The probe comes as the US government seeks additional leverage against Beijing amid escalating trade tensions.
Published On 24 Oct 202524 Oct 2025
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The United States has launched an investigation into whether China is out of compliance with a 2020 trade deal they struck together, as trade tensions ratchet up between the world’s two largest economies.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced the investigation on Friday, as President Donald Trump travels to Asia to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. China denies that it has failed to abide by the deal.
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“China has scrupulously fulfilled its obligations in the Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement,” a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said in a social media post.
The probe into unfair trade practices could grant President Trump greater authority to impose more tariffs on China, which he has hit with massive trade duties during his second term in office.
“The administration seems to be looking for new sources of leverage to use against Beijing, while adding another pressure point to get China to buy more US soybeans as well as other goods,” Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator who is now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told The Associated Press news agency.
The “Phase One” deal came at the end of Trump’s first term in office in 2020, when the US imposed a series of tariffs on China in the name of bringing greater “balance” to their commercial exchange.
In that agreement, Beijing agreed to buy more US agricultural and manufacturing goods.
A Federal Register notice (PDF) from the Office of the US Trade Representative alleges that China has not followed up on that promise or others related to intellectual property protections, forced technology transfers or financial services.
September, for instance, marked the first month since 2018 that China imported no soya beans from US farmers.
“The initiation of this investigation underscores the Trump Administration’s resolve to hold China to its Phase One Agreement commitments, protect American farmers, ranchers, workers, and innovators, and establish a more reciprocal trade relationship with China for the benefit of the American people,” Greer said in a statement.
A new round of US-China trade talks is set to take place on Saturday, and discussions will focus on China’s restrictions on the export of rare earth metals, essential for many US tech products.
Regardless of what happened, Russia is ultimately to blame for the destruction because it launched the drones, Poland’s prime minister proclaimed.
Nawrocki “expects the government to promptly clarify the incident in the town of Wyry,” the Polish National Security Bureau (BBN) stated on X . “It is within the Government’s purview to utilize all tools and institutions to resolve this matter as quickly as possible.”
W nawiązaniu do doniesień „Rzeczpospolitej”, informujemy, że Prezydent RP @NawrockiKn oczekuje od Rządu niezwłocznego wyjaśnienia zdarzenia z miejscowości Wyryki. W gestii Rządu pozostaje wykorzystanie wszelkich narzędzi i instytucji do jak najszybszego wyjaśnienia tej sprawy.…
Shortly after the drone incursion became public, Polish officials showed pictures of a house in Wvyry that had been destroyed during the wave of about 19 drones.
“It was an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile from our F-16, which experienced a guidance system malfunction during flight and failed to fire,” the Polish RMF24 news outlet reported on Tuesday, citing an anonymous state security agency source. “Fortunately, it did not arm or explode because the fuse safety devices were activated.”
The publication said a former Polish military intelligence officer emphasized that the damage to the house was caused by kinetic impact.
“There was no explosion, no detonation, as can be seen in the photos of the destroyed house,” Lt. Col. Maciej Korowaj explained.
The AIM-120 has about a 40-pound blast fragmentation warhead.
An AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). (Raytheon)
While still unconfirmed, the RMF24 claim adds new context to initial reports that the remains of an AIM-120 were discovered among debris collected after the Russian drone flights into Poland. At the time, there were discrepancies about exactly where the missile remains were found and questions about who fired it.
“Seven unmanned aerial vehicles and the wreckage of one missile of unknown origin were found,” Karolina Galecka, a spokesperson for the Polish Ministry of the Interior, said on Sept. 10, after the wave of Russian drones subsided.
While the RFM24 report claims an F-16 fired the missile, Dutch F-35s, which also carry AIM-120s, took part in the counter-drone operation, as well.
As TWZ regularly points out, even the world’s best and most proven missiles fail. There are no exceptions to that rule. The rate at which it occurs can vary greatly, but missile technology is imperfect and misrepresented in the media as having almost shield-like abilities that aren’t reflective of reality. There is always a failure rate that must be assumed.
Doczekaliśmy się momentu w którym Polak może w swoim ogrodzie znaleźć resztki naszego albo holenderskiego pocisku powietrze – powietrze AIM-120 C-7 AMRAAM którym strzelano do rosyjskich dronów.
As we stated in our initial report on the drone flights, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that while at least three to four drones were shot down, another three to four appeared to have simply crashed in Polish territory.
On Tuesday, Tusk pointed the finger at Moscow for what happened to the home.
