World News

IDF Raises Israeli Flag Over Beaufort Castle After Capturing Hezbollah Stronghold   

Israeli troops have raised Israeli and Golani Brigade flags over Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon after capturing the strategic hilltop position during recent operations aimed at dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure in the area, according to the Israel Defense Forces.   

The operation brought Israeli forces to one of the most prominent positions in southern Lebanon. The military said troops advanced beyond the Litani River near Metula and reached the fortress, which commands views of both northern Israel and the Nabatieh region.   

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the area surrounding Beaufort and Wadi Saluki has served as a major Hezbollah operational zone. The military said the armed group established significant infrastructure there with Iranian assistance and used the area to coordinate attacks and launch hundreds of rockets at Israel and Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon.   

The military said forces remain active near Nabatieh and are prepared to broaden operations.    

“The IDF is operating near Nabatieh, a significant Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon, and is prepared to expand the offensive as required,” the military said, “to destroy [Hezbollah] infrastructure and eliminate terrorists, as part of strengthening operational control in southern Lebanon and removing the direct threat to the Galilee Panhandle and Metula,” as well as to “expand the forward defense line.”   

Defense Minister Israel Katz said the return to Beaufort carried symbolic significance because of the site’s history in Israel’s military campaigns in Lebanon.   

“Forty-four years after the heroic Battle of the Beaufort, and on the memorial day for the Peace for the Galilee War, including the Golani soldiers who fell in the Battle of the Beaufort, IDF soldiers, led by the Golani Brigade, returned to the summit of Beaufort and once again raised the Israeli flag and the Golani flag there,” Katz said.   

The Crusader-built fortress was first captured by Israeli forces during the opening stages of the First Lebanon War in 1982. During that battle, Golani Brigade soldiers fought members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) at the site. Dozens of PLO fighters were killed, while six Israeli soldiers lost their lives. Israeli forces remained at the position until the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. 

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Pezeshkian Submits Resignation as Iran’s President Citing IRGC Power Grab – Report  

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has submitted a resignation letter to the Office of the Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, citing his exclusion from key decision-making processes and the growing role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in governing the country, according to a report by Iran International.  

The report said Pezeshkian requested to step down immediately, arguing that he could no longer effectively lead the government or fulfill his legal responsibilities because major decisions were being made outside his administration.  

The claim has not been confirmed by Iranian authorities or major international wire services, and there was no immediate indication that the resignation had been accepted.  

According to Iran International, Pezeshkian stated that the IRGC had assumed control over critical areas of governance while sidelining the civilian government. The outlet reported that the transfer of authority had left the president’s administration unable to advance diplomatic negotiations or implement planned changes to the cabinet structure.  

Iran International previously reported that the IRGC had gradually curtailed presidential powers and taken control of key parts of the government. The outlet said informed sources described a political and executive deadlock that had limited the administration’s ability to carry out policy initiatives.  

The report also said that key decision-making authority had shifted from the civilian government to senior IRGC figures and the Supreme Leader, resulting in blocked executive decisions and diplomatic efforts being pushed aside.  

According to The Jerusalem Post, the IRGC controls an estimated 20% to 40% of Iran’s economy. The newspaper reported that the organization bypasses international sanctions through “dark fleet” oil tankers and smuggling networks and commands the majority of the country’s oil exports, directing revenue into its military-industrial complex.  

The Council on Foreign Relations has reported that the IRGC operates an internal security and intelligence network that includes the Basij militia. According to the organization, the force monitors dissent and plays a role in ensuring that only candidates aligned with the IRGC are permitted to hold significant political power.  

It remains unclear whether Mojtaba Khamenei will accept Pezeshkian’s reported resignation. 

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PARIS (AP) — French police detained 780 people involved in violent clashes in Paris and other French cities that erupted Saturday night after Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League title.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 57 officers were wounded, with most suffering minor injuries, as football fans set off fires and vandalized shops. One small group even tried to storm a Paris police station.

