Demi Moore put on an animated display as she attended the Saint Laurent Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.

The actress, 60, looked glamorous in a sheer black gown while wearing matching underwear underneath.

She boosted her height in chic stilettos and hid her eyes behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. 

Demi’s shiny raven tresses were styled poker straight and she sported a bronzed makeup palette which accentuated her natural features.

The star flashed her dazzling white smile as she arrived at the star-studded event with supermodel Kate Moss. 

It comes hours after her ex-husband Bruce Willis made a rare public outing amid his battle with dementia.

Demi and her former partner, 68, remain close friends and share three daughters — Rumer, 35, Scout, 32, and Tallulah, 29.

The family have rallied around the Die Hard actor after he was diagnosed with Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) – an uncommon form of dementia that causes a deterioration in behaviour, personality and language.

They publicly revealed his condition in February of this year and his wife Emma Heming recently gave a heartbreaking update on his ongoing battle with dementia.

The Hollywood icon was seen in the passenger seat of a car in Los Angeles , on Monday – the same day that Emma, 45, revealed it’s ‘hard to know’ if he is even aware of what is happening to him health-wise.

The sighting came just hours before Demi stepped out in Paris during Fashion Week, as she was seen arriving at her hotel with a puppy scooped in her jacket.

The A-lister made a low-key arrival and looked downcast she she stepped out in the French capital on Tuesday. She was cuddling her pet Chihuahua Pilaf.

She was bundled up in an oversized black blazer, which she was wearing with jeans and a pair of boots.

During his outing in LA, Bruce was sporting a quilted navy jacket and a matching navy hat, the actor was seen sitting with the passenger window down as he was driven around his home town in what has become an increasingly rare public outing amid his ongoing health struggles.

Emma fought back tears while she opened up about how she and her two daughters with the actor are coping with the ‘grief and the sadness’ of watching the actor’s health decline in an interview on the Today show.

‘What I’m learning is that dementia is hard,’ she said, during an appearance at the show’s New York studio. ‘It’s hard on the person diagnosed. It’s also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce or myself or our girls.

‘And when they say that this is a family disease, it really is.’

When asked how she went about explaining his illness to their children, she said: ‘I think it’s always been… we’re a very honest and open household.

‘And, the most important thing was to be able for us to say what the disease was, explain what it is because when you know what the disease is from a medical standpoint it sort of all makes sense.

‘So it was important that we let them know what it is because, you know, I don’t want there to be any stigma or shame attached to their dad’s diagnosis, or for any form of dementia.’

When asked by host Hoda Kotb if he is aware of what is happening to him, Emma paused and revealed: ‘Hard to know’.

But despite the difficulty of caring for her husband, she said receiving a diagnosis has made life ‘easier’.

‘I think it was the blessing and the curse. You know, to sort of finally understand what was happening so that I can be into the acceptance of what is.

‘It doesn’t make it any less painful, but just being in the acceptance and just being in the know of what is happening to Bruce just makes it a little bit easier.

‘There is so many beautiful things happening in our lives. It is just really important for me to look up from the grief and the sadness so that I can see what is happening around us,’ Emma added.

In a particularly touching moment, Hoda asked Emma what she thinks Bruce is teaching their girls as they all come to terms with his illness as a family.

‘Honestly, he is the gift that keeps on giving. Love, patience, resilience, so much…’ Emma said.

‘And he’s teaching me and our whole… I mean, you know, for me to be out here doing this, this is not my comfort zone, but this is the power of Bruce.’

Hoda continued: ‘I have heard from people that have an ailing family member, and I remember this from a friend of mine… she said, “my husband’s diagnosis made my kids better people”. Is that what you’re noticing?’

‘That is what I’m noticing,’ Emma replied. ‘Listen, I think my kids would be great no matter what! And this is not what I would want for them. But really, like I said, it is teaching them so much and how to care and love and it’s a beautiful thing amongst the sadness.’