“All responsibility for the damage to the house in Wyrykach falls on the authors of the drone provocation, that is, Russia,” Tusk stated on X. “The appropriate services will inform the public, the government, and the president about all the circumstances of the incident after the proceedings are completed. Hands off Polish soldiers.”
Cała odpowiedzialność za uszkodzenia domu w Wyrykach spada na autorów dronowej prowokacji, czyli Rosję. O wszystkich okolicznościach incydentu odpowiednie służby poinformują opinię publiczną, rząd i prezydenta po zakończeniu postępowania. Łapy precz od polskich żołnierzy.
BBN said that it is working to verify RMF24’s claims about the errant AIM-120 impact in part to ward off Russian disinformation that is a bit part of Moscow’s playbook.
“There is no consent for withholding information,” the bureau explained in its X post. “In the face of disinformation and hybrid warfare, the messages conveyed to Poles must be verified and confirmed.”
Polish Block 52+ F-16C (Photo by Omar Marques/Getty Images)(Photo by Omar Marques/Getty Images)
The bureau also expressed consternation that no official information was provided to the government about the missile claim.
“At the same time, the President emphasizes that he was not informed in this regard, nor was the BBN, and the matter was not presented or clarified at the National Security Council,” BBN noted.
In our previous stories about the drone wave into Poland, we noted that Tusk and other officials say Russia deliberately sent those weapons across the border during a massive attack on Ukraine.
“The Russian provocation was nothing more than an attempt to test our capabilities and responses,” Nawrocki claimed on Sept. 11. “It was an attempt to check the mechanism of action within NATO and our ability to react. Thanks to the wonderful Polish pilots and our allies, Poland, which is in NATO, will neither fear nor be frightened by Russian drones.”
Rosyjska prowokacja była niczym więcej tylko próbą testowania naszych zdolności i reagowania. Była próbą sprawdzenia mechanizmu działania w ramach NATO i naszych zdolności do reakcji.
Dzięki wspaniałym polskim pilotom oraz naszym sojusznikom, Polska, która jest w NATO, nie… pic.twitter.com/HhdW3uAu1T
In response to the incursions, NATO stood up Operation Eastern Sentry to help defend against future such events. The new effort will initially deploy a mixed force of fighter jets and an air defense frigate, but is eventually planned to expand to cover the region between the Arctic and the Black Sea, providing a bulwark against potential Russian drones and missiles. You can read more about that in our initial story about Eastern Sentry here.
It didn’t take long for the new NATO operation to kick in, as jets were launched Saturday in Romania and Poland to counter suspected Russian drones.
Romanian officials said two of its F-16 Vipers were sent aloft to intercept a Russian drone entering Romanian airspace at 6:05 p.m. local time on Saturday during another strike on neighboring Ukraine. The drone was not shot down.
The Romanian response, along with the one in Poland, marked the first activations of Eastern Sentry, a NATO spokesman told us on Saturday.
Whether the Polish home was destroyed by one of the nation’s air-to-air missiles or a Russian drone, the incident highlights the danger presented by drone incursions into an area just outside of an active war zone.
Sept. 11 (UPI) — A bomb threat has been reported at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., police said.
The threat was reported around 1 p.m. Thursday. Metropolitan Police Department’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal squad were requested by the U.S. Capitol Police.
Capitol Police are checking the building, and so far nothing has been found, said Fox 5.
The DNC building is in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Southeast D.C.
The threat comes one day after political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in Utah at a speaking event.
A student uprising shook Bangladesh, toppling its most powerful leader. After 15 years in office, Sheikh Hasina’s grip on power broke under the pressure of a movement that began with a dispute over government jobs, and ended with her fleeing the country. To mark the anniversary, here’s the first episode of 36 July: Uprising in Bangladesh, the new season of Al Jazeera Investigates.
Baharav-Miara at loggerheads with PM Netanyahu over corruption charges, his ‘judicial coup’, and sacking of Shin Bet chief.
The High Court of Israel has issued a temporary order freezing an attempt by the government to dismiss Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, in the latest instance of the far-right coalition closing ranks.
The court’s decision on Monday came immediately after the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to fire Baharav-Miara, the country’s most senior legal official, who has been leading the prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his corruption trial.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced the cabinet’s decision and addressed a letter to Baharav-Miara saying she “should not try to impose herself on a government that has no trust in her and cannot work with her effectively”.
