Pair apologise in court after being accused of defrauding buyers including some of New York’s most prominent fine art auction houses

A father and daughter in New Jersey have pleaded guilty to running a years-long counterfeiting scheme to trick art galleries and auction houses into buying forged paintings of works by prominent artists such as Andy Warhol, Banksy and Pablo Picasso.

Federal prosecutors said Erwin Bankowski, 50, and Karolina Bankowska, 26, commissioned an artist in Poland to create at least 200 of the fakes and ultimately defrauded buyers of at least $2m.

Arrests of Audias Flores and César Alejandro ‘N’ lead to gunmen blocking roads, as US embassy warns employees to avoid Reynosa after earlier arrest

The Mexican authorities have arrested two top criminals, one of them a close ally of the slain founder of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), prompting gunmen to block roads in the western state of Nayarit.

Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero”, is a regional commander in control of swathes of CJNG territory along Mexico’s Pacific coast. He was considered a potential successor to Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho”, who ran the cartel and was killed in a security operation in February.

Cocaine-trafficking rebels blamed for worst attack on civilians in decades, which also left 56 people injured

The death toll in a Colombian highway bombing blamed on cocaine-trafficking rebels has risen to 21, the government said on Monday, in the country’s worst attack on civilians in decades and just ahead of elections.

The attack on Saturday left 56 injured and buses and vans mangled on the Pan-American Highway, in the restive south-western Cauca department.

The Israeli government and Hezbollah have traded blame over breaches to the truce, which is set to run for several more weeks

Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on the country’s south killed 14 people on Sunday, the deadliest day since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into force over a week ago.

The health ministry said the dead on Sunday included two women and two children, adding that 37 other people were wounded. Israel said one of its soldiers was also killed.

Hisham Abugharbieh was arrested after standoff with police and charged with killing Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy

The man who was detained after two Bangladeshi doctoral students went missing from the University of South Florida (USF) has been booked with two counts of murder.

Hisham Abugharbieh faces two counts of premeditated murder in the first degree with a weapon in the deaths of Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy, the Hillsborough county sheriff’s office announced on Saturday.

Martha Odom, 16, died from a gunshot wound to the chest according to the local coroner’s statement

A high school senior has been identified as the person killed in a mass shooting that also wounded five others when two groups exchanged gunfire inside the food court at a mall in Louisiana’s capital city on Thursday afternoon, according to officials.

Martha Odom, 16, died from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to a statement issued Friday by the local coroner’s office.

Exit of John Phelan, navy’s top civilian official, comes a week after Pete Hegseth fired army’s top officer

The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that the navy’s top civilian official, John Phelan, the secretary of the navy, is leaving his job.

In a statement posted to social media, Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Phelan was “departing the administration, effective immediately”.

Amal Khalil had been buried in rubble after an Israeli strike that also injured another journalist, Zeinab Faraj

Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed a journalist on Wednesday after rescuers were blocked from accessing the building where she was buried under rubble because of further Israeli fire, according to several witnesses.

Amal Khalil was covering developments near the town of al-Tayri with the photographer Zeinab Faraj when an Israeli strike hit the vehicle in front of them.

Wednesday’s strike brings the total of those killed in US military strikes on alleged drug boats to at least 177

Three people were killed in a US strike on another alleged drug-trafficking boat, the fifth such deadly attack in as many days, military officials have announced.

US southern command said it conducted “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the eastern Pacific, without naming the alleged group, in an X post.

Trawler set off from Bangladesh and reportedly capsized due to heavy winds, rough seas and overcrowding

About 250 people are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea, according to the UN’s refugee and migration agencies.

The agencies said the trawler carrying more than 250 men, women and children reportedly sank due to harsh weather and overcrowding. It had departed from Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was bound for Malaysia.