Global Pulse

标签： Oceania

大洋洲

  • Mexico’s Indigenous chief justice hits back at discrimination

    Mexico’s Indigenous chief justice hits back at discrimination

    For the first time in nearly two centuries, an Indigenous individual leads Mexico’s highest judicial body, and the newly sworn-in chief justice is opening up about the constant prejudice he faces because of his heritage.

    Hugo Aguilar, 53, a member of the Mixtec community hailing from the small Indigenous town of San Agustin Tlacotepec in Oaxaca, made history last year when he won the first popular election for Mexico’s Supreme Court presidency. He is only the second Indigenous leader to ever hold this position, following the iconic Benito Juarez — Mexico’s first Indigenous president, who led the top court between 1857 and 1858, whom Aguilar calls his lifelong inspiration.

    Aguilar credits his groundbreaking appointment entirely to a judicial voting reform pushed forward by Mexico’s leftist national government. Under the new policy, top court leaders are selected via public popular vote instead of exclusive internal appointment. “Without the reform, I wouldn’t be here,” Aguilar shared in his first interview with an international media outlet since taking office, speaking to Agence France-Presse. He recalled that prior to the reform, even entering the Supreme Court building felt like an unattainable milestone for someone of his background.

    Dressed in a traditionally embroidered white shirt, Aguilar has spent his entire legal career advocating for Indigenous rights and marginalized communities. He has pushed back forcefully against two of the most common criticisms leveled against him and the new reform.

    Opponents of the reform, including Mexican opposition parties and many legal experts, have argued that the policy politicizes the judiciary, claiming the ruling coalition pushed favored candidates including Aguilar to secure the top position. Critics have also labeled Aguilar a puppet of the previous administration led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and current President Claudia Sheinbaum. Aguilar rejects these claims outright: “If I were a government pawn, I would have been appointed to the Supreme Court five or six years ago,” he said.

    He also hit back at widespread discrimination he encounters on a daily basis, noting that almost all attacks on him center on his Indigenous identity rather than his professional work or judicial rulings. “The criticism directed at me is because I am Indian,” he explained. Detractors, he said, assume that because of his background, “he has no prospects, no ability, no knowledge, no aptitude.”

    Addressing concerns about judicial politicization, Aguilar made clear that the court will remain strictly independent of political interests. “Everyone thought the court was going to step into the realm of judicial activism, issuing rulings with no legal basis… That is completely out of the question,” he insisted.

    Aguilar acknowledged that the reform is a long-term project to fix deep-rooted problems in Mexico’s justice system, including widespread corruption that has plagued the institution for decades. He urged the public to give the new system time to deliver results, noting that “there’s a set of deeply ingrained habits that are hard to break.”

    In his first months in office, Aguilar highlighted early progress the court has made, including cutting the persistent backlog of unresolved cases and expanding access to justice for low-income and marginalized communities.

    Outside of his work at the court, Aguilar recalled his childhood growing up in his rural Mixtec village, where he spent much of his time caring for the land and connecting with nature. He said he plans to return to that quiet, community-focused lifestyle once his term ends, and he has no plans to abandon his roots. “My mother told me that the day I change will be the day I don’t return to the village,” he said. Emphasizing that power and social status should not create distance between leaders and the communities they serve, he added, “It shouldn’t make us unreachable.”

  • Taliban govt to mark five years ruling Afghanistan

    Taliban govt to mark five years ruling Afghanistan

    As the Taliban government of Afghanistan prepares to mark the fifth anniversary of its seizure of power this Saturday, the country is split sharply between the ruling regime’s triumphant rhetoric and the grim reality of widespread human rights restriction, economic instability, and deep public hardship. In the capital Kabul, authorities have spent weeks decking city streets with the bright white flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, alongside large new murals that frame the takeover as a historic moment of national self-determination, reading: “Independence is a sign of dignity, pride and identity”.

    The anniversary celebration lineup includes a high-profile cricket match and a series of other sporting events, from which girls and women are completely banned from attending, matching broader gender-based restrictions imposed across the country. Thousands of supporters are expected to gather at key sites across Kabul on the exact date that Taliban insurgents entered the capital in 2021, capping a rapid blitz offensive that toppled the Western-backed government days after the completion of the chaotic withdrawal of US-led international military forces.

