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THE heartbroken sister of Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s ex has slammed her over what she claims are lies about their relationship and his sudden death, The U.S. Sun can reveal.

Autumn Urker, 31, alleges her brother Ken had split from Gypsy weeks before he died and claims she WASN’T the one who raised the alarm before his body was discovered.

Ken, who shared one-year-old daughter Aurora with Gypsy, was found dead in his bed at his Louisiana home on Thursday, his 34th birthday.

Gypsy said her final message to Ken was a “Happy Birthday” text and claimed she became concerned when he failed to respond.

But speaking exclusively to The U.S. Sun, Ken’s sister Autumn blasted what she described as “lies” surrounding his death and relationship with Gypsy.

She said, “Gypsy had no right to lie and say that it was because of some text that she sent to him.”

A police report obtained by The U.S. Sun shows other family members contacted authorities.

Autumn claimed Gypsy had been telling people “they were engaged and planning a baby number two,” but “none of that was true.”

“They were not together,” Autumn said.

Asked when they split, Autumn said it was “over a month ago” and claimed Ken was the one who ended the relationship.

She said, “When he was like, ‘I’m done,’ she’d do a thing, and so it was a fight whenever they split.”

Following Ken’s sudden death, Gypsy shared an emotional tribute describing him as her “greatest love story” and saying he would “forever be my soulmate and my red string.”

But Autumn hit back, saying, “It’s a slap in the face. You don’t have to lie and make it seem like something.”

The U.S. Sun has reached out to Gypsy for comment.

Gypsy has also said she believes Ken died of an overdose, although she said she did not know whether it was intentional.

Police records obtained by The U.S. Sun list the incident as an “overdose,” but an official cause and manner of death have not yet been released.

A handgun was also found in a holster beside his bed.

Asked whether she believed her brother’s death was intentional, Autumn said, “Accident. So I have more details, so we’re just keeping [them] private.”

The police records also give a fuller account of how Ken was found.

The report says Gypsy’s half-brother Dylan Blanchard and his wife Anita decided to check on Ken and contacted the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office after becoming concerned about his behavior the night before and learning from his boss, Justin Daigle, that he had not shown up for work.

Dylan reached an unlocked bedroom window and spotted Ken unconscious on his bed.

Dylan and Justin then moved the blinds and climbed through the window, where Justin touched Ken and discovered he was cold and not breathing, the report reads.

The records do not state that Gypsy was at the home when Ken was discovered or that she was the person who contacted authorities.

Deputies reported finding syringes and a spoon next to a “brown powdery substance” in the bathroom.

Another syringe was found on the nightstand beside Ken’s bed, along with a handgun, according to the report.

Autumn revealed she had spoken to Ken just hours earlier, with their conversation continuing past midnight.

She said, “He said he just had to work, he was going home, he was tired, so he was going to go to sleep, and then he had work in the morning.”

Their final conversation ended as their calls normally did.

Autumn recalled, “‘I love you’ — it just… That’s how we hang up the phone, you know, we say that we love each other. He didn’t say anything weird.”

Autumn also revealed Ken had been deeply troubled by the reaction to an old prison phone call between him and Gypsy that resurfaced online shortly before his death.

She said, “He asked me what I thought about the phone call that everybody’s been playing this past week, calling him the most sick things, and I told him he wasn’t that guy.”

Autumn said the cyberbullying Ken faced had taken a toll.

She recalled Ken asking her, “Is this call weird?” before she reassured him, “No, it was not weird.”

Autumn said they had plans to meet for dinner or “something” on his birthday before he was found unresponsive.

Paying tribute to her brother, Autumn said, “My brother was a great man. He was the kind of man that tried to love the broken. He was the kind of man that believed without demanding proof.”

She described Ken as a loving father, brother, son and friend who made people feel heard, adding that their mother was “devastated.”

Ken first contacted Gypsy in 2017 after watching Mommy Dead and Dearest while she was serving prison time for her role in the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.

The pair later rekindled their romance and welcomed Aurora in December 2024.

United Kingdom police have arrested a 25-year-old British-Iranian man in relation to a security incident at a Royal Air Force (RAF) station near Fairford, England, this week

The man, described by police as a “dual UK/Iranian national” and detained on suspicion of preparing “terrorist” acts, is the sixth person to be arrested in what British authorities said was potentially an Iran-backed plot. The five other people arrested earlier were released on bail on Monday.

The investigation began when British authorities were alerted early on Sunday about unusual activity near the airbase, including oddly parked vans and a group of masked men. After searching the vans, authorities found no weapons or explosives but did recover a “quantity of petrol”.

The RAF station has been used by the United States for military operations, including by bombers during the US-Israel war on Iran.

Here’s what we know about the latest development in the case:

What’s happened?

British counterterrorism police announced the arrest of a 25-year-old British-Iranian dual national in Westminster, London, on Thursday. Iran, however, does not recognise dual citizenship, and treats Iranians with a second passport solely as Iranian.

The man was detained on “suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006”, the same offence cited in the arrests of the five other suspects. In line with standard police practice, none of the suspects has been named ahead of any charges being made.

Police said they also conducted searches of two properties in the London area. They appealed to the public for any information that could assist the investigation.

What do we know about the suspect in custody?

The Times newspaper reported that the British-Iranian suspect is being investigated as a possible “recruiter” in the still-opaque plot or as someone otherwise believed to have played a significant role.