Nuñez said at a news conference Sunday that “the situation has been largely brought under control.”

“Most of the celebrations took place peacefully” across the French capital, he said, noting most incidents happened in the Champs Elysees neighborhood and close to the Parc des Princes stadium in western Paris where fans had gathered to watch the match.

Police also intervened five times overnight to prevent people from blocking traffic on the main ring road around Paris, he said.

Nuñez said incidents took place in about 15 cities in France, describing “one to two” shops vandalized in each other than Paris. He said 780 people were detained in all, with 480 of them in the Paris area alone.

The Paris prosecutors’ office said 277 people have been formally placed in police custody, including 82 minors, for alleged offences. Most were for assault of police officers while other allegations include theft, vandalism and disturbing the public order.

One serious accident involved a driver losing control of a car that rammed into a restaurant’s terrace, leaving two people wounded including one seriously, Nuñez said.

But Nuñez said that planned celebrations for the team’s win on Sunday afternoon at the Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower, would go ahead as scheduled. He warned that police would respond with “firmness and determination” to any potential violence.

The PSG team will then be hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee presidential palace.

Fans began celebrating in Paris after the final whistle Saturday evening in Budapest, Hungary, where Paris Saint-Germain won by beating Arsenal on penalties in a dramatic final.

Fans marched along the avenues near Paris’ Arc de Triomphe monument, with some setting off flares and blaring car horns. Around 20,000 people gathered on the Champs-Elysees, where police worked to contain the crowd.

The Paris police prefecture said smaller groups caused disturbances in various locations, with some vandalizing shops and setting fires to garbage and self-service bicycles in the streets. Cars were also set ablaze. Those who attempted to storm a police station in the posh 8th Arrondissement neighborhood were dispersed, police said.

In May last year following PSG’s first title, 201 people were injured in the French capital and police made more than 500 arrests across France.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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By Anthony Deutsch

IZIUM, Ukraine, May 31 (Reuters) – Roksolana Makar braved icy roads and the threat of drone strikes to interview a woman in the Ukrainian town of Izium who said Russian forces tortured her.

Surrounded by woods and farmland, Izium still bears scars from a 2022 Russian occupation that left bridges smashed and buildings flattened. The woman told Makar, a war-crimes investigator for a Ukrainian nonprofit, that Russian soldiers detained her at a battery plant for 10 days that year.

There, the woman said, she was beaten, electrically shocked, suffocated with a gas mask and raped.

“I asked them to kill me because I couldn’t take it anymore,” said the woman, 55, who asked to be identified only by one name, Alla.

Horrified by Russia’s alleged atrocities, Makar aims to document such accounts before evidence is destroyed and memories fade. But she worries fewer perpetrators will answer for their crimes after the United States stopped funding her organization, Truth Hounds, and dozens of others seeking justice in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.

Since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, the U.S. has championed accountability for many of the world’s worst atrocities, supporting investigations and tribunals. But the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump cut tens of millions of dollars in funding for this work last year when it slashed overseas-development aid to advance the president’s “America first” agenda, according to a Reuters review of government data and interviews with eight current and former American officials. Ukraine was the largest single recipient, the officials said.

“There’s less hope” for accountability, Makar said after interviewing Alla in an Izium office in January.

Reuters could not independently verify Alla’s account. The Kremlin and Russia’s defense ministry did not answer questions about her case or other specific incidents in this story. Russia has repeatedly denied committing war crimes, calling the accusations Western propaganda.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office says it has opened more than 230,000 war-crimes cases since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Allegations include targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, abduction and deportation of children, torture and sexual violence.

The deep U.S. aid cuts “could lead to a lot of victims being denied justice,” said Beth Van Schaack, ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice under former President Joe Biden.

The State Department said the U.S. is shifting the war’s financial burden to Europe and other “willing partners” but still provides substantial assistance to Ukraine, including programs for “war crimes, justice and accountability for atrocities.”

