The more his sabotage efforts succeeded, the more Stupnikov feared he was sticking out. Eventually, he was the battalion’s only remaining officer from the cohort that was there when he joined in November. Every other soldier involved in planning the unit’s combat operations had been killed, wounded or moved to another part of the front.
Increasingly, suspicion of a high-level saboteur grew.
Stupnikov was sitting in the Mykilske command post one day in June when his commander suddenly threw up his arms in exasperation. The senior officer had been monitoring the battlefield on a set of computer screens. Kyiv had just launched another successful strike against his force.
“Nothing we’re doing is working out. I have a feeling there’s a Stierlitz in our ranks,” the commander said, invoking the name of a fictional sleeper agent—the hero of a popular Soviet movie—who had infiltrated the Nazi leadership. Scanning the room, the commander settled his gaze on Stupnikov.
Stupnikov tried to play it off as a joke. He laughed and quickly turned back to his work. But he feared it would only be a matter of time before his secret was discovered.
“It was constant, endless tension,” he said. “Real spies get training in espionage. I had received no such training at all.”
The mounting toll of secrecy soon led to a slip-up that nearly cost him his life. One evening toward the end of May, he shared with Karpenko a screenshot from Google Maps showing the brigade’s new headquarters in Mykilske. The Ukrainian told him there was a problem: The file he sent wasn’t loading.
Stupnikov had already deleted the screenshot, so he sent a new one. Some time later, he went to sleep.
A deafening blast soon jolted him awake. He saw a gaping hole where the walls had collapsed and realized he had accidentally sent the coordinates of his own basement location. He narrowly survived.
Weeks later, in early July, Stupnikov was in the brigade command post when he got a message from Karpenko: “Come to the edge of Mykilske at an appointed time later this week,” it said. “Leave any weapons behind.”
His long-awaited exfiltration was about to begin.
A NIGHTTIME ESCAPE
The night of July 6 was warm, clear and cloudless. A light breeze rustled in the trees as Stupnikov walked to the outskirts of the village, carrying his military radio and his smartphone. His mother checked in as she always did before bed.
“Go to sleep,” he texted her, revealing nothing about his plans. “Everything is fine.”
The Ukrainians had flown a drone over the path he should follow. Reviewing the footage they sent, he had noted the deep tank tracks and the destroyed armored vehicles on the final approach to Ukrainian-held land. He was provided with a password to give a Ukrainian unit waiting on the other side. He chuckled to himself when he read the phrase—so absurd in light of the ordeal he was about to face.
As he neared the edge of the village, Stupnikov heard a shout from one of the two-story homes on the street, which served as a brigade observation post. A Russian soldier was checking:
Was he friend or foe?
Stupnikov named his battalion, and said he was out to inspect surveillance cameras and test the radio connection. “Is it possible to go farther in that direction?” he asked the soldier, motioning toward Ukrainian territory.
“Yes, but not very far,” the man answered.
“It’s OK,” Stupnikov replied. “I’m not planning to go far.”
A few hundred yards farther he maneuvered around a set of antitank obstacles and paused near a tree line. Then he heard the whir of the Ukrainian drone sent to guide him.
Inside an underground bunker several miles away, a group of soldiers from Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade sat before a set of large screens. They watched as the crosshairs of the drone’s camera zeroed in on a small figure—colored white in the drone’s thermal imaging lens, in stark contrast to the surrounding gray terrain.
Stupnikov emerged from a street flanked by damaged buildings and took his first steps into no-man’s-land.
‘Imagine what is going through his head right now,’ one of the Ukrainians wondered. ‘He’s afraid,’another said.
A UKRAINIAN DRONE CAPTURED THE FIRST MOMENTS OF STUPNIKOV’S DEFECTION.
Stupnikov was indeed afraid. He had told his mother the prospect of crossing the front line terrified him. He knew all manner of things could go wrong.
The Russians—or even the wrong Ukrainians—could spot him at any moment and call in a strike. He had no time to linger on such thoughts. He pressed forward and tried to calm his nerves by imagining himself in a hot bath.
Knotted lengths of metal, left by wire-guided antitank rockets, kept catching in his feet. They were hard to distinguish from the tripwires of the antipersonnel mines that covered the area, which for two years had demarcated the front line. Many of the explosives were masked by a fresh layer of grass.
He moved steadily north, using his smartphone to illuminate the ground. He couldn’t discern a clear path. From their bunker, the Ukrainians discussed ways to bring the guidance drone closer to Stupnikov and center it over the intended route. The drone camera panned round to assess the surrounding terrain: miles of marshland pockmarked with craters from artillery strikes.
About 40 minutes in, he heard ducks quacking. It was a reassuring sign that he was headed in the right direction: His destination lay on the edge of a pond.
Inside the bunker, the Ukrainians were transfixed by the live feed of his passage. “He’s so close now,” one excited drone operator said as Stupnikov neared the tree line where the forward positions of Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade were concealed.
