victims

Seeking to avoid lengthy litigation, Southern California Edison said Wednesday it will offer to compensate Eaton fire victims directly for damages suffered, even though it has yet to formally concede that its equipment ignited the blaze on Jan. 7.

Edison said it planned to launch a Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program this fall that would be open to those who lost homes, businesses or rental properties in the fire that killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 homes and other structures in Altadena. It would also cover those who were harmed by smoke, suffered physical injuries or had family members who died.

“Even though the details of how the Eaton Fire started are still being evaluated, SCE will offer an expedited process to pay and resolve claims fairly and promptly,” Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company, said in a press release. “This allows the community to focus more on recovery instead of lengthy, expensive litigation.”

The utility said it had hired consultants Kenneth R. Feinberg and Camille S. Biros, who had worked on the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, to help design the program.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against Edison in the wake of the Jan. 7 fire that videos captured igniting under a transmission line in Eaton Canyon. The cause is still under investigation, but Pizarro has said a leading theory is that an idle Edison transmission line, last used in 1971, somehow became re-energized and started the blaze.

An attorney who represents fire victims expressed skepticism of the plan, saying it could lead to reduced compensation for fire victims.

“In the past, the utilities have proposed these programs as a means for shorting and underpaying victims,” said attorney Richard Bridgford said. “Victims have uniformly done better when represented by counsel.”

Edison said the program would be designed to quickly compensate victims, including those who were insured. People can apply with or without an attorney, it said. The program is expected to run through 2026.

“The architecture and timing of the SCE direct claims program will be instrumental in efficiently managing funding resources, mitigating interest costs and minimizing inflationary pressures so funds can address actual claims and fairly compensate community members for their losses,” Pizarro said.

If Edison is found responsible for the fire, the state’s $21 billion wildfire fund is expected to reimburse the company for all or most of the payments it makes to victims. Brigford said he believed the wildfire fund would be enough to cover the Eaton fire claims.

“They are trying to make people panic so they don’t get adequate representation,” he said.

Others are concerned that the state wildfire fund is inadequate. Officials at the Earthquake Authority, which administers the wildfire fund, said in documents released in advance of a Thursday meeting that they fear the costs of the Eaton fire could exhaust the fund.

State officials plan to discuss what can be done to lengthen the life of the fund at the meeting.

Edison said more information on eligibility and other details of the compensation plan would be released in the coming weeks.

July 22 (UPI) — Suspect Raymond Boodarian allegedly used a firearm owned by victims Robin Kaye and Thomas Deluca to shoot and kill the couple inside their Encino, Calif., home on July 10.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman on Monday night said Boodarian, 22, used a gun owned by Kaye and Deluca to shoot and kill the couple and then called the police.

“Mr. Boodarian got caught because he used his cell phone to contact police concerning the situation [and] actually identified himself by name,” Hochman told attendees during a special meeting of the Encino Neighborhood Council.

“Police were able to ping the cell phone, find out where he lived, go to his residence and arrest him.”

Hochman said police found the gun used to kill the couple at the crime scene.

“The gun that was actually used in the murders wasn’t [Boodarian’s] gun,” Hochman told meeting attendees.

“It was a gun that he recovered from the actual house,” he added. “It was Robin’s and Tom’s gun.”

More than 100 Encino residents attended an Encino Neighborhood Council meeting to discuss the matter on Monday night, which Hochman addressed.

The residents were concerned that Boodarian was released from jail last year despite being suspected of battery, making threats and brandishing a weapon, ENC President Josh Sautter told NBC News.

A judge dismissed the case following a mental health evaluation of Boodarian.

Kaye and Deluca, both age 70, returned home on the evening of July 10 while Boodarian allegedly was inside to burglarize it, Hochman said.

Local police discovered the victims’ bodies while conducting a welfare check four days later on July 14.

Los Angeles Police arrested Boodarian on July 15 and said he is an Encino resident.

Boodarian is charged with two counts of murder during a robbery, one count of burglary, intentional use of a firearm and committing multiple murders.

He is being held without bail and has an arraignment hearing scheduled on Aug. 20 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, during which he could enter a plea.

Kaye was a music supervisor on the popular “American Idol” television show, and Deluca was a musician.

New Delhi, India – After spending three decades racked with guilt, scared on sleepless nights, and often changing cities, a 48-year-old Dalit man appeared in Karnataka with information about one of the most horrific alleged crimes in India.

Emerging from hiding after 12 years, the man, who once worked as a sanitation worker at the much-revered Dharmasthala temple, told police on July 3 that he was coming forward with “an extremely heavy heart and to recover from an insurmountable sense of guilt”. As a court-protected witness, the man’s identity cannot be revealed under the law.

“I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses I received,” he said in his statement, reviewed by Al Jazeera, “and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them”.

Now, the whistleblower wants to help in the exhumation of “hundreds of dead bodies” he buried between 1995 and 2014 – many of them women and girls, allegedly murdered after sexual assaults, but also destitute men whose murders he claims to have witnessed.

After days of sustained pressure from activists and public outcry, the Karnataka government – ruled by the opposition Congress party – has created a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations of assault and murder.

So, what did the protected witness reveal in his complaint? Does the temple town have a history of rape and murder? Are more victims coming forward now?

‘Hundreds of bodies’: What’s in the complaint?

Situated on the scenic lower slopes of the Western Ghats, Dharmasthala, an 800-year-old pilgrimage village, is located on the banks of the Nethravathi River in the Belthangady area of the Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka state, where nearly 2,000 devotees visit daily.

On July 11, the man, fully draped in black clothing with only a transparent strip covering his eyes, appeared at a local court in Belthangady to record his statement.

The complainant, who belongs to the Dalit community – the least privileged and often persecuted group in India’s complex caste hierarchy – joined the temple in 1995 as a sanitation worker.

At the beginning of his employment, he said in the complaint, he noticed dead bodies appearing near the river. “Many female corpses were found without clothes or undergarments. Some corpses showed clear signs of sexual assault and violence; injuries or strangulation marks indicating violence were visible on those bodies,” he noted.