She confirmed that she refers to herself as Bruce’s ‘care partner’ as opposed to his ‘caretaker’, and also noted the importance of taking care of herself as well.

‘It’s so important to ask for help and support. And you can look to organizations like the AFTD, like Hilarity For Charity… it is sort of a great starting point.

‘And it’s important for care partners to look after themselves so that they can be the best care, partner for the person that they’re caring for,’ she added.

When you become familiar with someone, you start to recognize their face pretty quickly – but if you see them upside down, studies show it’s harder to tell.

Known as the face inversion effect (FIE), scientists have long been trying to work out whether it’s an evolutionary or learned behavior.

‘Face processing has received a lot of research attention and it’s a relatively well-developed research area, but the brain is complicated and hard to study so we still have only a dim understanding of how face processing works,’ Brad Duchaine, a psychologist at Dartmouth College told DailyMail.com. 

Now, a study by Duchaine’s team provides a unique opportunity to study how we perceive faces.  They studied a Brazilian man named Claudio Vieira de Oliveira who has a congenital joint disorder that causes his head to be rotated 180 degrees.

SCROLL DOWN TO TAKE OUR UPSIDE-DOWN CELEB QUIZ. THE ANSWERS ARE AT THE VERY BOTTOM.

Because of the position of his head, Vieira de Oliveira mostly sees peoples’ faces inversely. Researchers tested his recognition ability in 2015 and 2019.

The researchers showed Vieira de Oliveira upright and inverted faces, and wanted to study his detection and identity-matching abilities.

Upright faces were those with eyes above the mouth, and inverse faces were those with eyes below the mouth, the study noted.

Researchers determined that if Vieira de Oliveira identified upright faces better than inverted faces, it would mean recognition is based more on experience since this is how he usually perceives people.

Vieira de Oliveira performed similarly on upright and inverted faces, indicating that both evolution and experience impact our ability to perceive faces.

When shown upright faces, Vieira de Oliveira was accurate 61 percent of the time. When shown inverted faces, he was accurate 68 percent of the time.  

Vieira de Oliveira was born with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, a condition that restricts motion in in multiple joints and muscle weakness, and his parents were told he wouldn’t survive past birth. 

However, Vieira de Oliveira currently works as a tax accountant, and has given motivational speeches and written an autobiography.

‘Prior to this study, nothing was known about how a person who has seen lots of faces mismatched to their own face perform with upright and inverted faces,’ Duchaine said. 

‘These results indicate that people with typical face perception are extremely good with upright faces both because of the experience they have had with them and because their visual systems have processes designed to process upright faces,’ he said.

They also showed Vieira de Oliveira ‘Thatcherized’ faces, or faces where certain features like the mouth and eyes are flipped on an upright face, or kept upright on an inverse face.

Looking at the ‘Thatcherized’ faces, Vieira de Oliveira performed better seeing upright faces with altered features. 

 Researchers said they don’t understand why Vieira de Oliveira recognized the Thatcherized faces well, but assume it has to do with a different visual mechanism apart from detecting faces and identities. 

‘Nearly everyone has far more experience with upright faces and ancestors whose reproduction was influenced by their ability to process upright faces, so it’s not easy to pull apart the influence of experience and evolved mechanisms tailored for upright faces in typical participants,’ Duchaine said in a press release.

The researchers want to continue learning about the differences between how evolution and experience factor into how people perceive faces.

They also want to study the different judgements people make when they see faces, such as how they perceive attraction and trustworthiness. 

Look below to see how well you recognize some celebrities whose images have been flipped.

Answers: Beyoncé, Tom Brady, Gerard Butler, George Lucas, Shaquille O’Neal, Bradley Cooper, Catherine Middleton, Princess of Wales, Zendaya, Rihanna, Lady Gaga

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv‘s allies have committed billions upon billions in military and humanitarian aid to help Ukrainian Armed Forces fight off Russian occupiers.

But as the war drags into its 19th month, President Volodymyr Zelensky is seemingly facing an uphill battle convincing both his neighbours and Western allies to continue apace. 

