Over 150 pieces of evidence collected from scene of the Louvre heist
French police officers stand in front of the Louvre Museum after a robbery in Paris, France, on October 19, 2025. (Photo by Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Investigators have collected more than 150 trace samples, including fingerprints, bits of DNA and other silent evidence, from the scene of the Louvre heist, a source close to the Minister of the Interior in France has told ABC News.
The samples are now being analyzed in Paris as authorities work to identify the suspects and the manhunt for the four main suspects in the brazen heist enters its sixth day on Friday.
Investigators have said they are in a race against time to catch the culprits, fearing they will dismantle the eight pieces they got away with and attempt to fence the many diamonds, precious stones and gold piecemeal.
On Thursday, a dramatic video surfaced capturing two of the thieves wanted in the brazen $102 million jewel heist at the Louvre as they exited the crime scene on a mobile cherry picker and fled on motorbikes with the loot.
Two French law enforcement sources confirmed to ABC News on Thursday that investigators are aware of the video and are reviewing it for clues as part of the investigation. The sources said the video was taken from inside the Louvre by members of the museum security staff.
The video, circulating online and verified by ABC News, shows the two thieves coming down from the targeted Apollo Gallery at the world-famous museum in a truck-mounted mechanical cherry picker.
In the footage, alarms can be heard going off in the background. The alleged perpetrators — one wearing a motorcycle helmet and the other covering their face with a balaclava and wearing a yellow construction worker vest – are seen making their way to the street.
Across the street from the escaping thieves, people can be seen walking and jogging along the Seine River as traffic goes by. The thieves are then seen jumping on a motorcycle and speeding off with the jewels.
French investigators said the entire robbery from start to getaway took seven minutes.
Among the eight pieces of jewelry taken was a pearl and diamond tiara from the collection of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense, according to the Louvre. The tiara, according to the Louvre, is composed of 212 pearls of various sizes and nearly 2,000 diamonds. The piece was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III for his marriage to Eugenie de Montijo in 1853.
Also stolen was another tiara from the collection of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense composed of sapphires and 1,083 diamonds, according to the Louvre.
Officials said earlier this week that evidence collected so far points to “organized crime,” but added that investigators have not ruled out that the heist could have been an inside job.
(LONDON) — August saw an easing in the scale of Russia’s long-range strike campaign on Ukraine, according to data published by Ukraine’s air force and analyzed by ABC News, though Moscow continued to launch massed and deadly bombardments on Kyiv, other major cities and critical infrastructure targets.
Over the course of August, Russia launched 4,216 air attack vehicles — 4,060 attack or decoy drones and 156 missiles — at a daily average rate of nearly 131 drones and five missiles, Ukraine’s air force data showed. No night of August passed without a Russian attack, the Ukrainian government said.
The reason for the apparent drop off in the overall intensity of the attacks is unclear. Moscow has shown no sign of abandoning its maximalist demands in the ongoing peace talks. Meanwhile, Ukrainian long-range strikes have been targeting military industrial targets across Russia, including facilities involved in the production of drones and missiles.
Ukrainian forces said they shot down or suppressed just over 85% of the drones and nearly 68% of missiles launched by Russia during August.
The overall number of long-range Russian drones and missiles launched in August was around 34% less than in July, according to the Ukrainian air force’s figures.
But the month ended with a notable uptick in Russian activity. From Aug. 1 to 15 — the day of the summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska — Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched a total of 1,131 drones and 21 missiles, at a daily average of 75.4 drones and 1.4 missiles.
But from Aug. 16 to 31, the scale of attacks increased. In the second half of the month, Ukraine’s air force reported 3,001 Russian drones and 135 missiles at a daily average of 187.5 drones and 8.4 missiles.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine publish data on their own strike campaigns. Ukraine’s air force publishes a daily tally of Russian drone and missile strikes, while Russia’s Defense Ministry only publishes figures of Ukrainian drones it claims were shot down.
The overall number of Russian drones and missiles reported by Kyiv in August was the lowest monthly total since May. Still, three nights during August each saw more than 500 drones and missiles launched into the country, despite the comparatively smaller scale of month’s attacks.
The human toll continues to rise in Ukraine, despite Trump’s repeated appeals for Moscow to end long-range strikes — and despite his public frustration over Putin’s refusal to do so.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said that July marked the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since May 2022, with 286 people killed and 1,388 people injured. The mission said it verified casualties in 18 of the country’s 24 regions in July. The mission attributed nearly 40% of the casualties in July to “long-range weapons such as missiles and loitering munitions.”
The mission is yet to publish its data for August. But there were several high casualty events during the month, perhaps most notably the drone and missile barrage on Kyiv that killed at least 23 people on the night of Aug. 27-28.
The bombardment on the night of Aug. 20-21 also saw one person killed and more than a dozen more injured, while another large combined strike on the night of Aug.29-30 killed one person and injured at least 29 people.
In July, Russia set a new monthly record for the number of drones and missiles fired at Ukraine. The month saw Russia launch 6,443 aerial vehicles — 6,245 drones and 198 missiles — into the country, of which 89% of drones and around 61% of missiles were defeated, according to Ukrainian figures.
June saw 5,438 drones and 239 missiles fired into Ukraine, with a daily average of 181 drones and nearly eight missiles. The air force downed or suppressed 87.2% of all drones and 73% of missiles during June.