However, instead of reporting this to authorities at the time, the man said he was forced to “dispose of these bodies” after his supervisors beat him up and threatened him, saying, “We will cut you into pieces; we will sacrifice all your family members.”

The supervisors, he claimed, would call him to specific locations where there were dead bodies. “Many times, these bodies were of minor girls. The absence of undergarments, torn clothes, and injuries to their private parts indicated brutal sexual assault on them,” he said. “Some bodies also had acid burn marks.”

The man has told the police and the court that he is ready to undergo any tests, including brain-mapping and a polygraph, and is willing to identify the spots of mass burials. Some sites are likely to be exhumed in the coming days.

In the nearly 20 years he worked at the temple, the man said he “buried dead bodies in several locations throughout the Dharmasthala area”.

Sometimes, as instructed, he burned dead bodies using diesel. “They would instruct me to burn them completely so that no trace would be found. The dead bodies disposed of in this manner numbered in the hundreds,” he said.

Why did he go into hiding?

By 2014, having worked there for 20 years, he said, “The mental torture I was experiencing had become unbearable.”

Then, a girl from his own family was sexually harassed by a person connected to the supervisors at the temple, leading to a realisation that the family needed “to escape from there immediately”. In December 2014, he fled Dharmasthala with his family and informed no one of his whereabouts.

Since then, the family has been living in hiding in a neighbouring state, and changing residences, he said.

“However, I am still living under the burden of guilt that does not subside,” he said. “But my conscience no longer allows me to continue this silence.”

To back his claims, the man recently visited a burial site and exhumed a skeleton; he submitted the skeleton and its photograph during exhumation to the police and the court via his lawyers.

Today, the actual number of dead bodies is not what matters to the former sanitation worker, a person closely associated with the case told Al Jazeera. They requested anonymity to speak.

“Even if it was just two or three women, and not hundreds, their lives matter,” they said, reflecting on why the whistleblower came forward. “If there is a chance at justice, their bodies getting proper rituals, we want to take it.”

Did he identify the victims?

No, he did not identify them by name. However, he detailed some of the burials in his statement to the police.

He recalled that in 2010 he was sent to a location about 500 metres (1,640ft) from a petrol pump in Kalleri, nearly 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Dharmasthala. There, he found the body of a teenage girl.

“Her age could be estimated between 12 to 15 years. She was wearing a school uniform shirt. However, her skirt and undergarments were missing. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,” he noted in his statement. “They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.”

He detailed another “disturbing incident” of burying a woman’s body in her 20s. “Her face had been burned with acid. That body was covered with a newspaper. Instead of burying her body, the supervisors instructed me to collect her footwear and all her belongings and burn them with her,” he recalled.

Have similar crimes been linked to Dharmasthala in the past?

Yes. There have been repeated protests over the years regarding the discovery of bodies of rape-and-murder victims in and around Dharmasthala, dating back to the 1980s.

These protests have been sporadic but persistent, often led by local groups, families and political organisations.

In 1987, marches were organised in the town to protest the rape and murder of 17-year-old Padmalata. The demonstrations exposed alleged cover-ups by influential figures but were reportedly quashed through intimidation and legal pressure.

The town saw protests flare again in 2012 with the “Justice for Sowjanya” movement, after another teenager was raped and murdered. That case remains unsolved.

Over the decades, families and local political groups have held demonstrations and submitted memorandums to authorities, linking cases such as the 2003 disappearance of medical student Ananya Bhat to larger allegations of mass graves and unnatural deaths.

S Balan, a senior lawyer in the Karnataka High Court and a human rights activist, told Al Jazeera that the killings and mysterious disappearances in Dharmasthala date back to 1979.

“The souls of young girls are crying for justice; hundreds of girls who disappeared were abducted, were raped, and were killed,” Balan told Al Jazeera. “India has never seen this gravity of offence in its republic after independence.”

Balan also met the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah last Wednesday with a delegation of lawyers, urging him to form the SIT to probe the alleged mass rapes and murders.

“The chief minister was serious about it. He told us that he will talk to the police and do [what’s needed],” said Balan.

How have the temple authorities reacted?

The administration of the Dharmasthala temple has long been controlled by the powerful Heggade family, with Veerendra Heggade serving as the 21st Dharmadhikari, or hereditary head, since 1968.

Heggade, a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, is a member of the parliament’s upper house. He was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022.

His family wields significant influence in the region, overseeing a wide network of institutions.

In 2012, the family came under public scrutiny following the rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya, a resident of Dharmasthala. Her body was discovered in a wooded area bearing signs of sexual assault and brutal violence. Sowjanya’s family has consistently alleged that the perpetrators had ties to the temple’s leadership.

In a statement shared on Sunday, July 20, the temple authorities expressed support for a “fair and transparent” investigation and expressed hope that the investigation would uncover the truth.

K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, said the whistleblower’s complaint has “triggered widespread public debate and confusion across the country”.

“In light of public demand for accountability, we understand that the state government has handed over the case to a Special Investigation Team,” he said. “Truth and belief form the foundation of a society’s ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light.”

Have the families of missing people come forward?

Yes. Sujatha Bhat, the mother of Ananya Bhat, who disappeared in 2003, has responded publicly to the whistleblower’s shocking revelations about alleged mass burials in Dharmasthala.

The 60-year-old retired CBI stenographer said she has lived in fear for more than two decades but was motivated by media reports of the worker’s testimony and the discovery of skeletal remains. She filed a new complaint with the police last Tuesday.

Bhat said she believes her daughter may have been among the many women who faced abuse and met a violent end, only to be buried without a trace.

She recalled that she was discouraged from pursuing the case further. “They told us to stop asking questions,” she reportedly said, emphasising the climate of fear and silence that surrounded Dharmasthala for decades.

Speaking with reporters after filing the complaint, Bhat appealed: “Please find my daughter’s skeletal remains and allow me to perform the funeral rites with honour.”

She said she wants to “give peace to Ananya’s soul, and let me spend my final days in peace”.

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” killed thousands of people.

For years, Catholic priest Flaviano Villanueva has gathered evidence of alleged extrajudicial killings.

