arrest

John “Jed” York, the owner and CEO of the San Fransciso 49ers, was arrested this weekend in his home state of Ohio and pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanor charges, according to local court records.

York, 45, pleaded no contest to charges of disorderly conduct and possessing criminal tools, Columbiana County Municipal Court records show.

He was arrested Sunday and released on $5,000 bail, court records show. He returned to court Monday morning to be arraigned on charges that were initially listed as engaging in prostitution and possessing criminal tools, but the former was changed to disorderly conduct in his plea.

York was sentenced to two days in county jail, with credit for the day he has already served, and ordered to pay a $1,150 fine, the court file shows. The order also noted that $160 that had been confiscated in the arrest would be forfeited to MVHTTF, which appears to stand for the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force. The records also said that officials were to return a phone to York, and that York had “completed online course,” but additional details were not immediately available.

A mugshot from York’s arrest was published by local news site WKBN-27, who said he was arrested Sunday by the East Palestine Police Department. That agency told the news outlet that any additional information from the case would come from the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force, a regional task force that includes the East Palestine Police Department and the Columbiana County Sheriff’s Office.

York grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, which is just north of East Palestine.

York had already filed a request to have the charges expunged Monday.

The Times attempted to contact the attorney listed in York’s sentencing records, but he did not immediately respond. The 49ers have not yet addressed the arrest.

Aug. 24 (UPI) — Immigration officials arrested the father of a sailor on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that’s come under scrutiny for conditions on board.

In a Facebook post Sunday, sailor Joshua Aviles said his father, Luis Manuel Aviles Roa of Nicaragua was arrested Saturday.

Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News the arrest happened during a traffic stop in Key West, Fla. Luis Manuel Aviles Roa was in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and faced deportation proceedings.

“I just got a call that my dad was taken by ICE,” Joshua Aviles wrote. “If you know my dad, you know he is a hardworking, humble man who is always willing to help anyone if he can.

“This is heartbreaking for me. I don’t know how I can mentally continue working 12+ hour days knowing that my dad is somewhere, possibly being treated like a criminal.”

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been under an extended deployment to the Middle East and was en route back to the United States. The journey could take several weeks.

Luis Manuel Aviles Roa’s stepdaughter, Katty Delgado, told NBC News that he had been living in the United States for about two decades. She said she had no knowledge of any criminal history for her stepfather and that he had a pending immigration application seeking legal status.

“He’s doing everything the right way,” she told the outlet.

DHS did not deny that Luis Manuel Aviles Roa lacks a criminal record. Officials said that having “a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws.”

“We are simply enforcing the laws passed by Congress,” the DHS statement said. “This administration does not pick and choose which laws to enforce.”

The transfer is the first from Lebanon involving a Syrian military officer who fled after al-Assad’s government was toppled in 2024.

Lebanon has handed over a former senior Syrian army officer to Damascus to face charges related to murder and torture, the first such transfer since former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in 2024.

The transfer involved Major-General Adel Issa, a former commander of the Syrian army’s 17th Division who later led ground forces in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zur.

Syria’s Ministry of Interior confirmed his delivery into Syrian custody in a statement on Wednesday.

“Today, Syrian authorities received from the Lebanese authorities the former officer in the defunct regime army, Major-General Adel Issa,” the ministry said.

It added that a Syrian arrest warrant had accused Issa of charges including intentional homicide, facilitating a felony, killing more than two people, torture leading to death, and crimes aimed at inciting civil war and sectarian strife.

A Damascus referral judge will hear his case, which could then be sent to a criminal court for trial, the ministry added.

Issa, 67, has denied the accusations, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two people familiar with his arrest and extradition.

He was detained on August 8 after going to the Syrian embassy in Beirut to complete paperwork.

Embassy officials alerted the prosecutor’s office in Lebanon that he was wanted in Syria, and Lebanese investigators took him into custody, Reuters reported.

His transfer follows months of pressure by Damascus for Lebanon to act against former government officers, as well as security and military officials, who sought refuge in Lebanon after the Assad regime collapsed in December 2024.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former rebel leader, has led the country since.

In January, Syrian authorities gave Lebanese security officials a list of more than 200 former senior officers wanted by Damascus.

Earlier this month, a Damascus court sentenced al-Assad to death in absentia on charges including murder, arbitrary detention and torture. Al-Assad lives in exile in Moscow.

Aug. 16 (UPI) — Police arrested a 19-year-old found hiding in a closet on the Virginia State University campus hours after he allegedly shot five people, local officials said.

Camron Harris was in custody at Chesterfield County Jail on suspicion of four counts of malicious wounding and four counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, WTVR-TV in Richmond, Va., reported. He was being held without bond.

Police said more charges may be filed.

The shooting took place on the VSU campus around 1:30 a.m. Saturday.

The victims ranged in age from 17 to 23 years old. A 21-year-old man sustained critical injuries, while the other four, including a 19-year-old woman, had non-life-threatening injuries, WRIC-TV in Richmond reported. The only student of the school was a 20-year-old man who was released from the hospital.