Then suddenly, barely perceptible amid the trees and undergrowth, like insects moving along a cauliflower bud, several tiny white figures popped up on the Ukrainians’ drone footage. On the ground, peering out of a dugout, three Ukrainian troops aimed their rifles at the approaching man. One of them appeared twitchy. He gripped a machine gun with shaking hands, Stupnikov later recalled. ‘What’s the pass code?’ he barked.
STUPNIKOV SURVIVED THE CROSSING AND WAS MET BY UKRAINIAN TROOPS.
Stupnikov answered with the words that had earlier made him chuckle: “Peanut shop.” He was checked for weapons, blindfolded and led to a pickup truck.
‘WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE’
It was 8 a.m. in Omsk when Tatiana was awaked by a phone call. The number displayed on her screen was Karpenko’s, but when she picked up, groggy and disoriented, it was her son’s voice that she heard.
“Are you awake?” he asked. Birds chirped as he sat on the porch of a house near the front line, still in his Russian uniform. “Listen: I have come to where I was supposed to be.”
Tatiana sprang to her feet. Her son hadn’t mentioned Ukraine—they assumed their calls were being recorded—but this was a phrase they had agreed on in the event he made it to the other side.
After the call, she collapsed on the bed and buried her head in her pillows. She had bottled up her emotions for months, afraid that leaning in to them would draw unwanted attention and distract her from the task of helping her son. Now she wept, with a huge smile spread over her face. “I felt a lightness in my soul,” she said.
But anxiety soon crept in. Karpenko instructed her to wait two days and then call Stupnikov’s military base, to report his disappearance. After that, the Ukrainian said, they would begin the process of getting her and her family out too.
A ONE-WAY TICKET Stupnikov was placed in a cell, isolated from other POWs. On the second day, he was driven to a building near the front line and brought to a basement room. A broad-shouldered military commander with black stubble entered.
Denis Kapustin led the Russian Volunteer Corps, or RVC, a Ukrainian army unit composed of ethnic Russians opposed to Putin’s regime. The RVC had led armed raids into Russia and doubled as a far-right political organization advocating for Putin’s ouster. The RVC lacked a communications specialist, and Kapustin wanted Stupnikov on board.
But the Moscow-born commander, a top target for Russia’s intelligence services, couldn’t take chances, not knowing yet whether he could trust the defector. Several bodyguards surrounded Kapustin as he laid out his bargain: The RVC was offering membership in an elite fighting force, he told Stupnikov, but it was a one-way ticket. Once you join, you stay through the war.
Stupnikov had earned his freedom. After crossing the front line, he had handed the Ukrainians a smartphone with the passcodes to multiple communication channels they would use for months to access live feeds from a dozen Russian drones and surveillance cameras. He was wary of wading back into war, and tempted to try to build a life elsewhere.
That option was fraught. Another defector, Russian army pilot Maksim Kuzminov, had flown his Mi-8 attack helicopter into Ukraine the previous year and turned it over to Kyiv for a $500,000 reward. Six months later, Kuzminov was arriving back at a rented condo by the Spanish seaside when an assassin shot him dead. Anyone thinking of betraying Russia had gotten the message.
Stupnikov understood a central paradox of his situation: The safest place for turncoats like him was in Ukraine—close to the troops and country they left behind. Two days after their meeting, he passed a message to Kapustin: He was in.
A major issue remained unresolved. Stupnikov’s wife had remained in Borzya, integrated with the tightknit community of officers’ wives. After joining the RVC, he called Liza to ask if she was ready to join him. He wasn’t prepared for her response. She told him she wanted a calm life far from the war and close to her parents. Stupnikov told her he had escaped the Russian army to give her and his family a better life abroad.
After that call, he messaged her repeatedly, trying to convince her. A major battle in northern Ukraine helped distract him from a deepening depression. But Liza had made up her mind. In one text, she told him: “This was your dream, not mine.”
Stupnikov sent a final message to her in late September. After it was met with silence, he followed up: “So, are we no longer talking?” She never answered.
One year later, after Stupnikov shared his story in a two-hour video interview with Karpenko, Liza was questioned by Russian authorities as part of a criminal probe into his desertion. She told Russian state media his decision to help Ukraine amounted to treason. “He betrayed me too,” she said.
Until the interview, Russia’s military command had no proof Stupnikov was alive. He had been listed as AWOL, presumed dead. Now, prosecutors visited his relatives in Omsk and called on residents of housing blocks where his family had lived. But by this point, Tatiana and Alisa were no longer there.
‘IS THIS REALLY OUR WAR?’ In February 2025, mother and daughter packed a backpack and suitcase each. They were headed for Moldova, where they were to cross by foot into Ukraine and be met by Karpenko.
They packed light, in line with their cover story about a brief holiday abroad. But Tatiana couldn’t resist one indulgence: In a folder, she placed a lock of baby hair that she kept from Alisa and Stupnikov’s infancy, as well as some old photos and his high school certificate.
Among the few items Tatiana packed with her when she left Russia were the hospital tags given to her children at birth.
Tatiana and her daughter Alisa, Stupnikov’s half-sister, are now building a new life outside Russia. They haven’t seen Stupnikov in months.
