police

Police have identified the 46-year-old man who was killed after a gunman opened fire in Washington DC.

James Stewart was pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting, while four others who were injured were rushed to local hospitals for treatment. One of the injured is in a critical condition, police said.

The shooting began on Thursday morning local time inside a gym in an apartment building in the Logan Circle neighbourhood, which is about a mile (1.6km) north of the White House.

Police said the suspect, identified as 55-year-old Matt Wade Lambert, barricaded himself in one of the apartments, and later died of self-inflicted gunshot wound.

While the suspect was barricaded, “he did fire through the door at officers at least on two occasions”, Carroll said.

Negotiators had been on the phone with the suspect when they heard a gunshot and he stopped communicating with them, according to Carroll.

Officers forced their way into the apartment and saw the suspect had what appeared to be a “self-inflicted gunshot wound”, he said.

Carroll added that police “believe there was a fire that was set”, which has been contained.

Authorities are still working to understand the exact timeline, suspect’s motivation, and other details of the incident.

“We believe there was some sort of a conflict with the apartment building, but we don’t have much more than that,” Carroll said.

Authorities recovered three firearms from Lambert’s apartment. He was a registered gun owner, police said.

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser called it a “senseless act of gun violence” and said the White House had been briefed.

THIS is the moment Russell Brand joked he was “looking at a 10-year stretch” in prison – 13 years before the fiend was caged for rape.

The disgraced comedian made the remark on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2013 as the pair discussed Brand’s past behaviour.

In the resurfaced footage, which is now doing the rounds on social media, Brand appears to make an eerie prediction about his eventual downfall.

The exchange begins with Ross telling his guest: “We should point out, by the way, that you do not endorse criminal behaviour.”

Brand replies: “It depends really, I mean…”

But Ross quickly jumps in, saying: “I am trying to keep you out of trouble.”

IN PLAIN SIGHT?

Walliams clips emerge from ‘bulge’ at kids’ book signing to kissing stunt

CELL PREACHER

Jail bosses ‘watching’ Brand amid fears he’ll lure lags into Christian cult

Brand then fires back: “Oh yeah, you have done a great job in the past, ain’t ya? Thank you, Uncle Jonathan.”

The audience erupts into laughter, with the remark thought to be a reference to the pair’s involvement in the 2008 Sachsgate scandal.

Brand then adds: “I will be looking at a ten stretch. You’re like bloody Fagin.”

Ross responds: “I was trying to keep you on the straight and narrow.”

But Brand continues: “I was regarded as a twinkie little sex addict when I met you, and then I nearly ended up in jail.”

Social media users have been quick to point out the irony of the comment, more than a decade before he received a sentence of ten years and six months.

The fictional character Fagin, from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, is a criminal who leads a gang of young pickpockets.

Brand’s comparison appeared to suggest Ross had been encouraging him towards trouble rather than keeping him on the straight and narrow.

Ross has since broken his silence after Brand’s conviction and the allegations surrounding his former pal David Walliams came to light.

A three-year joint investigation by ITV News and the Guardian revealed shocking allegations against Walliams dating back as far as 2003.

Walliams has been accused of preying on young girls for sexual purposes – including two as young as 15 – and he denies the claims.

Ross said he was “genuinely unaware of their conduct” when he was on friendly terms with the pair.

He also said his “thoughts are with the many, many women who have bravely come forward”.

The resurfaced exchange is just one of a string of uncomfortable clips involving Brand that have been circulating online since his sentencing.

Another disturbing video shows the moment Noel Fielding joked: “We’re not rapists” during an appearance alongside Brand on Big Fat Quiz of the Year in 2007.

The exchange came after Jonathan Ross made a crude remark about singer Lily Allen, who was the only woman on the panel.

Fielding responded: “How dare you, we’re not rapists.”

Host Jimmy Carr then quipped: “Why are you wearing a cape if you’re not a rapist?”

Brand, grinning, then said: “What if, horror of horrors, he ain’t even done a rape. You could ruin his career.”

He went on to ask Fielding: “Have you done a rape?”

Footage has also resurfaced of Brand touching Lorraine Kelly’s thigh during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show in 2007.

The comedian placed his hand on the TV presenter before asking whether she was wearing suspenders.

He then called her a “s**t”, leaving her visibly uncomfortable.

Another chilling clip shows Brand asking broadcaster Vanessa Feltz whether he could have sex with her daughters during an appearance on his chat show in 2006.

Her youngest daughter was just 15 at the time.

When Vanessa firmly told him no, Brand continued to push the subject.

It comes as comedian Sean Lock has had praise heaped on him for calling out Brand in a scathing rant on Channel 4‘s 8 Out Of 10 Cats.

The late comic, who died from cancer in 2021, has been praised for his comments about the disgraced star in another resurfaced television clip.

Lock launched into a furious takedown of Brand, branding him “pathetic” and admitting: “I hate him so much.”

He went on to explain that being a father was one of the reasons he felt so strongly about Brand.

