The mass kidnapping of children in Nigeria caught the world’s attention over a decade ago when 276 high-school students were abducted from Chibok, sparking the #BringBackOurGirls campaign on social media. The phenomenon returned to the limelight this month with another mass abduction and President Trump’s threats to intervene over what he said was the persecution of Christians in one of Africa’s most strategic nations.
The reality is, the kidnappings never really abated.
Gunmen stormed a Catholic school in Nigeria, abducting more than 300 students and teachers at a time when President
Trump is threatening military action to protect Christians in the West African nation.
The attackers hit St. Mary’s Catholic School in central Niger State in the early hours Friday, spraying bullets into the air before rousting students from their dormitories and forcing them into the forest at gunpoint, police said.
A total of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were abducted by gunmen during an attack on St. Mary’s School, a Catholic institution in north-central Nigeria’s Niger state, the Christian Association of Nigeria said Saturday, updating an earlier tally of 215 schoolchildren.The tally was changed “after a verification exercise and a final census was carried out,” according to a statement issued by the Most. Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Niger state chapter of CAN, who visited the school on Friday.He said 88 other students “were also captured after they tried to escape” during the attack. The students were both male and female and ranged in age from 10 to 18.The school kidnapping in Niger state’s remote Papiri community happened four days after 25 schoolchildren were seized in similar circumstances in neighboring Kebbi state’s Maga town, which is 170 kilometers (106 miles) away.No group has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions and authorities have said tactical squads have been deployed alongside local hunters to rescue the children.Yohanna described as false a claim from the state government that the school had reopened for studies despite an earlier directive for schools in that part of Niger state to close temporarily due to security threats.“We did not receive any circular. It must be an afterthought and a way to shift blame,” he said, calling on families “to remain calm and prayerful.”School kidnappings have come to define insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation, and armed gangs often see schools as “strategic” targets to draw more attention.UNICEF said last year that only 37% of schools across 10 of the conflict-hit states have early warning systems to detect threats.The kidnappings are happening amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims of targeted killings against Christians in the West African country. Attacks in Nigeria affect both Christians and Muslims. The school attack earlier this week in Kebbi state was in a Muslim-majority town.The attack also took place as Nigerian National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu was visiting the U.S. where he met Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday.
ABUJA, Nigeria —
A total of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were abducted by gunmen during an attack on St. Mary’s School, a Catholic institution in north-central Nigeria’s Niger state, the Christian Association of Nigeria said Saturday, updating an earlier tally of 215 schoolchildren.
The tally was changed “after a verification exercise and a final census was carried out,” according to a statement issued by the Most. Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Niger state chapter of CAN, who visited the school on Friday.
He said 88 other students “were also captured after they tried to escape” during the attack. The students were both male and female and ranged in age from 10 to 18.
The school kidnapping in Niger state’s remote Papiri community happened four days after 25 schoolchildren were seized in similar circumstances in neighboring Kebbi state’s Maga town, which is 170 kilometers (106 miles) away.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions and authorities have said tactical squads have been deployed alongside local hunters to rescue the children.
Yohanna described as false a claim from the state government that the school had reopened for studies despite an earlier directive for schools in that part of Niger state to close temporarily due to security threats.
“We did not receive any circular. It must be an afterthought and a way to shift blame,” he said, calling on families “to remain calm and prayerful.”
School kidnappings have come to define insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation, and armed gangs often see schools as “strategic” targets to draw more attention.
UNICEF said last year that only 37% of schools across 10 of the conflict-hit states have early warning systems to detect threats.
The kidnappings are happening amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims of targeted killings against Christians in the West African country. Attacks in Nigeria affect both Christians and Muslims. The school attack earlier this week in Kebbi state was in a Muslim-majority town.
The attack also took place as Nigerian National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu was visiting the U.S. where he met Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday.
TEL AVIV—The body of the last dead American hostage in Gaza was returned by Hamas after more than two years, marking the close of
a painful chapter for U.S. families whose relatives were taken by the militant group.
Itay Chen, 19, an Israeli-American soldier who also holds German citizenship, was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack while fighting off militants with his tank crew in southern Israel. Chen was one of around 250 hostages taken during the attack, including around a dozen U.S. nationals, according to the Hostages Families Forum, an advocacy group.
