Earlier this morning, Greater Manchester Police issued an appeal via social media to ask for the public’s help in their search for a missing 13-year-old girl.

Mia was last seen last night (July 27) in Glenbrook Gardens, Bolton, at around 8:20 pm.

This evening, police have confirmed that the teenager was ‘found safe and well this morning.’

She was described as four feet tall with straight, shoulder-length brown hair.

The police appeal stated Mia was last seen wearing grey leggings, a black jacket, and black socks with beige Crocs.

Greater Manchester Police put out the following statement: “Mia is around four feet tall with straight, shoulder-length brown hair and was last seen wearing grey leggings, black jeans, and black socks in beige crocs.

“Police in Bolton are becoming increasingly concerned about Mia, 13, who was last seen last night.

“Anyone with information about Mia’s whereabouts should contact police on 101—or 999 in an emergency—and quote log 3508-27/07/26.”

While wildfire numbers in England and Wales remain below the 788 recorded by the same point last year, fire chiefs warned “continued dry conditions, combined with warmer temperatures and harvesting activity in many rural areas”, were creating conditions in which fires can start and spread rapidly.

But Alex Wilson AM, Reform UK London Assembly Group Leader, said: “I am deeply troubled by the fact that Zack Polanski has deflected blame and not apologised for his dangerous social media use. This is not the first time he has got into trouble for his posts, having previously scolded the brave police officers who apprehended the alleged Golders Green attacker. There is no doubt that this vile post is incitement to murder.”

A failed asylum seeker who sought ‘attention’ by going to a school with an arsenal of weapons and a petrol can aiming to start a fire has today been jailed for two years.

Both Douk Deng, 21, was carrying a hatchet, a hammer and a seven-inch kitchen knife when he was stopped by police.

The alarming incident came after the South Sudanese man had been refused asylum three times and ‘become extremely frustrated in relation to his immigration status’, a court heard.

Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard how officers were called to the Edgar Wood Academy in Middleton, Greater Manchester, on August 8, last year, after a report a man was acting suspiciously outside.

The secondary school, which was closed for the summer holiday, wasn’t due to reopen until the following month but prosecutors believe he intended to set the building on fire.

Brian Berlyne, prosecuting, said a workman had spotted Deng carrying a petrol can and he had a hammer tucked in the belt of his trousers.

Deng, married with at least one child in his homeland, then walked towards the back of the building, Mr Berylne said, before the workman ‘shouted for him to leave’.

Police were called, arriving a short time later and arrested him as he walked away from the school.

Officers seized the petrol can, which contained half a litre of petrol, along with the hammer, a hatchet and a kitchen knife, the court heard.

Mr Berlyne said: ‘It’s the Crown’s case that he must have intended to set fire to the school premises.’

The court heard it was the second school he visited in as many days.

The day before, Deng had gone to the nearby Holy Family Roman Catholic and Church of England College, when he walked towards the entrance, looked through windows and hung around in the foyer.

When he was confronted by a builder, he pointed at the school’s crest and said: “Baby”.

Deng became ‘irritated’ and wrecked an intercom, Mr Berlyne said, and left after the builder contacted police.

The asylum seeker then walked to nearby business park, where he was spotted throwing two plant pots on the floor.

Deng, who identified himself to be South Sudanese, pleaded guilty to seven charges at an earlier hearing.

A day earlier, Deng went to Holy Family College but was turned away by workmen

They include two charges of possessing an offensive weapon in a public place, possessing an offensive weapon on school premises, possession of a bladed article on school premises, and two counts of criminal damage.

Deng, of Heywood, Greater Manchester, also pleaded guilty to having an article with intent to destroy or damage property.

Sarah Haque, defending, said he’d not intended to cause ‘harm’ to anyone and had become frustrated after arriving in the UK and being placed in a HMO with fellow asylum seekers who he believed had received more assistance than he had.