Lock said: “Probably the reason I hate him so much is that I am a dad, and I have this fear that one day my daughters will bring something like that home.”

In 2006, Brand interviewed Walliams alongside his Little Britain comedy partner Matt Lucas.

During the exchange, Lucas accused the pair of being the “gayest straight blokes there are”.

Walliams turned to Brand and replied: “Isn’t it a wonderful smokescreen?”

Brand agreed, saying: “Isn’t it though? Isn’t it glorious? It works wonderfully well.”

Walliams has denied the accusations and insists he has broken no law.

Brand, 51, was jailed for ten years and six months at Southwark Crown Court on November 9.

He was convicted last week of raping a woman he met at one of his gigs in 2009.

The former comic was also found guilty of sexually assaulting three other women at the height of his fame between 2004 and 2009.

He was cleared of two further counts of rape and one of attempted indecent assault.

Sentencing him, Mr Justice Bennathan described Brand as a “sexual predator” who had used his fame to prey on women.

Brand, who denied all the charges, has been held at HMP Wandsworth in South London since his conviction.

New Delhi, India – India has exempted an Israeli phone-hacking company from New Delhi’s own rules, allowing it to sell phone-extraction products and surveillance technology to government agencies and sparking concerns and criticism from rights groups and activists.

An investigation by the digital-rights group Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) found Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, a close confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, signed off on exemptions from “make in India” procurement rules, clearing the way for government forensic institutions to buy at least 422 items of foreign technology, including products made by the Israeli firm Cellebrite.

Modi’s federal government and state governments ruled by his Bharatiya Janata Party are not the only ones who bought this Israeli technology. States governed by the opposition Indian National Congress party, including Himachal Pradesh, Keralam and Karnataka, also purchased similar phone-extraction and cloning tools.

A review of documents revealed that India’s expansive surveillance capabilities extend far beyond just cloning phones and extracting data without passwords to accessing cloud-based data from social media platforms – such as Instagram, X and Tinder – as well as data from connected devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home.

Experts argued that India’s current laws offer no guardrails against overreaching surveillance and the data extractions happen in a legal grey zone.

“It is clear that there is an expansion of India’s surveillance capabilities and it is becoming both wider and deeper,” said Vrinda Bhandari, a lawyer in the Supreme Court who works on digital rights and privacy issues.

“It’s now easier to conduct mass surveillance rather than targeted, specific surveillance and also possible to do more intrusive surveillance,” she told Al Jazeera. “[Today,] surveillance gives you a richer picture of an individual’s life.”

The IFF reviewed a letter also seen by Al Jazeera from India’s Ministry of Home Affairs dated January 7 in which Shah signed off on a wide-ranging, one-year waiver of “make in India” rules to clear a path for buying at least 422 forensic items.

Under “make in India” procurement rules, preference must be given to eligible Indian manufacturers over foreign suppliers in awarding government contracts. However, the rules allow exemptions with the approval of the minister in charge of the procuring department.

Another letter by the ministry dated January 20 showed Shah permitted the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to buy Israeli company Cellebrite’s Premium Tool on a three-year licence for about 50 million rupees ($529,947).

In specifications demanded by the government that were revealed in a review of tender bids, “solution” software must be capable of using login tokens recovered from seized phones or computers to access more than 100 cloud services. Login tokens are in effect digital keys that keep users signed in to online accounts.

Although an exemption for a company does not confirm whether a certain product was purchased by any government agency, it points to the range of forensic capabilities that opened up for procurement by Indian agencies.

From the 422-item exemption list, the IFF identified 118 items under digital and multimedia forensics, including Israeli company Cellebrite’s Pathfinder, Inseyets On-Prem Pro and Inseyets Offline.

Cellebrite’s tools have been used against journalists and activists in countries like Serbia, Jordan, Kenya and Russia.

Other products included tools from foreign digital-forensics companies like Magnet, MSAB, Oxygen Forensics and Belkasoft as well as software for open-source intelligence, dark-web monitoring and cryptocurrency investigations.

Al Jazeera reviewed a request for a bid proposal by the Delhi Police for software for its National Cyber Forensic Laboratory, which comes under the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, an initiative of the Home Ministry.

Consider the capabilities the police department was seeking in its request: software that bypasses passwords on Apple’s macOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems; recovers internet activity, browser histories, deleted files and identifies traces of VPNs; bypasses screen locks; performs full file system extractions; decrypts backups; and extracts information from messaging applications.

The Delhi Police demanded another “all-in-one” system to access more than 100 cloud services, including Google, Apple, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, Discord and dating platforms such as Tinder, Grindr and OkCupid or platforms like Slack and OnlyFans using account credentials or login tokens recovered from devices. Its specifications also sought the extraction of data from drones, wearable devices and devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Al Jazeera reached out to officials at the NIA, the Home Ministry and home departments of opposition-ruled states of Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Keralam for comments. The Delhi Police reports to Shah’s mInistry.

None of them had responded to Al Jazeera by the time of publication.

