Prosecutors say other man was lured to Brendan Banfield’s house as a fall guy in scheme to get rid of Banfield’s wife

A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair was found guilty Monday of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy.

Brendan Banfield, a former IRS law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of 24 February 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhães, the au pair, shot him, too.

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Couple say they love their daughter immeasurably but have a moral obligation to try to find child’s biological parents

A couple is suing a Florida fertility clinic after learning that they were implanted with the wrong embryo, and are going public with their attempts to find their child’s biological parents.

Tiffany Score and Steven Mills have filed a lawsuit against IVF Life Inc, which operates as the Fertility Center of Orlando, and its lead physician, Dr Milton McNichol. The suit, which was initially filed under pseudonyms to protect their family’s privacy, states that three viable embryos were created with Score’s eggs and Mills’s sperm, and an embryo was successfully implanted in April 2025.

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This documentary about four women, victimised as teenagers by the same man, is an instant rebuttal to that most unsympathetic question: why don’t women just leave their abuser?

Last year I began a review of the BBC documentary To Catch a Stalker with the words “Welcome to part 86,747,398,464 of the continuing cataloguing via television documentary of the apparently infinite series Ways in Which Largely Men Terrorise Largely Women and Prevent Countless Millions of Them from Living Their Lives in Freedom and Contentment.” Welcome now to part 86,747,398,465 (providing, that is, we limit ourselves only to products from the BBC. To include Netflix’s contributions could break calculators.)

Lover, Liar, Predator tells the stories of several women who were coerced, abused and raped by a man called Aaron Swan over his decades-long career. He was 17 when he approached Natalie at a party. She was 17 too but, as a devout Christian with a very protected upbringing, effectively younger and highly vulnerable to his charms. He put pressure on her to give up her virginity. She got pregnant and they married. He was “demeaning and unkind” to her, insulting her looks, claiming to be in love with his ex and subjecting her to violent, unwanted sex (“I endured whatever was required … I thought that’s what sex was”) for years.

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• ‘We have the most goals, the most clean sheets’

• Liam Rosenior predicts ‘physical’ Carabao Cup second leg

Mikel Arteta has laughed off a suggestion from Paul Scholes that Arsenal would be the most boring team to win the Premier League, insisting his side are considered “the most exciting in Europe” in other countries.

Scholes, the former Manchester United midfielder, pointed to the lack of goals from Arsenal’s front four this season and reliance on set pieces as evidence for his claim. Viktor Gyökeres is the club’s top scorer in the league with six, and Arsenal have scored 17 goals from set pieces – three more than any other club.

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Lawyers discussed possibility of Epstein’s cooperation with prosecutors – and more names surfaced in new documents

A new trove of about 3m files related to the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was released on Friday, offering new details about his network and interactions with wealthy and powerful figures and the federal investigations into his crimes.

The release follows legislation passed in November by US lawmakers that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein-related documents.

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The White House says the president is ‘not involved’ in running his businesses. Ethics experts remain concerned

Donald Trump has been accused of “corruption, plain and simple” after it was revealed that a member of the Emirati royal family was behind a $500m investment into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company.

Ethics experts say the deal – struck just days before the US president’s inauguration last January – amounts to a deep conflict of interest for the White House, amid calls for a congressional investigation into the transaction.

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Judge is considering a temporary order after agents used teargas on protesters during a weekend demonstration

A judge is considering temporarily restricting federal officers’ ability to use of force during protests in Portland, Oregon, after agents used teargas on a crowd that included children during a protest over the weekend.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on Saturday in what Keith Wilson, the city’s mayor, described as a peaceful demonstration “where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat and posed no danger” to federal agents.

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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Lost horizon, Diana Simard

Staring at the sun, Aaron Zulpo

Here be dragons, Zhiyong Jing

For his 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson enlisted Brazilian musical artist Seu Jorge to perform several of David Bowie’s songs in Portuguese. Jorge released an album of the songs about a year or so later. A few weeks ago, to mark the 10th anniversary of Bowie’s death, Jorge released a hour-long set of him performing those songs: Just an acoustic guitar, a microphone, and the beautiful coastline of São Paulo.

