The wife of notorious Mexican drug cartel leader Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman is being released from prison in the United States.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, 34, was released from federal custody on Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed.

The wife of the notorious Mexican drug lord was serving a three-year sentence at a federal prison in Texas. She was moved to a halfway house in Long Beach, California earlier this year as authorities prepared to release her early.

Coronel was born in the United States but was raised in rural Durango, Mexico, the same area where Guzman’s criminal organization gained power in the 1990s and 2000s.

She is the daughter of Inés Coronel Barreras, one of Guzman’s lieutenants in the Sinaloa Cartel, who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for drug trafficking in Mexico.

Coronel was a former teenage beauty pageant queen in Mexico. Guzman married her in 2007, shortly after she turned 18.

In 2011, Coronel gave birth to Guzman’s twin daughters. They were born at a hospital in Lancaster, California and hold US citizenship.

In 2021, she pleaded guilty to federal charges for conspiracy to traffic cocaine, methamphetamines, and other narcotics. She also pleaded guilty to money laundering and property exchange with a known drug trafficker.

Prosecutors argued that she acted as a courier for her husband. In court, she begged a federal judge for leniency.

She agreed to forfeit $1.5million from her criminal proceeds and was sentenced to three years in prison. Her sentence was later reduced.

In August, Guzman filed paperwork asking a federal judge to allow Coronel to visit him in prison after her release.

Guzman is being held at ADX Florence, one of the highest security prisons in the US. It is unclear if his request will be accepted by authorities, or if his wife and daughters want to visit him.

Guzman, now 66, has at least 13 other children from three other wives. Several of his sons, known Los Chapitos, were charged in the US for maintaining their father’s empire and transitioning into trafficking fentanyl.

One of Los Chapitos, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was arrested in Culiacan in January after a tense battle with the Mexican military.

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The husband of Alaska Representative Mary Peltola has died in a plane crash, her office confirmed.

Eugene ‘Buzzy’ Peltola Jr was killed after a small plane he was piloting crashed shortly after taking off in St Mary’s, Alaska, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane took off around 8.45pm on Tuesday evening, and crashed moments later. Peltola was the plane’s only occupant.

Peltola was married to Rep Mary Peltola, who serves as a member of the House of Representatives for Alaska’s at-large district.

Rep Peltola took office after winning a special election in 2022 against former Alaska Governor and one time Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. She became the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.

Rep Peltola’s office confirmed her husband’s death on Wednesday.

‘He was one of those people who was obnoxiously good at everything,’ Peltola’s chief of staff Anton McParland said in a statement. ‘He had a delightful sense of humor that lightened the darkest moments. He was definitely the cook in the family. And family was most important to him. He was completely devoted to his parents, kids, siblings, extended family, and friends – and he simply adored Mary.’

Eugene Peltola was a retired local politician and businessman, serving as a former city councilmember and Vice Mayor of Bethel, Alaska.

He was also a former member of the Orutsararmiut Native Council, a federally recognized tribal government in Bethel.

Peltola was an Alaska Native of Yupik and Tlingit descent, and served as the Regional Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 2018 to his retirement in 2022.

Rep Peltola is currently returning to Alaska to be with her family, and has asked for privacy while she grieves.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said she was ‘shocked, saddened and truly beyond words’ after hearing the news of Eugene’s death.

‘Anyone who met Buzzy felt his warmth, generosity and charm,’ she said. ‘It was easy to see why so many Alaskans called him a friend, and how he was so loved by his family. He was Mary’s number one supporter and truly her rock.’

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A man in his 30s has died after eating raw oysters containing a flesh-eating bacteria.

The unnamed Texan man was believed to have contracted a Vibrio vulnificus infection from eating the deadly oysters, having ingested bacteria which typically lives in warm, coastal waters.

Vibrio infections are believed to be on the rise in the US, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issuing an alert earlier this year. 

At least 12 Americans have died from the flesh-eating bacteria so far in 2023.

‘These infections, once they take hold, can spread extremely rapidly like a fire,’ local health official Dr Philip Keiser told ABC.

Dr Kaiser also told the outlet that the victim had been taking some drugs that made him immunosuppressed at the time of his death, and also had problems with his liver.

The doctor, from Galveston County, TX, said the county sees between five to 10 cases every year, and a death ‘every few years.’

Symptoms can include diarrhoea, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, cellulitis, and blistering lesions.

There have been eight fatalities reported from the bacteria in Florida this year, while one has also been reported in New York and two in Connecticut.

It is not clear whether the deaths in Florida and New York occurred due to eating the contaminated shellfish or from swimming in open water.

In Connecticut, — which has reported three infections — at least one of the victims was exposed to the bacteria after swimming in the ocean.

Once confined to the Gulf of Mexico, rising sea temperatures have allowed the bacteria to seep into new areas, and scientists fear Vibrio could reach every coastal US state by 2040.

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A former Secret Service agent has dropped a fresh bombshell claim almost 60 years after John F. Kennedy was shot dead in the USA.

Paul Landis was just metres away from the president when he was fatally wounded by a gunshot while riding in a convertible limousine through Dealey Plaza in Dallas in 1963.

Following the death of JFK, the Warren Commission report was published after a government inquiry and Lee Harvey Oswald was identified as the sole assassin responsible.

He was himself shot and killed two days later while in police custody but the report had also concluded that just one single bullet was responsible for both Mr Kennedy’s death and the injuries suffered by Texas governor John Connally Jr who was also in the car.

It has since become known as the ‘magic bullet theory’, sparking multiple conspiracies over how many gunmen were involved in the attack, who was responsible and how many bullets actually hit Mr Kennedy.

The commission had come to the conclusion that the ‘magic bullet theory’ was accurate based partly on the fact a bullet had later been discovered on Mr Connally’s hospital gurney, even though nobody knew where it had come from.

But now after six decades of silence, Mr Landis has made a confession and opened up for the first time about what happened on that fateful day in November 1963 – revealing the story behind the bullet.

Paul Landis: The Secret Service agent’s version of events

Aged 28 at the time, Mr Landis had been detailed to Jackie Kennedy when he says three shots rang out at around 12.30pm on November 22, some 59 years ago.

He told NBC that after the limo had rushed to the nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, he ‘jumped out of the follow up car’ and raced over.

It was while people were attending to the president that Mr Landis said he discovered a bullet inside the car.

‘I happened to look to the right where Mrs Kennedy was sitting and sitting in a pool of blood there, I saw two bright brass bullet fragments,’ he said.

‘I picked one of them up, looked at it and it was kind of like the end of my little pinky. It was mushroomed and I put it back right exactly where I found it. 

‘By then, Mrs Kennedy was standing up and I was looking around for other agents. I didn’t see anybody but I saw an intact bullet on the back of the seat where the cushioning meets the trunk of the car. 

‘I picked it up and looked at it and the only thing I noticed that was wrong with it was bullet striations. There were no other deformities. 

‘I did not want this piece of evidence to disappear and I slipped it into my pocket.’

After pocketing the bullet, Mr Landis said everybody rushed into the emergency room to follow the president’s body as it was wheeled in.

He said: ‘I was pushed right up next to the president’s body and standing right next to his feet. Almost everybody in the room was focused on the head wound. I could not look, I knew I would pass out if I saw it. 

‘And all these things are whirling through my mind on what to do and I realised this was the perfect place to leave the bullet with the president’s body and it would be found during the autopsy. 

‘So I reached out and I put the bullet on the gurney right by his feet and about that time, the doctors were asking everybody to leave. So we turned and kind of joined the crowd going out of the trauma room.’

Describing the condition of the bullet, Mr Landis said it was ‘perfect’ and was ‘not buried or sunk in the seam of the car seat’.

‘It was just lying where the seam on the back of the seat meets the middle of the trunk,’ he added. 

He also told The New York Times: ‘All the agents that were there were focused on the president. This was all going on so quickly. 

‘And I was just afraid that – it was a piece of evidence… that I realised right away. Very important. And I didn’t want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, “Paul, you’ve got to make a decision,” and I grabbed it.’

The magic bullet theory

Mr Landis said he believes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and killed JFK – but thinks the theory that only one bullet hit Mr Kennedy and Mr Connally is ‘wrong’.

He said: ‘They were attributing that bullet to being on governor Connally’s stretcher and I knew I’d picked it up and put it on president Kennedy’s stretcher – and that’s really the only thing that had me concerned.’

Historian and Kennedy expert James Robenalt has worked with Mr Landis to prepare him for the public revelations, which he says are ‘the most significant news in the assassination since 1963’.

He told NBC: ‘Once I started looking at all of this, having been someone who believed in the Warren Commission, I now thought “well wait a minute, if this bullet stuck in his back then it is not the single bullet that went through and then hit Connally and caused all that injury”. 