However, immediately after the decision, opposition party Yesh Atid and activist groups filed urgent petitions to Israel’s High Court seeking to halt the dismissal.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a prominent watchdog group, cited the conflict of interest over Netanyahu’s corruption trial and said the dismissal effectively turned the role of attorney general into a “political appointment”.
In response, the court issued an injunction suspending the decision, clarifying that the government could not strip Baharav-Miara of her authority or name a replacement until further review, with a court hearing set to take place within 30 days.
Immediately after the court ruling, hardline Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi vowed on X not to obey the court order, declaring it “invalid”.
“A replacement for her must be appointed immediately!” he said. “We obey the law! We say to the High Court – no!”
Escalating tensions
Baharav-Miara has been at loggerheads with the government since it took office, with tensions escalating over the government’s divisive judicial reform package, which was first unveiled in 2023, sparking major street protests.
Back in March, the Israeli cabinet had passed a vote of no confidence against Baharav-Miara. Netanyahu’s office accused the legal official of “inappropriate behaviour”, claiming that her “ongoing substantial differences of opinion” with the government prevented “effective collaboration”.
The attorney general had refuted the claims and said the vote of no confidence was aimed at gaining “limitless power, as part of a wider move to weaken the judicial branch” and to “promote loyalty to the government”.
Days later, the Israeli parliament passed a key component of the plans, which critics have branded as a “judicial coup”, effectively giving politicians more power over the appointments of judges, including Supreme Court justices.
Baharav-Miara had also challenged the legality of Netanyahu’s attempt to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, which the Supreme Court declared “unlawful”.
Bar, who stepped down from his role when his term ended in June, had been conducting a probe into alleged ties between the prime minister’s close aides and Qatar, a case known in the Israeli press as “Qatargate”.
The former Shin Bet head had also refused to sign off on a security request aimed at relieving Netanyahu from testifying at his ongoing corruption trial in which he faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of public trust.
Without evidence, Trump and his allies accuse former US special prosecutor of illegal political activity.
Officials in the United States have launched an investigation into Jack Smith, the former special prosecutor who led two cases against Donald Trump, US media outlets are reporting.
The Associated Press, NBC News and other US news outlets confirmed on Saturday that the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, has opened an investigation into Smith on allegations of illegal political activity.
Without offering any evidence of wrongdoing, Trump and his Republican allies, including Senator Tom Cotton, have accused Smith of violating the Hatch Act, a federal law that bans certain public officials from engaging in political activity.
In a social media post this week, Cotton accused Smith of being a “partisan Democrat who weaponized the law” against Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 US presidential election that he ultimately won.
“I’ve asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate his actions that likely violated the law to influence the election,” Cotton wrote on X on Wednesday.
Smith was named as special counsel to investigate Trump by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022.
He led two federal cases into the Republican leader’s alleged mishandling of classified government documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump had denied any wrongdoing, claiming US prosecutors were politically motivated.
Smith ultimately dropped the cases — neither one had gone to trial — after Trump was re-elected in November 2024, which would have shielded him from prosecution under a longstanding Justice Department practice.
US prosecutors said in a report at that time that if Trump had not won the 2024 race, he would have been convicted for “criminal efforts to retain power” following the 2020 election.
The White House had no immediate comment on the Office of Special Counsel’s investigation into Smith, AP said on Saturday.
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — Federal officials have opened an investigation into Jack Smith, the former special counsel who indicted then-candidate Donald Trump on felony charges before his election to a second term.
The current Office of Special Counsel, traditionally an independent federal agency, on Saturday confirmed the investigation after reporting by other news organizations. Smith was named special counsel by then-Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland to investigate Trump in November 2022 for his actions related to trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and his hoarding of classified documents at his home in Florida.
Trump and his Republican allies, including Sen. Tom Cotton, have — without offering evidence of wrongdoing — accused Smith of violating the Hatch Act, a federal law that bans certain public officials from engaging in political activity.
Smith prosecuted two federal cases against Trump and indicted him on multiple felony charges in both. He dropped both cases after Trump won the election in November, as a sitting president is shielded from prosecution according to long-standing Justice Department practice. Smith then subsequently resigned as special counsel.
Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate Smith, alleging that his conduct was designed to help then-President Biden and then-Vice Presiedent Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic nominee in last year’s race against Trump.
Trump is the only felon to ever occupy the White House, having been convicted in May 2024 on 34 criminal counts for fraud related to a hush-money payment to a porn star before the 2016 election, which he also won.
The White House had no immediate comment on the investigation.
The New York Post was first to report on the investigation into Smith.