The Biden administration’s latest request for a fresh $24billion aid package is the subject of a bitter spending battle that could see Congress trigger a government shutdown with skeptical Republican lawmakers wary of sending yet more funds to Kyiv. 

Some Republicans say the money could be better spent on US border security, while there are also concerns about the pace of Kyiv’s counteroffensive and that corruption in Ukraine means the money will be squandered. 

Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said this week his country ‘is no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine’ amid a row over Poland‘s ban on Ukrainian grain imports to protect the interests of its farmers.

With this in mind, MailOnline recaps the level of funding sent to Ukraine so far. 

The US is far and away Ukraine’s biggest benefactor. 

According to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker – which follows and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid given to Ukraine since January 24, 2022 – the US has sent €69.5billion ($74billion) to Kyiv, €42billion ($44.7billion) of which came in the form of weapons systems, armoured vehicles, tanks and ammunition.

The support tracker’s data has been published up until July 31, 2023. If Biden’s $24billion package is approved by Congress, US total aid to Ukraine will begin closing in on $100billion.  

America’s aid provision is only outstripped by the EU as a collective, with European institutions providing €84.8billion – though almost €80billion of this was financial aid rather than military. 

The Biden administration is also preparing to provide a parting gift to Ukraine following President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s White House visit, in the form of long-range ATACM missiles to strike distant Russian forces.

President Biden has told Zelensky that Washington will provide Kyiv with ATACMS long-range missiles, NBC News reported on Friday, citing three U.S. officials and a congressional official.

That comes a day after Zelensky visited Washington, pleading with lawmakers in the Capitol and during a meeting with Biden for more weapons to protect Ukraine’s skies as it seeks to fight back Russia’s invading force.

That came on a trip when House Republicans are opposing Biden’s proposed $24 billion aid package for Ukraine, and where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy declined to appear with Zelensky in public after saying before Zelensky’s trip that ‘I have questions for him.’ 

‘Where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent?’ McCarthy asked, before McCarthy met with the full Senate but did not address the full House or the GOP Conference.

Besides the US, Germany, the United Kingdom and Norway have been the next most significant aid providers for Ukraine, giving €20.9billion, €13.8billion and €7.4billion respectively. 

In relative terms, however, Ukraine’s smaller supporters and Russian neighbours like Estonia and Lithuania are contributing a greater share of their GDP to the war effort. 

Estonia’s aid to Ukraine has totalled some 1.3 percent of GDP, with Lithuania sharing 1.2 percent. Poland has given military aid commitments equalling 0.5 percent of its GDP, is one of Kyiv‘s main weapons suppliers and also hosts some one million Ukrainian refugees, who have benefited from various kinds of state aid.

The US meanwhile, despite contributing the overwhelming majority of military aid to Kyiv, has only donated 0.2 per cent of its GDP. 

Canada meanwhile has provided Ukraine with almost $9billion in military and other aid since the Russian invasion began, and is home to the world’s second largest Ukrainian diaspora after Russia.

Ottawa’s $8.9billion in aid to Kyiv has included more than $1.8billion in military aid, including Leopard 2 tanks, air defence and artillery systems, anti-tank weapons, drones and other equipment.

It has also trained more than 36,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

Zelensky was in Ottawa today to drum up more support after meeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, capping off a North American tour which saw him face a skeptical US Congress. 

Yesterday Zelensky confronted the issue of potentially fracturing political support in the United States for his country’s demands for more arms to push back the Russian invasion.

‘We’re with you and we’re staying with you,’ Biden told him after their top teams met at the White House.

Wearing his trademark olive green military-style shirt, Zelensky said Ukraine ‘has exactly what our soldiers need’ after Biden announced a new package of US military aid, including sophisticated air defence weapons.

But behind the optics – firm handshakes across a grand cabinet table and shows of solidarity in the Oval Office – was the reality that Zelensky’s second wartime trip to Washington was far tougher than the first.