‘The one that caused Connally’s injury broke major bones and it would have been severely deformed if not broken into pieces. Over time, I became convinced that this story was true.’

The pair believe the bullet that Mr Landis found hit Mr Kennedy in the back and fell out – and is separate from the one which hit the president’s head and Mr Connally.

Despite Mr Landis revealing his version of events, his former colleague Clint Hill, who famously jumped on the back of the car to protect those inside, does not believe him. 

‘If he checked all the evidence, statements, things that happened, they don’t line up,’ Mr Hill said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense to me that he’s trying to put it on the president’s gurney.’

In response, Mr Landis said: ‘That’s Clint’s theory, that’s his thought. We never talked to each other after the assassination about the events. We worked together for the next seven months. I really can’t answer what his thinking is or why.’

Mr Landis explained that the trauma of what happened is the reason why he hasn’t come forward with his evidence until now.

When questioned about the delay in telling his story, he said: ‘Well, nobody asked me and I never thought about it. I didn’t read anything about the assassination, I had nightmares, I buried everything, 

‘I refused to read anything about it because I figured I’d been there, I’d witnessed it, I didn’t need to read anything. All the assassination theories, things that were out there, I never took a look at.’

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An ‘extremely dangerous’ convicted murderer has been captured after breaking out of prison almost two weeks ago, police said.

Danelo Cavalcante, 34, was detained on Wednesday after escaping from Chester County Prison on August 31, the Pennsylvania State Police said.

‘Shortly after 8am, our suspect was captured,’ Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced at a press conference on Wednesday morning.

‘Thank god there were no injuries to law enforcement or to the public,’ the governor said. ‘We obviously became deeply concerned after the suspect was able to steal a weapon.’

Shapiro thanked the work of the Pennsylvania State Police, as well as federal partners from the US Marshalls, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the FBI, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.

Shortly after midnight, police responded to a burglar alarm going off in northern Chester County.

‘We had been searching an area not far from there,’ State Police Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens said. ‘There was an aircraft overhead utilizing thermal imaging technology.’

The aircraft picked up a heat signature in the area, but a lightning storm forced it to the ground. In the meantime, tactical teams with the State Police and CBP surrounded the area and waited out the storm.

Shortly after 8.00am, the tactical teams converged on the area.

‘Cavalcante did not realize he was surrounded until that had occurred,’ Bivens said. He then began to ‘crawl through the underbrush with his rifle’ he had stolen the day before.

But before he could get very far, a CBP police dog caught him in the underbrush.

‘He continued to resist, and was taken into custody,’ Bivens said.

However, no law enforcement officers were injured during the dramatic capture. Cavalcante sustained a minor bite wound from the dog.

Cavalcante was convicted of first-degree murder earlier in August for stabbing his former girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, in front of her two young children.

Prosecutors said that he killed Brandao after she threatened to tell authorities that he was wanted for another murder in Brazil.

Shortly after he was sentenced to life in prison, he managed to escape from custody at a prison in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Investigators later revealed he was able to escape undetected by ‘crab-walking’ out of a prison exit.

The brazen escape forced local schools to close and suburban neighborhoods to lock down as the convict hid out in the woods and stole food, clothing, a vehicle, and a rifle from homes in the area.

‘Our nightmare is finally over and the good guys won,’ Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan said.

‘The public, over the last 13 days, has had a chance to see what excellence in law enforcement means,’ Governor Shapiro said.

Shapiro also thanked the public of Chester County for their vigilance, constructive tips, and remaining on guard over the last two weeks.

‘We recognize this has been a concerning and trying time for each and every one of you in the region,’ Shapiro said.

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A police detective in Seattle was caught on camera laughing about the death of a graduate student who was struck and killed by another officer.

On January 23, Jaahnavi Kandula was crossing the street in a crosswalk when she was struck by a Officer Kevin Dave, who was speeding to the scene of an emergency.

Kandula, 23, was a graduate student at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus, pursuing a master’s degree in information technology.

Eight months later, shocking video footage emerged of another police officer joking about her death and saying she had ‘limited value.’

The video, which was released by the Seattle Police Department on Monday, is from the body-worn camera of Detective Daniel Auderer, who responded to the fatal accident.

After leaving the scene, Auderer’s camera picked up a conversation he had with another person regarding the crash.

Auderer, who serves as the Vice President of the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild, was reportedly speaking with the union’s president, Mike Solan, the Seattle’s Community Police Commission (CPC) said.

‘He’s going 50 [miles per hour], that’s not out of control,’ Auderer said. ‘That’s not reckless for a trained driver.’

A police report obtained by Publicola confirmed that Dave had actually been driving 74 miles per hour down a road that had a speed limit of 25.

The same report also confirmed that Dave hit his brakes only one second before colliding with Kandula.

After confirming with his colleague that Kandula had died, Auderer can be heard cackling with laughter.

‘Yeah, just write a check,’ he says while continuing to laugh. ‘$11,000 – she was 26 anyway, she had limited value.’

Auderer then seemingly realizes his camera was recording the conversation, and abruptly turns the device off.

The video was discovered by another Seattle Police Department employee, who was viewing the footage as part of a ‘routine course of business,’ the department said.

The video has since been forwarded to the Office of Police Accountability for a formal investigation.

The Community Police Commission called the video ‘appalling’ and ‘incredibly insensitive.’

‘Just hearing someone who works at SPD say that about a human life moments after she was killed by being struck by a Seattle police vehicle is absolutely heartbreaking,’ the organization said.

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced he is directing congressional Republicans to open an impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden.

McCarthy, a Republican from California, announced he would direct the House Oversight Committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into the president, who they claim

The allegations stem from a probe into the business deals of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, from before he took office in January 2021.

According to the speaker, the committee has ‘uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct.’

‘Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,’ McCarthy said.

According to McCarthy, the Oversight Committee has evidence that Biden ‘did lie to the American people of his about his own knowledge of his family’s foreign business deals.’

The resulting business deals landed the family ‘cars and millions of dollars,’ the speaker said.

‘Nearly $20million in payments were directed to the Biden family members and associates through various shell companies,’ McCarthy said.

He claimed Biden of used his office as then-Vice President to ‘coordinate’ with his son Hunter’s business partner’s at Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company he served as a board member for between 2014 and 2019.

He also accused members of the Biden family of getting ‘special treatment’ by authorities due to their proximity to the President.

Although he did not name specific family members, he is likely again referring to Hunter Biden, who was offered a plea deal for federal gun charges that critics called ‘sweetheart.’

The deal has since fallen apart, and a special counsel was appointed by the Justice Department to take charge of the investigation.

‘These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,’ McCarthy said.

The investigation will be lead by Rep James Comer (R-Kentucky) of the Oversight Committee, Rep Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep Jason Smith (R-Missouri) of the Ways and Means Committee.

‘We are committed to getting the answers for the American public,’ McCarthy said. ‘Nothing more, nothing less. We will go wherever the evidence takes us.’

McCarthy announced the investigation without a formal House vote. It is unclear if the speaker had the support of members of his own party.

Republicans hold a slim 222-212 majority in the House, and only five ‘no’ votes would have sunk the effort before it started.

Several House Republicans said they have seen no evidence to warrant an official investigation.

Rep Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the highest ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said he saw ‘zero evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever’ during the committee’s hearings.

‘This is a transparent effort to boost Donald Trump’s campaign by establishing a false moral equivalency between Trump — the four time-indicted former president,’ Raskin said.

The announcement also comes as McCarthy faces an insurrection within his own party, after several far-right members of congress threatened to oust him from his position.

On Tuesday afternoon, after McCarthy’s announcement, Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) told the speaker he was ‘out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role.’

He called the investigation announcement ‘a baby step’ and insisted ‘we must move faster.’

Gaetz said that he would forward a motion to vacate McCarthy from his position as Speaker of the House ‘every single day in Congress’ if he did not meet his demands.

White House Spokesperson Ian Sams called the investigation ‘extreme politics at its worst.’

‘Speaker McCarthy shouldn’t cave to the extreme, far-right members who are threatening to shut down the government unless they get a baseless, evidence-free impeachment of President Biden,’ Sams said. ‘The consequences for the American people are too serious.’

The president has not commented directly about the investigation as of Tuesday afternoon.

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A man from Oregon walked into an FBI office and confessed to a 1979 murder on the other side of the United States.

John Michael Irmer, 68, was arraigned in a Massachusetts court on Monday for the murder of Susan Marcia Rose almost 44 years ago.

Rose was found dead on October 30, 1979 in a building under construction in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Her cause of death was determined to be multiple blunt force injuries and brain lacerations.

Her body was found at the building the next day. Irmer had at that point fled to New York City.