New Delhi, India – After spending three decades racked with guilt, scared on sleepless nights, and often changing cities, a 48-year-old Dalit man appeared in Karnataka with information about one of the most horrific alleged crimes in India.
Emerging from hiding after 12 years, the man, who once worked as a sanitation worker at the much-revered Dharmasthala temple, told police on July 3 that he was coming forward with “an extremely heavy heart and to recover from an insurmountable sense of guilt”. As a court-protected witness, the man’s identity cannot be revealed under the law.
“I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses I received,” he said in his statement, reviewed by Al Jazeera, “and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them”.
Now, the whistleblower wants to help in the exhumation of “hundreds of dead bodies” he buried between 1995 and 2014 – many of them women and girls, allegedly murdered after sexual assaults, but also destitute men whose murders he claims to have witnessed.
After days of sustained pressure from activists and public outcry, the Karnataka government – ruled by the opposition Congress party – has created a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations of assault and murder.
So, what did the protected witness reveal in his complaint? Does the temple town have a history of rape and murder? Are more victims coming forward now?
Men serve food to pilgrims at the Dharmasthala temple [Luis Dafos/Getty Images]
‘Hundreds of bodies’: What’s in the complaint?
Situated on the scenic lower slopes of the Western Ghats, Dharmasthala, an 800-year-old pilgrimage village, is located on the banks of the Nethravathi River in the Belthangady area of the Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka state, where nearly 2,000 devotees visit daily.
On July 11, the man, fully draped in black clothing with only a transparent strip covering his eyes, appeared at a local court in Belthangady to record his statement.
The complainant, who belongs to the Dalit community – the least privileged and often persecuted group in India’s complex caste hierarchy – joined the temple in 1995 as a sanitation worker.
At the beginning of his employment, he said in the complaint, he noticed dead bodies appearing near the river. “Many female corpses were found without clothes or undergarments. Some corpses showed clear signs of sexual assault and violence; injuries or strangulation marks indicating violence were visible on those bodies,” he noted.
However, instead of reporting this to authorities at the time, the man said he was forced to “dispose of these bodies” after his supervisors beat him up and threatened him, saying, “We will cut you into pieces; we will sacrifice all your family members.”
The supervisors, he claimed, would call him to specific locations where there were dead bodies. “Many times, these bodies were of minor girls. The absence of undergarments, torn clothes, and injuries to their private parts indicated brutal sexual assault on them,” he said. “Some bodies also had acid burn marks.”
The man has told the police and the court that he is ready to undergo any tests, including brain-mapping and a polygraph, and is willing to identify the spots of mass burials. Some sites are likely to be exhumed in the coming days.
In the nearly 20 years he worked at the temple, the man said he “buried dead bodies in several locations throughout the Dharmasthala area”.
Sometimes, as instructed, he burned dead bodies using diesel. “They would instruct me to burn them completely so that no trace would be found. The dead bodies disposed of in this manner numbered in the hundreds,” he said.
Why did he go into hiding?
By 2014, having worked there for 20 years, he said, “The mental torture I was experiencing had become unbearable.”
Then, a girl from his own family was sexually harassed by a person connected to the supervisors at the temple, leading to a realisation that the family needed “to escape from there immediately”. In December 2014, he fled Dharmasthala with his family and informed no one of his whereabouts.
Since then, the family has been living in hiding in a neighbouring state, and changing residences, he said.
“However, I am still living under the burden of guilt that does not subside,” he said. “But my conscience no longer allows me to continue this silence.”
To back his claims, the man recently visited a burial site and exhumed a skeleton; he submitted the skeleton and its photograph during exhumation to the police and the court via his lawyers.
Today, the actual number of dead bodies is not what matters to the former sanitation worker, a person closely associated with the case told Al Jazeera. They requested anonymity to speak.
“Even if it was just two or three women, and not hundreds, their lives matter,” they said, reflecting on why the whistleblower came forward. “If there is a chance at justice, their bodies getting proper rituals, we want to take it.”
A pilgrim stands near an elephant at the Dharmasthala temple [Luis Dafos/Getty Images]
Did he identify the victims?
No, he did not identify them by name. However, he detailed some of the burials in his statement to the police.
He recalled that in 2010 he was sent to a location about 500 metres (1,640ft) from a petrol pump in Kalleri, nearly 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Dharmasthala. There, he found the body of a teenage girl.
“Her age could be estimated between 12 to 15 years. She was wearing a school uniform shirt. However, her skirt and undergarments were missing. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,” he noted in his statement. “They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.”