NIR OZ, Israel—Inside the bomb shelter of a small house in this kibbutz near the Gaza border, a heart is scrawled on the wall around the letters “AA,” short for Ariel and Arbel.
Above it is a note written by one of them, a former hostage, to the other, her fiancé still in captivity: “I will wait for you, I love you more.”
Israeli authorities were preparing to receive the last hostages still alive in Gaza, after Hamas told mediators it had
20 living captives in its custody and was ready to begin setting them free.
The message, which the militant group sent to Israel through intermediaries, marked the first time Hamas has confirmed the number of hostages it holds. It also addressed uncertainty about whether Hamas, in its battered and fragmented state, could quickly assemble all the living hostages and pointed to a possibly accelerated timetable for their release.
TEL AVIV—For two minutes on Monday, Dalia Cusnir allowed herself to hope for the first time in months.
Negotiators, including President Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, were trickling into Egypt this week to try to seal a deal that would end the war in Gaza and bring home Israeli hostages still held there by Hamas. One of them is her brother-in-law, Eitan Horn.
To the world, Hamas said it has accepted major parts of President Trump’s peace plan. Internally, Hamas remains bitterly divided over how to proceed.
On Friday, the U.S.-designated terrorist group said it
was willing to release hostages and hand over Gaza, a landmark statement boosting Trump’s push for an end to the war. But importantly, Hamas used hedged language that some observers saw as problematic to clinching a final peace.
I have a few questions for the foreign governments that approved “
A Palestinian State for Hamas” (Review & Outlook, Sept. 23). What is its capital city? Can Christians and Jews freely practice their religion there? Can women divorce, own property, vote, run for office, get abortions? Will elections be regularly held? Will gay marriage be allowed? Finally, do all citizens of the “state” have the right to kidnap, rape, torture and murder Jews?
The Jewish people are celebrating the New Year of 5786—many of them, living in the state their foes want to wipe off the map. Meanwhile, Hamas refuses to release hostages kidnapped almost two years ago. Useful idiots in the U.K., Australia, France and elsewhere reward them for their intransigence. Recognition of this supposed state is an affront to decency, morality and common sense.
A Prince William County, Virginia, police officer is facing serious charges for allegedly abducting and inappropriately touching a woman. He is accused of assaulting the same woman twice between June and September.
A Prince William County, Virginia, police officer is facing serious charges for allegedly abducting and inappropriately touching a woman.
James Thomas Clinton, 28, is accused of assaulting the same woman twice between June and September. In June, Clinton allegedly handcuffed the woman at Potomac Mills where she worked while he was on duty, even though she was not under arrest.
“After a brief period, the victim was released from the handcuffs, and the two parties separated,” Prince William County police said in a news release.
This month there was a second incident when the two agreed to meet at Turley Park in Dale City. Clinton is charged with holding the woman against her will, threatening her and touching her inappropriately, including grabbing her around the neck.
According to the news release, he “repeatedly grabbed around her neck before the parties separated and left the area.”
Clinton, who has served six years on the force, is on administrative leave and being held without bond. He faces two counts of abduction, one count of sexual battery and one count of assault and battery.
“This type of behavior is reprehensible and does not represent the values and professionalism of the members of this agency,” Prince William County Police Chief Peter Newsham said in the news release.
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GLENDALE, Ariz. — Frightening video shows a man jumping out of his car and apparently trying to kidnap an 11-year-old girl as she walked to school in Glendale, Ariz.
Glendale police say the girl was able to escape. Officers responded quickly and were able to identify and arrest a suspect in the area a short time later.
The video from the morning of Jan. 26 shows the man make a quick U-turn on the residential street and pull up just as the girl is walking by on the sidewalk. As she passes by on the driver’s side, he quickly gets out and tries to grab her, but she runs off.
He chases her a short distance, but then returns to his car and drives off. In another video, the girl can be heard shouting “No!” as she escapes.
Officers were able to quickly obtain video of the incident and get a description of the suspect and his vehicle. They found the suspect still wearing the same clothing in the area a short time later.
Officers arrested Joseph Leroy Ruiz, 37, a resident of that area, for attempted kidnapping. It is not believed that he knew the victim.