In August, Irmer told FBI agents in Portland that he met Rose, who was then 24, at a Boston skating rink the day before Halloween. The two decided to go ‘explore’ a building at 285 Beacon Street, which was under renovation at the time.

Shortly after entering the building, Irmer grabbed a hammer and struck Rose on the head, killing her. He then proceeded to rape her.

Rose’s brutal murder remained unsolved for years. Another suspect was arrested and charged for her murder, but he was found not guilty after a trial in 1981.

Meanwhile, Irmer was convicted of murdering a drug dealer in California in 1983. He served a 30-year prison sentence before getting out in 2013.

He stayed silent for another 10 years before walking into the Portland FBI office last month, where he also confessed to another murder in the south.

Irmer reportedly did not know Rose’s name when he confessed, but he provided enough details that they were able to match his confession to her unsolved case.

FBI investigators also matched Irmer’s DNA to a sample taken from Rose’s body.

Irmer was extradited from Oregon to Massachusetts over the weekend. He was arraigned on Monday and charged with first-degree murder and aggravated rape.

‘This was a brutal, ice-blooded murder made worse by the fact that a person was charged and tried—and fortunately, found not guilty—while the real murderer remained silent until now,’ Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said.

Irmer is currently being held without bail.

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A man died attempting to hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim in a single day, authorities said.

Around 2.00pm on Saturday, the National Park Service received an emergency call about a hiker in distress along the North Kaibab Trail, about one mile south of the Cottonwood Campground.

Bystanders who found the ailing hiker began administering CPR while first responders raced to the isolated location by helicopter.

Park rangers arrived, but were unsuccessful after trying to resuscitate him with ‘advanced life support efforts.’

The victim was identified as Ranjith Varma, 55, from Manassas, Virginia.

According to the National Park Service, Varma was attempting to complete a ‘rim to rim’ hike in a single day.

The difficult trek is roughly 24 miles one way through the Grand Canyon, starting at the South Rim and ending at the North Rim.

Cottonwood Campground is in the middle of the North Kaibab Trail, the second leg of the hike. The end of the trail at the North Rim is about seven miles from the site.

It typically takes an experienced hiker 12-15 hours to complete the trek.

The American southwest has undergone a record-shattering heat wave throughout the summer. The high temperature at Grand Canyon National Park on Saturday was 87°F, according to the National Weather Service.

However, it is unclear if Varma’s death was caused by the heat. His cause of death will be determined after an investigation by the Coconino County Health and Human Services Medical Examiner’s Office.

‘In the summer, temperatures on exposed parts of the trail can reach over 120°F (49 °C) in the shade,’ the National Park Service said. ‘Park rangers strongly advise not hiking in the inner canyon during the heat of the day between the hours of 10am and 4pm’

They also warned that rangers may also struggle to reach stranded hikers in the summer months due to ‘limited staff, the number of rescue calls, employee safety requirements, and limited helicopter flying capability.’

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An Olympic champion was found to have faked end-stage cancer to avoid a six-figure court case, new documents have revealed.

Eric Lamaze, 55, is Canada’s most successful Olympic showjumper and has been embroiled in a £400,000 lawsuit over three horses he sold in 2010.

He won individual gold and team bronze at Beijing 2008 and added another bronze eight years later at the Rio 2016 Games.

Lamaze also secured Pan American Games gold in 2015 as well as a bronze at the 2010 World Equestrian Games.

The rider, who earned more than £800,000 in 2007 alone, missed the Olympics in Tokyo and retired in 2022 in order to focus on his health.

He was initially diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017 and went public with the news two years later.

But now it has been revealed he submitted fraudulent documents relating to his condition to delay a court hearing as part of a £400,000 lawsuit against him.

Lamaze is accused of selling three horses from his Torrey Pines Stables to Iron Horse Farm in 2010 that were not up to the standard expected.

A long-running legal case has rumbled on since then and in July his attorney Tim Danson applied for a delay in proceedings.

The document cited medical issues – but there were no medical records attached – just photos of his disfigured face following brain surgery.

Justice Marvin Kurz published two endorsements, with the first stating that Lamaze’s stables had brought a motion asking to adjourn.

Kurz did not proceed due to ‘questions regarding the true state’ of Lamaze’s health.

Lamaze’s notice of the motion stated that he had been ‘battling brain cancer for a number of years’, with the disease also allegedly spreading to his throat.

It was said that he was scheduled to undergo further surgery on June 11.

But Jerome Morse, for Iron Horse, cast doubt on the allegation ‘in light of the fact Mr Lamaze made similar claims in early 2019, in the hope of adjourning his discovery.’

Morse revealed that Lamaze took part in events on March 13, 14 and 16 in 2019.

But a private detective hired by Iron Horse Farm in Belgium went to Dr Pirotte who denied signing the document and confirmed it was fraudulent.

Not only that the letter was written in Dutch, with a mistake on the address of the Chirec Delta Hospital, and allegedly signed by neurosurgeon Dr Nordenyn Oulad Ben Taib – despite the doctor only having French, English and Arabic on his list of languages.

Now Danson has resigned from the case representing Lamaze and last week said: ‘Eric is very sick, but maybe not with cancer.’

Lamaze himself continues to insist he does have the disease – but confessed he ‘made a little mistake’.

Asked about evidence stacking up against him, he told The Toronto Star: ‘You’ll never find it because I did have cancer.

‘Was I deceitful here and there to protect some doctors and protect this and that?

‘Of course I was.’

But Justice Hurtz said: ‘Mr Lamaze attempted to perpetrate a fraud on the court by filing three forged letters, which falsely purport to be medical reports regarding Mr Lamaze’s dire medical condition.

‘Mr Morse [Iron House’s lawyer] argues that if that fraud were not sufficiently egregious, Mr Lamaze feigned end-stage cancer, which is an insult to all who have suffered from that dreaded malady.

‘He did so only to avoid a ‘day of reckoning’ in an action that was commenced more than ten years ago but has yet to reach trial.’

Lamaze has been ordered to pay £25,800 to cover the costs to Iron House Farm following the motion to adjourn in July.

He also needs to find a new lawyer by September 29 or else he would lose the case by default.

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The United States is set to pay £4.8bn ($6bn) to Iran in return for the release of a British citizen and four American citizens.

The US-Iranian dual nationals include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Shargi, 58, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who has British citizenship.

The identity of the fourth US citizen has not been made public, while a fifth man was already under house arrest.

A waiver has been issued by the Biden administration for international banks to transfer frozen Iranian money without the repercussions of US sanctions.

The assets will be transferred to Qatar from South Korea where they are currently held which Iran will then be able to use to buy humanitarian goods.

Congress was only informed about the deal on Monday, despite US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken signing it off last week.

In return the deal also includes releasing five Iranian citizens who are currently held in the US.

According to US officials four of the people were released from prison and placed under house arrest in Iran last month.

They were all held at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran on spying charges.

Their families said their loved ones are ‘hostages’ taken captive on false charges and used as bargaining chips by the government.

Namazi had been detained by Iran for more than seven years after he was convicted of espionage-related charges in 2016.

Tahbaz was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for ‘assembly and collusion against Iran’s national security’ and working for the US as a spy.

Shargi was also sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of espionage in 2020.

Several European countries were reluctant to take part in the transfer of funds that sealed their release.

This could come at a political price domestically for the Democrats as the Republicans accuse them of boosting Iran’s economy.

Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas accused Biden of ‘paying ransom to the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism’.

While Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said it was ‘ridiculous … to be blackmailed’ and that ‘terrorism’ is Iran’s number one foreign policy.

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A US explorer has been pulled to safety after enduring a gruelling nine days stuck inside one of Turkey’s deepest caves.

Mark Dickey became trapped more than 3,300ft underground inside the Morca Cave after falling seriously ill with stomach problems on September 2.

The 40-year-old admitted he thought he was going to die at the bottom of the cave network in southern Turkey.

Despite coughing up blood and struggling to maintain consciousness, Mr Dickey was finally freed on Tuesday morning after a mammoth effort from almost 200 rescuers.

Experienced crews from around Europe rushed to the cave in the Mersin province’s Taurus mountains after he started feeling unwell.

Mr Dickey was on an international exploration mission to map the cave when he reportedly began suffering from stomach bleeding around 1km below ground.

After becoming too frail to climb out himself, rescuers carried him with the help of a stretcher, making frequent stops at temporary camps set up along the way.

Footage showed the moment he was finally lifted to the top by the heroic resucers.

‘Mark Dickey is out of the Morca cave. He is fine and is being tended to by emergency medical worker in the encampment above,’ said a statement by the speleological federation on Monday.

‘Thus, the cave rescue part of the operation has ended successfully. We congratulate all those who have contributed.’