He detailed another “disturbing incident” of burying a woman’s body in her 20s. “Her face had been burned with acid. That body was covered with a newspaper. Instead of burying her body, the supervisors instructed me to collect her footwear and all her belongings and burn them with her,” he recalled.
Have similar crimes been linked to Dharmasthala in the past?
Yes. There have been repeated protests over the years regarding the discovery of bodies of rape-and-murder victims in and around Dharmasthala, dating back to the 1980s.
These protests have been sporadic but persistent, often led by local groups, families and political organisations.
In 1987, marches were organised in the town to protest the rape and murder of 17-year-old Padmalata. The demonstrations exposed alleged cover-ups by influential figures but were reportedly quashed through intimidation and legal pressure.
The town saw protests flare again in 2012 with the “Justice for Sowjanya” movement, after another teenager was raped and murdered. That case remains unsolved.
Over the decades, families and local political groups have held demonstrations and submitted memorandums to authorities, linking cases such as the 2003 disappearance of medical student Ananya Bhat to larger allegations of mass graves and unnatural deaths.
S Balan, a senior lawyer in the Karnataka High Court and a human rights activist, told Al Jazeera that the killings and mysterious disappearances in Dharmasthala date back to 1979.
“The souls of young girls are crying for justice; hundreds of girls who disappeared were abducted, were raped, and were killed,” Balan told Al Jazeera. “India has never seen this gravity of offence in its republic after independence.”
Balan also met the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah last Wednesday with a delegation of lawyers, urging him to form the SIT to probe the alleged mass rapes and murders.
“The chief minister was serious about it. He told us that he will talk to the police and do [what’s needed],” said Balan.
How have the temple authorities reacted?
The administration of the Dharmasthala temple has long been controlled by the powerful Heggade family, with Veerendra Heggade serving as the 21st Dharmadhikari, or hereditary head, since 1968.
Heggade, a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, is a member of the parliament’s upper house. He was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022.
His family wields significant influence in the region, overseeing a wide network of institutions.
In 2012, the family came under public scrutiny following the rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya, a resident of Dharmasthala. Her body was discovered in a wooded area bearing signs of sexual assault and brutal violence. Sowjanya’s family has consistently alleged that the perpetrators had ties to the temple’s leadership.
In a statement shared on Sunday, July 20, the temple authorities expressed support for a “fair and transparent” investigation and expressed hope that the investigation would uncover the truth.
K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, said the whistleblower’s complaint has “triggered widespread public debate and confusion across the country”.
“In light of public demand for accountability, we understand that the state government has handed over the case to a Special Investigation Team,” he said. “Truth and belief form the foundation of a society’s ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light.”
Veerendra Heggade, head of the Dharmasthala temple, stands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on August 31, 2016 [Handout, Prime Minister’s office]
Have the families of missing people come forward?
Yes. Sujatha Bhat, the mother of Ananya Bhat, who disappeared in 2003, has responded publicly to the whistleblower’s shocking revelations about alleged mass burials in Dharmasthala.
The 60-year-old retired CBI stenographer said she has lived in fear for more than two decades but was motivated by media reports of the worker’s testimony and the discovery of skeletal remains. She filed a new complaint with the police last Tuesday.
Bhat said she believes her daughter may have been among the many women who faced abuse and met a violent end, only to be buried without a trace.
She recalled that she was discouraged from pursuing the case further. “They told us to stop asking questions,” she reportedly said, emphasising the climate of fear and silence that surrounded Dharmasthala for decades.
Speaking with reporters after filing the complaint, Bhat appealed: “Please find my daughter’s skeletal remains and allow me to perform the funeral rites with honour.”
She said she wants to “give peace to Ananya’s soul, and let me spend my final days in peace”.
Real Madrid defender Antonio Rudiger says he was racially abused at the end of his side’s Club World Cup win against Mexican side Pachuca.
Rudiger clashed with Pachuca captain Gustavo Cabral in injury time when the Germany defender went down claiming he had been fouled by the Argentine.
Rudiger then spoke to referee Ramon Abatti Abel, who crossed his arms in front of his chest, which signals the anti-racism protocol has been activated.
It is unclear whether the alleged racial abuse was from someone in the crowd or a player.
Fifa’s three-step process for racism is stopping a match, suspending it and finally abandoning it if the problem continues.
The match ended soon after the incident – with Real winning 3-1 – and the players again arguing after the final whistle.
Real manager Xabi Alonso said: “That’s what Rudiger said, and we believe him.