Officers discovered Harris around 4 p.m. Saturday hiding in a closet in Seward Hall on campus. He didn’t attend the school.

The campus had not started fall classes at the time of the shooting, but officials put the school on lockdown until about 8:30 a.m. Saturday. Classes were expected to begin Monday.

VSU is a historically Black university with about 5,100 undergraduate students.

A new LAPD report released Tuesday blamed poor planning and coordination for issues with the department’s response to protests that erupted on city streets last summer in opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

But apart from identifying those problems, the report concluded that police officers performed well in the face of “unprecedented” unrest that sometimes devolved into violence and vandalism.

Missing from the 62-page report — at least in the view of some longtime department observers — was any reflection about officers’ use of less-lethal weapons that left hundreds of people injured and drew strong condemnations from human rights groups.

The report largely blamed protesters for instigating violence and injuring officers, saying “agitators” intent on taking advantage of the disorder made it impossible to avoid using force.

The report said the LAPD was not prepared to deal with the protective equipment and “improvised weaponry” employed by some protesters, including people with oven mitts who picked up and lobbed tear gas canisters back in the direction of officers and others who used leaf blowers to redirect the gas.

During the department’s presentation of the report, one police commissioner, Jeff Skobin, pointed out that demonstrators and journalists who spoke at the meeting felt as though their perspectives weren’t reflected in the report whatsoever. He suggested that LAPD officials consider reaching out to journalists or press organizations as the department reevaluates its media policy.

Commission President Rasha Gerges Shields said the department could have examined whether reforms that were called for in 2020 had been implemented — and areas where the department still needed to improve.

“I just want to make sure that this isn’t just the end-all, be-all of this conversation,” she said.

In response, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said the report had considered past lessons learned, but the “unprecedented” nature of the protests justified the department’s actions.

“The level of violence — I have been doing this for 45 years, I have not seen that here or anywhere else in the country,” he said, noting that nearly 50 officers were injured.

The report said officers were targeted with rocks, bottles, commercial-grade fireworks and Molotov cocktails. Timely communication was a concern at times, the report said, with the department lacking a necessary number of radio wave frequencies.

When less-lethal weapons proved ineffective, the department deployed tear gas on two occasions, June 8 and 14, to disperse “violent groups” and restore order. It was the first time the department had used the measure since at least the 1970s. The decision to use gas “reflected the extreme conditions faced at the height of the unrest,” the report said. The report doesn’t specify who authorized the deployment of the gas.

But the gas also created tactical challenges, since many patrol and Metropolitan Division officers lacked protective masks, increasing their risk of exposure. The report said the chemical agents were “the only viable option to reestablish control.”

In just two weeks of protests, the report said, the department spent $17.47 million in personnel costs, including $12.14 million for overtime. Ultimately, the report concluded, the department “contained the unrest” without any loss of life or “major breaches of critical infrastructure.”

Some critics said the report failed to answer basic questions, such as how many less-lethal rounds were fired or how many officers were disciplined for misconduct.

Like past after-action reports, the review was hyper-focused on the threats faced by officers, critics said. But, they noted, it had little to say about how officers’ use of less-lethal weapons — sometimes in clear violation of the department’s own policies — that were widely documented documented on social media and in news accounts.

“If the department can’t even recognize the possibility that they might have a problem with how they police protests, after last summer, how can anyone expect them to do anything differently next time?” said Peter Bibring, a civil rights attorney who previously served as director of police practices at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

According to the city attorney’s office, more than 120 claims for damages have been filed against the city in connection to police actions during pro-immigration protests as of April. The city is still facing lawsuits stemming from the 2020 protests over the police killing of George Floyd. The latest spate of civil actions could tie the city up in costly litigation for years to come.

At Tuesday’s commission meeting, the 45-minute public comment period was extended to accommodate dozens of speakers, many of whom criticized the report for whitewashing what they described as the department’s heavy-handed response to the protests.

Despite years of costly lawsuits, oversight measures and promises by leaders to rein in indiscriminate use of force during protests, officers were shown on video last year trampling demonstrators on horseback and aiming so-called less-lethal launchers at people’s heads in a violation of department policy, speakers said. None of that, observers said, was mentioned in the report.

Others argued that the report seems to cast members of the media as nuisances to be dealt with, while ignoring instances in which journalists were targeted by law enforcement.

“It’s an insult,” said Nick Stern, a British news photographer who is suing the Los Angeles County after being struck by sheriff’s deputies while covering a protest in Paramount. “Journalists only show up as logistical problems.”

Another speaker noted the inflammatory language used in the report seemed to justify the aggressive tactics by describing protesters as operating in “cells,” likening them to Al-Qaeda.

Lt. Joseph Fransen, the study’s chief author, told the Commission that he took inspiration from the federal government’s 9/11 after-action report, which dissected mistakes leading up to the terrorist attack.

“These aren’t necessarily points of failure, these are just lessons to be learned in the future,” Fransen said of his report.

