Crime

THE 15-year-old son of former Real Housewives star Kim Zolciak and NFL player Kroy Biermann has been arrested for alleged sex crimes against a girl in a gym.

Kroy Biermann Jr. was taken into custody on August 17 in Alpharetta, Georgia, and was hit with felony charges of aggravated sodomy and aggravated sexual battery.

The teen is accused of leading a 15-year-old female acquaintance into a family changing room at a Life Time Fitness location before physically restraining her and forcing her to engage in sexual acts on April 23.

After the alleged attack, the girl went to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta where she was examined by a nurse and a sexual assault kit was taken.

The Alpharetta Police Department confirmed he has been charged as an adult.

His father Kroy Biermann played for the Atlanta Falcons while his mom Kim starred in the Real Housewives of Atlanta.

On Friday his mom, who starred in the show between 2008 and 2012 issued a statement to US Weekly regarding the accusations.

“The allegations being made against my son are nothing short of reckless and deeply troubling,” she said.

“He categorically denies ever being involved with this woman or engaging in the conduct she has alleged.”

“My son voluntarily took a polygraph examination regarding these allegations and passed.”

She claimed that no DNA belonging to her son was found on the alleged victim and highlighted that “false accusations can have devastating consequences” for both the accused and survivors of such crimes.

The teenager is next due to appear at Fulton County Superior Court on September 8 and remains in custody at the Metro Regional Youth Detention Center with no bond set.

Biermann Jr. is the eldest of four children Zolciak shares with former Atlanta Falcon Biermann.

The pair filed for divorce in August 2023 after 12 years of marriage.

If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.

Netflix documentary Freefall: A Reckoning of Boeing chronicles the deepening corporate crisis, alleged safety failures and tragic death of whistleblower John Barnett

An explosive new Netflix documentary threatens to blow the lid on alleged systemic safety failures at Boeing as well as the tragic death of whistleblower John Barnett.

Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing is a sequel to the 2022 documentary film Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, which examined the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that claimed 346 lives.

This new offering, from director Rory Kennedy, takes a closer look at Barnett’s battle against Boeing and his later suicide, as well as investigating the testimony of other whistleblowers, who claim managers told them on occasion to overlook safety problems.

Following Boeing’s 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, the company was accused of being governed by Wall Street executives obsessed with profit, rather than an engineer-led organisation.

The company faced allegations of prioritising cost-cutting and outsourcing vital engineering work, and has continued to face production crises, including improperly installed wiring and unsealed door plugs that blew out mid-flight on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in January 2024.

Ahead of the documentary’s release on August 19 , we take a closer look at some of the biggest disasters in Boeing’s history.

Tenerife Airport Disaster (1977) — 583 Fatalities

On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets (KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736) collided on a foggy runway at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) in the Canary Islands, Spain, resulting in 583 fatalities. Known as the ‘Tenerife Airport Disaster’, it remains the deadliest aviation accident in history.

A series of events led to the collision. Neither planes were supposed to be there; earlier that day, a bombing at Gran Canaria Airport forced planes, including the KLM flight and the Pan Am flight, to divert to the smaller airport in Tenerife.

That diversion overwhelmed the small airport, forcing pilots to taxi up and down the active runway because taxiways were blocked.

Then the thick fog came rolling in, impacting visibility. And finally, there was a fatal misunderstanding.

The Pan Am jet was taxiing on the runway but missed its intended exit. At the same time, the KLM pilots mistakenly believed they were cleared for takeoff and accelerated, crashing straight into the hidden Pan Am plane.

The impact and the resulting fire killed all 248 people on board the KLM plane and 335 of the 396 people on board the Pan Am plane, with all 61 survivors being in the front section of the aircraft.

Japan Airlines Flight 123 (1985) — 520 Fatalities

Japan Airlines Flight 123 was a domestic flight travelling from Tokyo to Osaka on the evening of 12 August 1985. But just 12 minutes after takeoff, the Boeing 747 suffered a severe structural failure and explosive decompression. After flying under minimal control for 32 minutes, the plane crashed in the area of Mount Takamagahara.

The aircraft had 524 people on board, and the initial crash killed all 15 crew members along with between 460-490 of the 509 passengers on board. An estimated 20 to 50 passengers survived the initial crash but died from their injuries while awaiting rescue, leaving only four survivors.