    Ahead of the anniversary, the Taliban has put on public display military vehicles abandoned by retreating foreign troops, including a dust-covered Humvee emblazoned with footprints and decorated with string fairy lights, a deliberate showcase of the regime’s claimed victory over foreign occupation. For some Afghans, particularly younger residents who have known only Taliban rule, the regime has delivered on core promises of stability after decades of conflict. Twenty-year-old university student Pirooz Mirzaie, who spoke to AFP among street vendors selling anniversary flags, said the government had improved national security, launched new infrastructure projects, and opened “plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs”. Still, Mirzaie acknowledged a critical unmet challenge: “The biggest challenge for young people is that there aren’t many jobs.”

    Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has pushed back against criticism of the country’s economic trajectory, saying earlier this month that authorities are laying the “foundations of the economy” and asking the public for patience. Economic data presents a mixed picture: the World Bank has projected real GDP growth of 4.8 percent for 2025, but per capita GDP has declined sharply in recent years, driven in large part by the arrival of more than six million Afghan refugees returning from neighboring Iran and Pakistan over the past three years.

    Beyond economic struggles, critics and international observers warn that five years of Taliban rule have brought a relentless rollback of civil liberties, with restrictions that touch nearly every sphere of daily life. Though the Taliban has secured diplomatic engagement with governments across Europe and other regions, only Russia has formally recognized the regime. Relations with key neighbor Pakistan have collapsed into open armed conflict this year, worsening an already severe humanitarian crisis that was triggered by deep cuts to international aid following the 2021 takeover.

    Many major world powers have refused to normalize relations with the Taliban until the regime reverses its restrictions on human rights, a move the United Nations says is urgently needed to address “very real harm” being inflicted on the Afghan population. Fiona Frazer, human rights director for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told AFP that Afghans have endured the “consolidation of suffocating restrictions that intrude on almost every aspect of their daily lives, and their human rights.”

    Women and girls have borne the brunt of these restrictions: they are banned from most formal employment, barred from entering public recreational spaces including parks, and prohibited from accessing secondary and higher education for girls older than 12. Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity over fears for her safety, a 23-year-old Afghan woman described the constant oppression of life under Taliban rule: “I felt a profound sense of suffocation. The five years have been so gruelling that I feel like a 500-year-old woman, one who cannot die.”

  • Ex-Cambridge professor at centre of plagiarism scandal found dead

    Ex-Cambridge professor at centre of plagiarism scandal found dead

    A 41-year-old academic who made history as the University of Cambridge’s youngest Black professor, before resigning last week amid a heated plagiarism scandal, has been found dead in south London, the elite British university confirmed.

    Jason Arday, who left his post as a professor and his fellowship at Jesus College on 5 August following the eruption of multiple public accusations, was found unresponsive on Friday afternoon at a residential address in the Battersea neighborhood of London. London’s Metropolitan Police Service confirmed that officers were called to the site by the London Ambulance Service, and that the 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. Next-of-kin have been notified, and police said the death is currently treated as unexpected but not suspicious. A full report will be prepared for the local coroner, with the investigation ongoing under the Met’s Central South Command Unit.

    “We are desperately saddened to hear this tragic news,” University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice said in an official statement. “Our heartfelt sympathies go to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time.”

    UK Education Secretary Lucy Powell also released a statement saying she was “deeply shocked and saddened” by the news, calling on the public to respect the family’s privacy during the grieving period, reminding people “there are real people with loved ones involved.”

    The controversy that engulfed Arday began in July, when Nathan Cofnas, a US academic and self-described “race realist” whose research affiliation with Cambridge ended earlier this 2024 over his own allegations of racism, published public claims that Arday had plagiarized multiple sections of his doctoral dissertation from other scholars’ work. Right-wing British newspapers and commentators quickly amplified the allegations, arguing Arday had been given an unfair advantage through the university’s diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) hiring policies.

    Major UK outlets including The Times and The Telegraph published a series of investigative pieces that also disputed other claims Arday had made about his personal life, including assertions he had run 30 marathons in 35 days and raised millions of pounds for charity.