He received a hero’s welcome when he visited in December, but this time, he spent his closed-door meetings in the US Congress desperately trying to overcome growing war fatigue among Republicans.

Hardline Republicans are threatening to block Biden’s request for a fresh $24billion aid package for Ukraine, and it has now become caught up in a bitter spending battle that could spark a US government shutdown.

Biden said alongside Zelensky that there was ‘no alternative’ to backing the Ukraine funding, adding that he was ‘counting on the good judgment of the United States Congress.’

The US president said the first US M1 Abrams tanks will arrive in Ukraine ‘next week,’ boosting Kyiv’s forces as they battle Russian troops in a slow-moving counteroffensive.

The latest US package would also strengthen Ukraine’s air defence capability, crucial at a time when the country faces repeated Russian missile and drone attacks.

It came as there were reports of Ukraine striking two Russian ships in Crimea on Saturday.

A pro-Russia channel said six Neptune missiles were fired and while four were allegedly intercepted, two found their target. 

On Friday, Ukrainians used a British-made Storm Shadow missile to hit Putin‘s Black Sea Fleet HQ in Ukraine.

 Senior Russian commanders were killed in the Ukrainian missile strike, it was also revealed.

At least nine people were killed and 16 wounded in the attack in Sevastopol, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov.

Russia has refrained from giving details on the killed and wounded, and its main news bulletins failed to mention the humiliating strike in annexed Crimea.

Russian air defences were again today at work in and around Sevastopol, the main naval port in the peninsula.

There were reports of incoming missiles and that one missile had been shot down.

Russian war cheerleaders are demanding reprisal attacks on Ukrainian command posts.

Rybar Telegram channel warned: ‘As long as there are no strikes on control and command centres, the intensity of the AFU attacks will increase.

‘Meanwhile, in Kyiv, the work of all Ukrainian structures responsible for regular raids, such as the GUR and the SBU [intelligence services] , is proceeding without interruption.’

War analyst Sergei Mardan, a columnist for Komsomolskaya Pravda, said: ‘The strike to the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol is a crushing blow to the entire Russian elite, which is seriously committed to freezing the conflict in the autumn of 2023.

‘They still don’t want to fight.

‘They agree to any, the most shameful conditions of a truce. 

‘They still consider [the start of war on] February 24, 2022, a catastrophic mistake by Putin and intend to do everything to convince him of this.

‘They see a ”limited” military defeat of Russia as the ideal way.’

He claimed this was the wrong route for Russia.

‘Our enemies will force us to fight, if only because they do not agree to a ‘limited’ defeat.

‘They intend to defeat the Russian army and bring the Russian government to its knees.’

Spymaster Budanov told Voice of America: ‘Among the wounded is the commander of the group, Colonel-General (Alexander) Romanchuk, in a very serious condition.’

He added: ‘The Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General (Oleg) Tsekov, is unconscious.

‘The number of injured regular servicemen who are not employees of the headquarters is still being determined.

‘These are military personnel who are on duty, security, and so on — they are not included in the list that I announced.’

Some reports say Black Sea Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov was also hit and killed, but there has been no confirmation.

There were suggestions he was ‘missing’.

Sokolov was handpicked by Putin a year ago to take over from Admiral Igor Osipov after the humiliating sinking of the fleet’s flagship, the cruiser Moskva, sunk by a Ukrainian Neptune missile.

Romanchuk is commander of Russian forces in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, and was promoted to the rank of colonel-general in 2023.

Tsekov is the commander of the 200th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, part of the Coastal Forces of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy.

Budanov declined to confirm Russian claims that Storm Shadow missiles – provided to Kyiv by Britain and France – had been used to the fleet HQ.

‘Here I have to refrain from answering, I think you should understand me,’ he said.

Tales of heroism have also been coming out of Ukraine.

Jack Knight is a British military volunteer in Ukraine and a former mine clearer with the Royal Engineers whose great-great grandfather rescued a wounded man from no man’s land in WWI.