The crash, which claimed the lives of 520 people in total, is the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history and remains the deadliest aviation incident in Japan.

Japan’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission – assisted by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board – concluded that the structural failure was caused by a faulty repair by Boeing technicians following a tailstrike seven years earlier. A tailstrike occurs when the rear part of an aircraft’s fuselage hits the runway or ground, and usually happens during takeoff if the nose is lifted too aggressively, or during landing if the pilot raises the nose too high while trying to touch down.

When the faulty repair eventually failed, it resulted in a rapid decompression that ripped off a large portion of the tail and caused the loss of function of all hydraulic systems and flight controls.

Charkhi Dadri Mid-Air Collision (1996) — 349 Fatalities

The catastrophic Charkhi Dadri collision occurred mid-air when Saudia Flight 763 (a Boeing 747) and Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 (an Ilyushin Il-76) collided over Haryana, India.

The crash, which took place on 12 November 1996, killed all 349 people aboard both aircraft, making it the deadliest mid-air collision in aviation history.

It was found to have been caused by the flight crew of Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 failing to maintain their assigned altitude. The Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 descended past its cleared altitude of 15,000 feet right into the path of the ascending Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763 at 14,000 feet.

This stemmed from three key factors. The Kazakh flight crew’s English was poor and inside the cockpit, only the flight engineer – not the pilots – spoke English, forcing them to rely on a radio operator for continuous Russian translation of Air Traffic Control (ATC) instructions.

The Kazakh crew also exhibited confusion and poor communication during their descent, struggling to interpret the ATC’s directions as the two planes converged on intersecting flight paths.

There were also equipment limitations to contend with the Air Traffic Control radar at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport was a primary surveillance radar which meant controllers could see the planes’ distance and bearing but could not independently verify their altitudes.

Furthemore, neither aircraft was equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), which would have alerted the pilots to the impending collision.

The accident led the International Civil Aviation Organization to make it mandatory for commercial aircraft to be equipped with TCAS, establish English as the universal language for aviation communication, and mandate that arrival and departure routes at busy international hubs be separated.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (2014) — 298 Fatalities

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile on 17 July 2014. All 283 passengers and 15 crew members were killed.

All contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 kilometres from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage from the aircraft landed near Hrabove in Ukraine, 40 km from the border.

It was said to have been shot down by Russian-backed forces. The Russian government denied involvement in the shooting down of the aircraft, but on 17 November 2022, following a trial in absentia in the Netherlands, two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist were found guilty of murdering all 298 people on board the flight. The Dutch court also ruled that Russia was in control of the separatist forces fighting in eastern Ukraine at the time.

MH17 was Malaysia Airlines’ second aircraft loss during 2014, after the disappearance of Flight 370 four months prior on 8 March. It is also the deadliest aircraft shoot-down incident to date

China Airlines Flight 611 (2002) – 225 Fatalities

China Airlines Flight 611 was travelling from Taiwan to Hong Kong International Airport when it disintegrated midair and crashed into the Taiwan Strait, just 20 minutes after takeoff. It killed all 225 people on board.

The in-flight breakup was caused by metal fatigue cracks from a tail strike at Kai Tak Airport on 7 of February 1980. The aircraft had not been properly repaired according to Boeing policies and manuals. Metal fatigue from over 22 years of service and repeated pressurization cycles caused tiny cracks that led to the aircraft’s breakup.

The crash remains the deadliest in Taiwan, and the second-deadliest accident in China Airlines history, behind China Airlines Flight 140 with 264 fatalities.

Lion Air Flight 610 (2018) – 189 Fatalities

Lion Air Flight 610 was travelling from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, to Depati Amir Airport in Indonesia on 29 October 2018, when it crashed into the sea 13 minutes after take off.

All 189 passengers – 181 passengers and eight crew – onboard the Boeing 737 MAX 8 were killed.

The Indonesian government’s search and rescue found debris and human remains soon after from a 280-kilometre-wide (150-nautical-mile) area, and the flight data recorder (FDR) was found on 1 November and recovered for analysis.

A subsequent investigation, led by the National Transportation Safety Committee, revealed that a new software function in the flight control system caused the aircraft to nose down.

That function, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), had been intentionally omitted from aircraft documentation for aircrews by Boeing, so the pilots did not know about it, and did not know what it could do.

