Author: Darren Smith

Explosions have been reported across southern Iran’s strategic coastal region near the Strait of Hormuz, with Iranian state media saying air defences intercepted drones over Qeshm Island and Bandar Abbas — as Iranian outlets began pointing the finger at the United Arab Emirates for the strikes in a development that threatens to dramatically escalate tensions in the region. The Mizan news agency, citing sources, reported that the explosions heard over Qeshm were caused by air defences downing several small and reconnaissance drones. Tasnim news agency also reported, citing sources, that two drones were intercepted by air defences over Bandar Abbas.…

German police have launched a desperate helicopter search for a 91-year-old woman who has been left stranded alone in a car somewhere in a forest, after her husband — who also suffers from severe dementia — wandered away to seek help and was later found 250 kilometres away with no memory of where he had left her. Ursula Obigt, who is almost completely blind, cannot walk, relies on a wheelchair and also has dementia, has been missing since Tuesday 5 May. She is believed to still be inside the grey MG ZS SUV she and her husband set out in…

A British YouTuber and independent journalist has been hospitalised with multiple facial fractures after he says he was ambushed and beaten by a group of militant protesters while filming the annual May Day demonstrations in Paris — an attack he describes as a targeted assault on press freedom. Wesley Winter, who has built a following of more than 200,000 subscribers covering protests and political events across Europe, was filming alone near Place de la Nation on 1 May when he says he was attacked. In a YouTube video titled “They tried to k*ll me… I’m still here” — which had…

A young mother of three from Chechnya is believed to have been murdered in an honour killing by her own father, who allegedly shaved her head, forced her to dig her own grave, and then shot her dead — while her husband was away fighting in Ukraine as part of Russia’s military. Zukhra Muzayeva, 25, disappeared from the Chechen village of Kurchaloy in late April. Her friends reported her missing, prompting an investigation by Novaya Gazeta Europe, which published the allegations and called on law enforcement agencies to investigate. Three independent sources told the outlet that Zukhra had been killed…

A Derby sex offender who posed as teenagers online to blackmail 152 children — some as young as nine — into sending him sexual material has been jailed for 31 years and branded “every parent’s worst nightmare” by the judge who sentenced him. Siah Riley, 36, of Walbrook Road, Normanton, carried out his campaign of abuse over a period of two years and eight months between 2021 and 2023, using fake Snapchat profiles to target girls aged between nine and 16. He created two accounts — one under the name Josh King, posing as a teenage boy, and another under…

A five-year-old girl cried out “the bath is too hot, mummy” before being forced into scalding water that killed her, a court has heard — nearly half a century after her death, which was not treated as suspicious at the time. Andrea Bernard died in a specialist burns unit five weeks after being pulled limp from the water at the family home in Thornton Heath, south London, in 1978. Her skin was falling off her body. She was five years old. Now, 67-year-old Janice Nix stands trial accused of her manslaughter — allegedly carried out when Nix herself was just…

The man accused of killing disgraced Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins in his prison cell told him to “have a good night’s sleep, lad” moments after allegedly slicing through his jugular vein with a homemade weapon, a murder trial has heard. Watkins, 48, who was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex offences, was attacked in his cell at HMP Wakefield on 11 October last year. Rico Gedel, 25, is alleged to have entered the singer’s cell and stabbed him three times in the head and neck, severing his jugular vein and surrounding muscle tissue. As Gedel was later escorted past…

Israel’s military has launched an investigation into a soldier photographed placing a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in an occupied Christian village in southern Lebanon, in the latest incident of alleged desecration by Israeli troops that has drawn condemnation from the Catholic Church. The photograph was taken in the village of Debel several weeks ago, according to IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, and shows the soldier smoking while positioning another cigarette on the statue’s mouth. It is the second such incident in the same village within weeks — last month, a separate soldier…

A 19-year-old man has been arrested in Portsmouth in connection with an attempted arson attack on a north London synagogue, bringing the total number of people detained as part of investigations into attacks on Jewish sites across the capital to 30. The teenager was arrested at an address in Portsmouth on Thursday morning and taken into custody by the Metropolitan Police, becoming the third person held over the attempted attack on Finchley Reform Synagogue on Fallow Court Avenue in the early hours of 15 April. No damage was caused to the building and nobody was injured. A 38-year-old woman and…

British Transport Police have released CCTV images of a man they wish to identify after a woman was sexually assaulted on a train travelling between Warrington Bank Quay and Manchester Oxford Road last month. The incident took place on 23 April at around 1pm. The victim was standing in the vestibule area between the seating and the doors when the assault occurred. Detectives are treating the matter with urgency and have appealed to the public for help in identifying the man captured on footage from the train. The individual seen in the CCTV images is described as having a shaved…