HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong authorities on Wednesday charged seven people and two companies with offenses including manslaughter and conspiracy to defraud over the city’s deadliest fire in decades.

The massive blaze engulfed seven apartment buildings and killed 168 people on Nov. 26, 2025. Former residents and relatives of the dead have been waiting for answers for months after the fire shattered the close-knit community of Wang Fuk Court, which housed thousands of people in the suburban district of Tai Po.

In a statement on Wednesday, authorities said police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption charged the suspects with 25 counts. Money laundering, attempting to pervert the course of public justice and tax evasion were also among the allegations.

The seven people played different roles in the major renovation project of Wang Fuk Court. The two companies charged are the project consultancy firm, Will Power Architects Company, and Prestige Construction & Engineering Co., the main contractor involved in the project.

The seven defendants, Wong Hap-yin, Hau Wa-kin, Ho Kin-yip, Ng Yeuk, Hung Kwok-wai, Chung So-fan and Lin Min, were brought to court Wednesday afternoon. Authorities said they included directors of the two companies and a registered inspector of Will Power.

The defendants told the court that they understood the charges, and most appeared calm.

In March, police said they arrested 38 people on accusations related to the fire, including manslaughter and fraud. Nine have been charged, police said. The anti-graft agency said in the same month that they also arrested 23 people on suspicion of offenses such as bribery and conspiracy to defraud.

Victor Dawes, a lawyer representing an independent committee conducting an ongoing inquiry into the fire’s cause, previously said almost all fire safety systems failed on the day of the blaze because of human error.

He signed off from Thursday’s show by telling listeners “see you next week” but did not appear on Monday evening, with the BBC saying that Mr Livesey had asked to take a break from presenting the show for a “short time” while the corporation considers the issues raised by the investigation.

The million-selling singer took to the stage at St George’s Venue in Hartlepool, delivering a sold-out acoustic performance alongside long-time collaborator Carmelo Luggeri.

The show featured reinterpretations of her classic hits, including Loving and Free, I’ve Got The Music In Me, and her iconic duet with Elton John, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, which has now surpassed 1.1 billion Spotify streams.

The stunning St George’s Venue in Hartlepool as Kiki Dee & Carmello appear on stage (Image: Goffy Media)

But the night took an unexpected turn when the duo realised after leaving the stage that they had missed out Amoureuse, one of Kiki’s most beloved songs.

In a rare move, they returned to the stage to perform the track live for fans.

Kiki said: “It was the first time we’ve had to reassemble the audience, but we all laughed about it as we hooked up again to restart.

“I’ve loved playing Hartlepool.

“We’ve played a few churches now and they have an ambience all of their own.

“It was great to look out and see so many happy faces joining in with us.

“St George’s Venue is a terrific place and we would be delighted to return one day.”

The performance is one of the latest in a series of high-profile events at St George’s Venue, inside St George’s Church at the corner of York Road and Park Road.

Carmelo Luggeri, an English-born guitarist, composer, and producer of Italian heritage, has toured with Kiki for over 30 years across the UK and Europe.

The show in Hartlepool was praised by organisers as further evidence of the venue’s growing reputation as a destination for major touring artists.

Paul Rodgers, events co-ordinator at St George’s Venue, said: “The feedback has been fantastic.

“Following on from our recent event with Ashley Campbell, daughter of Glen Campbell, we really feel the positive response from people who are sampling what we do and more importantly returning with family and friends.”

The appearance is the latest in a run of high-profile live events at St George’s Venue, as Hartlepool continues to attract established names from the UK music scene to its intimate performance setting.

Róis Máire Donnelly has said police told her threats had been made against her life

The new Lord Mayor of Belfast Róis Máire Donnelly has said that threats have been made against her life.

The new Sinn Fein mayor, who took over the office from DUP councillor Tracy Kelly on June 1, has said that police visited her home last night to tell her they had been made aware of threats against her life and told her to take extra precautions.

She has respoonded by saying it “will not deter” her from doing her role as Mayor.

The Lord Mayor has also expressed her solidarity with the victim of a “vicious” knife attack in North Belfast and thanked those who intervened to save the victim’s life.

She has also condemned the widespread violent racist attacks in Belfast on Tuesday evening saying those involved should be ashamed.

Róis Máire Donnelly said: “Last night, Tuesday 9th June, I was visited at home by the PSNI. The police informed me that threats had been made against my life and advised me to take extra precautions regarding my personal security.

“I want to make it clear that these threats will not deter me from fulfilling my role as Mayor of this great city. I will continue to represent everyone.

“I want to express my full solidarity with the victim of the vicious attack in North Belfast on Monday evening, and also with the community heroes who intervened and saved the victim’s life. They deserve our enormous gratitude for their heroic actions.

“Belfast is home to many people who have come here from other countries and who have made this city their home, who have worked hard, who have looked after our friends and family in our hospitals in their time of need, who have opened businesses and created jobs, and who have become valued members of our community.

“We must stand with these people now in their time of need.

“Those people who took part in violent racist attacks and destruction last night should be ashamed.