Investigators concluded that an external device on the aircraft, the angle-of-attack (AoA) sensor, was miscalibrated due to improper maintenance which sent erroneous data to MCAS. In turn, MCAS responded by pushing the nose of the plane down.

The problem had occurred on the same aircraft during its immediately preceding flight, and the pilots had recovered using a standard checklist. But during the fatal flight, the pilots did not properly follow the checklist, with the result that MCAS remained active and repeatedly put the aircraft into an unsafe nose-down position until it crashed into the water.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing issued warnings and training advisories to all operators of the Boeing 737 MAX series. But similar issues caused the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on 10 March 2019, leading to a worldwide grounding of all 737 MAX aircraft.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (2019) – 157 Fatalities

Just five months after the Lion Air Flight crash, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu on 10 March 2019. The plane went down just six minutes after takeoff, and all 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board died.

The crash was again caused by a fault in the plane’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), the flight stabilizing system developed by Boeing for the MAX 8. Due to a failure in the sensor, the aircraft’s nose was repeatedly pitched down against the pilots’ inputs, eventually leading the plane to crash.

It was the second accident involving a MAX 8, and prompted a two-year worldwide grounding of the jet and an investigation into how the aircraft was approved for passenger service.

The documentary film Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing will be released globally on Netflix on August 19, 2026

Authorities were warned about dangers of hitting Mohammad Ghamira, who suffered from the rare medical condition haemophilia.

A Syrian police officer has been arrested and may be criminally prosecuted after an investigation found that he hit a detainee with a medical condition who died shortly after being released from custody.

Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday that Mohammad Ghamira, 29, died after being slapped by police investigator Ahmad Jawad, who has since been detained and referred to the public prosecutor.

Ghamira, who died on Sunday, suffered from haemophilia, a rare condition that prevents blood from clotting properly, making sufferers bleed more easily and for longer periods.

The father of two was a member of the White Helmets, the civil defence organisation made up of volunteers that operated in rebel-held areas in Syria. They went on search and rescue operations and provided medical care following government attacks.

The investigation found that Ghamira had told internal security personnel about his condition, while his wife twice informed authorities about the potential danger.

Ahmad Latouf, head of the investigation committee and assistant interior minister for police affairs, confirmed that Ghamira died after suffering a brain haemorrhage believed to have been caused by the slap.

Two other police officers are also being investigated but are not currently due to be prosecuted.

Ghamira’s death has provoked widespread anger among Syrians, reminding many of the gross human rights abuses that were systematic under former President Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown by rebels in December 2024.

New leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has promised to usher in a new era, prioritising human rights and overseeing an inclusive government. However, human rights organisations have documented widespread abuses by government forces, particularly against minority groups.

Commenting on Ghamira’s death on Thursday, the Interior Ministry accused Jawad of violating ministerial instructions and the code of conduct, which strictly prohibit any form of humiliating or abusive treatment of detainees.

Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab said in a statement that the investigation results showed the ministry’s “commitment to reaching the truth and holding accountable those proven to have overstepped”.

“We rose up against the former tyrant’s regime in rejection of injustice and impunity, and therefore, building a state of law begins with our ability to hold the wrongdoer accountable, to give restitution to the victim, and not to do injustice to anyone who has not been proven responsible” for wrongdoing, he said.

Reporting from Syria’s northwestern port city of Latakia, Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett said the Syrian government has vowed to take further action.

“There will be surveillance put into police stations and better training provided to officers but they say all of this will take time,” Pett said.

“Part of the reason it has resonated so widely is because of who Mohammad was. He was a young man, 29 years old, and he had two children and was a volunteer with the White Helmets. They were basically seen as heroes. His father joined the revolution and so he’s a figure who many people here in his community and nationally respected,” she added.

“That’s part of why there’s been so much sadness and anger and it’s also [because of] the fact that Mohammad is not the first to be mistreated in detention by the new authorities. Syrian rights organisations have documented other cases of deaths in detention.”

Ghamira was arrested last week accused of theft. He was later released and died at a hospital in Latakia on Sunday.

During a forensic examination, medical experts found no visible signs of violence or severe force, as well as no skull fractures or traumatic wounds.

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.

Israeli air strikes on Gaza kill 10 Palestinians, targeting police headquarters and a refugee camp in separate attacks.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 10 Palestinians in two separate attacks targeting a Gaza City police post and Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, condemned what it called “a new war crime”.