    Shortly after the university launched formal probes into the allegations, Arday announced his resignation. In a public letter posted online following his exit, he wrote that stepping down was “the only way” to end a “difficult period,” but stressed the decision should not be “mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me.” In an interview with The Times earlier this August, Arday acknowledged he had made academic “mistakes” in his work, but pushed back against claims he was an “academic fraud,” arguing the campaign to remove him from his post was racially motivated.

    The scandal quickly fractured the Cambridge campus and wider academic community, with two competing factions issuing open letters to university leadership. One group of senior academics called for an independent investigation into Arday’s appointment, while other scholars signed a separate letter in support of Arday, rejecting attempts to use the controversy to generalize about minority academics.

    Earlier this week, Prentice addressed the growing divide, describing the alleged misconduct as “an aberration” and promising a thorough, transparent probe that would include independent academic investigators from outside Cambridge. She also stressed that the controversy should not be used “to cast aspersions” on other ethnic minority academics working at the institution.

    Just one day before Arday’s death, his memoir *Great and Unfortunate Things* was published in the United States, with a UK release scheduled for later this August. The book has also come under public scrutiny amid the ongoing scandal.

  • Colombia hopes for miracles as search for quake victims goes on

    Colombia hopes for miracles as search for quake victims goes on

    Four days after a devastating 7.4-magnitude earthquake ripped through western Colombia, the likelihood of pulling trapped survivors from the rubble has fallen sharply—but rescue teams and desperate family members are refusing to abandon hope, pressing forward with search efforts as hundreds of people remain unaccounted for.

    The disaster, the most powerful to strike the South American nation in the 21st century, left a trail of widespread destruction across its major coffee-growing heartland and Pacific coastline, flattening nearly 13,000 homes and damaging critical infrastructure in the western urban centers of Cali and Pereira. As of Thursday, official government data puts the confirmed death toll at 287, with thousands more injured and 379 people still missing, according to newly inaugurated President Abelardo de la Espriella.

    For families of the missing, every passing minute brings mounting agony, but faith and determination hold fast. Hernan Giraldo, a 43-year-old father, has spent days digging through the wreckage of a collapsed hotel where his 24-year-old son Juan Felipe Giraldo was trapped. The young man was scheduled to marry this Sunday, and Giraldo says his only priority is bringing his son out alive. “If he comes out alive, the wedding will take place afterwards,” Giraldo told Agence France-Presse. “What matters is that he’s alive.”

    The quake has created cascading crises across affected regions, stretching local and national resources to breaking point. In Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city which has recorded the highest number of fatalities, the main morgue was damaged in the tremor, forcing authorities to transport remains to the nearby city of Palmira. Dozens of grieving relatives have gathered there, waiting to identify and recover their loved ones for burial. On the remote, impoverished Pacific coast of the Choco region, many isolated communities remain cut off from authorities, leaving the full extent of damage and loss of life still unknown. In hard-hit areas, the distinct stench of decaying bodies has begun to hang in the air, a grim reminder of the disaster’s toll.

    For de la Espriella, the disaster marks a brutal first week in office. The newly sworn-in president has already declared an economic emergency to free up resources for response efforts, visited impacted communities, and promised rent subsidies for thousands of people left homeless by the quake. As of Friday, international support is beginning to flow in: the World Bank announced it would disburse $200 million in emergency disaster response funding, alongside a framework to assess full economic losses that will help government and aid groups prioritize reconstruction and aid distribution.

    David Tamayo, head of Colombia’s national disaster relief agency, acknowledged the shrinking odds of finding survivors, but stressed that search operations would not end until every missing person is accounted for. “The likelihood of finding survivors is going to diminish” after the first 72-hour critical window, Tamayo said in an official video statement. “But our commitment is to never stop searching… The order is to not rest until we find all the missing persons.”

    Across the country, ordinary Colombians have mobilized in massive grassroots efforts to support displaced and bereaved families. Outside the earthquake zone, hundreds of volunteers gathered at the parking lot adjacent to Bogota’s largest stadium, forming human chains to sort through stacks of donated goods—bottled water, non-perishable food, hygiene supplies, and bedding—preparing them for shipment to impacted areas. The crowd often broke out in cheers and applause to boost one another’s morale, as volunteers worked tirelessly to move supplies. Luz Mary Gonzalez, a local teacher who joined the effort, wrote notes of solidarity to tuck into donation boxes, saying, “We are happy to do our small part. Our hearts are with them… They can count on us.”