‘How did they get inside my phone?’

For some, the lack of transparency in the surveillance capabilities of India’s security agencies is not just a theoretical concern.

Last month, when Modi’s government faced street protests demanding the election chief resign, popular YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, a Modi critic, landed in New Delhi to participate in the demonstrations.

On the morning of the protest, he was detained by Delhi Police while still at home. His phone was taken from him. Speaking on a podcast later, Rathee said he believed police had tried to clone his iPhone using Israeli company Cellebrite’s tools but the attempt may have failed because his device was running a newer version of the iOS operating system than what the tool was capable of tricking.

Al Jazeera could not verify Rathee’s account, but Rathee is not alone in this suspicion.

Mohammad Aslam Hussain, a reporter with the newspaper Siasat Daily, told Al Jazeera that he was detained with a cameraperson on October 10 in New Delhi and his phone was confiscated at the scene.

“When I got my device later in the evening, all recorded footage of our reporting had been selectively deleted from the device,” Hussain said. The reporter uses Samsung’s Android-operated Galaxy S24 secured with a pattern lock and fingerprint authentication.

Hussain added that he cannot say conclusively what tools the police used to bypass his phone’s authentication requirement. “But it raises several questions with no one willing to respond to them,” he added. “How did they get inside my phone?”

The Indian government has faced accusations that it has used sophisticated spyware against journalists, activists, lawyers and political opponents during Modi’s years in power.

In 2019, WhatsApp disclosed that the Pegasus spyware, developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group, had been used to target Indian journalists and human rights defenders. Forensic examinations by Amnesty International later confirmed Pegasus infections on the phones of journalists Siddharth Varadarajan and Anand Mangnale. The government has denied allegations of unauthorised surveillance.

Bhandari told Al Jazeera that another problem in holding overarching surveillance to account is identifying the affected party. Often, she pointed out, the person placed under surveillance “does not know about it, so what does one do?”

‘Friction for surveillance’?

The central legal gap identified by digital rights group IFF is that India has no statute or protocol that specifically authorises or regulates the forced unlocking and full extraction of data from a mobile phone seized by law enforcement agencies.

Existing seizure powers under criminal law do not explicitly address bypassing passcodes, copying an entire file system, harvesting login tokens to access cloud accounts or establishing rules for the retention and deletion of extracted data.

The Supreme Court in a 2017 judgement recognised privacy as a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution. The judgement established that any state intrusion into privacy must have a legal basis, pursue a legitimate state aim and be proportionate to that aim.

Bhandari told Al Jazeera that when the government agencies “deploy these capabilities without any proper meaningful oversight, the net of surveillance is cast wider and deeper and a lot more people are affected without either legislative, parliamentary or judicial oversight”.

Bhandari noted that while some countries like the United Kingdom or Germany “have some element of either parliamentary oversight or judicial oversight, India only has an internal review mechanism in executive oversight”.

“The whole point of having any oversight is to create a friction for surveillance,” she said, “so that it’s not easy for the government to just target everybody.”

“The current legal framework fails in this safeguard,” Bhandari said.

Sporadic clashes broke out in Madrid and Barcelona after protests were held across Spain over housing affordability and purchasing power, just weeks before an early general election.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out on Wednesday during Spain’s first nationwide 24-hour strike since 2012.

Authorities estimate about 120,000 demonstrators marched through the capital and more than 50,000 rallied in Barcelona.

In Madrid and Barcelona, groups of hooded and masked demonstrators hurled projectiles at police and sparked fires. Police, meanwhile, used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters.

Police forces reported at least 73 arrests nationwide by 21:00 GMT on Wednesday from at least 1,044 incidents linked to the general strike, including blockades of offices and industrial estates, and the burning of rubbish containers.

The public reckoning against British actor-comedian and convicted rapist Russell Brand continues after his conviction and prison sentencing for rape and sexual assault charges.

British screenwriter and producer Jemima Goldsmith accused ex-boyfriend Brand of “violence, coercive control and abuse” during their relationship. In a tweet shared Monday morning, Goldsmith (formerly Jemima Khan) alleged that she had Brand “removed from my house in 2014 during a violent incident.” Goldsmith, whose producing credits include “American Crime Story” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” said she did not press charges against Brand at the time and that she was “relieved” by the actor’s recent rape and sexual assault convictions.

The BBC confirmed on Wednesday that Thames Valley Police officers responded to Goldsmith’s Oxfordshire home for a reported incident in July 2014. Officials told the outlet that police made no arrests at the time and “also ensured the victim’s partner left the address, as per the victim’s wishes.”

“I am glad and relieved that Russell Brand has finally faced justice,” Goldsmith wrote.

A legal representative for Brand did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Goldsmith, 52, said in her post that she chose not to go public with her allegations against Brand because she was concerned about “the impact of the press attention on my then teenage children.” She said she has not been in contact with the actor, 51, since the alleged incident.

“Whilst my pain in relation to this, pales in comparison to what the women have testified in court have suffered, this was a difficult period in my life which has had a lasting impact,” she continued.