On Wednesday, medical sources at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said they received nine Palestinian bodies following an attack on the municipal police headquarters in the centre of Gaza City. Another 15 people were wounded.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said the bombardment occurred at a busy time near a park crowded with civilians, including children.

Victims of the Gaza City strike included a newly-appointed Gaza City police chief, the director of a women’s police force, and several officers.

Earlier in the day, a strike on Nuseirat refugee camp killed one Palestinian, medics said, increasing Wednesday’s death toll to at least 10.

The Israeli army claimed its air force struck two Hamas commanders in Nuseirat, and that it later struck a Hamas commander in the Tuffah area of Gaza City, without providing evidence of their affiliation.

In a statement, Hamas rejected Israel’s justification that the strike targeted “resistance leaders”, calling the claim “baseless and false allegations used to justify its aggression and cover up its deliberate targeting of civilian police and unarmed civilians”.

Hamas accused the Israeli government of “deliberately undermining these efforts and dangerously pushing towards reigniting the war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip”.

On Tuesday, Israeli strikes killed seven people – including a child – and wounded 14 others at a crowded cafe on Gaza City’s harbour. The city’s port has been turned into a displacement camp, according to Wafa news agency.

The Israeli military again claimed, without providing evidence, that it had targeted Hamas commanders in the enclave.

Diplomatic deadlock

Wednesday’s attacks occurred two days after US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy Jared Kushner visited the region to push for a Trump-backed deal to end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Kushner’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to break a diplomatic deadlock after Netanyahu rejected an agreement for Israel to withdraw from the Strip in exchange for Hamas disarming.

Following the meeting, Kushner reiterated “Israel’s right to defend itself”. He threatened that Hamas must disarm or the US would support Israel to “finish the job in the appropriate way”.

Aug. 19 (UPI) — Federal prosecutors have charged a man from the Bronx with hate crime offenses alleging he assaulted a security guard and a congregant in a racially motivated attack at a Manhattan synagogue last week.

Larry Montes was arrested following the alleged attack at Central Synagogue on Friday and was charged by New York State.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department charged him with two counts of committing hate crimes, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment, and one count of damage to religious property resulting in bodily injury, which carries a maximum 20 years’ imprisonment.

“These charges serve as notice that the Department of Justice will intervene to protect the public in the face of antisemitic and racially motivated attacks,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

According to the complaint, Montes was allegedly among some 375 people who attended Shabbat service Friday night at the synagogue. During the service, he is alleged to have stood up and begun shouting and then struck two ceremonial silver candlesticks, which were damaged.

As a security guard attempted to remove Montes from the building, Montes allegedly uttered profanities about those in attendance and allegedly punched a woman.

After being handcuffed, he allegedly looked at a Black security guard cursed and called him a racial slur, before spitting on and head-butting the security guard.

During an interview with law enforcement, Montes allegedly issued antisemitic statements.

As of the end of July, there were 360 hate crime incidents committed in New York City, 205 of which were motivated by anti-Jewish bias, according to the city statistics.

The arrest comes after an attack on activist Nadia Beller, who says she was targeted for her opposition to conservative reforms and corruption.

Bolivia has arrested a prominent adviser to several right-wing political leaders in Latin America on suspicion of plotting a murder.

Fernando Cerimedo was arrested on Tuesday following an attack on lawyer and political activist Nadia Beller. The consultant has worked on political campaigns for Argentina’s President Javier Milei, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz.

The Argentinian national was arrested in Bolivia at an airport, trying to travel to his home country.

Security videos captured Beller standing in front of a hotel in Santa Cruz when two men dressed as delivery drivers walked up the stairs, shot her from close range, took some of her belongings, and left her behind as she lay on the ground.

Beller, who was four weeks pregnant, believes she was targeted for her opposition to a pack of unconstitutional laws under Decree 5503, which were being prepared by Cerimedo and the government, and for witnessing high-level corruption.

Decree 5503 introduces radical economic reforms, such as eliminating state fuel subsidies, that target policies put in place under Bolivia’s former socialist government.

Beller is also understood to have had a romantic relationship with Cerimedo. She admitted to her relationship with him in a video appearance from her hospital bed, and highlighted Cerimedo’s significant political influence.

She said she decided to speak out as she believes that “until I speak directly to the Bolivian people, they are going to finish what they attempted to do. They are going to end up taking my life”.