Officials have promised thorough investigations of all uses of force. The department limited its use of the launchers after a federal judge issued an injunction in January, but has deployed other types of crowd control weapons in subsequent protests. The judge ruled that officers have repeatedly violated previous court orders that allow the weapon to be used only to subdue protesters who pose a threat of violence.

The report found that, on several nights, the LAPD didn’t have enough personnel to process and transport all the people who were arrested. Between June 7-16, 2025, the department made 435 protest-related arrests, including 182 on June 10 alone. Three out of every four arrest was for unlawful assembly, while 16 arrests were made for violent crimes, including assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer or attempted murder of a police officer. Most people were released on citation. Four-fifths of those arrested came from the county, while others traveled from surrounding counties or outside the state.

Suspects recruited via encrypted app and offered money for violent acts, Toronto police reveal after arrests.

Toronto police have announced two arrests in connection with the shooting at the US Consulate last month, calling the suspects “criminals for hire.”

Authorities on Thursday said they arrested a 19-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy in the second shooting at the United States Consulate in five months.

The latest shooting in July followed a March 10 attack on the diplomatic mission that also occurred before dawn. Police arrested two people in that case in June.

No one was injured in either event, but police described both as “national security” incidents, and the initial shooting on March 10 prompted beefed-up protection for US and Israeli diplomatic buildings in multiple Canadian cities, as war gripped the Middle East.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police also opened a parallel investigation, treating the shooting as a national security incident.

Police on Thursday said they believe the suspects were recruited through an encrypted messaging app and were offered money to open fire on the consulate.

“There has been significant public interest and speculation about who is behind these crimes,” Police Chief Myron Demkiw said. “That remains a key focus of our investigation.”

Police identified the adult suspect as 19-year-old Xen-Ul-Abdeen Syed, who faces multiple firearm, arson and stolen-property charges, as well as a charge of attacking the premises of an internationally protected person. A 15-year-old was also charged but cannot be identified under Canadian law.

Since the first shooting, police have maintained a visible presence outside the consulate. The July 27 shooting occurred despite a marked police cruiser stationed nearby.

Police said a white Honda Accord pulled alongside the consulate at about 4:46am (08:46 GMT) and a single shot was fired, striking the front of the building. A brief police chase followed, but the chase was called off when the driver was travelling at excessive speed.

Toronto Police Chief Superintendent Joe Matthews of Detective Operations said investigators believe shootings, homicides and arsons are increasingly being commissioned through online apps, with suspects offered varying amounts of money depending on the crime.

Individuals are hired to shoot at various targets and record the shootings for payment. The targets the police have mentioned included synagogues, Jewish schools, a waste management company, and the US Consulate.

“In many circumstances we know they are not getting paid,” Matthews said.

Police also allege the two suspects were involved in setting fire to a vehicle in a community outside Toronto three days before the latest consulate shooting.

Two men, aged 18 and 19, were arrested in June as part of the investigation into the March shooting. Police said the men were recruited to carry out violent acts, but did not provide further details.

Aug. 5 (UPI) — Officers arrested a woman accused of stabbing four men in London’s Covent Garden neighborhood, the Metropolitan Police said Wednesday.

All four victims — aged 34, 39, 42 and 52 — were transported to the hospital. Two have been released, while the other two were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart said officers responded to the area — a dining and entertainment district — “within minutes” of receiving reports of the attacks.

“While still at an early stage of the investigation, we would like to reassure the community that we currently believe this to be an isolated, mental-health related incident,” he said in a statement on X.

“A visible police presence will remain in the area while evidence is gathered at the scene and we thank the pubic for their understanding.”

People who worked in the area told The Guardian the suspect was known in the area and often displayed erratic behavior. Witnesses said it appeared she chose the victims at random and used scissors in the attack.

Arjan Gjorga, who works at a restaurant near the incident, told The Guardian he witnessed the attack.

“I see her all the time, she’s a homeless person. She walks around up and down asking for help, she visits the church at the top of the street,” he said.

Police cordoned off part of the area, including St Mungo’s homeless shelter. A representative for the facility told the BBC they couldn’t “confirm whether anyone from St Mungo’s is involved at this stage.”

The suspect was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and assault.

Aug. 4 (UPI) — Authorities in Washington said late Monday that officers have arrested a 37-year-old man accused of starting one of three wildfires burning in Spokane County that have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate and destroyed hundreds of structures.

The suspect, Aaron Farinacci, was detained Monday afternoon in Spokane County. He has been charged with one count of first-degree arson. He is being held on $1 million bond.

The Old Trails Fire erupted Saturday at around midnight PDT.

Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels told reporters during a press conference that authorities began investigating the fire when it ignited. He credited local citizens with helping investigators arrest Farinacci.

He said a “very good citizen” early Saturday was driving into Old Trails Road are to pick up a friend when he noticed a man standing by the roadside “looking into the trees.” On their way back, the citizen again saw the man who was now “bending down near some grass” and “looked very nervous,” the sheriff said.

