Sri Lankan authorities have seized nearly 60 kilograms of potent synthetic cannabis that foreigners tried to smuggle in this month in three separate cases, a customs official said Saturday. The majority of the drugs were reportedly seized from a former flight attendant from England who authorties say had over 100 pounds of the drug in her suitcases.
The South Asian island has long been considered a transit point for international drug smugglers, and all three suspects — from Britain, India and Thailand — could face life imprisonment if convicted.
The 21-year-old British woman was arrested on May 12, with customs officers saying she was stopped with 46 kilograms (101 pounds) of kush — a synthetic drug containing powerful opioids — packed in two suitcases.
“This could be the biggest drug bust at the Colombo airport in recent times,” said Customs Additional Director General Seevali Arukgoda.
British media, including the BBC, have identified the woman as Charlotte May Lee, a former cabin crew member from London, who had flown to Sri Lanka from Thailand.
She is being held in detention at a prison near Colombo airport and is contact with her family, her lawyer told the BBC.
The BBC reported that she denied knowledge of drugs in her luggage, and claimed they were planted at her hotel in Bangkok.
Her legal representative, Sampath Perera, told the BBC that his team was visiting her daily in prison to provide support and monitor her wellbeing.
“I had never seen them [the drugs] before. I didn’t expect it all when they pulled me over at the airport. I thought it was going to be filled with all my stuff,” Lee told the Daily Mail from prison.
On May 16, a 33-year-old Indian man was arrested at the northern seaport of Kankesanthurai.
Arukgoda said that he had been carrying four kilograms of kush.
He too has been handed over to the anti-narcotics police for further investigations.
On May 18, a 21-year-old Thai man was stopped at Colombo airport. He is accused of attempting to smuggle in nearly eight kilograms of kush.
The drug has wreaked havoc in West African countries in recent years, especially in Sierra Leone, te Associated Press reported. In 2014, Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio declared a war on kush, calling it an epidemic and a national threat.
Sri Lankan authorities have previously seized large quantities of heroin off its shores, saying it suggested the island is being used as a transit hub for narcotics being reshipped onward.
In October, a Sri Lankan court sentenced 10 Iranian men to life imprisonment after they pleaded guilty to smuggling more than 111 kilograms of heroin.
The men were among 17 arrested in Sri Lankan waters in April 2016 while transporting narcotics aboard an Iranian trawler.
In 2023, nine Iranians received life sentences in a separate drug smuggling case.
Gallery Climate Coalition’s leadership team. Photo by Elizabeth Norwood
When the pandemic forced the always-on art industry to take a breath, its leaders—particularly on the commercial side—found themselves confronting questions about not just economic sustainability but also ecological sustainability. There was plenty of speculation about the long-term feasibility of virtual modes of operation, as the pandemic forced the sector to experiment with digital models. Prior to the shutdown, dealers boarded an endless carousel of flights while artworks crisscrossed countries in costly, carbon-intensive containers. Maybe, the thinking went, the relentless circuit of art fairs and biennials could be scaled back.
But as soon as restrictions lifted, the art world fell back into its old rhythms. The calendar didn’t slim down; indeed, it ballooned, with even more art fairs, VIP events and otherwise carbon-intensive cultural spectacles. Still, a flicker of awareness seems to have lingered amid all the business-as-usual globetrotting, with the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), now approaching its fifth year, serving as one of the rare forces pushing that conversation forward.
The GCC launched in 2019 as a modest alliance of galleries and art professionals, mostly from London’s commercial scene, that decided to confront the industry’s role in the climate crisis. It started with a conversation between Heath Lowndes, GCC’s director and cofounder, and his then-boss, the respected London dealer Thomas Dane. “We were responding to these terrible images of the Amazon rainforest on fire,” Lowndes told Observer. “Something about those visceral images really triggered a conversation internally—it made us reflect on our impact as a gallery but also as an entire sector.”
At the time, there were no tools a gallery could use to calculate its carbon footprint, let alone reduce it. Public institutions were taking bold steps to curb emissions and waste, but on the commercial side, no one was making those same kinds of commitments.