To understand the consequences of the cuts, Reuters interviewed more than 40 members of an extensive U.S.-supported network engaged in investigating Ukraine war crimes, aiding prosecutions and supporting victims. They included law enforcement officials, legal experts, human-rights activists and researchers. Almost all said their efforts have been curtailed, hampering investigations and dimming hopes for justice.

Among the examples they provided: Truth Hounds had to lay off staff, suspend an archiving project and defer international-law training for judges and prosecutors.

Dozens of foreign experts who helped collect and analyze battlefield evidence can no longer travel to Ukraine after State reduced support for the country’s overburdened prosecutors, according to five sources familiar with the matter. 

And plans to rebuild a courthouse destroyed in the war were halted after the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and terminated a $62-million program to strengthen the Ukrainian justice system, a source familiar with USAID’s operations said.

TRACKING U.S. DEFUNDING OF WAR-CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY

Russia’s invasion created huge demand in Ukraine for arrests and trials of those accused of atrocities.

Even when U.S. funding peaked under Biden, the burden overwhelmed Ukrainian prosecutors, who had secured 252 war-crimes convictions as of April 1. In addition, the prosecutor’s office said it had identified 1,175 suspects and indicted 842.

High-ranking suspects could be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which has sought the arrest of President Vladimir Putin. Cases are also being pursued in U.S. and European courts.

Reuters tracked more than $283 million in U.S. funding at least substantially earmarked for Ukraine war-crimes initiatives since 2022 through interviews with over two dozen sources and a review of public announcements, government documents and watchdog reports.

The news organization could not establish how much of that money had been disbursed when Trump ordered a pause in foreign-development assistance in January 2025, pending a review, or how much was later reinstated. But programs accounting for at least 40% of the spending were terminated or allowed to expire, Reuters found.

Reuters’ tallies are likely undercounts, but they offer the most comprehensive assessment to date of the U.S. defunding of war-crimes accountability in Ukraine.

Determining exactly how much aid Washington is providing is difficult because of the number of U.S. agencies and recipients involved. Grants are sometimes shared by multiple organizations, span several years or include money for other priorities. The U.S. also provides expertise and intelligence.

A senior source in Ukraine said Trump’s cuts affect about half the country’s U.S.-funded projects promoting war-crimes accountability and rule of law.

The administration has launched one new program. In March, State said it would provide up to $25 million to support the return of missing Ukrainian children, a cause championed by first lady Melania Trump. Recipients have not yet been announced.

The new grant followed cuts to other programs serving the same purpose, including a Yale University initiative that has tracked thousands of missing Ukrainian children to sites in Russia and Russian-occupied territory.

The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab will run out of money in August after State withheld about $8 million in funding, its executive director, Nathaniel Raymond, told Reuters.

A BROADER U.S. RETREAT FROM GLOBAL JUSTICE WORK

Truth Hounds has helped track war-crimes suspects since 2014, when Russian forces seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Reuters accompanied the group’s investigators on a three-day trip to the northeastern Kharkiv region to gather more testimony.

In Izium, netting to prevent Russian drone attacks was draped over roads, and the lights cut out during interviews because of strikes on power infrastructure. The thud of artillery sounded in the distance.

Truth Hounds has documented some 17,000 war-crimes allegations across Ukraine, said the group’s co-executive director, Dmytro Koval. Their work slowed when the organization lost U.S. funding that had covered a third of its budget since 2023.

“Some important lines of inquiry will not be opened at all,” Koval said.

The cuts reflect a broader U.S. pullback from work on human-rights violations.

Last year, Trump’s administration closed a State Department office that had helped coordinate the global response to mass atrocities since 1997, disbanded a Justice Department team helping Ukraine prosecute war crimes and pulled the U.S. out of a multinational group building cases against Russian leaders for the invasion.