“Burning family homes, burning businesses, burning buses and cars, destroying all round them. Young children being evacuated from their home carrying their teddy bears.

“It is disgraceful and disgusting. It is racism, it is intimidation, and it is absolute thuggery.

“I call on those involved in this violence to stop, and stop now. You do not represent Belfast.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

The third day of a sentencing hearing of 30 people involved in the Ely riots has heard how one of the defendants was a “stone and missile thrower” during the initial escalation.

Matthew Cobbe, prosecuting, has told the two-week sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court how McKenzie Pring arrived at the scene shortly after the collision and watched from a short distance until the disorder began to escalate.

“He became involved in the first flurry of stone throwing, gathered stones from a nearby garden, and threw them at police,” Mr Cobbe told a busy courtroom on Wednesday morning as footage of Pring’s involvement was played to the court.

Pring was arrested and made no comment at police interview. The court heard he has two previous convictions for offences including of section 20 and section 18 assaults, possession of an offensive weapon, possession of a knife and possession of cannabis.

In mitigation Andrew Taylor said his client Pring should have 20% credit for his guilty plea. The barrister highlighted the defendant was 18 at the time of the riots and was a “good friend” of Kyrees Sullivan and Harvey Evans, whose deaths while riding an electric bike through the streets of Ely sparked the ensuing riots on May 22, 2023.

The two young boys were involved in a fatal collision and were later pronounced dead at the scene. Around 150 people attended the riot which saw hours of violence and vandalism take place on the streets on and near Wilson Road in the west Cardiff suburb.

Moments after the collision large crowds consisting of members of the close-knit community of Ely came out to witness the horror as it unfolded. Shock and sadness quickly turned to distress and anger at how the police were handling the scene and as rumours circulated online that the police were responsible for the death of Kyrees and Harvey, who had previously been pursued by a police van.

The mothers of the two teenagers attempted to run to their children, grief-stricken and in desperation, but their path was blocked by the police. After the deaths of Kyrees and Harvey had been confirmed the boys remained lying dead on the floor.

The trials of the rioters at Cardiff Crown Court last year heard police officers set up a cordon to protect the scene. As time went on a larger proportion of the crowd became hostile towards the police with that hostility quickly escalating to the point the police were facing a flat-out riot.

Hundreds of officers were directed to assist colleagues as missiles were thrown from the crowd including bottles, bricks, plasterboard, and fireworks. Cars parked in the street were rolled over and set alight, doors were taken off their hinges and thrown at officers, mattresses were set alight, and petrol bombs were thrown with one police officer engulfed in flames.

On Wednesday, defendants Jamie Jones, Jayden Westcott, and Lianna Tucker are also due to be sentenced in the morning before Keiron Beccano, Jordan Webster and Jasmine Smith in the afternoon.

Follow live updates from court below and sign up to get daily breaking news updates on your phone by joining our WhatsApp community here.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A series of long-range Ukrainian attacks hit targets deep inside Russia on Wednesday, part of Kyiv’s efforts to raise the costs of the war for the Kremlin by striking energy facilities and military industries.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces struck several military and energy infrastructure sites, including a military factory that he said supplied components for Russian drones and missiles.

In a post on social media, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo long-range missiles had hit the facility in Cheboksary, located in the Chuvashiya region more than 900 kilometers (over 560 miles) from the front line.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 326 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Oleg Nikolayev, the head of Chuvashiya, confirmed that the missile attack but didn’t give details. The Astra online news outlet reported that the Ukrainian strike hit the VNIIR-Progress plant that produces antennas for drones.

Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian forces struck a refinery in Russia’s Samara region, where Gov. Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said that several industrial plants were damaged by drone strikes and three people were injured.

Fedorishchev didn’t name the facilities that were damaged, but Astra carried images of a large fire at the Samara refinery.

Zelenskyy added that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) had also targeted two oil infrastructure facilities in Russia’s Vladimir region, about 700 kilometers from the front line.

In Russia-occupied Crimea, a Ukrainian drone hit the building housing a huge panorama painting depicting the defense of the city during 19th century Crimean War. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Kremlin-appointed head of Sevastopol, said the painting by artist Franz Rubo was effectively destroyed.

As the more than 1,000-kilometer front line in the four-year war has remained largely static as swarms of drones hinder advances, both sides have increasingly relied on long-range strikes.

The increasingly deep and audacious Ukrainian strikes have cast a challenge to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, defying his claim that Moscow was winning the war now in its fifth year.

The attacks on St. Petersburg came as another embarrassment for the Russian leader, weeks after he pruned back an annual Victory Day parade in Moscow because of fears of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Ukraine’s Air Force says air defenses downed 181 of 207 Russian drones.

A barrage of 26 drones struck Kharkiv early Wednesday, injuring at least four people, according to regional administration head Oleh Syniehubov. He said one person was killed and 15 others were injured in the region over the past 24 hours.

In Zaporizhzhia and its region, 10 people were injured overnight in a series of Russian aerial attacks, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov.

In Odesa, a mother and two children, aged 8 and 10, required medical attention after Russian drones damaged two residential buildings, according to regional administration head Oleh Kiper.