Goldsmith spoke out about her relationship with Brand as British police confirm further investigation of criminal allegations against him. The actor, famed for films including “Get Him to the Greek” and “Arthur,” was sentenced Monday to more than a decade in prison for rape and sexual assault charges. A jury found Brand guilty last week on one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault involving four women. He was acquitted on two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault. He stood trial for three weeks in October.

“Several people have contacted the investigation team during and since the trial to provide information or report a potential criminal allegation,” the Metropolitan Police Service said Tuesday in a statement to The Times. “Detectives are assessing this information as part of their ongoing enquiries.”

Brand was tried for charges stemming from his interactions with six women in the U.K., spanning from the late 1990s to the late aughts. Shortly after the jury handed down its verdict, police confirmed that they provided prosecutors with investigations into two additional rape allegations against the actor.

Goldsmith said in her post that she aided the British reporters behind the joint investigation by the Times of London and Channel 4 that made allegations against Brand public in 2023. Following the investigation, additional women came forward with allegations against the actor that his defense attorney took issue with during the trial. The “well of justice had been corrupted and contaminated” by the documentary, Brand attorney Ian Winter argued during the court proceedings.

After speaking out against Brand, Goldsmith addressed resurfaced reporting about a harassment injunction she and Brand obtained against a woman in 2014. The woman, a massage therapist who Goldsmith hired to work on Brand at her house, accused the actor of physical assault in 2014. Police determined at the time “there was no case to answer and that no criminal offence had been committed,” Goldsmith said.

She accused the woman of feeding “several untrue stories” to multiple British tabloids and then engaging in a “campaign of vicious antisemitic and threatening abuse online and in emails.” Goldsmith included examples of the alleged vitriolic messages in her tweet and alleged the woman sent similar messages to her loved ones, workplace and to journalists. She said the woman also accused her of “wild and untrue” crimes.

Goldsmith said she agreed to a harassment order to prevent the woman from “targeting me and my family.” She said in her post that she agreed to vary the harassment injunction so the woman could report her incident with Brand to police again if she wished.

Goldsmith added that any changes to the injunction must also be approved by Brand and that she has not heard from the woman’s attorney on the matter since May.

Trump administration awarded more than $60m each to St Louis, Missouri, and Jackson, Mississippi, in crime push.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has said that it will award the cities of St Louis, Missouri, and Jackson, Mississippi, more than $60m each to expand law enforcement resources as part of a bid to combat violent crime.

The White House stated in a social media post on Tuesday that the so-called “Model Cities Initiative” would help the municipalities increase their capacity for prosecutions and policing activities.

“The Model Cities Initiative reflects the Trump Administration’s commitment to reducing crime across the country and ensuring the safety of every American,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press release describing the programme last month.

The initiative has said that it will distribute nearly $300m for such efforts among the cities of St Louis and Jackson, along with Jacksonville, Florida, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The Trump administration has promoted a largely punitive approach to combatting crime in cities across the country, including controversial steps such as the deployment of the National Guard to large, Democrat-led cities that have drawn accusations of executive overreach, civil liberties violations and political intimidation.

While Trump and his supporters have credited their policies with a drop in violent crime, that trend predates his return to office and has taken place in cities with a wide variety of approaches towards criminal justice across the country.

Homicides in St Louis, for example, have been falling for several years after a brief surge during the COVID-19 pandemic, and hit their lowest levels in more than a decade during the first half of 2026.

While Democratic officials have denounced Trump’s crackdowns, some Republican-led states have embraced them.

The government deployed members of several federal agencies to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, governed by Democrats at the local level but located in a Republican-led state.

The Trump administration has touted that effort as an inspiration for the Model Cities Initiative along with other cases, such as Washington, DC.

The government has hailed the Memphis deployment as a success, but some residents and civil liberties groups have accused the task force of widespread civil rights violations and excessive force.

A video released earlier this month as part of an investigation into a shooting by a member of the Tennessee National Guard, deployed in Memphis as part of Trump’s task force, showed the soldiers aiming their guns at a man as he lay dying on the street after being shot in the back.

Russell Brand told to ‘watch his step’ during new life inside prison – and he’ll be ‘lowest of the low’

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

The assailant was shot by police officers and arrested minutes ‌after he ​opened fire at people in central Krakow.

The gunman who killed six people in central Krakow last week has died in hospital, police have said.

Police announced early Monday morning that the 24-year-old attacker had died.

The assailant was shot by police officers and arrested minutes ‌after he opened fire at people at Krakow’s historic main square from his car on Saturday.

The government said the attacker may ⁠have been inspired by far-right ideology, without providing further details.

This is a developing story.

The attacker has not yet been named by authorities.

When his house was searched after the attack in central Krakow, the bodies of his parents and sister were found.

The National Public Prosecutor’s Office in Poland launched an investigation into the attack with a unit specialising in “terrorist offences” taking the lead.

