Louvre director resigns months after jewel heist in Paris, replacement announced
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.
Christophe Leribault has been named the new director of the Louvre. Leribault’s resume includes running the Versailles Palace, another world-renowned French landmark and tourist attraction, and was also the previous head of Paris’ Orsay Museum.
Leribault will oversee a long-overdue multi-million-dollar renovation project.
A French government spokesperson said he’s the perfect choice, saying, “He will notably have to direct major projects for the future of the institution, on the one hand securing and modernizing the Louvre, and on the other, the continuation of the ‘Louvre — New Renaissance’ project.”
French President Emmanuel Macron praised des Cars’ 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.”
An oil tanker is seen anchored in Lake Maracaibo after loading crude oil at the Bajo Grande Refinery port. Jose Bula Urrutia/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon announced the third seizure in the Indian Ocean of an oil tanker allegedly linked to Venezuela’s illicit oil operation that had fled the Caribbean.
“Three boats ran and now all three have been captured,” said a post from the Department of Defense on X announcing the seizure. “The vessel was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean and attempted to evade. From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, we tracked it and stopped it. No other nation has the global reach, endurance, or will to enforce sanctions at this distance.”
The department added it would continue to “deny illicit actors and their proxies freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain.”
After the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would continue enforcing a legal “quarantine” of illicit oil tankers transiting to and from Venezuela.
President Donald Trump said that his administration will work with private U.S. companies and the government in Caracas to expand Venezuelan oil production and exports — with the U.S. controlling the revenue of oil sales.
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez announced earlier this month that the country’s first shipment of liquefied petroleum gas had been exported to the U.S.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Jimmy Lai, Apple Daily founder, arrives at the Court of Final Appeal ahead a bail hearing on February 9, 2021 in Hong Kong, China. (Photo by Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
(HONG KONG) — China critic and media mogul Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences, a penalty his son Sebastien called “heartbreaking.”
Lai was found guilty on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces. He had pleaded not guilty.
It is the harshest sentence delivered to anyone under the sweeping national security law since Beijing introduced it as part of crackdowns in 2020. Lai’s family has been worried their 78-year-old dad would die in prison, and given his age and this 20-year-penalty, there is now a real chance that will happen.
It was a tense morning at the court in Hong Kong. Where there would once be huge lively crowds gathering in support of Hong Kong’s democracy figures, the mood was subdued and yet at the same time on edge. There was a heavy police presence outside the court, where officers were tightly controlling the media and the supporters who were queueing up outside of the court.
Lai’s wife, Teresa, walked out of the court holding back tears behind her large black glasses after seeing her husband in the dock, expressionless as he received his sentence.
Jimmy Lai is a U.K. citizen, and his son Sebastien said he is hoping, now that the case has worked its way through the Hong Kong judicial system, that China may release his father as a way to appease the U.K. and the U.S., especially ahead of President Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to China in April.
“Even though it was expected, it’s still quite a hard reality to have to deal with,” Sebastien Lai said. “There’s no upside in what China is doing to dad and there are very real consequences if he dies in there. That April visit is key.”
“I’m sure many Americans would want to have done what my father did in standing for freedom and defending his people. And for that heroism he is being tortured and sentenced to life in prison,” he added.
When ABC News interviewed Lai at his home while he was on bail in September 2020, Lai explained why he was willing to risk it all. He said he escaped from China at the age of 12 with just a dollar, “This place gave me everything. My reward is to pay back. It’s my redemption.”
U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Hong Kong should free Lai “on humanitarian grounds” and the UK government has also pledged to “rapidly engage further” with Beijing. Trump said back in December that he asked President Xi Jinping to consider Lai’s release, and the U.S. ambassador to China David Perdue has said Lai’s case is part of “ongoing discussions” with the Chinese side.
The sentence has been widely condemned by human rights groups, with Human Rights Watch calling the length of the sentence “effectively a death sentence.”
Amnesty International said it was “another grim milestone in Hong Kong’s transformation from a city governed by the rule of law to one ruled by fear.”
Meanwhile, Beijing and Hong Kong officials welcomed the penalty, with Hong Kong’s leader John Lee saying Lai deserved the 20-year prison sentence for his “evil deeds.”
China’s foreign ministry on Monday called the punishment “legitimate and reasonable.”
A rescuer stands amid rubble in the yard of house after Russian shelling on December 19, 2025 in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. As a result of the shelling, private houses were partially destroyed, a garage cooperative, cars, and residential buildings located near the hit sites were damaged. (Photo by Polina Moroz/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Russia’s offensive campaign in eastern and southern Ukraine has been grinding on throughout 2025, with much of the fighting of the last 12 months focused on devastated cities in the eastern Donetsk and northeastern Kharkiv regions.
But in September, Russian forces began a relatively rapid advance in the farmlands to the east of Zaporizhzhia, advancing up to six miles in places — according to Ukrainian military officials — as territorial defense units that had been holding the area for two years crumbled under sudden and intense offensive pressure applied by Moscow’s forces.
Russia’s unexpected breakthrough in Zaporizhzhia represented a rare instance of battlefield mobility in a war that has become characterized by labored attritional warfare, in which mechanized troop concentrations and supporting armored vehicles quickly become easy prey for the flocks of drones incessantly swarming above the front lines.
Among the Ukrainian units deployed to stem the Russian advance was the 225th Separate Assault Regiment, which had previously been fighting to repel Russian forces along the shared border in the northeastern Sumy Oblast.