She had spent the previous months fielding calls from Russian military officials. They urged her to convince Stupnikov, if he was alive, to give himself up. She pretended to be a distressed mother and argued hysterically that it was their job to find him.
When she reached Omsk airport, the customs officer checked their passports and then turned to Alisa. “Is this your mom?” he asked the 16-year-old. Alisa nodded. “When is your mom’s birthday?” the man followed up. It was a routine question, to verify their relationship. But Alisa froze, her mind blank. She blinked, paused, and then muttered: “In the winter.”
Tatiana turned cold—then sought refuge in humor. “You know what teenagers are like,” she joked. “They don’t care about their parents.” The officer gave a wan smile. “Yeah, I also have teenagers,” he said. Then he stamped their passports and waved them through.
Stupnikov got a break from front-line service to greet them at their temporary accommodation in Kyiv. Tatiana hadn’t seen him in a year and a half, and was moved by the change in his appearance. He had put on a bit of weight and had a full beard and thick handlebar mustache, a look typical for RVC fighters inspired by Russian counter-revolutionaries from 1917.
In conversations over the following days, Tatiana told him she was conflicted over his decision to once again leave his family and go back to fighting. “Is this really our war?” she asked him.
Stupnikov explained the sense of duty he felt. He wanted to atone for being part of a brutal invasion force. He believed every Russian citizen bore responsibility for the war and for helping end it. “Yes,” he answered his mother. “This is our war.”
A NEW MISSION ON THE OTHER SIDE This summer, Stupnikov was among dozens of RVC fighters who gathered in a forest clearing near the front lines in eastern Ukraine. They lighted a set of fires and formed a circle around the stone remains of an ancient pagan church.
Holding rifles that once belonged to comrades killed in battle, and were now inscribed with their call-signs, they walked forward one-by-one and placed the guns on the ground. They delivered a brief eulogy, then pressed their fists to their chests and called out: “Forever in our ranks!”
Stupnikov is now facing off against the Russian brigade he left behind. His story has inspired others. One Russian drone pilot tossed a live grenade into his military barracks before sprinting across the front lines earlier this year. Another defector who aided Ukraine said he had wanted to beat Stupnikov’s record of 300 Russians dead. Karpenko’s informant pipeline has become a 24/7 operation, with longtime sources earning $4,000 a month.
As Stupnikov watched the ceremony commemorating the fallen, his eyes began welling up. He had lost his wife. His mother and sister were in a safe location, but he hadn’t seen them in months.
An apartment where he was staying suggested a spartan lifestyle. He kept all his possessions in two sacks. Propped against the wall was an antidrone gun he took on trips to maintain communications equipment deep inside the so-called kill zone between Russian and Ukrainian positions.
A ceremony this summer commemorating fallen soldiers of the Russian Volunteer Corps, men whom Stupnikov now calls his 'new family.' Stupnikov said of the pledge he once made to Russia: “My oath long ago lost its power.”
In Ukraine, he was no longer an officer. He looked at the other unranked Russians beside him. Some had set fire to army recruitment offices inside Russia, or risked jail at protests. All were now fighting together to take back their country. These men, Stupnikov said, were his new family.
He reflected on the promise he had made at the military academy, almost a decade earlier.
“Did I betray my oath? I pledged to defend freedom, independence, and the constitutional order,” he said. “But Putin destroyed all three.”
●A 26 year old Russian Officer Lieutenant Lev Stupnikov Turned Against His Country and Helped Ukraine Kill Hundreds of his fellow Russian soldiers;
●One of the deadliest saboteurs in recent military history, Lt. Lev Stupnikov fed troop locations and battle plans to the enemy before making a daring escape on July 6th 2024;
●He now fights for Ukraine against Russia in the Russian Volunteer Corps, or RVC, a Ukrainian army unit composed of ethnic Russians opposed to Putin’s regime;
●His 49 year old mother had convinced him to turn against his birth country
●His mother and sister were successfully evacuated from Russia by Ukrainian intelligence and now live in secrecy in an undisclosed location
●When asked if he felt like a traitor for betraying the oath he swore when he joined the Russian Army, he replied:
"Did I betray my oath? I pledged to defend freedom, independence, and the constitutional order, but Putin destroyed all three."
●Several other Ukrainian Soldiers have since followed his example. One of them a Russian army pilot Maksim Kuzminov, who was given a $500,000 reward by the Ukrainian government, was assassinated by a Russian sniper in Spain
THE FULL STORY:
(PART I)
Lt. Lev Stupnikov pulled his truck up to the edge of a field in eastern Ukraine on a frigid February morning, followed by a convoy of senior Russian army officials coming to observe a training exercise near the front line.
For several consecutive days, Russian infantrymen, medics and officers had been drilling on the frozen mud, preparing for an offensive on the nearby city of Vuhledar. The only cover was a line of bare trees.
Stupnikov approached a group of waiting soldiers and snapped a photo, keeping his cellphone close to his chest to avoid drawing attention. Then he quickly tapped out a message: “There must be between 120 and 150 men here.”
Stupnikov, a recent graduate from a prestigious military academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, had a secret. Earlier that month, he had begun covertly sharing information with Ukrainian intelligence.