He exhumed victims’ bodies for forensic examination and protected a key witness who claims he worked as a contract killer for Duterte.

In March 2025, the priest’s persistence paid off when Duterte was arrested and extradited to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court.

101 East follows Father Villanueva’s fight for justice for the victims of Duterte’s brutal crackdown.

It’s the biggest question that’s been asked over and over again about the night of Nov. 13, 2022, when four University of Idaho students — Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves — were brutally stabbed to death in their off-campus house in the college town of Moscow, Idaho: Why?

With no apparent motive or clue as to who could have committed such a heinous crime, Moscow became the epicenter of an intense investigation and a social media storm that Prime Video’s “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders” delves into over four episodes dropping on Friday.

Liz Garbus (“Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer”) and Matthew Galkin (“Murder in the Bayou”) share directing and executive producing duties on the docuseries, which is based on reporting by author James Patterson and investigative journalist Vicky Ward, and they knew early on what angle their production would take. “We decided that a very interesting and unexplored angle was to see what it was like inside the eye of the hurricane,” Galkin says. “So, for the people, the family members, the friends of the victims that had not ever spoken to the media, that was where we chose to focus our energies as far as access is concerned.”

That included exclusive interviews with Stacy and Jim Chapin, parents of 20-year-old Ethan, and Karen and Scott Laramie, parents of 21-year-old Mogen, who have never talked about the murders — despite numerous projects on the subject — and how it ripped apart not only the town of Moscow but their respective families.

Garbus and Galkin talked with The Times about how they gained the families’ trust, how social media affected the case, and the recent twists and turns that happened just before the series was set to air. For one, on July 2, primary suspect Bryan Kohberger, a former criminal justice doctoral student who was arrested six weeks after the murders, entered a plea agreement with a full confession of the murders — done to avoid the death penalty — just weeks before his trial was set to begin.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What were the origins of your involvement in the production and with crime novelist James Patterson?

Matthew Galkin: This was a story that I started tracking, obviously, when it happened, which was mid-November of 2022, and I didn’t make any outreach to any key people within the story, any of the families, until it was almost spring of 2023. We were tracking it to see how it developed once they made an arrest and once we could see the contours of the story and that things like social media played a major part in the energy created around this story.

Liz Garbus: Concurrently, as Matthew was laying the foundation for this by reaching out and trying to see where the families were on this story, I got outreach from James Patterson’s company about their interest in collaborating on a project around this case. That was quite fortuitous, and we laid some of those building blocks together and shared access and research. The film was made by its filmmakers, and the book [“The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy” by Patterson and Ward, which is being released on July 14] was reported by its writers, so they were operating on parallel tracks. We were able to support and help each other, but, truly, Matthew’s original outreach to the Chapin family is what laid the building blocks for this show and is really the bedrock of it.

Matthew Galkin, co-director of Prime Video’s “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders.”

(Matthew Galkin)

How was the gag order for law enforcement and other key people close to the case a challenge in telling your story?

Galkin: In this particular story, there was a probable cause affidavit that was filed in early January of ’23, which really laid out, up to that point, what investigative details existed in order to bring law enforcement toward the suspect and ultimately make the arrest. So we were able, at the very least, to tell that story through the details we learned through the probable cause affidavit.

It’s always a challenge if you don’t have all of the participating members of a story to try to tell the complete story. But in my past work, we tended to pick projects that are victim-centric more than law enforcement-centric. I’ve had experience telling stories through that perspective, so in a lot of ways, the limited access that we had actually lined up with the story we were trying to tell anyway.

Garbus: Even on “Gone Girls,” which was a show I made recently for Netflix, those murders were 10, 20, 30 years old. There were no gag orders, but there were certain people who didn’t want to talk for their own reasons, so sometimes, as documentary filmmakers, you have to pick a lane. What are you bringing to the story? What point of view can you fully express? And we clearly had that lane here.

And when you have that lane so clear early on, does that actually help get people to talk to you, especially those who hadn’t spoken to anyone before?

Galkin: I flew out to Washington state, and the first contact I made was to Jim and Stacy Chapin, who are the parents of Ethan, Hunter and Maizie. I convinced them to let me take them to lunch and just talk through what our vision of how to tell the story would be. I was probably the 50th in line to try to make a documentary project about it. They’ve been inundated at that point, and it was probably five or six months of journalists, documentary filmmakers [and] podcasters just coming out of the woodwork.

I know for a fact they looked at Liz’s track record, they looked at my track record, and I think they felt comfortable in the fact that if we were going to do crime stories, they were not usually from the killer’s point of view or even from law enforcement point of view. It’s usually from family or victim, so I think that gave them some comfort to know that they would have real input in how Ethan’s story was told. They liked the idea of picking one project to really go deep on and be able to help put Ethan’s narrative out to the world through their own voice, as opposed to other people who didn’t know Ethan telling it.

Maizie and Hunter Chapin were Ethan’s siblings. Both were interviewed for the documentary along with their parents. (Courtesy of Prime Video)

Did you know early on that social media would play such a big part in the case?

Galkin: It was actually the two main topics of conversation. My first conversation with the Chapins was our vision of how we were going to tell the story and also their experience dealing with the insane noise and pressures of social media sleuths and people reaching out, going into their DMs, creating theories about their children, about them, about their children’s friends — just the insanity. Obviously, there have been crime stories that deal with social media, but I have never experienced something of this magnitude with this much social media attention.

Garbus: Social media has become much of the atmosphere in the telling and digestion of crimes in the American public’s imagination of them. In some cases, it can be helpful, like the case of the Long Island serial killer, where the victims were not commanding national interest, and social media and advocates can play a huge role. Then there are other times in which the voracious appetites can overtake the story.

In your series, you don’t spend a lot of time dissecting all the gruesome details of the murders. Was that due to the law enforcement gag order?

Galkin: Maybe a little, but it was also a choice of ours. There are many other projects, documentary series or news specials about this case that go into all of the really horrific details of what happened in that house. It was a conversation from the beginning of how do we present this so it’s factual. We’re not necessarily avoiding things, but we didn’t feel like there was a reason to linger on those details because there were other aspects of the story that were of more interest to us.

