Sean “Diddy” Combs is on suicide watch as he awaits trial in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, sources tell PEOPLE.

Combs, 54, was arrested at a Manhattan hotel on the night of Monday, Sept. 16. The next day, his indictment was unsealed, revealing that he’s charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution.

He was remanded to MDC on Tuesday, Sept. 17, after pleading not guilty and being denied bail twice this week. It is not known if Combs is suicidal or how long he has been on suicide watch.

Sources tell PEOPLE that it is for preventative measures as Combs is in shock and his mental state is unclear.

According to the U.S Department of Justice National Institute of Corrections, suicide watch is “supervisory precautions taken for suicidal inmates that require frequent observation.”

During a court hearing, Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, asked a judge for the music mogul to be transferred to a prison in Essex County in New Jersey. The decision was ultimately put in the hands of the Bureau of Prisons.

MDC, which houses 1,600 inmates — many of whom are awaiting trial — is known for being dangerous and understaffed, with a high number of deaths and suicides.

In their motion for Combs to be granted bail, his attorneys wrote that “several courts in this District have recognized that the conditions at Metropolitan Detention Center are not fit for pre-trial detention,” per The Daily Beast.

“Just earlier this summer, an inmate was murdered,” the legal team added. “At least four inmates have died by suicide there in the past three years.”

In the indictment against Combs, he was accused of forcing victims to have “freak offs,” which prosecutors describe as “elaborate and produced sex performances.”

He allegedly used his fame and influence as well as drugs like cocaine, ketamine and oxycodone, to coerce and intimidate women to join the “freak offs.” Additionally, the “freak offs” were sometimes allegedly captured on camera without the victims’ knowledge.

Federal investigators seized three AR-15 rifles and 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant when raiding his Miami and Los Angeles homes this past March.

Another conference hearing for Diddy is set for Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 10 a.m.

The Israeli military announced that its airstrike Friday on a neighborhood of Beirut killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hezbollah.

The Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 60 others, according to Lebanese health officials, and flattened two apartment buildings. The Israeli military also claimed that its strike killed other “top operatives” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, without elaborating.

A Hezbollah official has confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building in the Dahiya district that was hit.

Akil has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the United States for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks. Last year, the State Department posted a $7 million reward for information leading to his identification, location, arrest or conviction and said he also directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.

It came shortly after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets and the region awaited the revenge promised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over this week’s mass bombing attack on pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members.

Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel prompted the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza, tensions have surged into regular cross-border attacks between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah. The exchanges of fire over the past year have largely struck evacuated communities in northern Israel and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon. The last time Israel hit Beirut was in a July airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.

Friday’s strike hit the sprawling Dahiya district during rush hour, as people were leaving work and children heading home from school.

Local networks broadcast footage that showed a high-rise building completely flattened in Jamous area, just kilometers from downtown Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway. First responders scrambled through the tangled streets and combed through the rubble of at least two collapsed apartment buildings to search for more missing people. Health authorities said at least eight of the 59 wounded were in critical condition.

Shortly after the Israeli airstrike on Beirut, Hezbollah announced two more attacks on northern Israel, one of which it said targeted an intelligence base from which it claimed Israel directed assassinations. Israel offered no immediate comment on those latest strikes.

Israel and Lebanon have been on edge since Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded en masse this week, killing at least 20 people and wounding thousands in Lebanon in attacks widely attributed to Israel.

Over the last day, Hezbollah said that it fired rockets at several Israeli military sites along the border with Katyusha rockets, including multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade.

The Israeli military said that 120 missiles were launched at areas of the Golan Heights, Safed and the Upper Galilee, some of which were intercepted. Fire crews were working to extinguish blazes caused by pieces of debris that fell to the ground in several areas, the military said. The military didn’t say whether any missiles had hit targets or caused any casualties.

Another 20 missiles were shot at the areas of Meron and Netua, and most fell in open areas, the military said, adding that no injuries were reported.

Hezbollah said that the rockets were in retaliation for Israeli strikes on villages and homes in southern Lebanon, not two days of attacks widely blamed on Israel that set off explosives in thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies.

On Thursday, Israel said its military had struck “hundreds of rocket launcher barrels” in southern Lebanon, saying that they “were ready to be used in the immediate future to fire toward Israeli territory.”

The army also ordered residents in parts of the Golan Heights and northern Israel to avoid public gatherings, minimize movements and stay close to shelters in anticipation of the rocket fire that eventually came Friday.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire since Oct. 8, a day after the Israel-Hamas war’s opening salvo, but Friday’s rocket barrages were heavier than normal.

Nasrallah on Thursday vowed to keep up daily strikes on Israel despite this week’s deadly sabotage of its members’ communication devices, which he described as a “severe blow.”

At least 20 were killed in the attacks and thousands were wounded when pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The sophisticated attacks have heightened fears that the cross-border exchanges of fire will escalate into all-out war. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the attacks.

In recent days, Israel has moved a powerful fighting force up to the northern border, officials have escalated their rhetoric, and the country’s security Cabinet has designated the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel an official war goal.

Fighting in Gaza has slowed, but casualties continue to rise.

Overnight, Palestinian authorities said that 15 people were killed in multiple Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.

Those included six people, including an unknown number of children, in an airstrike early Friday morning in Gaza City that hit a family home, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. Another person was killed in Gaza City when a strike hit a group of people on a street.

Israel maintains that it only targets militants, and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, had no immediate comment.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count, but says a little over half of those killed were women and children.

Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

More than 95,000 people have also been wounded in Gaza since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry said.

The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.

A newly resurfaced video shows an ex-porn star, who was arrested in 2018 for allegedly shooting up one of former President Donald Trump’s Florida golf courses, telling cops during his interrogation that he’d allegedly been Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex slave.

The years-old clip of Jonathan Oddi being grilled by Miami investigators in the unrelated case re-emerged just days after Combs, 54, pleaded not guilty in New York to sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

The fallen rap mogul has been accused of running a sordid criminal empire for more than a decade in which he allegedly threatened women and sometimes forced them to take part in drugged-up sex shows with male sex workers, according to his indictment.

His arrest comes years after Oddi — a former stripper and porn star — was filmed bizarrely claiming to cops that he’d had sex with Combs and the rapper’s ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.

“I had sex with Cassie and Sean,” Oddi alleged in the interrogation footage. “He would masturbate and tell me what to do to Cassie. I was like a sex slave, okay. For them, that’s what I was.”

Oddi also claimed he “caught herpes” during the alleged sex fests with Combs and Ventura — and that he had taken “liquid cocaine” with them both.

👀 Rewind to 2018 when this man, Jonathan Oddi, was arrested for shooting up a Trump hotel. In his interrogation, he revealed that he was Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sex slave, and that Diddy, DJ Khalid, and Rick Ross are secretly gay.

Interesting indeed. Could it finally be happening?… pic.twitter.com/mDhqQ6ujXy

— 🇺🇸Land Of ILLUSION🇺🇸 (@Landofillusion1) September 19, 2024

His bizarre allegations were never substantiated and were dismissed. However, they bear a resemblance to claims detailed in Combs’ recent indictment, as well as those Ventura laid bare in a federal lawsuit she filed against the rapper last November in which she accused him of a years-long pattern of domestic and sexual violence.

