Author: Darren Smith

The United States military has carried out what it is describing as “self-defence strikes” against Iranian air defence and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz, after American forces determined that Iran was responsible for downing a US Army Apache helicopter in the area — with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responding by launching a drone attack on the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and vowing heavier retaliation if American “aggression” continues. US Central Command confirmed its forces had “completed self-defence strikes against Iran,” saying the attacks were “a proportional response to recent attacks on US forces and international commercial ships transiting…

A judge has publicly condemned Labour’s sentencing reforms after he was forced to spare prison to a woman who stole more than £43,000 from her dementia-stricken mother to fund holidays, luxury cars and an Alsatian puppy — telling the court the suspended sentence was “lenient” and one he would not have imposed were it not for the Government’s new guidelines. Catherine Barningham, 49, an account manager earning £59,000 a year, had been appointed lasting power of attorney over her vulnerable 78-year-old mother Elizabeth Smith’s finances in 2015. She used that position of trust to plunder tens of thousands of pounds…

A courtroom fell silent before erupting in gasps as 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the murder of fellow student Austin Metcalf, stabbed to death at a Texas high school track meet last year in a case that convulsed America with racial tension and bitter debate about self-defence law. Anthony sobbed as the sentence was handed down at Collin County courthouse on Tuesday, with his family bursting into tears beside him. The sentence came hours after the same jury found him guilty of murder following less than three hours of deliberation — and follows an…

France has been convulsed by the murder of an 11-year-old girl whose alleged killer had been reported to police nine months ago as a suspected sex offender — and was never once questioned — sparking mass protests across the country and mounting pressure on the government to explain how the system failed so catastrophically. More than 60,000 people took to the streets across France on Monday following the killing of Lyhanna, whose body was found at a farm approximately ten kilometres from the town of Fleurance in south-west France last Thursday. She had last been seen leaving school six days…

A Palestinian man living in the UK has sparked widespread anger after posting a video responding to the Belfast knife attack by declaring “what goes around comes around” — framing a near-fatal assault on a local resident as karmic retribution against the British public for its government’s foreign policy. In the clip, which has spread rapidly across social media, the bearded man films himself in a car reacting to footage of Monday night’s attack on Kinnaird Avenue, in which a Sudanese man with leave to remain in the UK pinned down a local resident and repeatedly slashed at his head,…

A disgraced American mayor who raped a 16-year-old boy at her own son’s birthday party has been sentenced to just 90 days in jail — a fraction of the 17 years prosecutors sought — after being convicted of two felonies in the same small Louisiana town she once governed. Misty Roberts, 44, was found guilty in March of statutory rape and indecent behaviour with a minor following an incident at a pool party at her home in DeRidder on 20 July 2024. Judge D. Kent Savoie handed down two five-year suspended sentences at Beauregard Parish Criminal Court on Tuesday, ordering…

Several homes have been set on fire and a bus torched in Belfast as violent disorder swept across the city on Tuesday night, with Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill condemning the rioters as “thugs” carrying out “disgusting cowardice” in a night of chaos that spread to cities across mainland Britain. Fires were reported at multiple residential properties off the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, where a significant emergency response involving police, fire and ambulance services was deployed. A home on Oakley Street was ablaze along with two vehicles parked in front of it. Windows were smashed at a property…

A Texas jury has found Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder for the stabbing death of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet in April 2025, in a verdict that drew emotional reactions in the courtroom and reignites debate about a case that became one of the most racially charged in recent American memory. Anthony, who was 17 at the time of the killing and is now 19, was tried as an adult under Texas law. Judge John Roach Jr. read the verdict at McKinney’s Texas District Court, with the conviction carrying a sentence of five years to life…

A bus has been set on fire in Belfast as hundreds of people took to the streets in protest after a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with attempted murder following a suspected knife attack in the city. The demonstration erupted shortly after the man — who entered Northern Ireland by crossing the Irish border — was charged in connection with the attack, which left a victim fighting for his life with serious wounds to his face, neck and back after bystanders intervened to overpower the attacker on Kinnaird Avenue in north Belfast on Monday night. The burning of the bus…

A disgraced American teacher who had a three-and-a-half hour sexual encounter with a 17-year-old pupil in her marital bed was warned by her own husband that her looks would get her into trouble at work — a warning she later repeated to the teenage boy she was abusing, newly obtained police records reveal. McKenna Kindred, 28, was sentenced to two years’ probation and placed on the sex offenders’ register for ten years after being convicted of first-degree sexual misconduct in Spokane, Washington. Now, records obtained by the Daily Mail through a Spokane County Sheriff’s Office request expose the full extent…