Bolivian Vice President Edmand Lara said the attack “threatens life, democracy, and freedom of expression” in a news conference where he called for an impartial investigation “without any kind of favoritism”.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday, seeking to compel the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent to stand trial for assault and falsely reporting a crime in the wounding of a man during the agency’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

Ellison said he would request a temporary restraining order barring the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office in Texas from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro and requiring Abbott to sign the extradition warrant allowing Minnesota law enforcement agents to take custody of him.

Castro was arrested 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. The criminal complaint alleges that Castro fired a gun at the front door of a home in Minneapolis, striking a victim in the leg before lodging in a child’s bedroom wall, and then knowingly provided false information to an officer about it.

Ellison said at a news conference that unless he’s extradited, Castro faces release from jail next week — 90 days since he was detained — under Texas law, and could flee the U.S. from the border town where he’s being held.

“Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota,” Ellison said. “He must face justice in Minnesota. Gov. Abbott should have granted Gov. Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now.”

“Christian Castro is not above the law and Greg Abbott isn’t either,” Ellison added.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the legal action taken Tuesday to compel Castro’s extradition “should be a completely unnecessary lawsuit.” Officials at the jail and local prosecutors in Texas have been “very cooperative,” she said — “it is not supposed to be controversial.”

She said that since Castro’s arrest, Texas has extradited three unrelated criminal defendants without incident to Minnesota at the request of state authorities.

Gov. Abbott has received communication with us on an ongoing basis, including recently,” Ellison said. “We have to take the position that they are refusing to honor the extradition request.”

Vancleave writes for the Associated Press.

This chilling true crime doc investigates a high school principal who hypnotised three students before their deaths.

ITV’s next true crime doc delves into the deaths of three students who were hypnotised by a teacher.

Look Into My Eyes was first released in the US three years ago and now it’s finally made its way to the UK, landing on ITVX today, Tuesday, August 18.

The True Crime Story doc explores the story of former North Port High School principal Dr George Kenney in Sarasota, Florida who was hypnotising his students.

He reportedly “put them under” to help teens with their athletic performances and anxiety ahead of taking exams and is believed to have hypnotised around 70 students in a five-year span.

But in 2011, Kenney was under investigation as he admitted to hypnotising three students who all tragically died within months of each other.

Star quarterback Marcus Freeman, 16, died in a car accident, and the following two months, fellow teens Brittany Palumbo and Wesley McKinley also died by suicide.

The four-part special takes a look at Kenney’s interventions and their role in the students’ lives. The official description further explains that it “investigates events leading up to these untimely deaths and the tragic aftermath as victims’ families, eyewitnesses, experts, and people involved attempt to unpack what really happened.

In the trailer for Look Into My Eyes, a parent of one of the deceased teens is heard tearily saying: “This man has ruined my life”, while another man stated: “This man just wanted to help.”

Kenney pleaded no contest to two misdemeanour counts of the unlawful practice of hypnosis without a license. He was sentenced to one year of probation, 50 hours of community service and resigned from his position as principal at North Port High School, according to the docu-series.

NBC reported that Freeman, McKinley and Palumbo’s parents sues Sarasota County school board for the wrongful deaths of the teens, stating that the school should have stopped Kenney from performing hypnosis.

In October 2015, each of the families reached a maximum sum of $200,000.

Look Into My Eyes is available to watch on ITVX.

As Messina celebrated the Sicilian holiday of Ferragosto, thieves struck the MuMe museum to steal the masterworks by Antonello da Messina.

Thieves have stolen four Renaissance masterworks by Antonello da Messina valued at up to 80 million euros ($93m) from the MuMe Regional Interdisciplinary Museum in the Sicilian city of Messina in Italy.

Cultural officials and Italian media reported the theft on Sunday, saying the heist occurred at about 9:50pm (19:50 GMT) the day before, during Sicily’s major Ferragosto holiday.

Italian news outlet Il Giornale dell’Arte said that the perpetrators had exploited the citywide distraction of the traditional Vara procession, which drew police and large crowds to central Messina.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that the thieves cut through metal perimeter fencing along Viale Annunziata to gain access to the grounds. They then forced open a side door to enter the gallery halls. Once inside, the group breached an armoured glass display case to extract a small, double-sided tempera panel dating back to 1465-1474.