The media reported that the man was placed under surveillance after the arrest of the first five men. He has not been named.

What evidence is there that this was an Iran-linked plot?

The UK has pointed to an Iranian connection but has so far kept the reason for that assessment under wraps.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there are “strong indications” of Iran’s involvement in the incident and an “ongoing, complex and serious police investigation” is continuing.

He did not give information on what the suspects may have been planning or what intelligence has led the UK to suspect the involvement of Iran, saying only that he would “update people more in due course”.

In the US, President Donald Trump said the case “might be” Iran-linked and the US had been keeping tabs on the suspects “for a long time”. Trump criticised the UK’s decision to release the first five suspects on bail.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had forewarned the UK about a potential “Iranian-sponsored attack” but did not specify if that was related to the same RAF base incident.

Iranian officials have firmly denied any connection to the incident. Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Majid Takht-Ravanch called the claims “false and ridiculous”.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned British Ambassador Hugo Shorter on Thursday to protest against the allegations.

What happened at RAF Fairford?

Authorities received two early-morning calls on Sunday alerting them to suspicious activity near the Fairford airbase, including three vans parked strangely and a group of hooded, masked men.

Unusually, the first call to the UK’s emergency line was made by one of the suspects who would later be arrested.

Police responded and arrested five British men in their early 20s in the nearby Whelford area, saying they were suspected of explosives offences. Counterterrorism police later took over the investigation and said the men were suspected of preparing “a terrorist act”.

The suspects were released on bail on Monday but remained subject to “stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others”, according to the UK’s head of counterterrorism policing, Laurence Taylor.

After searching the vans located near the airbase, police said they found no explosives but did retrieve a “quantity of petrol”.

Why were the men arrested at the scene given bail if this is a major incident?

That’s one of the big unanswered questions.

Under British “counterterrorism” law, police may hold suspects for up to two weeks before charging them. However, if authorities find little evidence to support their initial suspicion of “terrorism”, they have far less time – usually 24 to 36 hours, Chris Phillips, a former head of the UK’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office, told Al Jazeera.

Other security experts told Al Jazeera that police likely released the first five suspects because they did not deem them to be an imminent security risk or found that their potential involvement in any plot was unwitting.

“In cases involving terrorism, suspects can still be released on bail when the authorities feel relatively confident that these individuals do not pose an imminent danger of either carrying out or organising a terrorist attack,” Andrew Silke, professor of criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London, told Al Jazeera.

“Individuals may have been involved unknowingly or in a peripheral manner to potential terrorist activity. This seems possible in the current case,” he added.

Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow in international relations and security at Loughborough University and a former senior RAF officer, agreed that police likely have assessed that the five released suspects do not pose “any immediate danger”.

“We can reasonably assume that police judged that these individuals did not present any immediate danger nor did they have any credible means or intention of creating further danger to the public or to government installations,” Ashraf told Al Jazeera.

However, he said their release on bail should not necessarily be taken to mean the incident in question “was minor or that the Iranian-involvement hypothesis has been rejected”.

What happens next?

British authorities said they are continuing to investigate all aspects of the case, including the possibility of it being a foreign-backed “plot”.

Silke said authorities will likely be thoroughly analysing all suspects’ communications and interactions, looking for information on contacts who may have organised their involvement and for any payment the suspects may have received.

“The authorities can investigate all of these links to establish if they lead back to foreign government sources or agencies,” he said.

Silke added that authorities will also look into any links between the RAF airbase incident and previous plots carried out on British soil.

Phillips said he believes the suspects could have been recruited online by foreign actors to carry out some type of malicious activity, such as “setting fire to something”.

He said both Russia and Iran have allegedly paid “stooges” to carry out such acts in recent years. “At first glance now, it seems that that may be the case, but time will tell,” Phillips added.

Iran and Russia have also previously been accused of orchestrating plots in the UK. Those plots have involved “surveillance, sabotage, arson or physical violence”, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said last year.

Police have detained hundreds as students protest overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling facilities.

French students have set fire to bins and erected blockades outside schools in several cities, protesting overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling facilities.

Several school principals were injured, harassed or assaulted during blockades at high schools on Thursday, according to reports from regional education authorities, prefectures and union representatives.

Police have already detained hundreds of protesters at the lycees, which students aged 15 to 18 attend for their final three years of secondary education in France.

At Marseille’s Victor Hugo high school, the teachers were inadvertently splashed as a student attempted to throw petrol into a rubbish bin, local authorities said. Earlier, the prosecutor’s office had ⁠said the teachers had been assaulted and “doused in petrol”.

At another school in the city, Saint-Exupery high school, hundreds of young people surrounded a firetruck that had arrived to put out a blaze in the morning, police said. The attackers forced the firefighters to flee the vehicle, then set it alight.

In Nantes, firefighters extinguished a fire at a high school entrance following what regional education officials called a gathering “marked by violence towards staff”. In Strasbourg, trams were halted to “restrict the movements of rioters and demonstrators”, and students burned barriers on tram tracks, authorities said.

“There are 35 of us per classroom. With 35 degrees Celsius [95 degrees Fahrenheit] in summer, it’s unbearable. There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms,” Raphael, a 17-year-old who withheld his surname for fear of reprisals, told the AFP news agency outside a protest in Strasbourg.

“The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources, not enough supervisors.”

His frustration echoes a wave of student anger that has spread across France since last week, as high school pupils protest and grievances snowball into nationwide unrest.