The administration also imposed sanctions on ICC officials over attempts to investigate alleged crimes by Israel’s leaders in Gaza and by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. The U.S. is not a member of the ICC and has long rejected its authority to investigate Americans.

Other major donors, including the European Union and Britain, say they remain committed to delivering justice for Ukraine.

But the lost U.S. aid won’t be easily replaced, said Wayne Jordash, deputy lead of an Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA) set up by the U.S., EU and Britain to support the Ukraine prosecutor’s office. Last year, State stopped funding two out of three core organizations in the initiative, including Jordash’s international law foundation, Global Rights Compliance, according to a recent audit by the department’s Office of Inspector General. 

State said it still supports the Ukraine prosecutor’s office, the national police and the ACA initiative, without providing details. The Justice Department said it remains committed to supporting accountability for war crimes.

The British foreign office declined to comment. Since February, Britain has announced an additional £5 million ($6.73 million) to support justice for Ukrainian war-crimes victims and £1.2 million to help verify and trace illegally deported children.

EU foreign affairs spokesperson Anitta Hipper said member states have allocated €10 million ($11.66 million) to create a special tribunal to try senior Russian leaders for aggression against Ukraine and are contributing €1 million toward the creation of an international claims commission to ensure Kyiv is compensated.

In May, the EU announced €50 million in funding for Ukraine’s child protection system and to pursue justice for abducted children.

“Russia will be held accountable,” Hipper said.

A MOTHER’S DESPERATE SEARCH FOR HER SON

For Yuliia Usenko, Ukraine’s lead prosecutor for crimes against children, Yale’s digital investigations have been “invaluable.”

Most alleged crime scenes are in Russian-occupied territory or in Russia, where Ukrainian investigators have no access. Yale’s researchers use satellite imagery, Russian social media posts and other open sources to track children taken to more than 200 sites they say are part of a vast Russian reeducation and militarization network. Some were later placed in Russian foster care or adopted, they said in a series of reports.

War-crimes experts deployed by the ACA have been helping Ukraine sift through cases to identify connections that could indicate a deliberate strategy by Russian leaders.

“We want to show Russia’s true intent is not just to seize a piece of Ukraine’s territory, but much more: to destroy our nation and assimilate it into Russian society,” Usenko said.

Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia of more than 20,500 child deportations or forced transfers and say just over 2,000 children have been returned. Yale researchers estimate 35,000 may have been taken.

Russia denies abducting Ukrainian children, saying it evacuated them from conflict zones for their safety.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that in June 2025 Kyiv provided Moscow with a list of 339 children it said ended up in Russia. Ukrainian officials have said the list was a starting point for negotiations to return all missing children.

Aid groups like the Emile Foundation, which operates in frontline villages, have been using Yale’s findings to help reunite children with their families.

“Without it, we are talking about many years of setbacks,” said Mariam Lambert, co-founder of the Netherlands-based foundation.

The last time Hanna Zamyshliaieva saw her son, Anton Volkovych, was on January 14, 2022, when she visited him at a boarding school for children with special needs in Oleshky. He was 19 and in need of constant care due to a neurological disorder. The mother showed Reuters journalists a photograph of Volkovych sitting in a wheelchair, clutching a stuffed owl.

That February, Russian forces occupied the town in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. Zamyshliaieva kept in touch with the school by phone. But over the coming months, the students and some staff were transferred to locations deeper inside Russian-occupied territory, where she could not reach them, she said.

Of the 87 pupils at Oleshky before the occupation, 13 have returned, Lambert said. Her foundation received a tip about Volkovych’s whereabouts in March, but there has been no confirmation from Russia.

Zamyshliaieva grapples daily with the unbearable uncertainty over whether he has survived the years without the intense care he received at the school.

“I just want to hold him,” she said.

MAKING SURE ‘EVERYONE IS PUNISHED’

Tetiana Popovych is among the Ukrainians demanding justice.

She spent years looking for her son, Vladyslav, who was 29 when he disappeared during Russia’s occupation of Bucha, near Kyiv, early in the war.