Oddi’s claims about the embattled hip-hop star were among several wild allegations and conspiracy theories that he spewed out soon after he was taken into custody over the Trump golf course shooting in May 2018.

In that incident, Oddi was allegedly caught on camera carrying a US flag and ranting about Trump as he stormed into the lobby of the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami before exchanging gunfire with cops.

Oddi, who was shot in the legs by police and then cuffed, had been ranting about former President Barack Obama and Combs when he was arrested, law enforcement sources said at the time.

“He doesn’t like Obama. He doesn’t like Trump. And, apparently, he doesn’t like P. Diddy,” the source said of Oddi, according to the Miami Herald.

Oddi is still in custody in Miami-Dade County on attempted murder of law enforcement officers, armed burglary and armed grand theft charges over the 2018 incident.

Combs, meanwhile, is being held without bail at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn pending his trial.

Rep. Matt Gaetz attended a drug-fueled sex party in 2017 with the 17-year-old girl at the center of the alleged sex trafficking scandal, according to legal documents filed to a Florida federal court shortly before midnight Thursday, which cite sealed affidavits from three eyewitness testimonies.

The minor, who was a junior in high school at the time, arrived in her mother’s car for a July 15, 2017, party at the Florida home of Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist and friend of Gaetz’s, according to a court filing written by defense attorneys who interviewed witnesses as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit Dorworth brought in 2023.

The lobbyist claimed he had been unfairly dragged into the alleged sex trafficking scandal that has dogged Gaetz and his allies for years. Dorworth ultimately dropped the case, but lawyers filed these documents in an attempt to recoup attorneys fees for a lawsuit they say should never have been brought.

One eyewitness cited in the court filings, a young woman referred to as K.M., provided a sworn affidavit that claimed the teenage girl was naked, partygoers were there to “engage in sexual activities,” and “alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy … and marijuana” were present. The teenage girl was identified in the filings only as A.B.

“The discovery taken in this case to date reflects that on Saturday, July 15, 2017 … Dorworth, hosted a party at his residence … with the following guests present: (1) A.B.; (2) K.M.; (3) B.G.; (4) Matt Gaetz,” lawyers wrote in the filing, also listing several others. The defense lawyers filed testimonies from those three women — who the attorneys say placed Gaetz at Dorworth’s house that night — under seal pending a judge’s approval to make the records public.

Additionally, Gaetz’s own ex-girlfriend — who was present at the party — provided testimony that lawyers say rebuts Dorworth’s claims that he was not there. NOTUS independently verified that Gaetz and one of the women who testified were previously involved in a relationship; she is only identified in the court filing by her initials, B.G.

The congressman’s ex-girlfriend’s eleventh hour testimony on Sept. 3 came just two days before Dorworth dropped his lawsuit, defense attorneys said in the filing. The defense lawyers also relied on Dorworth’s geolocated cell phone records, which showed that he communicated constantly with the congressman that day. The defense’s court filings show a hired digital forensic examiner identified Gaetz’s number, which has a Florida panhandle 850 area code and texted back and forth 30 times that day and then called Dorworth twice in the hours before the evening revelry. “B.G., another attendee at that party, confirmed A.B.’s testimony under penalty of perjury,” defense lawyers wrote.

This marks the first time that sworn testimony has been referenced in public court filings alleging that the congressman attended one of the long-rumored parties tied to an alleged underage sex scandal. Previous reports have revealed details of ex-politician and Gaetz friend Joel Greenberg’s confession letter that was never made public, which described how Gaetz would allegedly pay him to arrange several sexual encounters with young women — including a 17-year-old girl. Greenberg is serving an 11-year prison sentence for a list of charges, including fraud and sex trafficking with a child.

There have also been reports of Venmo payment transactions that were also never released showing the congressman paying Greenberg on at least one occasion.

In 2021, Gaetz appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and asserted, “The person doesn’t exist. I have not had a relationship with a 17-year-old. That is totally false.” Gaetz has denied allegations that he has ever had sex with a minor or participated in sex trafficking.

The Department of Justice investigated Gaetz and ultimately declined to file criminal charges.

Records also show that A.B., who was born in 1999, attended three weekly deposition sessions in July and testified in front of lawyers in Boulder, Colorado.

The new details were released in a cache of court filings that were ironically made public as a direct result of the congressman’s friend, Dorworth, trying to make this disappear.

When the DOJ dropped the investigation, Dorworth sued several people including Greenberg, and the woman who claimed she was sex-trafficked by Gaetz when she was only 17.

Dorworth responded by text message Friday morning, repeating his claim that he “never met” the teenager, “not once in my life.”

“She is also lying about Matt Gaetz,” he added.

Dorworth said his account is supported by a polygraph test he took years ago during which he was asked about the alleged encounters, and he noted that he is “still suing Joel, his parents and his company in state court.” He also took issue with the way defense lawyers referenced material that he stressed was “confidential.”

Former President Donald Trump maintains a 2-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for the White House in the first Rasmussen Reports survey conducted since the candidates’ Sept. 10 debate.

Asked “who would you vote for?” there were 49% of voters backing Trump and 47% backing Harris, Rasmussen poll results show. Another 2% say they would vote for some other candidate, and 3% say they are undecided.

The results align with last week’s Rasmussen poll, when Trump led 49%-47%.

The new survey results indicate Harris has closed the gap among voters not affiliated with the two major parties. Trump gets 49% support to Harris’ 45% among those voters — a lot closer than the former president’s 12-point lead last week.

Trump gets 85% backing from Republican voters and Harris receives 80% support from Democrat voters.

Republican nominee Trump leads by 9 points (52%-43%) among men, while Democrat nominee Harris has a 5-point lead (50%-45%) among women.

In a racial breakdown, 53% of whites, 30% of Blacks, 44% of Hispanics, and 45% of other minorities say they would vote for Trump, while 43% of whites, 65% of Blacks, 48% of Hispanics, and 48% of other minorities say they would vote for Harris.

The vice president leads Trump 47%-46% among voters under 40 — and by 3 points among voters 65 and older. The former president leads Harris by 6 points among those ages 40-64.

In a breakdown of political ideology, 85% of self-identified liberal voters say they would vote for Harris, while 73% of conservatives say they would vote for Trump.

Harris leads 54%-41% among moderate voters.

Trump is ahead by 7 points among private sector workers, and Harris leads by 7 points among government employees.

In a break down by income categories, Harris leads 60%-36% among voters earning between $100,000 and $200,000 annually, while Trump holds a 56%-40% advantage among voters with annual incomes between $50,000 and $100,000.

The Rasmussen Reports’ national telephone and online survey was conducted Sept. 12 and 15-18 among 1,855 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Political commentators and other social media users criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for remarks that she gave during a campaign event and interview with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday night.

“We love our country,” Harris said. “I love our country. I know we all do, that’s why everybody’s here right now. We love our country. We take pride in the privilege of being American and this is a moment where we can and must come together as Americans, understanding we have so much more in common than what separates us. Let’s come together with the character that we are so proud of about who we are, which is we are an optimistic people. We are an optimistic people.”

Harris spoke with Winfrey at the “Unite for America Rally,” a livestream event featuring several celebrities as well as questions and stories from citizens across the country.