The portable devotional piece features the Virgin and Child with a Franciscan Monk on its front and Christ in Pieta on its reverse. Originally part of the Wilhelm Soldan collection from 1930, it was acquired by the Sicilian region at a Christie’s auction in 2003 following its formal attribution to Antonello.

The perpetrators also dismantled all five remaining tempera-on-wood panels of the historic San Gregorio Polyptych. Commissioned in 1473 by Abbess Fabria Cirino for the monastery of Santa Maria, which was subsequently destroyed in Messina’s 1908 earthquake, the altarpiece stands as the only surviving masterpiece by Antonello that remained in his hometown. The thieves made off with three key sections of the piece.

Italian outlet Repubblica reported that the thieves abandoned the remaining two panels depicting Saint Benedict and Saint Gregory resting against a wall near the museum grounds.

‘A real movie-style heist like at the Louvre’

“We are devastated by what happened. They were two of Antonello da Messina’s most important and best-known works,” museum director Marisa Mercurio told Italian news agency ANSA.

Local Culture Councillor Enzo Caruso told outlet Il Tirreno: “Nobody in Messina could have imagined a real movie-style heist like at the Louvre.”

Caruso said that international interest in Antonello’s oeuvre had expanded after Italy’s Culture Ministry purchased his Ecce Homo painting for $14.9m earlier in the year.

Lynda Albertson, CEO of the ARCA art crimes research association, told La Repubblica that “stealing an Antonello may be far easier than selling one” given the high visibility and historic footprint of the stolen panels.

She explained that high-profile art of this kind rarely gets sold, often spending years traded within the criminal underworld as leverage for other illegal activities.

Born in Sicily around the year 1430, Antonello da Messina stands as one of the defining masters of the early Italian Renaissance. Because few of his works survive today, his surviving paintings are considered irreplaceable cultural treasures.

The theft follows a separate case days earlier in Parma, northern Italy, where police recovered three stolen works by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse valued at roughly $11.5m.

Aug. 15 (UPI) — A man in New York was arrested on hate crime charges after disrupting a Shabbat service and allegedly injuring a congregant in a Manhattan synagogue on Friday, police said.

Larry Montes, 46 of the Bronx, was arrested at Central Synagogue in the Upper East Side and charged with two counts of assault as a hate crime and one count of criminal mischief as a hate crime.

“As synagogue security was escorting him out, he struck a member of the congregation, damaged synagogue property, and then spit at and headbutted a member of the security team,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement on X.

Amid the confusion, there were shouts of panic as people in the synagogue scrambled, CNN reported.

One congregant, a 63-year-old woman, suffered a cut to her lip and injuries to her right forearm, according to the news outlet.

“Every New Yorker must be able to observe their religion without fear of violence,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement on X. “This despicable act has no place in our city, and our administration will do everything in our power to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe.”

As of August, 360 hate crimes were reported in the city this year, including 205 targeting Jewish people, The New York Times reported.

Sources told CNN that Montes has a history of mental health issues.

Aug. 14 (UPI) — Violent crime, including the estimated rate for murders and certain manslaughters, showed record year-to-year decreases in the United States during 2025, the FBI reported Friday.

Figures from its Uniform Crime Reporting Program showed murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses decreased an estimated 18.1% with the murder rate falling to 4.1 per 100,000 inhabitants — tied with 1955 and 1956 for the lowest murder rate ever recorded, the agency found.

The numbers from 2024 to 2025 “marked the largest year-to-year decline in violent crime rates since FBI estimations began in 1936,” the FBI said.

Meanwhile, while rape offenses decreased an estimated 7.6%, aggravated assault figures went down an estimated 7.2% and robbery offenses fell an estimated 18.5%.

Both the violent crime and murder rates have decreased annually since spiking in 2022, NBC News reported.

Friday’s release of the detailed numbers came after a May announcement in which FBI Director Kash Patel touted the lower crime numbers.

“The 2025 crime data in this report shows the single largest decrease in violent crime and murder since 1937 — as well as huge decreases across the board in terms of aggravated assault, rape, and robbery,” he said.

“Over the last 14 months, we made major transformations at the FBI, and these results show those changes are working. This FBI will continue to stack these wins for the American people under President [Donald] Trump and always Back the Blue every step of the way.”

Trump himself praised the FBI’s findings Friday during a rally-style appearance in front of law enforcement officers in Garden City, N.Y.