Separately, reports emerged that six Dublin Civil Defence volunteers also assisted in the aftermath of the shooting.

James McConnell, an officer, told RTE News the group were on a city break and were close to the main square, external when the shooting happened.

The volunteers who are trained to provide medical care immediately sought to help injured people, providing “CPR and haemorrhage control”.

Witnesses who were close to the attack described panic and confusion around the square as it unfolded.

Ruby Catherine Warren, from London, heard gunfire and “yelled at my friends to run and we all sprinted for our lives”.

Not knowing where the gunman was – or if there was more than one – they “just kept sprinting”, eventually finding a hotel to hide inside.

RUSSELL Brand’s family are said to be deeply concerned for his wife and fear the disgraced comedian “totally brainwashed” her into believing he is innocent.

Besotted 39-year-old Laura Gallacher is said to remain fiercely loyal to her sicko husband – despite him being convicted of rape and three sexual assaults.

Relatives worry that Laura has been so swayed by rapist Brand that she refuses to accept the evidence against him, the Mail reports.

It comes after The Sun revealed that Laura – who has stood by her hubby throughout the trial – is in two minds about attending the sentencing hearing tomorrow.

Sources close to her family claim she has been left convinced that the 51-year-old is innocent, and is even determined to support an appeal against his convictions.

One family friend told the Mail: “Russell gets what Russell wants. He has that charm and swagger, and Laura is besotted with him.

DARK PAST

Russell Brand’s dad ‘hired him prostitutes as a child’ sparking sick obsession

CHILLING TIMELINE

Brand ‘met with Katy Perry right after Channel 4 worker sexual assault’

“She goes along with what he wants, it’s like he has totally brainwashed her.”

They added that his absence could give Laura the opportunity to step away from his influence and reassess their relationship.

Brand faces a “lengthy” prison sentence after being found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault following a trial at Southwark Crown Court.

The offences involved four women and took place between 2005 and 2009.

He was also acquitted of two further counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault.

But the split verdict is understood to have strengthened Laura’s belief that her husband was wrongly accused.

A friend told the Mail she believes the jury’s decision to clear him of three charges proves the other allegations were also untrue.

Laura had attended court throughout the trial, sitting in the public gallery as six women gave evidence about their experiences.

She was regularly seen arriving alongside Brand, holding his hand as they entered and left the building.

The mother-of-three also took notes as the women described the allegations against her husband.

Those close to her reportedly noticed what they believed was growing anger as she listened to the evidence, which they claim she dismissed as lies.

In videos shared on the couple’s online show, Sunday Service With The Brands, Laura also spoke about the emotional strain of attending court.

During one recording, she described putting on her “armour” before entering the building.

She said she would begin to feel nervous as soon as she approached the street where the court was situated.

Brand, who has reinvented himself as a born-again Christian, regularly features alongside Laura in the online broadcasts, which include Bible readings, prayers and discussions about family life.

The couple have been married for nine years and share three children- two girls aged nine and seven, and a three-year-old son.

Laura, the daughter of former European Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher, is said to have found the guilty verdict particularly difficult to accept.

Brand was remanded into custody at HMP Wandsworth after the verdict, leaving his wife to leave court without him.

Sources claim she was shocked and extremely upset by his imprisonment and believes he has been badly treated.

Laura is understood to have taken comfort from the three charges on which he was acquitted.

The family are now said to be rallying around Laura and the children as they face an uncertain future.

Her older sister, former Sky Sports presenter Kirsty Gallacher, is among those supporting her.

Bernard and his wife Lesley are also said to have been left heartbroken by the scandal.

The family are particularly concerned about what comes next, with cops continuing to investigate further allegations against Brand.

The comedian faces separate rape allegations involving two more women, including a girl who was 16 at the time.

The Metropolitan Police investigation could lead to further charges and another trial.

Despite his convictions, Laura is reportedly determined to stand by her husband and support him through any future legal proceedings.

The couple had spent much of their time living in Florida before Brand’s trial, but Laura is now expected to remain in the UK while he serves his sentence.

Relatives are said to hope she will spend more time closer to them in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

One family friend told the Mail: “You can’t help thinking life would have been way less painful for Laura if they had never met.”

People stopped for minor traffic violations will no longer be referred to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The mayor of Houston, the most populous city in the US state of Texas, has ordered the city’s police force to sharply limit its cooperation with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

John Whitmire’s executive order came on Friday, days after Democrats swept statewide offices in the traditionally Republican state.

According to the order, Houston police will contact ICE only when a person is being arrested for a jailable offence, according to the Reuters news agency.

Whitmire said he had consulted Texas’s newly elected governor, lieutenant governor and comptroller before acting, and that the move was meant to reduce fear and anxiety across the city.

“Elections matter,” Whitmire told reporters. “I do this to begin a healing process,” he said, adding he hoped his executive order would become a model for other Texas cities.

Joining Whitmire at the news conference, Houston Police ⁠Chief J Noe Diaz said he supported the change and that his department had already begun to implement the new policy.

