You'll be hearing those familiar bells ringing outside local shops and stores, as The Salvation Army begins their Red Kettle Campaign.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued seven hoverboard recalls Tuesday due to fire and explosion hazards.

This is not the first time CPSC has issued hoverboard recalls. CPSC is aware of more than 250 hoverboard incidents related to fires since 2015, the commission said in a safety alert. 

A 2-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl died in a house fire in March that was sparked by a hoverboard in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The CPSC has also received reports of 13 people burned by hoverboards, three smoke inhalation injuries, and more than $4 million in property damage linked to the scooters.

The CPSC says that hoverboards' lithium-ion battery packs can overheat, causing the boards to catch fire or explode. Owners should look for a "UL 2272" certification label to make sure their scooter is complaint. Hoverboards sold before Jan. 29, 2016, are not UL 2272 compliant. 

"However, even UL 2272 compliance cannot guarantee that a hoverboard will not overheat or catch fire," the CPSC warns.

Here is information on the seven new recalls: 

1. Drone Nerds Recalls Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards Due to Fire and Explosion Hazards

2. Go Wheels Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards Recalled by Four Star Imports Due to Fire and Explosion Hazards; Sold Exclusively at Village Mart

3. iHoverspeed Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards Recalled by Simplified Wireless Due to Fire Hazard

4. iLive Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards Recalled by Digital Producers Due to Fire Hazard

5. Tech Drift Recalls Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards Recalled Due to Explosion and Fire Hazards

6. Sonic Smart Wheels Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards Recalled by Dollar Mania Due to Explosion and Fire Hazards

7. Smart Balance Wheel Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards Recalled by Salvage World Due to Explosion and Fire Hazards

For more information visit CPSC's hoverboard information center. 

Social media has become our "window to the world" which can influence the way we take in news. But lately there are growing concerns that your news feed could be hijacked by foreign agents to influence you. NBC10's Randy Gyllenhaal reports. 

Three of the four teenagers who police say overpowered a guard and stole his car during a daring escape from a southern New Jersey juvenile detention center were captured Wednesday morning after nine hours on the run.

The juveniles escaped from the Harborfields Youth Detention Facility in Egg Harbor City — about 20 miles west of Atlantic City — around 12:20 a.m. Wednesday.

New Jersey State Police and Bridgeton police responding to a burglary call took three of the teens into custody in Bridgeton — about 35 miles from Egg Harbor City, investigators said.

"I do thank those folks for their diligent work, it certainly helped us out a lot," Acting Atlantic County Sheriff Mike Petuskey said.

Michael Huggins remains on the run and is considered dangerous. Schools in Bridgeton, where Huggins was a student, were put on lockdown.

Police helicopter scanned the area searching for Huggins.

The sheriff's office said the teens overpowered two corrections officers and drove off in one of their cars. They sideswiped a Jeep before crashing into a home and fleeing the scene.

One guard was taken to a hospital for treatment and is expected to be OK.

Sixteen schools in districts including Egg Harbor City, Greater Egg Harbor Regional School District, Galloway Township, Hamilton Township and St. Vincent de Paul Regional School were shut down as a precaution.

Law enforcement asked Egg Harbor City residents to stay in their homes unless they have to leave and call 911 if they see something suspicious. Stockton University, which is about 7 miles away, also alerted its students of the manhunt and suggested that all dorm doors and windows be locked.

One of the male suspects is 18 (accused of committing a crime while 17), one is 17 and two are 16 years old.

The teens were wearing minimal clothing when they escaped — one in a white boxers, a cream shirt and flip-flops and two others in thermal pants, white boxers and possibly a white T-shirt. 

Temps overnight in Egg Harbor City dipped into the upper 30 and low 40s.

"More than likely they are gonna be cold, so if they don't have a ride already, they are going to be looking for some type of clothing," Petuskey said during the search. "We don't know if they are going to break into a house, we have no idea."

Harborfields, which is located at Buffalo Avenue and Duerer Street, houses 27 juveniles awaiting court hearings. "Harborfields operates under the auspices of the County of Atlantic, Department of Public Safety and is managed, under contract, by the State of New Jersey, Department of Law and Public Safety, Juvenile Justice Commission," the center's website says.