“Americans by character are people who have dreams and ambitions and aspirations,” Harris said, continuing her comments. “We believe in what is possible, we believe in what can be, and we believe in fighting for that. That’s how we came into being, because the people before us understood that one of the greatest expressions for the love of our country, one of the greatest expressions of patriotism is to fight for the ideals of who we are, which includes freedom to make decisions about your own body, freedom to be safe from gun violence, freedom to have access to the ballot box, freedom to be who you are and just be the love, who you love, openly and with pride. Freedom to just be.”

Critics online accused the vice president of offering rambling commentary that didn’t seem to have much substance.

“Oprah is looking at this moron thinking, “What the sh*t is she saying?” Unbelievable CRINGE,” author Juanita Broaddrick wrote on Thursday.

Oprah is looking at this moron thinking, “What the sh*t is she saying?”

Unbelievable CRINGE.

pic.twitter.com/cyhaweULf8

— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 20, 2024

“The fact that she is within 20 points of Trump is a depressingly sad commentary on the state of our body politic and the media that poisons it,,” attorney David Limbaugh wrote. “Stunning.”

“To call this pablum is an insult to pablum,” ReaclClearPolitics co-founder Tom Bevan said on Friday.

To call this pablum is an insult to pablum. https://t.co/KkpQ9EQKI4

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) September 20, 2024

“This might just be the most spectacular two minutes of Kamala’s nonsensical wisdom I have ever heard,” political commentator Kate Hyde wrote on Thursday.

Writer Steve Skojec also responded to the video on Thursday: “I can’t. I can’t do it. I made it 17 seconds and I just cannot continue.”

I can’t. I can’t do it. I made it 17 seconds and I just cannot continue.

— Steve Skojec (@SteveSkojec) September 20, 2024

Former President Donald Trump’s third post-presidency book, Save America, debuts on the New York Times bestseller list this weekend, a shocker of sorts because of the newspaper’s effort to ignore the book, as well as the book’s $99 price tag.

While it is just the latest bestseller list to feature the 360-page large format book, it is clearly the most important for the New York real estate developer.

“I just learned that my newest book, SAVE AMERICA, is a New York Times BEST SELLER! No other book takes you behind the scenes like this coffee table book. I picked each photo, and I can tell you it is FANTASTIC. Get your copy today at 45books.com,” he wrote on Truth Social.

For the New York Times Sept. 22 list of hardcover nonfiction books, Trump’s opens at No. 11.

Save America is similar to his two other post-presidency books that feature photos accompanied by his commentary. The first, Our Journey Together, featured photos of his administration with comments on several. His second, Letters to Trump, was a collection of notes from celebrities, sports figures, and world politicians and his thoughts on each.

His newest features key moments in his first administration to help lay out the foundation of his plans should he beat Vice President Kamala Harris in November, making the 45th president the 47th president. The cover is the iconic photo of Trump with his fist in the air, yelling, “Fight, fight, fight” after an assassin’s bullet clipped his right ear in July.

“We are thrilled President Trump has made multiple bestseller lists, including the New York Times. Considering that his book is worth much more than any other book on the list, it’s an incredible accomplishment,” said Sergio Gor, CEO of Winning Team Publishing, which he and Donald Trump Jr. created.

Its placement as No. 11 is surprising, considering that Save America is by far the most expensive book on all the New York Times lists, at $99.

What’s more, the New York Times list does not include those sold through Trump’s publisher, with which the vast majority were preordered. Had the New York Times included all the direct sales, it is likely the book would have been the nation’s No. 1 bestseller, according to industry sources.

A deal between Constellation Energy and Microsoft will restart Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, the site of the country’s worst nuclear power accident, to help power the tech giant’s growing artificial intelligence ambitions.

Under the agreement, Constellation would revive the plant’s undamaged reactor, which was too costly to run and closed in 2019, and sell the power to Microsoft. The plan signals the gargantuan amount of power needed for data centers for AI, along with the tech industry’s thirst for a carbon-free, round-the-clock electricity source needed to meet climate goals.

Constellation expects to spend around $1.6 billion to restart the reactor by early 2028. Microsoft has signed a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Constellation, the companies said Friday. The deal would help Microsoft pair its 24-7 electricity use with a matching source of nearby clean power generation.

“The most important energy commodity in the world today is a reliable and clean electric megawatt just because of the difficulty of replicating it and the need for it,” Joe Dominguez, Constellation’s chief executive officer, said in an interview.

Bobby Hollis, vice president of energy for Microsoft, called the agreement “a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid.”

Constellation shares were up more than 15% at midday.

Three Mile Island’s undamaged Unit 1 reactor sits next to Unit 2, which was shut down after a partial core meltdown in 1979 led to five days of panic. The incident heightened awareness of nuclear plants’ potential safety problems and contributed to a loss of enthusiasm for the industry that lasted decades.

But the 835-megawatt Unit 1 continued operating and closed only under economic pressure five years ago. Dominguez said despite losing money for years it was “the best-performing reactor in our fleet and arguably the best-performing reactor in America.”

Years of flat U.S. power demand had created a bruising battle for market share. Nuclear plants had a tough time competing against renewable energy and natural-gas-fired plants that tapped into a cheap source of fuel from the U.S. shale boom.

That landscape has reversed.

Forecasts for power demand have zoomed higher with more data centers, new domestic manufacturing and a push to electric power for transportation, heat and heavy industry. Tech companies scouring the country for carbon-free electricity have zeroed in on America’s nuclear-power plants. Microsoft already purchases nuclear energy from Constellation for a data center in Virginia when wind and solar power aren’t available, and signed a first-of-its-kind contract for fusion energy, betting it might be delivered this decade.

Nuclear-power advocates see a window of opportunity to halt or unwind the closure of existing plants, or to add small modular reactors, newer designs that many consider the best option for fresh projects. New tax credits, potential support for financially strapped plants or loans for new projects have become available through federal legislation.

Tom Mehaffie, a Pennsylvania Republican state representative, can see the plant’s cooling towers from his home and watched it close five years ago, though he had introduced legislation to try to keep it operating.

Now he says he is getting messages from former plant workers who left and want to return. “This is something that we really need and I don’t think anything’s going to change anytime soon,” Mehaffie said.

Critics question whether reactors that began operating decades ago can safely come back online. After Constellation said earlier this year that it was examining reopening Three Mile Island, there were small local protests.

The reactor had a federal license to operate until 2034 when it closed, but a restart will require safety and environmental reviews, local and state permits, and approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Separately, Constellation will pursue license renewal to extend plant operations to at least 2054.

This is the second U.S. attempt to revive a closed nuclear reactor. The federal government and the state of Michigan are spending nearly $2 billion to restart the Palisades nuclear reactor on the shores of Lake Michigan. That plant was mothballed in 2022, with reopening targeted for October 2025.

In Iowa, NextEra Energy is considering reopening the Duane Arnold Energy Center, a nuclear plant that closed in 2020.

A Three Mile Island restart, along with potential investments at other reactors that could boost nuclear-power output, called uprating, means Constellation could add around 2,000 megawatts of nuclear power within “a handful of years,” Dominguez said. Electricity use varies by region, but that is roughly enough to power more than 1.5 million homes.