Lying on a stretcher surrounded by reporters following his rescue, Dickey described the ordeal as a ‘crazy, crazy adventure’.

‘It is amazing to be above ground again,’ he said, thanking the Turkish government for saving his life with its rapid response.

He also thanked the international caving community, Turkish cavers and Hungarian Cave Rescue, among others.

A statement from Mr Dickey’s parents. Debbie and Andy Dickey, said the fact that their son ‘has been moved out of Morca Cave in stable condition is indescribably relieving and fills us with incredible joy’.

The American was first treated inside the cave by a Hungarian doctor who went down the cave on September 3.

Doctors and rescuers then took turns caring for him. The cause of Mr Dickey’s illness was not clear.

On Tuesday, Mr Dickey said that in the cave he had started to throw up large quantities of blood.

He told reporters: ‘My consciousness started to get harder to hold on to, and I reached the point where I thought “I’m not going to live”.’

The biggest challenges for the rescuers were the steep vertical sections and navigating through mud and water at low temperatures in the horizontal sections.

There was also the psychological toll of staying inside a dark, damp cave for extended periods of time.

Around 190 experts from Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Turkey took part in the rescue, including doctors, paramedics and experienced cavers.

Teams comprised of a doctor and three to four other rescuers took turns staying by his side at all times.

The rescue began on Saturday after doctors, who administered IV fluids and blood, determined that Mr Dickey could make the arduous ascent.

Before the evacuation could begin, rescuers first had to widen some of the cave’s narrow passages, install ropes to pull him up vertical shafts on a stretcher and set up temporary camps along the way.

Mr Dickey, who is from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, is a well-known cave researcher and a cave rescuer himself who had participated in many international expeditions.

He and several other people on the expedition were mapping the 1,276-metre deep Morca cave system for the Anatolian Speleology Group Association.

Turkish authorities made a video message available that showed Mr Dickey standing and moving around on Thursday.

While alert and talking, he said he was not ‘healed on the inside’ and needed a lot of help to get out of the cave.

He thanked the caving community and the Turkish government for their efforts to rescue him.

Last week, the hair-raising moment sailors were saved from a sinking boat after it was attacked by sharks was caught on camera.

In August, a group of children were saved from a cable car that had been left dangling at 1,200ft for 16 hours after one of its wires snapped.

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A huge sinkhole has opened up in the middle of a busy San Francisco intersection.

The asphalt streets at the intersection of Fillmore and Green Streets caved in on Monday morning after a water main broke the night before, flooding the area.

The dramatic street collapse has caused chaos in the tony neighborhood of Pacific Heights, home to ritzy mansions and dramatic views of San Francisco’s landmarks.

On Sunday night just before midnight, a 16-inch water main broke near the intersection of Fillmore and Union Streets, just one block from where the sinkhole would later emerge.

The water main was made from cast iron and installed in 1949, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission confirmed.

The break caused ‘intermittent water service and temporary service interruptions’ as well as traffic disruptions, the commission said on Sunday night.

Videos from the scene showed water and refuse pouring out of the water main overnight. The sinkhole appeared early on Monday morning.

‘SFPUC crews responded to the scene and worked through the night to stabilize the situation,’ the commission said. It is not clear how long it will take to repair the sinkhole, which has engulfed a large portion of the intersection.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management issued a warning for residents to avoid the area.

The sinkhole in San Francisco is not the first to engulf American roadways this year.

In January, a sinkhole opened up on a road in Los Angeles, briefly trapping a mother and their young daughter in their car.

It took about 50 firefighters to rescue the stranded motorists deep inside the hole.

In April, a nearly 1,000-foot-long sinkhole opened up on a roadway in Daisetta, Texas.

The 400-foot deep hole engulfed cars and terrified local residents of the small town about 55 miles from Houston.

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An escaped murderer who has evaded police for 11 days was spotted nearly 20 miles outside the search area.

Danelo Cavalcante, a convicted murderer who escaped from Chester County Prison on August 31, was spotted with a new appearance after he tried to contact former coworkers.

Cavalcante, 34, was sentenced to life in prison after stabbing his girlfriend in front of her young children. Prosecutors say he murdered her after she threatened to reveal he was wanted for another murder in Brazil.

He escaped from the prison near Pocopson Township, Pennsylvania by ‘crab-walking’ through an entranceway to avoid detection.

Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan called Cavalcante ‘extremely dangerous.’

‘I don’t know what he is capable of doing,’ Ryan said. ‘If he’s already engaged in murder in broad daylight in front of her two children there is no stopping him from doing something more egregious.’

State and local police set up a large perimeter near the prison in the Philadelphia suburbs. They also began blasting a message from his mother in Portuguese from helicopters and patrol cars, begging him to turn himself in.

However, he was most recently spotted on a doorbell camera over 20 miles north of the search area.

Pennsylvania State Police Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens said the escape was a ‘minor setback’ and promised to ‘aggressively pursue the convicted murderer.

‘We’ll get him, it’s a matter of time,’ Bivens said.

Early on Sunday morning, state police confirmed that Cavalcante was spotted near East Pikeland Township.

Police also confirmed that Cavalcante stole a Ford Transit van near the northern boundary of the perimeter. The vehicle was unlocked and its keys were in the ignition, police said.

The van belonged to Baily’s Dairy, a small farm near West Chester. According to the farm, it was stolen between 7pm and 10pm while employees were still working at the site.

It is unclear how he managed to drive out of the perimeter undetected.

‘I don’t know how he got over there,’ Bivens said at a press conference. ‘No perimeter is 100% secure. We do the best we can.’

After he escaped from the perimeter, he drove north to East Pikeland and Phoenixville, where he showed up at the doorstep of a former coworker.

‘Cavalcante spoke with the individual via a video doorbell at that residence, and inquired about meeting with that individual,’ Bivens said.

However, his old coworker was out eating dinner with his family.

‘The homeowner eventually returned home, reviewed his doorbell recording, and called local police,’ Bivens said.

Photos from the doorbell camera show that the escaped convict has changed his appearance, shaving his beard and moustache. It is unclear if he has also shaved his long curly hair.

Although he was previously spotted wearing his prison-issued clothing, he appears to have changed into a green hoodie and black baseball cap.

About an hour later, Cavalcante tried to contact another former coworker in the nearby town of Phoenixville.

The van Cavalcante used was eventually found abandoned behind a barn in East Nantmeal Township, about 20 miles north of the dairy farm. Authorities believe Cavalcante ditched the van after it ran out of gas.

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On Monday September 10, 2001, Paulie Veneto disembarked from United Flight 175 at Boston-Logan International Airport.

Having started work as a flight attendant for United Airlines in 1997, he regularly worked on Flight 175, which flew from Boston to Los Angeles and back.

However, because Paulie had worked the weekend flight, he’d been given the following Tuesday off when he returned to Boston.

When he woke that morning it was to the devastating news that United Flight 175 had crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Centers.

‘I landed Monday night, September 10 at 8:00, and I got off the plane,’ Paulie recalls. ‘I knew the crew that got on it the next morning – they were going back to LA. That was the second plane that hit the towers.’

As he watched the Twin Towers fall, his thoughts turned to his coworkers who replaced him on the next shift.

‘I knew with the enormity of that scene, that everyone’s gonna forget what happened at the beginning of that day,’ Paulie says. ‘These flight crew members were fighting those terrorists on those airplanes.’

For years, he searched for a way to properly honor his fallen coworkers.

‘It bothered me that every year when the anniversary was coming up, no one was recognizing their heroics, and what they were able to do under those conditions,’ Paulie says. ‘They were regular citizens, they weren’t trained to fight terrorism. But they did, and we know it from the phone calls that they made.’

For the 20th anniversary of the attacks in 2021, Paulie, then 62, made the decision to attempt an ambitious tribute in memory of the four flights hijacked on September 11.

Decorating a flight attendant’s drink cart with photos of the six crew members he worked with on United Flight 175 – Amy Jarrett, Alicia Titus, Amy King, Michael Tarrou, and Robert Fangman – he planned to push it along the approximate route United Flight 175 took on that fateful Tuesday.

It was a total of 220 miles from Boston all the way to Ground Zero, with the grueling walk taking Paulie through cities, small towns, forests, and old railroads on his journey to New York City. 

With each step, word began to spread. Police and firefighters began meeting him on the roadway, escorting him through towns and marching alongside him to commemorate their own loved ones.

During the trek through Connecticut, local firemen escorted Paulie with trucks, while survivors marched beside him. Hundreds of local fire departments and other emergency response agencies were called in to assist the FDNY from the tri-state area.

‘I had a fire truck in front of us and three firemen walking in the middle of the street, just bawling their eyes out,’ Paulie remembers.

