Local News

A judge in Louisiana has ordered the return of electronics belonging to an ex-Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to obscenity for being caught having sex with two dominatrices atop a church altar while still belonging to the clergy in 2020.

However, the judge also told authorities to erase all data from the devices and storage media as a precaution against videos taken of the tryst from becoming public.

The ruling from state court judge Ellen Creel came in the case centering on Travis Clark as well as dominatrices whose professional names are Lady Vi (also known as Satanatrix) and Empress Ming. The videos in question have been under indefinite court seal ever since the trio’s encounter made international news headlines in 2020.

After eight years of planning, a cost of more than 500m kronor (£39m) and an early morning blessing, a church in northern Sweden began a slow-motion 5km journey on Tuesday to make way for the expansion of Europe’s biggest underground mine.

The 672-tonne Kiruna Kyrka, a Swedish Lutheran church inaugurated in 1912, is to be slowly rolled to its new home over two days, at a pace of half-a-kilometre an hour.

In a huge multi-decade operation, the whole of the Arctic town is being moved as an iron ore mine operated by the state-owned mining company LKAB weakens the ground, threatening to swallow the town.

The craze for a toothy, fluffy, mischievous monster doll and all its viral spin-offs is escalating into a potential crime wave.

A group of burglars has broken into a Los Angeles store, taking thousands of dollars worth of Labubu dolls, which have surged in popularity this year among both children and adults, including celebrity sightings.

“There was a lot taken, maybe like around $30,000 or more of inventory,” Joanna Avendano, co-owner of One Stop Sales, told ABC News Local 7 in California. “We worked so hard to get to this point, and for them to just come in and, like nothing, take it all away, it’s really bad.”

An 88-year-old Russian man, who gained local fame for building his own aircraft, has died after attempting to take off in a homemade helicopter.

The man, a resident of the Omutninsky district of western Russia’s Kirov Region, attempted the flight in the self-built aircraft on Thursday, the Volga Region Transport Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release Friday.

However, the helicopter self-destructed during take-off, it added.

The aircraft failed to lift off and, instead, “during engine startup, while still on the ground and as the engine power was building, the main rotor blades detached. This caused injuries to the pilot, born in 1937,” the district emergency services told Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti on Friday.

Ever since a nasty concussion stopped me playing rugby when I was 18, I struggled to exercise regularly. I tried plenty of workouts, dabbling in everything from CrossFit to Zumba. While some were more enjoyable than others, I hadn’t found a way to keep a consistent, disciplined regime without it feeling like a chore. I’m 28 now and work from home. My commute from bed to desk is 15 steps. Given the health risks of sedentary lifestyles, I had tried just about everything to break my lazy rut, and then something worked: watching television.

Well, OK, not just watching television like a modern Jim Royle, who reached Olympic levels in The Royle Family, but I imposed a rule: if I want to watch TV, I have to do so while sitting on my exercise bike (the one cardio exercise I can tolerate). The result? I’ve been cycling roughly six hours a week for months now. Generally, I watch a lot of sports: if there’s football, rugby, tennis, boxing, NFL or cricket on, I’ll watch it. So invariably through the year I find there’s roughly two hours of sport on three times a week I want to watch. By combining this with exercise, I find I am able to do so without feeling guilty.

Most of the sports I watch have intervals, so I tend to cycle moderately during the action and then start to pedal my way quickly through another Jamie Carragher tirade or some inane ad breaks. I usually burn about 500 calories during a two-hour session. Sometimes my drink of choice while I cycle might even be a non-alcoholic beer. Bliss.

A unusual attack by bees in the French town of Aurillac has left 24 people injured, including three who were in critical condition but have since improved, according to local authorities.

Passersby were stung over a period of about 30 minutes on Sunday morning, according to the prefecture of Cantal, in south-central France. Firefighters and medical teams treated the victims, while police set up a security perimeter until the bees stopped their attack.

The three people in critical condition were evacuated to a local hospital. Pierre Mathonier, the mayor of Aurillac, told BFM TV on Monday that their condition had improved.

The ambulance service on the Spanish island of Ibiza says it is at risk of collapse because of frequent callouts to attend to clubbers having bad experiences with recreational drugs.

The local ambulance union says up to a third of emergency calls are to clubs, the largest of which has a capacity of as many as 10,000 partygoers, and are largely drug-related. It is calling on club owners to contract private ambulance services.

“It’s inconceivable that businesses with an income of millions of euros a year can’t provide this service which is saturating the emergency services at the expense of the local population,” the president of the local health services union, José Manuel Maroto, told elDiario.es.

A petition has been launched calling on the mayor of Bratislava to prevent Kanye West – legally known as Ye – from headlining a festival in Bratislava, calling the planned appearance “an insult to historic memory, a glorification of wartime violence and debasement of all victims of the Nazi regime”.