Lowndes began quietly reaching out to colleagues, gauging whether there was any real appetite for addressing the art world’s environmental footprint. It didn’t take long for an informal cohort to form—dealers, logistics experts, and fair organizers coming together to confront the issue head-on. That initial group would become the GCC’s founding circle, made up of heavyweight dealers like Sadie Coles and Lisson’s Greg Hilty, alongside Peter Chater of Artlogic, a logistics firm, and Victoria Siddall, then inaugural director of Frieze Masters and now director of the National Portrait Gallery. Also in the mix: Frieze co-founder Matthew Slotover.
“We started meeting at the end of 2019, and eventually there were about a dozen of us,” recalls Lowndes, who has led the organization since its founding. “None of us were climate activists or scientists, but we all knew these conversations weren’t happening in the commercial art sector and they needed to.”
The group originally intended to host a U.K. symposium on the environmental impact of art world operations, but the event was canceled by the arrival of COVID-19. “We sent the invites out in spring, and within two weeks, lockdown hit,” says Lowndes. But rather than lose momentum, the forced pause became a period of productivity, when he and his colleagues were able to bring more professionals into the fold.
After several months of virtual discussions, the Gallery Climate Coalition was officially launched as a nonprofit in October of 2020 with a stated mission to facilitate a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions across the visual arts sector by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement.
“In those early lockdown months, we had a strong, warm, enthusiastic response to this initiative, and we decided to answer questions instead of just discussing them,” Lowndes says. To start, the organization commissioned an environmental assessment focused on a few London art galleries. Based on this data, the group developed a set of resources and a carbon calculator that any arts organization could use to measure and then reduce its impact. Crucially, the coalition has been a free-to-join association, and members can access its sector-specific tools, guidelines and best practices at no cost. However, each new member must commit to reducing their carbon footprint and environmental impact, contributing via their actions to the coalition’s shared goals.
Lowndes emphasizes that the real power lies in members’ willingness to act in alignment and support each other along the way. Even though members are scattered across continents and operate under vastly different circumstances, the intention and commitment remain consistent. “We’re all working in the same direction.”
The GCC now has roughly 1,800 active global members from across all corners of the art industry (commercial and institutional) committed to changing how the sector operates. Members pledge to take immediate, effective steps to reduce the environmental impact of their activities by following the organization’s Best Practice Guidelines, developing a Decarbonisation Action Plan and working toward near-zero waste and circular operations. Members are required to allocate real resources—funds and staff—to support these commitments. This means establishing a Strategic Climate Fund (SCF) and forming a Green Team (or, for smaller organizations, appointing a Green Ambassador) to liaise with GCC and implement environmental policies. The coalition also stresses that action must align not only with climate targets but also with broader principles of climate justice, acknowledging the links between environmental harm and global inequities. Members are furthermore expected to publish an environmental responsibility statement on their websites or social media to publicly demonstrate their commitment. To track progress, members must also submit regular carbon reports, either through GCC’s free carbon calculator or via audits conducted by an environmental agency or freelance advisor.
Last year, the GCC introduced an upgraded version of its carbon calculator, developed with support from the Getty Foundation. The enhanced tool delivers sharper, more precise emissions data across a wide range of sector-specific activities while still prioritizing usability, making it easier for galleries and institutions to access, interpret, and act on the numbers. “The new tool represents a new way of working and operating for the second half of the decade,” says Lowndes. “We’ve got all the data collected from the original calculator over the past four or five years, and we’re now in the process of analyzing it.”
Shipping, he says, is a major emissions culprit but hardly the only one, and “you can’t set meaningful targets or cut emissions without understanding where those emissions are actually coming from.” The organization doesn’t offer a one-size-fits-all fix, but instead provides a framework of recommendations adaptable to each art organization’s context. “Our approach is to provide universally applicable recommendations, and they then have to be interpreted on a local basis.” Importantly, progress isn’t all or nothing. “Even people who don’t hit the targets—it’s not a failure. A 30 to 40 percent reduction still matters. Every percentage point counts.”