    The response effort has not been without controversy. De la Espriella’s hard-right administration is facing accusations that it blocked rescue teams from countries led by leftist governments, a claim the administration denies. Colombian disaster authorities have confirmed that the country has accepted aid offers from four nations with right-leaning governments: the United States, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Israel. Mexico’s leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed Thursday that Colombian officials denied entry to a Mexican rescue team, citing an alleged lack of required certification.

  • Trump dismisses concerns over conditions on US aircraft carrier

    Trump dismisses concerns over conditions on US aircraft carrier

    On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump pushed back against mounting public concern over substandard living conditions and strained mental health among sailors serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier deployed to the Middle East amid ongoing tensions with Iran. The commander-in-chief also confirmed the vessel is scheduled for imminent rotation, set to be replaced by another similar carrier in the coming days.

    When pressed by reporters on whether family members of the crew had raised alarms about conditions on the ship, Trump flatly denied the claims, stating, “no, they’re not.” He also rejected assertions that the Abraham Lincoln’s current deployment — which has now stretched into its ninth month at sea — has exceeded standard operational timelines, responding bluntly: “No, no, no, not nearly enough.”

    The deployment timeline comes against a backdrop of prolonged stalemate between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program and continued control of the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of global oil shipments pass daily. The Abraham Lincoln originally departed Naval Air Station North Island in California in November 2025 for a scheduled deployment to the South China Sea, but was rerouted to the Middle East ahead of the U.S.-Israeli military strikes on Iran that launched on February 28.

    In recent weeks, U.S. media outlets including specialized military publications have published multiple accounts from relatives of crew members detailing sharp declines in living conditions aboard the vessel. These reports have also been accompanied by claims of multiple suicide attempts among the ship’s company, prompting Democratic lawmakers to formally call for official congressional investigations into the situation.

    Military defense experts have echoed concerns over the extended deployment. Jonathan Schroden, chief research officer at the independent Center for Naval Analyses, told Agence France-Presse that U.S. carrier strike groups are intentionally structured around six-month deployments, a timeline designed explicitly with “including sailor welfare” as a core guiding principle.

  • France upholds assisted dying law, strikes down social media ban for children

    France upholds assisted dying law, strikes down social media ban for children

    On Friday, France’s highest constitutional authority delivered a split decision on a wide-ranging legislative package, upholding a historic bill legalizing assisted dying for terminally ill adults while striking down a flagship policy of President Emmanuel Macron that would have banned social media access for children under 15. The mixed ruling creates both a key political win and a major setback for Macron’s administration, as the president pushes forward with his second-term policy agenda.

    The assisted dying legislation, which cleared parliament in July following years of contentious public and legislative debate, marks one of the most significant social reforms in France since the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2012, a campaign promise Macron made after his 2022 re-election. With the Constitutional Council’s approval, France becomes the sixth country globally — joining the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and Luxembourg — to formally legalize assisted dying for eligible patients.

    In a statement following the ruling, the Elysee Palace hailed the decision on assisted dying, noting that it “completes an exemplary democratic debate” and provides “essential safeguards for our fellow citizens.” The council did require minor adjustments to one key provision of the bill: the conscience clause that allows individual healthcare workers to opt out of participating in assisted dying procedures. The council ruled that the exemption must also extend to private healthcare facilities that consider assisted dying fundamentally contrary to their institutional mission, as long as the facility is not the only provider able to meet local end-of-life care needs. This adjustment aligns with a long-held demand from Catholic healthcare institutions across the country.

    Under the final terms of the law, eligibility for assisted dying is restricted to adult French citizens or long-term residents who live with an incurable condition and experience unbearable, treatment-resistant pain — including patients who choose to discontinue palliative or life-sustaining treatment. Patients will primarily self-administer the lethal substance, with exceptions for patients with physical impairments that prevent self-administration, who may receive assistance from a licensed healthcare worker.