Garbus: When you’re with these families and you experience the grief and trauma through them, that’s kind of what you need to know. The ways in which the ripple effect of the trauma has affected this entire friend group and all of these young people, that speaks volumes to what happened that day and we wanted to experience it through them.

Given the recent developments with Kohberger’s plea deal, did you change the tag at the end of your show?

Garbus: Thanks to some great postproduction supervisors and assistants, we will be updating the end card to have viewers be up to date with the plea.

Matthew Galkin and director of photography Jeff Hutchens on set of the re-created King Road house, where the murders occurred, in “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders.”

(Matthew Galkin)

In the latter half of the series, there’s talk about Kohberger and the notion of him being an incel, or involuntary celibate [where a person, usually male, is frustrated by a lack of sexual experiences]. How did that help understand a potential motive in the murders?

Garbus: That was something that was very interesting to us right at the beginning: Why were these young women targeted? We may never know with this plea deal now and it may remain a mystery, but there were signs, for sure, about involvement in that culture for us to explore that angle. As families watch this and they’re sitting with their sons and wondering what they might be doing online, this is the kind of conversation that people need to be having about the media, the infiltration of messages that young men receive today and it’s only getting more extreme in this moment.

Was four episodes always the amount to tell this story? Obviously, the case is still unfolding with Kohberger’s plea agreement. Could a sequel happen?

Galkin: Four episodes felt like the right amount of space to tell the story that we told. Obviously, there are still chapters unfolding, and if there is an appetite to continue to tell this story with our subjects and all of our partners, then certainly I think we’d be open to doing that. But we feel like we told a complete story here … every episode offers a pivot as to the perspectives that we’re seeing this case through, and every episode has a different lens.

Garbus: Clearly, our filmmaking stops at a certain point. You’ve had this plea deal, and the gag order will be lifted, so it is a capsule of time of what the families knew and understood since this tragedy happened up until a couple of months ago. We will see over the next weeks and months how much more we will learn, but it is a fragment of experience very much rooted in time.

Since there is so much interest in this case with many podcasts, documentaries and news stories out there, do you worry about that at all?

Garbus: In some ways you don’t think about it, but at the same time, when you’re setting off to make a project like this, you want to make sure you are saying something unique. We’re going to spend X number of years of our lives on this, and you want to make sure you’re adding something new to the discourse on the case. And, of course, it matters to us that this is the place where the Chapins and the Laramies will tell their story and that we are able to take care of it for them and the friends in the way that we intended. It matters just in that you want to make sure you have a lane that’s needed in the discourse and I think in this case we felt very clearly that we did.

Galkin: We knew from Day 1, given the access that we had, that our series would be unique to anything else on the market, because these are people that have never told their story before, and the way we were planning on doing it, which was truly from the inside, without any sort of outsider voices. So that was not an anxiety for us.

Texans gather in Kerrville to mourn 120 flood victims and pray for more than 160 still missing.

Several hundred people have gathered in Tivy Antler Stadium in Texas to mourn the many lives lost and pray for those still missing from the catastrophic flash floods that battered the state over the United States July Fourth holiday.

The vigil, held on Wednesday in Kerrville – one of the worst-affected areas – brought together grieving families, local clergy, and volunteers. “Our communities were struck with tragedy literally in the darkness,” youth minister Wyatt Wentrcek told the crowd. “Middle of the night.”

At least 120 people have been confirmed dead, with more than 160 still unaccounted for, making it the deadliest inland flooding in the US since 1976. No survivors have been found since Friday.

Blue shirts bearing the school’s slogan, Tivy Fight Never Die, and green ribbons for Camp Mystic – a century-old all-girls Christian camp where at least 27 campers and counsellors died – were worn by many attendees. Officials said five campers and one counsellor from the camp remain unaccounted for.

Ricky Pruitt of the Kerrville Church of Christ addressed the crowd, noting the emotional weight of holding the vigil at a stadium more often used to celebrate sporting triumphs. “Tonight is very different than all of those nights,” he said, as reported by The Associated Press.

As mourners held each other and wiped their tears, search crews continued scouring the Guadalupe River – on foot, horseback, and by air – for those still missing. Search dogs were deployed to sniff through trees and piles of debris. Officials admitted hope of finding survivors had all but faded, with efforts now focused on giving families closure.

Worst flood in 50 years

Meteorologist Bob Henson said the disaster ranks as the most lethal inland flood in nearly five decades, surpassing the 1976 Big Thompson Canyon flood in Colorado, which killed 144.

Governor Greg Abbott said many of those who were in the Hill Country during the holiday were never formally registered at a camp or hotel, making it harder to account for everyone.

He has faced growing criticism over the state’s flood preparedness, with many asking why warnings were delayed and evacuation measures insufficient.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha assured residents that accountability would come but said the immediate priority remains to recover the missing.

Abbott has urged state legislators to approve a new flood warning system and boost emergency communication networks. He is pushing for the issue to be addressed during a special legislative session already scheduled to begin on July 21. He also called for financial aid to support recovery efforts.

For years, local officials have debated installing a flood siren system, but concerns over cost and noise meant the idea was shelved – a decision now under intense scrutiny.

US President Donald Trump has pledged full federal support and is expected to visit the affected areas on Friday.

Camp Mystic

Renee Smajstrla

Lila Bonner

Eloise Peck

Sarah Marsh

Camp Mystic

Janie Hunt

Hanna and Rebecca Lawrence

Dick Eastland

Chloe Childress

Jane Ragsdale

Heart O’ the Hills

Julian Ryan

GoFundMe

Katheryn Eads

Jeff Wilson

Humble ISD

Reece and Paula Zunker

Blair and Brooke Harber

Bobby and Amanda Martin

Tanya Burwick

Sally Sample Graves

Kaitlyn Swallow

Two firefighters were killed by gunfire while responding to a brush fire in Coeur d’Alene, a lakeside town in the northwestern US state of Idaho.

The local sheriff’s office reported that a shelter-in-place order was lifted on Sunday night after a tactical team found the body of a man with a firearm nearby. The dead man is believed to be the suspect.