He’d fled his home country in ‘dramatic circumstances’, found himself in a foreign county and wanted to work to support his wife and children, Ms Haque said.

She added: ‘He believed nobody was listening to him or helping him.

‘His intention was to create a scene for attention in order to try to obtain some kind of help.’

Ms Haque said Deng believed the school was a hospital or a company building and she described his actions as ‘bizarre and not the act of a person with a carefully considered plan’.

Ms Haque added: ‘The defence would say he wanted attention and was in crisis and wasn’t motivated by hostility towards teachers, children or others.’

Jailing him for two years, Judge Bernadette Baxter also described the circumstances of the offending as “bizarre”.

She acknowledged that Deng had had a ‘difficult life’ and there was ‘no doubt’ he’d suffered trauma.

But she also noted that a psychiatric report had identified no mental health condition.

She added: ‘I have no power to order the Home Office to do anything but in my judgement your circumstances as a failed asylum seeker, who has been in this custody for the best part a year, the Home Office should be doing something rather than nothing to deal with your status in this country.’

Chief Superintendent Helen Caldbeck, Greater Manchester Police District Commander for Rochdale, said: ‘I’m incredibly proud of the officers’ response to this incident.

‘They were professional and brave in tackling a suspicious man armed with weapons and immediately confronted Deng, to keep the public safe.

‘We have thoroughly investigated Deng and cannot find a clear indication of his motive or intention on that day.

‘Thankfully no one was close to coming to harm, but this was nevertheless a disturbing incident.

‘I thank all officers and investigators on this case who have ensured that the appropriate action has been taken and swift justice has been served.’

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Fagan told the Record Labour had to “reach out beyond the Holyrood bubble” and become rooted in communities.

A new MSP has promised to “shake up” politics as he announced his bid for the Scottish Labour leadership.

Joe Fagan, a former leader of South Lanarkshire council, said his party will only be trusted when it is “rooted in communities”.

In a statement to the Record, he declared: “Continuity won’t cut it.”

Scottish Labour’s summer leadership contest was triggered by the abrupt resignation of Anas Sarwar, who was given a peerage and a job in the UK Government.

MSP Michael Marra has said he intends to run while Monica Lennon, who will become an MSP again within days, is another contender.

Fagan, who was elected in May to serve the South Scotland region, said Scottish Labour must learn from the localism of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham: “Scottish Labour needs to learn lessons from where we have won, not just where we have lost.

“Andy Burnham’s by-election victory in Makerfield and our own successes in South Lanarkshire show that Labour can win back trust when we are rooted in communities and serious about changing people’s lives.

“The lesson is simple: people will listen to Scottish Labour again when we stop sounding like a party talking to itself and start proving that we are on their side.

The 38 year-old said of his time running a local authority with a budget of around £1billion:

“As a local council leader I worked across party lines to make swimming free for South Lanarkshire’s under-16s, to cut the cost of living and deliver the best paid home care workforce in the country.

“I am not here to wait around. As my track record shows, I am here to get things done. That means more money in people’s pockets, better services on their doorstep and a politics that puts practical change ahead of excuses.”

Fagan, who grew up in East Kilbride, said: “I am standing to unite our party and seize this municipal moment. I want us to back the workers and the wealth builders who hold the key to our future shared prosperity.

“I want to build local wealth and local power and renew Labour as a force for change within the Scottish Parliament and without. That means trusting people, backing communities and putting power closer to the people who know their places best.

He concluded: “I know my campaign is bold, but continuity won’t cut it. It’s time to reach out beyond the Holyrood bubble and shake up Scottish politics.”

Contenders need the support of three Scottish Labour MSPs, three MPs and support from affiliated trade unions and local parties to get on the ballot.

It is understood Fagan’s supporters are confident he will meet the threshold to become a candidate.

A friend of Fagan said he was not tarnished by previous defeats and would amount to a break from the past.