One day as he was marching, a firefighter approached him and started crying.

‘He leans over to me and says, “I gotta tell you something, Paul. I can’t tell my guys in the firehouse, but I’m having a problem with drugs.”’

His words, prompted Paulie to open up, and tell the man about his own struggles with opioid addiction after the attacks.

‘I knew when I was walking around for years thinking I was all alone with what was going on in my head about the whole thing,’ he says. ‘The relief I got was when I could verbalize it with people I knew could understand it.’

Paulie’s trip also caught the attention of the families of the flight crew members. On his way to Ground Zero, he was contacted by the son of a ticket agent who worked with him on Flight 175. He was only six years old when his father died during the hijacking.

‘He comes up and says, “You worked with my dad. Did you know him? What was he like? Did people like him?” It was unbelievable. He was only six years old on 9/11.’

Paulie, who describes himself as very much ‘not an athlete’, had originally only planned to make one 200-mile trek for the 20th anniversary. However, the amazing outpouring of support he received in 2021 convinced him to turn his push an annual event. 

‘When I came back from Ground Zero, a gentleman donated a mobile home to me and said “keep doing what you’re doing.” I’m all for it,’ he adds.

It was then that Paulie decided to follow the flight paths of every plane that went down on September 11, 2001.

The following year in 2022, he took the path of American Airlines Flight 77, a much shorter trek of 30 miles from Washington-Dulles Airport to the Pentagon.

While this year, Paulie embarked on what he says is the hardest of the four flight paths: United Flight 93, which took off from Newark Airport and went down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members successfully took down the hijackers.

Paulie began training for this year’s push – which covers more than 300 miles – in February, starting by walking about 8-10 miles each day.

However, the journey through Pennsylvania proved difficult, requiring daily walks of anywhere between 11 and 15 miles per day. The journey also required Paulie to climb four mountains across the state.

As he started his walk at Newark-Liberty International Airport on August 14, United flight pilots and flight crews gathered to cheer him on. As he walked, the pilot of a Boeing 777 jumbo jet taxied alongside him down the tarmac.

Along the way, Paulie heard more stories about the bravery of the crew and passengers on Flight 93.

‘There was hand-to-hand combat, it was a pretty gruesome scene going on up there,’ he says. ‘And they were still able to make phone calls and give us information on what was going on up there.’

Paulie says was also struck by how the Flight 93 crew and passengers were able to band together and retake control of the flight from the hijackers.

‘They found out those other airplanes hit the buildings, and they knew where they were headed. But they said “no, we’re not going to let them do that.”’

Paulie’s trek ended on Monday, with him arriving at the Flight 93 Memorial.

‘It’s really not the destination for me,’ he says. ‘It’s the journey along the way.’

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Married for 10 years and sat with their grown daughters, Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau smiled as they recounted their ‘extraordinary’ relationship, in a 2015 widely-watched exclusive with American TV titan Barbara Walters. 

However, the couple’s relationship was extraordinary for all the wrong reasons.

They had become close when Vili was just 12, and Mary Kay, then in her thirties, was his teacher. Within months they had embarked on a sexual relationship.

As news of the Washington state-based sexual abuse scandal shocked the globe, people were left reeling at the thought that a 34-year-old, middle-class, married mother-of-four was capable of committing such a horrific crime.

Yet despite Mary Kay going to jail for second-degree child rape – and giving birth behind bars – the couple steadfastly refused to give up on their relationship.

Now the family – and their story – are back in the news again, after the couple’s youngest daughter, Georgia, has posted on Instagram about expecting a baby boy in January.

Vili, 40, who had a third daughter, Sophia, in 2022, is set to become a grandparent for the first time – but without Mary Kay by his side. 

Rewind to September 1996. A 12-year-old Vili entered his sixth-grade classroom at Shorewood Elementary School in Washington, settling in for a year of learning. He recongised Mary Kay, as she had also taught him in second grade, when he was just eight. 

‘There was a respect, an insight, a spirit, and understanding between us that grew over time,’ she told The Seattle Times in July 1997, as she recalled that first time teaching him. ‘It was the kind of feeling you have with a brother or sister – a feeling that they’re part of your life forever.’

As she once again tutored Vili four years later, Mary Kay clocked that the boy was a gifted artist, and began spending time with him outside of the classroom to develop his skills. Vili even visited her home, becoming friendly with Mary Kay’s husband Steve and four children. He became especially close with her eldest son, Steven Jr., who was only a year younger than him. 

When the school year ended, the teacher and student had gone to dinner when the pair first had sex, even though in a book the pair authored, Mary Kay wrote she had ‘promised’ herself ‘it’ wouldn’t happen before her divorce with then-husband Steve. 

‘The incident was late at night, and it didn’t stop with a kiss,’ Mary Kay told Walters in the 2015 interview. ‘And I thought that it would, and it didn’t.’

That same summer, police discovered Vili and Mary Kay in a minvan. Vili quickly lied to the police, saying he was 18. Although taken to the police station, they both were released after claiming there was no improper conduct. 

Mary Kay later described their connection as a ‘million moments that just kept building something very beautiful and scary at the same time’ in a 2004 interview with Laury King. 

In the autumn of 1996, Mary Kay found out she was pregnant with the schoolboy’s baby. 

Mary Kay broke the news of her pregnancy to her best friend, Michelle Lobdell on the phone. ‘I have some news and this is difficult,’ she told her friend. ‘I’m pregnant and it’s not Steve’s.’

Lobdell said in an interview with the New York Post that it ‘was a shocking moment’ and that Mary Kay made it out that the father was a college-aged student. ‘She didn’t tell me he was 12.’

Steve Letourneau, Mary Kay’s then-husband was rifling through papers in early 1997 when he found love letters between his wife and her student. Confronting the teenager over them, he threatened to tell Vili’s family about their sordid relationship if he didn’t end it.

‘The fear of my mom’s reaction and the thought of everyone being affected by it was one of my biggest fears, so I said, for the better of everyone, OK. It was kind of devastating,’ recalled Vili in a 2018 interview.

However, it was too late, as just a few weeks later on 4 March, Mary Kay was arrested for second-degree child rape after a tip from a relative of Steve’s.

She was released on bail and went on to have her daughter Audrey in May 1997. 

At her trial three months after the birth, Mary Kay pled guilty to child rape in exchange for a three-month jail sentence and probation. 

‘It was wrong, and I am sorry,’ she said in the hearing. ‘I give you my word it will not happen again.’

Her request was approved, with the condition Mary Kay had no further contact with Vili, who always claimed that the relationship was consensual and continuously maintained he wasn’t a victim. ‘I’m not ashamed of being in love with Mary Kay,’ he told Inside Edition in 1999. 

But her vow to leave the teen alone was shortlived, when Mary Kay and Vili were found again in a car soon after her release – this time with over $6,000 in cash, baby clothes, and her passport, leading authorities to believe they were planning to leave the country. 

Mary Kay was brought back to court, by then pregnant for a second time with Vili’s baby from her brief stint out of prison, for her breach of parole and told by the judge she had been given an opportunity that she ‘foolishly squandered.’

She was sentenced to seven and a half years in Washington Correction Centre for Women, during which time she would give birth to her youngest daughter behind bars and get a divorce from her husband. 

Both daughters were in the custody of Vili’s mother, Soona, while Mary Kay finished her sentence. 

Even though Soona blamed Mary Kay for ruining her son’s life, she tearfully said when testifying in the 2002 case that she couldn’t hate the former teacher. 

‘What happened was morally wrong,’ she told the court. ‘She was married, and this was a teenage boy. I’ve lost my son. I lost my sweet little boy who could draw. I knew he would grow up, and he wouldn’t be my little boy, but I didn’t know I’d lose him at 12.’

‘I can’t say I hate Mary,’ she continued. ‘Just a couple of weeks ago, my granddaughter turned around to me and asked, “Do you love my Mary mommy grandma?” And I’m supposed to tell her yeah.’

While Mary Kay was in prison, Vili talked openly in his Walters interview about how he went ‘through a really dark time,’ battling depression for years in the wake of Mary Kay’s imprisonment. 

‘I’m surprised I’m still alive today,’ he said in the exclusive chat. ‘My friends couldn’t help me because they had no idea what it was like to be a parent, I mean, because we were all 14, 15.’

In August 2004, Mary Kay was released from prison and Vili filed a motion in court requesting a reversal of the no-contact order against Mary Kay.

It was granted, and 10 months later, they were married in a lavish ceremony with 250 friends and family at a winery in Washington. Vili was 21 years old.

For 10 years, the couple lived together in Seattle – Vili working as a DJ and Mary Kay as a legal assistant – while raising their two girls.

But in 2017, Vili filed for a legal separation, supposedly due to his desire to start a marijuana business. 