Some 340 demonstrations were under way outside high schools by mid-morning on Thursday, with more than 160 schools shut down as a result, police said.

University students joined in, blocking access to about 30 campuses, including in Paris and Marseille, according to a student union.

Authorities have reported many dozens of injuries – some from thrown objects, others reportedly from police riot-control projectiles.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police have opened internal investigations into brutality allegations involving three students.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu convened a crisis meeting and asked ministers to cancel upcoming official travel so authorities could focus on the demonstrations, his office said.

French Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that he would successively meet representative staff unions and parent and student associations on Friday.

The unrest has become entangled in the race to succeed President Emmanuel Macron next May. The government has accused the far-left France Unbowed party of encouraging the protests. Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said Wednesday that his party “called for nonviolent methods of struggle” and criticised the government’s response as repressive.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Counter-terrorism police also questioned a UK national, days after five others were arrested and released on bail.

A man with dual UK-Iranian citizenship has been arrested in connection with an alleged security incident at an airbase in southwest England over the weekend.

British counter-terrorism police said on Thursday that a “27-year-old man, a dual UK/Iranian national, was arrested” in central London.

He was detained “on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts” as part of an investigation into the events Sunday near RAF Fairford.

A second man, 26 – a UK national – was also “questioned under caution”, the police statement added.

The RAF base 160km west of London has been used by US bombers during decades of conflicts in the Middle East, including the US and Israel’s war on Iran, which began in February.

On Sunday, five men, all in their 20s and from London, were arrested on suspicion of explosives offences and “terrorism” over the incident at RAF Fairford. They have since been released on bail.

“The investigation into circumstances surrounding events in Gloucestershire is hugely complex, and our specialist teams are interrogating multiple lines of enquiry,” Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing for the Metropolitan Police, said in a statement.

“As we’ve made clear, we’re looking at all possible angles – including possible foreign state involvement.”

Earlier, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there were “strong indications” that Iran played a role in an alleged security incident.

Iran, however, strongly denied any involvement in the incident and the country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, hit back at Burnham’s allegations.

More to come…

COPS have threatened to force arrested criminals to listen to Taylor Swift’s new release on loop.

Greensboro Police in North Carolina, US, jokingly swiped at the superstar’s album after it received mixed reviews.

They posted: “Those who are arrested tonight will be required to listen to Taylor Swift’s new songs on repeat.”

But following a huge online backlash, the force later wrote: “We apologise for stirring up the Taylor bots.

“Please continue to listen to The Life of a Showgirl.”

But the post remains up on X with more than 80,000 likes.

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Cruel Summer singer Swift, 36, re-released her Life of a Showgirl album with four new songs last week, adding “The Encore” to the title.

But critics were not impressed.

Music magazine Pitchfork rated it 4/10, saying: “Taylor Swift has let the quality of her songwriting slide in favour of commercial domination.”

Critic Shaad D’Souza added: “Yes, Taylor Swift will always have one of the greatest songwriting catalogues of all time.

“Not even Taylor Swift could take that away from her — but she sure is trying.”

The album came out in 2025 as the first release since the end of her record-breaking Eras Tour, but failed to win acclaim.

Swift previously said she did not intend to add new tracks, but later admitted she went on a trip with her collaborators and “did what we do when we feel anything: we wrote more songs”.

Deputy assistant commissioner Kevin Southworth said a team of 220 investigators had worked hard on the case but he appreciates “it has taken nine years to get to this point”.

“As we have said before, this is one of the most complex investigations ever undertaken by any UK law enforcement agency – the scale is truly enormous.

“While we know this has had a significant impact on those waiting for answers, it has necessarily taken this long to ensure our investigation is meticulous and presents the very best possible evidence to the CPS for charging decisions,” he added.

The CPS will decide whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction, as well as considering whether bringing charges is in the public interest.

In anticipation of possible criminal proceedings, the Met has said it is building a £2m replica of a section of the tower, which is being dismantled, to help future jurors understand its layout.

Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counter terrorism division, said it marked “an important step”.

“We recognise that the journey to this point has been long and difficult.

“Charging decisions will be made independently by CPS prosecutors following a thorough and careful review of all the evidence gathered by the Metropolitan Police Service,” he added.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, external, X, external and Instagram, external. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk, external

The case against the woman who authorities allege fired multiple bullets at pop singer Rihanna’s Beverly Hills mansion can move forward, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Florida woman Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, 36, was deemed mentally competent by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maria Cavalluzzi, meaning the criminal case can proceed after a competency evaluation delayed it for more than four months.

Case documents with Ortiz’s psychiatric evaluations were marked as confidential and sealed.

Officials allege that she put “numerous lives at risk” on March 8 when she drove a white Tesla to Rihanna’s neighborhood and fired about 20 rounds from an assault-style rifle. Rihanna, her partner A$AP Rocky and their three young children were home at the time.

Police discovered bullet holes or impacts on the exterior of the gate of Rihanna’s residence, a fence, the front windshield of an Airstream trailer, a patio area and on the exterior wall of a nursery room, according to a police document reviewed by City News Service.

At the time of the shooting, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky were inside the trailer, and their kids were inside the nursery room, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

Ortiz is facing 14 felony counts, including one count of attempted murder, 10 counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling, vehicle or other target, court records show.

Ortiz had several prior arrests in her home state, The Times has reported. She was involved in a bankruptcy case in 2013, arrested on suspicion of careless driving in 2021, and arrested in 2023 on suspicion of domestic violence and battery.

