Two British tourists drown while swimming at beach near Great Barrier Reef
A 17-year-old boy and a 46-year-old man entered the water without lifeguards in the town of Seventeen Seventy, in Queensland, Australia on Sunday.
The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), said it was supporting the families of the tourists.
Reports have suggested the pair were recovered from the water by a police helicopter and a third man, from Australia, was airlifted to hospital with serious head injuries.
In a Facebook post, CapRescue, a helicopter emergency response team, said: 'Sunday's mission was a difficult one.
'At 2.17pm, emergency services were called to 1770 after reports three people had been swept out into the ocean.
'Multiple crews were tasked to the scene, including CapRescue.
'Despite the best efforts of all involved, two people tragically lost their lives.
'One patient was transported by air to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in a life-threatening condition.'
A spokeswoman for the FCDO said: 'We are supporting the family of two British nationals who have died in Australia and are in contact with the local authorities.'
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Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Judge tells 92-year-old he will die in prison after conviction in UK's oldest solved cold case
LONDON (AP) — For more than a half-century, Ryland Headley got away with murder. When justice finally caught up to the former railway worker Tuesday in a British courtroom, he was 92 years old and using hearing aids to listen to his fate. A judge sentenced Headley to life in prison for the rape and murder of Louisa Dunne , a 75-year-old widow and grandmother who was strangled in her home in western England in 1967. It is believed to be the longest time in the U.K. between crime and conviction. 'The violation of her home, her body and, ultimately, her life was a pitiless and cruel act by a depraved man,' Justice Derek Sweeting said in Bristol Crown Court. Headley broke into Dunne's home through a window and left a palm print on the glass. Police took the hand prints of 19,000 men and boys in the area to try to solve the crime, but did not find a match at the time. Headley moved out of the area and went on to rape two older women in similar circumstances in the late 1970s and serve time in prison. But his DNA was not collected until an unrelated arrest in 2012. Last year, semen found on the blue skirt that Dunne had been wearing when she was killed was found to match Headley's DNA. His palm print was found to match the one on her window. At his trial, prosecutors had read testimony from the victims of his previous rape convictions, providing jurors with an insight into what happened when he broke into Dunne's home, said Det. Insp. Dave Marchant. 'Hearing the voices of the victims of his 1977 offenses, is just incredibly powerful and harrowing,' Marchant said. Dunne's granddaughter, Mary Dainton, who is now about the age her grandmother was when she was killed, said she had been stunned to learn of Headley's arrest in November. 'I accepted that some murders just never get solved and some people have to live with that emptiness and sadness,' she said. On Tuesday, Dainton told the court that her grandmother's murder and rape had cast a cloud over the rest of her mother's life. 'The fact the offender wasn't caught caused my mother to become and remain very ill,' she said. 'It saddens me deeply that all the people who knew and loved Louisa are not here to see that justice is being done.' Sweeting said that by escaping punishment for so long, Headley had compounded the suffering of Dunne's family. He told Headley he had to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison and would normally spend time explaining the effect of such a term. But he was blunt in this case. 'You'll never be released and you will die in prison,' Sweeting said. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
American Press
an hour ago
- American Press
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose ministry was toppled by prostitution scandals, dies at 90
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose ministry was toppled by prostitution scandals, dies at 90 Published 11:11 am Tuesday, July 1, 2025 Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who became a household name amassing an enormous following and multimillion-dollar ministry only to be undone by his penchant for prostitutes, has died. Swaggart died decades after his once vast audience dwindled and his name became a punchline on late night television. His death was announced Tuesday on his public Facebook page. A cause wasn't immediately given, though at 90 he had been in poor health. The Louisiana native was best known for being a captivating Pentecostal preacher with a massive following before being caught on camera with a prostitute in New Orleans in 1988, one of a string of successful TV preachers brought down in the 1980s and '90s by sex scandals. He continued preaching for decades, but with a reduced audience. Email newsletter signup Swaggart encapsulated his downfall in a tearful 1988 sermon, in which he wept and apologized but made no reference to his connection to a prostitute. 