Month: September 2025

Police say a 39-year-old man has been taken into custody over the incident in Sydney’s Woollahra suburb.

Australian police have arrested a 34-year-old man after he drove his car into the front gate of the Russian consulate in Sydney, according to police and local media.

In a statement, the New South Wales Police Force said the crash took place on Monday morning after officers responded to reports of an “unauthorised vehicle” parked in the driveway of the consulate in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.

Officers tried to speak with the driver, but he “drove his vehicle into the gates of the property”, the statement said.

A 24-year-old constable was injured on his hand during the incident, it added.

Television footage from Sky News and Nine showed a car with a smashed window abandoned next to a Russian flagpole.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian consulate.

A late Tennessee sheriff who inspired “Walking Tall,” a Hollywood movie about a law enforcement officer who took on organized crime, killed his wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was murdered by his enemies, authorities said last week.

Authorities acknowledged that the finding will probably shock many who grew up as Buford Pusser fans after watching “Walking Tall,” which immortalized him as a tough but fair sheriff with zero tolerance for crime. The 1973 movie was remade in 2004, and many officers joined law enforcement because of his story, according to Mark Davidson, the district attorney for Tennessee’s 25th Judicial District.

There is enough evidence that if Pusser, a McNairy County sheriff who died in a car crash seven years after his wife’s death, were alive today, prosecutors would present an indictment to a grand jury for the killing of Pauline Mullins Pusser, Davidson said. Investigators also uncovered signs that she suffered from domestic violence, he said.

Prosecutors worked with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which began reexamining decades-old files on Pauline’s death in 2022 as part of its regular review of cold cases, agency director David Rausch said. Agents found inconsistencies between Buford Pusser’s version of events and the physical evidence, received a tip about a potential murder weapon and exhumed Pauline’s body for an autopsy.

“This case is not about tearing down a legend. It is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and her family and ensuring that the truth is not buried with time,” Davidson said in a news conference streamed online. “The truth matters. Justice matters. Even 58 years later. Pauline deserves both.”

Evidence does not back up sheriff’s story

The case dates to Aug. 12, 1967. Buford Pusser got a call in the early-morning hours about a disturbance. He reported that his wife volunteered to ride along with him as he responded. The sheriff said that shortly after they passed New Hope Methodist Church, a car pulled up and fired several times into the vehicle, killing Pauline and injuring him. He spent 18 days in the hospital and required several surgeries to recover. The case was built largely on his own statement and closed quickly, Rausch said.

During the reexamination of the case, Dr. Michael Revelle, an emergency medicine physical and medical examiner, studied postmortem photographs, crime scene photographs, notes made by the medical examiner at the time and Buford Pusser’s statements. He concluded that Pauline was more likely than not shot outside the car and then placed inside it.

He found that cranial trauma suffered by Pauline didn’t match crime scene photographs of the car’s interior. Blood spatter on the hood outside the car contradicted Buford Pusser’s statements. The gunshot wound on his cheek was in fact a close-contact wound and not one fired from long range, as she sheriff had described, and was probably self-inflicted, Revelle concluded.

Pauline’s autopsy revealed she had a broken nose that had healed before her death. Davidson said statements from people who were around at the time she died support the conclusion that she was a victim of domestic violence.

Brother says investigation gave him closure

Pauline’s younger brother, Griffon Mullins, said the investigation gave him closure. He said in a recorded video played at the news conference that their other sister died without knowing what happened to Pauline, and he is grateful he will die knowing.

“You would fall in love with her because she was a people person. And of course, my family would always go to Pauline if they had an issue or they needed some advice, and she was always there for them,” he said. “She was just a sweet person. I loved her with all my heart.”

Mullins said he knew there was some trouble in Pauline’s marriage, but she wasn’t one to talk about her problems. For that reason, Mullins said, he was “not totally shocked” to learn of the investigators’ findings.