Officials did not disclose his identity or specify the type of weapon recovered.

What happened in Idaho, and when?

Officials said crews responded to a fire at Canfield Mountain in the city at about 1:22pm (20:22 GMT), and gunshots were reported about a half hour later at 2pm (21:00 GMT).

Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris said the shooter used high-powered sporting rifles to open rapid fire on first responders.

Two firefighters were killed and, according to authorities, a third one came out of surgery and is in a stable condition but “fighting for his life”.

Norris told reporters on Sunday that authorities believe the suspect intentionally started the fire as “an ambush”.

“We do believe he started it and it was totally intentional what he did,” he added.

However, officials have not spelled out any possible motives for why the suspect might have wanted to ambush the firefighters.

According to reports, more than 300 law enforcement officers and FBI agents responded to the emergency, while police snipers searched the area from helicopters.

Video footage from the area showed smoke rising from forested hillsides, with multiple ambulances and emergency vehicles seen arriving at a local hospital.

Multiple heroic firefighters were attacked today while responding to a fire in North Idaho. This is a heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters. I ask all Idahoans to pray for them and their families as we wait to learn more. Teresa and I are heartbroken.

As this…

— Brad Little (@GovernorLittle) June 29, 2025

Where exactly did it happen?

The Canfield Mountain area is on the eastern outskirts of Coeur d’Alene. It is a popular 24‑acre (10-hectare) natural space featuring hiking and mountain‑biking trails.

Coeur d’Alene, a city of about 55,000 people, is located roughly 260 miles (420 km) east of Seattle.

The mountain is densely covered with trees and thick brush, and its network of trails extends into a national forest.

Who was the shooter?

Based on preliminary evidence, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office believes there was only one shooter involved in the attack. Initially, authorities had suspected there might be as many as four.

Authorities located the suspect after detecting mobile phone activity in the area and tracing the signal.

There, they discovered a man who appeared to be deceased with a weapon found nearby. They did not say how the man died, or what firearm was discovered. Norris said that authorities believe the dead man was the shooter. However, the police have not yet revealed his identity.

Police said a man called 911 to report the fire but said that it was unclear if the caller was the gunman.

Update: pic.twitter.com/S60CnpFsyX

— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) June 30, 2025

What do we know about the victims?

Kootenai County officials said they would not release the names of the two firefighters who died.

“Their families will need support,” Sheriff Norris said.

“This is a heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters,” Idaho Governor Brad Little wrote on Facebook.

Officials said the bodies would be transported in a procession to nearby Spokane, Washington, accompanied by a convoy of official vehicles. One of the firefighters was working with the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department; the other served with Kootenai County Fire and Rescue.

Is the area now safe? Was the fire controlled?

The shelter-in-place notice was lifted at 03:50 GMT on Monday.

The wildfire on Canfield Mountain scorched approximately 20 acres (81 hectares), Norris said on Sunday, but no structures were lost in the fire, authorities confirmed.

At 03:00  GMT, authorities confirmed that the fire was still burning.

Granada, Spain – Sometimes there have been as few as two or three people, sometimes as many as 15.

But no matter the number, every morning for the past few weeks at the Jose Hurtado primary school in the Spanish city of Granada, a group of parents have dropped off their kids, then silently gathered nearby behind two simple but powerful pro-Gaza banners: “No more dead children” and “Against Genocide.”

“It started when a fictional video, set in 2040, came through one of our parents’ WhatsApp groups, about how Gaza was destroyed. And in it children ask their mums and dads – what did you do during the genocide?” Mar Domech, who helped the protest get started, told Al Jazeera.

“I began saying – instead of re-sending the video, let’s actually do something, a bit like during the pandemic when people used to applaud hospital staff at eight every night. And the 15 minutes before the kids went into class and the 15 minutes just after suited the majority of us parents the best.”

The protest format is simple. A single line of demonstrators hold up two long banners next to a tall school wall and make sure they keep out of the way of passers-by.

There is no shouting or chanting. But that these are clearly school parents caring about children dying – many of them of the ages of their own children – gives their show of support extra resonance. The school’s location on a busy arterial street near central Granada means their message reaches a wide audience.

“We don’t want to upset anybody, but we just can’t look away when so many children are dying and the laws need to be upheld,” said Domech. “What’s happening there is genocide and we have to oppose this, whoever the victims are.”

After almost two years of Israeli attacks, Gaza is home to the highest number of child amputees per capita. More than 17,000 children have been killed. And according to Save the Children, more than 930,000 children in Gaza – nearly every single child – are now at risk of famine.

The failure of more parents to join their show of solidarity is treated with a mixture of disappointment, resilience and not a little wry humour by the dozen or so “regulars”, like when they recall when two plainclothes police officers arrived to check their IDs.

It just so happened that day only two pro-Palestine parents were present, but, as Domech recalled with a laugh, thanks to the police turning up, it seemed like the number of protesters had abruptly doubled.

In any case, the limited response has done nothing to stop their determination to continue.

One woman passes by most days and stops to take a photo to send to a friend in Palestine. Some of the cars or tourists on buses going up to the nearby medieval Alhambra monument honk and wave in support.

The morale boosts are important, as well as the parents’ conviction that even this relatively tiny but tenacious protest matters.

“I couldn’t stand the idea of simply being an onlooker any more, what’s going on is so atrocious,” said Alberto, another parent. “I’m just pleased that we’ve kept going, too. I’m studying for civil service exams so time-wise I can be flexible, but it’s not straightforward to do this every day when you’re working or have other commitments. However, I think it’s fundamental we do it.”

Spain is among a small group of European nations that has consistently shown support for Palestine and criticised Israeli actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Together with Ireland and Norway, in May 2024, Spain recognised the Palestinian state and last year it expressed support for the genocide case against Israel submitted by South Africa in the International Court of Justice.

After the European Union’s latest report on Gaza was published this week,  Spain was the one country that called directly for suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, while its foreign minister demanded an arms embargo.

As for the Granada school gates protest, “We’ll go on with it once term restarts in September”, said Domech, “although hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary”.

