Sledgehammer gang's daring daylight jewellery raid foiled by 50 angry shoppers

A daylight jewellery store raid was foiled yesterday when members of the public wrestled a masked robber to the ground.

Five sledgehammer-wielding thieves arrived on motorbikes and smashed their way into the shop on a busy London street, grabbing armfuls of watches from the front window.

But as they made their getaway, passers-by pulled one from his bike and pinned him down until police arrived.

The four remaining robbers, who wore dark clothing and balaclavas, fled the scene and tried to hide in a nearby park, but three were caught.

Among the heroes outside the Ernest Jones jewellery store in High Street Kensington was Charlie Masud Riyahi, 51, who wrestles as a hobby.

 

Got him: The robber is pinned down by the crowd after smashing into the jewellery store in central London

Daylight robbery: A gang armed with sledgehammers smashed the windows of the Ernest Jones jewellery store in High Street Kensington before grabbing armfuls of watches worth around £400,000

Eye-witnesses told how a mob of more than 50 people tackled one robber as he tried to make his getaway in scenes of 'mayhem' similar to a medieval 'hue and cry' or a Hollywood film

'Depraved' gang leader who forced 91-year-old woman to perform sex act on her elderly carer is jailed indefinitely

A depraved gang leader who filmed himself humiliating a 91-year-old woman and her carer at knife-point has been jailed indefinitely for an attack that filled a judge with 'utter revulsion'.

Michael Lewis, 21, who led the Brixton Hill Blood gang in south London, is believed to have made the film as a 'trophy' to show other members.

The fiend broke into the 91-year-old woman's flat and filmed her carrying out sex acts with her elderly carer before cutting the phone line and threatening to return if they called the police.

Lewis, known as 'Joker 187 General' - 187 being the code for murder in the US - will serve at least eight years before he can be considered for parole after being branded a 'danger to the public'.

Male escort who visited Saudi prince's hotel room stripped to give him a massage and was paid in £50 notes, court told

A male escort told the Saudi Prince Old Bailey murder trial today that he stripped to give the prince a massage but could not be sure there was a 'sexual element' to it.

Student Pablo Silva said he had visited the hotel room of Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud two weeks before he allegedly murdered Bandar Abdulaziz, 32, during a ferocious attack with a 'sexual element' on February 15.

The 34-year-old denies murder and a second count of grievous bodily harm with intent in relation to an alleged assault on Mr Abdulaziz in a lift on January 22.

His lawyer, John Kelsey-Fry QC, today denied the suggestion that the two men were in a gay relationship.

Prosecutors claim two male escorts had visited the prince at the Landmark Hotel in Marylebone, central London.

Trial: Al Saud, left, on his way to City of Westminster magistrates court in a prison van for his original hearing following the death of Bandar Abdulaziz, right

Terror on campus: Students dive for cover as gunman carrying AK47 opens fire in library of University of Texas

A man wearing a ski mask opened fire with an AK-47 inside a University of Texas library yesterday morning, then fatally shot himself, police said.

Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old maths sophomore wearing a ski mask and a dark suit, began shooting near a fountain in front of the UT Tower.

The site is infamous for being the site of one of America's deadliest shooting rampages more than four decades ago, when a gunman ascended the clock tower and fired down on dozens of people.

He then turned the gun on himself. No one else was killed or injured - despite there being many people around.

The nearly 50,000-student campus was put on lockdown while officers with bomb-sniffing dogs carried out a building-by-building manhunt for a possible second suspect.

 

Troops get into position after the shooting. Police said the gunman opened fire then fatally shot himself, but police were searching for a possible second suspect

Austin PD officers stand at the intersection of 21st and Speedway, in front of the Perry-Castaneda Library, where shots were fired Tuesday morning

Girl, 15, who went on a post-Christmas diet dies from anorexia in a year

When Anna Wood said she was joining her mother on a post-Christmas diet, they expected to lose a few pounds then carry on life as normal.

But within months the grade-A student at an independent school was caught in the grip of a terrible eating disorder.

Her battle with anorexia took her through several crises, all the time reducing her frail body’s ability to survive.

And just over a year after starting the diet, she died aged 16.

A shadow of her former self: Anna in the grip of her anorexia and before she started the diet that ended up causing her death

The moment robbers armed with Kalashnikovs raid Bureau de Change and escape with hostage

This is the moment armed robbers raided a Bureau de Change in broad daylight, making off with bags of cash and gold.

Extraordinary pictures show how the four men, wearing balaclavas over their heads and dressed top to toe in black, held up the shop in the centre of Lyon in France.