Popovych retraced her son’s steps with help from neighbors and returning prisoners of war.

One witness saw Vladyslav, a civilian, hiding in her walnut orchard during an artillery barrage. Another said he bandaged her son’s gunshot wounds before Russian forces captured and beat them.

Finally, a released prisoner told her they had shared a detention cell in the Russian town of Vyazma. She believes he is still there.

“For me it is important that everyone is punished, that everyone is found, no matter how many years have passed,” Popovych said. “I will fight for this until the end.”

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(Additional reporting by Dan Peleschuk in Kyiv and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Alexandra Zavis)

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BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli troops have captured a strategic mountain topped with a Crusader-built castle in southern Lebanon in the deepest incursion of the country in more than a quarter-century, the military said Sunday.

The capture of Beaufort castle, near the city of Nabatiyeh, came after days of airstrikes and intense fighting in nearby villages where Israeli troops fought Hezbollah members in the rugged area.

Its capture marks a major development in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, which began on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the U.S. and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran.

Israel has since launched a ground invasion, capturing dozens of Lebanese villages and towns close to the border. Hezbollah has launched thousands of missiles and drones at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

The Israeli push came despite a nominal ceasefire that has been in place since April 17 and just days before the next round of direct talks are set to be held at the State Department on June 2 and 3 between Lebanon and Israel.

The Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted a photograph on X showing Israeli troops walking outside the castle, and Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that they had raised an Israeli flag over the castle. Israeli troops previously captured the castle in 1982 and held it until they withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.

The Beaufort fortress, perched high atop Lebanon’s rolling green hills and overlooking the Litani River, has been a strategic military asset for many armies over almost 1,000 years.

Built as a Crusader castle around the 12th century on top of previous fortifications, it has been used by the Crusaders, Saladin’s Jerusalem army, Mamlukes, Ottomans, the French mandate, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Israeli military until 2000, when it was partially restored and opened to visitors. The Crusaders named it Beaufort which is Old French for “beautiful fortress.”

The 1982 capture of the castle from the Palestine Liberation Organization was a major victory for the Israeli military that was led at the time by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who later became the country’s prime minister. At the time, the Israeli army pushed all the way north and occupied Beirut.

During the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, UNESCO gave enhanced protection to 34 cultural sites in Lebanon including Beaufort Castle to safeguard it from damage.

The castle is a few kilometers north of the Israel border and overlooks wide parts of southern Lebanon and northern Israel. In Arabic, it is called Al-Shaqif castle, an old Syriac word referring to the formidable rocky area.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it launched an operation a few days ago in the Beaufort Ridge and the Suluki valley further south with the aim of dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure and removing direct threats to Israeli civilians.

The statement said the army is ready “to expand the operation if needed.”

Beaufort is symbolic across the region, including in Israel, where it was one of the most well-known places Israel controlled during the 18 year occupation. One of Israel’s most well-known war films, “Beaufort,” explores the moral questions and reservations and the futility of war, in the last days before the military withdrew.

In recent days, Israel has expanded the scope of its operations in Lebanon, sending troops across the Litani River, which previously served as a de-facto boundary, and demanding that residents leave much of southern Lebanon.

Israel has designated the area from the Litani up to the Zahrani River a combat zone. Some residents have already left the area due to the intense strikes in recent days, but people remain in many of the area’s towns.

Israeli troops have been advancing for days in villages close to Beaufort castle. They are now about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the city of Nabatiyeh, a major center in southern Lebanon, and have called on all its residents to leave, as well as the residents of the coastal city of Tyre, the country’s fourth largest city, and its surroundings.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah or the Lebanese government on the Israeli push.