It is also nearly as much power as what is produced by two new reactors at Georgia’s Vogtle plant, the first new nuclear project completed in years in the U.S. Vogtle faced years of delays and cost more than $30 billion, souring the appetite for new conventional reactors.

“Things that we build are going to just take a lot longer and we have this need now,” Dominguez said.

Microsoft has begun testing whether AI could help streamline the notoriously challenging regulatory approval process.

Constellation has already ordered some equipment, including the main transformer for the plant, which needs to be replaced, and U.S.-sourced nuclear fuel.

Three Mile Island will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center, after former Exelon CEO Chris Crane, who died in April at age 65. Crane was a proponent of nuclear energy and oversaw the spinout of Constellation from Exelon in 2022 before retiring.

Constellation produces more than a fifth of the country’s nuclear power.

A former Border Patrol sector chief told lawmakers that he was blocked from informing the public about migrants who may be potential terror threats, as he says the Biden administration wanted to downplay the threat.

“In San Diego, we had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens [SIAs]. These are aliens with significant ties to terrorism,” former San Diego Sector Chief Patrol official Aaron Heitke told lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee.

“Prior to this administration, the San Diego sector averaged 10-15 SIAs per year. Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year,” he warned. “These are only the ones we caught.”

Heitke says he was told he couldn’t release information about that increase.

“At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border,” he said.

Watch:

🚨WOW! Former Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke testifies before Congress that he was ordered by the Biden-Harris admin to cover up the number of terrorists arrested at the border.

“I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the… pic.twitter.com/wQowZHBM7N

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 19, 2024

The remarks came as part of a House Homeland Security Committee hearing called “A Country Without Borders: How Biden-Harris’ Open-Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security.”

Immigration is a top 2024 election issue, and Republicans have blamed Biden administration policies and the rolling back of Trump-era policies for the crisis.

“As we continue to witness Biden and Harris’ resistance to doing anything meaningful about this disaster, we have to ask — why? Why did they let this crisis take place and why have they let it continue,” Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., told the committee.

Heitke also told the committee that he would release illegal aliens “by the hundreds” each day, and flights were provided to send migrants from San Diego to Texas, at approximately $150,000 per flight.

He also testified that he had to shut down San Diego traffic checkpoints to divert resources to the border, and that those checkpoints are crucial for the interdiction of drugs like fentanyl.

Democrats and the administration have accused Republicans of failing to back funding and reform bills — including a bipartisan Senate bill released this year — and say that recent moves by the administration are working to bring down border encounters and secure the border.

“While you probably won’t hear it from those on the other side, border encounters are at their lowest level in years since the president’s proclamation on June 4, and encounters along the border and ports of entry have decreased by 55%, with Border Patrol recording the lowest number of border encounters since September 2020,” ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said at the hearing.

New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi was placed on leave after she had an alleged romantic relationship with former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr while covering his campaign.

Nuzzi, without naming the 70-year-old Kennedy scion, admitted in a Thursday night statement that earlier this year “the nature of some communications between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal.”

The 31-year-old star political reporter insisted the relationship was not physical in nature.

Sources told The Post that Nuzzi and RFK. Jr. — the son of RFK and nephew of John F. Kennedy — were allegedly sexting while she was engaged and he was married.

Nuzzi penned a profile on Kennedy that was published in November 2023 and sometime after that two began their alleged fling, STATUS news reported, citing sources.

“Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece,” a Kennedy spokesperson told The Post when asked about their alleged relationship.

After recently coming clean to editors at New York Magazine, Nuzzi was placed on leave.

She confessed “she had engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign, a violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures,” the publication said in a statement.

The reporter would have been barred from covering the presidential election if the magazine had been aware of the relationship, according to New York Magazine, which also did not identify Kennedy by name in its statement.

“An internal review of her published work has found no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias.She is currently on leave from the magazine, and the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review,” the statement continued.

“We regret this violation of our readers’ trust.”

Kennedy was not used as a source as Nuzzi covered the 2024 presidential race, a source told STATUS news, who first reported on the relationship.

Another person familiar with the relationship said the pair are believed to have become romantically involved around the new year, according to the outlet.

In her statement, Nuzzi said the relationship “should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict. I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.”

Kennedy has been married to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Cheryl Hines, his third wife, since 2014.

Nuzzi was engaged to Politico reporter and collaborator Ryan Lizza in 2022, however the pair called off the marriage in the last few weeks, sources told The Post.

An Instagram post from July summer shows the lovebirds enjoying a beach vacation.

Lizza was fired by the New Yorker in 2017 where he had been the Washington correspondent after he was accused of “inappropriate sexual conduct” by a colleague. He denied any wrongdoing.

Kennedy launched his presidential campaign on the Democratic ticket in April 2023 to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden.

He then ran as third-party candidate, but after failing to gain any serious national traction, suspended his independent White House bid last month.

He subsequently endorsed Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s Republican nominee for governor, made numerous inflammatory comments on a porn website’s message board a decade ago, including that he was a “Black Nazi,” CNN reported Thursday. Robinson denies making those comments.

Meanwhile, Republicans fear Robinson’s struggles could damage former President Trump and other conservatives down the ballot in a critical swing state.

Anticipation of the story’s release built in North Carolina political circles all week, and rumors of what it would include have had a chokehold on the state’s Republicans and Democrats alike.

Robinson referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and a “perv” on message boards. He also expressed support for reinstating slavery and said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, CNN reports.

Ahead of the story’s publication, Robinson posted a video denying the allegations, saying they were not his words.

“You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race,” Robinson said.

“Clarence Thomas famously once said he was the victim of high tech lynching. Well, it looks like Mark Robinson is too.”
The big picture: The latest allegations add to a long list of comments Robinson has made that contradict his own actions or words.

He’s said abortion is “murder” and “genocide,” yet he and his wife chose abortion 35 years ago.

In recent years, he’s pushed to get so-called “porn” out of schools. However, decades ago, video porn shop employees say he was a regular at Greensboro, N.C. stores, North Carolina digital magazine The Assembly recently reported.

Politico also reported Thursday that an email address belonging to Robinson was registered with Ashley Madison, a website for married people seeking affairs.

CNN said that it verified that Robinson made the newly unearthed comments under the username “minisoldr” through both his comments and profile, which offered details that aligned with his personal background, including his name, age, location and marriage details.

The minisoldr name is also one Robinson used on other websites, such as YouTube, Amazon and Pinterest.

Furthermore, Robinson publicly used uncommon phrases minisoldr did, including “gag a maggot” and “I don’t give a frogs ass,” per CNN.

Robinson alleged a sophisticated campaign to discredit him, blaming his opponent, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who he said “leaked” the story. Robinson said he will remain in the race.

Robinson began his political ascent back in 2018. Then a factory worker, Robinson went viral in a video of a testimony he gave about gun rights to Greensboro City Council. He launched his campaign for lieutenant governor a year later.

During his campaign for governor, Robinson has championed gun rights as well as conservative education issues, including school vouchers, and criticized critical race theory. He’d be the state’s first Black governor if elected.

This spring, Donald Trump endorsed Robinson, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

“President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving this country. North Carolina is a vital part of that plan,” Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Axios.