Under the new rules, people stopped for minor traffic violations will no longer be referred to ICE simply because they have an administrative immigration warrant.

The decision reverses a policy Whitmire put in place in April under pressure from outgoing Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

Abbott had threatened to withdraw about $110m in state public safety grants, arguing that a city council ordinance limiting police contact with ICE breached Senate Bill 4, a 2017 state law that bars local police from restricting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also sued the mayor, the city council and the police chief over the ordinance.

“We’re taking an interpretation of the law today, working with the newly elected members of the state leadership, in implementing this policy,” Whitmire told reporters. “We don’t want people to worry about ⁠their workers, their family members, their students.”

The issue has drawn intense scrutiny in Houston. The Houston Chronicle found that city police contacted ICE at least 107 times in the first eight months of 2025, compared with nine times in the whole of 2024.

In July, an ICE agent shot dead Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a longtime Houston resident.

FIEL Houston, an immigrant rights group, called the order a victory for the city but said it was long overdue. “Today Houston won. Today our community can breathe easier,” FIEL Executive Director Cesar Espinosa said in a statement to KPRC.

Whitmire said he expected Houston’s approach to become a model for other cities. In Austin, Mayor Kirk Watson asked city officials on Friday to revise their own policy on ICE warrants.

El Cerrito High School in the Bay Area has canceled the remainder of its football season following a month-long police investigation into allegations of hazing and sexual assault involving at least 22 athletes over the last three seasons.

The probe stems from “a mandated reporter” on Oct. 2 telling police that members of the football team were engaging in bullying and hazing, the El Cerrito Police Department said in a statement. A mandated reporter in California is someone who has responsibility for children through their employment or volunteer status and is legally required to report suspected child abuse.

The alleged victims were other members of the football team. Detectives interviewed them along with school staff and witnesses. The West Contra Costa Unified School District, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, said the alleged incidents were said to have occurred between September 2024 and October 2026.

The police said they are investigating allegations of battery, sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, dissuading a victim, conspiracy and stalking.

Detectives have obtained video evidence that corroborated the allegations, although police officials said they would not release details because of “the sensitive nature of an ongoing investigation that involves juvenile victims, witnesses and suspects.”

El Cerrito head coach Tim Johnson was placed on leave, and the team’s regular-season finale Friday against El Sobrante De Anza High was canceled. El Cerrito has a 6-3 record but will not participate in the upcoming playoffs to defend their title won last year.

The school district said it is conducting its own investigation under Title IX.

“No child should ever experience what our students have described,” District Supt. Cheryl Cotton said. “While we have worked to focus on accountability for the actions of individual players up until this point, new information has led to new decisions.

“We must now make the very tough call to immediately suspend the El Cerrito High football program in order to prevent any further harm and restore a safe learning environment for our students.”

Cotton said the district is “providing resources for all impacted and involved students” through classroom instruction on anti-hazing and bystander education.

The El Cerrito football program is two years removed from a controversy that allegedly coincided with the beginning of the hazing. Six games were forfeited by the Gauchos in 2024 and their coach at the time, Jacob Rincon, was suspended for breaking rules prohibiting undue influence and athletically motivated transfers. Several players were deemed ineligible, and the program was placed on probation for two years.

Some parents and advocates of the program were outraged by the school’s action, calling on Rincon to be reinstated and then-principal Malcolm Norrington to be fired. More than 100 students engaged in a walkout, waving homemade posters and chanting “Free Coach Jake,” and “No More Norrington,” according to digital news site Richmond Confidential.

Parents gathered more than 2,000 signatures in a petition to fire Norrington, who left the district in 2025. Rincon was dismissed and replaced last season by Johnson, who led the team to a 13-2 record and the school’s first State Division 4-A championship.

According to the police, however, the hazing and sexual assaults continued in 2025 and into 2026.

Similar allegations have marred prominent high school football programs in Southern California in recent years.

A lawsuit in 2024 details a sexual assault against a sophomore football player at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Rancho Santa Margarita that triggered a police investigation and left the boy with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigated after the boy went to a hospital emergency room and alleged he had been sexually assaulted.

Santa Margarita principal Cheri Wood admitted in emails obtained by the Orange County Register that “at least 8” other players were allegedly assaulted by their teammates in a similar manner. The lawsuit was dismissed after a confidential out-of-court settlement was reached. The coach at the time was replaced by former NFL quarterback Carson Palmer, and Santa Margarita won a state title in 2025 and currently sits atop The Times’ high school football rankings.

A Rancho Cucamonga Los Osos High football player placed in a chokehold and whipped with a belt by two older players in a locker room in 2023 was initially described by Chaffey Joint Union High School District officials as “horseplay.” However, a video of the victim begging and screaming was circulated widely online and the district reversed its position, reclassified the event as prohibited hazing and issued undisclosed student disciplinary measures.