A short time later, the citizen, now at home, saw smoke coming from the area where they had seen the man. The citizen returned to the scene and contacted the police, giving them a detailed physical description of the man they had seen.

“That description was broadcast to units in the area,” Nowels said, resulting in Farinacci being contacted by police about 1 1/2 miles from where the fire was started. Farinacci was detained, questioned and released after the witness identified him as much was still unknown at that early stage.

But following further investigation, police identified Farinacci as a suspect, developed probable cause “and determined that the origin of the fire was indeed exactly where the witnesses had seen Mr. Farinacci kneeling in the grass earlier that day,” he said.

A judge signed arrest and search warrants for Farinacci at 3 p.m. Monday and he was detained by 5 p.m., Nowels added.

“This was fantastic and very quick work by everybody involved,” he said.

“As it happens in so many critical cases, it was citizens who were paying attention to their surroundings, being aware and willing to step up and say something that led to the relatively quick apprehension of Mr. Farinacci.”

Farinacci has a felony conviction for manslaughter and was previously arrested in the same case on a charge of premeditated murder in Arizona, according to authorities.

Authorities will be looking at further charges in the Old Trials Fire case as the investigation continues, according to Nowels.

He said authorities allege that Farinacci started the fire with either waterproof matches or a butane lighter, both of which were in his possession of when arrested.

A motive is being investigated, according to Nowels, who said Farinacci told police when he was detained “about [that] we didn’t know the whole story, or something to that effect.”

The Old Trails Fire, Fairview Fire and Autumn Lane Fire have ripped through Spokane County, where roughly 65,000 people were forced to evacuate and more than 700 structures were destroyed.

According to a Monday update from the county, the three fires have burned about 8,026 acres of land and were 0% contained.

Aug. 2 (UPI) — Greek police announced Sunday they have arrested a man in connection with the grisly discovery of a British woman whose body had been stuffed into a suitcase and abandoned in an Athens neighborhood.

The Hellenic Police said a 26-year-old foreign man was identified as a suspect in the case and that he has been charged with manslaughter, robbery and violation of weapons laws.

The victim was identified by police as a 38-year-old British woman whose body was discovered stuffed into a suitcase left in an abandoned building in the neighborhood of Kypseli at on July 18.

Multiple media reports named the victim as Elisabeth-Jane Ross, a resident of Scotland.

Authorities determined she had been dead for eight days before her body was discovered.

They said the suspect confessed to his actions after being interrogated on Thursday, confirming to authorities he placed Ross’ body in a suitcase and transported it to the abandoned site.

The man later used victim’s bank cards to withdraw money from he accounts, police said.

During searches carried out at his home, a replica pistol and a knife were found and seized, accounting for the weapons charge.

Hellenic Police said they worked closely with British and Scottish counterparts in investigating the case.

Bolivia’s former president is being investigated ‘for armed uprising’ against the state, among other things.

A court in Bolivia has issued an arrest warrant for former President Evo Morales.

The Santa Cruz district prosecutor’s office said Morales is being investigated for “armed uprising against the security and sovereignty of the state, terrorism and attacks on the safety of means of transport”.

Morales backed protests in June by farmers and truckers against an economic crisis, rising living costs and conservative President Rodrigo Paz’s austerity plans.

“They will not intimidate us,” he responded to the charges in a post on X.

Morales said the government was going after him “to conceal the true drama Bolivia is experiencing: a deep economic and social crisis…a model that has abandoned the people and protects corruption”.

Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, rose from poverty to serve three terms as president, one of Latin America’s longest-serving leaders.

He was in office from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster, when he was forced to resign after elections tainted by claims of fraud.

Initially refusing to leave power, he eventually had to go, casting a shadow over nearly 14 years of economic progress and poverty reduction mixed with accusations of political heavy-handedness.

He went into exile in Mexico and later, Argentina, returning a year later after his political ally Luis Arce won the presidency.

In late 2024, allegations surfaced against him of trafficking a minor and statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant.

By early 2025, Morales’s supporters cut off roads and paralysed the country in protest against the charges, which he rejected. He has also refused to appear at court hearings.

As the unrest over Bolivia’s economic crisis was brewing in May, Morales was found in contempt of court, and a renewed warrant for his arrest on the rape charges was issued.

His supporters threatened to “throw the country into turmoil” if he was arrested, at a time when protests had shut down roads and forced the government to airlift food to some areas.

After Paz declared a state of emergency in June and the protests slowed, the latest investigation began, triggered by a criminal complaint over Morales’s involvement with the demonstrations.

The complaint, filed by the civic group Comit pro Santa Cruz and later picked up by the Interior Ministry, alleges that Morales’s supporters “caused a shortage of food, fuel and medicine” by blocking transport in the country for 53 days.

The charges filed on Wednesday were outlined in a document published by local media, according to German wire service DPA.

The order instructs police to detain Morales and bring him to the special anticorruption unit.