“We are confident that as voters compare the Trump record of a strong economy, low inflation, a secure border, and safe streets, with the failures of Biden-Harris, then President Trump will win the Tarheel State once again. We will not take our eye off the ball.”

The state’s Republican Party also said Thursday that they’re standing by Robinson.

“Mark Robinson has categorically denied the allegations made by CNN but that won’t stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks,” the party said in a statement.

A Kentucky judge was shot and killed Thursday in his court chambers and a local sheriff has been arrested on suspicion of committing the slaying.

District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was shot multiple times at the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg, Kentucky State Police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, was taken into custody at the scene without incident, police said.

He was charged with one count of first-degree murder.

A Kentucky judge was shot and killed Thursday in his court chambers and a local sheriff has been arrested on suspicion of committing the slaying.

District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was shot multiple times at the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg, Kentucky State Police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, was taken into custody at the scene without incident, police said.

He was charged with one count of first-degree murder.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he was informed earlier that a judge in Letcher County was killed.

“There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow,” he wrote on X.

One person was reportedly in custody, but authorities have not disclosed any details about the shooting or have identified the judge killed or the suspect.

Allison Ball, the state auditor of public accounts, initially identified the victim as Mullins before authorities disclosed his name.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with Jackie Steele, the commonwealth’s attorney for the 27th Judicial Circuit, as special prosecutors in the case.

“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” he posted on social media.

Letcher County Public Schools said it was ordered to go into mandatory lockdowns because of “an active shooting” in the downtown area.

“Your children are safe,” the district wrote online. “The shooter has been apprehended, but KSP has not released us to come out of lockdown. Your children were never in a concerning situation. Please give us time to work with KSP to figure out our next steps.”

The Kentucky Court of Justice system said it was aware of the killing and is cooperating with law enforcement.

“At this moment, we are not able to share further details, but we will provide updates as more information becomes available,” it said on social media. “Our deepest sympathies go out to all those impacted by this tragic event, and our thoughts and prayers are with the community during this challenging time.”

Mullins served on the bench in the 47th Judicial District where he oversaw juvenile matters, city and county ordinances, misdemeanors, traffic offenses, arraignments, felony probable cause hearings, claims involving $2,500 or less, civil cases involving $5,000 or less, voluntary and involuntary mental commitments and domestic violence cases, according to the court website.

He has served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year. Mullins promoted substance abuse treatment for people involved in the justice system and helped hundreds of residents enter inpatient residential treatment, according to a program for a drug summit he spoke at in 2022.

Former NYC Covid Czar Held Secret Drug-Fueled Sex Parties During Global Pandemic; Says New Yorkers Would Have Been “Pissed” If They Found Out Because He Was Running Entire Covid Response For City.

Dr. Jay Varma, Former Senior Advisor for Public Health, NYC Mayor’s Office:

“I had to be kind of sneaky about it…I was running the entire Covid response for the city…we rented a hotel…we all took like, you know, molly[E*stasy/MDMA] … 8 to 10 of us were in a room…like just being naked with friends…”

“We went to some like, underground dance party… underneath a bank on Wall Street… We were all rolling…”

“This was not Covid-friendly.”

“I did all this deviant, sexual stuff while I was you know, like on TV and stuff…”

“The only way I could do this job for the city was if I had some way to blow off steam every now and then.”

Watch part 1:

Watch Part 2:

California Governor Gavin Newsom this week signed legislation into law seeking to outlaw parody videos using artificial intelligence and The Babylon Bee had the perfect response.

According to Newsom himself, the legislation was drawn up in response to Elon Musk sharing a parody videomocking Kamala Harris using an altered version of her voice.

I just signed a bill to make this illegal in the state of California.

You can no longer knowingly distribute an ad or other election communications that contain materially deceptive content — including deepfakes. https://t.co/VU4b8RBf6N

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 17, 2024

The Babylon Bee, which is headquartered out of Florida, has responded to the new with a hilarious parody video of Newsom himself.

The video uses an AI version of Newsom’s voice describing how he has destroyed the state of California with his far-left policies and is therefore endorsing Kamala Harris to help spread them nationally.

Newsom’s voice states:

The Governor of California. This is a message for the people of America, given in my authentically recorded non-AI voice. Thanks to my leadership over the last several years, California has become a world leader in extremist left-wing governance. My policies were so effective that almost 1 million people are now fleeing the state every year. We even ran out of U-Hauls.

During the COVID pandemic, I locked everyone in their homes and shut down businesses for months. Not the French Laundry, though. That’s my favorite restaurant. Last year, I cleaned up the dangerous, messy streets of San Francisco. You know, because Chinese Communist President Xi was coming. And I really wanted to impress him. He’s my boss, after all.

This year, I signed legislation that allows me to take custody of your kid if you refuse to give him artificial hormones and chop off his genitals. Because if you don’t do that, you’re a bigot. And bigots shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. I’ve also led the way in green energy by banning all cars that don’t run on electricity. Then I banned almost all the electricity. This is smart leadership.

On my watch, the cost of living and homelessness have skyrocketed. Schools are failing. Drug dealers and human traffickers are pouring across the border. And poop has covered the sidewalks of San Francisco. This is the positive, joyful vision we offer as Democrats.

That’s why I’m enthusiastically endorsing Kamala Harris for president in 2024. She’ll do to the country everything I did in California. Anyway, I’m California Governor Gavin Newsom, and I approve this 100% real message, which is a recording of my voice without the assistance of any AI whatsoever.

This isn’t a deepfake. And you can rest assured that it isn’t, because I just signed an unconstitutional law outlawing deepfakes. No one would dare violate it. Thank you, and science bless America.

BREAKING: The Babylon Bee has obtained this exclusive, official, 100% real Gavin Newsom election ad. https://t.co/nicrnKF5Ji pic.twitter.com/iksPVxltzI

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 18, 2024

The Air Force finally handed over a trove of documents pertaining to its sweeping “goal” of reducing the number of white male applicants in a popular officer program after spending months stonewalling requests for their release.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown — at the time the highest-ranking member of the Air Force — issued a memorandum in 2022 that the branch was updating its racial and gender demographic goals for applicants seeking to become officers, in a bid to prioritize “diversity and inclusion.” Internal documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation include a slideshow from 2022 where the Air Force outlines racial and gender quotas and details how it hopes to “achieve” a reduced number of white males in its Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) officer’s applicant program.

The documents reflect the Biden-Harris Pentagon’s intense focus on implementing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the armed forces, even as the military continues to combat dwindling morale among its rank-and-file, recruiting and retention shortfalls and low pay.

“The American people are rightly concerned that, at a time when our country is facing dangerous and increasing threats throughout the world, the Air Force is focused on recruitment efforts based on arbitrary racial diversity goals — not merit or increasing the force’s lethality,” James Fitzpatrick, director of the Center To Advance Security In America (CASA), told the DCNF.

CASA requested records regarding the Air Force’s new officer applicant standards through a federal transparency request, called a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in 2023. At the time, the Air Force said it couldn’t find any records, according to a letter obtained by the DCNF.

CASA then sued the Air Force for the records in April 2024 and received hundreds of documents and slides in response, which the DCNF subsequently obtained.

A spokesperson for the Air Force told the DCNF “The FOIA request was being processed at multiple levels within the Air Force.”

