Author: Darren Smith

Huge explosions have struck Qatar’s primary liquefied natural gas production site and the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, hours after Iran threatened to launch what it called a “full scale economic war” by targeting energy facilities across the Middle East. Video footage showed large blasts at Ras Laffan, Qatar’s main LNG production hub, as well as explosions lighting up the night sky over Riyadh, where an orange fireball was captured on camera as missiles struck the city. Energy sites across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar had been evacuated earlier in the day after Tehran warned it would hit…

A short video showing a street confrontation in Manchester between a group of British teenagers and foreign men has gone viral on X, attracting nearly 900,000 views and reigniting debate over policing practices after footage appeared to show officers pursuing one of the teenagers rather than the foreign men involved in the standoff. The clip, approximately 52 seconds long and credited to Prank Lens on Facebook, was posted on 17 March by X account @KieraDiss, an account focused on anti-immigration and patriotic content. It gathered more than 7,000 likes and hundreds of reposts and replies within hours of being shared.…

A convicted kidnapper serving a 21-year sentence has been missing for more than five months after walking out of an open prison in Sussex, raising fresh questions about the transfer of high-risk offenders to low-security facilities under measures introduced to tackle prison overcrowding. Ola Abimbola, 36, a Nigerian national, is understood to have absconded from HMP Ford on 10 October last year and has not been located since. He had been at the open prison for only around a month before disappearing, having been transferred there under new rules introduced by the Labour government to ease pressure on more secure…

Punch, the baby macaque who captured the world’s attention after being abandoned by his mother and forming an attachment to an orange plush toy, appears to have taken a significant step forward — finding companionship with a female monkey at the Japanese zoo where he lives. The young macaque, who is housed at Ichikawa City Zoo near Tokyo, has been filmed interacting with a female macaque understood to be named Momo-chan. Videos shared across social media platforms including X show the pair hugging, cuddling and exchanging what appear to be affectionate gestures, as well as playing together — chasing each…

A British man of Chinese ethnicity has described being visited by police officers after someone reported his long-standing social media username as racist — only for the matter to be dropped on the spot once officers understood the context. The man, who posted his account anonymously on Reddit’s r/LegalAdviceUK forum around 13 March, explained that he had used the username “ChingChongChinaman” across both X, formerly Twitter, and as an Xbox gamertag since he was approximately 13 years old, dating back to the Xbox 360 era. He described the name as ironic and self-referential, used among friends, and noted that he…

Police bodycam footage has captured the moment a controlling boyfriend was handcuffed and dragged off a plane at Manchester Airport after throwing prosecco in his partner’s face and threatening to kill her — the culmination of more than a year of abuse that left her afraid to trust anyone again. Callum Coady, 27, of Heaton Mersey, Stockport, was detained by officers onboard the aircraft on 19 August 2023, after airport staff intervened following the attack on his partner Daisy Martin. The footage shows him being escorted off the plane with his hands behind his back, protesting “Do I look like…

Ali Larijani, the most prominent Iranian official to have survived the opening days of the war, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a hideout apartment in Tehran, marking the most significant targeted elimination since the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 28 February. Larijani, 67, who served as secretary of Iran’s National Security Council and was widely regarded as Khamenei’s closest political lieutenant, was struck alongside his son at the safe house. The Israel Defense Forces also confirmed the simultaneous killing of Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij paramilitary force, in the same operation. The Israeli…

A nursery worker who used his position of trust to carry out a prolonged series of sexual offences against toddlers as young as two has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, with a minimum of 24 years to be served in custody before he can be considered for release. Nathan Bennett, 30, from Corston near Bath, was convicted last month at Bristol Crown Court of eight offences including two counts of raping a child under 13, four counts of sexual assault of a child under 13, and two counts of sexual assault by penetration. He had previously pleaded guilty…

Iran’s newly installed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is reportedly receiving medical treatment in Russia following serious injuries sustained during a US-Israeli airstrike, as fresh questions mount over whether he is alive and capable of leading the country. According to Kuwaiti news outlet Al-Jarida, citing a source described as “high-ranking and close to the new Iranian Supreme Leader,” Khamenei was secretly transported aboard a Russian military aircraft to one of President Vladimir Putin’s presidential palaces, where he underwent surgery that was described as successful. The outlet reported the operation was “personally offered by Putin” after his injuries could not be adequately…

A convicted murderer serving a life sentence has had four additional years added to his term after launching an unprovoked attack on a prison officer at HMP Whitemoor, stabbing him repeatedly in the head, face and neck with a plastic knife. Moustapha Dia, 28, approached the officer as he was locking doors on the wing of the Cambridgeshire prison at around 2pm on 19 October 2024. After whispering something to the officer, Dia grabbed him into a headlock and began stabbing him with the improvised weapon. The assault continued until other officers intervened and disarmed him. The injured officer was…