He had already given his contact the exact coordinates of the field.
Now, with scores of Russian soldiers and their commanding officers gathered there, Stupnikov would have only moments to move out of the line of fire.
“Walk away,” the Ukrainian contact replied, then: “I’m waiting for a message that you’ve left.” Having received no answer, the contact sent a note in all caps a minute later: “LEAVE.”
Stupnikov was already on the move, sidling up to a group of drivers smoking beside idling vehicles. Feigning a grimace and clutching his stomach, he asked them for a pack of wet wipes. Then he disappeared into the nearby stand of trees and stooped down, pretending to relieve himself.
He was knocked to the ground by an explosion that sent shrapnel careening into a nearby truck. The Ukrainians had fired a barrage of missiles.
When he got to his feet, Stupnikov was stunned by the gruesome sight. Dozens of mutilated bodies lay strewn across the field. Victims groaned in their death throes. Others were motionless over pools of blood on the black earth beneath them.
His phone buzzed. “Were there explosions? Send a photo.” “There’s just meat,” he answered.
Later that day, he shared a confirmed tally with the Ukrainians: 68 killed and 60 wounded. Among the dead were 10 officers, including one of Kyiv’s top targets: Col. Gusein Musayev, commander of the 36th Motorized Rifle Brigade. The death toll was among the highest from any single strike since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine two years earlier.
It was the first in a string of attacks that the Ukrainians carried out with Stupnikov’s help, making him one of the most consequential saboteurs in recent military history. Ukraine used the intelligence and coordinates he supplied to kill more than 300 Russian soldiers, according to interviews with his handlers, video footage, text exchanges and official Russian reports.
As Russian forces advanced elsewhere, Stupnikov’s actions helped hold them back near Vuhledar until he defected to Ukraine in July 2024.
The 26-year-old’s story offers a rare window into a shadow war waged by Ukrainian military intelligence. Ukrainian agents communicate over encrypted platforms with thousands of Russians, ranging from homemakers living near military factories to soldiers on the front line.
The operation taps into growing political disaffection inside Russia. The aim isn’t just to end Russia’s invasion; Ukraine is trying to build an army of Russian turncoats with the training and determination to one day mount an armed struggle inside Russia and help bring an end to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decadeslong grip on power.
Stupnikov’s decision to turn against his own comrades came after years of deepening disillusionment with the Russian military. But his deadly act of betrayal, which inspired others to follow his lead, was ultimately enabled by an unlikely person, seeking to get him out of harm’s way—his mother.
PROTECTING THE FATHERLAND
More than three years before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a teenage Stupnikov stepped up to a podium at the Budyonny Military Academy of the Signal Corps to give his oath of service.
“I solemnly swear allegiance to my Fatherland, the Russian Federation,” read the stocky 17-year-old, decked out in a fresh military uniform with a rifle slung across his shoulder. His mother, Tatiana Yantsen, watched him with a sense of alienation from the other beaming parents around her. She had moved the family to Russia from Kazakhstan six years earlier, under a program to repatriate Russians living abroad.
Her father had told her: “We are russky,” or ethnic Russian. “Our historic homeland is Russia.” She had taken the chance to start a new life in the Siberian city of Omsk.
In the years since, however, the 49-year-old office worker had grown opposed to Putin and joined protests against his rule. A single mother abandoned by her husband, she didn’t want her only son serving in the army. Academy life was fueling Stupnikov’s own disenchantment with the army, even as he excelled in sports and schoolwork. It began when he was rejected by a pilot school at 17 because he refused to pay a bribe. Now, at the academy, cadets had to fork over to leave the compound, take longer vacations or choose their military base after graduation.
He was shocked at the dilapidated Soviet-era vehicles he saw during training. By the time he married his teenage sweetheart, Liza, in 2021, he was already planning a life outside of the military. He wanted to become a fitness instructor and start a family.
‘INSIDE, I WAS ON FIRE’
He awoke one morning in February 2022 to clips on his phone of Russian helicopters flying over Ukrainian cities and bombs exploding in the first hours of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
He was appalled by the violence and wanted no part in it. “They were dropping bombs on innocent civilians,” he said. “It was evil.”
Almost overnight, the conflict transformed the atmosphere on campus. Cadets lined up on the parade ground each morning as an officer read out battlefield updates. They learned which villages had been “liberated” and the number of Ukrainian “nationalists” killed overnight.
They were herded into the academy’s grand auditorium and shown speeches by Putin about the need for the “special military operation” against NATO aggression.
Stupnikov sat toward the back with a vacant stare. He thought of the images emerging from Ukraine and wondered of his comrades: How can you all continue living as normal, as if nothing has happened? He spent his evenings at home with Liza, watching Russian opposition clips and interviews with prisoners of war captured by Ukraine.
A small coterie of dissenters began exchanging knowing glances on campus. Some asked to quit the academy. Their requests remained pending for months. It was clear that de-enlisting was no longer an option.
Stupnikov was careful to conceal his views. He became skilled in a sort of double-think. “I couldn’t show my emotions,” he recalled. “But inside, I was on fire.”