Art fairs have a huge environmental footprint, and after more than a year of discussions, the GCC formalized the Art Fair Alliance last year—a network of thirteen major fairs representing forty events across the globe. Participants were invited to join roundtables and workshops and to share data and impact reduction strategies. Getting buy-in wasn’t exactly easy, Lowndes admits: “These are market competitors, especially at the corporate level. They don’t traditionally work together, but they showed up on Zoom regularly, and they shared.” The result was the jointly funded and signed statement, the “Art Fair Co-Commitments on Environmental Responsibility,” which commits all members to a 50 percent emissions reduction by 2030.
Logistics, too, proved a challenging nut to crack. Convincing major shipping companies to align on environmental goals wasn’t simple, particularly when competitors were asked to collaborate. But the GCC succeeded in launching its Sustainable Shipping Campaign, which became one of the organization’s early flagship initiatives. It was focused on resource sharing, shipment consolidation and smarter, greener practices across the supply chain. A more structured follow-up campaign, Lowndes teases, is already in the works.
The GCC booth at Frieze London. Benjamin Westoby
Today’s art world looks very different from the one that birthed the GCC. Rising shipping and operational costs are squeezing institutions and galleries alike, making it even harder to prioritize ecological commitments. But Lowndes points to a silver lining: for many members, going green has actually helped the bottom line. Energy efficiency upgrades—HVAC systems, climate controls, solar panels—carry upfront costs, but savings kick in quickly. Likewise, switching to recycled packaging, consolidating shipments and managing logistics more strategically can reduce both emissions and expenses. “When the market is struggling, ecological issues fall down the priority list,” Lowndes acknowledges. “But there’s a lot of work to be done that delivers cost efficiency and environmental efficiency.”
Political headwinds have presented their own challenges. Lowndes says that tariffs and the Trump administration’s choice to pull institutional funding will complicate matters, but he’s far from discouraged. “Even as the challenges grow, so does the momentum,” he says, noting that GCC membership has grown by 20 percent in the past year. Setbacks have always come with the territory, and “we didn’t get into this because it was easy.” While the coalition’s founding goal is still a 50 percent reduction in industry-wide emissions by 2030, Lowndes now believes that with collective action, a 70 percent reduction across the art sector is within reach.
“Today, we can leverage our massive international membership to push for broader systemic change and create a real sense of urgency,” he says. One of the coalition’s next priorities is expanding artist participation, and the GCC launched its first Artists’ Toolkit (resources tailored specifically to help artists reduce their climate impact) last year. But most artists, Lowndes points out, are already highly efficient with their materials; only a small fraction have production practices that generate significant emissions. “The emphasis has been on advocacy—on the potential of artists as empowered individuals—rather than pressuring them to change their practice,” he explains. “They can influence the supply chain. They can influence collectors. They can influence audiences.”
Looking ahead, data will be the key to making meaningful progress. The analysis of five years’ worth of collected information—including insights from the newly enhanced calculator—will let the GCC operate more strategically than ever. “We’ll be able to compare and contrast the data collected between the two tools and then our all-time five-year data collection,” he says. The organization is working closely with an environmental advisor to interpret the results and apply the findings sector-wide. “This will allow us to get estimates of progress for the very first time to understand where we’re at and give us greater numerical insight and effectiveness.” For the coalition’s fifth anniversary this October, it plans to release a landmark study—the first of its kind—on the global ecological footprint of the art sector.
Of course, the overarching aim is to translate data into action. “Data can reveal the low-hanging fruit, the easy wins and where changes can be made more easily,” Lowndes says. “Having that greater level of understanding can make changes more effective.” Once the report is complete, the GCC will be positioned to reassess and refine its strategy for the years ahead. “The playbook that took us through COVID to now isn’t the same playbook that will take us from now until the end of the decade.”
British Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer has hailed a “new era” with the European Union as he unveiled a post-Brexit “reset” deal on Monday. Yet opponents have accused the left-wing government of “surrendering” to Brussels on key areas, including granting the bloc access to UK fishing waters for over a decade.
In his third major deal this month, after inking agreements with India and the United States, Prime Minister Starmer boasted that he has “rolled up my sleeves to deliver for British people, British jobs, and British businesses.”
The wide-ranging EU deal unveiled by the anti-Brexit PM will see the UK align with European standards on animal welfare and food in exchange for reducing the punitive import checks on British food products sold in Europe. However, London also agreed to send British taxpayer money to the EU as part of the deal. While no specific figures were released, The Timesreports that it will be “an appropriate financial contribution from the United Kingdom”.