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‘No incentive’ to recover fraudulent Covid loans

Taiwo Adebulu got a grip on the story he had always wanted to tell in Kebbi State, North West Nigeria. Based in Lagos, the journalist travelled miles away to chase it, hoping to gather dozens of anecdotes from school girls abducted by terrorists. News of the 112 abducted schoolgirls had spread like wildfire, with major radio and television stations discussing it for weeks. Then, suddenly, everyone moved on as usual, but the parents and relatives of the abductees continued to rage in pain and anguish. 

Passionate about rejuvenating the lost voices of the girls, Adebulu, the Investigations Editor at TheCable, a Nigerian digital newsroom, flew to Yauri in Kebbi to interview the relatives of the abductees, who he found had been forced to marry the terrorists holding them captive. Someone had introduced him to two local fixers who had contacts with the victims’ families in Yauri. They agreed to meet, showing concern for the girls, who seemed forgotten.

He would work with them for three days to track the girls’ relatives. The journalist said it was an exhaustive journey. The fixers had feigned concerns for the girls, claiming to seek ways to secure their freedom. The journalist, who believes the stories of the forgotten girls needed to be told, thought their interests aligned. The situation changed when he was done conducting interviews and visiting the scene of the abduction.

Adebulu had offered the fixers ₦50,000, based on his limited logistics budget as a journalist. They had agreed on that amount before he left Lagos. Now, the fixers felt they deserved more; they wanted to be compensated well for taking the reporter around the community and connecting him to sources. For the journalist, it was a symbiotic relationship: “Help me tell the story of your people so that I can help amplify their lost voices.” The fixers, however, saw it as a transactional relationship — a clear case of sources for money. Tensions escalated when their intentions conflicted, and arguments ensued.

The journalist was then held to ransom, not by terrorists this time, but by the same fixers who had assisted him in telling the stories of the kidnapped girls. They demanded ₦200,000 for his release. “It was a hellish experience that I do not want to have again,” Adebulu tells me. Though he seemed to have moved on from the incident, his jittery voice gave away his anxiety. He bargained with the fixers, reducing the amount to ₦100,000 and pleading with them not to harm him.

Only the fixers knew his whereabouts – no one else. They had discouraged him from lodging in a proper hotel, citing security concerns. Instead, they took him to a nearly empty five-bedroom service apartment for safety. They threatened not to release him if he refused to pay at least ₦100,000. They issued this threat at night when everything was dark. Adebulu felt vulnerable and scared for his life, knowing he had no one to call or anywhere to run.

“We finally negotiated and settled for ₦100,000 that night. I made a ₦50,000 transfer and told them I would pay the remaining ₦50,000 the following day because I had a network issue. They claimed they didn’t receive the ₦50,000 I had sent, but I had already received confirmation that the transaction was successful,” he recalls.

“They then seized my iPhone, saying they would keep it as collateral if anything happened. My iPhone was worth around ₦500,000, significantly more than the ₦100,000 they wanted. So, it was safer for them to keep my phone,” Adebulu explains.

Anxiety and a sense of danger left him unable to sleep that night after his so-called fixers took away his phone. By early morning, he decided to leave the state immediately. After taking a bath, he contacted the fixers to ask if they had received the ₦50,000 he transferred the previous day. They denied it. To expedite his release and departure, the journalist sent an additional ₦100,000 that same morning. Following the second transaction, the fixers returned his mobile phone. They transported him by motorcycle to a nearby motor park, where he boarded a vehicle heading to Kontagora, Niger State in North-central Nigeria.

“When I arrived in Abuja and visited my bank, I was informed that both transactions, the ₦50,000 sent the previous day and the ₦100,000 sent the next morning, had been successfully processed. I immediately contacted the recipients and demanded a refund of the extra ₦50,000. However, they told me it couldn’t be returned; the money was gone for good. At that point, I realised there was nothing I could do. I simply had to accept the loss and move on,” he adds.

Throughout Africa, the number of journalists willing to cover violent conflicts is decreasing, not due to their choice. In Nigeria, these courageous reporters confront harsh realities: threats of murder from terrorists, assaults by government agents, and the emotional toll of witnessing human suffering. From 1992 to 2020, 1,378 journalists lost their lives globally, with many killed while covering domestic strife rather than foreign wars. Nigeria’s history is marked by violence, from the assassination of Suleiman Bisalla in Kaduna to the 2020 assault on Daily Post’s Sikiru Obarayese while covering the #EndSARS protest in Osun State, South West Nigeria. For every incident that receives attention, several more remain unreported. Despite the dangers they face, Nigerian conflict journalists are often deployed without trauma support, insurance, or adequate protection from their institutions. Their challenges don’t conclude at the battlefield; many return home burdened with emotional distress that goes unnoticed beyond the headlines.

For Adebulu, the story was told, but the emotional distress still lives with him. Although the investigative piece was later shortlisted for the Fetisov journalism award, arguably the most prestigious journalism laurel globally, his interest in such adventurous stories diminished due to the potential danger lurking around and the emotional that trailing them. It was an incredibly traumatic experience that he sincerely hopes never to relive. It was his first time facing such a situation: being held to ransom by fixers who seized his phone and left him genuinely fearing for his life.

“I wasn’t there for personal gain; I was trying to help the community by covering the abduction of the girls, shedding light on their harrowing ordeal, and documenting their stories in the hope of drawing much-needed support. Instead, I found myself in a vulnerable position, pressured by individuals who demanded an exorbitant amount of money simply because they had driven me around and arranged access to sources for interviews,” he says. 

The cunning fixer

Adebulu’s experience with deceitful fixers resonated with me, as I had a similar encounter while covering a story. In Niger State, a local fixer, Bago Abdullahi, is notorious for milking journalists, and he does this effortlessly. Swindlers are not only present in Kebbi and Niger states; this problem has become widespread for those striving to tell the stories of ordinary people caught in violence, especially in northern Nigeria.

As a chief investigative reporter at Premium Times in 2022, I travelled to Niger to unravel what I believed would be one of the most important stories of the time. I was determined to document the tragic story of six young girls killed during a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) surveillance strike in the small village of Kurebe.