His graduation wasn’t until June, but the bungled war effort urgently needed a fresh crop of officers. So in April, the 450 cadets in his cohort gathered in the parade ground and marched forward one by one to pick up shoulder patches decorated with two gold stars and a red stripe denoting their new rank: lieutenant.
As dusk settled, Stupnikov stood in a circle with other newly minted officers holding, per Russian military tradition, a combat helmet filled with champagne. As Liza watched, he shouted the name of his assigned military base in Russia’s Far East. Then he downed the champagne to loud cheers.
They also established a code language. A number agreed in advance—the day of the month, plus five—would be typed after each greeting. A message sent on Feb. 20 should start with “Hello 25.” If no number was given, Karpenko would know his source had been compromised.
Stupnikov agreed to work with the Ukrainian. He set just one condition of his own: No money, he said, was to change hands.
A TRAITOR IN THE RANKS
*********************************
Their first collaboration—the strike on the field in eastern Ukraine—was more successful than anything Karpenko had previously arranged. Stupnikov helped his fellow soldiers with the cleanup, loading the dead and injured into waiting trucks. Then he headed back to barracks, where he sat with the surviving troops and pretended he had suffered a concussion.
That night, he slept badly, fearing the FSB would soon haul him in. Four thousand miles away in Russia’s Far East, the town of Borzya, home of the 36th Brigade, lowered flags to half mast. Officials promised compensation to relatives of the dead. Russian channels ran footage of the gruesome aftermath, prompting soldiers and war correspondents to rail against the military command. “As usual, no one is going to pay the price,” one wrote.
FSB agents summoned the brigade’s deputy commander for questioning, as well as a soldier who had recorded a video later broadcast by Ukrainian and Western media. Troops in Stupnikov’s battalion were instructed to surrender their phones for inspection. Stupnikov slipped away and buried the compromised device—one of three in his possession—in the garden of the house where he was billeted.
As the Ukrainians urged him on, Stupnikov stepped up his campaign, sabotaging his brigade’s work with actions large and small. He shared radio frequencies, troop locations and detailed battle planning. He disabled cameras monitoring Ukrainian territory and cranked up the voltage on a battery pack attached to a drone controller, causing it to overheat and malfunction halfway through a mission.
Thanks to Stupnikov, the Ukrainians knew exactly who was being sent where and when tanks would advance. His brigade was losing soldiers at a rate that stood out—even in a Russian army that was hemorrhaging men.
In March, the Ukrainians killed several officers at a large brigade gathering flagged by Stupnikov. In May, they struck the basement of a former hotel where two assault units were staying, killing 20 men including a captain. Other tips led to a strike on a brigade command post during a high-level meeting.
Some nights, as Stupnikov began drifting off, he would suddenly see and hear explosions like the ones he had helped bring about.
In those moments, he tried to brush aside the guilt and rationalize what he was doing. He told himself the victims were bad people. Russia would have sent them to their slaughter anyway. At least their mothers would now get their bodies back and qualify for a payout from the state.
“If I was a pious person, I could have concluded that I had committed murder, and that all those souls will haunt me forever,” he said.
A 75-year-old woman has been added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Fraudsters List after being accused of defrauding nearly $30 million from banks and other financial institutions in a year-long scheme while posing as a fake heiress.
Mary Carole McDonnell is wanted for her alleged involvement in the fraud scheme in Los Angeles County and Orange County in California, which began in approximately July of 2017 and continued to May of 2018, according to a news release from the FBI.
McDonnell was added to the FBI’s newly formed Most Wanted Fraudsters list on Wednesday and the agency is offering a reward of up to $150,000 in exchange for information that leads to her arrest and conviction.
It’s alleged that McDonnell falsely claimed to be an heir to the McDonnell Aircraft family, with an $80-million secret trust to which she claimed she’d have access.
“McDonnell is alleged to have knowingly, and with the intent to defraud, devised and participated in a scheme to obtain money, funds, assets and property owned by Banc of California,” the FBI said.
Through the scheme, McDonnell allegedly and fraudulently obtained a total of $14.7 million from the bank “to which she knew she was not entitled and has not paid back,” according to the FBI.
It is also alleged that McDonnell, who is believed to currently be in Dubai, swindled additional financial institutions, with an estimated loss of over $15 million.
A federal arrest warrant was issued for McDonnell in the United States District Court, Central District of California in Santa Ana, Calif., in December 2018, after she was charged with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Most Wanted Fraudster Mary McDonnell is wanted for defrauding financial institutions out of millions and is known to have falsified her inheritance and background,” said Patrick Grandy, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
“It’s just a matter of time before McDonnell is caught as we work with our international partners to locate her. A generous reward is being offered in exchange for information leading to her apprehension and conviction, and a tip from the public might break the case,” Grandy added.
McDonnell’s last known occupation was CEO and founder of the now-defunct Bellum Entertainment, a Burbank-based television production and distribution company.
She is described as five feet, seven inches tall with blonde hair and blue eyes.