'I have sinned against you,' Swaggart told parishioners nationwide. 'I beg you to forgive me.' He announced his resignation from the Assemblies of God later that year, shortly after the church said it was defrocking him for rejecting punishment it had ordered for 'moral failure.' The church had wanted him to undergo a two-year rehabilitation program, including not preaching for a full year. Swaggart said at the time that he knew dismissal was inevitable but insisted he had no choice but to separate from the church to save his ministry and Bible college. From poverty and oil fields to a household name Swaggart grew up poor, the son of a preacher, in a music-rich family. He excelled at piano and gospel music, playing and singing with talented cousins who took different paths: rock-'n'-roller Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley. In his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana, Swaggart said he first heard the call of God at age 8. The voice gave him goose bumps and made his hair tingle, he said. 'Everything seemed different after that day in front of the Arcade Theater,' he said in a 1985 interview with the Jacksonville Journal-Courier in Illinois. 'I felt better inside. Almost like taking a bath.' He preached and worked part time in oil fields until he was 23. He then moved entirely into his ministry: preaching, playing piano and singing gospel songs with the barrelhouse fervor of cousin Lewis at Assemblies of God revivals and camp meetings. Swaggart started a radio show, a magazine, and then moved into television, with outspoken views. He called Roman Catholicism 'a false religion. It is not the Christian way,' and claimed that Jews suffered for thousands of years 'because of their rejection of Christ.' 'If you don't like what I say, talk to my boss,' he once shouted as he strode in front of his congregation at his Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, where his sermons moved listeners to speak in tongues and stand up as if possessed by the Holy Spirit. Swaggart's messages stirred thousands of congregants and millions of TV viewers, making him a household name by the late 1980s. Contributors built Jimmy Swaggart Ministries into a business that made an estimated $142 million in 1986. His Baton Rouge complex still includes a worship center and broadcasting and recording facilities. The scandals that led to Swaggart's ruin Swaggart's downfall came in the late 1980s as other prominent preachers faced similar scandals. Swaggart said publicly that his earnings were hurt in 1987 by the sex scandal surrounding rival televangelist Jim Bakker and a former church secretary at Bakker's PTL ministry organization. The following year, Swaggart was photographed at a hotel with Debra Murphree, an admitted prostitute who told reporters that the two did not have sex but that the preacher had paid her to pose nude. She later repeated the claim — and posed nude — for Penthouse magazine. The surveillance photos that crippled Swaggart's career apparently stemmed from his rivalry with preacher Marvin Gorman, whom Swaggart had accused of sexual misdeeds. Gorman hired the photographer who captured Swaggart and Murphree on film. Swaggart later paid Gorman $1.8 million to settle a lawsuit over the sexual allegations against Gorman. More trouble came in 1991, when police in California detained Swaggart with another prostitute. The evangelist was charged with driving on the wrong side of the road and driving an unregistered Jaguar. His companion, Rosemary Garcia, said Swaggart became nervous when he saw the police car and weaved when he tried to stuff pornographic magazines under a car seat. Swaggart was later mocked by the late TV comic Phil Hartman, who impersonated him on NBC's 'Saturday Night Live.' Out of the public eye but still in the pulpit The evangelist largely stayed out of the news in later years but remained in the pulpit at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, often joined by his son, Donnie, a fellow preacher. His radio station broadcast church services and gospel music to 21 states, and Swaggart's ministry boasted a worldwide audience on the internet. 'There's been no greater example of a good and faithful servant than my father. No ifs, ands and buts about it. A man who lived his life for the cause of Christ,' Donnie Swaggart said in a video message shared on social media Sunday about his dad's final days. The preacher caused another brief stir in 2004 with remarks about being 'looked at' amorously by a gay man. 'And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died,' Jimmy Swaggart said, to laughter from the congregation. He later apologized. Swaggart made few public appearances outside his church, save for singing 'Amazing Grace' at the 2005 funeral of Louisiana Secretary of State Fox McKeithen, a prominent name in state politics for decades. In 2022, he shared memories at the memorial service for Lewis, his cousin and rock 'n' roll pioneer. The pair had released 'The Boys From Ferriday,' a gospel album, earlier that year. Featured Local Savings
an hour ago
Husband of Suzanne Morphew back in Colorado to face murder charge for a second time
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