Tags: movies · music · Seu Jorge · The Life Aquatic · video · Wes Anderson

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World Thru Lenz has added a photo to the pool:

Second price increase in just two months

That slice of Pi is getting much more expensive. Everyone’s favorite single-board computer, the Raspberry Pi, is jumping up in price again, with increases ranging from $10 to $60, depending on how much memory your board has.…

HAWTHORNE (ANP) - De raket- en satellietfabrikant SpaceX heeft de start-up voor kunstmatige intelligentie xAI, beide van techmiljardair Elon Musk, overgenomen. Dit meldt SpaceX op zijn website. Met de fusie wil SpaceX "de meest ambitieuze, verticaal geïntegreerde innovatiemotor op (en buiten) de aarde" vormen.

EINDHOVEN (ANP) - Chipfabrikant NXP uit Eindhoven heeft in 2025 minder omzet en winst geboekt. De omzet bedroeg vorig jaar 12,3 miljard dollar, omgerekend ongeveer 10,4 miljard euro. Dat is 3 procent minder dan in 2024, meldt NXP in zijn kwartaal- en jaarresultaten.

De nettowinst kwam uit op 2 miljard dollar. Een jaar eerder ging nog een winst van 2,5 miljard dollar in de boeken.

NXP waarschuwde eind april vorig jaar nog voor "zeer onzekere" omstandigheden vanwege de onrust rond de Amerikaanse importheffingen. NXP zei in oktober een "brede, opeenvolgende verbetering" in alle regio's en eindmarkten te zien.

Beursnotering New York

In het vierde kwartaal steeg de omzet 7 procent vergeleken met het laatste kwartaal van 2024, naar 3,3 miljard dollar. Daarmee laat NXP "een opeenvolgende verbetering" zien in alle eindmarkten, meldt topman Rafael Sotomayor in een toelichting.

NXP verwacht in het huidige kwartaal een omzet van 3,1 tot 3,3 miljard dollar te behalen. De chipfabrikant heeft een beursnotering in New York.

LONDEN (ANP/AFP) - De Britse premier Keir Starmer (Labour) heeft opdracht gegeven tot een spoedonderzoek naar de banden van ex-minister Peter Mandelson en de overleden Amerikaanse zedendelinquent Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer vindt dat Mandelson zijn titel als lord moet worden ontnomen en niet langer zitting mag hebben in het Hogerhuis van het parlement.

Recent vrijgegeven Amerikaanse documenten lijken opnieuw Mandelsons nauwe banden aan te tonen met de in ongenade gevallen financier. De regering laat alle beschikbare informatie over Mandelsons contacten met Epstein tijdens zijn periode als bewindspersoon onderzoeken, aldus een woordvoerder.

Mandelson geldt als de architect van de heropleving van de sociaaldemocratische Labour in de jaren negentig onder Tony Blair. Hij is inmiddels uit de partij getreden om die niet "verder in verlegenheid" te brengen. Hij noemt de beschuldigingen onjuist.

DEN HOORN (ANP) - De politie zoekt nog naar antwoorden in de zaak van de 16-jarige jongen die vorige maand in Den Hoorn is doodgestoken. Ook is bij de politie niet duidelijk waarom de jongen uit Delft die avond op donderdag 22 januari bij de Spoorplaats in Den Hoorn was.

In Opsporing Verzocht is maandag gemeld dat omwonenden tijdens die fatale avond meerdere scooters hard hebben horen wegrijden. Ook zou iemand op een elektrische fiets zijn weggereden. De politie roept mensen op zich te melden als ze meer weten over wat er is voorgevallen en over de mogelijke daders.

Voor de steekpartij is al snel een 18-jarige jongen uit Rijswijk aangehouden. Hij zit nog vast. Ondanks de aanhouding is volgens Opsporing Verzocht de precieze toedracht nog niet duidelijk.

Microsoft is reevaluating its AI strategy on Windows 11 and plans to scale back or remove Copilot integrations across built-in apps after months of sustained user backlash, according to a Windows Central report citing people familiar with the company's plans.

Copilot features in apps like Notepad and Paint are under review and could be pulled entirely or stripped of their Copilot branding in favor of a more streamlined experience. The company has paused work on adding new Copilot buttons to any other in-box apps. Windows Recall, the screenshot-based search feature delayed by an entire year in 2024 over security and privacy concerns, is separately under review -- Microsoft internally considers the current implementation a failure and is exploring ways to rework or rename the feature rather than scrap it entirely, the report said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.