The FBI said that McDonnell has ties to Los Angeles, Calif., Montgomery, Ala. and Dubai, UAE.
McDonnell also goes by many aliases, including Mary Carole Carroll, Mary Carol McDonnell, Mary Carroll McDonnell, Mary C. Carroll and Mary Carroll McDonald, officials said.
Authorities urge anyone with information regarding McDonnell to call local FBI offices, the nearest American embassy or submit anonymous tips online.
He's not the only gay footballer. Thomas Hizelsperger the former Germany and Aston Villa midfielder also came out of the closet as gay after his career ended.
What nonsense is this one talking? Since when did religious conversion become a capital offence?
Ngasky: This is a lie. Judgement delivered and the victim hidden. Is it not a case involving minor? A judicial record without serial number for confirmation? Any crime that involves 14 years jail term is not a minor offense. It has to be capital offense.
Thank Christ for His mercies or 2026 would have snatched two lives from us long before it is their time to go.
One must always be extremely careful when driving during rainy weather and you must be on the lookout for inexperienced learner drivers who are danger not only to themselves but to other drivers as well.
●The ayatollahs have been humbled by the power of capitalism
●Tanker crews are earning triple bonuses and double pay to run the gauntlet of Iran’s drones and mines in the Strait of Hormuz
●Oil shipments have returned to 75% of pre-war levels despite Tehran’s attacks
The past two weeks have seen the largest number of attacks against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz since the war between Israel, the United States, and Iran opened on February 28.
President Donald Trump assumed that the conflict would be short-lived, like the strikes against Iran in July 2025 or the campaign against Venezuela.
However, Iran quickly realised that the one method they had available to strike at the United States was right in front of them: global shipping. Using the same tactics as the Houthis in the Red Sea over the previous few years, the Iranians employed uncrewed aerial and surface drones, cruise and ballistic missiles. In a departure from the Houthis, they also laid mines.
Pre-war crude oil shipments were approximately 20 million barrels per day, but that number immediately cratered with the start of the war. Pipelines across the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia provided an outlet for five to six million barrels of oil per day, but the Strait was essential to restore shipments. The closing of the Strait for several months resulted in two billion barrels of oil remaining locked up in the Persian Gulf, causing afloat and ashore reserves to plummet.
In March, the United States called up reservists from the Strategic Sealift Officers programme.
These are licensed merchant mariners who are also officers in the US navy reserve. These officers organised convoys through the Strait and coordinated with the US military for aerial escorts. They provided secure communication with the ships as they transited the Strait. By May, the amount of oil coming out of the Strait began to climb and while it has not returned to pre-war levels, it is fluctuating between the 50 to 75 per cent level.
The new methods being used to ship out oil through the Strait of Hormuz fall into two categories.
First, the large Gulf-state shipping firms, such as Saudi Arabia’s Bari, the Emirates’ ADNOC, and Kuwait’s KOTC have established a shuttle service between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. As these ships are partially owned by the states, they underwrote the war risk insurance, and the governments could also provide both military and economic security for the transits.
These ships load in the Persian Gulf and then run the Strait in coordination with the United States Central Command. Typically at night, with no radio, and only limited electronic emissions, the ships hug the southern coast of the Strait and then meet up with empty tankers in the Gulf of Oman. There they conduct ship-to-ship transfers, offloading their cargo to the waiting empty vessels. The process takes approximately five days, and once completed, they make the return run to the Persian Gulf.
The second group of ships comes from the large tanker firms, such as Dynacom and Sinokor, who are getting obscenely high rates to risk their vessels in the region. The current charter rate for a two-million-barrel Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC, the industry term for a supertanker) to Asia is $1.4m a day. A trip of 21 days equates to $30m.
This rate offsets the higher war risk and the added costs for the crews. The mariners on board are receiving, in addition to danger pay – which typically doubles their salary while sailing in a war zone – bonuses of three months’ pay to make these trips. This cost is adding up to $30 to a barrel of oil. In effect, capitalism has forced the Strait open despite all the Iranians can do.
Since the end of September, the Iranians have escalated the scope and scale of their attacks against shipping, with near-daily strikes taking place. According to the Joint Maritime Information Center, the US is facilitating the passage of 15 ships into the Persian Gulf daily and a like amount outbound. The current level of attacks by the Iranians is hitting approximately 5 per cent of the ships. Some strikes have disabled ships and killed and wounded mariners, but this is by no means always the case.
Some commentators would have it that the return to near pre-war-level exports may indicate victory for the United States, but the truth is different. Yes, the US blockade against Iran since June has effectively cut off Iran’s ability to export oil and not one barrel has left the region on a tanker from Iran. But at the same time, while crude oil is moving, other vital commodities – liquefied gas, ammonia, sulphur, and fertiliser – remain trapped in the Gulf. The oil that is getting out is not sufficient to correct the two-billion-barrel deficiency in the global market and a shortage in refined petroleum products, particularly diesel, is negatively impacting global energy and economic markets.