“It is important to have zero tolerance in these kinds of situations. Fifa now is investigating. That’s all I can say.”
In 2021, Rudiger, then at Chelsea, says “nothing ever really changes” after anti-discrimination campaigns in football, but he will “continue to fight” against racist abuse.
Last week campaigners criticised Fifa after it appeared to drop anti-racism messaging at the Club World Cup.
The railroad tunnel in which John Doe #135 was found had spooky graffiti and a dark mystique, the kind of place kids dared each other to walk through at night. People called it the Manson Tunnel — the cult leader and his disciples had lived nearby at the Spahn Movie Ranch — and someone had spray-painted HOLY TERROR over the entrance.
By June 1990, occult-inspired mayhem had become a common theme in the Los Angeles mediasphere. The serial killer known as the Night Stalker, a professed Satanist, had been sentenced to death a year before, and the McMartin Preschool molestation case, with its wild claims of ritual abuse of children, was still slogging through the courts.
So when venturesome local teenagers discovered a young man’s body in the pitch-black tunnel above Chatsworth Park, the LAPD considered the possibility of occult motives. The victim was soon identified as Ronald Baker, a 21-year-old UCLA student majoring in astrophysics. He had been killed on June 21, a day considered holy by occultists, at a site where they were known to congregate.
Ronald Baker in an undated photo.
(Courtesy of Patty Elliott)
Baker was skinny and physically unimposing, with a mop of curly blond hair. He had been to the tunnel before, and was known to meditate in the area. He had 18 stab wounds, and his throat had been slashed. On his necklace: a pentagram pendant. In the bedroom of his Van Nuys apartment: witchcraft books, a pentagram-decorated candle and a flier for Mystic’s Circle, a group devoted to “shamanism” and “magick.”
Headline writers leaned into the angle. “Student killed on solstice may have been sacrificed,” read the Daily News. “Slain man frequently visited site of occultists,” declared The Times.
Baker, detectives learned, had been a sweet-tempered practitioner of Wicca, a form of nature worship that shunned violence. He was shy, introverted and “adamantly against Satanism,” a friend said. But as one detective speculated to reporters, “We don’t know if at some point he graduated from the light to the dark side of that.”
Investigators examine the scene where Ronald Baker’s body was found.
(Los Angeles Police Department )
People said he had no enemies. He loved “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” singalongs, and worked a candle-making booth at Renaissance faires. He had written his sister a birthday card in Elizabethan English.
Had he gone into the hills to meditate and stumbled across practitioners of more malignant magic? He was known as a light drinker, but toxicology results showed he was heavily drunk when he died.
In this series, Christopher Goffard revisits old crimes in Los Angeles and beyond, from the famous to the forgotten, the consequential to the obscure, diving into archives and the memories of those who were there.
Had someone he trusted lured him to the tunnel? How was his death connected to the raspy-voiced man who placed calls to Baker’s father around that time, demanding a $100,000 ransom in exchange for his son’s life?
U.S. Army photo of Nathan Blalock.
(U.S. Army)
Baker’s housemates, Duncan Martinez and Nathan Blalock, both military veterans in their early 20s, had been the last known people to see him alive, and served as each other’s alibis. They said they had dropped him off at a Van Nuys bus stop, and that he had planned to join his Mystic’s Circle friends for the solstice.
There had been no sign of animosity between the roommates, and Baker considered Martinez, an ex-Marine, one of his best friends. They had met working at Sears, years earlier.
Martinez helped to carry Baker’s casket and spoke movingly at his memorial service at Woodland Hills United Methodist Church. His friend was “never real physically strong, like a lot of the guys I know,” Martinez said, but was the “friendliest, sweetest guy.”
His voice filled with emotion. “He would talk to anybody and be there for anybody at the drop of a dime,” Martinez continued. “And I just hope that it’s something I can get over, because I love him. It’s just hard to think of a time without Ron.”
But something about the roommates’ story strained logic. When Baker’s father had alerted them to the ransom calls, the roommates said they had looked for him at Chatsworth Park, knowing it was one of Baker’s favorite haunts. Why would they assume a kidnapper had taken him there?
Duncan Martinez in an LAPD interview room.
(Los Angeles Police Department)
There was another troubling detail: Martinez had cashed a $109 check he said Baker had given him, but a handwriting expert determined that Baker’s signature was forged.
Martinez agreed to a polygraph test, described his friend’s murder as “a pretty unsensible crime” and insisted he had nothing to do with it. “I’ve never known anybody to carry a grudge or even dislike Ron for more than a minute, you know,” Martinez said.