Asked about the murder weapon and whether it matched autopsy findings, Rausch recommended reading the case file for specifics.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation plans to make the entire file, which exceeds 1,000 pages, available to the public by handing it over to the University of Tennessee at Martin once it finishes with redactions. The school will create an online, searchable database for the case. Until then, members of the public can make appointments to review it in person or can purchase a copy, said university Chancellor Yancy Freeman Sr.

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

Liverpool have agreed a £125m fee with Newcastle to sign Alexander Isak.

Sources close to the deal have told BBC Sport that an agreement for the Sweden international to join the Anfield club is now in place.

Isak will undergo a medical on Monday ahead of signing a six-year deal at the club.

Liverpool had an original £110m offer rejected earlier this month but they are now set to land their first-choice target of the summer.

More to follow.

Here are the key events on day 1,285 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, September 1:

Fighting

• Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least five people on Monday, including two in Kherson, one in Zaporizhzhia, and two in Donetsk, according to regional governors. The attacks wounded dozens more.
• In Zaporizhzhia alone, Russian forces launched 286 drone attacks, 10 missile attacks and five air strikes on 16 settlements in one day, Governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
• A Russian drone attack overnight damaged a power facility near the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, leaving more than 29,000 customers without electricity on Sunday morning, the region’s governor said. The hardest hit city was the seaport of Chornomorsk.
• The Reuters news agency also reported that a civilian bulk carrier flying the flag of Belize sustained minor damage after hitting an unknown explosive device near Chornomorsk.
• Russian drones also targeted Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region early on Sunday, damaging energy infrastructure and leaving 30,000 households without electricity, including part of the city of Nizhyn, said local Governor Viacheslav Chaus.
• The Ukrainian military said Russia had attacked Ukraine with 142 drones overnight and its air defence forces managed to shoot down most of them but the drones struck 10 locations.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to retaliate to Russian attacks on his country’s power facilities with more strikes deep inside Russia.

• Ukraine’s armed forces dismissed Russia’s claims of a successful summer offensive, saying Russian forces failed to gain full control of any major Ukrainian city and “grossly exaggerated” figures regarding captured territories.
• In Russia, four people wounded injured in Ukrainian drone attacks on the Kursk region, including two Interior Ministry employees, Kursk’s Governor Alexander Khinshtein said in a post on Telegram.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces shot down 112 Ukrainian drones, two aerial bombs and three rocket launchers in a 24-hour period, according to TASS.
• The capacity of Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant’s third reactor was completely restored after it had been halved following a drone attack, TASS reported on Sunday, citing the plant.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Kremlin accused European powers of hindering United States President Donald Trump’s peace efforts and said that Russia would continue its operation in Ukraine until Moscow saw real signs that Kyiv was ready for peace.
• “The European warring party is maintaining its fundamental course; it is not giving in,” spokesperson Kremlin Peskov said from the sidelines of the SCO summit in China.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he was bracing himself for the Russia-Ukraien war “to last a long time”. He told German public broadcaster ZDF that diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to an end could not come “at the price of Ukraine’s capitulation”.
• Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, announced additional funding for European Union member states bordering Russia and Belarus during a visit to Poland’s border, near Belarus, where she called Putin a “predator” who could only be kept in check through “strong deterrence”.
• Von der Leyen also told the Financial Times that Europe is drawing up “pretty precise plans” for a multinational troop deployment to Ukraine as part of proposed post-conflict security guarantees.
• She said Trump had assured Europe that “that there will be [an] American presence as part of the backstop”.
• In an article published in the People’s Daily, China’s state newspaper, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wrote that his country will “continue to pursue” its “peace diplomacy” between Russia and Ukraine “with patience”.
• Pope Leo called for a ceasefire and dialogue in the Ukraine war. “It is time for those responsible to renounce the logic of arms and to take the path of negotiation and peace with the support of the international community,” he said in his Sunday prayer with pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square.