The United States and Iran remain on a collision course and neither seems prepared to alter their heading. Both are determined to achieve victory, and the Strait of Hormuz is their chosen battleground as the world suffers the consequences of waging a modern-day Tanker War. At the same time, disruptions in energy shipments from Russia are magnifying the issue and any further disturbance – geopolitical or natural – could have an oversized impact on a shipping and energy system that has no margin left.
The quick victory envisioned by the United States and Israel is not happening and instead we are seeing an attritional level of warfare taking place in the Strait of Hormuz similar to the one being waged by Russia and Ukraine on the Black Sea. With the Houthis targeting Saudi ships in the Red Sea, freedom of the seas – a central tenet of the post-World War order – is seriously threatened for the first time in nearly a century.
I saw several things like these on Cheaters. If anyone is wondering why there are so many eligible bachelors in society these days, it's because many men have developed a phobia of this sort of thing happening to them. There are a lot of men who developed hypertension at an early age or became depressed after seeing the results of "their" children's DNA tests.
It's a foolish and immature statement. Gowon was 31 years old when he became head of state and it's very obvious he lacked the exposure and maturity to understand Nigeria's problems.
judewrites: “Nigeria's problem is not money, but how to spend it.” -Gen. Yakubu Gowon
Nigeria was once a super power eagle,...now it's barely flying.
He was overrated. Just good at reading speeches. Both Zik and Awolowo's remarks are more profound and show a greater understanding of Nigeria's problems.
SadiqBabaSani: Tafawa Balewa is an orator per excellence
Pope Leo XIV was eating regularly Wednesday and began walking and doing respiratory exercises, and his tests are normal following surgery to remove a cancerous mass from his lung, the Vatican said.
Leo's two doctors, Dr. Luigi Carbone and thoracic surgeon Dr. Stefano Margaritora, provided a medical update on Wednesday. Initial blood tests and a chest x-ray confirmed a normal recovery, they said.
"The Holy Father underwent respiratory physiotherapy and has begun walking in his room. He resumed his regular diet and had breakfast and lunch," they reported. "Recovery is proceeding as planned."
Tuesday's surgery showed the 71-year-old pope has the most common type of lung cancer, known as lung adenocarcinoma. Experts said further tests are needed to know if the disease has spread and if more treatment is needed, but those results weren't available on Wednesday.
The revelation of the diagnosis — within a few hours of an operation that was announced by Leo himself — offered further evidence that the American pontiff is taking a new approach to communicating about his health.
The Vatican said the surgery lasted approximately 90 minutes and was successful, with no complications.
Doctors were waiting for the results of further tests before deciding on a course of treatment, the Vatican said. The press office pointed to the medical statement's mention of the "radical" removal of the lobe as an indication that doctors took out all suspect tissue in hopes of removing any lingering traces of the cancer.
The right lung has three sections or lobes while the left has two. After one lobe is removed, the rest of the lung can gradually compensate, especially in otherwise healthy and physically active people. Leo is known to be sporty, with weekly tennis games and swimming.
Experts said some of Leo's lymph nodes also would have been removed and tested to determine if the cancer had spread. There was no word yet on those test results.
If the cancer has spread, tests will determine what kind of therapy to pursue, said Dr. Stephen Liu, a lung cancer expert at Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Options include chemotherapy, a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy or targeted therapy, which involves pills for specific cancers.
Liu, who is not involved in the pope's care, said adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer, and also has the most favorable prognosis.
"While we know the diagnosis, we now need to know the stage," Liu said. "We now need to know how big it is, how many spots in the lung are involved. Is it just one nodule, or more than one, and the lymph nodes, are they cancerous?"
Dr. PierCarlo Gentile, head of radiation oncology at the San Pietro Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome, said the kind of video-assisted minimally invasive chest surgery the pope underwent could allow him to be back on his feet within 48 to 72 hours. Recovery from the surgery itself takes 15 to 20 days. Post-op complications, including infections, are rare, he said.
The pope is breaking with a tradition of secrecy surrounding health issues
The American pontiff has offered a rare level of transparency about the first publicly disclosed major health problem of his 17-month papacy. He revealed the discovery of the nodule, or growth, on his lung during his Sunday noon prayer, announcing it to the world on live television almost as an aside at the end of his blessing.
"That was truly a revolution. It was like he was reading a medical bulletin himself," said Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and the former editor-in-chief of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
The Vatican has long been secretive about the health of popes — a practice encapsulated in the popular Italian saying, " The pope is fine until he's dead."
St. John XXIII died in 1963, nearly a year after doctors diagnosed stomach cancer that was kept hidden at the time. St. John Paul II died in 2005 after suffering for years from Parkinson's disease that the Vatican only confirmed after he died.
Pope Francis seemed more up front about his health problems, giving an Argentine doctor a tell-all interview for a book about his physical and mental health. But in the end Francis, too, tightly controlled the information released in his dying months.
Vian, who was part of the Vatican communications team from 2007 to 2018, said the Vatican's obsession with secrecy was due to both practical and cultural considerations. He noted the Vatican is a 2,000-year-old institution that is culturally European — and Europeans tend to be more guarded about health problems than people in the United States.