The Rubicon festival in the Slovakian capital claimed that they had secured an exclusive performance by the “hip-hop visionary, cultural icon and controversial genius” for mid-July.

More than 3,500 people have signed the petition, endorsed by representatives from organisations such as Peace for Ukraine and Cities for Democracy, calling for West’s removal from the bill, accusing him of “repeatedly and openly adhering to symbols and [an] ideology connected with the darkest period of modern global history”.

The pilot of a small plane that crashed near a North Carolina airport this month had raised a wheel after landing to avoid hitting a turtle on the runway, according to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report.

The pilot of the Universal Stinson 108, a single-engine, four-seat aircraft, and a passenger were killed in the 3 June crash near Sugar Valley airport in Mocksville, officials said. A second passenger was seriously injured in the crash.

A communications operator looking out of the airport office window advised the pilot that there was a turtle on the runway, according to the report released this week. The operator reported that the pilot landed about 1,400ft down the 2,424ft runway, then lifted the right main wheel to avoid the turtle. The operator heard the pilot advance the throttle after raising the wheel, but the airplane left her view after that.

Peng Yujiang began from an elevation of about 3,000m in the Qilian mountain range in northern China, where he intended to test a new second-hand equipment purchase without making a proper flight, according to an investigative report by the Gansu Provincial Aviation Sports Association.

However about 20 minutes into his practice he was caught in a strong updraft, which sent him soaring more than 5,000m high, in line with flight paths and nearly the height of Mount Everest.

Video from Peng’s mounted camera showed him above the clouds and covered in icicles as the temperature dropped to a reported -35C, as he tried to control his equipment.

The video sparked shock and admiration from viewers, some suggesting he had broken records, but it also drew the ire of authorities.

“Gu Zhimin posted a flight video without permission, which had a bad impact,” the report said. “He was grounded for six months and asked to write a report to deeply reflect on the negative impact of his behaviour.”

Teahouses built for spending extended time in, open until the wee hours of the night, are popping up all over the city. Some are elusive, hidden in plain sight or only accessible via a mysterious membership. Others have gone viral on TikTok and have cover charges and waitlists to attend. Some reference East Asian tea ceremony culture, others lean California cool and bohemian.

Why the surge in places to drink tea? It might be because young people are consuming less alcohol (a 2023 study from Gallup found the number of people under 35 who drink has dropped 10% over the last two decades). Or maybe it’s due to the fact that the city has lost a sizable chunk of restaurants open past 10 p.m. — LAist reports nearly 100 since 2019 — leaving fewer places to sit and chat that aren’t bars or clubs. At the same time, activities centered on wellness and reflection, like gratitude groups, journaling or even reading silently in public, are being embraced by people of all ages looking for third spaces and activities outside of the standard dinner-and-a-movie.

A former sheriff’s deputy who stole $3,500 from a homeless man he arrested in California has been permanently banned from serving as a peace officer in the state, while felony theft charges against him were dropped, authorities said.

John Sanzone, a former deputy with the Glenn county sheriff’s office, arrested a homeless man who had been carrying $3,500 – money the man had been saving for urgent dental work.

Sanzone took the money and later tried to cover up the theft when the man attempted to reclaim it after his release.

Five people were killed when two helicopters collided and crashed in a wooded area near Eura airport in south-western Finland, police have said.

Police said the mid-air collision occurred shortly after noon on Saturday near the town of Kauttua, with the wreckage falling 700 metres from the Ohikulkutie road.

“Five people have died in a helicopter accident near Eura airport on Saturday,” DCI Johannes Siirilä, of the National Bureau of Investigation, said.

A 23-year-old Mexican social media influencer was shot dead at a beauty salon in Mexico while on a TikTok livestream.

Valeria Marquez, known for posting beauty and lifestyle content for her 200,000 followers, was at her Blossom the Beauty Lounge salon in western Guadalajara in Jalisco state on May 13 when the incident occurred.

The shooter reportedly rode up to the salon on a motorcycle before entering the building on the pretext of giving Marquez a gift, but instead opened fire.

A Danish couple who fled their “forest resort” in Sweden for Guatemala and left behind a large tax debt and 158 barrels of human waste have hit back at criticism and claimed that their handling of the compost toilets was “very normal”.

Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, both chefs, abandoned their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, last year. They owed large sums to Swedish and Danish tax authorities. They have since set up a business in Guatemala.

The story behind their disappearance and the abandoned human waste was revealed this week after an investigation by the newspapers Politiken and Dagens Nyheter. It also found that the couple had allowed wastewater to run into the forest and alleged that animals had died as a result of being left outside and that others were abandoned.

A helicopter crashed into the Hudson River in New York on Thursday, killing all six people aboard, including the pilot and a family with three children who are believed to be Spanish tourists.