Though she had no known affiliation with Rihanna, Ortiz often posted on social media about celebrities. In February, she shared a meme alleging Rihanna had AIDS and tagged Rihanna in a post on Facebook telling her to “say something to me directly instead of sneaking around.”

Another hearing is set for Wednesday morning at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, court records show.

City News Service contributed to this report.

The deaths appear to be the first at the hands of Somali pirates in more than a decade.

Pirates have killed five crew members on board a Palau-flagged oil tanker off the coast of Somalia before security forces rescued the ship, according to Somali authorities.

The deaths on the tanker, the MT Honour 25, were announced on Tuesday.

They appear to be the first deaths at ⁠the hands of Somali pirates in more than a decade and come amid a resurgence of Somali piracy that experts have attributed in part to the effects of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

The MT Honour 25, which authorities said was carrying 18,500 barrels of oil, was seized by pirates off Somalia on April 21.

The Information Ministry of Puntland, a semiautonomous region of Somalia, said in a statement that a rescue mission had freed the ship and captured 16 suspected pirates.

“Before the operation began, the pirates on board the ship killed five of the crew,” the statement said. “Among those killed were three from Pakistan, one from Myanmar and one from India.”

Four other crew members, three Pakistanis and one Indian, were injured, it said.

In a post on social media, the Puntland Maritime Police Force said the vessel was “safe” and under the government’s control. It said efforts were continuing to find others involved in the hijacking.

The rescue follows another operation last week in which the maritime police freed the Sibu 1, a tanker sanctioned by the US that Somali pirates had hijacked in August.

But 28 of the 41 pirates arrested in that operation later escaped while being transferred to jail, and several Puntland security officials accused local police of complicity.

At least 15 attacks have been reported off Somalia since April, according to officials.

A previous wave of piracy, from 2008 to 2014, disrupted one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, cost the global economy billions of dollars and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez has disputed the government’s account of what led to his shooting during a Doordash delivery in Austin, Texas.

A Venezuelan asylum seeker who was shot in the back by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Texas is facing a federal assault charge, after prosecutors accused him of striking the officer with his car’s side-view mirror.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, appeared in federal court in Austin on Tuesday, where he was charged with assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The charge stems from a September 20 encounter that began while Garces Perez was making a DoorDash food delivery near a shopping centre in Austin, the Texas state capital.

A federal complaint filed on Monday says immigration officers noticed that Garces Perez’s car had its emergency lights flashing, and they ran a database check. They found it was registered to Garces Perez, who was subject to a final order of removal from the US.

When the officers approached, Garces Perez handed over his driver’s license through a partially opened window but did not get out of the car, the complaint says. He asked the officers to wait until his wife could arrive to retrieve the vehicle.

Court documents describe the exchange up to that point as “pleasant and not aggressive”.

About a minute later, however, court documents say Garces Perez “abruptly” closed his window and drove off, striking one of the officers in the torso with his driver’s side mirror.

That officer chased Garces Perez in his own vehicle and caught up with him a short time later. In the complaint, the officer alleges that Garces Perez then tried to drive into him, prompting him to open fire.

There is no publicly available footage showing the events described in the complaint, including the shooting.

Videos, however, have circulated online showing the shooting’s aftermath, with Garces Perez injured in his car.

The complaint relies on unreleased body-camera footage from one of the two ICE officers who stopped Garces Perez.

The second officer was not wearing a body camera, according to the affidavit. That officer says he was struck by Garces Perez’s side mirror and later shot him.

Garces Perez, however, gave federal investigators a different account of the moments immediately before he was shot.

He told investigators that, after a brief chase, a law enforcement SUV struck his car, causing it to spin around, according to the affidavit. He said the officer then opened fire, shooting him in the back.

Garces Perez has been held in a detention facility in south Texas since the shooting.

His lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said on Sunday the bullet was still lodged in his body and that he has a fractured clavicle. In a social media post, Lincoln-Goldfinch explained that his supporters were worried he could develop sepsis or suffer permanent damage if he didn’t undergo surgery soon.

The Department of Homeland Security has argued, however, that Garces Perez is receiving adequate medical care.

Garces Perez’s legal team is also seeking to stop his removal from the US.

The Venezuelan national entered the US in 2024 through CBP One, an online programme expanded under former President Joe Biden to allow asylum seekers to make appointments with immigration authorities at the US-Mexico border.

Trump ended the programme on his first day back in office, accusing the app of contributing to an immigration crisis in the US. His administration has since relaunched CBP One as CBP Home, a self-deportation portal.

Lincoln-Goldfinch has said Garces Perez was legally seeking asylum in the US and had a valid work permit. She has asserted that he was ordered to be deported after missing an immigration court hearing because the notice had been sent to an old address.

Garces Perez is due back before a federal immigration judge on Wednesday for a separate hearing on whether he can remain in the country.

The case comes amid a surge in immigration enforcement during Trump’s second term, with ICE reporting more than 50,000 arrests in both July and August.

The body of a newborn baby has been found along a shoreline in north Wales.

North Wales Police have appealed for the mother who maybe “extremely vulnerable” to come forward.

A member of the public found the remains on the Menai Strait shoreline near Siliwen Road on Sunday shortly before 17:00 BST.

During a press conference, Director of Midwifery and Women’s Services for Betsi Cadwaladr health board Fiona Giraud has appealed directly to the mother to come forward.