Additionally, the Labour government was accused of selling out British fishermen by giving Europeans access to UK waters for the next 12 years. According to the British press, this was a last-minute demand from Brussels over the weekend after the government announced that an EU deal would be forthcoming, sparking accusations that Starmer bent to hardball tactics for the sake of political expediency to the detriment of a key British industry. The government has attempted to allay fears, by announcing a £360 million coastal investment fund.
However, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage lamented that the deal would “be the end of the fishing industry”. Farge’s deputy, MP Richard Tice, added: “Starmer has surrendered — lock, stock and barrel. He’s waved the white flag and kissed goodbye to UK fishing.
“And my constituents in Boston & Skegness will be raging mad this morning if this news is true. It’s unbelievable. The EU apparently asked for four or five years, and Starmer has surrendered about 12 years. Mind boggling.”
The deal will also likely see the UK sign back up to a form of the EU’s ‘Youth Mobility Scheme’, which would allow 18 to 30-year-old EU migrants to live and work in Britain for up to three years. While the deal essentially punted on the issue, as London is pushing for a hard cap on entries per year, critics have warned that it will further disadvantage native young people in Britain, despite Starmer’s vow to protect them from unfettered mass migration.
In turn, the EU has said that it will reduce border checks for British tourists and allow them to use “e-gates” to speed up passport checks like other European travellers after new biometric systems come into place later this year. However, while Brussels will lift the restriction, it remains to be seen if individual member states will follow suit.
The EU has also said that it will “deepen information sharing” on illegal migration with the UK. Yet, it remains to be seen if this will include Brussels’ biometric database on asylum seekers. There appears to be little progress on striking a deal for Britain to send illegal migrants back to the bloc, the majority of which cross the English Channel from the beaches of France.
Meanwhile, the two sides also agreed to greater alignment on defence, meaning that British troops could be deployed alongside their European counterparts. The issue has come to the fore amid efforts led by French President Emmanuel Macron and Starmer to deploy a “coalition of the willing” pan-European military force to Ukraine as a supposed peacekeeping force should an armistice be agreed to by Kyiv and Moscow. Critics have warned that this could be laying the groundwork for the formation of a fully fledged EU Army.
Hailing the deal, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said: “We are now turning the page and opening a new chapter, a new chapter that is so important in these times because we see the rise of geopolitical tensions but we are like-minded, we share the same values.”
Prime Minister Starmer added: “In uncertain times and a new era for defence, security and trade we will do that by strengthening our relationships with allies around the world, including of course with Europe. That is what today is all about, moving on from stale old debates, looking forward, not backwards, focusing on what we can do together to deliver in the national interest.”
Former Conservative cabinet minister Sir Simon Clarke criticised the deal as a “a triumph of elite concerns – youth mobility, 5 minutes quicker through the airport in Tuscany in summer – over those of working class Britain.”
Sir Simon said that elites in London will not have to face the consequences of opening up the door to more EU migrant labour or the impact of “fishing grounds being hoovered up by French or Spanish super trawlers”. The former Conservative MP went on to warn that by essentially accepting EU standards and regulations, the deal would also lay the groundwork for future arguments for the UK to rejoin the bloc.
The deal and its ramifications will likely serve as a major campaign issue going forward, with Brexit leader Nigel Farage vowing to overturn the agreement if he is elected as the next prime minister.
“The Prime Minister thinks he’ll get away with it but he perhaps underestimates how strong Brexit feeling still is in the Red Wall,” Mr Farage said over the weekend. “The whole thing is an abject surrender from Starmer and politically, something he will come to regret.”
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The first time Maman appeared at the Tate Modern gallery in London, she wasn’t supposed to be the central attraction. Louise Bourgeois’s enormous bronze spider was part of a larger installation entitled “I Do, I Undo and I Redo,” commissioned to mark the opening of what has become one of the world’s most visited fine art galleries. Twenty-five years on and, while her creator may have gone—Bourgeois died in 2010—Maman is back with a sinister vengeance to mark Tate Modern’s quarter-century birthday.