A 2021 lawsuit shined a light on players at Santa Ana Mater Dei High — one of the most celebrated football programs in the nation — being severely beaten by other players in a brutal hazing ritual called “bodies.” The family of a victim who suffered a traumatic brain injury and a broken nose filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei and the Diocese of Orange, alleging the Mater Dei administration covered up the incident.

“You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe,” the victim’s mother told The Times. “I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there. Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. … It’s like, you failed my child.”

Early in “Queen at Sea,” there’s a sex scene. It’s brief and shows little, but the fleeting moment will inform everything that happens in writer-director Lance Hammer’s crushing second feature. This movie about consent and dementia — and ultimately, far much more — hinges on a questionable act that provokes a hasty emotional reaction. In the process, a family tries to come to the aid of its ailing matriarch, presented with only a series of unappealing options, each more unbearable than the next.

Juliette Binoche is beautifully fragile as Amanda, the dutiful daughter of Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall), who herself has been married to second husband Martin (Tom Courtenay) for 18 years. Amanda and her teenage daughter Sarah (Florence Hunt) visit the older couple’s London home one morning, shocked to open their bedroom door to find Martin on top of Leslie, thrusting away. But embarrassment quickly gives way to anger for Amanda: Leslie has advanced dementia and her doctor has told Martin that he can no longer have sex with Leslie because she doesn’t possess the mental acuteness to give consent. Furious at her stepfather, Amanda phones the police, hoping the authorities can put a scare into him.

But Amanda’s call has unintended consequences. When the police arrive, they arrest Martin, advising Amanda that she take her mother for a “forensic medical examination” — or, as Amanda puts it bluntly, a rape exam — to ensure she has not been injured. Amanda’s rage quickly morphs into panic because she knows how dependent the childlike Leslie is on her husband, who functions as her primary caregiver. She just wanted to teach Martin a lesson, but soon, social services intervene to determine whether the elderly couple has to be separated for Leslie’s safety.

Even before the police becomes involved, Hammer hints at his film’s tense tenor. You can feel it in how he shoots the house’s severely winding stairs — dangerous for Leslie and Martin to navigate — from occasionally vertiginous angles. The camera rarely moves as we spy charged conversations from a distance, sometimes from another room or from a floor above the characters. We’re intruders, stealing glimpses of a private domestic drama not meant for our prying eyes.

Unlike previous terrific pictures about dementia (such as “The Father”), “Queen at Sea” is less about the crippling condition than it is the fulcrum for a troubling exploration of several topics: mortality, love, parenting and the grim futility of everything. Similarly, although Hammer takes seriously the question of consent, he widens his narrative’s lens to provide a thoughtful, complex view of the issue. Martin adores his wife, insisting that their doctor is wrong and that Leslie, in fact, does understand her sexual urges. To back up his argument, he informs Amanda that, frequently, it is her mother who initiates sex. But is that because dementia has robbed Leslie of the ability to modulate her urges? “Queen at Sea” offers no answers, leaving the viewer as uncertain as Amanda, who wants to protect her mother but cannot deny how drawn Leslie is to her kindly husband.

At the film’s heart is a terribly relatable family conflict in which each character assumes that they know best. Binoche plays Amanda with a surfeit of tenderness for her mother, who goes from being lucid to infantile without warning. (Calder-Marshall poignantly channels the silent helplessness that consumes those with dementia, making her an unstable chemical compound always on the verge of explosion.)

Just as fiercely loyal as Amanda, Martin vainly advocates for his beloved, knowing that Amanda has power of attorney and, therefore, the upper hand. Courtenay gives a marvelous performance suffused with simmering rage: To Martin’s way of thinking, it was Amanda’s foolish overreaction to seeing them have sex that led to all these problems. That feeling of betrayal resides on his face for the rest of “Queen at Sea,” even as he and his stepdaughter negotiate a wobbly truce concerning Leslie’s future, which includes an unexpectedly fraught trip to a care home.

Hammer has not made a film since 2008’s “Ballast,” another spare drama about brittle lives. Eighteen years later, his formal command remains formidable. Eventually, Hammer starts cutting away from the central narrative to focus on Sarah as she hangs out with friends and spends time with a cute boy, James (Cody Molko). At first, these carefree interludes seem to be a welcome respite from “Queen at Sea’s” choking anxiety. But as Leslie’s situation grows increasingly complicated, Sarah’s emerging love story proves to be a bittersweet, ironic counterpoint. Maybe Sarah will find love and great sex — like her parents and grandparents before her — but the shadow of despair that has descended on her family will someday come for her. She’s still too young to know how impossible aging can be.

BBC Scotland was given access to the strategic co-ordination centre at the police headquarters at Fettes.

A wall of CCTV cameras trained across Edinburgh and Glasgow flickered from empty streets to a packed Celtic stadium as officers watch for signs of disorder.

The atmosphere in the room was calm despite pockets of disorder – the situation seemed to be generally under control.

Information flashed up on screens with updates from Operation Moonbeam. As the evening progressed the screens filled up as public order units were deployed to an increasing number of places.

Teams from Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, the Scottish Ambulance Service, the Scottish government and Edinburgh city council were in attendance.