Hezbollah overnight claimed two attacks targeting Israeli troops and a Merkava tank in the southwestern town of Bayada near the border. In recent days, the group has said it has clashed with Israeli troops in several towns just north of the river near Nabatiyeh and the strategic castle.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported airstrikes on different villages in southern Lebanon, saying they inflicted casualties without giving a breakdown. Hezbollah on Saturday fired salvos of rockets into northern Israel, including Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in the area.

Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond. There have been nearly 200 alerts for Israeli civilians across northern Israel warning of drones and missiles in the past 24 hours, according to Israel’s military.

According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, at least 25 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, including one on Saturday. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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TAIPEI, May 31 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s presidential office condemned China on Sunday after the New York Times said one of its reporters was expelled from the country following an interview the newspaper did with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and Lai as a “separatist.” He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.

The New York Times said on Friday that its reporter Vivian Wang was expelled by China in February.

The paper cited an explanation from Chinese officials that it was in response to its DealBook summit’s December video interview with Lai, and said Wang did not take part.

Taiwan’s presidential office spokesperson Karen Kuo said it was standard practice for Lai to take interviews and explain the government’s stance to the world. 

“China’s use of groundless pretexts and crude methods to threaten the media and interfere with press freedom not only fails to improve its international image, but also highlights that today’s China is indeed a source of instability,” she said in a statement.

Neither China’s foreign ministry nor the U.S. State Department immediately responded to requests for comment.

Wang was previously based in China, where she covered issues including censorship and Beijing’s response to COVID. She also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kuo said that Taiwan “will not be silenced by oppression” and will continue to present its stance to the international community in a “steady and responsible manner”.

Taiwan has complained China has intensified what Taipei calls “transnational repression,” including putting sanctions on Taiwanese officials and lawmakers even though Chinese law has no jurisdiction on the island.

Foreign reporters in China are generally granted only a one-year visa, which must be renewed annually and can be revoked at any time.

China expelled more than a dozen foreign journalists at U.S. media organizations in 2020, amid a series of tit-for-tat actions between the countries. Washington also cut the number of journalists permitted to work in the United States to just four major Chinese state-owned media outlets.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; editing by Barbara Lewis)

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BEIJING, May 31 (Reuters) – A mine shaft collapse during an illegal mining operation in China’s southwestern Yunnan province killed five people and injured one, state media reported, days after the country’s deadliest mining accident since 2009 left at least 82 dead.

The incident occurred around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday (2030 GMT on Saturday) in Yunnan’s Huize County, state news agency Xinhua reported, citing local authorities. The report did not specify what mineral was being mined.

There was only one survivor out of six people rescued from the site and sent to hospital, Xinhua said, and the person was in stable condition.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the incident, which follows the May 22 deadly gas explosion at a coal mine in the northern Shanxi province. Apart from the 82 people killed, two remain missing and 128 were injured.

Chinese authorities have vowed a thorough investigation into the Shanxi disaster, as preliminary findings uncovered unmarked tunnels, missing trackers and fake doors at the mining site.

(Reporting by Ethan Wang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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LONDON (AP) — Scotland’s former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon defiantly rejected any blame Sunday for her estranged husband’s embezzlement of Scottish National Party funds, saying she wouldn’t apologize for his crimes.

Sturgeon told the BBC that she felt betrayed by the actions of her husband, Peter Murrell, who last week pleaded guilty to stealing more than 400,000 pounds ($540,000) from the SNP to fund a lavish lifestyle when he was the party’s chief executive. She consistently denied having any knowledge of his crimes.

“I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed,’’ she told the BBC. “I’m not going to apologize for somebody else’s crimes.”

Sturgeon’s comments came as she pushed back against widespread disbelief about her previous statements that she knew nothing about Murrell’s crimes. The case has heightened concerns about the accountability of U.K. politicians after a series of scandals that has eroded trust in government at all levels.

Many critics have also questioned why Murrell was allowed to remain chief executive of the SNP after Sturgeon became party leader in 2014. Sturgeon acknowledged that this was a mistake.

“Of course, with hindsight, I wish that I could go back and take a different decision,” she said.