“Glendale Police want to commend the bravery of this young victim,” the department said in a written statement. “She did exactly what she needed to do to avoid this situation from becoming much worse.”
… Monday. Under current state law, marijuana establishments must pay a community … the costs imposed by the marijuana establishment. “Reasonably related” means there … offset the operation of a marijuana establishment. Those costs could include …
WASHINGTON (AP) — The negotiations hardly ran smoothly. But, in the end, persistence paid off.
Six weeks ago, not long after Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took scores of others hostage in a surprise assault, the government of Qatar quietly reached out to the United States to discuss how to secure the release of those who were taken captive by the militant group.
THE HAGUE (AP) — The International Criminal Court said Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.
The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar allegations.
The court’s president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC’s judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to enforce warrants.
“The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law. The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation.”
A possible trial of any Russians at the ICC remains a long way off, as Moscow does recognize the court’s jurisdiction — a position reaffirmed earlier this week by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov — and does not extradite its nationals.
Ukraine also is not a member of the court, but it has granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has visited four times since opening an investigation a year ago.
The ICC said that its pretrial chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.”
The court statement said that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the child abductions “for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others [and] for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”
On Thursday, a U.N.-backed inquiry cited Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions, among potential issues that amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
The sweeping investigation also found crimes committed against Ukrainians on Russian territory, including deported Ukrainian children who were prevented from reuniting with their families, a “filtration” system aimed at singling out Ukrainians for detention, and torture and inhumane detention conditions.
But on Friday, the ICC put the face of Putin on the child abduction allegations.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct the Democrat and blow up a bridge to ease an escape.
Adam Fox returned to federal court Tuesday, four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Mich.
They were accused of being at the helm of a wild plot to whip up anti-government extremists just before the 2020 presidential election. Their arrest, as well as the capture of 12 others, was a stunning coda to a tumultuous year of racial strife and political turmoil in the U.S.
The government had pushed for a life sentence, saying Croft offered bomb-making skills and ideology while Fox was the “driving force urging their recruits to take up arms, kidnap the governor and kill those who stood in their way.”
But Judge Robert J. Jonker said that while Fox’s sentence was needed as a punishment and deterrent to future similar acts, the government’s request for life in prison is “not necessary to achieve those purposes.”
“It’s too much. Something less than life gets the job done in this case,” Jonker said, later adding that 16 years in prison “is still in my mind a very long time.”
In addition to the 16-year prison sentence, Fox will have to serve five years of supervised release.
Fox and Croft were convicted at a second trial in August, months after a different jury in Grand Rapids couldn’t reach a verdict but acquitted two other men. Croft, a trucker from Bear, Del., will be sentenced Wednesday.
Fox and Croft in 2020 met with like-minded provocateurs at a summit in Ohio, trained with weapons in Michigan and Wisconsin and took a ride to “put eyes” on Whitmer’s vacation home with night-vision goggles, according to evidence.
“People need to stop with the misplaced anger and place the anger where it should go, and that’s against our tyrannical … government,” Fox declared that spring, boiling over COVID-19 restrictions and perceived threats to gun ownership.
Whitmer wasn’t physically harmed. The FBI, which was secretly embedded in the group, broke things up by fall.
“They had no real plan for what to do with the governor if they actually seized her. Paradoxically, this made them more dangerous, not less,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in a court filing ahead of the hearing.
In 2020, Fox, 39, was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids–area vacuum shop, the site of clandestine meetings with members of a paramilitary group and an undercover FBI agent. His lawyer said he was depressed, anxious and smoking marijuana daily.
Christopher Gibbons said a life sentence would be extreme.
Fox was regularly exposed to “inflammatory rhetoric” by FBI informants, especially Army veteran Dan Chappel, who “manipulated not only Fox’s sense of ‘patriotism’ but also his need for friendship, acceptance and male approval,” Gibbons said in a court filing.
He said prosecutors had exaggerated Fox’s capabilities, saying he was poor and lacked the capability to obtain a bomb and carry out the plan.
Two men who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin already is free after a 2½-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the media after signing a state budget bill in July.
AP/Carlos Osorio/File
In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim County, where Whitmer’s vacation home is located.
When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer, a Democrat, blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.” In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal.”