“We will continue fighting alongside the people, as we have always done, with the conviction that Bolivia deserves a different path: one of dignity, sovereignty, social justice, and the recovery of hope for all,” said Morales responding to the latest charges.

The three-episode documentary includes bodycam footage, texts and interviews with the victims’ loved ones.

Netflix viewers have branded the streamer’s latest true crime documentary “a hard watch”. The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare is on Netflix and the harrowing factual series investigates the horrifying murders of four University of Idaho students.

The students were fatally stabbed in an off-campus house in the early hours of the morning, but the motive behind the killings has never been disclosed.

The tragic deaths were covered extensively in the press and the case has been revisited in a number of TV shows, including Prime Video’s One Night in Idaho: The College Murders.

Viewers have already shared their thoughts on the Netflix documentary, with one saying on Reddit: “This show does a really good job of looking at the victims as people. It’s really heartbreaking.”

Another commented on Instagram: “This is going to be a very hard watch,” while another shared: “This case still haunts me.” Here is all you need to know about what happened.

When did the Idaho Murders happen?

The murders took place in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, in an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho.

Five roommates, plus a partner of one of the students, were in the house by 2am after spending the night at various locations.

Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen were two of the students who survived the attack, both hiding in the same bedroom.

In February 2023, a friend of the survivors spoke to PEOPLE about how the roommates were still impacted by the murders, saying: “They feel a lot of survivor’s guilt.

“Their friends are gone and they’re still here. It’s been really rough on them. They’re going to be dealing with this for the rest of their lives.”

Who were the Idaho Murders victims?

Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin were the four victims and they had all been close friends. On the night they were killed, survivor Dylan, who was a junior at the time and living in a room off the side of the kitchen, heard someone scream in the house.

She recalled how she thought she overheard an unfamiliar male voice saying: “It’s okay. I’m going to help you”. Feeling nervous, she ran to her door and locked it, trying to call all of her roommates, but nobody was answering.

She went over to her door and opened it to see a man dressed in all black, but he did not approach her. She returned to her room, where she called Bethany Funke, later joining her in her bedroom, where the two locked themselves in.

The Netflix documentary’s director, Skye Borgman, said she was keen for the film to focus on the victims and not their killer.

She said: “When I was able to sit down and talk to the families, both before we started shooting and during the shooting, that’s one thing that they really wanted to get across: They weren’t just victims.

“They were alive, bright, happy, amazing people. And it was really important for them to tell this story and to put that message forward — what we lost.”

Who was charged for the killings?

On December 30, 2022, police arrested Bryan Christopher Kohberger on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.

At the time of the murders, he was a PhD student completing his first semester at Washington State University in Pullman.

In July 2025, the doctoral student in criminology was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in prison without parole, as well as another ten years for burglary, after issuing guilty pleas.

In July 2026, Kohberger filed a handwritten petition seeking to withdraw his guilty pleas and proceed to trial. The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare is on Netflix

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani releases a video statement calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to face trial for war crimes, citing the ICC’s arrest warrant. But, after days of speculation, Mamdani says New York does not have the power to arrest Netanyahu.

July 18 (UPI) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mandani on Saturday said his government is reviewing whether it could legally arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over accusations of war crimes.

Netanyahu is expected to visit the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

In 2024, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the prime minister’s arrest over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including starvation and attacking a civilian population.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani told The New York Times. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court, and what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these past many years.”

Mandani said his legal team is reviewing the city’s options.

“We’re not talking about a personal assessment of Benjamin Netanyahu,” the mayor told The Times. “We’re talking about the International Criminal Court and the fact that they have a warrant out for this prime minister’s arrest, and I think it’s important to talk about the weight that that has as a charge and that also, as the mayor of New York City, I’ll be following the laws of New York City.”

Netanyahu has denied the ICC charges and disputes the court’s jurisdiction.

In a previous interview, the prime minister claimed without evidence that Mandani is a Hamas supporter.

“He is with the terror actors,” he told WABC. “I think, secretly, he hates America.”

Michael Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., called Mandani’s comments “pure political theater.”

“The U.S. is not party to the Rome Statute that underlies the ICC,” he wrote on X, adding, “The U.N. Headquarters Agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of government.”

Mamdani had pledged to arrest Netanyahu during campaign for mayor and says he is consulting city’s legal advisers.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said that he is consulting with city authorities over the possibility of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September.

In an interview with The New York Times (NYT) released on Saturday, Mamdani reiterated his view that Netanyahu, who is the subject of an ICC arrest warrant for possible crimes against humanity in Gaza, must be brought to justice for the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in the Hague,” Mamdani told The Interview, a show produced by the NYT.

“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” he added. “And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.”

Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has emerged as an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause, pledged to arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York City during his mayoral campaign. Some questioned the feasibility of that promise.

The mayor said that he was in “active conversation” with the city’s law department about whether he has the authority to have Netanyahu arrested, should he travel to New York.

“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” he said.