    The council’s ruling on the social media provision delivered a far different outcome, striking down the under-15 ban outright in a decision that marked a major blow to Macron’s highly publicized child online protection reform. The court found that the proposed ban violated fundamental rights, arguing the restriction on under-15s’ access to social media was “neither appropriate, necessary, nor proportionate” to the government’s stated goal of protecting child welfare, and infringed on the constitutional rights to freedom of expression and communication for young people. The council also raised serious concerns about the privacy risks posed by the mandatory age verification system that would have been required to enforce the ban, which would have collected user identifying data across all social media platforms operating in France.

    The proposed ban, which was scheduled to go into effect on September 1, would have barred all children under 15 from major platforms including TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. The Macron administration had framed the policy as a critical response to growing global research linking excessive early social media use to rising rates of adolescent anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and online harassment. Macron publicly praised parliament for passing the legislation in July and pledged to implement it before the start of the school year.

    Following the ruling, the Elysee Palace made clear that Macron has no intention of abandoning the reform, and has tasked Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu with drafting a new “legally robust” version of the child online protection legislation as quickly as possible. The new draft will need to align both with the Constitutional Council’s ruling and existing European Union digital regulatory frameworks, the presidency said, adding that Macron’s “determination to see the reform implemented remains undiminished.”

    Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, a prominent supporter of the original ban, expressed disappointment with the ruling in a post on X. “We take note of it and respect this decision, which applies to everyone,” he wrote, vowing to continue fighting against what he described as social media being “a deadly poison for our children.”

    Notably, the court did not strike down a separate provision in the same legislative package that bans personal mobile phone use in all French high schools, which is still set to take effect September 1. The ruling comes as a growing number of countries around the world are exploring targeted regulations to limit children’s social media access, amid mounting public health warnings about the impact of unregulated early social media use on adolescent mental health.

  • Premier League club Liverpool sell minority stake to Jeff Bezos consortium

    Premier League club Liverpool sell minority stake to Jeff Bezos consortium

    One of English football’s most iconic institutions, Liverpool FC, has announced a landmark minority stake sale to a global investor consortium that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, marking one of the biggest deals in modern Premier League history.

    The sale comes from current majority owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the American sports conglomerate that acquired the 19-time English top-flight champions for just £300 million back in 2010. The buyer, 1892 Holdings, is a consortium led by British-Indian billionaire Amit Bhatia, with backing from Bezos and Meta co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Industry sources confirm the consortium will take ownership of roughly one-third of the club, valuing Liverpool at between £5 billion ($6.8 billion) and £6 billion in the transaction.

    Bezos, currently the fourth-wealthiest person on the planet with an estimated net worth of $256 billion, has long been linked to bids for prominent North American sports franchises including the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and Washington Commanders, but this deal marks his first direct investment in a professional sports team. He will not take a seat on Liverpool’s expanded board of directors; instead, Bryan Baum, founder of venture capital firm K5 Sports — the vehicle through which Bezos structured his investment — will join the board, alongside Elaine, Saverin’s wife. Bhatia, meanwhile, will step into the new role of vice-chairman at Anfield. Bhatia, son-in-law of Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, brings 18 years of top-flight football governance experience to the role, having served as co-owner of English Championship side Queens Park Rangers before stepping down earlier this year when his Liverpool investment plans became public.

    In a statement released Friday, FSG president Mike Gordon emphasized alignment between the existing ownership and the new investor group. “Liverpool has always been built by thinking beyond one season and making decisions with the club’s long-term interests in mind. That approach continues to attract interest from respected investors and business leaders around the world. As we considered this opportunity, it became clear that Amit and the consortium shared our long-term philosophy and appreciation for what makes Liverpool special,” Gordon said.

    Bhatia echoed that sentiment, framing the investment as a privilege rather than a business transaction. “We are incredibly proud to be investing in Liverpool Football Club and to be doing so alongside FSG. We have the utmost respect and admiration for FSG as owners and for everything they have achieved at Anfield. To be welcomed as a partner in a club of this stature is a huge privilege. We are making this investment because we believe deeply in Liverpool and its leadership, and we look forward to supporting the club’s continued success for years to come,” Bhatia said.

    Crucially, FSG has confirmed it will retain full majority ownership and complete operational and decision-making control over the club. The organization says the new capital injection will be used to advance Liverpool’s long-term growth goals on and off the pitch, by bringing in expertise across global business, technology, and investment sectors. “The consortium partners will work with FSG and the club’s leadership team to evaluate opportunities that enhance the club’s objectives on and off the pitch,” FSG said in a statement. This is not the first time FSG has sold down a minority stake: three years ago, the group sold a 3% stake to global sports investment firm Dynasty Equity.

