Man charged after allegedly kidnapping and raping door-to-door saleswoman

By CNN
August 2, 2026 | 4:13 PM

Click here for updates on this story

EVERETT, Massachusetts (WBZ) — A 67-year-old man has been charged after allegedly kidnapping and raping a door-to-door saleswoman in Everett, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office.

The woman had allegedly knocked on the door of the man’s home on Fremont Avenue to sell him a phone plan, the DA said. The man threatened the woman with several weapons before “holding her against her will in his home and sexually assaulting her.”

The man was identified as Everett resident James Mugford. He has been charged with aggravated rape, kidnapping in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a woman, and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

He was arraigned in Malden District Court on July 23 and ordered to be held without bail after being deemed dangerous by a judge. He will return to court on August 28.

Neighbors said that Mugford was well known in the neighborhood and frequently painted lawn signs for residents. Ellen Summers said she watched the police arrive at Mugford’s house from her kitchen.

“I can’t believe it happened,” Ellen’s husband Bill said.

Everett, Massachusetts is around 4 miles from the heart of Boston.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

SpaceX plans to build the ‘biggest launch site on Earth’ for $100 billion in Louisiana

By CNN
August 26, 2026 | 12:46 AM

(CNN) — SpaceX on Tuesday unveiled plans to construct a massive, $100 billion spaceport in Louisiana, where the company plans to launch its gargantuan Starship rocket thousands of times per year.Construction of the spaceport is expected to begin by the end of next year near the southern coast of Louisiana’s Vermilion Parish, with the first launch targeted as soon as 2029, according to an economic development website.Such a development would mark a dramatic shift for SpaceX and the US rocket industry — making Louisiana, which has never before hosted an orbital launch, perhaps the busiest launch hub on the planet.The new SpaceX campus will be dubbed “Starbase, Louisiana” — borrowing the name of SpaceX’s recently incorporated company town in South Texas. Starbase, Texas, is the current home to Starship’s testing and development facilities and the spot from which 13 test flights have launched to varying degrees of success.The Louisiana location, however, would host flights of the Starship rocket once its operational, having proven it can safely haul cargo to orbit. SpaceX also plans to land and recover every piece of its Starship rockets — including the upper spacecraft, which has never been done before — in order to allow the rockets to be rapidly reused and drive down the cost of each launch.That means Louisiana would not only become a hub for launches, but it would become home to numerous towers — standing hundreds of feet tall — that would be used to recapture rockets and spacecraft as they return from space.“Starbase Louisiana will ultimately have over a dozen launch towers, enabling more than 30 Starship flights per day and making it the biggest launch site on Earth!” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on his social media platform, X, on Tuesday.During an announcement event in Louisiana Tuesday, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, also described the project as “a self-sustaining spaceport with its own propellant production, power generation, deep water shipping capabilities, vehicle processing facilities, and probably an airport.”Louisiana’s ‘worst kept secret’SpaceX had been quietly working on its spaceport plans alongside Louisiana elected officials for months. Company leaders have traveled to the state to scope out potential locations, prompting one local news outlet to refer to the project as the state’s “worst kept secret.”State governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, billed the project as an offer of “a permanent future and lasting prosperity.”“For generations, industries came to Louisiana not to build lasting prosperity, but to extract wealth,” Landry said. “Too often, Louisiana was left with the scars, while others enjoyed the profit. Today, what Elon Musk and his team is offering Louisiana is different.”Much about the plans remain to be seen. Starship is not yet operational. The company is expected to launch its most important test flight to date as soon as September — a mission that could send the rocket to orbit for the first time. Additional testing will be necessary to sort out how the rocket’s upper stage can be landed and flown again.A spaceport of such size and scale as the Louisiana project will also likely face extensive regulatory reviews: “The project will go through all applicable environmental, wetlands, natural resource and launch-related reviews,” a project website confirms.Such reviews related to SpaceX’s facilities in Texas — a far smaller complex than the planned Louisiana site — took nearly a decade to complete. And some local environmental advocacy groups continue to battle the company in Texas courts over the impacts of rocket testing on the community.Shotwell said Tuesday that SpaceX plans to keep “very large portions” of Starbase Louisiana’s 125,000 acres of land “untouched, so that high-value wetlands stay habitat and don’t become infrastructure.”“We will help fund protection, restoration, and stewardship while we build,” Shotwell said.The announcement is the latest in a long list of displays of confidence that Starship will transform SpaceX as a company. Already, SpaceX has said it’s begun to phase out use of its workhorse Falcon 9 rockets, which are currently the most prolific launch vehicles in the world, in favor of using Starship for most missions once it becomes operational.Earlier on Tuesday, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, Kiko Dontchev, said a Falcon 9 rocket that took flight the same morning would be the last ever to carry SpaceX Starlink satellites from Florida — an area due East of Orlando that is currently home to the world’s busiest spaceport across Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Center.“From here on, Starlink missions out of Florida will fly on Starship,” Dontchev said. “The West Coast team will continue regularly launching Starlink from Vandenberg. Super proud of this incredible team. You’ve made Falcon 9 the most reliable launch vehicle in history. You also helped build the largest low-Earth orbit satellite constellation providing connectivity to millions around the world, and you’ve set the foundation for what’s next.”SpaceX’s plans include continuing to fly Starship out of Texas, and it may begin flights from Florida as soon as this year. But the envisioned plans for Louisiana would make it by far the largest base of operations for the rocket.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Read Next Story