Weapons

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected a new missile production line and missile-manufacturing automation process, state media KCNA said on Monday. North Korea has sent missiles, as well as soldiers and artillery ammunition to Russia to support Moscow in its war against Ukraine.
• Norway, which shares a border with Russia, said it will buy new frigates worth some 10 billion pounds ($13.51bn) from the United Kingdom, in its biggest ever military investment.

More settler attacks also take place across the territory, with a Palestinian husband and wife hurt in the violence.

The Israeli army has carried out raids and arrests across the occupied West Bank, with incidents reported in the cities of Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah.

Multiple Palestinians were detained in the territory on Sunday, according to the Wafa news agency, including a child and a young man in the town of Yabad.

Reports suggested that a 37-year-old man was also arrested in the town of Beit Fajjar, while a 25-year-old man was taken into Israeli custody in the town of Nilin near Ramallah.

Several raids took place in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, just days after Israel launched a prolonged raid in the area that injured at least 58 people.

Israeli soldiers were also present in the towns of Kafr Malek, Nilin and Deir Qaddis, but did not make any arrests.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, intense and continuous gunfire broke out south of Hebron, as shown by online videos verified by Al Jazeera.

Wafa said that five Palestinians, including a girl, were injured by Israeli bullets and taken to hospital for treatment.

Israeli soldiers also allegedly fired live ammunition in the northern village of Sarra and the town of Sebastia, but no injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, a settler attack left a Palestinian man and his wife with injuries in Khallet al-Daba village in Masafer Yatta.

Israeli settlers also attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Kisan near Bethlehem.

The Wafa news agency reports that the settlers broke into Palestinian properties and looted them, while receiving protection from the Israeli army.

In the first eight months of the year, more than 1,000 Israeli settler attacks have been recorded in the occupied West Bank that caused injuries, property damage or both, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Settlers rampage on Palestinian land on a daily basis, with impunity and backed by the Israeli military.

Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, across the region since October 2023, according to OCHA.

As well as the Israeli raids and the settler attacks, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said that Israeli authorities had engaged in unauthorised excavation and demolition operations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

“These operations deliberately target Islamic antiquities dating back to the Umayyad period, which stand as living witnesses and irrefutable evidence of Muslims’ rightful claim to the site,” the PA’s Jerusalem governorate said in a statement.

It said that Israel intends to remove the site’s Muslim history to build a Jewish temple there in the future.

EXCLUSIVE: Four members of the Love Is Blind UK season 2 cast have opened up about the ‘trauma’ of reliving their wedding days.

*Warning – this article contains spoilers for Love Is Blind UK season 2.*

Season 2 of Love Is Blind UK has now come to an end, with the explosive reunion episode on Sunday night revealing which marriages have lasted months on from when the cameras stopped rolling.

In the Netflix show’s season 2 finale, we saw three couples tie the knot: Kieran and Megan, Billy and Ashleigh and Kal and Sarover.

Meanwhile, Bardha made the difficult decision to turn down Jed at the altar, and Katisha chose to walk away from her relationship with Javen ahead of their wedding day.

In the reunion, it was revealed that just one couple – Kieran and Megan – have stayed together, while the other two pairs called it quits months after filming had wrapped.

In an exclusive interview, four stars from Love Is Blind UK season 2 sat down to speak about their experience on the Netflix show, including the emotional ordeal of watching their wedding episodes back after their relationships had ended.

Admitting it felt like they were ‘living double the trauma’, Ashleigh began: Can we just talk about when we watched the weddings together? Because that was like…”

“That was horrible,” Katisha confirmed, as Ashleigh continued: “We were all curled up on one bed sobbing. Fetal [position], intertwined, all four of us just sobbing.”

Bardha then expanded: “It was really hard to watch, I think. And we didn’t realise how we were going to react.”

However, she went on to highlight the bond they had formed with one another, adding: “It was just so nice to have each other and support each other through that. Like, I don’t think I could have watched that alone.”

“We cried for each other,” Sarover reflected sadly, adding that they were “holding each other so tight”.

Looking back at their time on the show, Ashleigh elaborated: “This is real lives, this is real human beings.