“I’d like to thank all the people in this room and say I am thrilled to announce that the FBI have released the new uniform crime report that in 2025 we achieved the single largest reduction in violent crime in American history,” he said.

Trump tied the lower crime numbers to his administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement.

“Last year there were over 3,000 murderers and we allowed them through this stupid open borders policy… 25 million people to come into our country many of them, the people, that I just said, drug dealers, prisoners, from all over the world, they came in from the Congo, South America,” he claimed.

“Despite that, we have the best crime record in recorded history.”

Israeli settlers have marauded across the occupied West Bank for months, attacking Palestinian towns and villages with impunity.

Events in Qusra, a village south of Nablus, where Israeli settlers have laid siege to three Palestinian households since Sunday, have even led to a rare condemnation of settler behaviour by the Israeli government, with spokesperson David Mercer calling the settlers’ actions “deplorable” and “unacceptable”, and promising that Israeli authorities would investigate and arrest those responsible.

Analysts, campaigners, and Israeli parliamentarians who spoke to Al Jazeera have reacted to that with disbelief and incredulity, pointing to the inability of the Israeli military to stop the siege, in which the settlers have cut off water and electricity to Qusra. Israeli soldiers were initially even seen mingling and even praying with settlers in Qusra.

Complicity

“Government attempts to distance themselves from the violence are ridiculous,” Aida Touma-Sliman, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the left-wing Hadash party, told Al Jazeera. “They can say what they want, but they’re complicit.”

“If you look at the West Bank, you can no longer differentiate between the army and the settlers,” she said, adding that many of the settlers had been allowed to carry out their military service protecting the same illegal settlements they had come from. “The government is supplying them, protecting and arming them. It isn’t opposed to them. Supporting them is policy,” she added.

“There is nothing new in what’s happening in Qusra,” Yair Dvir of the Israeli rights organisation B’Tselem said. “We’ve been seeing this for decades. When there’s international criticism of the violence, the government condemns it, the settlers withdraw, and then return as soon as attention shifts.”

“Let’s be clear, settler violence is state violence,” Dvir added. “They both have the same aim: to displace Palestinians and to take their land.”

The speed and brutality of the Israeli government’s encroachment upon Palestinian land, in defiance of both international law and the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it should stop its illegal settlement of Palestinian territory, has increased in recent months. United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs monitoring shows settler violence to be increasing with every week that Israel’s October election – and the potential end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government – draws nearer.

“We’re definitely seeking an escalation of violence across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in other areas, such as Gaza, in the build-up to the election,” saidNeve Gordon, a professor of International Law at Queen Mary University, London, and the author of “Israel’s Occupation”.

“The vote is like a rallying cry for that entire [settler] constituency that they have to do as much as they can, while they can,” he said of fears among settlers and the radical Israeli right that they might lose what many regard as their allies in Netanyahu’s coalition.

Settlement unchained

The Israeli government has done little to distance itself from the actions of the settlers. Instead, prominent members of Netanyhu’s Likud party have attended prominent settlement conferences, including those explicitly focused on ethnically cleansing Gaza. Netanyahu himself responded to recent violence in the Palestinian village of Tal – which prompted the United Nations to warn that the entire West Bank was at “breaking point” – by promising to recognise even more illegal settlements.

At the heart of government policy on settlements have been the polarising figures of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Smotrich has proven to be one of the most consequential Israeli politicians in history in promoting the cause of illegal settlements.

As well as normalising political references to the annexation of the Palestinian territory, Smotrich made being granted partial administrative control over the occupied West Bank a key condition of his joining Netanyahu’s coalition. He has since overseen the expansion of illegal settlements at an unprecedented rate.

Smotrich has also boasted of making the two-state solution a practical impossibility with the announcement of the E1 settlement project, joining occupied East Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement, in August of last year.

However, focusing on just two of the coalition’s more controversial figures was to miss the point, Gordon argued.

“It’s too easy to say it’s all the fault of these few people and if they were gone it would all be OK,” Gordon said. “It goes far wider.”

“The ethnic cleansing we’re seeing of the West Bank, as well as that being undertaken by the army in the territory’s refugee camps, such as Jenin, needs the complicity of the police, the attorney general, the military and, ultimately, the public,” the professor noted. “Without the umbrella they provide, none of this would be possible.”

NICK Reiner has been indicted in the deaths of his parents after they were found fatally stabbed in their family home in December.