The raid yesterday happened at around 3.15pm - and it was all the more audacious because the Bureau de Change is right opposite the city's town hall.

The robbers, who witnesses said were armed with Kalashnikovs, could be seen climbing running in and out of the building.

Broad daylight: Robbers raiding the Bureau de Change in Lyon yesterday

Terror: A male hostage is manhandled towards the robbers' Mercedes

Wife accused of murdering her cheating husband by setting him on fire 'only wanted to burn his genitals'

A woman who believed her husband was having an affair murdered him by pouring petrol over his body and setting him alight.

However, Rajini Narayan claimed to neighbour that she had only wanted to burn his private parts.

The 46-year-old pleaded not guilty today at the South Australian Supreme Court to the murder of her husband of 20 years Satish Narayan, 47, in 2008.

She said that although he had subjected her to physical and emotional abuse during that time, she still loved him as a 'god'.

Defendant: Rajani Narayan told neighbours after the blaze that it 'wasn't an accident', a court heard in Adelaide

Supermodel Heidi Mount's husband accused of raping woman at London Fashion Week

The husband of a model has been arrested over allegations he raped a woman during London Fashion Week.

Shawn Mount, 30, who ismarried to Chanel model Heidi Mount, 23, is accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a five-star London hotel.

The top New York hairstylist is alleged to have carried out the attack after he and his 24-year-old accuser, who cannot be named for legal reasons, attended a party together.

Mount's wife was on an assignment in Milan when the alleged incident happened.

Fashionable couple: Stylist Shawn and Heidi Mount married in 2007

Devoted father: Shawn with his young son Liam

Police Kill Discovery Gunman, 3 Hostages Safe - Man Holds Hostages in Discovery Building

Police kill gunman who held 3 at Discovery Channel

A man who railed against the Discovery Channel's environmental programming for years burst into the company's headquarters with at least one explosive device strapped to his body Wednesday and took three people hostage at gunpoint before police shot him to death, officials said.

The hostages — two Discovery Communications employees and a security guard — were unhurt after the four-hour standoff. Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said tactical officers moved in after officers monitoring the gunman on building security cameras saw him pull out a handgun and point it at a hostage.

In this image released by the Montgomery County Police, James J. Lee is seen is a booking mugshot from 2008 on disorderly conduct. Lee, 43, a gunman with what police described as "concerns" with the Discovery Channel networks took at least one person hostage in the company's Silver Spring, Md., headquarters Wednesday, Spet. 1, 2010. A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing said authorities have identified Lee as the likely suspect.


Maryland State Police troopers, walk near the Discovery Channel network building in Silver Spring, Md., Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. Police shot and killed a man upset with the Discovery Channel network's programming who took two employees and a security officer hostage at the company's headquarters Wednesday, officials said. All three hostages escaped safely

Mexican troops hunt killers of 72 migrants

Mexican troops fanned out in the remote countryside near the Texas border yesterday as they hunted the perpetrators of the worst massacre in the country’s escalating drug war.

With helicopters overhead, heavily armed patrols in armoured personnel carriers, trucks and jeeps swept though towns and cities in the border region a day after the bodies of 72 people were found in an empty building at a remote ranch.

The victims, believed to be Central and South American migrants, appeared to have been blindfolded and bound before they were lined up against a wall and gunned down.

Photographs showed bloodstained bodies heaped on the ground at the ranch in Tamaulipas state, which has become the scene of some of Mexico’s worst drug violence as the Gulf cartel and a spinoff group, the Zetas, fight over smuggling routes.

The blindfolded and hand-tied bodies of people thought to be migrant workers lie at a ranch where they were discovered by Mexican marines in San Fernando, Tamaulipas state.

Swedish police to question WikiLeaks founder

Swedish police are to question WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over alleged molestation, Sweden’s chief prosecutor said yesterday, but a second case against him has been dropped, she said.

“The investigation is still going on. I find there is a suspicion of molestation,” Eva Finne told Reuters Television.

“I’m going to tell the investigator to contact the suspect’s lawyer and they decide when it’s possible to hold an interrogation,” she said.

Assange, an Australian behind the whistle-blowing website, had been accused by two women of sexual molestation in Sweden, where he has spent the past couple of weeks.

Finne said there were no grounds to continue an investigation into a case which initially led a duty prosecutor to issue an arrest warrant for Assange for suspected rape.

That warrant was dropped on Saturday.