A father shot his wife and six children before killing himself in their burning home, police said.

Kristopher Karolkiewicz, 47, his wife, Amanda Karolkiewicz, 39, and their six children, ages five to 15, were all found dead in Grand Haven Township next to Lake Michigan on Friday morning. 

All eight deaths were caused by gunshot wounds in a suspected murder-suicide, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.

Kristopher Karolkiewicz, who worked for the American Heart Association had his ’employment ended’ days before the killings. He is believed to have shot them all before setting their home on fire and committing suicide.

The family’s pets also perished in the fire and smoke.

It has since emerged Amanda had exposed her husband’s affair with an intern at work on the ‘As One After Infidelity’ section on Reddit.

She described her life in the beach town of Grand Haven as ‘like living in a Hallmark movie,’ before it was wrecked by the revelation.

Describing how she met Kristopher, she said: ‘He was divorced and older than me … fast forward ten years and five kids, he was cheating with the intern again – the same age I was when I was the intern.

‘After about a year of self-loathing, I remember crying and looking at myself in the mirror and realising how f***ed up it was that I was the one who was living so miserably because of what he did. I finally realised that I had been the only person who has ever showed up for myself my whole entire life.’

Even so, she told how she found the idea of leaving her husband ‘insanely terrifying’ and strained to hold the family together.

‘I kept telling myself, “I love my kids more than I hate my husband right now.” They have no idea – faked it ’till we made it,’ she wrote in the 2024 post. 

‘We’re in a much better place 4.5 years out, but it’s still a fight to stay in a healthy place.

‘He’s always had major red flags that I ignored due to my own trauma and anxious attachment. He was raised in a toxic family dynamic that encouraged lying about everything.’

In posts verified by Detroit News, she explained: ‘After the most recent incident of catching him being sneaky, I insisted he go back to (independent counseling) and we attempt (marriage counseling) for the first time.

‘It’s all so confusing, because our day-to-day lives and dynamics are truly good, until every so often now when he pulls sneaky (expletive).’

She said she had pulled her children away from his side of the family and things had got physical between the couple in furious rows.

‘Perfect’ family life portrayed on blog

Amanda regularly wrote a blog detailing her family life. Their first child was born on April 25, 2011, which she hailed as ‘the best day of my life (so far).’

Two more sons followed over the next four years, as she shifted from a banking job to a part-time position at a local insurance agency and later stopped working outside the home. The couple later adopted two daughters and had another biological son.

The blog frequently expressed her Christian faith, her joy in the family and her love and appreciation for her husband and his parenting.

Kris Karolkiewicz, too, hailed their life together: ‘I’m a very lucky guy,’ he wrote in a 2019 Facebook post ahead of their 10th anniversary.

Although her blog ended in 2016, Mandy Karolkiewicz continued sharing updates on her family and activities in TikTok videos, including clips of a trip to China earlier this month with two of her children.

Then officials got calls about a smoky smell in the area around the Karolkiewicz home Friday morning, checked it out but found nothing.

After getting more calls about three hours later, they returned, saw smoke coming from the home and found the bodies, at least some of them in bedrooms, Sparks said. Also found were the family’s dogs and at least one cat, which had perished in the blaze.

Her friends have launched a fundraiser to set up a scholarship in the children’s name.

Mandy’s parents shared a statement with The Detroit News, remembering her as ‘a kind and devoted soul who loved her family and her students.’

‘We treasured every moment we had with her and her six children, and words cannot adequately express our devastation.’

In an earlier social media post, Grand Haven Public Schools recognised Mandy Karolkiewicz as a substitute teacher at Peach Plains Elementary, describing her as someone who ‘goes above and beyond for students,’ responding with ’empathy, patience, and care.’

Samaritans are here to listen, day or night, 365 days a year. You can call them for free on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or visit samaritans.org for more information.