“The situation there remains complicated, and we are trying to stabilize it,” Maj. Oleh Shyriaiev of the 225th regiment told ABC News by phone from close to the front. “It is a mistake to consider that it is 100% stabilized,” he added.
Representatives of the combatants are currently engaged in U.S.-sponsored shuttle diplomacy that the White House hopes will secure an end to Europe’s largest conflict since World War II and a war that U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to end within 24 hours of his return to the Oval Office.
Russian officials have repeatedly framed their slow battlefield gains as evidence of Moscow’s “inevitable” victory, in the words of Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov during a recent interview with ABC News.
That interpretation is hotly disputed by Kyiv and its European allies, but the Kremlin nonetheless seeks to use its gradual seizure of new territory as leverage in the ongoing talks. “The space for freedom of decision-making narrows as territories are lost,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in November.
In foxholes, trenches and treelines along the contact line, Shyriaiev said his unit is focused on their day-to-day survival.
“I personally am skeptical about any kind of peace negotiations,” he said. “Even if some kind of a peace agreement is signed, Russia will not stop existing, and it will not stop being our enemy.”
Any deal, he suggested, “will just give time for Russia to regroup. And what happens next? We need to expect a new attack. No guarantees that Russia can give can be considered true guarantees.”
The focus of the Russian offensive in Zaporizhzhia is now in the area of Huliaipole, a small city which before the war was home to around 20,000 people. Only around 150 civilians remain in the devastated city, the head of its military administration told Ukrainian media earlier this month.
In the fields around the city, Ukrainian officials say they have largely stalled Russia’s forward momentum. Shyriaiev said his unit needed time to adapt to the new battlefield and wear down the attackers.
“We had to go out and create a blocking line, fulfil missions and create favorable conditions for further success,” he explained. “At the moment, everything we are doing is focused on stabilizing the front line and blocking the enemy.”
Ukrainian forces in the area are facing Russian units replenished with new recruits and new equipment, Shyriaiev said.
“The enemy has strengthened its UAV component and thanks to that, they are holding under control the access areas to the line of contact — or at least they are trying to hold it under control,” he said.
“The enemy has had some success because their units have been reconstituted according to the most cutting edge experience that they have,” Shyriaiev said. “They have been trained with the latest updates, they have all the ‘lessons learned'” by their predecessors, he added.
Those newly arrived troops are trying to use the wintry weather and resulting “dense fog” to their advantage, Shyriaiev said.
“When there are normal visibility conditions, we can see everything and control everything,” he said. “However, when there is fog around, the enemy is trying to take advantage of this and to infiltrate the space between our positions.”
For the Ukrainians, too, the weather offers opportunities, Shyriaiev said. “When visibility is good, it means that badly hidden or badly masked positions are an open target and the troops that are deployed there can be wounded or destroyed.”
Moscow’s ‘glacial’ advance
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given little indication that he intends to ease the frontline pressure on Kyiv’s troops, despite the recent fresh impetus given to U.S.-brokered peace negotiations.
At his annual end-of-year press conference on Friday, Putin said peace was only possible on the basis of “principles” he outlined in a speech last year, in which he made some of his most hardline demands — Ukraine’s permanent exclusion from NATO and Kyiv’s withdrawal from all of the territory Russia claims in eastern and southeastern Ukraine.
Putin again claimed that military momentum was with Moscow’s forces, saying its troops were “advancing on all fronts.”
Putin’s bombast does not align with battlefield realities, according to Ukrainian officials and independent analysts.
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think tank said this month that Russian forces have seized 0.77% of Ukraine’s territory — some 1,802 square miles — over the past year, while sustaining disproportionately high casualties. The area captured is roughly equivalent to that of Anchorage, Alaska.
Ukraine’s military estimates that Russia has sustained around 1.2 million casualties since February 2022. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this month that around 30,000 Russian troops are being killed each month.
Russia does not release details about its casualties, making it difficult to independently confirm that figure. Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties have broadly chimed with estimates from U.S. and European intelligence agencies since 2022.
Ukraine likewise does not regularly disclose its casualty figures. Zelenskyy said in February 2025 that more than 46,000 Ukrainians have been killed and 380,000 wounded since 2022.
Peter Dickinson, the editor of the Atlantic Council think tank’s UkraineAlert service, wrote in December that while Moscow’s troops hold “the overall initiative,” its attacking units are “grinding forward at glacial pace while suffering catastrophic losses.”
Also this month, Zelenskyy visited the Kharkiv frontline city of Kupyansk, posting videos of himself in the center of the city as proof that Russia’s recent claim to have captured it was false. The visit, Dickinson said, “underscored the fact that Russian victory is anything but inevitable.”
But Putin appears committed to a relentless push, regardless of its slow pace and high cost. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a post to Facebook last week that Russia has amassed 710,000 troops along the front for its offensive operations.
“Despite the substantial losses, the Russian army is not giving up on continuing offensive operations, although it has not achieved significant operational success,” Syrskyi said.
Shyriaiev said that although his unit is “well-staffed” and motivated, the difference in manpower and resources is obvious at the front. The Russians, he said, “are focusing on mass in everything.”
Shyriaiev’s unit faces “massive amounts of infantry” attacking from “early morning and until late at night,” he said. “They conduct mechanized assaults on all kinds of vehicles — regular cars, motorbikes, buggies. It could also be proper military equipment, proper military armored vehicles.”
“They are leaving no stone unturned,” he continued. “The ratio of the size of our army and our resources and their resources is, of course, something unfavorable towards us. They have more resources. This is why they do achieve some successes, but that happens at a very high price.”