Maman and the other elements of “I Do, I Undo and I Redo” were set up in the gallery’s Turbine Hall, so named because the original building was a power station and what is now the Tate Modern’s massive atrium and entrance hall once housed a water-driven turbine. Like London’s Fourth Plinth series, the Turbine Hall’s ongoing commission calendar has become a steady fixture of the U.K.’s art calendar. As with the Plinth artwork, the Turbine Hall commissions are temporary, staying in place for around six months. The main element of the “I Do, I Undo and I Redo” installation was actually a group of spiral staircases, but the sheer size and spookiness of the Bourgeois spider captivated cross-generational visitors. The most effective ensuing commissions were those that hit just as hard. Take Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s 2003 Turbine Hall commission, The Weather Project. Eliasson’s installation kit was simple: a bunch of mirrors, a sizeable half-circular screen, some lights and one of those machines that spray out artificial mist. The lights directed at the screen bounced off the mirrors to produce an intense, orange sun. The mist added a steamy, tropical vibe, and visitors took to spreading themselves out to bathe in the mock sun’s intense glow. Over two million people saw the piece, and one highlight came courtesy of a group of activists who lay on the floor and arranged their bodies into letters to spell out the phrase “Bush Go Home” in protest against George W.’s 2003 U.K. state visit.
Carsten Höller’s slides in 2006 continued the interactive larks. Named Test Site, the Swedish artist’s Turbine Hall installation consisted of five transparent, floor-to-ceiling slides that members of the public joyfully whizzed down, shrieking and waving to friends and family on the way. The following year, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth introduced a sense of disconcertion. Visitors entering the Turbine Hall spotted a hairline crack in the space’s concrete floor. The further the crack traveled into the hall, the longer, wider and deeper it became, until it revealed its entire 167-meter length and was big enough to swallow up anyone who wasn’t watching what they were doing.
Ai Weiwei’s 2010 commission, Sunflower Seeds, was a testament to his ability to use art to communicate ideas in accessible ways. The 100 million sunflower seeds that covered the Turbine Hall’s floor were made of porcelain in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen, and visitors were encouraged to walk across the shifting carpet the seeds created. Unfortunately (and unintentionally), the seeds arrived covered in dust, and the gallery decided to cordon off the installation to stop visitors from inhaling porcelain motes.
The original Tate gallery was founded with money donated by Henry Tate, a nineteenth-century sugar trader and one-half of the sweetmeat manufacturer, Tate and Lyle. In 2018, several British institutions came under scrutiny for their potential involvement in the slave trade, and the Tate organization was put under the microscope. Research led to absolution—a statement noted Henry Tate and Abram Lyle were twelve and fourteen years old, respectively, when slavery was abolished in 1833. However, the scrutiny shone fresh light on just how many of the Turbine Hall commissions were addressing human rights and environmental issues. Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth was a comment on migration and immigration, for example, the depths of the crack revealing the darkness of racism. Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds addressed mass consumption and racial stereotypes. Far from the commonly-held perceptions of cheapness and poor quality associated with the “Made in China” label, the installation’s seeds were handmade by gifted craftspeople living in an area of China renowned for its exquisite porcelain pottery.
When Cuban artist Tania Bruguera was invited to create a Turbine Hall commission in 2018, she also used the chance to confront attitudes around immigration. Bruguera placed a heat-sensitive layer over the hall’s floor; the longer people laid upon it, the more a blown-up portrait of a young Syrian refugee called Yousef began to emerge beneath them. Yousef had fled Syria for London, and the presence of corporeal warmth unveiled the potential organic empathy of human kindness—a lesson on how to make a fellow mortal feel seen. Anyone left unmoved by the piece could visit a crying room, wherein a harmless vapor was pumped into a space next to the floor, forcing tears from visitors’ eyes as if they were peeling an onion. The title of Bruguera’s commission—10 148 451—came from the number of people who migrated from their country in 2017 added to the number of migrant deaths in 2018 at the time when the project was installed. That number has been increasing ever since.