    The deal comes at a pivotal moment for Liverpool, as the club prepares to kick off its 2025-26 Premier League campaign away to Newcastle United on August 23. The side is coming off a hugely disappointing 2024-25 season that saw them finish fifth in the top flight, missing out on qualification for the UEFA Champions League. That underperformance led to the sacking of manager Arne Slot just 12 months after he won the Premier League title in his first season in charge, replacing legendary boss Jurgen Klopp. New manager Andoni Iraola is currently looking to strengthen his squad ahead of the closing of the summer transfer window, and the fresh capital from the stake sale is expected to give Iraola additional budget to pursue new targets. So far this transfer window, Liverpool has spent roughly £94 million on new signings Jeremy Jacquet and Victor Munoz.

  • Mangione admits shooting health care CEO

    Mangione admits shooting health care CEO

    In a high-profile case that has split American public opinion amid long-simmering anger over the U.S. commercial healthcare system, 28-year-old Luigi Mangione has formally admitted to fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson during a court hearing Friday, while entering a guilty plea to federal stalking charges.

    Mangione’s admission comes nearly eight months after the December 2024 shooting that sent shockwaves through corporate America. “On the morning of December 4, I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione told a federal judge, confirming the premeditated attack he carried out to protest what he calls a broken U.S. health insurance system. Thompson, 50, was killed at a Manhattan conference venue, just days after Mangione traveled to New York from Atlanta via bus, prosecutors confirmed.

    According to official case details, Mangione used false identification to check into a Manhattan hostel roughly 10 days before the shooting, and conducted multiple reconnaissance missions near Thompson’s hotel and the planned attack site. He acknowledged in court Friday that he constructed the murder weapon using a 3D printer, then outfitted it with an aftermarket silencer and extended magazine. Law enforcement recovered the homemade gun, the silencer, and a handwritten planning checklist that included reminders to complete intelligence checks and purchase a camera from a local Best Buy when they arrested Mangione five days after the shooting following a multi-state manhunt. He was taken into custody at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after restaurant staff recognized him and tipped off authorities.

    Mangione is currently facing stalking charges in federal court and separate murder charges in New York state court. Following his guilty plea on Friday, defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo announced that her legal team had filed a motion to dismiss the state charges, arguing that dual prosecution for the same conduct violates New York’s double jeopardy protections.

    A sentencing hearing for the federal stalking charge is scheduled for December 18, and federal prosecutors have confirmed they will push for a life sentence. Both the federal stalking charge and state murder charge carry a maximum possible life sentence; two additional federal charges that would have allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty were thrown out by a judge earlier this year.

    The slaying of Thompson has pulled back the curtain on deep, widespread public frustration with the profitable U.S. private healthcare system, and the case has exacerbated already sharp political divides across the country. While former President Donald Trump and other leading conservative figures have demanded harsh punishment to set an example for would-be political violence, many working-class Americans frustrated by soaring healthcare costs and insurance denials have embraced Mangione as a folk hero. On Friday, dozens of supporters gathered outside the heavily fortified Manhattan courthouse as a police helicopter circled overhead, while inside the courtroom, Thompson’s family attended the hearing. As Thompson’s relatives left the courthouse in a convoy of black SUVs, one onlooker shouted “America loves Luigi” toward their vehicle.

    U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jamie McDonald pushed back against any glorification of the attack following the hearing, telling reporters: “There can be no celebrity in assassination.” Under U.S. legal precedent, it is constitutionally permitted for defendants to face charges in both state and federal court for the same underlying criminal conduct, so long as the charges are distinct, as they are in Mangione’s case.

  • Italian police recover stolen Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth 9 mn euros

    Italian police recover stolen Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth 9 mn euros

    In a major breakthrough for Italian law enforcement, authorities announced Friday the successful recovery of three stolen Impressionist masterpieces created by Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse, valued collectively at more than 9 million euros. The artworks were stolen in a brazen, lightning-fast heist from the Magnani Rocca Foundation villa, a small museum located near the northern Italian city of Parma earlier this year.