Knight saved eight Ukrainian troops in a daring 14-hour rescue mission while taking fire.

He even stepped into a minefield in complete darkness to save four Ukrainians who wandered into it while carrying their dead companion on a stretcher.

His brave ancestor William Young won the Victoria Cross for his antics and saw a street named after him in Preston.

Knight told The Telegraph: ‘Hopefully, my great-great grandad will think I’ve done my bit. Every bit of that rescue literally felt like a suicide mission.’

At one point he even set down his weapons and grenades to reduce the weight he was carrying. When he was then faced with being just 20 metres away from a group of Russian troops as he took cover behind a wall, he realised he had a problem.

He picked up two rocks and prepared for a fight to the death.

Knight said: ‘I figured I’d throw the rocks at them – they’d have thought at first that they were grenades, which might have distracted them enough for me to charge one of them, grab his gun and spray a few rounds.

‘I probably wouldn’t have survived but if I could inflict some casualties they’d maybe pull back rather than carry on towards our lines.’

He has since been nominated for a medal for his valiant efforts in the battle alongside Canadian fellow volunteer Wayne Hallatt.

Peso Pluma faces drug cartel threats not to perform at Tijuana’s Caliente Stadium: ‘It will be your last show’

• Three banners found in Tijuana with warnings to singer initialed by cartel 
• The warning read, ‘Refrain from presenting yourself on October 14’ 
• The singer, 24, performed at the MTV Video Music Awards Tuesday  

By Dailymail.com Reporter

Published: 21:45 EDT, 13 September 2023 | Updated: 02:30 EDT, 14 September 2023

• Face pareidolia is when people see faces in random objects or light patterns

By Xantha Leatham Deputy Science Editor

Published: 17:37 EDT, 12 September 2023 | Updated: 19:44 EDT, 12 September 2023

BUSINESS LIVE: Entain faces £585m HMRC charge

By Live Commentary

Published: 02:54 EDT, 10 August 2023 | Updated: 02:55 EDT, 10 August 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

Dozens of Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad today over the burning of a Koran by an Iraqi protester in Stockholm.

Video showed an angry mob breaking through an iron gate and climbing on top of the compound, as global fury grew over the stunt.

It came after several Muslim countries condemned Sweden for allowing the Iraqi man to burn a Koran outside Stockholm’s main mosque on Wednesday – during the Eid al-Adha holiday and the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Under a heavy police presence and in front of a crowd of 200, Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old who fled to Sweden several years ago, put bacon in the pages of a Koran before stomping on it and setting several pages alight.

Police had granted him a permit for the protest in line with free-speech protections after an appeals court rejected their ban on Koran burning protests, but said later the man had been charged with agitation against an ethnic or national group.

The stunt sparked anger across the Muslim world, including in Turkey which is currently blocking Sweden’s bid to join the NATO military alliance, while in Iraq demonstrators stormed inside the Swedish embassy in the capital of Baghdad.

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE joined in the chorus of condemnation, with the US also calling the protest ‘disrespectful and hurtful’.

Footage from the compound in Iraq showed people barging through a copper-coloured gate as others climbed over the walls. A second clip showed people climbing on top of the barbed-wire covered building, singing and waving flags.

The protesters first rallied outside the embassy in response to a call by Sadr who demanded the removal of the Swedish ambassador, echoing outrage in several Muslim countries over the Koran burning Wednesday in Stockholm.

The demonstrators also distributed leaflets that carried messages in Arabic and English that said: ‘Our constitution is the Koran. Our leader is Al-Sadr’.

‘Yes, yes to the Koran,’ was also scrawled on the gate leading to the embassy, according to the photographer.

The demonstrators, supporters of firebrand Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, remained inside for about 15 minutes before leaving peacefully as security forces deployed, a press photographer who witnessed the scenes unfold said. 

Sadr’s supporters also torched rainbow flags that represent the LGBTQ community, after the powerful cleric suggested this would be ‘the best way to provoke’ those who back Koran burnings.

