U.K.'s Sycamore Gap tree, featured in "Robin Hood" movie, chopped down in "deliberate act of vandalism"
CBSN
London — Britain's iconic Sycamore Gap tree, set in a dip in the ancient Hadrian's Wall in an otherwise treeless landscape, was chopped down Thursday in what police have called "a deliberate act of vandalism." A 16-year-old male was arrested and authorities appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
The famous tree was hundreds of years old and was already a beloved local landmark when it featured in the 1991 movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," with Kevin Costner climbing atop the ruins of the ancient Roman wall next to it to deliver a few lines.
In 2016, it was voted "English Tree of the Year."
Collville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France — The word "hero" is overused. But if not for the courage of the few remaining D-Day survivors and their friends who fell as they launched the fight to oust Adolf Hitler's Nazi German forces from France 80 years ago, there would have been no celebrations this week in Normandy.
France's domestic intelligence agency has detained a 26-year-old Russian-Ukrainian man on suspicion of planning a violent act after he injured himself in an explosion, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The news came hours before world leaders gathered in the nation to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy.
A British-Mexican man who says he was targeted for being gay and arrested on false drug charges in Qatar has been given a suspended six-month jail sentence, a fine amounting to about $2,700, and a deportation order by a court in the Arab nation, which is a vital U.S. ally in the Middle East, according to his family and Mexican officials.
An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including 23 women and children, according to local health officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory. The hospital treating victims said it had received the bodies of at least "37 martyrs" from the strike, according to Agence France-Presse. But a U.N. official tells the Reuters news agency the death toll is between 35 and 45, though it still can't confirm any numbers.
Jerusalem — Thousands of Israeli nationalists marched Wednesday through east Jerusalem as authorities deployed police with tensions sky-high nearly eight months into the Gaza war. That war appeared to be intensifying in Gaza and the far-right nationalists staged their annual march – long deemed a provocation by Palestinians – in Jerusalem.