Watch Love is Blind UK on Netflix for free with Sky

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more

from £15

Sky

Get the deal here

Sky is giving away a free Netflix subscription with its new Sky Stream TV bundles, including the £15 Essential TV plan.

This lets members watch live and on-demand TV content without a satellite dish or aerial and includes hit shows like Love is Blind UK.

“We really got married, we really went through break ups and it’s been difficult, you know, with comments as well.

“You have to cancel that outside noise because we’ve been on a journey for a year where we’ve not been able to talk about it. So, we’re actually living double the trauma now.”

Sarover concluded: “It’s really bittersweet to watch it back because I really feel like we were all so in love during the filming and it’s bittersweet memories because of what happens later. It’s a tough watch.”

Meanwhile, Kieran and Megan were all smiles as they confirmed their marriage was still “all smooth sailing”.

They are the third lasting marriage to come out of Love Is Blind UK, as season 1 also saw Nicole and Benaiah and Bobby and Jasmine tie the knot, while former married pair Steven and Sabrina have also sadly parted ways.

Love Is Blind UK season 2 is available to stream now, exclusively on Netflix.

Billionaire Steve Mandel and his hedge fund Lone Pine Capital have been a great one to follow for individual investors. Although some hedge funds have a poor record of underperforming the broader market, Mandel has substantially outperformed the market over the past three years. So, when he makes a move in his portfolio, investors should pay attention.

One thing Mandel did during Q2 was sell off some of his Microsoft shares. Although it wasn’t a massive move, the hedge fund reduced its position by about 5%. Then, Mandel used some of those funds to invest in another promising AI stock that has increased in value by nearly 800% over the past decade.

That stock? Amazon (AMZN -1.16%).

Image source: Getty Images.

AWS is the best reason to invest in Amazon right now

Amazon may not be the first company that comes to mind when you think about AI. Instead, it probably seems more like an e-commerce investment. While that sentiment is true for the consumer-facing portion, the reality is that a large chunk of Amazon’s profits comes from AI-related revenue streams.

The biggest is from Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing arm. Cloud computing firms are having a strong year, thanks to the massive demand generated by AI workloads. Because more companies can’t justify spending millions (or even billions) of dollars on a data center dedicated to training AI models, it’s far more reasonable to rent computing power from a firm that already has the capacity. That’s the idea behind cloud computing, and it has translated into strong growth for the business unit.

In Q2, AWS’s sales rose 17% to $30.9 billion. That’s strong growth, but it is a bit slower than its peers, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, which each grew revenue by more than 30% in Q2. However, AWS is much larger than both of these units, so it shouldn’t surprise investors that AWS is growing at a slower rate. AWS accounted for about 18% of Amazon’s total revenue in Q2, but it made up 53% of its operating profit. That’s because AWS has far superior margins compared to its commerce business units, making AWS a critical part of the Amazon investment thesis.

AWS is experiencing a significant boost from AI, making it a strong stock pick in this space.

But Microsoft is also a solid AI pick, so why is Mandel moving from Microsoft to Amazon?

Amazon’s stock looks more promising over the long term

From a valuation perspective, both companies trade at fairly expensive levels for their growth. However, they’re both priced about the same from a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) standpoint.

AMZN PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts

One thing Amazon has going for it that Microsoft doesn’t is the steady upward pressure on Amazon’s margins. Thanks to AWS and its advertising service business units being the fastest growing in Amazon, its margins are steadily improving. Although Amazon’s revenue growth rate appears to be somewhat slow, its operating income growth rate is actually quite rapid.

AMZN Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts

This trend still has years to unfold, which is a solid reason to transition from Microsoft to Amazon. I believe this will be a winning trade over the long term, as Amazon’s profits are expected to grow at a significantly faster rate than Microsoft’s, resulting in the stock outperforming its peer over the long term due to their similar valuations.

However, both stocks are still solid AI picks, and you can’t go wrong with either one.