Officers from as far afield as Avon and Somerset, Hampshire, Hertfordshire and South Wales were ready to be deployed.

Scotland’s Education Secretary Mairi McAllan said any instances of disorder or attacks on the public or on emergency services were “completely unacceptable”.

She told the BBC’s Radio Scotland’s Breakfast programme: “Police Scotland were well prepared. Our emergency services were well prepared. The vast majority of displays went ahead without any problems, and that’s to be welcomed.

“But nonetheless, I would want to be absolutely unequivocal. Totally unacceptable that any disorder related to fireworks should be ongoing.”

Additional reporting by Paul Ward and Patrick Jackson.

Ten suspects are accused of abusing and torturing several people in the garage of a government compound in Belgrade.

Nine active Serbian police officers and one former officer have been arrested over accusations of using excessive force against students last year during protests that culminated in October’s electoral defeat of former President Aleksandar Vucic.

The Serbian Ministry of Interior announced Wednesday’s arrests, alleging that the suspects abused and tortured several people in the garage of a government compound in Belgrade in August 2025.

In a statement, the ministry said the suspects were on duty when they “used force and threats to inflict severe pain and suffering on several injured people, in order to obtain information, intimidate and unlawfully punish them”.

Anticorruption protests began in Serbia after 16 people were killed when the canopy at a railway station in Novi Sad collapsed in November 2024. The collapse was seen as symptomatic of alleged widespread corruption under Vucic, who served as president for 12 years before conceding defeat last month after parliamentary elections.

The ministry has released only the initials of the suspects but said they served in an elite unit. According to state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia, the commander of the Special Antiterrorism Unit, Igor Zmiric, was among the detainees.

Since last month’s vote, the winning student-led protest movement has demanded reforms within state institutions, including the police and intelligence services. Protesters have also called on top officials to resign, accusing them of colluding with Vucic while he was in power.

Hopes that Belgrade would join the European Union have increased since October’s elections as the bloc offered to hold further accession talks if Serbia’s new government strengthens democracy.

In a 2025 report on Serbia, Amnesty International warned that protesters, journalists and civil society organisations “continued to face intimidation, harassment and unlawful surveillance as authorities sought to rein in widespread discontent”.

The rights group said protesters were subjected to excessive force in “multiple cases across the country”.

Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been barred from driving for six months after a hit-and-run crash into a parked car, prosecutors said.

Paul Pelosi, 86, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of hit-and-run and a traffic infraction of making an unlawful turn in connection with the July crash in Yountsville, the Napa County District Attorney’s Office said.

Under the plea agreement, Napa County Superior Court Judge Scott R.L. Young placed Pelosi on one year of probation and barred him from driving for six months — the maximum time allowed.

The court also ordered Pelosi to complete a 10-day work program and pay fines. As part of the plea agreement, Pelosi paid about $11,200 in restitution to the owner of the damaged vehicle.

During the crash, his brown Maserati convertible collided with an unoccupied Tesla, according to the criminal complaint filed in July.

Authorities at the time said witnesses saw the convertible briefly stop before driving away. The parked car was unoccupied, and no injuries were reported.

Prosecutors said they do not typically issue news releases regarding misdemeanor hit-and-run cases involving only property damage, but that the release was being issued due to public interest around the case.

Paul Pelosi has been issued at least eight driving violations over a more than a decade before the Yountville crash, cited for speeding, blowing through several red lights, and driving the wrong way down a one-way street, a New York Times review of court records found.

In 2022, he pleaded guilty to charges of driving under the influence after crashing his Porsche into an oncoming Jeep. He was fined, sentenced to five days in jail, and put on probation for three years.

Michael Mann, the acclaimed filmmaker behind crime thrillers including “Heat” (1995) and “Collateral” (2004), accidentally shot himself in the leg Saturday at a Los Angeles gun range, suffering a minor injury.

“On Saturday, at a gun range, a weapon accidentally discharged while holstered, resulting in a superficial injury to film director Michael Mann,” his representative said in a statement Sunday. “He was treated and is being released.”

Mann, 83, was engaged in target practice at a sanctioned shooting range when the accident occurred. The director has been an experienced target shooter for decades, according to a person familiar with the circumstances, who described the injury as minor and subcutaneous.

The shooting occurred around 4 p.m. Saturday at the Range LA, according to TMZ, which first reported the incident. Police and paramedics responded, and Mann was taken by ambulance to a hospital.

Mann is known for his painstaking attention to detail and realistic depictions of gun violence, perhaps most famously in the elaborate bank robbery shootout in “Heat,” in which Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer’s heavily armed crew exchange gunfire with police on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. He is developing a sequel to the film, which is expected to begin shooting early next year.

Mann also helped define the look and feel of the influential 1980s television series “Miami Vice,” serving as executive producer before directing a 2006 film adaptation. His other credits include “Thief” (1981), “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992), “The Insider” (1999), which earned seven Oscar nominations, “Ali” (2001) and “Ferrari” (2023).