    Security surveillance footage published by police reveals the meticulous and rapid planning behind the robbery. Two masked suspects, fitted with headlamps to navigate the property in low light, gained access to the villa by smashing through a ground-floor window. Instead of searching for other high-value targets, the intruders moved directly to the gallery room where the three paintings were displayed, prying them off the walls in seconds. They passed the artworks through the broken window to a third accomplice waiting outside, and the entire group fled the scene before any security response could be mobilized. The entire heist took less than three minutes from start to finish.

    The stolen works recovered by police include Renoir’s *Fish*, valued at 6 million euros, Cezanne’s *Still Life with Cherries*, worth 3 million euros, and Matisse’s *Odalisque on the Terrace*, which carries an estimated value of 20,000 euros. The Magnani Rocca Foundation, situated roughly 20 kilometers outside Parma, holds the private art collection assembled by influential Italian art historian Luigi Magnani. The foundation’s permanent collection includes dozens of other iconic works by globally celebrated artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Francisco Goya and Claude Monet, none of which were targeted in the robbery.

    This high-profile theft is part of a growing string of brazen art robberies targeting major cultural institutions across Europe in recent years. Just five months before the Parma heist, in October of the previous year, thieves carried out an equally audacious robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris— the world’s most visited art museum. In that incident, intruders gained access to the museum in broad daylight, stole high-value jewelry pieces worth an estimated $102 million, and escaped in under eight minutes, shocking cultural security agencies across the continent.

  • Head of extinct thylacine sells for £60k at auction

    Head of extinct thylacine sells for £60k at auction

    A chance £50 purchase at a UK antiques market has turned into one of the most extraordinary extinct species auction discoveries in recent memory, after a item once misidentified as a taxidermy fox head sold for £60,000 when it was confirmed to be a preserved thylacine — better known as the Tasmanian Tiger.

    The story began when an anonymous collector picked up the mounted specimen purely for its quirky charm: the previous owner had added novelty googly eyes to the piece, a detail that won over the vendor when they spotted it at the market. It was only when the item was consigned to Auctioneum, a Bristol-based auction house, that specialists began to question its true identity. What they uncovered shocked everyone involved.

    Native to mainland Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania, the thylacine was a unique carnivorous marsupial with physical traits similar to canids. While most populations vanished from Australia roughly 2,000 years ago, a small colony survived on the island of Tasmania into the early 20th century. Decades of systematic hunting, combined with introduced disease and widespread habitat destruction, pushed the species to total extinction. The last known living thylacine died at Hobart Zoo in 1936, and the species was formally declared extinct shortly after.

    Today, preserved thylacine specimens are among the most coveted items in global natural history collections. Only 101 taxidermy thylacine specimens are known to exist worldwide, and the vast majority of these are held in major public museums and scientific research institutions. Complete mounted heads like the one sold in Bristol are extremely rare outside of these institutional collections, with even high-quality replicas of thylacine bones and skulls fetching thousands of pounds at auction.

    When the specimen went under the hammer at Auctioneum’s Bristol saleroom, it drew immediate global attention from collectors and researchers alike. Auctioneer Andrew Stowe described the electric atmosphere in the room during the bidding. “Bids quickly jumped into the tens of thousands, and simply kept on going up. The room went silent, everyone crowded in to watch. It was an amazing moment to witness,” Stowe said. Even the auction house team was caught off guard by the discovery. “It was quite a shock to discover we were sitting on something so special,” Stowe added. “When we broke the news that it was actually a thylacine, the vendor was in complete shock. Even replicas of skulls or bones sell for thousands of pounds [so] to find a complete item like this, is almost unheard of, especially here in the UK.”

    The winning bidder was James Cranfield, a prominent private collector of taxidermy and natural history specimens, who called the acquisition “the find of a lifetime.” In a statement following the auction, Cranfield confirmed he plans to make the rare thylacine head accessible to academic and scientific researchers, ensuring the specimen contributes to ongoing study of the extinct species rather than being kept out of public reach.

    The unexpected discovery has reignited public fascination with the thylacine, a species that continues to capture global interest decades after its extinction, with ongoing research exploring potential de-extinction efforts and unconfirmed sightings still reported occasionally in remote regions of Tasmania.