‘It’s not necessarily what you think,’ he told Radar Online. ‘When you want to get licensed, they do background checks on both parties. If I decide to be a part of it, I have to be licensed, and I have to be vetted, and so does a spouse. She has a past. She has a history.’

However, a source close to Mary Kay told People magazine a different story, about how the couple had multiple discussions over where things were going.

‘She really tried everything she could think of, but she just wasn’t able to work it out,’ the source said. ‘She loves him, she knows he loves her, but it really seems like it has run its course.’

Although the couple eventually divorced in 2019, Mary Kay would end up spending her last weeks with her ex-husband after she was diagnosed with colon cancer and ‘reached out’ to him via text in 2020.

‘Vili, to his credit, when he found out about [her illness], and then especially the last couple of months, he moved back from California and he gave her 24/7 care, literally all the way to the end,’ said David Gehrke, who represented Letourneau throughout her trial, in an interview with KIRO radio.

In July 2020, Mary Kay passed away, but in the lead up to her death, she had allegedly penned dozens of letters to atone for her actions.

‘The bottom line was that she understood on a very deep level that she had really made a mess of her life and the lives of many other people back in 1996,’ one friend told People.

‘She realised that even though things turned out relatively good, that she was responsible for a wide swath of destruction by her actions.’

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A brave 11-year-old girl survived a house fire set by her father as her two siblings and mother died.

Lulu Ragusa managed to jump out the window while their Seattle home was being eaten away by flames on Saturday and ran for help.

Her siblings, 4-month-old Valentina Ragusa and 7-year-old Sebastiano ‘Seby” Ragusa, and her mother Lana Stewart, 40, died, as well as did the family dog Rosie.

‘Lulu has always been known as a talkative & loving girl who always put her family first,’ wrote her aunt Adrea Stewart-Sloniker on a GoFundMe page for her.

‘As she got older and became more aware of her situation, she often took on a protective but nurturing role.

‘Therefore I’m not all surprised she jumped out a window with a 16 foot drop to help others survive.

‘She thought she was going back to save her brother & sister after calling for help.’

Lulu’s siblings died of smoke inhalation and her mother died of ‘multiple sharp force injuries’ according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. All three deaths were ruled homicides, according to Fox News Digital.

The father of the children, Salvatore Ragusa, died of smoke inhalation. However, his death was ruled a suicide.

He was a loving father but struggled with mental issues and suffered from schizophrenia.

‘What began as a slow mental spiral, suddenly went out of control before Sal would consent to receiving professional help again,’ wrote Stewart-Sloniker on Facebook.

Lulu’s aunt said that she will need private schooling to catch up to others in her grade level.

In an update on Thursday, Stewart-Sloniker wrote that the family planning to adopt Lulu ‘didn’t financially plan to have another child and estimated that they needed $200,000 to properly care for her.

‘Overall, we just want to be able to offer her the best life possible and set her up for success in the future,’ Lulu’s aunt wrote.

The GoFundMe for Lulu had raised more than $50,000 as of Friday evening.

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Ex-President Donald Trump held a $100,000-per-person fundraiser for his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who faces mounting legal fees from trying to help his client overturn the 2020 election.

Trump hosted the fundraiser for struggling Giuliani at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday night.

Giuliani’s son, Andrew, said Trump was expected to have raised more than $1million, and that he committed to holding another fundraiser for him at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in the fall or winter.

‘So that will be very helpful,’ Andrew told WABC radio.

But ‘it won’t be enough to get through this’, his son said.

Giuliani has amassed legal bills in the millions from defamation lawsuits around his work representing Trump in his fight to undermine the presidential election results.

He took the latest hit in being one of 19, including Trump, to be indicted in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election subversion probe last month. Trump and all of his co-defendants face the same charge of racketeering under the state’s RICO laws.

Giuliani faces trial and may be ordered to pay a high amount in damages to two Georgia election workers who claim they were false accused of fraud. The former New York City mayor already faces tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills.

Andrew created the Giuliani Defense PAC to raise money for his dad’s legal battles. Supporters have been asked to contribute to the Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund.

But an expert in the RICO laws opined it might be difficult for co-defendants to get financial assistance from Trump and his 2024 campaign.

‘Georgia RICO charges are exceedingly hard to finance a defense for under any circumstances, but here Trump not only has state proceedings to litigate but also a potential removal effort in federal court,’ Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis told CBS News.

‘And with PAC cash being a finite resource, diverting funds toward a legal defense necessarily takes away from something else.

‘It will likely get very costly and undermine political work that might have a larger budget but for the diverted cash.’

After being processed in jail and having his mugshot taken on August 25, Giuliani told reporters that he spoke with Trump the same day.

‘I wish him well,’ Giuliani said. ‘I have every confidence in him.’

Trump quickly showed his support for Giuliani with a Truth Social post stating: ‘The greatest Mayor in the history of New York City was just ARRESTED in Atlanta, Georgia, because he fought for Election Integrity.’

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A couple moved into a new home that was full of spirits – that is, empty bottles of spirits.

Cathy, 51, and her husband Roy Aukamp, 52, had lived in their New Jersey house for just two days when a storm flooded their basement. As they pulled out water damaged parts of their basement, they made an odd discovery.

Roy yanked out a piece of plasterboard and scooped out what looked like an endless stream of Captain Morgan rum bottles. The bottles were completely clear, with none of the golden-colored alcohol still inside.

He shoveled them across the ground, as Cathy could be heard laughing and saying, ‘Thirsty?’

Roy, still kneeling on the ground, shoot his head, not looking amused.

‘It’s five o’clock somewhere!’ Cathy added.

Along with the video of the incident, Cathy wrote on Instagram last week that a massive rain storm flooded the home they had just purchased and left more water than the ground could hold.

‘This is what we found in the walls of the finished basement when removing ruined sheetrock,’ she wrote.

The strange incident drew the attention of hundreds of thousands on social media, and Cathy added a photo of a place were the bottles were dropped.

Many Instagram users cracked jokes around Melvin’s 99 Bottles of Beer song.

‘Lmao 99 bottles of rum in the wall,’ wrote one Instagram user.

’98 bottles of rum in the wall, 98 bottles of rum…’ commented another user.

One user remarked: ‘You bought a house from captain Morgan himself.’

It came full circle when Cathy revealed that the old homeowner got in touch.

‘The person who did it saw the video after it went viral and reached out and said there are hundreds more,’ she said.

‘But also that he is now three years sober.’

It is not the only recent occasion of unexpected discoveries in walls of homes.

In February, residents of a home in Santa Rosa, California, called pest control who removed about 700 pounds of acorns that spilled out through the walls.

And in May, a first-time homebuyer in Centennial, Colorado, made a terrifying discovery of snakes in the walls of her house.

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A bear was euthanized after it broke into a home to steal dog food, over a month after it killed a woman on a hiking trail near Yellowstone National Park.

A mother bear and her cub were caught breaking into an occupied home on Saturday, where they stole a can of dog food from the kitchen before running away.

Rangers from the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Department (FWP) shot the mother bear after the break-in the same day, the agency said.

The euthanization was necessary due to an ‘immediate public safety threat from the bear’s food-conditioned behavior.’

The suspect was a 10-year-old female grizzly bear who had been captured once before for research purposes in 2017.

Through genetic analysis and other ‘identifying characteristics,’ staff at the department confirmed the bear was also responsible for the deadly attack on a female hiker on a trail in the Gallatin National Forest in July.

Authorities also believe the same bear was involved in a 2020 attack that left one hiker injured at Henrys Lake State Park in Idaho.

The bear was not euthanized earlier because the two attacks were determined to be ‘defensive responses.’

However, the FWP did attempt to capture the bear after the deadly July attack due to her close proximity to homes, campgrounds, and hiking trails. All of these efforts were unsuccessful, the department said.

Meanwhile, the mother bear’s cub was taken to the FWP’s animal rehab facility in Helena.

The cub was was identified as a 46-pound male. Authorities did not determine the cub’s age, but adult male grizzly bears usually weigh anywhere between 400 and 600 pounds, according to the University of Montana’s Grizzly Bear Recovery Program.

The FWP plans to transfer the cub to a zoo in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the FWP is also warning residents to be alert and prepare for encounters with bears, who are currently preparing for their winter hibernation.

‘Montana is bear country,’ the department said. ‘Grizzly bear populations continue to become denser and more widespread in Montana, increasing the likelihood that residents and recreationists will encounter them in more places each year.’

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Retailers in the UK, US and other countries have started recalling a super-hot tortilla chip after it was linked to the death of an American teenager.

Harris Wobolah, 14, died on September 1 from an unknown medical episode after eating one of the crisps, which are packaged individually and branded as the ‘One Chip Challenge’.