“One of the units responded to the FOIA request with a ‘no responsive records’ response after conducting their own local search, while the remainder of the units continued to process the responsive documents that were ultimately provided,” the spokesperson told the DCNF.

One of the slides in question, labeled “AFROTC White,” depicts a graph that shows the percentage of white male ROTC officer applicants declining from approximately 60% in fiscal year 2019 to a projected 50% in fiscal year 2023. The graph further details how the Air Force’s goal is to reduce that percentage down to approximately 43% by fiscal year 2029, denoted by a star with the label “achieve(d) goal.”

“White male population will decline as other demographics increase,” the slide reads.

The respective slides in question also explain that the Air Force is either on track or needs to do more to hit racial and gender quotas in the ROTC’s officer applicant pool.

For example, with the African American population, the slideshow suggests the Air Force “target [the] male population through ongoing programs and marketing” and notes it has already met its “female goal” for ROTC officer applicants. For the American Indian, Asian and Hispanic applicants, the slideshow says the Air Force is “on track to grow diversity.”

“These documents show us that the Air Force has taken steps toward implementing their new directive of specific racial quotas for officer recruitment and enrollment throughout the branch,” Fitzpatrick told the DCNF.

Included in the slide deck are funding requests for diversity recruiting initiatives, including $500,000 for “diversity advertising campaigns” and $250,000 for “influencer engagements.”

In a separate set of documents from as early as 2022, the Air Force outlines its efforts to modify ROTC scholarship programs, which “play an important role in accession and diversity goals.” The Air Force suggests modifying the scholarship models could remove certain “testing barriers” to entry for under-represented groups.

The diversity plans extend to the Air Force’s Aim High Flight Academy (AHFA), an aviation scholarship program for high school, ROTC and Air Force Academy students, according to the documents. The Air Force notes that the AFHA applicant pool should be made up of a “minimum” of 60% underrepresented groups, further noting that it must be at least 35% minorities.

Like other branches of the military, the Air Force has struggled to keep up with recruiting and retention targets in recent years. The Navy is expected to miss its recruiting goals in 2024; the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force are on on track to meet their goals, although the latter two branches missed their targets in 2022 and 2023, according to Military Times.

Only approximately 57% of servicemembers or military families polled by the Military Family Advisory Network in 2023 said they’d recommend joining the service, compared to 74% in 2019. Among some of the reasons the respondents wouldn’t recommend service were the politically charged nature of the military, differences and divisions, and low pay, among others.

A year-long study from the Arizona State University Center for American Institutions found that the Pentagon has turned into a “vast DEI bureaucracy” in the last four decades, a challenge that has been exacerbated by the Biden-Harris administration.

“It’s no surprise that young people are turning away from military service in record numbers… DEI indoctrination has become a core component of military training that begins for officers even at the service academies,” Matt Lohmeier, former Space Force commander, said in a statement in June.

Five women say they were raped by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed when they worked at the luxury London department store.

The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted or raped them.

The documentary and podcast – Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods – gathered evidence that, during Fayed’s ownership, Harrods not only failed to intervene, but helped cover up abuse allegations.

Harrods’ current owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations and that his victims had been failed – for which the store sincerely
apologised.

“The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark,” says barrister Bruce Drummond, from a legal team representing a number of the women.

Since this article was first published, more former Harrods employees have contacted the BBC saying Mohammed Al Fayed assaulted them.

Warning: this story contains details some may find distressing.

The incidents took place in London, Paris, St Tropez and Abu Dhabi.

“I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over,” says one of the women, who says Fayed raped her at his Park Lane apartment.

Another woman says she was a teenager when he raped her at the Mayfair address.

“Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever,” she says, adding that all the staff at Harrods were his “playthings”.

“We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump’ employees would ask ‘how high’.”

Fayed faced sexual assault claims while he was alive, but these allegations are of unprecedented scale and seriousness. The BBC believes many more women may have been assaulted.

‘Fayed was vile’

Fayed’s entrepreneurial career began on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, where he hawked fizzy drinks to passers-by. But it was his marriage to the sister of a millionaire Saudi arms dealer that helped him forge new connections and build a business empire.

He moved to the UK in 1974 and was already a well-known public figure when he took over Harrods in 1985. In the 1990s and 2000s, he would regularly appear as a guest on prime-time TV chat and entertainment shows.

Meanwhile, Fayed – whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 – has become known to a new generation through the two most recent Netflix series of The Crown.

But the women we have spoken to say his portrayal as pleasant and gregarious was far from the truth.

“He was vile,” says one of the women, Sophia, who worked as his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991. She says he tried to rape her more than once.
“That makes me angry, people shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was.”

Some of the women waived, or partially waived, their right to anonymity to be filmed – and the BBC agreed not to use surnames. Others chose to remain anonymous. Put together, their testimonies reveal a pattern of predatory behaviour and sexual abuse by Fayed.

The Harrods owner would regularly tour the department store’s vast sales floors and identify young female assistants he found attractive, who would then be promoted to work in his offices upstairs – former staff, male and female, told us.

The assaults would be carried out in Harrods’ offices, in Fayed’s London apartment, or on foreign trips – often in Paris at the Ritz hotel, which he also owned, or his nearby Villa Windsor property.

At Harrods, other former staff members told us it was clear what was happening.

“We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘you poor girl, it’s you today’ and feeling utterly powerless to stop it,” Alice, not her real name, says.

‘He raped me’

Rachel, not her real name, worked as a personal assistant in Harrods in the 1990s.

One night after work, she says she was called to his luxury apartment, in a large block on Park Lane overlooking London’s Hyde Park. The building was protected by security staff and had an on-site office staffed by Harrods employees.

Rachel says Fayed asked her to sit on his bed and then put his hand on her leg, making it clear what he wanted.

“I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And… just going somewhere else in my head.

“He raped me.”

The BBC has spoken to 13 women who say Fayed sexually assaulted them at 60 Park Lane. Four of them, including Rachel, say they were raped.

Sophia, who says she was sexually assaulted, described the whole situation as an inescapable nightmare.

“I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have a [family] home to go back to, I had to pay rent,” she says. “I knew I had to go through this and I didn’t want to. It was horrible and my head was scrambled.”

Gemma, who worked as one of Fayed’s personal assistants between 2007-09, says his behaviour became more frightening during work trips abroad.

She says it culminated in her being raped at Villa Windsor in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne – a former home, post-abdication, of King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson.

Gemma says she woke up startled in her bedroom. Fayed was next to her bed wearing just a silk dressing gown. He then tried to get into bed with her.

“I told him, ‘no, I don’t want you to’. And he proceeded to just keep trying to get in the bed, at which point he was kind of on top of me and [I] really couldn’t move anywhere.

“I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.”

She says after Fayed raped her she cried, while he got up and told her aggressively to wash herself with Dettol.

“Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me,” she explains.

Eight other women have also told us they were sexually assaulted by Fayed at his properties in Paris. Five women described the assaults as an attempted rape.

‘Open secret’

“The abuse of women, I was aware of it when I was on the shop floor,” says Tony Leeming, a Harrods department manager from 1994 to 2004. It “wasn’t even a secret”, recalls Mr Leeming, who says he did not know about more serious allegations of assault or rape.