The test showed deception, and he fled the state. He was gone for nearly 18 months.
He turned up in Utah, where he was arrested on a warrant for lying on a passport application. He had been hoping to reinvent himself as “Jonathan Wayne Miller,” an identity he had stolen from a toddler who died after accidentally drinking Drano in 1974, said LAPD Det. Rick Jackson, now retired. Jackson said Martinez sliced the child’s death certificate out of a Massachusetts state archive, hoping to disguise his fraud.
In February 1992, after being assured his statement could not be used against him, Martinez finally talked. He said it had been Blalock’s idea. They had been watching an old episode of “Dragnet” about a botched kidnapping. Martinez was an ex-Marine, and Blalock was ex-Army. With their military know-how, they believed they could do a better job.
They lured Baker to the park with a case of beer and the promise of meeting girls, and Blalock stabbed him with a Marine Corps Ka-Bar knife Martinez had lent him. Baker begged Martinez for help, and Martinez responded by telling his knife-wielding friend to finish the job.
“I told him to make sure that it was over, because I didn’t want Ron to suffer,” Martinez said. “I believe Nathan slit his throat a couple of times.” He admitted to disguising his voice while making ransom calls to Baker’s father.
But he never provided a location to deliver the ransom money. The scheme seemed as harebrained as it was cruel, and Martinez offered little to lend clarity. He sounded as clueless as anyone else, or pretended to be. “You know, it doesn’t completely click with me either,” he said.
“They ruined their lives, and all of the families’ lives, with the stupidest crime,” Patty Baker Elliott, the victim’s elder sister, told The Times in a recent interview.
Ronald and Patty Baker at her college graduation in the 1980s.
(Courtesy of Baker family)
In the end, the occult trappings were a red herring, apparently intended to throw police off the scent of the real culprits and the real motive.
The killers “set this thing up for the summer solstice, because they knew he wanted to be out, hopefully celebrating the solstice,” Jackson said in a recent interview. “What are the chances, of all the days, this is the one they choose to do it on?”
Jackson, one of the two chief detectives on the case, recounts the investigation in his book “Black Tunnel White Magic: A Murder, a Detective’s Obsession, and ‘90s Los Angeles at the Brink,” which he wrote with author and journalist Matthew McGough.
Blalock was charged with murder. To the frustration of detectives, who believed him equally guilty, Martinez remained free. His statements, given under a grant of immunity, could not be used against him.
Det. Rick Jackson in the LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division squad room.
(Los Angeles Police Department )
“I almost blame Duncan more, because he was in the position, as Ron’s best friend, to stop this whole thing and say, ‘Wait a minute, Nathan, what the hell are we talking about here?’” Jackson said. “He didn’t, and he let it go through, and what happened, happened.”
Martinez might have escaped justice, but he blundered. Arrested for burglarizing a Utah sporting goods store, he claimed a man had coerced him into stealing a mountain bike by threatening to expose his role in the California murder.
As a Salt Lake City detective recorded him, Martinez put himself at the scene of his roommate’s death while downplaying his guilt — an admission made with no promise of immunity, and therefore enough to charge him.
“That’s the first time we could legally put him in the tunnel,” Jackson said.
Jurors found both men guilty of first-degree murder, and they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
In June 2020, Baker’s sister was startled to come across a news site reporting that Gov. Gavin Newsom had intervened to commute Martinez’s sentence, making him eligible for parole. No one had told her. The governor’s office said at the time that Martinez had “committed himself to self-improvement” during his quarter-century in prison.
The news was no less a shock to Jackson, who thought the language of the commutation minimized Martinez’s role in concocting the kidnapping plan that led to the murder. He said he regarded Martinez as a “pathological liar,” and one of the most manipulative people he’d met in his long career.
Martinez had not only failed to help Baker, but had urged Blalock to “finish him off” and then posed as a consoling friend to the grieving family. The victim’s sister remembers how skillfully Martinez counterfeited compassion.
“He hugged everybody and talked to everybody at the service,” she said. “He cried. He got choked up and cried during his eulogy.”
A prosecutor intended to argue against Martinez’s release at the parole hearing, but then-newly elected L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascon instituted a policy forbidding his office from sending advocates. The victim’s sister spoke of her loss. Jackson spoke of Martinez’s gift for deception.
“It was like spitting into the wind,” Jackson said.
The parole board sided with Martinez, and he left prison in April 2021. Blalock remains behind bars.
