The fate of the Kinahan cartel was sealed in the summer of 2021 when two men who never met before shook hands in one of the US Treasury Department's most opulent rooms.

Before the late Assistant Garda Commissioner John O'Driscoll walked through the door leading into the Grant Room in the Treasury building, the then Head of Global Targeting for Sanctions had never heard of the Kinahans.

And if sanctions were to be imposed, the quietly-spoken senior garda had to convince not only Greg Gatjanis but ultimately then President Joe Biden, that the Dublin crime lords posed a significant threat to the United States.

Recalling how the late Assistant Garda Commissioner convinced him the Kinahans were an American problem, Mr Gatjanis told the Irish Mail on Sunday: 'We were a very small office for having such an enormous mandate, and the reasons I explain that is we had to be very judicious about where we put our resources.

'We really had to make sure that every target we agreed to investigate was going to be a viable target.

'I asked a colleague "what's the connection [of the

A group of fishermen rescued a missing dog they found swimming on its own in the ocean.

The men were sailing near Cedros Island, Baja California, off the coast of Mexico in the early morning when they made the unusual discovery.

The 'completely lost' dog was not wearing a collar or harness and was paddling away from the beach about a mile from shore.

Stopping the boat, the captain encouraged the dog to come closer and pulled him aboard to safety.  

The exhausted animal relaxed on board and was given fresh water and food, before becoming the crew's 'unexpected fishing partner'.

A man on the boat who filmed the heartwarming rescue said: 'After fishing for half the day we came back to the dock and we're going to drop off the dog that we saved, then we're going to continue fishing.'

When they returned to land, someone at the dock recognised the pooch and reunited it with its owner.

The fishing group wrote in a post on Instagram: 'At 6:00 AM, while heading out for a day of fishing off Cedros Island, our captain spotted something

A tiny Maine town has descended into political turmoil after vicious Facebook feuds spilled into public meetings, drove officials from office and required police intervention.

Clifton, a community of just 877 people located 20 minutes east of Bangor, has become divided by personal attacks exchanged through rival local Facebook groups.

The online war has seen an elected official's mugshot, property deed and photographs of his family repeatedly published, according to the Bangor Daily News.

The bitter dispute has even led to harassment complaints and explosive confrontations at town meetings.

Meanwhile, Clifton is struggling with more than $2 million in debt, the firing of its town clerk and allegations that Select Board members have been meeting without one another.

The turmoil reached Maine's highest court after two misplaced absentee ballots determined the winner of a March Select Board election by a single vote.

Steve Armenia initially lost the race to Cynthia Grant, who received 114 votes to his 113.

But officials later discovered two unopened absentee ballots that had not been included in the count.

This is the horrendous moment when muggers shove a 90-year-old woman with dementia to the ground before stealing her necklace and wedding ring.

The incident happened right outside the pensioner's home on Morris Avenue in Newham, east London, on July 17, and left her with bruises on her face and cuts on her elbows.

The woman's daughter - who wishes to remain anonymous -  explained her mother has advanced dementia and needs to follow a particular routine every day to ease her condition.

Part of the routine is to walk to the shop in the morning and then sweep outside the house. It was at this point that the opportunistic thieves struck.

CCTV appears to show the woman being called to a car stopped on the street nearby.

The daughter said: 'What you can see on the footage is hands going in and out of the car and they take the chain off mum's neck. We're not sure how they get the ring off their finger.

'They sped off and pushed her to the ground and she was found on the curb by a neighbour - that's as far as we know.' 

Syrian court on Tuesday issued a death sentence to detainee Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad. 

Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan said Wassim al-Assad was convicted of multiple murders and 'murder accompanied by torture and brutality... classified as crimes against humanity and war crimes', adding that 'he is therefore sentenced to death'.

Wassim al-Assad faced a range of charges, including setting up and leading paramilitary groups since 2011. 

He was also charged with taking part in military operations targeting civilians in Eastern Ghouta that resulted in the deaths of ordinary Syrian citizens. 

He is the first member of the al-Assad family to be sentenced in person. 

His sentence comes just a week after the brutal dictator was himself sentenced in absentia to death for crimes against humanity. 

Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad were both sentenced in absentia as they live in exile in Russia. 

Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan, who also oversaw the dictator's case, said Bashar 'used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.'  

Labour's eco-millionaire donor Dale Vince has told Andy Burnham that approving new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea can 'save money for the country'.

The green energy tycoon revealed he has dropped his opposition to the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields and said there is 'a way that we can make sense of this North Sea puzzle'.

Explaining his surprise U-turn, Mr Vince said that if new drilling was combined with 'price control' on wholesale energy then this would help bring bills down.

Proposals for the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields are now in the hands of ministers following the closure of consultations on the two projects.

Mr Burnham is under increasing pressure – including from US President Donald Trump – to ease Labour's ban on new drilling and give the go-ahead to both fields.

Rosebank is the UK's largest remaining untapped oil field and lies about 80 miles west of Shetland.

Meanwhile there have been warnings of fuel shortages this winter without the approval of the Jackdaw gas field, which is 150 miles

Shocking video captured a vicious fight that sent two women's hijabs flying off inside a Target store.

Footage of the scrap has been heavily circulating online, racking up tens of thousands of views and comments across several uploads.