Asked about Mamdani’s call to have him arrested, Netanyahu told radio personality Sid Rosenberg that he thinks Mamdani secretly “hates America”.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, also insisted that Netanyahu will be at the UNGA meeting in New York this September, despite the threats of arrest.

During his campaign for mayor, Mamdani was the target of frequent Islamophobic vitriol and insults. Rosenberg referred to the New York mayor hopeful as a “cockroach”, before later apologising.

Mamdani’s election to mayor and his continued calls for accountability regarding Netanyahu point to a dramatic swing among Democratic voters away from Israel.

A poll in May found that nearly three-quarters of Democratic voters oppose US aid to Israel, up from 45 percent three years ago.

Nearly half of those surveyed said that their party was too supportive of Israel, whose war on Gaza has been termed a genocide by a growing number of human rights organisations, international officials, and scholars.

While that shift has yet to translate into concrete policy change at the top of the party, which includes stalwart supporters of Israel, many Democratic politicians have slowly begun to adjust their positions.

Nearly half of the Democratic members of the US House of Representatives voted to end US aid to Israel earlier this week, a measure of the shifting politics around the issue that commentators believe would have been unthinkable just several years ago.

A video showing two plainclothes ICE agents tackling a man at the Las Vegas airport before walking away after bystanders intervened has reignited criticism of the agency’s arrest tactics. ICE later said he was arrested at Los Angeles Airport for overstaying his visa.

July 16 (UPI) — Police in Hong Kong detained five bookstore workers on suspicion of breaches of the territory’s national security law during raids on two independent shops.

The two men, aged 37 and 57, and three women, aged between 30 and 59, were arrested in the Mong Kok district of the city on Wednesday on suspicion of “intention to commit sedition” under the 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, Hong Kong Police Force said in a news release.

They said the five were being detained under investigation. If convicted, they face a maximum prison sentence of seven years.

Police accuse the suspects of displaying items with seditious intent and selling publications with seditious content, specifically inciting hatred against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, the judiciary, and law enforcement agencies.

They said they seized books which they allege had “seditious intent” from the shops during the raid, which was mounted on a tip-off after customs officers intercepted a shipment of books allegedly containing seditious material. Police did not say which country the books were being shipped from.

Local media identified the stores as Greenfield Book Store and Have A Nice Stay, which is run by former journalists and specializes in books on democracy, authoritarianism and media literacy.

Photos circulating online show one young woman being led away from the Have A Nice Stay store in handcuffs and police loading plastic storage containers of evidence onto a truck.

The raid came a day after Have A Nice Stay announced on Instagram that it would be shutting its doors for good on Aug. 30. Apologizing, it said because it was losing money and was fearful of running foul of the law.

“The elusive red line is certainly a reason. The director has made it clear before that he will not explain what books cannot be sold. We are really limited in our ability to read every book or decide which are a ‘problem.’ For us, books are the space of knowledge and thought, and this space is supposed to be flawless… We lack the ability and courage to carry out our mission of disseminating knowledge through books,” the store wrote.

According to its Facebook bio, Greenfield Book Store specializes in literature, history, philosophy, art, society, and self-help books from Hong Kong and Taiwan with discounts offered year-round.

Human rights groups condemned the arrests.

“The use of ‘sedition’ offenses to target bookstores once again demonstrates how Hong Kong’s national security framework is being weaponized to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought and debate,” Amnesty International said in a news release.

It said increasingly ambiguous “red lines” for booksellers intentionally left publishers and authors guessing what material could render them liable to criminal investigation, arrest or closure, stoking fear and self-censorship with “devastating consequences for freedom of expression.”

Human Rights Watch said in a post on X that the targeting of and arrests of booksellers “exposed what the Chinese government fears most: free thinking.”

“Beijing is trying to impose a world where people think only what the authorities permit,” it wrote.

The arrests bring to 11 the number of bookstore workers arrested following raids on two other stores in March and June.

The latest crackdown came two weeks after bookseller Lam Wing-Kee passed away in exile in Taiwan. He ran Causeway Bay Books on Hong Kong island for two decades until he, Gui Minhai and four others associated with the business went missing in 2015.

Lam returned to Hong Kong eight months later, saying he had been abducted by Chinese security officials as he was returning from a trip to the mainland. He gave a press conference claiming he had been sent back to Hong Kong to retrieve a hard drive containing names of writers and customers. He then fled to Taiwan.

A Chinese court in Ningbo sentenced Swedish citizen Gui to 10 years in prison in 2020 for “illegally providing intelligence” to foreign governments after Swedish authorities concluded he was likely kidnapped while on vacation in Thailand in 2015 and may have been tortured while in custody.

Thai authorities had no record of Gui exiting the country.

Shia LaBeouf’s alleged stalker has been arrested after posting a video of the actor asking to be left alone.

According to Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office booking records, Alyssa Lee Couture, 40, was arrested Monday night and booked on a misdemeanor charge of stalking. Hours earlier, Couture had posted a video of a confrontation with LaBeouf in what appeared to be a grocery store parking lot. The “Honey Boy” actor is shown speaking to Couture through the window of a car.