Stockholm’s foreign ministry said in a statement it was ‘well informed about the situation. Our embassy staff are safe.’

Protester Hussein Ali Zeidan, 32, told AFP he came out to ‘support the noble Koran’ and called to revoke Momika’s citizenship as ‘he does not represent Iraq’.

On Wednesday, some 200 onlookers witnessed Momika – one of the two protesters – tearing up pages of a copy of the Koran and wiping his shoes with it before putting bacon in it and setting the book on fire. The other spoke into a megaphone.

Some of those present shouted ‘God is Great’ in Arabic to protest against the burning, and one man was detained by police after he attempted to throw a rock.

A supporter of the protest shouted ‘let it burn’ as the holy book caught fire.

While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Koran demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions despite the issues it could cause for Sweden’s NATO bid, saying they infringed on freedom of speech.

Turkey is blocking Sweden’s NATO membership bid due to what it perceives as Stockholm’s failure to crack down on Kurdish groups it considers ‘terrorists.’

A meeting between the countries’ top diplomats is scheduled for July 6 at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, with NATO counterparts pushing for Turkey to grant the green light to Sweden by the time the summit takes place in Lithuania on July 11-12.

In its written decision granting a permit for the protest, Stockholm police said the security risks associated with the burning ‘were not of a nature that could justify, under current laws, a decision to reject the request’.

Momika, 37, who fled to Sweden several years ago, had asked police for permission to burn the holy book ‘to express my opinion about the Koran’.

Ahead of the protest, Momika told news agency TT he also wanted to highlight the importance of freedom of speech.

‘This is democracy. It is in danger if they tell us we can’t do this,’ Momika said.

Police had cordoned off an area in a park next to the mosque separating Momika and a co-protester from the crowd. One man was understood to have been taken away from the scene when he was caught carrying a rock.

Police later said in a statement that the protest had not caused ‘disturbances to order,’ but added that an investigation had been opened regarding ‘agitation against an ethnic group’ because Momika had chosen to burn the Koran near a mosque.

Police added he was also being investigated for violating a temporary ban on lighting fires – in place due to a heatwave.

Noa Omran, a 32-year-old artist from Stockholm, called the protest ‘insane’.

‘It’s just hatred masquerading in the name of democracy and freedom, which it isn’t,’ the woman, who said her mother was from a Muslim background, said at the scene.

The police authorisation for the protest came two weeks after a Swedish appeals court rejected the police’s decision to deny permits for two demonstrations in Stockholm which were to include Koran burnings.

Police had at the time cited security concerns, following the January protest which led to weeks of demonstrations and calls for a boycott of Swedish goods.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a press conference on Wednesday he would not speculate about how the protest could affect Sweden’s NATO process.

‘It’s legal but not appropriate,’ he said, adding that it was up to the police to make decisions on Koran burnings.

Representatives of the mosque were disappointed by the police decision to grant permission for the protest on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, mosque director and Imam Mahmoud Khalfi said on Wednesday.

‘The mosque suggested to the police to at least divert the demonstration to another location, which is possible by law, but they chose not to do so,’ Khalfi said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Sweden for allowing the protest, further clouding the Nordic nation’s chances of quickly joining NATO.

‘We will eventually teach the arrogant Westerners that insulting Muslims is not freedom of thought,’ Erdogan said in televised remarks.

‘We will show our reaction in the strongest possible terms, until a determined victory against terrorist organisations and Islamophobia is achieved.’

Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had called the burning of the pages of the Islamic holy book ‘despicable.’

‘It is unacceptable to allow these anti-Islamic actions under the pretext of freedom of expression,’ Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan wrote on Twitter. ‘Turning a blind eye to such atrocious acts is to be complicit.’

Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, called the Koran burning a ‘disgraceful act provoking the feelings of Muslims’ as they mark Eid.

The Cairo-based Arab League branded it an ‘assault on the core of our Islamic faith’, and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council also condemned it. 