The two women, who appeared to be wearing traditional Muslim attire, could be heard shrieking as their hijabs lay on the ground while they tried to rip out each other's hair.

Several bystanders attempted to break up the brawl, except for a security guard who appeared to wait a little too long before stepping in.

The asset protection associate, wearing a high-visibility green jacket, stood by watching as the women, one in a navy blue dress and the other in a black gown, rolled around striking one another in the face.

At one point, the woman in navy blue ended up on top of the other woman as she lay on the white-tiled walkway of the Target store.

While on top, the brawler threw several hammer fists while screaming: 'I'll spit on you h**, I'll spit on this b****.'

Towards the end of the footage, a man finally stepped in to separate the women, grabbing the wrists of the

Keir Starmer's decision to sack the top civil servant he hired only 14 months earlier cost taxpayers £500,000, it has emerged.

Chris Wormald was forced out as cabinet secretary in February as the then-prime minister rebuilt his No10 team in a desperate bid to save his premiership.

His departure made him the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in history and left taxpayers to pick up the bill for a hefty payout.

It had initially been suggested that Sir Chris had been handed a £260,000 payout as part of an exit package.

But several insiders briefed on the settlement have now told the Financial Times it topped £500,000, which would make it a record payout.

The severance payment had to be personally signed off by Sir Keir after Cat Little, the top official at the Cabinet Office, said she needed a 'ministerial direction' on the sum.

In a letter to Sir Keir from February, she said: 'The proposed award is greater than what Sir Chris Wormald would be contractually entitled to.

'However, I am informed that a settlement of this level is necessary given that this is a

A search has been launched for a young soldier who disappeared after a bar fight and an alleged car ramming incident which left two people seriously injured. 

Liam Potts, 22, a soldier with the Coldstream Guards who had a ceremonial role in Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in 2022, vanished at around 12.20am on Saturday morning following a series of incidents in the village of Wylam, Northumberland.

Locals said a disturbance broke out at a pub close to the River Tyne, minutes before two people were struck by a vehicle on Wylam Bridge.  

Liam was not one of those struck by the car, nor was he in the vehicle, but he was seen walking away in the aftermath of the collision. 

Police said they understand he entered the water, but it remains unknown whether he managed to make it out again. 

Northumbria Police received a report later on Saturday afternoon concerning the welfare of Liam. He was last spotted heading towards the centre of Wylam village from Wylam Bridge in the early hours. 

A man and woman - each aged in their 20s - both sustained serious but non-life threatening injuries when struck by

Hayden Panettiere's heartbroken 'second mom' has revealed her devastation over the actress's sudden death at just 36 - and told how the troubled star 'tried and tried' to overcome the demons that plagued her adult life.

The Heroes and Nashville star was found unresponsive at her home in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday afternoon after an acquaintance called 911 to report that she was in cardiac arrest.

Panettiere was pronounced dead at the scene despite efforts to save her. 

Police said their preliminary investigation found 'no signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances,' while a post-mortem examination found no signs of trauma that would have contributed to her death.

Her cause and manner of death have not yet been determined.

Now Lynsey Lonberg, 73, a longtime family friend whom Panettiere described in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, as her 'second mother,' has spoken of her anguish at losing the little girl she watched grow into a Hollywood star.

Sitting at the bar of a restaurant in Piermont, New York, on Monday afternoon, Lonberg remembered the animal-loving child who played at her home, the fiercely focused actress she became - and the painful struggles she believes

An architect accused of threatening to kill an oral surgeon and beautician's daughter after messing up building plans for their new clinic has been struck off. 

Joan Beltri launched a 'campaign of harassment, abuse and threats' via email and voicemail towards his clients over work in Winchester, Hampshire, a tribunal heard.

He also threatened married couple Dr James Escoda-Francoli, 45, and 36-year-old Carolina Sampietro – saying he would 'kill them all'.

Dr Escoda-Francoli, a specialist oral surgeon, and Mrs Sampietro, an aesthetics practitioner, hired Mr Beltri to work on the beauty clinic they were building.

But the relationship soured after a series of blunders, including the cutting through of a gas pipe while Mr Beltri, 50, carried out work for which he was not qualified.

Mr Beltri – who describes himself as a structural engineer and an artificial intelligence engineer – failed to secure permission from the local council to work on the Grade II listed building in Winchester.

It led to Mr Beltri, a Spanish compatriot of his clients, insulting Dr Escoda-Francoli – claiming his wife was sleeping with other men and saying: 'If

Labour came under fire today for pouring millions of pounds into a 'daft' Net Zero scheme which aims to stop passenger planes from leaving vapour trails in the sky.

Ministers said they were handing over nearly £3million of taxpayers' cash for the trial, under which pilots flying Transatlantic routes will be told to avoid areas of sky where there's a greater risk of forming trails because of atmospheric conditions.

Experts claim the trails can form clouds which trap heat and contribute to climate change.

But critics dubbed the scheme 'pie in the sky' and a 'waste' of taxpayers' cash which threatens to push up ticket prices, as changing flight paths can use up more jet fuel.

Under the scheme, UK transport officials and air traffic controllers will team up with the Met Office and tech giant Google to identify where planes are at risk of forming vapour trails and tell them to change altitude.

Aviation minister Keir Mather hailed the 'world first' trial as he unveiled it this morning, adding: 'By testing small tweaks to flight paths