned landing in Texas after a passenger began disrobing and had to be restrained. One witness on the flight told San Diego's NBC 7 she suspects drugs or alcohol may have been a factor in Saturday's incident. 'He kept saying 'I wanna go home, I wanna go home, I wanna see my family,'' according to traveler Rodelyn Kupfersmid. Passengers reportedly spent 30 minutes trying to calm the the unidentified man as he took off his shirt while screaming. The flight crew then announced that DL731 was being diverted to Dallas-Fort Worth roughly two hours into the trip. Authorities reportedly removed the man from the aircraft without incident once the plane landed. The flight continued to California after a 90-minute delay and safely reached its destination. 'Delta has zero tolerance for unruly behavior as safety for our customers and crew always comes first,' a Delta representative said in a statement to the Daily News. 'We thank our customers for their patience, and we apologize for the delay in their travels.' It's unclear if any charges have been filed against the disruptive passenger.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store