Murrell’s plea capped a five-year police investigation of the SNP, which has led Scotland’s semiautonomous government for almost two decades while campaigning for the country to break away from the United Kingdom.

Turmoil within the SNP exploded in 2023, as questions swirled about the party’s finances and dwindling membership numbers.

Sturgeon led the Scottish government for almost a decade but abruptly resigned as first minister in February 2023. Observers were bewildered by her statement at the time that she knew in her “head and in my heart” that it was the right time to go.

The following month, Murrell quit his job after two decades as SNP chief executive and took responsibility for misleading the news media about the collapse in party membership. In April, police arrested him at the couple’s home in Glasgow.

Sturgeon was arrested in June of 2023 and l ater cleared by police.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A court in the Turks and Caicos Islands has sentenced former Premier Michael Misick to just over four years in prison after he was convicted in a landmark corruption case that had dragged on for years.

Misick was arrested in December 2012 in Brazil, after his application for political asylum was rejected there. He was accused of corruption, misusing public money and profiting from the sale of government-owned land to developers.

The verdict, handed down on Friday, sentenced Misick to four years and 26 days in prison. In early February, Misick was convicted on three counts of bribery. He has said that all the charges against him were politically motivated.

Former Cabinet minister McAllister Hanchell and attorney Thomas Misick — Michael Misick’s brother — were also sentenced in the same case on Friday. Hanchell was sentenced to three years and Thomas Misick to four years. All three were taken into custody and are expected to appeal their sentences.

Michael Misick stepped down as premier in 2009, shortly after Britain temporarily took control of the territory’s government and suspended its constitution following allegations of rampant corruption. The period of direct rule ended in November 2012, when new elections were held.

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Tom Barrack leaves Syria Envoy Role After Steering Post-Assad Outreach  

US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack is stepping down from the position as the Trump administration is gradually phasing in full diplomatic relations with Damascus.  

Barrack, who was appointed in May 2025 after Washington announced plans to lift major sanctions on Damascus, held an envoy role while continuing to serve as US ambassador to Turkey.   

Earlier this year, Associated Press reported that lawmakers were informed of the State Department’s “intent to implement a phased approach to potentially resume embassy operations in Syria,” which may indicate that Barrack is leaving his position to make way for the reopening of the shuttered embassy in Damascus.   

Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated on X that Barrack’s tenure as special envoy was ending and suggested the designation would not be renewed.  

“Ambassador Tom Barrak has played an invaluable role as our Special Envoy to Syria.  

“While that title is expiring, he will continue to play a leading role for the Trump Administration in both Syria and Iraq, where his expertise, relationships, and understanding of the America First agenda will continue to deliver wins on behalf of our great country,” Rubio added.  

A Lebanese-American real estate billionaire and longtime ally of President Trump, Barrack chaired Trump’s 2017 inauguration committee before taking on diplomatic responsibilities.  

During his time as special envoy, Barrack was involved in key aspects of US policy toward Syria following the fall of Bashar Assad. His work included overseeing efforts related to sanctions relief, reconstruction initiatives involving Turkey and Gulf states, and cooperation against the Islamic State terror group. He also played a role in discussions between the Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces while supporting efforts to stabilize the administration of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and broaden US diplomatic engagement with Damascus.  

After meeting al-Sharaa in Damascus on 17 May, Barrack described Syria as “a laboratory for a new regional alliance based on diplomacy, integration and hope for the entire region”.  

His tenure also drew criticism. In Lebanon, remarks urging journalists to behave in a “civilized” rather than “animalistic” manner during a news conference sparked backlash. Syrian-Kurdish leaders also accused him of taking an excessively “pro-Damascus” position and pressuring Kurdish groups to accept terms advanced by al-Sharaa.  

Barrack was the fourth US special envoy to Syria in the past 12 years. The United States has not appointed an ambassador to Syria since Stephen Ford, who served from December 2011 to February 2014.

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