The cause of death remains unconfirmed as post-mortem results are still pending, but Harris’ family have blamed the product.

YouTube and Tiktok videos showing influencers attempting the ‘challenge’ have amassed millions of views

Another boy in his early teens, Jack Pedigo, has since said he experienced severe seizure-like symptoms after eating the chip.

He told CNBC he initially felt ‘fine’ after eating the ‘really spicy’ chip but then vomited and went to see his school nurse.

Jack said: ‘I was in the office and my stomach started hurting, my hands were stuck in (one) position.

‘I couldn’t move them. I could barely open them up. It felt like they weren’t even my hands.’

The district attorney for Worcester County, Massachussetts, where Harris lived, claimed ‘other states across the country have seen hospitalisations due to the chip challenge, including teens.’

The tortilla, sold in a coffin-shaped box, was marketed as containing a blend of ‘the hottest peppers available’, though it carries a warning label stating it is not for children or anyone with underlying health conditions.

The ingredients list Naga Viper and Carolina Reaper peppers, which have been certified as the first and second hottest chilli peppers in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records and were deliberately bred as hybrid varieties to achieve this feat.

They can be safely consumed and are widely included in specialist hot sauces, and the heat of a product generally depends more on the concentration of spice extracts in the recipe rather than the variety of chilli used.

Texas-based manufacturer Paqui has asked retailers to stop selling the product as a precaution and said it was ‘deeply saddened’ by Harris’ death.

In a statement, it added: ‘We have seen an increase in teens and other individuals not heeding these warnings’.

‘As a result, while the product continues to adhere to food safety standards, out of abundance of caution, we are actively working with retailers to remove the product from shelves.’

US branches of 7-Eleven have done so, while Amazon said it would remove the product from sites in Britain, Europe, the Middle East and Africa after it was contacted about the issue by BBC Newsbeat.

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A teenager in Alabama was sentenced to life in prison for the horrific murders of his parents and three siblings, one of whom was only six months old.

Mason Sisk was 14 in September 2019 when his family was found murdered in their home in Elkmont, Alabama.

Four years later, he was found guilty of five counts of capital murder. Now 18-years-old, Sisk faces a life sentence without the possibility for parole.

Circuit Judge Chadwick Wise handed down the harshest possible sentence for the murders, which he called ‘ghastly, disturbing, and draped in unmitigated evil.’

Because Sisk was a minor when the murders took place, he was ineligible for the death penalty.

The victims included his father, John Wayne Sisk, 38, his adoptive mother, Mary Sisk, 35, and his three siblings: Kane, six, Aurora, four, and Colson, six months.

The five family members were all killed by gunshots to the head.

Sisk originally told police he was in his family’s basement playing video games when he heard the gunshots. He claimed he did not see the killers, who drove off by the time he came upstairs.

But just hours later, Sisk confessed to the killings during an interrogation with sheriff’s deputies.

‘I was fed up of all the fighting, and yeah, I killed them,’ he said in a video shown to the jury.

Sisk’s defense attorneys tried to argue that the confession was coerced, and that interrogators used a manipulative technique to deceive the teenager.

They also noted that the interrogator, former Sheriff Mike Blakely, was convicted of theft and using his office for personal gain in 2021.

A jury found Sisk guilty of all five murders in April. He was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday.

I can think on one hand of the five most dangerous people that I have ever dealt with in my career, and Mason Sisk is at the top of that list,’ District Attorney Brian CT Jones told reporters outside the courthouse.

‘Mason Sisk has been removed from our community and our society today. Judge Wise’s order will ensure that this monster will not threaten our children.’

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A Georgia grand jury investigating ex-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election recommended charges against more of his allies including three lawmakers.

The special grand jury called for indictments against 39 people – a much larger pool compared to the 19 including Trump that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged under the state’s anti-racketeering law.

Among those who were not indicted but jurors saw fit to be charged are former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and former Georgia GOP senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

The nine-page unredacted report was released on Friday. Though parts of the report were unveiled in February, they did not reveal the jurors’ recommendations on who exactly they thought should be indicted.

Graham, who has gone golfing with Trump, asked Georgia officials to look into absentee ballots after Joe Biden garnered more votes in the election. Loeffler and Perdue were the two senators representing Georgia at the time.

Other individuals jurors called to be indicted were Trump’s adviser Boris Epshteyn and lawyers Cleta Mitchell and Lin Wood. 

The grand jury ‘contained no election law experts or criminal lawyers’, according to the report.

But ‘the majority of this Grand Jury used their collective best efforts… to attend every session, listen to every witness, and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained,’ it stated.

Trump on Friday afternoon slammed the grand jury report.

‘It has ZERO credibility and badly taints Fani Willis and this whole political Witch Hunt,’ wrote Trump on his Truth Social platform.

‘Essentially, they wanted to indict anybody who happened to be breathing at the time.

‘It totally undermines the credibility of the findings, and badly hurts the Great State of Georgia, whose wonderful and patriotic people are not happy with this charade of an out of control “prosecutor” doing the work of, and for, the DOJ. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!’

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in February delayed the release of the list of people to protect their due process rights.

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The American researcher that got sick over 3,000 feet deep inside a sinkhole shared a video message, thanking supporters on the surface.

Mark Dickey, a 40-year-old cave rescuer and researcher, became stuck in the Morca Sinkhole after he was struck with gastrointestinal bleeding at a depth of 3,674 feet underground.

Days later, a massive effort to rescue the trapped researcher began as over 150 rescuers from at least six countries made camp outside the sinkhole in southern Turkey.

‘I want to thank everyone that’s down here and the response from the caving community,’ Dickey said in a video message shared by the Turkish communication directorate. ‘The caving world is a really tight-knit group and it is amazing to see how many people have responded from the surface’

It is unclear exactly when the video was filmed, as Dickey says communication with the surface takes one to two days.

Rescuers have since delivered IV fluids and a total of 4 liters of blood to the caver’s base camp, which is located 3,412 feet down the sinkhole.

AFAD, Turkey’s disaster relief agency, said the doctors sent into the cave were ‘very successful in treating him.’

‘I don’t quite know what’s happened, but I do know that the quick response of the Turkish government to get the medical supplies that I needed in my opinion saved my life,’ Dickey said. ‘I was very close to the edge when Jessica got that to me.’

‘As you can see, I’m up, I’m alert, I’m talking, but I’m not healed on the inside yet. I need a lot of help to get out of here.’

‘This is a difficult operation,’ said Cenk Yildiz, an AFAD regional officer. ‘It would take a (healthy) person 16 hours to come out. This operation will last at least three or four days.’

Dickey also thanked the rescue team, which was coordinated by the European Cave Rescue Association (ECRA).

According to the organization, Dickey serves as the secretary of the ECRA’s medical committee.

‘We take care of our own, and it’s really special to be taken care of,’ Dickey said.

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The New York City townhouse of the late Ivana Trump has not sold after being on the market for almost a year and has gotten a multi-mullion-dollar price cut.

Former President Donald Trump’s first wife was found dead in her Upper East Side residence in July 2022.

Her historic limestone home has seen a $4million price cut from its initial ask and sits on the marking for $22.5million, according to its StreetEasy listing updated on Thursday. The 15% price cut was reported by the New York Post.

Ivana, 73, was found ‘unconscious and unresponsive’ at the bottom of the grand staircase of her 8,725-square-foot home at East 64th Street. She died of blunt force injuries to her torso from falling down the stairs, according to a medical examiner.

She bought the townhome for $2.5million, which would be the equivalent of about $5.4million today, after divorcing Trump in 1992.

The six-story home has 17 rooms including five bedrooms, and five-and-a-half bathrooms. Ivana, who was a Czech-American businesswoman, added chandeliers, gold-colored fixtured and an animal print-colored library among other design details fitting her style.

‘My mom absolutely loved that house,’ Ivana’s second eldest son Eric Trump told the Wall Street Journal last year.

He said the furniture could be negotiated to be sold along with the townhouse.

Ivana willed for the proceeds of her home to be split evenly among her three children: Eric, her eldest son Donald Trump Jr and daughter Ivanka Trump, all whom she raised there.

She left nothing for the ex-president – while reportedly trying to give another ex-husband, Rossano Rubicondi, property she had in St Tropez.

Ivana spent her the fall and spring in New York, the summers in St Tropez and winters in Miami.

In her book Raising Trump published in 2017, Ivana described one living room in her Manhattan townhome as ‘how Louis XVI would have lived if he had had money’.

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An Alaska couple lost nearly everything when their entire home crumbled into a river overflowing from a glacial collapse – including their beloved cat Leo.

A video of the large two-story home in Juneau falling into the swollen Mendenhall River on August 5 went viral.