Authorities didn't reveal what crimes the juveniles are accused of committing but they did say that due to the severity of the crimes, the teens are considered dangerous.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Office at 609-909-7200.

NBC10's at the Wawa on Roosevelt Boulevard in Rhawnhurst to enjoy free coffee. NBc10 Responds reporter Harry Hairston stops by to join the fun and get one of his traditoinal hugs.

When you answer the bell and put money in a Salvation Army red kettle you help change lives.

Fake pharmaceutical drugs find their way into the American market all the time. Being diligent with your prescriptions can save your life. Here's one New Jersey man's story and the lessons you can take away from his unsettling circumstances. 

The Spotted Lanternfly is causing major damage to orchards in our area. NBC10's Steven Fisher reports that it's not just fruit they're destroying.

NBC10 Responds' Harry Hairston is in New Jersey with a man who says that a contractor he hired took out over $3,000 from his bank account based on a fine print clause he missed in their contract.

A woman is dead after the stolen car she was riding in crashed into the back of a tractor trailer during a police pursuit in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, police said.

The crash happened around 10:30 a.m. along U.S. 130 at Riverton Road when the silver BMW sedan slammed into the back of a FedEx trailer.

Cinnaminson officers had been pursuing the car and the 17-year-old male driver after the vehicle was reported stolen earlier Wednesday, police said.

Officers worked to pull the driver and passenger from the car following the crash. The woman died at the scene, police said. The driver was taken to Cooper University Hospital where he's listed in critical condition, police said.

Police could not say how the driver and passenger knew each other.

Both officers suffered minor injuries trying to remove the teens from the car. They're expected to be fine.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

A show of support for injured state trooper Seth Kelly. On Wednesday state police in Northampton held a blood drive in his honor. NBC10's Steven Fisher has the story.

AT&T customers nationwide reported cellphone outages Wednesday evening.

Users started posting on social media claiming they could not place any calls.

AT&T quickly responded on twitter, telling users to "restart your device - that should resolve the issue."

Even after the advice from AT&T, some users claimed that did not help. Some users said "disabling LTE" and entering the phone into airplane mode for 10 seconds was the only thing that would resolve the problem.

AT&T then sent out a follow up tweet saying "please restart your device, this might be required multiple times"

Just after 9 p.m. CT on Wednesday NBC got a notification from AT&T that the issue had been resolved and service should be back to normal.

While the outage was on going, it appeared to be hitting users nationwide, but now impacting every AT&T user.

NBC 5 reached out to AT&T about the issue. Before the problem was resolved, a company spokesperson said they are aware of the problem and are looking into it.

Cody Lesher’s Fleetwood, Pennsylvania home felt particularly empty Wednesday night after his pet cat was euthanized by an animal shelter despite having a microchip. 

“I must have cried ten times today just thinking of little stuff that he does,” Lesher said. “It’s just a really upsetting situation and he didn’t deserve that.”

Lesher said his cat “Diddy,” who he adopted with his girlfriend, ran away from his home Sunday. According to Lesher, Diddy had run away in the past but always came back. He also said the cat had a microchip that would allow a shelter to identify him.

A neighbor later found the cat and brought him to the Animal Rescue League of Berks County. According to the shelter, which is based in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, two staff members tried to scan the animal for a microchip but couldn’t detect it. They then gave Diddy a physical and vaccinations before housing him in their cat area.

The next day, a staff member searched through their lost cat logs and social media to find out if the cat had an owner, according to Tom Hubric, the interim Executive Director of the shelter. Hubric also claimed Diddy became increasingly aggressive to the point in which staff members couldn’t safely access his cage to provide proper care.

“I have a really hard time believing that,” Lesher said.

Citing overcrowded rooms, not having enough staff members, and being unable to find other shelters that weren’t at capacity as his reasons, Hubric said he then made the decision to euthanize the cat.

“It was a very difficult decision and one that I did not take lightly,” Hubric wrote.

On Tuesday, Lesher arrived at the shelter and discovered to his horror the body of his beloved pet.