And in May, Russia launched a total of 3,835 drones and 117 missiles, for an average of around 124 drones and nearly four missiles each day. Across the month, 85.7% of drones and 57% of missiles were defeated.
Despite the nightly attacks, August saw two key diplomatic summits, intended as springboards to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor which began in February 2022.
First, Putin traveled to Alaska to meet with Trump — the first face-to-face meeting between Russian and American leaders since 2019.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accompanied by a host of European leaders, then traveled to the White House to discuss possible peace terms.
Trump framed both meetings as positive and encouraging. But subsequent developments have been lacking. Trump’s proposal for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy — an idea the Kremlin has repeatedly dodged since the two men last met in 2019 — has yet to come to fruition, with Kyiv accusing Moscow of continued evasion.
Data published by Russia’s Defense Ministry suggests that Ukraine maintained the level of its own drone strike campaign through August.
The ministry said its forces shot down 2,783 Ukrainian drones over the course of the month, at an average rate of nearly 90 per day.
Across July, the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported downing 3,008 Ukrainian drones at an average of around 97 per day.
In June, the ministry reported downing a total of 2,368 Ukrainian drones, with an average of almost 79 drones per day across the month. Those figures were down from May, during which the ministry said it shot down 3,611 drones with an average of 116 per day.
Local governments in Russia often publicly state death tolls for specific attacks, although the Kremlin doesn’t release a regular country-wide tally, making it difficult to track over a period of time.
Last month, Rodion Miroshnik — a Foreign Ministry ambassador-at-large responsible for analyzing Ukrainian attacks in Russia — told the TASS state news agency that 15 people were killed and 140 injured during one week of attacks in August. The toll included casualties in frontline regions, as well as those deep inside Russia caused by long-range drone strikes.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Kyiv is planning “new strikes.”
Rescuers and firefighters operate at the scene after the Gloria funicular cable railway derailed in Lisbon, Portugal, 03 September 2025. (Zed Jameson/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least 15 people are dead and another 23 injured after a streetcar derailed in Portugal’s capital on Wednesday, officials said.
At least five people are in serious condition following the crash in Lisbon, according to the city’s communications department.
One 3-year-old child is included in the 23 injured, according to an official.
It appears the safety cable on the electric streetcar broke, causing the car to derail, the department said, based on preliminary information.
Carris, the operator of the streetcar, said that all maintenance protocols were complied with, including daily inspections.
The mayor of Lisbon declared a three-day period of mourning.
“I offer my sincere condolences to all the families and friends of the victims. Lisbon is in mourning,” Mayor Carlos Moedas said in a statement.
Portugal’s Prime Minister’s Office also declared a national day of mourning for Thursday, expressing its “deep dismay” over the accident, and said it is in contact with local officials.
The incident — which happened around 6:15 p.m. local time — remains under investigation. Carris said it immediately opened an investigation along with the authorities to determine the cause of the accident.
The rescue mission lasted around two hours, a Public Ministry official told ABC News.
The tram cabin that derailed can hold up to 40 people. The famed streetcar, known as the Elevador da Gloria, is a funicular that travels up and down a steep hill.
“It is with sadness that I learned of the derailment of the famous ‘Elevador da Glória,'” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “My condolences to the families of the victims.”
All the other funiculars of the city have been suspended for now: Lavra, Graça and Bica, according to an official.
Smoke rises after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes in Gaza City, Gaza, on August 22, 2025. Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea/Anadolu via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Friday that Gaza city could “turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” areas that were destroyed earlier in the war, unless Hamas agrees to Israel’s terms.
This comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would approve the military’s plans to seize Gaza City.
“Soon, the gates of hell will open on the heads of Hamas’ murderers and rapists in Gaza – until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament. If they do not agree – Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun. Exactly as I promised – so it will be,” Katz said in a post on X.
The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that ground troops are “operating on the outskirts of Gaza City locating and dismantling terrorist infrastructure above and underground.”
The IDF has said it plans to escalate the war soon by seizing Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds in the Gaza Strip, which humanitarian organizations warned will exacerbate the hunger crisis.
A United Nations-backed food security monitor announced on Friday that a famine determination has been made in Gaza City. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised its classification for the Gaza City region in the north-central Gaza Strip to Phase 5, the highest and worst level of its acute food insecurity scale. The IPC itself does not declare a famine, but its famine determination can inform decision-makers in governments and bodies such as the U.N.
In a report published Friday, the IPC said “this Famine is entirely man-made,” adding that it can be “halted and reversed.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli defense body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said Friday it “firmly rejects the claim of famine in the Gaza Strip, and particularly in Gaza City,” alleging that the IPC report “is based on partial and unreliable sources, many of them affiliated with Hamas.”
In a statement Friday, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office called the IPC’s famine determination in parts of the Gaza Strip “an outright lie” and “a modern blood libel.”
The IDF said its troops are operating in the Jabalia area, Khan Younis and on the outskirts of Gaza City to “eliminate terrorists and dismantle terrorist infrastructure.”
At least 71 Palestinians were killed and 251 injured throughout the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Friday.
Among those killed were 24 people trying to get humanitarian aid, while another 133 aid seekers were wounded, according to the health ministry.
Two others died of starvation over the past day, bringing the total number of deaths due to starvation to 273, including 112 children, the health ministry said.