“I want you to know that our immediate concern is for your health, safety and wellbeing. We recognise that you may be feeling frightened, overwhelmed or unsure about what to do next,” she said.

Giraud said they “have real concerns for the health of the mother”.

“We recognise that she is likely to be extremely vulnerable. She may be fearful of seeking the support she needs through fear of identifying herself.

Speaking directly to the mother, she added: “You may feel you have nowhere to turn, or that you cannot speak to anyone about what has happened. Please do not feel that you have to face this alone.

“We don’t yet know all the circumstances surrounding your baby’s death but what is important right now is that we find you, make sure you are safe, and ensure you receive any medical attention and support you may need.

“I am asking you personally, to please get in touch with us. You can speak to a healthcare professional, approach a police officer or attend a police station.

“If you are watching or listening to this appeal, please know that we want to hear from you. Please take the first step and contact us. There are people to help you.”

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X, external to get the latest alerts.

The police prevented an early morning attempt by the Orange Order to make a controversial parade down a road which had previously been blocked by protesters.

A group of men tried to march from Drumcree Church down the mainly-nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown in the early hours of Monday but a line of police Land Rovers stood in the way.

They had been unable to make the permitted parade on Sunday morning because protesters had gathered on the Garvaghy Road. The stand-off continued throughout Sunday, with the Orangemen waiting at the church, around a mile from the road, for the go-ahead from police.

Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill joined the protest, prompting Democratic Unionist Party leader Gavin Robinson to accuse her of acting unlawfully.

Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant called for “compromise”.

Breandán Mac Cionnaith, from the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, said he was meeting the secretary of state and chief constable on Monday, and that he would not prejudge those conversations.

Nigel Dawson, who is the Orange Order’s Portadown district master, told BBC News NI there was frustration.

He said they had a legal right to parade down the Garvaghy Road and the police should facilitate their route.

“We have been open and honest, and were seeking mediation to seek a resolution suitable to both sides that would bring this to a successful conclusion,” he added.

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Carla Lockhart, who came back to Drumcree in the early hours of Monday, said the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s chief constable needed “to take a grip of this very quickly or his position will become untenable”.

The Drumcree parade, which in the 1990s sparked some of the most serious disorder in Northern Ireland’s history, was due to go ahead for the first time in 30 years after a series of legal challenges.

Since 1998, the Orange Order had been banned from completing its Drumcree march – and until this year had been repeatedly refused permission to finish the route by the Parades Commission, which was set up to adjudicate disputes.

The Orange Order is a Protestant pro-British organisation, while the area where it wants to walk – specifically along the Garvaghy Road – is largely Catholic and predominantly inhabited by pro-Irish nationalists.

A local resident told the BBC she alerted the police to suspicious activity near the base early on Sunday.

The woman, who did not want to be named, said she initially called the Ministry of Defence (MoD) police but nobody answered, and then called 999. She said she had seen three parked vans and a group of men wearing masks.

The MoD declined to comment.

Several residents said they had been led from their homes in the early hours and evacuated to a leisure centre.

Julian Tudsbury said he was woken up at 07:00 by police banging on his door in Whelford, where 85 households were advised to evacuate.

“There were several police, three police cars in the drive, and they said you need to evacuate, there’s been a major incident, said he couldn’t elaborate,” he said.

He said another local had seen three vehicles making their way to the base and called the police “straight away”.

Details continue to come in, but police in the United Kingdom have declared a “major incident” and ordered evacuations near RAF Fairford after the arrest of “several men on suspicion of offenses under the explosives act,” the Gloucestershire Constabulary stated.

RAF Fairford is a major hub for U.S. military aircraft in the United Kingdom. It is a regular host of strategic assets, including bombers and U-2 spy planes. It also acts as a pit stop for other aircraft, including fighters, that are being ferried to and from the United States. Bomber strikes launched from Fairford were a central aspect of major U.S. combat operations against Iran earlier this year.

“A number of properties are currently being evacuated in the Whelford area following the declaration of a major incident,” the Gloucestershire Constabulary also announced today in light of the incident.

The evacuations were spurred by the arrests.

“The Army’s specialist explosive ordnance disposal team are currently examining a number of vehicles,” Gloucestershire Constabulary added. “The local residents are being evacuated to a nearby leisure center.”

“A cordon is currently in place, but we’d like to reassure people that we believe this incident is contained,” the law enforcement agency explained. “We are working closely with our partners and are enacting the well-rehearsed plans we have in place.”

The incident began around 12:45 AM local time Sunday “when police received a call relating to three suspicious vehicles traveling towards RAF Fairford,” according to Gloucestershire police Assistant Chief Constable Richard Ocone. “Armed officers responded and subsequently arrested five men in the Whelford area on suspicion of committing offenses under the Explosives Act. The men were taken into custody, where they remain.”

“A 400-meter cordon has been put in place around the vehicles while the army’s explosive ordnance disposal unit examined them,” Ocene continued. “As a precaution, around 85 households have been advised to evacuate while these examinations take place.”

Video has emerged showing British military explosive ordnance disposal robots reportedly defusing the vans used by the suspects.

“We are aware of the current reporting, for questions regarding off-base incidents please contact the local authorities,” a U.S. Air Force spokesperson told us in response to our questions about whether the incident had raised force protection levels at RAF Fairford or other installations in the area hosting American forces. Unconfirmed reports by the local aviation spotter community claimed RAF Fairford had been placed under what is called FPCON Delta, the highest level of alert at U.S. military installations.