“When the owner informed us that the cat was originally adopted by us and it was microchipped, we did a third scan of the cat and found that the chip had migrated high up on his neck, likely close to the base of his skull and the two previous scans did not identify the microchip,” Hubric wrote.

The incident came a month after the same facility euthanized a young child’s collared cat less than a day after taking the animal in. The shelter fired a worker for what they considered bad judgment in that case.

“It just seems like they’re not taking their job seriously,” Lesher said. “There definitely needs to be changes for sure.”

The shelter apologized to Lesher and the entire community for what they called a terrible situation. Hubric also wrote a list of changes the shelter will make going forward, which includes increasing their cat hold time period, better educating staff members on how to scan animals for microchips and holding a town hall meeting for citizens to voice their concerns.

An investigation is underway after a grandfather was found dead, stabbed multiple times, in a Port Richmond home with blood on the first and second floors.

On Thursday, police confirmed the 80-year-old man, who was identified by family as Robert Girard, had been stabbed multiple times and called his death a homicide. 

Girard's granddaughter found him naked on the kitchen floor inside his home on the 2500 block of East Lehigh Avenue around 9 p.m. Wednesday. Police say there were no signs of forced entry and the home was not ransacked, a large flat screen television untouched.

A white van was towed from the scene Wednesday night and neighbors had concerns about a person who had been living in the van. 

Police were talking to the person, but said no arrests had been made.

Chris Crepeau couldn't understand why he felt the way he did. 

As usual, the New Jersey man took his daily dose of Lipitor for high cholesterol. Still, he didn't feel quite right.

Then he found out the dangerous truth, the current bottle of his medicine might not be authentic — and then his doctor told him his cholesterol was double what it should be.

"He said there would be no other explanation," Crepeau said. "If you haven't stopped taking the medication, then there is no other explanation than that the pills were not Lipitor."

His tale is a cautionary one in a prescription-reliant America, with drug enforcement and pharmaceutical officials warning that even when pills look the part, they may be counterfeit.

And it's not a black-and-white problem: Counterfeit pills may work very much like the real medicine; they may work a little bit; or they may not work at all.

“Consumers will now get counterfeit products, and they work – or they work to some degree. But the reality of it is that they still have no idea what they’re putting in their body," Assistant Special Agent in Charge William Walker of the Department of Homeland Security investigations unit in Philadelphia told NBC10.

At the Connecticut laboratory of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the company tests roughly 1,000 samples of medication a year for concerned customers, law enforcement agencies and internal investigations.

Pfizer's director of investigations Brian Donnelly said an overwhelming number of the samples turn out to be counterfeit.

In many cases, people buying drugs from off-market sources are vulnerable to dealers looking to turn fake pills into cash. Donnelly said the risk outweighs the reward of cheaper medicine.

He said the saddest cases are cancer patients trying to buy affordable off-market pills.

"They're going to take a chance that this is going to be their cure," Donnelly said. "And now, they get this product and there's nothing in it."

For Crepeau, the Ocean County man whose counterfeit prescription led to spike cholesterol levels, he didn't take that type of chance. Yet he still almost paid the deadly price of the counterfeit drug market.

During his counterfeit scare back in 2003, he had filled his Lipitor prescription through the drugstore chain Rite Aid. At the time, the pharmacy alerted customers that its Lipitor distributor may have provided counterfeit medicine. Rite Aid sued that distributor, but a confidentiality agreement prevents the company from disclosing the outcome of the case.

Such breaks in the supply chain are rare. But because of the slip-up, Crepeau doesn’t think twice about off-market pills.

"I don't buy it online. I don't order it from other countries," he said. "I know it's a significant difference in price, but what are you going to do?"

Police in New Jersey say a man was building machine guns right under their noses.

The man, 38-year-old Russell Watt of Hamburg, is with unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, according to police. They say he was taken into custody Monday at a shop where he works as a machinist.

The gun bust happened right across the street from the Franklin Borough Police Department, a playground, a senior center and a football field. Police said they were executing a search warrant for another matter when they stumbled upon the weapons.

