Louvre director resigns months after jewel heist in Paris
Louvre Museum Director Laurence Des Cars attends a press conference at the Louvre Museum on April 23, 2024 in Paris, France. Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images
(PARIS) — The director of the Louvre Museum in France has resigned, months after $102 million in jewels were stolen, according to the office of the French president.
Laurence des Cars’ tenure has been under intense scrutiny since the heist and she has faced calls for resignation.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised the resignation “as an act of responsibility at a time when the world’s largest museum needs both stability and a strong new impetus to successfully complete major security and modernization projects,” the Élysée said in a statement Tuesday.
“The President thanked her for her work and commitment over the past few years and, recognizing her undeniable scientific expertise, entrusted her with a mission within the framework of the French G7 presidency, focusing on cooperation between the major museums of the participating countries,” according to the statement.
At least seven suspects have been arrested in connection with the October robbery but the jewels have not been recovered.
Empress Eugénie’s crown was the only item the thieves did not escape with during the robbery. The thieves dropped it on the street outside the Louvre during the roughly five-minute long heist.
The crown “was crushed and significantly deformed” during the heist, the Louvre said in a statement earlier this month. However, “it remained largely intact,” meaning museum officials believe it can be fully restored.
In light of the robbery, security lapses at the museum have been exposed, including that the password to the world-famous museum’s video surveillance system was “Louvre,” according to a museum employee with knowledge of the system.
During testimony before a French Senate committee after the robbery, des Cars said the only camera installed outside the Apollo Gallery, where the stolen jewels were displayed, was facing west and did not cover the window where the thieves used power tools to break in and exit.
Des Cars said all of the museum’s alarms and video cameras work, but said there was a “weakness” in the museum’s perimeter security “due to underinvestment.”
A screen grab from a video released on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account shows Donald Trump making statements regarding combat operations on Iran on February 28, 2026 in Pal Beach, Florida, United States. (Photo by US President Trump Via Truth Social/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON and NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump said that the U.S. military has begun “major combat operations” in Iran and calling on the Iranian people to rise up and seize the opportunity for regime change.
“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Trump said in a video statement on Truth Social early Saturday morning.
The “massive” operation comes as the U.S. has been trying to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear and missile programs and hours after Trump said he was “not happy with the negotiation.”
And it comes amid questions about the potential justification for a U.S. strike on Iran since Trump has said the Iranian nuclear weapons program was “obliterated” in a U.S. strike last year.
“Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted “death to America” and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries,” Trump said.
The military operation against Iran was a preemptive joint attack by the United States and Israel and could last several days, U.S. officials said, with potential targets including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military sites, government buildings, Iranian intelligence assets and defense installations.
“Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested,” Trump said. “It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I will say it again. They can never have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump, who campaigned on a message of keeping the U.S. out of foreign entanglements, gravely suggested that “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties.”
“That often happens in war. But we are doing this not for now, we are doing this for the future and it is a noble mission,” Trump continued.
At the end of his message, Trump called on the Iranian people to seize this opportunity for regime change.
“Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump said.
He added, “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Appearing to speak to the Iranian people, Trump said: “No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.”
Meanwhile, some Democratic members of Congress have begun demanding answers.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D.-FL) said on social media that he is “formally requesting” that the State Department and Department of War “fully brief Congress on the rapidly evolving situation in Iran.”
Senator Ruben Gallego (D.-Ariz.), a Marine veteran, also posted on X, saying “I lost friends in Iraq to an illegal war. Young working-class kids should not pay the ultimate price for regime change and a war that hasn’t been explained or justified to the American people.”
People gather during protest on January 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Demonstrations have been ongoing since December, triggered by soaring inflation and the collapse of the rial, and have expanded into broader demands for political change. (Anonymous/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization confirmed on Thursday morning that flights were back in operation over the country, according to a statement carried by Iranian state-aligned media.
Iran issued a notice, known as a NOTAM, on Wednesday closing its airspace to all flights except international civil arrivals and departures with prior permission from Iran’s aviation authorities. The NOTAM was initially extended through 10:30 p.m. ET but then expired.
The NOTAM was issued after U.S. President Donald Trump hinted at possible action against Iran and in support of anti-government protests which have roiled the country in recent weeks.
As of Wednesday, 18 days of protests and a resulting crackdown by security forces had seen 2,615 deaths and 18,470 people arrested, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Among the dead were 13 children and 14 non-protesting civilians, HRANA said.
On the government side, HRANA said it had confirmed the deaths of 153 members of the security forces.
Another 882 additional deaths remain under investigation, HRANA said.
The HRANA data relies on the work of activists inside and outside the country. ABC News cannot independently verify its numbers.
Protests have been spreading across the country since late December. The first marches took place in downtown Tehran, with participants demonstrating against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency, the rial. As the protests spread, they took on a more explicitly anti-government tone.
The subsequent security crackdown has included a sustained national internet blackout, which — according to online monitoring group NetBlocks — had been in place for 156 hours as of Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, Cloudflare’s threat-intelligence unit said in a statement that it had “observed Iranian authorities targeting Instagram accounts with tools that perform bulk extraction of follower lists and account activity.”
Estimates of the death toll from the protests have varied, with the internet and communications blackout making it difficult to establish clear figures.
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday, “We’ve seen numbers vary from 2,000 to 12,000. All of those numbers are horrendous, but I don’t have a number to share with you.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened military action against the government in Tehran — which is headed by its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — in response to violence against protesters.
Trump said Wednesday that he had been informed that the “killing” in Iran had stopped and that anticipated executions of arrested protesters would not take place.