The incident at RAF Fairford has been escalating overnight, this is what is clear so far.

Gloucestershire Police has announced that they have arrested multiple men on suspicion of offences under the Explosives Act, and that they have declared a Major Incident.

According to the… https://t.co/vk5N7yUuzB pic.twitter.com/IMHGtKGiC1

— Armchair Admiral 🇬🇧 (@ArmchairAdml) September 27, 2026

“For operational security reasons we will not discuss specific force protection measures,” the Air Force spokesperson added. “The 501st Combat Support Wing and our fellow UK-based Wings remain vigilant and will take appropriate actions to ensure the safety and security of our U.S. service members, civilians, contractors, and their families. We constantly assess a variety of factors that determine what measures we institute or modify to protect our installations, our people and their families.”

It is unclear if airfield operations at RAF Fairford have been affected. U.S. Air Force officials did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

The British Defense Ministry did not immediately provide comment on this unfolding event.

RAF Fairford is a major hub for U.S. military aircraft, with strategic assets, like B-1B Lancer bombers, being forward deployed to the base and tactical and other assets often using it as a pit stop during flights ‘across the pond.’

As mentioned, RAF Fairford played a key role in major combat operations against Iran earlier this year. No connection has been established yet between today’s incident and any particular group, but the base has drawn direct threats from the regime in Tehran in the past.

“The American aggressor army, which used to launch cruise missiles from its vessels in the Indian Ocean in its aggression after the official resumption of the war, with the end of the missile reserves of the aforementioned vessels, yesterday switched to using B1 planes flying from Fairford Air Base, England,” Tasnim News Agency, a quasi-state outlet in Iran with ties to the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed on Telegram on July 23. “As the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stated, any base that is used to invade Iran’s territory is our legitimate goal.”

the enemy must pay the price for its breach of promises, and this time we will not allow America to use deceptive ceasefires to replenish its oil and ammunition stockpiles and then resume attacks once again.

— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) July 23, 2026

Considering its importance to U.S. military operations, the base is a major potential target for nefarious actors, in general. Like other bases across Europe, it is a major potential target for Russia’s ‘hybrid war’ or ‘gray zone’ activities, as well.

Asked about the threats at the time, a British official told us that the country was prepared to defend itself.

“Our Armed Forces are ready to keep the United Kingdom safe from any kind of attacks, whether it’s on our soil or from abroad,” a government official told TWZ. “The UK stands ready 24/7 to defend itself. This includes through operating a layered approach to air and missile defense, provided by Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force assets equipped with a range of advanced capabilities, working closely with our NATO allies.”

“In the Defense Investment Plan we have made air and missile defense a priority after years of underfunding, dedicating £790 million to enhance protection of the UK homeland and overseas bases from air, drone and missile threats,” the official added. “That is complemented by more than £2 billion of funding to deliver further air defense and counter-drone capabilities, and to upgrade and sustain our Typhoon fleet.”

This is a developing story.

UPDATE: 10:49 AM Eastern –

A Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) has been imposed over Whelford, Gloucestershire, following the incident. It applies to all aircraft, including “any small balloon, any kite, any UAS and any parachute, including a parascending parachute or paramotor,” according to the FAA. “Pilots are forbidden to fly within the designated area without permission.”

The TRF runs through Oct. 5.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

Sept. 25, 2026 10:41 AM PT

CHICAGO — A U.S. citizen was left bloodied and injured on the side of the road in a Chicago suburb after a confrontation with immigration enforcement agents who mistook him for a fugitive, according to local police and a resident who tried to help the man.

The man, whose identity was not disclosed, was taken away in an ambulance after the encounter on Sunday in Evanston, a city around 12 miles north of downtown Chicago. He told police his head, neck and teeth were injured, according to a news release from the Evanston Police Department.

A federal agent told officers who responded to calls reporting an altercation at just before 10 a.m. that morning that five agents in separate vehicles were looking for a fugitive with a Chicago address and a warrant for his arrest, according to the release. The agents mistook the man for the fugitive, the agent told police.

When the man refused to give his identification, the agents tried to handcuff him, the agent said. After realizing he was a U.S. citizen and not the person they were seeking, they released him.

One police officer saw blood on the agent’s hands, according to the release. The agent told police he was injured while trying to handcuff the man, and that they left the area immediately after because they feared protesters who had gathered would attack them, it noted.

Police have visited the man at the hospital and photographed his injuries, and are investigating the encounter.

Local authorities investigating

Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss said in a post on X that the man was treated at St. Francis Hospital for minor injuries. The police department “continues to investigate the situation, and we will remain vigilant about federal activities,” he wrote.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had “encountered an individual who resembled the target” of a “targeted enforcement operation,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “The individual was given lawful commands but was not cooperative and refused to identify himself.”

The officers “left the scene without further incident” after the man identified himself, according to the statement. “When ICE officers offered the individual assistance, he refused.”

Illinois authorities condemn bloody encounter

The incident drew condemnation from Illinois officials as backlash grows against ICE’s presence in communities around the country. ICE announced a record number of arrests last month, with nearly 51,000 people arrested.

“I am disgusted and outraged by reports of what happened in my hometown of Evanston on Sunday,” Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky said in a statement.

Eyewitnesses tell AP what they saw

Ryan Garton, 56, told the Associated Press that he saw the agents pinning down the man, who was Black, on the side of the road as he was driving home. He pulled over to document what was happening on video.