Rick Jackson and Matthew McGough, authors of “Black Tunnel White Magic.”
(JJ Geiger)
For 35 years now, the retired detective has been reflecting on the case, and the senselessness at its core. Jackson came to think of it as a “folie à deux” murder, a term that means “madness of two” and refers to criminal duos whose members probably would not have done it solo. He regarded it as “my blue-collar Leopold and Loeb case,” comparing it to the wealthy Chicago teenagers who murdered a boy in 1924 with the motive of committing the perfect crime.
An old cop show about a kidnapping had provoked the two young vets to start bouncing ideas off each other, until a plan took shape to try it themselves. They weighed possible targets. The student they shared an apartment with, the Wiccan pacifist without enemies, somehow seemed a convenient one.
“You have to understand their personalities, especially together,” Jackson said. “It’s kind of like, ‘I’m gonna one-up you, and make it even better.’ One of them would say, ‘Yeah, we could do this instead.’ And, ‘Yeah, that sounds cool, but I think we should do this, too.’”
June 7 (UPI) — The Defense Department’s Inspector General is investigating Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s March 13 Signal chat ahead of the U.S. military’s extended aerial strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
The IG’s office initiated the investigation weeks ago and has interviewed current and former Hegseth staffers to learn how the chat and one other that occurred on the Signal encrypted mobile messaging app included civilians, ABC News reported.
A DOD IG spokesperson declined to comment on the investigation because it is ongoing.
Signal supports encrypted group messaging chats, but at least two chats discussed the onset of U.S. military action against the Houthis that started on March 15.
Hegseth in April blamed “disgruntled” former employees and media for the controversy over the Signalchat mishaps that many have dubbed “Signalgate.”
“This is what media does,” Hegseth told media during the annual Easter Egg Roll event at the White House on April 21.
“They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations,” he said.
“We’re changing the Defense Department and putting the Pentagon back in the hands of warfighters,” Hegseth said. “Anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news don’t matter.”
The aerial attacks continued from March 15 until May 6, when President Donald Trumpannounced the Houthis agreed to stop attacking U.S.-flagged vessels.
The Houthis did not stop attacking Israel or commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
1 of 3 | A bronze statue of first lady Melania Trump was stolen in a city in her home country of Slovenia, five years after it replaced a wooden sculpture damaged by arson. File Photo by Igor Kupljenik/EPA-EFE
May 16 (UPI) — A bronze statue of first lady Melania Trump was stolen from its perch in a city in her home country of Slovenia, five years after it replaced a wooden sculpture damaged by arson.
Police confirmed Friday they are now investigating after the bronze statue went missing earlier in the week from the Slovenian village of Rozno.
“[Police] conducted an inspection of the crime scene and collected information. The investigating judge and the district state prosecutor were informed about the theft,” Slovenian National Police Force spokesperson Alenka Drenik Rangus said in a statement Friday.
Officials unveiled the bronze figure of the first lady in 2020 to replace a wooden statue that was damaged after being lit on fire on July 4 of that year.
The statue site is near the first lady’s hometown of Sevnica in central Slovenia.
Artist Brad Downey constructed the bronze version, based on the original wooden statue crafted by conceptual artist Ales Zupevc, aka Maxi.
The damaged wood statue was quickly removed to a museum in Slovenia.
Bronze was chosen for the replacement to ensure it was fireproof.
May 16 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday night that DHS and the Secret Service are investigating a since-deleted picture former FBI Director James Comey published online as a threat targeting President Donald Trump.
“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” she said online. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
Comey had published the now-deleted photo to Instagram. It showed shells on a beach arranged to form the numerals “86 47.”
“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey had written in the caption.
The number 86 is widely used code in restaurants and the hospitality industry meaning an item is either sold out, no longer available or should be removed from a dish. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is slag meaning to eject, dismiss or remove.
The number 47 suggests Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.
The president’s eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., published a screenshot of the deleted post to his X account, describing the image as “James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered.”
In a follow-up post on Instagram, Comey explained that he had assumed the shells conveyed a political statement but not one suggesting violence.
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he said. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the FBI is aware of the post “directed at President Trump” and is in contact with the Secret Service.
“Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support,” he said.
UPI has contacted the Secret Service for comment.
Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, also described the image on X as Comey issuing “a call to action to murder the President of the United States.”
In an interview with Fox News, Gabbard said Comey should be jailed for it.
“I’m very concerned for the president’s life,” she said. “And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”
Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until he was fired by Trump during his first term in 2017, during which his office investigated Russian interference into the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