U.S. artist Kara Walker’s 2019 Turbine Hall commission elegantly addressed the horrors of the British Empire. Entitled Fons Americanus, the installation’s central focus was a thirteen-meter-high fountain based on the Victoria Memorial stationed in front of Buckingham Palace. British colonialism accelerated under Queen Victoria’s reign, and the original memorial is a pompous, overblown statue intended to honor the period. For Walker’s remix, the memorial became a fountain, and the water gushing out of the figure at its top (and various others around its sides) referenced the seas traveled by nineteenth-century British slave traders as they dragged their human cargo into the hell of new worlds. Details sculpted into the fountain’s structure included a noose hanging off a tree’s branch and a military captain representing the brave Black individuals who fought against the slave trade.
Last year’s commission, El Anatsui’s Behind the Red Moon, also centered around interrogations of slavery. The Ghana-born, Nigeria-based artist and his team linked, knitted and entwined old bottle tops and discarded ephemera into huge flapping banners and meshes. By using the kind of flotsam that washes up along coastlines worldwide, El Anatsui was also underscoring how our oceans were (and still are) used to transport and abandon trafficked human beings.
The next Turbine Hall commission will be taken on by Máret Ánne Sara. Born in the ancient Sápmi territory that stretches across Norway, Finland, Sweden and parts of Russia, Sara’s work confronts the obliteration of traditional cultural values in the face of present-day colonialism. Much like the citizens of Greenland, the people of Sápmi never asked for their lives to be changed without their permission. Long may the good work enabled by the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall commissions continue.
Twenty-fifth anniversary events are taking place at the Tate Modern throughout 2025. Máret Ánne Sara’s Turbine Hall commission runs from October 14 this year through April 6, 2026.
Singer Chris Brown was arrested Thursday in England for allegedly hitting someone with a bottle in a London nightclub in 2023.
The Metropolitan Police did not name Brown but said it took a 36-year-old into custody at a Manchester hotel on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. Under British law, police cannot name suspects before charges are filed.
The Sun, which first reported the story, said producer Abe Diaw told them Sunday that he was hospitalized after Brown beat him in an unprovoked attack at the Tape nightclub in the swanky Mayfair neighborhood in London in February 2023. Diaw told the Sun that Brown allegedly hit him over the head with a bottle before punching and kicking him as he lay on the floor.
The tabloid said it became aware Brown was in the U.K. on Wednesday and called police to find out if he was under arrest. The newspaper said Met officers then traveled to Manchester and made the arrest.
Brown’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Diaw said Brown, who was on a U.K. tour at the time, cracked him on the head with a bottle and punched and kicked him on the floor. The producer has filed a 12 million pound ($16 million) lawsuit against the singer.
Brown, often called by his nickname Breezy, burst onto the music scene as a teen in 2005 and has become a major hitmaker over the years with notable songs such as “Run It,” “Kiss Kiss” and “Without You.” He won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E.” then earned his second gold trophy in the same category for “11:11 (Deluxe)” earlier this year.
Brown has a history of legal issues dating back to his felony conviction in the 2009 assault of his then-girlfriend Rihanna. He pleaded guilty to felony assault at the time. In 2014, Brown pleaded guilty to hitting a man outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. In 2024, Brown, along with his paid entourage, allegedly beat several men who attended his concert in Texas.
Earlier this year, Brown sued Warner Bros. Discovery for defamation over labeling the singer as an abuser in the 2024 documentary “Chris Brown: A History of Violence.”
The singer is launching an international tour next month with artists Jhene Aiko, Summer Walker and Bryson Tiller, opening with a European leg before starting North America shows in July.
A man who spent nearly four decades in a British prison in the killing of a bartender said he was not angry or bitter Tuesday as his murder conviction was overturned because of newly available DNA evidence.
Peter Sullivan put his hand over his mouth and appeared to become emotional as the Court of Appeal in London ordered his conviction quashed after years of attempts to clear his name.
He is the longest-serving victim of a wrongful conviction in the U.K., attorney Sarah Myatt said outside court. His release came 38 years, seven months and 21 days after his arrest, a total of 14,113 days in custody, the BBC reported. About a year of that time was spent in custody on remand as he awaited trial.
Sullivan, who watched the hearing by video from Wakefield prison in northern England, said in a statement that he was not resentful and was anxious to see his loved ones.