One agent had his knee on the man’s back and was “beating up on him,” Garton told the AP. “I’m a citizen, leave me alone,” Garton said the man screamed as the agent pinned him down. Around five people stood nearby and yelled at the agent to stop.

Garton said he urged the agent to get off the man so he could inspect his injuries, and that the agent acknowledged that he was already aware the man was a U.S. citizen. When the agent stepped away, Garton saw bloodstains in the shape of handprints on the man’s shirt.

“His upper right eye socket and temple were swollen as if he had been punched” and his face was scraped “as if it had been ground into the sidewalk,” he said.

The man told Garton that he had been walking to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription when the agents stopped him.

Michael Lipson, the owner of a store across the street from where the incident occurred, said he saw the agents wrestle the man to the ground as he repeatedly yelled that he is a U.S. citizen. The man’s face looked “badly messed up,” Lipson told the AP.

Lipson said the agents checked cards and papers from the man’s wallet before leaving them scattered on the road. Lipson laid out his sweatshirt for the man to rest on while Garton inspected his injuries.

The same day, ICE agents shot and wounded a man in Austin, Texas, the latest in a string of shootings by federal immigration agents that have prompted growing backlash against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration tactics.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents in President Trump’s second term, including a Colombian man shot dead in Maine in July by an agent with a history of violent behavior, and a Mexican man hit by a tractor trailer as he fled agents in Florida the same month. ICE agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, during the Trump administration’s siege of Minneapolis, named “Operation Metro Surge,” earlier this year.

Mayes-Osterman writes for the Associated Press.

Rights groups accuse the UN of hosting a “war criminal” as delegations walked out during Netanyahu’s speech.

Police arrested about 100 protesters, including actors and politicians, outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, as demonstrators rallied against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of his address to the UN General Assembly.

Among those arrested were Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon, Emmy winner Hannah Einbinder, Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier and New York City Council member Chi Osse.

The protest, organised by the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace, drew about 200 people wearing identical white T-shirts printed with slogans including “Fund people not bombs”, “No war” and “Free Palestine”.

Protesters blocked traffic, and after police ordered them to leave over loudspeakers, some moved to the sidewalks. Officers then surrounded the protesters who remained seated on the pavement, chanting “Netanyahu go to hell”. The demonstrators were then escorted to police buses.

“What’s being done to Gaza, the obliteration of an entire society, in our name, with our tax dollars, this is our responsibility to speak out against, and Netanyahu has no right to use the platform of the United Nations to justify these atrocities,” said protester Manijeh Moradian, a 50-year-old university professor of Iranian and Jewish heritage.

Inside the UNGA, Netanyahu took the stage to defend Israel’s actions in the Middle East as he sought to counter growing international isolation ahead of Israel’s upcoming elections, while dozens of delegates streamed out of the hall.

Separately, pro-Palestine protesters gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library in Manhattan, waving Palestinian flags and carrying banners reading “New York rejects Zionism” and “Palestine deserves freedom”.

Rabbi Yitzchok Deutsch, a representative of Neturei Karta International, said Netanyahu was “using our religion, our identity, to justify all these crimes”.

Deutsch sent a message of gratitude to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani “for his courage to do whatever he can to arrest” Netanyahu.

Protester Melissa Zuniga questioned why Netanyahu was allowed to speak at the UN “when he has an international warrant for his arrest”.

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy denounces ‘horrific crime’ after 31-year-old attacks clergy and worshippers in border town.

One person was killed and four others injured when a man armed with a knife attacked clergy and worshippers at a Catholic monastery in southern Poland.

Police said the 31-year-old attacker, a Ukrainian national, went on a stabbing spree at the 17th-century Benedictine abbey in Jaroslaw, some 30km (19 miles) from the border with Ukraine, on Thursday morning.

The suspect, who had entered Poland from Germany earlier in the day, reportedly grabbed a knife from the abbey’s kitchen and attacked four men and one woman, including a priest in a confessional, police said.

“Three of the victims are clergy members and two are laypeople; one person has died,” said prosecutor Bozena Harasz-Wołoszyn. Two others were in “critical, life-threatening condition”.

Polish media identified the man who died as a priest. Police did not immediately confirm the identity of the deceased.

Prosecutors said the attacker was headed for a nearby border crossing back into Ukraine but instead went to the abbey.

The motive remains unclear, and doctors will assess whether he was under the influence of alcohol, Harasz-Wołoszyn said.

Leaders respond

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the “murderer” would be “punished with the full severity of Polish law”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a “horrific crime”.

“The perpetrator of this evil must bear full responsibility in accordance with the law … We are shaken by this evil. Justice must be done.”

The mayor of Jaroslaw, Marcin Nazarewicz, declared a period of mourning until the end of the week.

Stabbings, particularly at religious sites, are extremely rare in Poland, one of Europe’s most Catholic countries.

Mayor Karen Bass called the training that LAPD officers receive for handling mental health calls “woefully inadequate” and ordered an outside review of the department’s policies Thursday, saying recent shootings highlight continued shortcomings in how police deal with people in crisis.

Bass is particularly concerned by the relative lack of specialized intervention training for patrol officers who respond to the vast majority of service calls. While the SWAT team and other units receive such training, it is not standard across the Los Angeles Police Department.

“After the academy, they have spot training that is essentially videos that are played at roll calls,” Bass said in an interview week with The Times.

