In France, Louvre reopens after weekend robbery
The Louvre Museum in Paris reopened Wednesday after thieves stole crown jewels worth $102 million in just seven minutes last weekend.
Over 100 investigators are working on the case as forensics experts analyze surveillance footage, including newly surfaced recordings of the thieves escaping, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told the Associated Press.
At 9:30 a.m. on Sunday — just 30 minutes after the museum opened — thieves parked a truck on the sidewalk beside the museum, alongside the Seine River. Two individuals dressed as renovation workers were lifted using a portable electric ladder and broke in through the window of a balcony, triggering alarms at the security control room. They entered the Galerie d’Apollon, where the country’s crown jewels are stored, and stole eight objects using disc cutters to break the glass display cases.
Seven minutes later, a message was sent to staff requesting all doors be shut, but the thieves escaped using the same window and fled on motorcycles with two others waiting for them. During their escape, the group left behind Empress Eugenie’s crown, featuring 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, which was found outside the museum. Authorities said they are using the item among other evidence for the investigation.
The costly robbery reignited criticism over security concerns at the world’s most visited museum, along with a lack of training for security guards, who have long complained about working conditions. A staff of about 1,200 guards, along with a permanent team of 52 firefighters from the French military, work to protect the Louvre.
Sunday’s heist revealed a lack of outdoor security cameras, among other “weaknesses” at the Louvre, museum director Laurence des Cars told the French Senate.
In Hong Kong, airport runway closed after cargo plane crash
The north runway at Hong Kong International Airport, the world’s busiest cargo airport, is temporarily closed after rescue vessels salvaged a plane that slid off its path and killed two security workers.
At around 4 a.m. on Monday, an ACT Airlines plane — a Turkish freight carrier operated on behalf of Emirates — was landing from Dubai when it veered off the runway. It subsequently collided with a security patrol car, pushing it into the South China Sea and killing two workers in the vehicle. Authorities said the plane’s four crew members survived.
When the first rescue teams arrived, the aircraft was split in two and floating in the sea near the north runway. After a 40-minute underwater search, the two workers were found trapped in the car, fire service official Yiu Men-yeung said.
Two rescue vessels arrived on Thursday morning and will later be accompanied by a specialist equipment team of 80 divers, machinists, boatmen and engineers. Operations to salvage the aircraft began that morning and are expected to “last for a few days,” the airport said.
Flight operations and the airport’s two other runways remain open, while the north runway will reopen after safety inspections are complete, authorities said.
In the United Kingdom, a British soldier is acquitted for 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre
A British former paratrooper was found not guilty of five counts of murder on Thursday, over 50 years after his unit killed unarmed civilians in Northern Ireland.
Soldier F — an alias used to protect the paratrooper’s identity under court order — was a lance corporal in the parachute regiment during a civil rights march on Bloody Sunday, one of the deadliest days of The Troubles, a nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland. The trial was pushed for by relatives of those killed and injured during the event.
Court proceedings took place Sept. 15, and Belfast Crown Court Judge Patrick Lynch said in a judgement summary that the evidence presented against the former paratrooper “falls well short” of what was required for conviction.
Bloody Sunday took place on Jan. 30, 1972 in Derry after British troops open fired with high-power combat rifles at a crowd of around 15,000 at a civil rights march, killing over a dozen people. In addition to the five attempted murder counts, Soldier F was also on trial for the deaths of James Wray and William McKinney.
The court’s decision brought disapproval from families of those killed and injured, including Michelle O’Neill, first minister of Northern Ireland and vice president of Sinn Féin, an Irish Nationalist party. “The continued denial of justice for the Bloody Sunday families is deeply disappointing,” O’Neill wrote in an X post. “Fifty three years ago, the British Army indiscriminately murdered civilians on the streets of Derry … Yet, not one British soldier or their military and political superiors has ever been held to account.”
Contact Eva Mundo at [email protected].