The NAF had claimed that the operation was successful, targeting terrorists and criminal masterminds thriving in the community. However, I uncovered a different reality when I spoke to on-the-ground sources. The victims were all civilians, and those six girls, aged between three and six, were lost in a moment of sanctioned violence. Their homes were reduced to rubble, and both bombs and denial scarred their village.

Determined to uncover the truth, I travelled to the state to speak with the victims’ families, local eyewitnesses, and anyone who could shed light on what had happened. I knew the story I wanted to tell intimately, but I needed a local fixer to help navigate the complexities of access and trust. I found a man who initially presented himself as a defender of his people, motivated by a desire to see rural terrorism become a thing of the past in the state. He spoke convincingly, expressing his wish to share Kurebe’s story with the world. I believed him; his enthusiasm matched mine, and I thought I had found a genuine ally in the fight against terrorism.

I was wrong, as that facade quickly faded.

He demanded ₦250,000 upfront to transport five sources from Kurebe and neighbouring villages to the relatively safe town of Kuta, where I could interview them without fear of retaliation. I later discovered that the transport cost per person was under ₦3,000. One source mentioned that she received no more than ₦3,000 for the round trip. The fixer had told me each person would receive ₦25, 000. What happened to the rest of the money?  He pocketed it.

He had promised hotel accommodations for the sources but only provided them with a single, cramped room. When I confronted him about this, hoping to restore some dignity for those whose stories I aimed to amplify, he responded with further demands: an additional ₦100,000 this time, without any clear explanation.

I refused.

That’s when his demeanour shifted. The man who once claimed to be my ally became venomous. Insults poured in through text messages. He accused me of being ungrateful and hoarding the money my organisation sent. “You’ll win awards with this story,” he raged. “And yet you don’t want to give us our due!”

What he didn’t know was that I had received only ₦220,000 in total from my media organisation at that time, and I had been using my savings to make the trip happen. I wasn’t seeking glory; I was striving to document the truth.

Despite the insults, I completed the story, and it was published. However, I walked away feeling sickened by how easily noble intentions can be twisted by those who view tragedy as their currency. In the following months, other journalists confided in me that they, too, had been scammed by the same man – colleagues like Yakubu Mohammed, who faced similar deception, and Isah Ismail, a journalist with HumAngle, who had also fallen victim to his manipulative escapade. He was made to cough up ₦80,000 to connect him to sources who he claimed would be travelling from far places to Kuta, only for the journalist to realise that the locals were based there, not coming from elsewhere.

The pain of the Kurebe girls’ story stayed with me, but so did the sense of betrayal. It served as a reminder that even in pursuing justice, not all allies are who they claim to be.

Branded a betrayer

Yaqubu Muhammad, a Premium Times reporter, had even a more horrible experience while trying to document the plight of locals uprooted by war in Niger state. His story is similar to Adebulu’s but more worrisome, as it was a near-death experience. In 2020,  Mohammed was mistaken for a terrorist informant by soldiers surveilling the tense town of the Shiroro area in the state, causing him a life-threatening encounter.

His mission was to visit the hotspot of rural terrorism in Shiroro. He wanted to be in Kokki, Magami, Sarkin Zuma, and Uguwan Magero to tell the stories of victims of armed violence whose livelihood had been stolen by a new front of terrorists. Alongside Bello Kokki, his fixer, the journalist rode on a motorcycle for hours before getting to the hard-to-reach communities. He was initially scared, but despite the risk, Muhammad pressed on, driven by a sense of duty.

It took three hours for the journalist to travel from Lapai to Kuta. His fixer had picked him from there, riding him through farm fields and ghost villages sacked by terrorists. They had travelled through the ungoverned spaces unhindered, documenting the losses and the lives lost to terrorists in the axis. Later, they explored the Kwatai riverbank, speaking to dozens of displaced villagers who had built makeshift shelters. The sight left Mohammed in awe, pondering how people survived in such conditions.

“[…] the storylines were dotted with bloody tales through the teary eyes of sedentary villagers,” he wrote in a reporter’s diary. He returned to the riverbank, staying behind to continue his interviews, but his fixer had to leave due to fear of impending attacks. That night, he slept in a makeshift hut with other displaced people, unaware of the danger lurking around the place.

When the cock crowed the following morning, some soldiers stormed the camp. His face was strange to them; it was the first time they saw someone carrying a camera, wanting to speak to displaced persons. It was a satellite community, and it was hard to reach. “Oga! Let’s shoot him; he’s a bandit’s informant,” one soldier yelled. The soldiers dragged him out, accusing him of espionage. Surrounded by armed men ready to fire, the journalist says he was already imagining his obituary. The more he tried explaining that he was just a journalist trying to tell the story of locals caught up in the armed violence, the more he was looked at with disdain, insults and harassment. “You are a spy. You came to take pictures and send to bandits,” one of them insisted, with his pleas falling on deaf ears.

After a few hours of grilling the journalists, letting out the sweat in him, a senior officer intervened to de-escalate the situation. The officer asked the reporter to present his ID card and phone for verification. “You are lucky,” the officer said after verifying his identity. If not, you would have been gone by now.”

Scared for his life, Mohammed left the camp immediately, with his heart pounding. He believes surviving that moment was a miracle, as scores of journalists had been killed in a similar situation. The experience left a deep scar, knowing that the story could have been told with a bullet-pierced skin. The trauma was compounded by the fact that he had been trying to help, not harm.

Two years later, he shared the behind-the-scenes account through WikkiTimes, hoping to shed light on journalists’ dangers in conflict zones. “It was indeed an examination,” he said, referencing the mental and emotional toll. “I am no longer naive,” he wrote. “But I will not stop telling the stories that matter.”

Damilola Ayeni is another Nigerian journalist who has faced a similar ordeal with security operatives. He travelled to a terrorist-affected zone in the Republic of Benin and ended up behind bars, despite identifying himself. He was tracking the movements of elephants from Nigeria to the conflict zone of the Benin Republic, only to be detained by local authorities. He spent days in detention before finally gaining his freedom following media pressure. 