“They did seem operable,” Franklin Police Department Det. Nevin Mattesich said. “He did have some parts that we did seize that were parts to make some additional high-powered firearms.”

Officials say weapons seized were long guns, hand guns, semi-automatic weapons, fully automatic machine guns, high capacity magazines and hollow point bullets.

Police believe Watt was buying some of the parts for some of the weapons online and manufacturing them at his job site. They also believe he was working alone.

Detectives are still looking into whether the weapons were for personal use, resale, or both. They said Watt has no previous weapons convictions.

“We are glad that we were able to put a stop to it this close to home,” Mattesich said.

Nobody was at the shop when News 4 knocked on the door for comment. It wasn’t clear if Watt had an attorney who could comment on the allegations.

A new great white shark is off the coast of the Jersey shore.

Gurney pinged (meaning its dorsal fin broke the water's surface and transmitted a signal to a satellite) miles off the coast of Ocean City, New Jersey around 5:17 a.m. Thursday, according to nonprofit research group OCEARCH’s Global Shark Tracker.

The 4-foot, 5-inch, 61-pound white shark, a.k.a. a great white shark, that was tagged off the coast of Long Island over the summer appears to be headed south as he pinged Wednesday night off the coast of Brigantine.

Gurney’s appearance comes after a summer that saw other white sharks — including Cisco, JD, and most famously, Mary Lee — turned up in the waters off New Jersey. Gurney’s position Thursday is much further from the coast than those other sharks got.

OCEARCH expedition leader Chris Fischer says the group's mission is to gain data about the white shark population in hopes of protecting fish in the ocean. He says people shouldn’t fear a shark being in local waters. Instead, they should celebrate it because of what a shark means to the ocean ecosystem.

"People should be terrified of an ocean that's not full of sharks. They keep everything in balance," Fischer said. "So, if we want to make sure that our great-grandchildren can eat fish sandwiches, we need lots of big sharks."

You can track the movements of Gurney by clicking here or by downloading the Global Shark Tracker app for your iPhone or Android. You can also follow Gurney on  Twitter.

NBC10's Randy Gyllenhaal tells why this year could be one of the busiest Thanksgiving weeks to travel, and how to avoid it.

Philadelphia Sheriff Jewell Williams should leave his post amid new accusations that he sexually harassed female staffers, Mayor Jim Kenney said Thursday.

"I think he should step down," Kenney said in a statement. "Three women have come forward — and one was paid a significant sum to settle her claim just a few years ago."

The mayor's call came on the same day the National Organization for Women's Philadelphia chapter demanded Williams "step aside" until an in-depth investigation take place.

Two female employees at the sheriff's office have come forward to accuse Williams of sexually harassing them, according to a Philly.com report earlier this week. An administrative assistant, Vanessa Bines, has filed a federal lawsuit. Another staffer, Marlaina Williams, who reportedly filed a complaint with a state board last year, is planning a federal lawsuit as well, her attorney said.

Separately, state Democrats told Philly.com that $30,000 was paid to settle a lawsuit that claimed Williams sexually harassed a staffer while he served as a state representative.

Exactly who is leading the investigation into the current accusations against Williams remains a complicated issue. 

The sheriff is outside the purview of investigatory powers for city's Chief Integrity Officer. But City Controller-elect Rebecca Rhynhart this week vowed to begin an audit into Williams' office once she takes office in January.

"I continue to be deeply concerned about the operations of the Sheriff’s Office. The allegations of sexual harassment, its history of financial mismanagement, and the lack of transparency in how contracts are awarded warrant a much deeper review of the Office, its operations and spending," Rhynhart said in a statement. "Taxpayers and city workers deserve much more and much better, which is why I intend to begin a detailed audit of the Sheriff’s Office next year."

A spokesman for the sheriff's office said a statement would be provided Thursday afternoon.

NOW said an investigation should be done by the sheriff's office itself.

"We must have answers on how many people were victimized through his positions over the entire length of his career," NOW said in the statement.

NBC10's Randy Gyllenhaal discusses smart devices and how keeping yourself connected could make you an unsuspecting victim.