The information was coming from “very important sources on the other side,” Trump said during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “We’ve been told on good authority, and I hope it’s true. Who knows, right?” he added.
Asked by a reporter if this means that military action was now off the table, Trump responded, “We’re going to watch and see what the process is. But we were given a very good statement by people that are aware of what’s going on.”
On Tuesday, Trump had addressed protesters on social media, urging “Iranian Patriots” to “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” He added, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
Khamenei and top Iranian officials have said they are willing to engage with the economic grievances of protesters, though have framed the unrest as driven by “rioters” and “terrorists” sponsored by foreign nations — prime among them the U.S. and Israel — and supported by foreign infiltrators.
Iranian officials have also threatened retaliatory strikes against U.S. and Israeli targets in the event of any outside intervention.
On Wednesday, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that some personnel had been advised to leave al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar due to increased tensions in the region.
Meanwhile, Tehran has signaled an intent to proceed with expedited trials and executions for those arrested during the protests.
The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, said Wednesday, “If we want to do a job, we should do it now. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly,” in a video shared online by Iranian state television, according to The Associated Press
“If it becomes late, two months, three months later, it doesn’t have the same effect,” Mohseni-Ejei said.
Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged that “hundreds” of people had been killed and again characterized the protests as an “Israeli plot” and a “terrorist operation.”
Araghchi said that the protests had died down and that the government is “in full control.”
The Iran South Pars Gas Complex Company is pictured on Thursday, June 23, 2005 in Assaluyeh, Iran. Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Israel’s strike on the world’s largest natural gas field could severely impact Iran’s energy sector and several nearby Gulf states, energy experts told ABC News.
On Wednesday, Israel launched air strikes on South Pars, a natural gas field that covers about 3,700 square miles and serves as a vital source of fuel for Iran. It is located offshore in the Persian Gulf and contains about 1,800 trillion cubic feet of usable gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
South Pars accounts for about 70% of the gas Iran consumes, Ira Joseph, a senior research associate at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told ABC News.
David G. Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California at San Diego, agreed on the importance of South Pars to Iran.
“It’s the single most important natural gas field to Iran,” he told ABC News. “If you start tanking the Iranian economy, eventually, other parts of that infrastructure are going to start falling apart too.”
South Pars is part of a giant gas field that transverses to other nations — another section, the North Dome, is part of the same natural gas field but lies in Qatari territorial waters.
Combined, South Pars and the North Field account for about 10% of the gas traded in the world and about 20% of the world’s liquified natural gas (LNG) annual exports, Joseph noted.
Iran also exports gas into Turkey, Iraq and Central Asia — so those exports have been disrupted by the war, according to Joseph. Turkey acquires up to 15% of its gas from Iran, he added.
The U.S. is relatively insulated from natural gas price shocks due to the strikes on Iran’s gas fields because the U.S. is a big producer and doesn’t have enough export capacity to fully link itself to Asian and European markets, Catherine Wolfram, a professor of energy economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told ABC News.
Countries like Japan, Korea and the Europeans who are dependent on imports will take a big hit to their supply as a result of the attack on South Pars, she said.
But the impacts of the strikes on the South Pars field extend “far beyond” energy prices, Naho Mirumachi, a professor of environmental politics at King’s College in London, told ABC News.
The current volatility of gas production can have “serious” impacts on agriculture and the global production of food, especially since natural gas is vital for fertilizer production, she noted. Fertilizer shortages or higher prices of fertilizer will likely translate to increases in food costs, according to Mirumachi.
“Food production cannot wait for gas production to return to normal, so farmers and businesses could face declining crop yields,” she said.
There has never been an attack of this magnitude on South Pars field because of a historical understanding within the region to not disrupt or inhibit each other’s vital infrastructure, according to the University of California’s Victor.
“There had been a kind of norm that exists in many wars, which is, don’t attack each other’s vital infrastructure,” he said. “Both sides had an interest in not obliterating each other’s energy infrastructure and then causing this enormous harm in the global market.”
The strike on South Pars triggered an escalation of attacks on oil and gas facilities in the region.
Iran launched a series of retaliatory strikes against the vital energy infrastructure in nearby Gulf states. It issued evacuation orders for several energy assets in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, before hitting the world’s largest LNG terminal — an import and export facility — at Ras Laffan in Qatar.
“Targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security, as well as to the peoples of the region & its environment,” a spokesperson for the QatariMinistry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.
In a social media post late Wednesday, President Donald Trump said neither the U.S. nor Qatar was aware Israel would attack the South Pars Gas Field, calling for Israel to not do so again unless Iran continues attacking Qatar’s LNG facilities.
“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” Trump said.
Iran warned that it would target energy facilities throughout the region.
The attacks on energy centers began on March 7, with Israeli air strikes on major Iranian oil storage facilities causing “black rain” to fall on the Tehran, Iran’s capital with nearly 10 million residents. The Israeli military said the facilities were struck because they were “used by the Military Forces of the Iranian Terror Regime in Tehran.”
On March 11, the International Energy Agency announced it would release 400 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserve — the largest-ever release of reserve oil in the group’s history — in response to the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the global oil supply passes through the waterway, which lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
The U.S. also executed a strike on Kharg Island on March 13. The small island is situated in the Persian Gulf, off the southwestern coast of Iran, and processes 90% of Iranian oil exports.
Every military target on Kharg Island was “obliterated,” Trump said in a social media post. But its oil infrastructure was left intact.
The conflict has sent energy prices soaring, with Brent crude — the international standard for oil — peaking at $119 per barrel on Thursday morning.