Nick, 32, previously pleaded not guilty to the murders of his film director dad Rob Reiner and his mother Michele, but a newly unsealed indictment reveals an additional allegation.

Rob and Michele were found with their throats slashed on December 14 inside of their Los Angeles home.

Nick, the couple’s youngest son, was indicted by a grand jury on the updated murder charges, replacing the initial charges filed against him in 2025.

He has since pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder with special circumstances allegations of lying in wait and personally using a knife, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The indictment was returned on July 20 and unsealed on Wednesday after Nick entered his plea.

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The new lying in wait allegation carries the possibility of a life sentence without parole or the death penalty.

The indictment allows prosecutors to speed up the process for Nick’s case to go to trial, avoid a preliminary hearing and avoid witnesses testifying about the circumstances and Nick’s history.

“This was a profound betrayal by someone who was loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing,” said Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman.

“We hope that by having a grand jury return an indictment in this case it will bring us one step closer to a trial and achieving justice.”

Rob and Michele attended a holiday party hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien with Nick on December 13, and later got into a heated argument with their son.

Their daughter Romy found them dead inside their home on December 14 around 3:30pm PST.

Nick, who has a history of substance abuse and mental illness, was arrested later that night and has since been held inside the Twin Towers jail in California.

His arraignment in January was postponed after his star lawyer Alan Jackson, who represented Karen Read, withdrew from the case abruptly, saying he had “no choice” but to leave.

Nick is scheduled to appear in court on September 15.

Prosecutors have not yet decided whether they will seek the death penalty in his case.

A family friend told The U.S. Sun that Nick’s siblings Jake and Romy want him to avoid the death penalty.

“Rob & Michele’s family, despite everything, do not want Nick to get the death penalty, as they insist this horrific incident was the byproduct of a mental health crisis,” the insider said.

Jake released a lengthy Substack post in April titled “Mom and Dad,” where he revealed the moment he learned of his parents’ deaths.

“It was at that moment I received a call from my sister Romy telling me our father was dead,” the 34-year-old wrote.

“Minutes later, she called back telling me our mother was also dead.”

Jake took an “unendurable” 45-minute Lyft ride to his parents’ home, writing in his Substack post, “My world, as I knew it, had collapsed.”

Timeline of Rob and Michele Reiner’s death

Rob Reiner and his wife of Michele Singer Reiner were found dead in their Los Angeles home on December 14, 2025.

Timeline:

• December 13, 2025: Reiner and his wife Michele attended a holiday party on the evening of December 13 with their son, Nick.
• Sources conveyed to The U.S. Sun that the couple and their son were engaged in a heated public argument while at the event.
• December 14, 2025: Reiner and Michele were found dead in their Brentwood home in Los Angeles at around 3:30 pm PST.
• The couple’s daughter, Romy, reportedly discovered her parents’ bodies.
• Online police records show Reiner and Michele’s 32-year-old son, Nick, was arrested at 9:15 pm PST on December 14.
• December 15, 2025: Authorities in Los Angeles announce that Nick Reiner was arrested and charged with murder.
• Nick was booked into a Los Angeles jail at 5:04 am and was being held on $4 million bail, which was later revoked.
• December 16, 2025: Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman formally charged Nick Reiner with two counts of first-degree murder.
• Hochman said his office would consider the death penalty in Nick’s case.
• Nick’s scheduled court appearance on December 16 was postponed due to what his attorney said was a procedural issue.
• December 17, 2025: Nick Reiner briefly appeared in court. A plea was not entered.
• December 23, 2025: The death certificates of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner disclosed that the couple died of multiple sharp force injuries caused with “a knife, by another.”

Jake did not name Nick in his writing, referring to him only as his “brother.”

“We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable,” Jake said.

“Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the center of it.”

Rob was a famous Hollywood filmmaker, known for directing films like The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally.

He famously rewrote the ending of When Harry Met Sally after meeting his wife.

Nick and Rob worked together to create the film Being Charlie in 2015, with characters that thinly resembled versions of the father and son.

The film explored how drugs could harm a relationship between a successful actor and his son.

Jake remembered his mother as “the engine, the backbone, and the heart of our entire family,” in his Substack post.

“My dad is my hero. I love how he would analyze my dreams or how I felt I could come talk to him about anything. No subject was ever off-limits,” Jake said of his father.

“He was authentic, passionate, and his sense of humor has always been my sense of humor.”