The white and gray-colored house hung at the edge of the river and tilted into the rushing water, then its roof slid off and the walls shattered into a mound of debris.

At the time, Elizabeth Wilkins, a teacher residing in the home, hoped and had faith that their black-and-white cat had survived. She and her partner Tom Schwartz rescued their ‘Covid kitten’ in 2020 and the resilient feline isn’t even afraid of bears.

Twenty-six days later, Tony Mead shared a picture of Leo on the Juneau Community Collective’s Facebook page. Wilkins recognized Leo immediately and contacted Mead.

‘I just started walking down the street calling for him, and he just ran out and was like, “Oh hey, here I am, you know, like, where have you been?”‘ said Wilkins.

‘I knew that he’s pretty smart, and so I felt pretty confident that he would escape and be OK somewhere.’

Wilkins said that Leo was ‘a little thinner but otherwise totally fine’.

‘He ate four cans of tuna and went outside to kill a mouse,’ she said. ‘I imagine that is how he survived.’

Wilkins and Schwartz were away mountain biking in Bend, Oregon, when a side basin of the Mendenhall Glacier, called the Suicide Basin, broke off and caused the flooding. The pair had moved into the home not long before the natural disaster.

A three-story building next to the couple’s home also hung over the river and fell shortly after.

The couple returned three days after the incident to figure out a new home and look for Leo.

‘People have been finding some things, like some of our clothes and pictures were in 4 feet of silt in someone’s yard down the Mendenhall River,’ Wilkins said.

There were several apparent sightings of Leo, but Wilkins said it could have been other black-and-white cats in the neighborhood. Reuniting with Leo has been a bright spot for the couple.

‘It’s super joyful because everyone in their community was looking for him,’ she said, ‘And it’s nice to have some good news.’

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A man in New York City was killed after a Peloton exercise bike severed his artery, a lawsuit against the company claims.

Ryan Furtado, 32, was found dead in his Downtown Brooklyn apartment in January 2022 after completing a workout on his exercise bike.

His mother, Johanna Furtado, is now suing the exercise bike company, claiming that the company failed to properly warn users about unsafe practices.

According to the suit, Furtado purchased the bike in July 2021. Five months later, he was killed during a ‘core’ workout.

‘The workout requires riders to disembark the bike to conduct exercises on the floor,’ the lawsuit reads. ‘When rising from these exercises, Ryan used the bike assist him in getting up.’

It was then that the bike ‘spun around and impacted him on his neck and face, severing his carotid artery in his neck and killing him instantly.’

Furtado was found by NYPD officers with the bike still sitting on his face, the suit claims.

According to the plaintiff, the bike was ‘defective and unreasonably dangerous’ due to insufficient warnings.

They also claim that Peloton trainers demonstrated stretches using the bike for support, which applies pressure to the appliance causing it to ‘destabilize and fall.’

In a response letter filed in June, Peloton claimed that Furtado’s death was due to his ‘own negligence, intentional act and/or fault.’

Furtado’s mother is seeking damages for her pain and suffering, as well as funds to cover her son’s medical and funeral expenses.

Furtado’s death is not the first attributed to a Peloton machine. In March 2021, a three-year-old child was killed after suffering a severe brain injury on a Peloton treadmill.

Peloton has since discontinued the model that caused the injury, the Peloton Tread Plus.

Earlier this year, Peloton recalled over 2.2million bikes due to an issue with their seats, which the company said could cause a ‘potential fall and injury risk.’

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The manufacturer of an extremely spicy tortilla chip used for the ‘One Chip Challenge’ is pulling the product off shelves after a teenager died hours after eating the snack.

Paqui, a tortilla chip brand owned by the Hershey Company, announced it would remove the ‘One Chip Challenge,’ which was sold as a single-serve snack due to its increasing popularity with children and teenagers.

On September 1, Harris Wolobah, a 14-year-old from Worcester, Massachusetts, was brought home from school after eating the spicy chip.

Hours later, he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Wolobah’s cause of death will be determined after an autopsy conducted by the Massachusetts Medical Examiner’s office.

‘The Paqui One Chip Challenge is intended for adults only,’ the company said in a statement.

‘We have seen an increase in teens and other individuals not heeding these warnings. As a result, while the product continues to adhere to food safety standards, out of an abundance of caution, we are working with our retailers to remove the product from shelves.’

The company is also offering refunds for customers who purchased the snack.

Before the recall, Paqui had marketed the chips on social media, encouraging influencers and celebrities to take the challenge.

It instructed participants to eat the entire chip, then refrain from eating or drinking anything for relief for as long as possible.

The chips were coated with a seasoning made from two of the spiciest chili peppers in the world: the Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper.

Instructions and information about the challenge have since been removed from Paqui’s website.

The company also placed a large warning on the snack’s website and packaging, instructing consumers to keep the chips out of the reach of children.

It also warned consumers to seek medical attention if they experience ‘difficulty breathing, fainting, or extended nausea.’

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A three-legged bear hobbled into the patio of a home and helped itself to three White Claw hard seltzers.

Tripod, as the bear was affectionately known in the neighborhood, made its way around the lanai as a boy watched in fear from inside the home.

‘Bear in my patio guys, what the f***,’ says the boy, Joseph Diglio, who recorded through a window. ‘This is Tripod guys.’

Surveillance footage inside the home showed the boy leading his barking dog to an area of the home away from the bear.

‘Oh my god, look at it, he’s coming. This guy’s trying to eat the food here,’ Joseph is heard saying.

‘Oh my god, this is like once in a lifetime.’

Joseph’s video from Saturday shows the bear opening a refrigerator in the patio and going through the items.

‘He just opened the door,’ Joseph says. ‘He’s about to take the beer.’

Joseph’s mother, Josaury Faneite-Diglio, said the extent of the damage to their home in Lake Mary, Florida, was some lost refreshments and a hole in a screen.

‘He ate the fish food we had outside next to our fish tank and then proceeded to the bar,’ Faneite-Diglio told the TV station.

‘He took three White Claws, drank and left very happy. His favorite flavor is mango and strawberry.’

Joseph admitted that he grew afraid when he saw the bear open the fridge door and assumed it was capable of opening doors into the house.

But his mother did not sweat the incident.

‘I was not scared because we know the bear really well. He lives here; we respect their habitat as much as we can,’ she said.

‘Just part of living where we live, honestly.’

It happened just a few months after a bear made its way into the living room of a home in upstate New York and snooped through the kitchen. The family dog bravely scared the bear off.

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Rescuers in southern Turkey are racing to save an American researcher who became trapped over 3,000 feet down a sinkhole.

Mark Dickey, an American researcher and experienced caver, was exploring the Morca Sinkhole on September 2 when he became ill with gastrointestinal bleeding, the European Cave Rescue Association (ECRA) said.

The Morca Sinkhole is a 3,675 foot deep cave located in the Taurus Mountains, close to the Turkish city of Mersin. It is the third deepest cave in Turkey, and the 38th deepest in the world.

Dickey, 40, is an experienced cave rescuer who serves as secretary of the ECRA’s medical committee, which is now tasked with coordinating his rescue.

According to the organization, he is a ‘well-known figure in the international speleological community, a highly trained caver, and a cave rescuer himself.’

Dickey fell ill at a depth of 3,674 feet, and was pulled up to the cavers’ base camp located at 3,412 feet below ground.

The team initially called for help asking for medication for the researcher, who they hoped would be able to recover and make it out of the cave by himself.

The next day, however, they called for more help due to the ‘rising destabilization’ of Dickey’s circulation.

Rescuers have since delivered a total of 10 units of blood to Dickey, who continues to suffer from the gastrointestinal bleeding.

‘His condition appears to have improved slightly compared to yesterday, and hearing about the rescue efforts has boosted his morale,’ the Speleological Federation of Turkey, a member of the ECRA, said on Thursday.

However, he still requires a stretcher in order to move, the rescuers said.

The expedition has since asked for international help through the ECRA. ‘Rescue missions from such deepness are very rare, extremely difficult and need many very experienced cave rescuers,’ the organization said.

Over 170 doctors, paramedics, and cavers have now set up camp outside the sinkhole. The Speleological Federation of Turkey called it ‘logistically and technically one of the largest cave rescues in the world.’

In ideal conditions, it usually takes an experienced caver about 15 hours to climb out of Morca Sinkhole, which the ECRA says has ‘narrow winding passages.’

But in this case, experts are estimating the rescue could take as long as three weeks.

As of September 7, there are teams from Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia, and Poland working to get Dickey out of the cave.

They are planning to start the extraction process on Saturday or Sunday, and are currently setting up bivouac points for Dickey to rest along the way.

The current plan is to pull Dickey up through the cave using a stretcher connected to ropes lines.

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