“And I think if I knew, everybody knew. Anyone who says they didn’t are lying, I’m sorry”.

Mr Leeming’s testimony is backed up by former members of Fayed’s security team.

“We were aware that he had this very strong interest in young girls,” says Eamon Coyle, who joined Harrods in 1979 as a store detective, then became deputy director of security from 1989-95.

Meanwhile Steve, who does not want us to use his surname, worked for the billionaire between 1994-95. He told us that security staff “did know that certain things were happening to certain female employees at Harrods and Park Lane”.

Many of the women told us that when they began working directly for Fayed they underwent medicals – including invasive sexual health tests carried out by doctors.

This was presented as a perk, the women told us, but many did not see their own results – even though they were sent to Fayed.

“There is no benefit to anybody knowing what my sexual health is, unless you’re planning to sleep with somebody, which I find quite chilling now,” says Katherine, who was an executive assistant in 2005.

‘Culture of fear’

All the women we spoke to described having felt intimidated at work – which had made it difficult for them to speak out.

Sarah, not her real name, explained: “There was most definitely a culture of fear across the whole store – from the lowliest of the low, to the most senior person.”

Others told us they believed the phones in Harrods had been tapped – and that women had been scared of talking to each other about Fayed’s abuse, fearing they were being filmed by hidden cameras.

The ex-deputy director of security, Eamon Coyle, confirmed this – explaining how part of his job was to listen to tapes of recorded calls. Cameras that could record had also been installed throughout the store, he said, including in the executive suites.

“He [Fayed] bugged everybody that he wanted to bug.”

Harrods told the BBC in a statement these had been the actions of an individual “intent on abusing his power” which it condemned in the strongest terms.

It said: “The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010, it is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.”

There were a number of attempts to expose Fayed before his death – notably by Vanity Fair in 1995 – with an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct. This sparked a libel lawsuit.

Mohamed Al Fayed later agreed to drop the case as long as all the further evidence the magazine had gathered of his sexual misconduct in preparation for a trial was locked away. Fayed’s settlement was negotiated by a senior Harrods executive.

In 1997, ITV’s The Big Story reported further serious allegations including sexual harassment and groping – which is classed as sexual assault.

One of the women in the BBC investigation, Ellie, not her real name, was 15 in 2008 when she reported an assault to the police – an allegation that made headlines – but did not result in any charge.

In 2017, Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast allegations of groping, assault and harassment, with one woman waiving her right to anonymity for the first time. It gave some women the courage to come forward – and was followed by a 2018 investigation on Channel 4 News.

But it is only now, with Mohamed Al Fayed having died last year, that many of the women have felt able to speak publicly about rape and attempted rape.

Cash and NDAs

The BBC documentary reveals that, as part of Gemma’s settlement in 2009, she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), a legally-binding contract which ensures information remains confidential.

She says after she was raped, she contacted a lawyer who told Harrods she was leaving her job on the grounds of sexual harassment. Gemma says she did not feel able, at that time, to disclose the full extent and seriousness of Fayed’s assaults.

Harrods agreed she could leave and it would pay a sum of money in exchange for her shredding all evidence and signing an NDA. Gemma says a member of Harrods’ HR team was present as the shredding took place.

The BBC has heard that women were threatened and intimidated by Harrods’ then-director of security, John Macnamara, to stop them speaking out.

Fourteen of the women we spoke to recently brought civil claims against Harrods for damages. The shop’s current owners, who are not asking women to sign NDAs, started settling these in July 2023.

It took Sophia and Harrods five years to reach an agreement. In her case, the store expressed regret but did not admit liability. Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.

The barristers representing some of the women we spoke to – Bruce Drummond and Dean Armstrong KC – argue the store was responsible for an unsafe system of work.

“Any place of work has a duty to ensure the safety of its employees. Without question, the company failed these ladies,” says Mr Drummond.

“That’s why we step in. Because they just did nothing to actually prevent this. They did the opposite. They enabled it.”

Mr Armstrong adds: “We say there have been clearly attempts by the senior people at Harrods to sweep this under the carpet.”

Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.

Barrister Maria Mulla – who is also on the legal team representing some of the women – says clients are coming forward now, because previously they have been “absolutely petrified” to speak out.

“They want to be part of this movement of holding people accountable for what has happened to them, and trying to make sure these things don’t happen again in the future for their own children and for their children.”

Harrods told the BBC: “Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”

The Ritz hotel in Paris said it “strongly condemns all forms of behaviour that do not align with the values of the establishment”.

When Fayed died, unconfirmed reports estimated his worth in excess of £1bn. But money is not the motivation for the women to speak out, they say.

“I’ve spent so many years being quiet and silent, not speaking up,” says Gemma, “and I hope talking about it now helps. We can all start feeling better and healing from it.”

Israeli authorities indicted a Jewish Israeli man for being recruited by Iran to pursue an assassination plot against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials.

Moti Maman, 73, told authorities he had a “lapse of judgment” and is now cooperating with law enforcement.

Israeli police arrested Maman in August, saying he had twice visited Iran to meet with intelligence officials who gave him various tasks to conduct in Israel.

During his latest trip to Iran in August, Israeli authorities say Iranian intelligence proposed assassination plots against Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar.

Authorities say Maman demanded a $1 million advance payment in exchange for his participation, but Iran paid him only 5,000 Euros.

“This is a very serious affair that is an example of the great efforts of the Iranian intelligence agencies to recruit Israeli citizens to promote terrorist activities in Israel. The security officials assess that the Iranians will continue their efforts to recruit operatives in Israel to gather intelligence and carry out terrorist missions in Israel while also turning, among other things, to elements with a criminal background to carry out the missions,” a senior Shin Bet official said in a statement.

“At a time when the State of Israel is at war on several fronts, an Israeli citizen goes to an enemy country on two different occasions, meets with Iranian intelligence agents, and expresses a willingness to carry out serious terrorist acts on Israeli soil. His actions helped Iran and its intelligence agents in their campaign against Israel,” the statement continued.

News of Maman’s indictment comes days after a massive Israeli operation targeting pagers used by Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy terrorist group in Lebanon.

The explosions of hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday and the detonation of a second wave of electronic devices a day later remain a mystery, though experts are calling the deadly blasts a sophisticated attack that likely took months of planning.

The two waves of bombings killed at least 37 people, including at least two children, and wounded more than 3,000 others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

Hezbollah has used pagers to communicate for years, and the group’s leader recently called on members to stop using cell phones altogether over concerns that Israeli intelligence could track the devices.

While Israel has not claimed responsibility for the waves of explosions, its intelligence agency, Mossad, is widely credited for the operation.

Hezbollah and Lebanon immediately pointed fingers at Israel following the explosions on Tuesday. On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Israel was behind the pager explosions.

An Alaska man was arrested Wednesday for allegedly threatening to assassinate six members of the Supreme Court and harm two family members, the Justice Department said.

Panos Anastasiou, 76, is accused of sending more than 465 messages to the Supreme Court through an online portal, which included violent, racist, and homophobic rhetoric, according to court filings. Anastasiou allegedly threatened to assassinate, kidnap, torture, hang, behead and execute the justices, and encouraged other people to join him in committing acts of violence, the Justice Department said.