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The blaze began almost three weeks ago

Around 60 people have been battling the Tintwistle Moor fires today (July 28) more than three weeks on from the start of the blaze.

A major incident was declared in the area on July 12 after the blaze broke out on July 9 – following an earlier fire which crews tackled from June 24 to July 2.

Today Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service said they were ‘continuing to make progress’ on the blaze but that it remained a ‘complex’ and ‘challenging’ incident, asking the public to not ignore road closures and continue to take precautions to prevent further fires.

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They also said that Woodhead Pass (A628) remained closed and would do until at least tomorrow (July 29).

The road between Hollingworth and Flouch has been closed since July 16 after a dramatic car fire broke out and spread to the nearby moors.

“Before the road can fully reopen, a detailed assessment of fire-damaged trees within the Didsbury sector will need to be carried out to ensure the area is safe for road users,” the fire service said, thanking local communities and businesses for their ‘continued patience’.

Photos taken by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service who have been assisting at the scene show swathes of blackened and smoking moorland as fire fighters from across the UK continue to assist DFRS’ operations.

In a full statement, the service said: “Firefighters and partner agencies continue to make progress at the major wildfire incident at Tintwistle Moor, with operations continuing across all four sectors of the fireground.

“A total of 60 personnel have been deployed throughout today, with activity focused on containing the fire perimeter, extinguishing remaining hotspots, tackling deep-seated peat fires and reducing the risk of re-ignition.

“While significant progress has been made, the incident remains complex. Peat fires can remain active underground for prolonged periods and may reignite if not completely extinguished, which is why firefighting activity continues despite the recent rainfall.

“Partner organisations, members of the Fire Operations Group (FOG), and firefighters from across the UK deployed through National Resilience arrangements remain on scene supporting the response.

“This remains a major incident due to the scale of the affected area, the challenging terrain and the complexity of the firefighting operation. Work will continue until the fire has been fully contained and extinguished.

“We would like to thank everyone involved in the response, as well as local communities, businesses and road users, for their continued support, patience and cooperation while this complex incident remains ongoing.”

Victims of the approximately 1 million violent crimes committed in England and Wales every year may experience physical, emotional and financial harm, and feel more fearful and less trusting. But our new research shows the harmful effects of violent crime also reach beyond their victims, and can affect the wellbeing of whole neighbourhoods.

In a recent study, we looked at the impact of violent crime – every violent incident against a person that the police were aware of – on the mental wellbeing of those living nearby. Our study looked at incidents of violent crime in neighbourhoods served by Thames Valley Police, one of the UK’s largest forces, as well as self-reported mental wellbeing in those neighbourhoods.

Using nearly a decade of data from 2010 to 2017, we linked each reported incident of violent crime to self-reports of mental wellbeing from a smartphone app in the immediate neighbourhood, with data on over 90,000 self-reports in total during the study period.

Because multiple self-reports were available for each person, we could remove the influence of individual characteristics, such as some people living more or less stressful lives.

We also controlled for day-to-day factors that might affect both crime and stress levels, such as weather, daylight and day of the week. And we controlled for each month of each year, which effectively enabled us to take account of any special events, such as elections or major sporting contests, that might affect crime and stress.

This approach allowed us to focus specifically on how a recent incident of violence changes a person’s stress compared to their usual levels.

We found that when a violent crime took place in a neighbourhood, it led to significant increases in stress levels among many of the residents. Raised stress levels were worst in the first few days following the incident, but stress remained heightened for around a week.

We cannot be certain that every resident was aware of the given crime. However, research suggests people tend to have a high awareness of violent crime in their local area. This happens for a number of reasons, including directly observing the incident, seeing greater police presence or remnants of the incident (such as police tape), as well as local word of mouth and media coverage.

Every small neighbourhood in our setting experienced two violent crimes per year, on average (with higher rates in some neighbourhoods and lower in others). Given the frequency of these incidents, we concluded that the average Briton experiences around two weeks of heightened stress each year due to violence in their area.