“As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall take you free,” Myatt read from the statement. “It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale as we advance towards resolving the wrongs done to me. I am not angry, I am not bitter.”
Lawyer Sarah Myatt speaking to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice, central London, after Peter Sullivan, who has spent 38 years in prison for the murder of Diane Sindall in 1986, had his conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal, on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.
Ben Whitley/PA Images via Getty Images
Sullivan, 68, was convicted in 1987 of killing Diane Sindall in Bebington, near Liverpool in northwest England. He spent 38 years behind bars.
Sindall, 21, a florist who was engaged to be married, was returning home from a part-time job at a pub on a Friday night in August 1986 when her van ran out of gas, police said. She was last seen walking along the road after midnight.
Her body was found about 12 hours later in an alley. She had been sexually assaulted and badly beaten.
Sexual fluid found on Sindall’s body could not be scientifically analyzed until recently.
The court heard technology had only very recently been developed to the point where the semen sample, recovered from Sindall’s abdomen, could be tested for DNA, the BBC reported. A test in 2024 revealed it wasn’t Sullivan, defense attorney Jason Pitter said.
“The prosecution case is that it was one person. It was one person who carried out a sexual assault on the victim,” Pitter said. “The evidence here is now that one person was not the defendant.”
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson did not challenge the appeal and said that if the DNA evidence had been available at the time of the investigation it was inconceivable that Sullivan would have been prosecuted.
Merseyside Police said it reopened the investigation as the appeal was underway and was “committed to doing everything” to find the killer.
Detective Chief Superintendent Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023, the BBC reported.
“We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway,” she said.
The memorial stone for Diane Sindall on Borough Road in Birkenhead, Wirral, pictured on May 13, 2025.
Eleanor Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images
The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which examines possible wrongful convictions, had declined to refer Sullivan’s case to the appeals court in 2008, and the court turned away his appeal in 2019.
But the CCRC took up the case again when the new DNA evidence was available.
“In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe,” Justice Timothy Holroyde said.
Sullivan’s sister, Kim Smith, reflected outside the court on the toll the case had taken on two families.
“We lost Peter for 39 years and at the end of the day it’s not just us,” Smith said. “Peter hasn’t won and neither has the Sindall family. They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back. We’ve got Peter back and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again.”
Kim Smith, sister of Peter Sullivan speaking to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice, central London, after Sullivan, who has spent 38 years in prison for the murder of Diane Sindall in 1986, had his conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.
London — A 21-year-old man was arrested early Tuesday in connection with a series of suspected arson attacks after fires broke out at properties linked to a “high profile figure,” London’s Metropolitan Police said. CBS News’ partner network BBC News said the high profile figure is U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The man detained Tuesday is being held on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life, according to the police.
Early Monday morning, firefighters were called out to a blaze at Starmer’s private residence in North London. Starmer currently does not live there as he resides at the U.K. prime minister’s official residence at 10 Downing Street, in the center of the city.
A police cordon is seen on a street where a fire broke out at a home, reportedly the private residence of Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in north London, England, May 12, 2025.
Paul Sandle/REUTERS
Firefighters had also responded to a small fire early Sunday at the front door of a nearby apartment building linked to Starmer. One person was escorted to safety and treated for smoke inhalation, but no one was hurt in the blaze, the London Fire Brigade said.
A third fire in a car was reported overnight Thursday last week on the same street as Starmer’s private residence, which is also being investigated and is believed to possibly be linked to the man who was detained on Tuesday, the police said.
“As a precaution and due to the property having previous connections with a high-profile public figure, officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command are leading the investigation into this fire,” the police said. “All three fires are being treated as suspicious at this time, and enquiries remain ongoing.”
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks at a news conference in London, May 12, 2025.
Bloomberg
On Monday, Starmer thanked the emergency services for their work but declined to provide any further information on who, if anyone, was inside his private residence when the fire was started.
A U.K. court Monday handed down jail terms of up to 10 years to six Bulgarians convicted for belonging to a Russian espionage cell described as like something from a “spy novel.”
Fake passports, hidden cameras, a spy love triangle and secret online chats about potential abductions and “honeytraps” were uncovered by investigators.