The mayor’s directive comes as she’s locked in a reelection fight with progressive challenger Nithya Raman, who, like Bass, has criticized the LAPD over shootings of mentally ill people.

“The ability of the city to respond to someone’s pleas for help is incredibly important in ensuring that we maintain the trust of the public,” Raman recently told The Times. “And right now, there is no alternative system besides LAPD to respond to many of the calls that are coming into 911 besides, of course, Fire Department calls.”

Polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, shows Raman is favored by 39% of likely L.A. voters, compared to 28% support for Bass — with 33% still undecided.

LAPD officers have fired their weapons at people 16 times this year — down from 34 shootings in 2025, but recent incidents have highlighted how officers continue to turn to their guns when confronting individuals with mental illnesses. In years past, department statistics showed at least a third of all police shootings involved someone with obvious signs of emotional distress.

Bass was particularly disturbed by a July 29 incident in the Olympic patrol area in which police fatally shot a man who approached them with an aluminum bat.

Body-camera video captured officers approaching 33-year-old Alejandro Garcia as he was walking through traffic on Normandie Avenue underneath the 10 Freeway overpass. Officers ordered him to drop the bat, although it’s unclear whether he heard them. While Garcia could be seen holding the bat with both hands, the footage appeared to contradict an early LAPD account suggesting he swung at them.

The shooting could have been avoided if “the officers were trained differently or better,” Bass said, noting that one of the officers had been on the job for roughly five months.

The LAPD has yet to identify the officer or officers who opened fire.

Bass said it would have been appropriate for the department to deploy a unit that sends a social worker out with officers when responding to calls involving a person in crisis.

“You knew before that he had a bat and he was going around smashing cars,” she said.

About a week later, two officers shot and killed Canas Zimran, 44, in Boyle Heights after, department officials say, he approached officers with what was later determined to be a tree trimmer.

The shootings occurred despite policies that prioritize deescalation techniques and the use of “less-lethal” alternatives, such as bean bag rounds meant to subdue people without resorting to firearms.

Bass said the killings reflect, in part, a broader failure of the mental health system to get people the care they need. Also of concern, the mayor said, was the lack of training for officers on how to distinguish between symptoms caused by mental illness, physical and cognitive disabilities and drugs such as phencyclidine, or PCP, which seems to be having a resurgence on city streets.

Bass said her review would be a top-down evaluation that also scrutinizes the roles of dispatchers, supervisors and others involved in responding to reports of people behaving erratically.

She said the audit will examine calls from the last five years involving people with “with known histories of mental or behavioral health conditions” in which police officers avoided using force. The goal, Bass said, is to “identify common themes or best practices that successfully de-escalated the incident or allowed officers to gain compliance.”

Bass added that it’s also important to consider the needs of LAPD officers and ensure they “receive appropriate assistance” to cope with stress. She was struck by the willingness of younger officers to openly talk about the mental toll of the job, recalling a recent visit to a roll call in which an officer described feeling a lack of support after being involved in an on-duty shooting.

LAPD officials have said the department has made numerous changes in recent years to curb police shootings, including adopting deescalation training focused on slowing down volatile situations, particularly those involving people who may be mentally ill. Still, the agency’s critics pack police commission meetings each week to argue for removing police from such calls, saying that officers are too quick to fire on people — particularly those wielding knives.

Although the city has experimented with programs that send specialists to help deescalate such encounters, LAPD policy still requires armed patrol officers to clear a scene of any potential threats beforehand.

Bass said she always has been a proponent of approaches that don’t involve police, some of which are employed by her Office of Community Safety. But she said stabbings and other incidents that pose an immediate danger to the public still require a police response.

Beyond looking at how to avoid police shootings, Bass’ directive calls for further assessment of the department’s training for handling people who’ve been booked into jails and detention facilities, including how they are restrained and transferred to medical facilities.

Bass wanted to ensure the review was done by an outside body, hinting at her frustration with the inaction of department leaders and the police commission on addressing the issue.

“Much more needs to be done,” Bass said.

“Home Improvement” teen heartthrob of yore Jonathan Taylor Thomas spent the night in jail for allegedly getting unruly with police after a night of drinking.

The 45-year-old actor was detained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and taken to the Malibu/Lost Hills station in Agoura Hills shortly after midnight on Monday, according to Sheriff’s Department booking records.

Thomas’ trip to the slammer stemmed from a traffic stop that went awry in Westlake Village. He was the passenger in the car and exited the vehicle after a police officer told him to stay inside, according to TMZ. The outlet reported that Thomas was allegedly inebriated, refused the officer’s instructions and did not cooperate.

Arrest records show that the “Lion King” star was booked at the station on a felony-level charge, with total bail set at $0, which can be a temporary holding classification used during the initial intake before a prosecutor or district attorney formally evaluates the case.

Thomas spent the night in jail, but police let him go Tuesday afternoon, with records indicating that no formal criminal complaint was filed and the incident was reclassified as a detention only, rather than an arrest, which should wipe the arrest from the actor’s official record.

Thomas, perhaps best known for starring in the beloved 1990s sitcom “Home Improvement” opposite Tim Allen, also voiced Simba in Disney’s “The Lion King” and starred in other ’90s family films, including “Man of the House” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

After a decade of starring roles and magazine covers, Thomas stepped away from the limelight to focus on school, and attended Harvard, Columbia and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

“I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” he told People in 2013. “I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.”