Numerous cases of Nigerian journalists facing mistreatment by terrorists, military personnel, and civilian groups often remain unreported or receive minimal coverage. According to the Wilson Centre, it is estimated that for every reported incident of journalist assault in Nigeria, there are at least four cases that go unrecorded.

“Appropriate legislation should be adopted to compel media owners to prioritise the general welfare of journalists, particularly those working in dangerous zones. Media advocacy groups and civil society organisations should also consider bringing attention and support to journalists working in dangerous zones,” says Olusola Isola, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies at the University of Ibadan. “Media owners in Nigeria should consider providing personal protection equipment for journalists on dangerous assignments, as well as medical evacuation services and life insurance policies.”

The Supreme Court has revived long-running lawsuits against Palestinian authorities from Americans killed or wounded in attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

The United States Supreme Court has upheld a statute passed by Congress to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities by Americans killed or injured in attacks abroad as plaintiffs pursue monetary damages for violence years ago in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

The 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that the 2019 law, the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to due process under the US Constitution.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the ruling, said the 2019 jurisdictional law comported with due process rights enshrined in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

“It is permissible for the federal government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right” to compensation under a federal law known as the Anti-terrorism Act of 1990, Roberts wrote.

The US government and a group of American victims and their families had appealed the lower court’s decision that struck down a provision of the law.

Among the plaintiffs are families who in 2015 won a $655m judgement in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organisations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004. They also include relatives of Ari Fuld, a Jewish settler in the Israel-occupied West Bank who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian in 2018.

The ruling comes even as Jewish settlements on Palestinian-owned land are considered illegal under international law.

“The plaintiffs, US families who had loved ones maimed or murdered in PLO-sponsored terror attacks, have been waiting for justice for many years,” said Kent Yalowitz, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“I am very hopeful that the case will soon be resolved without subjecting these families to further protracted and unnecessary litigation,” Yalowitz added.

Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, and now Iran, served as a backdrop to the case. Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, more than 55,000 people have been killed and 130,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

US courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad.

Under the language at issue in the 2019 law, the PLO and Palestinian Authority automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conduct certain activities in the United States or make payments to people who attack Americans.

Roberts in Friday’s ruling wrote that Congress and the president enacted the jurisdictional law based on their “considered judgment to subject the PLO and PA (Palestinian Authority) to liability in US courts as part of a comprehensive legal response to ‘halt, deter and disrupt’ acts of international terrorism that threaten the life and limb of American citizens”.

New York-based US District Judge Jesse Furman ruled in 2022 that the law violated the due process rights of the PLO and Palestinian Authority. The New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.

President Joe Biden’s administration initiated the government’s appeal, which subsequently was taken up by President Donald Trump’s administration.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on April 1.

June 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law that allows victims of terrorism to sue two Palestinian entities in U.S. courts.

The decision reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals in the New York-based 2nd Circuit that found the law denied the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority fair legal process.

All nine justices ruled that the bipartisan 2019 law, called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, does not violate due process rights of the PLO and PA.

The lawsuit and appeal involve cases from the early 2000s and not the Israel-Hamas war and airstrikes between Israel and Iran. It was based on the Antiterrorism Act of 1990, which creates a federal civil damages action for U.S. nationals injured or killed “by reason of an act of international terrorism.”

Founded in 1964, the PLO is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. The PA, founded in 1994, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 46-page opinion that included a concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas and backed by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wanted to define the boundaries of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

Lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel can move forward in American courts.

“It is permissible for the Federal Government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right to ATA compensation,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

In April, the high court consolidated two cases for arguments: a Justice Department appeal and an appeal by the family of Israeli-American Ari Fuld, who was fatally stabbed at a shopping mall in the West Bank in 2018.

The Biden administration initially intervened in Fuld’s case and another one brought by 11 American families who sued the Palestinian leadership groups and were awarded $650 million in a 2025 trial for several attacks in Israel.

June 19 (UPI) — The Department of Justice has filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize $225.3 million for victims involved in cryptocurrency scams.

The complaint, filed Wednesday, alleges that the cryptocurrency addresses that held over $225.3 million were part of a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network.

“Civil forfeiture complaint is the latest action taken by the Department to protect the American public from fraudsters specializing in cryptocurrency-based scams, and it will not be the last,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“These schemes harm American victims, costing them billions of dollars every year, and undermine faith in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Our investigators and prosecutors are relentlessly pursuing these scammers and their ill-gotten gains, and we will relentlessly pursue recovery of victim funds.”

Last week, the DOJ found five men guilty who laundered over $36 million from victims. They operated out of Cambodia and face maximum penalties of between five and 20 years in prison.

Assistant Director of the FBI Criminal Division Jose A. Perez, said his agency will not allow the criminals targeting unsuspecting victims who believe they are making legitimate investments to keep these scams going.

“This seizure of $225.3 million in funds linked to cryptocurrency investment scams marks the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service history, said Shawn Bradstreet, a special agent in that agency’s San Francisco field office.

In this investigation, more than 400 suspected victims say they lost money after believing that they were making investments, officials said.

According to the FBI internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2024 internet Crime Report, cryptocurrency investment fraud resulted in more than $5.8 billion lost in 2024. People over age 60 were impacted the most, losing an estimated $2.8 billion.

June 5 (UPI) — Japan’s royal family wrapped up a two day visit to Okinawa Thursday, where they paid respects to the victims of a World War II-era Japanese evacuation ship that was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine.

Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and their daughter Princess Aiko prayed for the victims who were lost aboard the ship, according to the Japanese national daily news outlet the Mainichi. They called for peace during their visit.

The imperial family presented flowers and bowed deeply at a memorial site in Nama for the Tsushima battleship, on which at least 1,500 people, including hundreds of schoolchildren, were killed in the torpedo attack.

The family also visited a nearby memorial museum where they spoke to survivors and bereaved family members, and also witnessed several personal items that belonged to the schoolchildren who died.

One man, 85-year-old Masakatsu Takara, recounted the pain of losing nine of his family members, including his parents and siblings.

The Tsushima Maru was hit with a torpedo near southwestern Japan’s Tokara Islands while traveling from Okinawa to Nagasaki during an August, 1944 government ordered evacuation.