Child and woman stabbed in London, man arrested, police say
(LONDON) — An 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were stabbed in Leicester Square in central London on Monday, police said.
A man has been arrested and investigators “don’t believe there are any outstanding suspects,” according to London’s Metropolitan Police Service
The girl and the woman were taken to a hospital, police said, adding that their conditions were unknown.
The incident occurred as the U.K. remains on edge after a week of violence as far-right rioters clashed with police. The riots took place across England and Wales and were fueled by far-right activists using social media to spread misinformation.
Those riots follow the deaths of three girls, who were stabbed in a “ferocious” attack during a July 19 dance event in Southport, a seaside town, according to police.
A 17-year-old was arrested and charged with murder, police said. The suspect was from Banks, a coastal village in Lancashire, and was born in Cardiff, Wales, police said.
The Crown Court released the suspect’s name after a judge ruled it could be released despite his age. Although the suspect was born in the United Kingdom, online rumors spread calling into question his immigration status, police said.
(LONDON) — Russian missiles and drones again crisscrossed Ukrainian skies on Monday night in a strike that killed at least three people.
Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram that Russia fired three Iskander ballistic missiles from occupied Crimea, one Kh-59/69 air-launched missile from Russia’s western Kursk region and 35 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones from two areas in Kursk and Crimea.
Ukrainian air defenses downed 27 drones, the air force said, with six more “lost.”
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said that two people — a 38-year-old woman and her 8-year-old son — were killed in a strike on a hotel complex in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
Two other members of the family — the father and a 13-year-old girl — were buried under rubble but later recovered. Both are in a “serious condition” and have been hospitalized, the ministry said.
Further north, in the city of Dnipro, one person was killed and at least six injured by a Russian missile attack, the Interior Ministry wrote on Telegram.
Air raid sirens also sounded in the central city of Poltava early on Tuesday.
Vladimir Rogov — the chairman of the We Are Together with Russia movement, which cooperates with Moscow’s occupation of southern Ukraine — said on his Telegram channel that Russia’s strikes had targeted a military communications school in Poltava.
Ukraine’s air defense units were active overnight in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Poltava and the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the air force said.
Russia’s intensifying long-range attacks on Ukrainian military, infrastructure and civilian targets have prompted Kyiv to push its Western partners — chief among them the U.S. — for permission to use Western weapons against airfields and launch sites within Russian borders.
Ukraine has scored notable successes within Russia with its own domestically produced drones and missiles, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said Kyiv needs more advanced capabilities.
“The terrorist state must feel what war is,” the president said on Sunday. “To force Russia into peace, to move them from deceitful rhetoric about negotiations to taking steps to end the war, to clear our land of occupation and occupiers, we need effective tools.”
Following a deadly Russian guided bomb strike on the city of Kharkiv last week, Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that such attacks can only be stopped “by striking Russian military airfields, their bases, and the logistics of Russian terror.”
“We talk about this every day with our partners,” he said. “We persuade. We present arguments.”
Curtailing Russia’s ability to strike from the air, Zelenskyy added, would be “a strong step to force Russia to seek an end to the war and a just peace.”
(NEW YORK) — The Titanic may have survived more than a century at the bottom of the North Atlantic, but a chunk of the ship’s iconic bow railing, featured in the movie of the same name, has not, newly released photos show.
RMS Titanic Inc., the American company with salvage rights to the wreck, completed its ninth remote imaging expedition since it first visited the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic in 1987. More than two million photos were taken and countless artifacts were scouted for future recovery, according to the company.
Among the discoveries made during the July mission, was a “significant” change to the Titanic’s silhouette since it was last photographed in 2022 by the deep-sea mapping company Magellan.
A 15-foot-long portion of the railing on the ship’s bow — recognizable from James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic scene where Jack held Rose over the front of the ship — has fallen off and is seen lying on the ocean floor.
“Titanic’s Bow is iconic,” the company said in a statement on its website. “We are saddened by this loss and the inevitable decay of the Ship and the debris.”
“Although Titanic’s collapse is inevitable, this evidence strengthens our mission to preserve and document what we can before it is too late,” the company added.
Additionally, remote imaging captured a look at the 2-foot-tall bronze statuette of the Roman goddess Diana, known as “Diana of Versailles.”
The statue was previously positioned on a fireplace mantle in the first-class lounge of the Titanic.
When the ship sank, the lounge was torn open and the statue of Diana was thrown into the debris field where it rested for over a century, according to the company.
“With just hours left on the final day of Expedition 2024, Diana was found and photographed. We are honored to release these breathtaking visuals captured by Marine Imaging Technologies and showcase the beautiful and intricate details of Diana not seen in 112 years,” the company said.
The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, after the ship hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean while traveling from Southampton in the United Kingdom to New York.
More than 1,500 passengers and crew members died in the shipwreck.
The Titanic was first discovered on the Atlantic ocean floor over 12,000 feet below sea level in September 1985.
(LONDON) — Nearly two years after ascending to the British throne, King Charles III is bringing in a major pay raise.
Charles, 75, and fellow members of Britain’s royal family are expected to see a nearly $60 million increase in the sovereign grant, the money the royal family receives annually from the U.K. government.
The increase is a result of increased profits from the Crown Estate, a large portfolio of assets that includes more than 191,000 acres of rural land, including the famed Windsor Castle; as well as retail and leisure businesses and high-end London properties.
The Crown Estate’s profits rose from £443 million ($572 million) in 2022-23 to £1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) in 2023-24, according to its annual report released Wednesday.
The boost in profits was largely driven by the sale of offshore wind farm leases in the seabeds surrounding the U.K. which are owned by the Crown Estate.
In the annual report, Dan Labbad, the chief executive officer of the Crown Estate, credited the surging profits over the past year to, “years of commitment and investment into helping create the UK’s world-leading offshore wind sector, as well as the active management of our diverse and resilient portfolio.”
The Crown Estate is not owned by the royal family and its profits are controlled by the U.K. Treasury, which then allocates a percentage of the profits to the royal family to fund their official duties, including maintaining official residencies, paying staff and funding official trips.
This lump sum, which is given every year, is called the sovereign grant.
This year, in anticipation of the Crown Estate’s windfall, the U.K. Treasury reduced the percentage of profits it annually allocates to the royal family through the sovereign grant from 25% to 12%.
Even with the reduction, Charles and his family will still have close to $60 million more for the 2025-2026 tax year.
The improved finances for the royal family come both amid a cost-of-living crisis in the U.K. and a difficult year personally for Charles and his family.
The royal family has faced cancer diagnoses for two of its most high-profile members, Charles and his daughter-in-law, Kate, the princess of Wales.
The types of cancer Kate and Charles face have not been disclosed publicly.
Charles returned to a modified schedule of public duties in late April, while Kate, the wife of Prince William, has continued to stay mostly out of the public eye as she continues treatment.
William and Kate’s primary source of income, the Duchy of Cornwall estate, also released its annual report Wednesday, showing William received $30 million from his first full year’s income from the estate.
The Duchy of Cornwall estate, established in 1337 and made up of land across Britain, traditionally gets passed down to the heir to the throne upon succession. When Charles became king in 2022, the estate was passed down to William, his eldest son.