victims

Funerals take place following attack on Iran school Funerals were held in Iran following an attack on a school, underscoring a day of grief and somber reflection for families and communities confronting the loss. The rites drew mourners to pay respects to the victims as the country absorbed the shock of violence striking an educational setting. Details about the incident, including the full scope of casualties and responsibility, were not immediately available. In the absence of confirmed information, the focus remained on…

NEW YORK — Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has agreed to pay as much as $35 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging two of the late financier’s closest advisers aided and abetted his sex trafficking of young women and teenage girls, according to a court filing Thursday in Manhattan federal court. The proposed agreement, disclosed by Boies Schiller Flexner, a law firm representing Epstein victims, would resolve a 2024 lawsuit against Epstein’s former personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, and former accountant, Richard Kahn. Both…

Epstein estate agrees to pay up to $35 million to settle remaining victim claims The estate of convicted U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has agreed to pay up to $35 million (€29.7 million) to resolve outstanding legal claims from potentially dozens of victims, according to a proposed court judgment filed in New York. The agreement would create a class encompassing people who said they were sexually assaulted, abused or trafficked by Epstein between Jan. 1, 1995, and Aug. 10, 2019, the date of his death in a New York jail,…

Families in the remote Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, are mourning eight people killed in a mass shooting Tuesday that tore through a home and a secondary school, claiming the lives of five children and a teacher. Police identified the shooter as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who later died by suicide. Among the victims was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, remembered by her family as “a beautiful soul.” Kylie was killed alongside four other children and a teacher at the town’s secondary school, authorities…

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday unveiled legislation they say would eliminate the statute of limitations shielding sex traffickers and enablers from civil accountability, invoking the legacy of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and naming the bill in honor of one of his most prominent accusers. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez introduced “Virginia’s Law” alongside survivors of abuse and members of Virginia Giuffre’s family at the U.S. Capitol. The proposal would end the statute of…

Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes killed 24 Palestinians, including seven children, across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, health officials said, in a surge of violence that threatens to further unravel a nearly four-month-old ceasefire. Among the dead was a medic who had rushed to treat casualties in the southern city of Khan Younis and was killed by a subsequent strike on the same location, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which operates under Hamas authorities. In Gaza City, health officials said a five-month-old boy…

COLOMBIA–VENEZUELA BORDER — A Satena passenger plane carrying 15 people crashed near Colombia’s border with Venezuela on Monday, killing everyone on board, the country’s civil aviation authority said. The twin‑propeller Beechcraft 1900 took off from the border city of Cucuta and lost contact with control towers shortly before it was due to land in nearby Ocana around midday (5 p.m. GMT). “There are no survivors,” an official from the aviation authority said. The aircraft was carrying 13 passengers and two crew members.…

Switzerland will observe a national day of mourning today for the 40 people, many of them teenagers, killed when fire tore through the Le Constellation bar during New Year’s celebrations in the ski resort of Crans-Montana. A minute of silence is set for 2 p.m. local time, to be followed by church bells ringing across the Alpine nation. The government called the silence a “testament to the shared grief felt by the entire nation with all the families and friends directly affected.” The ceremony will be livestreamed on large…

Skiers in Crans-Montana formed a heart on a snowy slope in a powerful tribute to the victims of the New Year’s Eve blaze at the “Le Constellation” bar, where 40 people were killed and 119 others were injured, many of them severely. The heart-shaped formation, captured on video, became a focal symbol of collective mourning in the ski community after the deadliest nightclub fire in years. Organizers and participants aligned themselves across the piste, their tracks drawing a clear, white outline visible from above — a quiet…

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland — Swiss authorities said they have identified all 40 people killed in a New Year’s Day bar fire at this Alpine ski resort, intensifying pressure for answers as prosecutors investigate potential lapses in safety at the popular nightlife spot. Most of the victims were teenagers. Prosecutors in the canton of Valais said the blaze, which spread rapidly in the early hours of Jan. 1 in the basement of Le Constellation bar, was likely ignited by sparkling “fountain” candles that caught the ceiling alight.…