“Leave me alone. God bless you. Leave me alone,” LaBeouf says calmly in the video. “You’re scaring my dad. You’re scaring my people. Leave me alone.”

Couture has posted more than 5,000 videos on her Instagram, most of which feature the woman addressing the embattled actor, whom she appears to believe is her husband. In a GoFundMe launched in May, Couture wrote that she was hoping to raise $70,000 to find permanent housing and that she had been living in her car and staying with family members. She also wrote that she had schizophrenia, among other disabilities.

Although the New Orleans Police Department does not identify Couture’s stalking victim as LaBeouf due to privacy policies, the timeline of her booking appears to line up with the confrontation with LaBeouf.

According to People, LaBeouf left Los Angeles after his split from actor Mia Goth last year and relocated to Louisiana to be closer to family.

In June, he pleaded guilty to three counts of simple battery, months after he went viral for his involvement in a Mardi Gras altercation in New Orleans. The actor, 39, was arrested in New Orleans on Feb. 17. At the time, New Orleans police confirmed LaBeouf was charged with two counts of simple battery for allegedly assaulting two men near a bar in the French Quarter. TMZ published bystander video of the incident and footage of LaBeouf walking through the French Quarter hours before the brawl.

The actor was released from jail shortly after his arrest and posted $100,000 in bond. More than a week after LaBeouf’s initial arrest, the New Orleans Police Department issued a second warrant for the actor’s arrest in connection with the same incident, and he racked up an additional simple battery charge. Prior to the second arrest, a New Orleans judge ordered LaBeouf to begin substance abuse treatment and undergo weekly drug testing.

Times staff reporter Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.

“The Real Housewives of Orange County” star Jennifer Pedranti says that her son was involved in starting a brush fire that burned in Ladera Ranch.

Pedranti posted the admission on her Instagram stories on Thursday, saying that there will be consequences for her son.

“I would like to clear up the rumblings of my son having involvement in the Ladera Ranch fire,” her statement began.

“He and others were involved. My ex husband and myself take this very serious. This behavior is unacceptable and we are deeply sorry to our community. This is a tough learning moment for our son and our family.”

Pedranti continued that she was thankful that there was no property damage and nobody was injured. “The fire and police were absolutely amazing and gave these boys a lesson they will never forget,” she said. “There were no arrests made, but consequences for actions are being put into place.”

According to Pedranti, her son will be taking a fire safety course to “make sure a mistake like this never happens again.”

“There are consequences within our family and we will make sure our son learns from this accident.”

The brush fire originated near Ladera Ranch’s Narrow Canyon Road and Acaster Way on Tuesday afternoon and spread across seven acres before firefighters were able to get it under control.

Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Augie Romo confirmed to The Times that three minors were interviewed in connection with the Ladera Ranch brush fire and that no arrests were made. A full report will be made available in 10 days, but for now, most details of the incident remain under investigation.

The Bravo reality star shares five children with her ex-husband, biotech entrepreneur William Pedranti: sons Harrison, 22; Dawson, 19; Greyson, 16; and Dominic, 12; and daughter Everleigh, 14. She is engaged to “Real Housewives” cast member Ryan Boyajian, who reportedly was formerly involved in real estate and mortgage lending.

Rams offensive lineman Alaric Jackson is not facing charges related to his arrest last month on suspicion of domestic violence, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office confirmed.

“Charges are not filed against the respondent at this time, however, the case stays open throughout the length of the statute of limitations. It can be re-evaluated if there are further developments,” said Ivor Pine, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.

Pine said the matter has been assigned for a City Attorney hearing, a pre-filing diversion that is an alternative to misdemeanor prosecution.

Jackson was arrested on June 9 after police responded to a call at a West Hills home involving Jackson and a pregnant woman.

Jackson, 27, could still face discipline from the NFL if the league determines that he violated its personal conduct policy for the second time.

In 2024, Jackson served a two-game suspension. If the league finds he committed another violation, Jackson could face a six-game suspension or possible banishment for at least one year.

The Rams are scheduled to report to training camp on July 25 in preparation for their Sept. 10 season opener against the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia.

Staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.

Police arrested pro-Palestine activists for blockading a UK facility operated by UAV Engines Ltd, a subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, and one of the world’s largest drone engine manufacturers. Activists say Elbit’s weapons are used in Israel’s war on Gaza.

MILWAUKEE — Former Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was spared from prison Wednesday for ushering a Mexican defendant out of her courtroom to evade U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. A federal judge fined her $5,000 and cited her otherwise law-abiding life in issuing the sentence.

“I think this is a situation where an otherwise good person, upset by immigration policies in this country, made a bad decision in the moment,” U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman said.

Dugan, 67, was convicted of felony obstruction in December. Her lawyers argued during her trial that President Trump’s administration sought to “crush” Dugan in an effort to ensure judicial compliance with the ICE strategy of targeting immigrants as they showed up for court hearings.