This is largely on top of the harmful effects of violent crime on each direct victim and their friends and family. Our study was not about looking at the impact of crime on these people. Instead, we examined how violent crime in a person’s immediate neighbourhood affected the stress levels of local residents more generally.

To better understand who was most affected in neighbourhoods with violent crime incidents, we split our sample to look at effects for women and men, and for those living in urban and rural areas.

We found a big gender gap, with women experiencing nearly twice as much stress as men after violent offences took place near their home. This may point to the wider psychological impacts of violence on women’s sense of safety and wellbeing. Similarly, urban residents experienced much larger stress effects than their rural counterparts after an incident of violent crime.

Explaining the stress

Why might violent crime increase local people’s stress levels? We speculate that violent crimes close to someone’s home may affect them more because it feels closer to their everyday life.

Our study found that violent incidents had the largest mental health effect on people who were at home when they reported their stress levels. For those far away from home at the time, the effects on stress were diminished. This might be explained by the fact that those away on work or vacation were less aware of an incident having taken place, or felt it didn’t affect their daily life.

We also found no impact from non-violent crimes on stress. This could be because people were less disturbed by these crimes, or because they were less aware of non-violent crimes.

Other studies have found that local violence leads to negative outcomes in many areas of people’s lives, including work and schooling. Researchers often argue these negative effects are due to violence leading to worse mental health, which then translates to lower achievement in school, for example. But it is difficult to test this causally, largely because of limited access to multiple data sources on the same people over time.

As such, our study fills an important evidence gap, directly showing that local violent crime worsens mental health.

Although violent crime has fallen substantially over the past few decades in the UK, it remains highly concentrated, with some neighbourhoods experiencing much higher levels of violence than others.

The costs to society are immense and go well beyond the victim. Our findings suggest that reducing violent crime throughout the country would have substantial benefits for society, including the potential to improve mental wellbeing across communities.

In the weeks after killing two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Georgia, the jailed teenage gunman had frequent phone conversations about his online notoriety with his mother, who at one point promised to make him a shrine to him.

Prosecutors played clips of the recorded conversations between Colt Gray and his mother during the teenager’s sentencing hearing Tuesday. Gray, 16, pleaded guilty Friday to 55 counts, including murder, in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school about 45 miles (73 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta. The conversations so alarmed officials that Gray’s mother was later barred from talking to him.

Murder carries a minimum sentence of life in prison in Georgia. Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm has to decide whether Gray should have the possibility of parole after hearing testimony and evidence presented by the defense and the prosecution. Tuesday was the third day of a sentencing hearing that began Friday.

Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, died in the shooting. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.

A jury in March convicted Gray’s father, Colin Gray, on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. Prosecutors said he gave his son the assault-style rifle used to open fire at the school.

Colt Gray wanted to know if people were talking about him

Ashley Gilleland, an investigator with the district attorney’s office, testified that Gray idolized other mass shooters, talking about them online with other members of the “true crime community,” a group of young people online who are fascinated with such attacks. He chatted with other people online about gaining notoriety through a school shooting and his admiration for previous mass shooters.

There were aspects of his preparation and behavior before and after the Apalachee High School shooting that mimicked other mass shooters, Gilleland testified.

He spoke frequently with his mother, Marcee Gray, by phone from a youth detention center in the months after the shooting. During those phone calls, portions of which were played in court, he would direct her to look up what people were saying about him online. When she described “fan art” drawings depicting him or comments people made about him, he asked her how much engagement those posts were getting and seemed excited when they were getting a lot.

Marcee Gray repeatedly told her son she would print some of the images and bring them to him, and during at least one conversation said she was also going to print some photos for herself.

“Have you made the shrine?” Colt Gray asked his mother, indicating that he wanted her to make a shrine to him. His mother responded that she needed to go get some photos printed. “Then I’ll make my Colty shrine,” she said.