The fire department said it received a report of a helicopter in the huge tidal waterway that runs up the west side of Manhattan at 3.17pm ET. Videos posted on social media showed the aircraft mostly submerged, upside down in the water, and rescue vehicles crowding on to the streets on shore as emergency workers raced to save those onboard.

At the scene of the crash, the emergency response boats could be seen circling in the water. A crane could also be seen on a floating platform in the river, presumably trying to raise the sunken helicopter. Meanwhile on shore, fire and police personnel stopped the public and press from reaching the end of a long concrete pier on the river from downtown Manhattan, as scuba teams emerged from the water. A New York fire department boat responds to the crash on Thursday.

People on the Aegean islands, more used in April to the sight and scent of spring’s blossoms, have been left reeling from flash floods spurred by typhoon-strength gales, with authorities calling a state of emergency in some of Greece’s most popular destinations less than three weeks before Easter.

“It’s a total catastrophe and it happened in just two hours,” said Costas Bizas, the mayor of Paros, the island worst hit by weather not seen in decades. “We need all the help we can get.”

On Paros and Mykonos, two of the country’s most visited islands, officials were racing against the clock to complete clean-up operations before the arrival of tourists for the Easter break.

A man from New York has been sentenced to spend life in prison after investigators found he talked to a teen girl online, manipulated her into sending him nude photos before using those images as leverage to get her to meet at a Jersey Shore hotel where he had sex with her.

In September of 2020, Zachary Williams, 37, met a 13-year-old New Jersey girl online and lied about his age by telling her he was just 17 -- even though he was 33 at the time, according to court documents.

During their conversation, Williams is accused of asking her for nude photographs, then, once he received them, Williams threatened to send the pictures to her family and friends, officials said in a statement.

Kick streamers LordHito and GaganTV found themselves on the receiving end of a violent attack after Japanese locals struck them with glass bottles, captured during a live broadcast.

On February 15, Kick streamers LordHito and GaganTV were eating at a restaurant in Sapporo, Japan when they walked into a bar nearby. The duo spoke with a woman they’d met beforehand and two other men in what appeared to be a friendly and playful conversation at first.

At one point, two other men approached the streamers, with one grabbing at GaganTV’s phone twice. An argument broke out shortly thereafter, and an employee ushered them out of the door.

Angry at the situation that had unfolded, GaganTV vented his frustration as he and Hito walked away, while Hito himself was left confused.

Just a few moments later, one of the angry patrons from the bar approached them, shouting and holding a bottle. He lunged at Hito and then set his sights on GaganTV, swinging the bottle at him in the middle of the street as another man joined in.

A former interpreter was sentenced on Thursday to nearly five years in prison for stealing $17m from Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani to pay off gambling debts, according to local media reports.

Ippei Mizuhara, the one-time translator and de facto manager of Ohtani, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, the punishment prosecutors had sought, and also ordered by US district judge John Holcomb to pay restitution of over $18m, the City News Service reported.

Mizuhara, 39, pleaded guilty to felony bank fraud and subscribing to a false tax return last year, according to his plea deal previously filed in US district court in Los Angeles.

Spanish police have rescued a man who was kidnapped and bundled into the boot of a car after he managed to alert his girlfriend by sending her a photo of the vehicle’s steering wheel and a set of coordinates.

On 23 January Policía Nacional officers in the Andalucían province of Málaga received a report that a man had been kidnapped two days earlier on the promenade of the town of Sabinillas. The man had been taken by a group of men travelling in two cars who were looking for information on the whereabouts of another man who had apparently swindled them out of €30,000 (£25,000) in a drug deal.

Officers were also provided with videos of the victim, showing him face down and with a pistol at his head while he was asked where the other man was.

Unknown to his captors, however, the kidnapped man managed to contact his friends and send his girlfriend a photograph of the steering wheel logo of the car he was travelling in. He also sent coordinates that led police to a street in Torre del Mar, a town along the coast from Málaga.

MADRID, Jan 18 (Reuters) - A ski lift collapsed at a resort in the Spanish region of Aragon on Saturday, injuring dozens of people, nine of them very seriously and eight seriously, the regional government said.

Around 80 people remain trapped, hanging in the chairlift at the ski resort of Astún, in the province of Huesca, according to state TV channel TVE.

"It's like a cable has come off, the chairs have bounced and people have been thrown off," a witness told TVE.

A tram that derailed in downtown Oslo then ploughed into a phone and computer shop left four people injured, though none seriously, Norwegian police have said.

There were about 20 people on the commuter train when it came off the tracks on Tuesday at an intersection on Storgata, one of the Norwegian capital’s main thoroughfares close to Oslo’s main train station.

Witness Mohnsin Munir told Norwegian media that he saw the tram travelling at high speed. It was supposed to make a left turn but derailed and continued straight ahead and into the shop.