He faces nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce. Anastasiou appeared before a federal magistrate judge Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.

“We allege that the defendant made repeated, heinous threats to murder and torture Supreme Court Justices and their families to retaliate against them for decisions he disagreed with,” Attorney General Merrick Garland, a former federal appeals court judge, said in a statement. “Our justice system depends on the ability of judges to make their decisions based on the law, and not on fear. Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families.”

The Supreme Court declined to comment on the charges. An attorney for Anastasiou was not listed in court records.

The targeted justices are not named in the indictment and identified only as “Supreme Court justices 1-6.” Charging documents state that some of the threats allegedly made by Anastasiou “were intended to intimidate” the justices and “retaliate against them for official actions” they had taken in their capacity as judges.

The messages were sent between January and July, when the Supreme Court ended its term, court documents.

In one of the messages, sent Jan. 4, Anastasiou allegedly threatened to murder one justice by saying he’d like to see the justice and an unidentified former president “hanging together from an Oak tree,” and said he would “gladly provide the rope and pull the handle.” The unnamed former president is likely former President Donald Trump, as a subsequent message included in court filings references him as a “convicted criminal.” Trump became the first former president to be found guilty of a crime when a New York jury convicted him on 34 state felony counts earlier this year.

Another message on May 10 included a threat to kill the same justice by “lynching” and included a racial slur, according to legal documents.

Court filings state that in a May 16 message referring to a second member of the Supreme Court, Anastasiou allegedly threatened to kill the justice by putting “a bullet in this mother f***ers head.” The Justice Department said a message sent the following day was targeted not only at the first two justices, but also two unnamed family members. It warned of sending “fellow Vietnam veterans” to “spray” one Supreme Court member’s house with bullets with hopes of killing them. The same message again used a racial slur, and Anastasiou allegedly said he hoped the first justice and his “white trailer trash … insurrectionist wife are visiting.”

A message sent on July 5 stated, “We should make [Supreme Court Justices 1-6] be AFRAID very AFRAID to leave their home and fear for their lives everyday,” according to court filings.

Federal prosecutors said Anastasiou began sending “concerning messages” to the Supreme Court in the spring of 2023. The Supreme Court Police reviewed them and determined they were “concerning enough” to warrant an investigation. The FBI interviewed Anastasiou about the messages. Later, he allegedly sent a message to the Supreme Court “daring” the justices to visit his home, prosecutors said.

The Justice Department said the messages took an “even more violent turn” in January. In addition to threatening justices with “lynching,” court filings show he advocated for “mass assassinations” and called for “patriotic” Americans to kill members of the high court.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority and has come under immense criticism in recent years for decisions on politically charged issues including abortion, guns and presidential power. In its most recent term, the six conservatives voted to find former President Donald Trump is entitled to immunity from federal prosecution for official acts undertaken in the White House.

Its June 2022 decision unwinding the constitutional right to abortion was highly criticized and led to protests outside the homes of several conservative justices, including Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. A California man was arrested in June 2022 after he was found outside of Kavanaugh’s Maryland house with a gun, knife and various tools, and charged with threatening to assassinate the justice. He pleaded not guilty.

Attendees to Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona have reported sustaining mystery eye problems from the event.

The rally in Tucson, Arizona, on September 12, which drew over 2,000 people in 100 degree heat, resulted in a number of Trump supporters going to the emergency room.

The Trump campaign has said it is investigating the event. The Secret Service told News 4 Tucson that it was unaware of anything out of the ordinary occurring at the rally. It added that it was unaware of any planned threat to Trump in Arizona.

The rally was set up so that 48 exclusive attendees could stand on the stage with Trump. They were then split into two groups, one on stage right, and one on stage left.

The group on stage left reported no symptoms or anything suspicious, but according to a report from News 4 Tucson, several people in the group on stage right left the rally with excruciating pain in their eyes.

Mayra Rodriguez, a former Planned Parenthood director turned Trump supporter, told News 4 Tucson that her eyes were burning and it became hard for her to see. She said she went to the ER where they asked if she was sprayed with anything.

She told reporters that she is still in pain days later. She said: “I can’t see anything. When I try to open my eyes it’s like a white cloud of cover. It hurts.”

Another woman who wished to remain anonymous also came forward with the same symptoms, saying: “This is horrible.”

And a man who also wished to remain anonymous said: “My eyes were red like hell, it was terrible, I just couldn’t handle it.”

Kathleen Winn, a former Congressional candidate from Arizona’s Congressional District 6, spoke to News 4 Tucson after the event, saying: “We hope there’s no nefarious actors in this and this is not a strategic hit.”

At the rally itself, Trump spoke about two policy proposals: no tax on tips, and making housing “affordable again.”

Trump pledged a new tax plan at the rally, by promising to end taxes on overtime.

The Harris campaign was in Tucson the same day. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, hosted a crowded, but private, event in downtown Tucson.

Both candidates are expected to spend significant time Arizona as it is a key battleground state, holding 11 critical Electoral College votes.

Additionally, Arizonans carry the legacy of John McCain, and Jimmy McCain’s recent endorsement of Harris may influence undecided Republican and Independent voters.

The most recent Arizona poll, taken by Data Orbital on September 17, has the candidates neck-and-neck at 46 percent. However, the average of all recent Arizona polls has Trump ahead by a thin margin of 0.8 percent.

Israel launched a series of overnight strikes on sites in Lebanon where the Israeli military says Hezbollah terrorists operated. The strikes follow two waves of deadly electronic device explosions across Lebanon.

The Israeli strikes targeted infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon, including the areas of Chihine, Tayibe, Blida, Meiss El Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday. Israel also struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in Khiam.

“The IDF will continue to operate against the threat of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in order to defend the State of Israel,” the IDF said in a statement.

במהלך הלילה, מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר תקפו מבנים צבאיים של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחבים שיחין, א-טייבה, בליידא, מיס אל ג’בל, עיתרון וכפר כילא שבדרום לבנון>> pic.twitter.com/wz1P9veyfi

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) September 19, 2024

The strikes followed two deadly waves of explosions across Lebanon in which electronic devices detonated in near-simultaneous explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including two children, and wounding some 2,800 others.

Another wave of electronic devices detonated on Wednesday, killing at least 25 and wounding more than 450. Hezbollah officials said the devices included walkie-talkies and solar equipment.

Israel has largely been blamed for the two rounds of deadly blasts. The Israeli government has not commented on the explosions.

On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Israel is behind the explosions of pagers used by members of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah addressed the deadly two-day attack on Thursday, saying the group is investigating.

“Yes, we were subjected to a huge and severe blow,” Nasrallah said. “The enemy crossed all boundaries and red lines. The enemy will face a severe and fair punishment from where they expect and don’t expect.”

“The enemy went beyond all controls, laws and morals,” he continued, adding the attacks “could be considered war crimes or a declaration of war.”

The Israeli military released another statement on Thursday, blaming Hezbollah for turning Lebanon into “a combat zone.”

“The Hezbollah terrorist organization has turned southern Lebanon into a combat zone. For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them, and used civilians as human shields,” Israel’s military said.

The explosions that rocked Lebanon have deepened concerns about an escalation into an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.