Latest news with #firebombing
The Sun
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Sir Keir Starmer says his sister-in-law could have been killed when his house was firebombed
SIR KEIR Starmer has said his sister-in-law could have been killed when his house was firebombed. The Prime Minister has revealed his wife's sister was luckily still awake when the alleged arson attack took place in the early hours. 2 Sir Keir told The Observer his family were 'shaken up'. He said: 'She happened to still be awake, so she heard the noise and got the fire brigade. 'But it could have been a different story.' The incident came just hours before he was due to give a press conference, which he considered cancelling due to the impact on his family, including wife Victoria. He said: 'Vic was really shaken up — as, in truth, was I. 'It was just a case of reading the speech and getting through it somehow so I could get back to them.' The blaze in Kentish Town, North London, on May 12 was the most recent of three apparent arson attacks on property and cars linked to the PM. A car was set ablaze on the same street days earlier, and converted flats were targeted in nearby Islington. Three men who have been charged in connection with the attacks will face trial in April next year. Moment flames engulf car outside Keir Starmer's home as man arrested over 'arson' attack on TWO properties linked to PM 2
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trans student, 19, who 'torched two Tesla Cybertrucks' faces HUGE sentence thanks to Trump's AG Pam Bondi
A transgender teenager accused of firebombing two Tesla Cybertrucks faces spending the remainder of his youth behind bars thanks to very harsh federal charges. Owen McIntire, 19, is staring down 30 years in prison for the March 17 Molotov cocktail attack on two of the EVs at a Tesla dealership in his native Kansas City. The teen, who was receiving so-called gender-affirming care at the time of the attacks, has denied federal charges of malicious destruction of property and unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device. One charge carries with it a mandatory five years in prison, and he could spend 30 years behind bars if found guilty on all counts. McIntire case was elevated to the Department of Justice's national security division after what Attorney General Pam Bondi described as a wave of domestic terrorism. In announcing McIntire's arrest in April, Bondi said: 'Let me be extremely clear to anyone who still wants to firebomb a Tesla property: you will not evade us. 'You will be arrested. You will be prosecuted. You will spend decades behind bars. It is not worth it.' Tesla dealerships and vehicles were subjected to attacks due to CEO Elon Musk being a close ally of President Donald Trump, with Bondi vowing to pursue harsh charges against suspects to send a message. Musk helped engineer a massive downsizing of the federal government and purge of employees earlier this year before stepping away from his role. President Trump even came forward and said he considered acts of vandalism against Tesla as being 'terrorism'. In the last few weeks there relationship soured as the two traded blows over social media over Musk's dislike of Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'. Federal prosecutors had sought to keep McIntire, who has ADHD and autism, behind bars ahead of his trial, claiming he is a risk to public safety. A judge granted his pre-trial release, after his attorneys told the court he was suffering 'serious and ongoing' medical needs. He had started transgender treatments the month of the Tesla attack, which would have been interrupted or terminated while in custody, his attorneys said. His lawyers claimed McIntire had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD and depression. The attorneys also cited McIntire's lack of a previous criminal history and his deep ties to the Kansas City area as reasons he would not be a flight risk. At the time of McIntire's arrest, he was studying physics at the University of Massachusetts. When the Kansas City Tesla dealership was firebombed, police said several Cybertrucks were set on fire at around 11:15pm on March 17. Investigators recovered a women's wide brimmed hat and a Molotov cocktail that failed to detonate at the scene. They believe another was used to damage the trucks. Cops said the fire started at one vehicle spreading through the parking lot, also damaging two charging stations. During an ensuing investigation, officers obtained surveillance footage from a resident's home a block away that allegedly showed McIntire parking his car outside. Surveillance footage from a nearby business and from the Tesla Center itself also reportedly showed McIntire wearing dark clothing and a wide-brimmed hat. The footage from the Tesla Center even allegedly showed McIntire lighting an apple cider vinegar bottle filled with fuel and throwing it at a Cybertruck. He then allegedly returned to the resident's house and was seen leaving the area in his vehicle. McIntire was tracked down using traffic cameras, GPS, cellphone records, and surveillance footage from Kansas City International Airport. Authorities also said a DNA analysis from the wide-brimmed hat, which was found near the first witness' home, resulted in just one male profile. At that point, McIntire was arrested on the University of Massachusetts campus. He remains out on bond while awaiting trial. As part of his release, McIntire must now live with his parents in Parkville, Missouri, participate in mental health programs and take any and all prescribed medications. He has also been ordered to avoid all Tesla dealerships, and will be under home confinement with electronic monitoring. His trial is set for August 11.
Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Times
Keir Starmer: My sister-in-law is lucky to be alive after firebomb
Sir Keir Starmer has revealed that his sister-in-law could have died in the fire-bombing of his old London home, describing how 'shaken up' the attack has left his family. The prime minister told his biographer that his wife's sister and her partner had been in bed at his former home in Tufnell Park when it was attacked just after 1.30am. He said had she not still been awake at the time the consequences could have been much worse, and the incident had had a deep impact on his family. 'She happened to still be awake,' Starmer said. 'So she heard the noise and got the fire brigade. But it could have been a different story.' The attack last month took place the night before Starmer held a press conference on migration, in which he made his infamous remark that Britain had become an 'island of strangers'. The prime minister told Tom Baldwin in a piece for The Observer that he now 'deeply regrets' the comment, saying he had 'no idea' that the phrase had an association with Enoch Powell. While he did not blame being preoccupied with the attack for making the comment, he said he should have chosen his words more carefully. 'I wouldn't have used those words if I had known they were — or even would be interpreted as — an echo of Powell,' he said. 'I had no idea — and my speechwriters didn't know, either. But that particular phrase — no, it wasn't right. I'll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it.' He added that he had very nearly cancelled the press conference altogether. 'I was really, really worried. I almost said, 'I won't do the bloody press conference.' Vic [his wife, Victoria] was really shaken up; as, in truth, was I. It was just a case of reading the words out and getting through it somehow so I could get back to them.' Elsewhere in the interview, Starmer described how he had personally gone to clear out the house belonging to his brother, Nick, who died at the end of last year. 'The previous day I had been taking calls on the future of European security and there I was, on my hands and knees with a brush, scrubbing out the back of the bog,' he said. 'That's quite a good leveller.' Asked why he didn't get cleaners in he replied: 'I didn't want anyone else there. He was my brother — I didn't want to let him down.' Beyond his 'island of strangers' speech, Starmer used the interview to admit to a series of missteps since taking power. • Starmer faces Labour backlash over 'divisive language' on immigration He said his gloomy speech in the Downing Street garden last summer, where he warned 'things will get worse before they get better', was a mistake. It 'squeezed the hope out', he said. 'We were so determined to show how bad it was that we forgot people wanted something to look forward to as well.' He also admitted that he should never have hired Baroness Gray of Tottenham as his chief of staff. 'Not everyone thought it was a good idea when I appointed her,' he said. 'It was my call, my judgment, my decision, and I got that wrong. Sue wasn't the right person for this job.' He also acknowledged that accepting expensive clothes for the election campaign and tickets to watch Arsenal and a Taylor Swift concert with his family had been a mistake, even if no rules were broken. Starmer said that what affected him was not that his own integrity had been questioned, but that sections of the media started calling his wife 'Lady Victoria Sponger' because she had received about £5,000 worth of clothes. • Keir Starmer and his family 'met Taylor Swift at London concert' 'Part of the problem is that I got emotionally involved,' he said. 'One thing I'm reasonably good at usually is staying calm. But when they dragged Vic into it through no fault of her own, that made me angry.' Starmer also spoke about his life in Downing Street, saying he tried to preserve 'normality' for his life and children. He added that they had been hesitant to have friends around initially. 'They were a bit reluctant to start with because it's sort of weird to say, 'Come over for a sleepover, but you'll need your passport; a man with a gun will check your bag and X-ray your teddy,' ' he said. He also revealed that he had deliberately gone out of his way to embrace President Zelensky of Ukraine when he arrived in Downing Street after having been scolded at the White House by President Trump. 'Normally, I would wait on the step to greet him,' he said. 'But I was really conscious that he'd left the White House on his own. That's why I walked towards him and gave him a sort of hug. 'It's also why I walked him out to the car at the end; I wanted him to know that you don't leave my house on your own.'