Drug hitmen dump 72 bodies at Mexican ranch

Mexican marines found 72 corpses at a remote ranch near the US border, the Mexican navy said yesterday, the biggest single discovery of its kind in Mexico’s increasingly bloody drug war.

The marines came across the bodies of 58 men and 14 women, thought to be migrant workers, on Tuesday at the ranch in Tamaulipas state, 90 miles from the Texas border, after a series of firefights with drug gang members.

Three gunmen and a marine died in the firefights, while another suspected gang member was arrested and several others escaped, a navy spokesman said.

Kenya seizes tonnes of illegal elephant tusks bound for Malaysia

Kenyan authorities have intercepted more than two tonnes of elephant tusks and rhino horns disguised as fruit destined for export to Malaysia.

Most of the tusks seemed to have been collected from natural deaths of about 150 elephants and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said it was yet to determine their origin.

“The cargo, which was falsely declared as containing only fresh avocado fruits, was packed in 12 wooden boxes, which raised a red flag due to its mode of package, weight and destination,” KWS said in a statement today.

Inside, it found 317 elephant tusks and five rhino horns.

This year alone, authorities have intercepted wildlife contraband in Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong, KWS said.

A Kenya Wildlife Service officer stands guard near the shipment of elephant tusks and rhino horns intercepted at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the capital Nairobi today, August 23, 2010

Sweden drops arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder

Sweden has withdrawn an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who had been wanted on suspicion of rape and molestation, the National Prosecutor’s Office said today.

It said in a statement on its website that Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne had determined there were not enough grounds for the warrant.

Van Gogh painting stolen in Egypt, fate unclear

A Van Gogh painting worth an estimated US$55 million was stolen from a Cairo museum yesterday and after reporting it had been recovered, the state news agency quoted a minister as saying it was still missing.

Citing Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, the MENA news agency reported that security had caught a young Italian man with the painting by the Dutch post-Impressionist master at the airport and also had detained an Italian woman with him.

Later the agency, which said the painting was worth an estimated $55 million (RM172.73 million), issued another statement from the minister saying “measures were continuing to recover the painting”, which according to the Arabic statement was called the “Poppy Flower”.

man looks at Two Cut Sunflowers (left) and Basket of Oranges by Van Gogh at the Royal Academy of Arts in London January 19, 2010.

Body of kidnapped mayor dumped in northern Mexico

Security forces found the body of a slain mayor yesterday near Mexico’s richest city, days after he was abducted by hitmen in the latest attack on a public official by increasingly bold drug cartels.

President Felipe Calderon, who has staked his presidency on a faltering drug war, condemned the “cowardly assassination” of Edelmiro Cavazos, the mayor of a town on the outskirts of Monterrey, an industrial centre with close US business ties.

A Mexican soldier displays an AK-47 rifle seized from suspected drug traffickers at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence in Mexico City yesterday, August 18, 2010.

Singer in Germany's top girl band facing jail as she admits having sex with men without telling them she had HIV

Appearing for a TV performance in Nuremberg, the four members of the group were in their heyday compared to the Spice Girls or Girls Aloud. L-R Nadja Benaissa, Lucy Diakowska, Sandy M lling, and Jessica Wahls

A singer in a girl band is facing the threat of a long jail term for having unprotected sex with several men without telling them she was HIV positive.

Nadja Benaissa appeared in court yesterday charged with grievous bodily harm for allegedly infecting one of her lovers with the virus.

The 28-year-old has also been charged with attempted aggravated assault for allegedly having unprotected sex with two other men who did not contract HIV.

Four killed and four wounded in U.S. after gun attack on wedding reception restaurant

Bullet-ridden: A firefighter looks at the damage to the City Grill in Buffalo, New York. Four people were killed and a further four injured in the shooting, which occurred around 2.30am today

A shooting outside a U.S. restaurant early this morning left four people dead and four wounded, police said.

The restaurant in central Buffalo, New York State, had been holding a pre-wedding party earlier in the night - and some reports say that one of the dead was the intended groom, who had flown in from Texas and was due to be married today.

Witnesses say a fight had spilled out onto the street outside, where the shootings took place.

Google under probe in South Korea over data collection

South Korean police said they raided Google Inc’s Seoul office today on suspicion that the Internet search leader had illegally collected data on users.

Google has been preparing since late last year to launch its “Street View” service in South Korea and the data collection was related to the launch, police said.

The probe in one of Asia’s most wired countries came as a fresh setback to Google, which already faces investigation over “Street View” by the US Federal Trade Commission, a variety of probes overseas and class action lawsuits.