The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation called for ‘effective measures to prevent a recurrence’.

The Iraqi government also slammed the burning of the Koran, calling it ‘racist’ and ‘irresponsible’, while Morocco recalled its ambassador to Stockholm.

‘This new offensive and irresponsible act disregards the feelings of more than a billion Muslims, at this sacred time of the great pilgrimage to Mecca and the blessed feast of Eid al-Adha,’ Morocco said in a statement.

‘Faced with these repeated provocations, committed under the complacent gaze of the Swedish government’, Morocco summoned Sweden’s charge d’affaires in Rabat and recalled its ambassador, it added.

United Arab Emirates presidential adviser Anwar Gargash tweeted that the West ‘must realise that its value system… cannot be imposed on the world’.

The foreign ministry in Abu Dhabi summoned the Swedish ambassador to protest the free-speech protections given to ‘such heinous acts’, it said on Thursday.

Kuwait said perpetrators of ‘hostile acts’ must be brought to justice and ‘prevented from using the principle of freedoms as a ploy to justify hostility against Islam or any holy faith’.

Bahrain said that ‘insulting religions is inconsistent with religious freedom… and generates hatred, extremism and violence’.

Iran joined in the condemnation on Thursday, calling the Koran burning ‘provocative, ill-considered and unacceptable’.

‘The government and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran… do not tolerate such an insult and strongly condemn it,’ said foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani.

‘The Swedish government is expected to seriously consider the principle of responsibility and accountability in this regard, while preventing the repetition of insulting the holy sanctities,’ he added.

Jordan also issued a statement on Wednesday, saying it was a dangerous display of hatred and Islamophobia that cannot be justified as freedom of expression.

The United States, the largest power in NATO, joined criticism of the Koran burning but reiterated its support for Sweden’s entrance into the alliance.

‘We’ve said consistently that the burning of religious texts is disrespectful and hurtful and what might be legal is certainly not necessarily appropriate,’ State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters in Washington.

‘We continue to believe that Sweden should become a NATO member as soon as possible,’ he said, calling the country a ‘strong, capable defence partner that shares NATO’s values.’

Wednesday was not the first time a Koran has been burned in a public protest this year. In January, far-right Danish political party politician Stram Kurs Rasmus Paludan burned the religious book outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

The move angered Ankara then too, which is already using its grievances with Stockholm and its government to continue to block Sweden’s ascension to NATO.

Speaking to newspaper Aftonbladet in April, Momika said his intention was not to sabotage Sweden’s NATO bid and that he had considered waiting to stage his protest until after the country had joined the alliance.

‘I don’t want to harm this country that received me and preserved my dignity,’ Momika told the newspaper.

Up to 10,000 visitors attend Stockholm’s mosque for Eid celebrations every year, according to Khalfi.

Revolution Beauty founder faces legal action over accounting scandal after auditor refused to sign off its books

By Leah Montebello For The Daily Mail

Updated: 16:51 EDT, 20 June 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

POPULAR MONEY SECTIONS
Take me to…

A former Republican councilman cuffed last month on drug charges has been arrested again at his Rhode Island home for first-degree child molestation.

Out on bail for a June 15 court appearance, Republican Councilman Matthew Reilly was arrested Thursday at his Rhode Island home before appearing before a court. 

He’s now being held without bail on several more sex charges including the first-degree child molestation charge, as well as second-degree child molestation and enticing a person younger than 16 – for crimes that allegedly took place May 3. 

They involve an unnamed 12-year-old girl police sources said Reilly met online.

He appeared in court for an arraignment hearing Thursday, donning a hooded sweatshirt and handcuffs before being led away to a Cranston lockup. 

He is still facing an unrelated drug charge that saw him resign last month, three days after cops released bodycam video of him high on what they confirmed to be a cocktail of crack and fentanyl, laid out in the driver’s seat of his car.