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Crackdown on Scotland gang war: Police arrest 49 suspects including boy, 17, after spate of shootings, firebombings and assaults rocked Edinburgh and Glasgow
A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of firebombing amid a crackdown against Scotland's violent gang wars - as the total number of people arrested has now risen to 49. A 17-year-old boy is the latest arrest in connection with Operation Portaledge, the ongoing investigation into a series of shootings, firebombings and assaults across the east and west of the country. The spate of violent incidents began in Edinburgh and the east of Scotland in March, but spread to the Glasgow region in April and May. Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell announced the latest arrest during a meeting of the Scottish Police Authority in Edinburgh on Thursday and urged anyone with information to contact police. She said: 'The support of our communities is essential when it comes to tackling serious and organised crime, preventing violence and getting justice for victims, and I want to thank the public for their assistance so far and encourage anyone else with information to come forward.' Police Scotland said the 17-year-old boy was arrested on Tuesday and charged in relation to two alleged wilful fireraisings in Edinburgh during the early hours of June 9 in Niddrie Marischal Crescent and Campion Road. He was released on an undertaking to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court at a later date. In her report for the SPA, the chief constable also reiterated that Scottish police believe there is nothing to suggest that the deaths of two men in Spain are linked to recent incidents in Scotland. The two men, understood to be Eddie Lyons Junior and Ross Monaghan, died after a gunman opened fire outside Monaghans Bar in Fuengirola, Malaga, on May 31. The chief constable's report states: 'Police Scotland is supporting Spanish police following the fatal shootings in Fuengirola. 'At this time, there is no evidence to suggest these deaths are linked to the recent criminal attacks in Scotland being investigated as part of Operation Portaledge or that the shooting was planned within Scotland.' A man has been arrested in Liverpool in connection with the deaths in Malaga. The 44-year-old man appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Saturday, June 14 and has been remanded in custody, police said.
Japan Times
20-06-2025
- Japan Times
Diaries of a Japanese war criminal reveal 'how irrational war truly is,' son says
On June 19, 1945, a U.S. firebombing raid on the city of Fukuoka killed over 1,000 people and changed the course of one man's life. The next day, Army Paymaster Kentaro Toji, grieving the loss of his mother in the attack, volunteered to execute four captured American airmen. Convicted as a Class B/C war criminal after the war, Toji was initially sentenced to death in 1948, but later had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment and was released in 1958. 'War is a cycle of senseless victimization and perpetration,' said his third son, Katsuya Toji, 71, in an interview from Fukuoka. He spoke as he held the wartime diaries his father wrote while imprisoned at Tokyo's Sugamo Prison — extensive records totaling more than 3,000 pages. Kentaro Toji | Courtesy of Katsuya Toji / via Jiji According to court documents and personal records, Kentaro Toji came across the men about to be executed on June 20, 1945, at the former Western Army Headquarters in Fukuoka as he was preparing a coffin for his mother. He volunteered to carry out the beheadings of four captured B-29 crew members, reportedly driven by grief and anger from the bombing. Following Japan's surrender, Toji was imprisoned at Sugamo and kept a detailed diary from August 1946 to October 1952. His writings document not only the legal proceedings and daily life behind bars, but also his reflections on family and justice. 'Death by hanging! That was the sentence handed down to me,' he wrote on Dec. 29, 1948. 'It felt like I was sinking quietly into the bottom of a deep sea.' In the same entry, he wrote that he had believed the executions had been formally sanctioned by military disciplinary procedures, and noted that orders had been given for three of the four killings. Still, he wavered between seeking a retrial and accepting his fate. Katsuya Toji speaks during an interview in the city of Fukuoka in May as he shows the diaries his father Kentaro had written while in prison as a war criminal following World War II. | Jiji On Jan. 1, 1949, he wrote: 'If this is the price of war, a sacrifice for the advancement of humanity, or the result of an infinite karmic cycle, I accept it.' When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Toji noted how even the American guards at Sugamo were being dispatched to the front. On July 14, 1950, he wrote, 'I can't bear the thought of young soldiers around the age of 20 dying one after another under North Korean fire,' before concluding simply: 'I hate war.' In one exchange written in the diaries, a prison guard asked Toji how he had felt at the time of the executions. 'Before I volunteered, I was truly angry,' he admitted, also recounting how his wife had admonished him, saying that the executed airmen 'must have had wives and children, too.' After his release, Toji installed Jizo statues in his garden to honor the men he had executed. In his later years, he frequently welcomed Asian exchange students into his home and supported them. 'We caused harm to other Asian countries,' he told his son. 'That must never be forgotten.' Toji died in 1983 at age 68. Until the end, he maintained that 'it is unjust and wrong for the victors to judge the defeated.' 'If that becomes the norm, no one will be able to surrender,' said Katsuya. 'My father's diary reveals just how irrational war truly is.' Translated by The Japan Times