Dugan resigned the Milwaukee County circuit judgeship she had held for nine years in January amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers who labeled her an activist judge. In her resignation letter, she said her prosecution threatened “the independence of our judiciary.” Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a fierce Trump loyalist running for Wisconsin governor, urged authorities to “lock her up” in a social media post following her conviction.

Two Marquette University law professors spoke on her behalf, including a former state Supreme Court justice and a Jesuit priest who read a statement describing Dugan as a defender of oppressed people and saying he didn’t believe there was a need for punishment. “Hannah models what it means to be a Christian,” Gregory O’Meara said.

Dugan says she was just trying to do her job

Dugan then rose to address the court, saying she’s tried to do her best as a judge, and that her actions that day in April 2025 were not done maliciously but rather to maintain the “decorum and safety of the courtroom.”

“I have been cast as both a scofflaw and a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who’s just trying to do my job,” Dugan said, adding that she has had to retire from public life due to threats against her and her family.

A prosecutor then acknowledged that “she has experienced collateral damage because of her conduct,” but said “judges can’t choose to disregard the law.”

Adelman then spoke, saying he doesn’t believe prison is necessary. He noted that Dugan lost her job, now has a felony conviction and experienced threats that forced her to move and stop attending community events.

“This is a few minutes of conduct for someone who has dedicated her life to public service,” the judge said. “It’s a marked deviation from an otherwise law-abiding life.”

He also noted that Dugan’s actions didn’t stop the ICE agents from arresting the defendant outside the courthouse.

Prosecutors pushed for a ‘serious sentence’

While jurors found her guilty of felony obstruction, they acquitted her of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor.

Prosecutors argued in a sentencing memo filed last week that Dugan violated her oath as a judge and put both law enforcement and the public at risk.

“Judges are entrusted with tremendous discretion, but there is a line they cannot cross,” Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Frohling wrote. “The defendant crossed that line.”

Dugan’s attorneys argued she has been “punished enough,” including resigning as a judge and facing threats of violence. They argued in her sentencing memo that she should not be sentenced to any jail time besides the part of one day she already spent in federal custody.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, the presentence report calls for 15 to 21 months behind bars. The judge is not bound by those guidelines.

Prosecutors said the average sentence for obstruction cases is 16 months, but they did not recommend a sentence.

“This was a serious offense, and it warrants a correspondingly serious sentence,” Frohling wrote.

Attorney Jason Luczak said after the sentencing that they would still appeal Dugan’s conviction.

Dugan’s case was a first for Wisconsin

Dugan’s case marked the first time that a state judge in Wisconsin went to trial on charges of obstructing immigration agents.

On April 18, 2025, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the chief judge’s office, saying their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient to arrest Flores-Ruiz.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. A week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan in the courthouse, leading her outside in handcuffs.

Flores-Ruiz was deported in November.

Savage and Bauer write for the Associated Press. Bauer reported from Madison, Wisc. AP contributors include Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa.

MAYA Jama has revealed she risked being arrested in Ibiza after she accidentally took something from a bar without paying for it.

The Love Island host, 31, shared a new vlog on her YouTube channel as her hairdresser got her ready for a photoshoot to be a cover girl on a magazine.

Her hairstylist divulged: “We were in Ibiza and the bar was closing and we were walking back to the hotel, but we took our glasses and then the Spanish lady, she was chasing us down the road.”

Maya added: “So we came and gave them back! Otherwise we would get arrested!”

The hairdresser expressed: “We’d get arrested in Ibiza and that’s not what we want.”

Maya told the camera: “They weren’t even proper glass cups, they were plastic.”

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He continued: “We couldn’t take them and we didn’t know that at the time and then she was chasing us down the road.”

“It was quite funny but I’m glad we snapped out of it or else we would have got arrested for stealing plastic cups,” The Masked Singer star said.

“It wouldn’t even be worth it, we weren’t even doing anything cool.”

Her revelation comes after she headed into the Love Island villa to host the Casa Amor recoupling.

She turned heads in an incredible plunging black dress as she entered the villa for a second time this week.

Maya left fans applauding as she sided with a heartbroken Jasmine when Kavan came back to the villa with Charleen on his arm.

When Jasmine saw Kavan, who she was in a couple with, walk back into the main villa with the stunning Irish influencer – she was left taken aback and quite frankly, fuming.

After she processed the information, Jasmine asked Kavan if he had slept in bed with girls during Casa.

She also asked him if he’d kissed any girls outside of challenges.

His brother Aidan was quick to butt in, saying how he thinks this is a conversation for them to have in private.

“I’m allowed to speak to him. That’s who I was in a couple with,” Jasmine snapped at Aidan.

“Yeah, Aidan, let them two speak,” Maya then added in a stern voice.

Reacting to Maya’s hilarious snap back at Aidan, one person penned: “The fact even Maya’s sick of Aidan acting like the spokesperson.”

“Maya Jama is so real telling Aidan to let Jasmine and her couple speak. That’s a REAL ASS HOST,” said a second.