Ann Widdecombe died after being hit on the head with a hammer 21 times at her Devon home as she ate lunch, prosecutors have told Westminster Magistrates' Court. Prosecutor Kashif Malik said the man accused of her murder, Joshua Kerry, arrived at her house on 8 July in a red Vauxhall Corsa and entered through the front door. Kerry, who prosecutors say was only in the property for two minutes and was wearing black gloves, then allegedly hit Widdecombe repeatedly with a hammer, tipped her from her chair and took her wallet before driving off, the court heard. The 28-year-old from South Yorkshire, who is charged with murder, was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey later on Tuesday. Malik told the court that Widdecombe did not attend a pre-arranged online interview with Channel 5's Matt Allwright show that had been scheduled for just before 13:00 BST on 8 July.

A new toolkit for attorneys in Massachusetts targets the technologies police use--and conceal--to build criminal cases, from facial recognition to AI-written police reports. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says it's releasing an online toolkit this week for criminal defense attorneys designed to uncover whether police used surveillance technologies --facial recognition, automatic license plate readers, gunshot detection systems, and more--to build the cases against their clients in secret. The toolkit, which the group describes as the first of its kind, is built around handcrafted legal motions that, when granted by a judge, will force prosecutors to reveal whether surveillance technology was used against a defendant. It covers an array of technologies, from "stingray" phone trackers and location data sold by commercial brokers to AI-drafted police reports and forensic tools that crack phones and siphon data from car infotainment systems. It also includes preservation motions--demands that surveillance data be saved before it is deleted automatically--aimed at government agencies and private vendors alike.

Federal prosecutors in the United States have accused 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht of deliberately starting the Palisades Fire, which grew into one of the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles, California. Opening statements were presented on Wednesday in Rinderknecht's federal trial, where he stands accused of destroying property by means of fire, committing arson affecting interstate commerce, and lighting timber aflame. While prosecutors portrayed him as an arsonist who premeditated his crime, defence lawyers argued there was no proof that he had ignited the blazes. If anything, they said, Rinderknecht had tried to stop them. "When all the evidence is in, there will be one thing missing: proof that Jonathan Rinderknecht started that fire on January 1," lawyer Steve Haney told jurors.

Former Yomiuri Giants manager Shinnosuke Abe was referred to prosecutors on suspicion of assaulting his eldest daughter, though it is believed the police attached a recommendation for leniency. The Metropolitan Police Department on Tuesday sent papers to prosecutors on Shinnosuke Abe, former manager of the Yomiuri Giants, on suspicion of assaulting his eldest daughter. The MPD is believed to have attached a recommendation for leniency. Abe, 47, has admitted to the allegations, according to investigative sources. In the case referred to prosecutors, Abe is suspected of grabbing his 18-year-old daughter by the collar and pushing her down at his home in Shibuya Ward in the capital at around 7 p.m. on May 25. Police arrested Abe at the scene but released him shortly afterward.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. FBI agents and investigators work on Sperry Avenue in Patterson, Calif., on April 7. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . A Salvadoran man shot by ICE agents during an April immigration operation in Patterson has been indicted on federal assault charges.

Elon Musk was summoned by the French authorities for a voluntary interview that had been planned to take place on Monday. Elon Musk was summoned by the French authorities for a voluntary interview that had been planned to take place on Monday. Elon Musk did not appear on Monday for a voluntary interview with lawyers in Paris, who had summoned the American tech billionaire over an investigation into his social media platform X and AI chatbot Grok. The prosecutors told AFP that they had "taken note of the absence of the first people summoned", without mentioning Musk's name. The billionaire called the French authorities involved "retards" weeks earlier in a French-language post on X .

Elon Musk-owned X's Grok AI chatbot stirred outrage earlier this year over it generating images of naked women and girls without their consent. Paris - French prosecutors said Saturday they had alerted U.S. authorities to a suspicion that tech tycoon Elon Musk had encouraged controversy over sexualized deepfakes on X to artificially increase the value of his company. The social media network's Grok AI chatbot stirred outrage earlier this year over it generating images of naked women and girls without their consent. The controversy sparked by sexually explicit deepfakes generated by Grok (X's AI) may have been deliberately generated in order to artificially boost the value of companies X and xAI, the Paris prosecutor's office said, confirming a report in Le Monde newspaper on Friday. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Five people, including three young children, have been killed in the latest overnight Russian attacks on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, as United States-led efforts to end the nearly war continue to progress at a slow, bogged-down pace. The Ukrainian leader said on Wednesday that a Russian drone had struck a private family home in the town of Bohodukhiv in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region late on Tuesday, killing four and seriously injuring their pregnant mother, the sole survivor.

Elon Musk attends the 56th annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22. PARIS - French police raided the offices of Elon Musk's social media network X on Tuesday, and prosecutors ordered the tech billionaire to face questions in a widening investigation, amid growing scrutiny of the platform by authorities across Europe. The raid by the Paris prosecutor's cybercrime unit and Musk's summoning -- which could further increase tensions between Europe and the U.S. over Big Tech and free speech -- are linked to a yearlong investigation into suspected abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction by X or its executives. Britain's privacy watchdog, meanwhile, also kicked off a formal investigation into Musk's artificial-intelligence chatbot Grok over the processing of personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexual images and video content. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

French prosecutors carried out a search on the offices of Elon Musk's social media platform X on Tuesday morning and summoned the billionaire owner to attend a hearing in April. Conducted by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor's office, along with the French national cyber unit and European Union police agency Europol, the search marks an escalation of the ongoing investigation into X over suspected abuse of algorithms, plus allegations related to deepfake images and wider concerns over posts generated by the platform's AI chatbot, Grok. The office said the search was carried out with "the objective of ultimately ensuring the compliance of the X platform with French law" and in particular, a focus on X's Grok, designed by xAI, which chief prosecutor Laure Beccuau says has led "to the dissemination of Holocaust denial content and sexually explicit deepfakes." Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth is quoted as telling Associated Press that the police agency "is supporting the French authorities in this." Musk and former CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, have both been summoned for "voluntary interviews" with French prosecutors on April 20.