He says there were ‘particular issues’ in the prison at the time of the killing of Bevan.

The prison was made up of 77 per cent vulnerable prisoners and 23 per cent ‘main prisoners’.

The main prisoners had become of a ‘different calibre’, Mr Pitter says, in that there were more prisoners involved in ‘more serious offences such as gangland offences and violence including murder’.

Jurors hear that vulnerable prisoners and main prisoners would mix at Wakefield prison, and that there was an ‘open door policy’ for cells during association times, in comparison to other cells which had a ‘closed door policy’.

Mr Pitter says that Bevan was killed in his own cell. He says there was ‘tension’ between vulnerable and main prisoners.

He says; “Main prisoners indicated that they didn’t want to be housed in the same wing as vulnerable prisoners, particularly those who were sex offenders or those who had committed offences against children. There was also bullying of vulnerable prisoners.”

He said there was an ‘element of fear’ among vulnerable prisoners.

Drivers heading south from the Lake District are facing major disruption this morning after the M6 was closed following a crash.

National Highways says a lorry has jack-knifed and a fuel spillage has been reported on the motorway.

It is affecting the southbound carriageway between junctions 35 at Carnforth and 34 at Lancaster.

Queues are building up in both directions approaching the crash scene.

The closure is expected to continue into the afternoon.

Further details are yet to be confirmed.

Updates will be posted in this blog when they are available.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday that four targets had been destroyed in “calibrated strikes” that had killed 26 militants. Afghanistan’s Taliban government earlier said 13 people, including 11 children, were killed in Pakistani strikes in three provinces.

‘Laser vaginas.’

A text came in from a friend yesterday that lit up my phone with the most unexpected two words, followed by a link to Madonna’s 10 minute musical film, featuring the first half dozen songs from her latest album Confessions II. 

I have never clicked on YouTube so quickly in my life. 

And there it was. Vaginas. With lasers shooting out of them. 

There are around 10 people in this video, wearing very little, posing acrobatically, with a thin green laser shooting out of each of their vulvas. I spotted some lasers coming from a bit further South too. 

It was marvelous, beautiful. Just the most unexpected art, yet somehow so wonderfully predictable from the sexually adventurous queen of pop, Madonna.

Mother has indeed returned, and she is quite literally pinpointing our desire with a beam of light. 

Despite this, some people are unable to come to terms with the visuals in her latest video, calling her ‘embarrassing and weird’ on X.

But there’s nothing wrong with laser vaginas, or the rest of the outrageously sexy short film, which includes a toilet scene, with men using urinals, Madonna herself simulating a sex act in one of the cubicles while Games of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie looks on, then joining Benedict Cumberbatch for a dance.

Sabrina Carpenter appears, as does Kate Moss, Richard E Grant, Odessa A’Zion – and we even see a young Madonna in Julia Garner, who cosplays as her.

Only a legend like Madonna could gather such a large group of icons for her video.

Personally, I think that if you can’t handle it, then there’s something wrong with you. We should all be liberated like Madonna, at 21 or 67. 

And I only mention her age because everyone else is. Only they are making disparaging comments like ‘she should retire’, or that ‘she is too old for the sexual stuff’.

But these people don’t seem to know who Madonna is, because the woman who liberated so many people in the 80s and 90s should absolutely not tone down her message with age.

Music lovers have been awaiting a Madonna release for a long time now, and after revealing in 2024 that she has begun working on something new, we sat down, crossed our legs and held our breaths.

Not least because last album, Madame X, released in 2019, leaving a lot to be desired. It was acclaimed by many as her strangest album, with the Associated Press calling it: ‘needy, trying-too-hard mess of an album that sounds like Madonna threw up on Madonna’.

I would agree. But Madonna has never bent to criticism, and has always remained uniquely herself. That is what makes her so important, I suppose – she is beyond critique. 

And so she shouldn’t be. If she had listened to any of the angry men back in the 80’s and 90’s, (possibly the same ones now online criticising her overt sexuality) we wouldn’t have any of the masterpieces she created.In fact, she is widely recognised as one of the first female musicians to have complete control over her music career.

And maybe that’s what is making people so angry now. Let’s not beat around the laser pointing bush here, we are talking about criticism mostly coming from men.

One horrible comment under her video on X reads: ‘Everything about this deranged, mentally-ill old woman is just gross’.

This comment, and many others that were similar, feel like an attack on her confident femininity, and, by extension, any women who embrace their sexuality. 

And she doesn’t deserve it for simply pointing a laser from someone’s vulva and proceeding to straddle it.

This woman has created some of the best music that we’ve ever had. Songs such as Like A Virgin changed the way women represented their desire – the Madonna look became a massive fashion trend, as did her oozing sexuality. 

And now, at 67, Madonna is still redefining what being a woman can look like. It can be laser pointers for vaginas. 

In fact, Madonna said it is so, so it shall be. 

I personally am glad she’s back, and that she’s illuminating conversations around our bodily autonomy.

It’s the ray of light we all need. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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