Fifteen-year-old American loses leg in Belize shark attack
(NEW YORK) — An American teenager has lost a leg in a shark attack while vacationing in Central America, according to officials.
Fifteen-year-old Sofia Carlson was on a diving excursion with the Belize Dive Pro company near Halfmoon Caye in the Gulf of Honduras when the attack occurred, ABC News has learned.
The Belize Coast Guard told ABC News the incident happened on Tuesday morning during an expedition to the Lighthouse Reef, some 50 miles southeast of Belize City.
“It was her right leg that received a bite from the shark,” Adm. Elton Bennett of the Belize Coast Guard said. “So, she lost her right leg.”
Tour operators pulled Carlson from the water and took her to a Coast Guard base, where officers helped stabilize her, according to Adm. Bennett. He said Carlson was then airlifted to a local hospital.
“She’s stable and she’s recovering at this time,” Adm. Bennett told ABC News on Thursday.
Local officials said shark attacks in Belize’s waters are unusual.
“I want to highlight that this is something that is very rare,” Belize’s Minister of the Blue Economy Andre Perez told reporters on Wednesday.
(PARIS) — Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire CEO of the social media messaging app Telegram, was indicted in France for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the platform, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Durov was placed under judicial supervision and is banned from leaving the country, according to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.
He avoided jail by paying a 5 million euro bail, prosecutors said. He must report to a police station twice a week for check-ins.
The indictment comes the same day the CEO was released from police custody after being arrested in connection with an “ongoing judicial investigation,” prosecutors told ABC News.
Durov, 39, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Aug. 24. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed his arrest two days later.
Durov is accused of allegedly being passive with regard to cyber and financial crimes being committed on the Telegram platform and was indicted on 12 charges, according to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.
The charges are related to child pornography, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions on the platform, prosecutors announced Monday.
In his statement, Macron maintained that Durov’s arrest was “not political,” saying, “France is more than anything attached to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation and to the spirit of enterprise. It will remain so.”
What is Telegram?
Telegram is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, with approximately 800 million active users and a large user base in Russia and Ukraine.
Launched in 2013, Telegram was designed to address growing concerns about digital privacy and censorship. Unlike many messaging apps of the time, Telegram was built with a focus on security, offering end-to-end encryption and features that prioritized user privacy.
The rise of the app’s popularity was meteoric, making Durov among the wealthiest people in the world. He is estimated to have a net worth of approximately $15.5 billion, according to Forbes.
The app distinguished itself from competitors such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat and WhatsApp with its commitment to free speech and resistance to government censorship.
The app has positioned itself as a refuge for activists and journalists. Its features include self-destructing messages, secret chats and robust channel functionalities.
Additionally, Telegram offers a platform for larger messaging groups, allowing 200,000 users to be added to a chat.
Because of the large group sizes, Telegram has been criticized for hosting far-right and extremist groups. Most recently, the U.K. government denounced Telegram for its role in extremist groups organizing riots across the country in July.
Who is Pavel Durov?
Born in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1984, Durov began his foray into technology entrepreneurship in 2006, founding the Russian social network VKontakte (VK).
Likened to Facebook, VK quickly gained traction among Russian-speaking users, offering a platform for social interaction, content sharing and networking.
However, the platform’s success attracted scrutiny from the Russian government, and Durov faced increasing pressure to comply with government requests for user data.
In 2014, Durov was forced to leave VK after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on the platform.
He reportedly refused to block late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s page on the platform.
After leaving his position at VK, Durov left Russia and moved to Dubai, where he runs Telegram, which was founded a year prior in 2013.
Frequently traveling to Europe from the United Arab Emirates, Durov was granted citizenship in France in 2021.
Response to Durov’s arrest
In the wake of Durov’s arrest over the weekend, Elon Musk posted #FreePavel on X, sharing a clip of the Telegram founder’s previous interview with Tucker Carlson.
U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden called Durov’s arrest “an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association” in a post on X.
“I am surprised and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications. It lowers not only France, but the world,” Snowden wrote.
ABC News’ Hugo Leenhardt and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — At least one person was killed and eight others remained trapped Wednesday after a hotel partially collapsed near the banks of the Mosel River in western Germany, police said.
Police said they believed 14 people were inside the hotel in the winemaking town of Kroev at the time of the collapse late Tuesday evening.
Five people escaped unharmed, while the other nine were buried beneath the rubble, police said.
“Due to the damage, this is an extremely demanding operation, as the building can only be entered by emergency services with the greatest caution,” police said in a statement.
As of Wednesday morning, one person had been confirmed dead but their body had yet to be recovered.
Eight others, including some who were seriously injured, were believed to be still trapped, according to police.
Search and rescue operations were ongoing, police said.
(VIENNA, Austria) — Taylor Swift’s three concerts in Vienna this week have been canceled after two suspects were arrested for allegedly plotting a terror attack, authorities said.
“We have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” a message from Barracuda Music said. “All tickets will be automatically refunded.”
The cancellation comes hours after authorities announced a 19-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested Wednesday morning and a second suspect was arrested in the afternoon.
The suspects allegedly radicalized themselves online, Franz Ruf, director-general for public safety in the Ministry of the Interior, said at a press conference. The 19-year-old suspect allegedly pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State in the beginning of July, Ruf said.
Vienna was a target of their planned attack and the 19-year-old suspect had a particular focus on Swift’s Vienna concert, Ruf said.
The pop star had concerts scheduled in Vienna this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Before the shows were canceled, Ruf said security at the concerts would be increased. The shows were expected to draw 65,000 concertgoers per day, with an additional 10,000 to 15,000 fans outside of the area, police said.
Swift kicked off the massively successful “Eras Tour” in Glendale, Arizona, on March 18, 2023.
In October 2023, the pop star released a concert film chronicling the record-breaking tour, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” that went on to break records of its own and earn a Golden Globe nomination.
At the 100th stop of the tour this summer in Liverpool, England, the 14-time Grammy winner told the audience the tour “has definitely been the most exhausting, all-encompassing, but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life thus far.”
The “Eras Tour” will end in Vancouver, Canada, on Dec. 8.
ABC News’ Carson Blackwelder contributed to this report.