Orlin Roussev, 47, headed the operation from a run-down former guesthouse in the eastern English seaside resort of Great Yarmouth where police found a “treasure trove” of spy paraphernalia.
Sentencing the group at London’s Old Bailey criminal court, judge Nicholas Hilliard said the potential risks of spying on the U.K. and the individuals targeted would have been clear.
The cell’s operations are believed to be among the “largest and most complex” enemy operations ever uncovered on British soil.
Judge Hilliard said the defendants were “motivated by money,” with substantial sums of up to 1 million euros ($1.1 million) discussed, the BBC reported.
An undated Metropolitan Police handout photo of Bulgarian national Vanya Gaberova wearing glasses capable of recording video, in an unknown location.
Metropolitan Police via Reuters
The judge added that the sums of money paid to the spies demonstrated the value of their covert activities to Russia.
The spies operated across borders in the U.K., Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro, the court heard.
Hundreds of spy gadgets were recovered from Roussev’s property including ones hidden inside a rock, men’s ties, a Coke bottle and even a Minions toy.
Police unraveled six operations dating back three years to August 2020 from a vast cache of Telegram messages on Roussev’s phone.
In the chat Roussev, nicknamed “Jackie Chan,” referred to his spies as Minions — characters from the animated film “Despicable Me” — while his second in command Biser Dzhambazov, 44, went by “Mad Max.”
In one sinister message about a potential abduction, ringleader Roussev responded: “If you are serious about it, I have the resources to kidnap, drug him and lock him up in a secure cave.”
Like a “spy novel”
Dominic Murphy, head of Counter Terrorism Command at London’s Metropolitan Police, described the cell as an “extremely sophisticated intelligence gathering operation.”
The network’s activities had been a “real threat” to both targeted individuals and national security with tactics like something from a “spy novel,” he said ahead of the sentencing hearing.
The cell was directed by alleged Russian agent Jan Marsalek, an Austrian businessman wanted by Interpol after the collapse of German payment processing firm Wirecard.
Marsalek acted as a go-between for Russian intelligence and Roussev.
Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivan Stoyanov, 33, pleaded guilty to spying. They were sentenced to 10 years and eight months, 10 years and two months, and five years, respectively.
The other three, former competitive open water swimmer Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, laboratory assistant Katrin Ivanova, 33, and beauty salon business owner Vanya Gaberova, 30, were found guilty of espionage after a trial in March.
An undated Metropolitan Police handout photo of Bulgarian national Katrin Ivanova who was on trial at the Old Bailey accused of being part of a Russian spy ring, in London.
Metropolitan Police via Reuters
They were sentenced to eight years, nine years and eight months, and six years and eight months, respectively.
Gaberova’s defense lawyer Anthony Metzer said Gaberova was “controlled, coerced into this conspiracy by Mr. Dzhambazov,” who was her lover and also involved with Ivanova, the BBC reported. The court was told she had been diagnosed with depression, panic disorder, claustrophobia and anxiety.
The network engaged in a series of surveillance and intelligence operations targeting people and places of interest to the Russian state.
They discussed using Gaberova as a “honeytrap” to snare a high-profile journalist and dropping pigs blood on the Kazakhstan embassy in London by drone.
Another plot aimed to sweep up the mobile phone data of Ukrainian soldiers thought to be trained at a U.S. airbase in Germany.
When police raided the cell members’ homes in February 2023, they found Dzhambazov, who was in a long-term relationship with Ivanova, naked in bed with his lover Gaberova.
Giving evidence, Gaberova claimed she had been deceived by Dzhambazov who she thought was an Interpol officer with brain cancer.
Bellingcat investigative journalist Christo Grozev was among those targeted by the network after he exposed Russian links to the Novichok nerve agent attacks in the English city of Salisbury in 2018 and the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane in July 2014.
Discovering the Bulgarian spooks had followed his and his family’s movements and spied on their communications over a prolonged period had been “terrifying, disorientating and deeply destabilizing,” he said in an impact statement.
British ambassador says he has “absolute confidence” in the U.S.-U.K trade deal – CBS News
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After President Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Thursday a trade deal between the two countries, Peter Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the U.S., tells “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” that he has “absolute confidence that they’ll see it through.”
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