Scroll down for video: 

‘The arrest warrant resulted from an investigation by Detectives from the Cranston Police Special Victims Unit and the prosecutors from the Office of the Rhode Island Attorney General that began on May 7, 2023,’ Cranston cops wrote in a press release of Reilly’s Thursday arrest.

They added that the month-long investigation was launched after the department a complaint filed by ‘the legal guardian of a twelve-year-old girl’ who they added was ‘unrelated to Reilly’.

The guardian, who was not named, filed the complaint at the Cranston Police Department Headquarters police said in the release.

Court records show the incident in question took place on May 3, and sources told WJAR the allegations involve a young girl Reilly met online.

Prior to resigning, Reilly – who has two young daughter himself – had been in the midst of a messy divorce, during which he a legal battle with his wife over his kids’ custody. 

According to multiple sources, at least two attorneys and a family court judge notified the court during those proceedings about Reilly’s drug use, while claiming engaging in sordid trysts with some of this clients. 

Text messages produced by his wife’s attorney claimed the then rep was also medicating his own children with drugs like melatonin in order to go to meet with a client for sex late at night, and even conspired to frame his wife of violating a court-mandated no contact order.

The children’s mother added in her own statement: ‘In numerous occasions, I received phone calls from our eldest daughter in the middle of the night upset that she woke up and her father was not home.’ 

Despite this alleged evidence, no action was taken against Reilly.

It was this divorce that would Reilly would later use to deflect responsibility for his recently recorded episode this May, in which he told police he relapsed after 13 years of sobriety.

 This was after police said they discovered the then councilman pulled over at the side of a road with drug paraphernalia and a ‘white, rock-like substance’ that onsite tests revealed to be crack cocaine and fentanyl.

Moreover, Reilly was asleep when officers came into contact with him, with video showing them attempt to wake Reilly, while he is the midst of what was assumed to be medical episode.

He was charged with possession of Schedule II narcotics.

Cranston police have released body cam footage from the incident, showing Reilly completely passed out, while holding a crack pipe containing the aforementioned illegal substances.

Three days later, Reilly was forced to resign. The now viral bodycamera footage showed him high on what cops confirmed to be a cocktail of crack and fentanyl, mouth agape in the backseat of his car. 

‘You were literally choking in your sleep. Someone was flagging me down about it,’ one of the officers can be heard saying in the clip after cuffing the Republican rep.

‘I have sleep apnea. I’m sorry,’ Reilly argues – to which the officer responds: ‘Well, you have a crack pipe in your hands.’

The councilman from Cranston, Rhode Island, has since resigned from his position of chairman of the Cranston Republican Party, eventually stepping down from the city council a few days later.

At the time, Cranston Mayor Ken Hopkins decried Reilly’s behavior, saying she hoped he ‘is able to find a path to recovery and the help that he needs.’

He was charged with one count of drug possession and arraigned with a bail commissioner before being quickly released on bail

He is now being held on the aforementioned sex charges, which  Cranston Police Chief Michael J. Winquist on Thursday declined to provide any further details on.

In an email Thursday evening to The Daily Beast, Reilly’s attorney, Michael J. Lepizzera, Jr.,  wrote his client had entered a not guilty plea to the molestation charges.

‘With these types of charges, I can see the general public and even close friends instantaneously turning their back on Mr. Reilly and drawing knee jerk conclusions,’ Lepizzera said. 

‘I simply ask everyone to refrain from public ridicule and gossip and allow the legal process to unfold in the ordinary course. 

‘While we may not have a perfect system of justice in this country (as nothing is perfect), my 30 years as a lawyer allows me to state that we have as near perfect judicial system as could exist and we should trust in the system to be the final adjudicator of the facts, the law, and any legal outcome.’

Reilly is due back in court on June 15.

Chemicals giant Johnson Matthey embroiled in bitter legal battle against US buyer of its former health business

By Luke Barr, Financial Mail On Sunday

Updated: 16:52 EDT, 3 June 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

POPULAR MONEY SECTIONS
Take me to…