"In theory, the pope has an absolute power, so you can understand that there are many people who would aspire to that absolute power," he said. Secrecy about a pope's health, therefore, "is a legitimate defense of both the pope in question and the institution itself."
That said, Leo didn't share everything he knew on Sunday: Tuesday's medical bulletin said doctors had suspected cancer based on tests, a suspicion that was confirmed in surgery.
The pope has a trip to South America planned for November The Vatican on Monday canceled all Leo's audiences through Oct. 20. But there was no word on whether he would be able to keep his planned trip to South America next month.
Oncology surgeons often advise patients not to fly for three weeks after surgery — which would give the pope just enough time to make his planned Nov. 6-17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. But whether he can go will depend on his recovery.
The current itinerary for the trip is ambitious and the longest of his papacy to date, calling for Leo to clock just over 31,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) on a dozen flights and two helicopter rides, and a significant altitude change in Peru.
"If it is stage 1, he can complete these trips. If more treatment is needed, I would likely advise against the trips," said Liu.
German police have launched an investigation into two teenagers accused of controlling a robot that allegedly groped a 16-year-old girl.
Police in Cologne have confiscated the red and gold robot that allegedly grabbed the girl's buttocks and made thrusting motions against her before she screamed and moved away.
North Rhine Westphalia Police said the robot's 16-year-old owner and his companion, 19, are believed to have streamed the incident live on social media and commented on it.
According to a police statement on Facebook, the 120cm (3.9ft) tall device approached the girl from behind while she was with her friends close to midnight local time (23:00 BST) on Saturday.
The girl was in front of a fast-food outlet near the city centre when the incident took place, police said.
Emergency services were alerted, and the teenage boy and the man now under investigation with him were found a block away a short time later. The robot was discovered in the back of a car, where the boy had placed it, police said.
A photo released by police showed the robot wearing a black moustache, a gold-coloured chain and white vest.
Along with the robot, police seized two mobile phones belonging to the suspects. They are trying to determine whether someone was deliberately controlling the robot's movements at the time of the incident.
In a follow-up post on Facebook, police warned some social media comments on the case "can be a crossing of the line and in the worst case, a criminal offense".
Steven Gerrard says Man City must be stripped of titles after guilty verdict: 'Make them suffer'
Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard has said that Manchester City "have to be stripped" of their titles after the club were found guilty of 100+ charges of financial misconduct by the Premier League, adding that an "example must be set" after their breaches.
The charges against City relate to the years 2009-18, with Gerrard leaving Liverpool in 2015 and famously captaining the side that finished runners-up to City in the league in the 2013-14 season.
City deny all wrongdoing and have appealed the verdict.
Asked what he felt City's punishment should be, Gerrard did not hold back, saying they must be made to "suffer," like they have done to other teams during the alleged time period.
"In terms of how I feel, I potentially could be affected if you like, I wouldn't want individual players to give stuff back, that wouldn't be right," Gerrard told The Overlap.
"But the club, they have to be stripped... There needs to be an example set, historically whether that's a star throughout all the years of their achievements, because then it doesn't matter whether the titles are stripped or not, as soon as that star is there, then everyone knows that [success] happened because of what we all know happened.
"And then there needs to be a punishment moving forward, I don't know what the right one is... I don't think its fair on the Championship if they go down, because they will be one of the three teams that come up, so that takes a slot away from the Championship so it's not fair on the EFL.. Or the teams playing against City week in, week out.
"I think it's more moving forward in the Premier League, to punish them over a period of time, multi-year punishment, that would be my opinion, I'm not saying that's the right opinion but that's just how I feel.
"I think it needs to be a transfer ban, a points [deduction] over a period of time and make them suffer like they've made everyone suffer over the nine, ten years that they've done it.
"They were strong with Everton, strong with Forest [punishments for breaches]. Good luck to the Premier League but they have to be strong."
While Gerrard has played down the prospect of receiving a retrospective Premier League medal, he has said that those at City must face the consequences of what they've done, if they are proven guilty at the end of the appeal process.
"It's not personal for me in terms of the Man City players, because they're all outstanding players, they've lived the moment and they deserved it [trophies]" he added.
"I'm not someone who's going to sit here and say I would accept a Premier League medal or I want one that they've got. It wouldn't feel the same, it wouldn't be the same.
"I think I've come to terms that I've never won the Premier League, that I was short in that department in terms of winning it.
"And I've heard a lot of City players, a lot of City fans, celebrity fans, say 'you can't take those moments away from us'. What about the memories they've taken away from, not just possibly me and the team that I played in, but over that period of nine or 10 years?
"Spurs fans, United fans, Everton fans, teams at the bottom, teams in the cups. The City ex-players, current players and the City owners, everyone connected with City, have got to think about the memories that they potentially have stolen from everyone else."
An additional 17.9 million Nigerians fell into multidimensional poverty between 2021 and 2024, the highest increase recorded by any country globally, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
The 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), published on Monday, showed that Nigeria’s progress in reducing poverty between 2018 and 2021 was reversed in the subsequent three-year period, with millions more people experiencing overlapping deprivations in basic necessities.
Nigeria recorded a significantly higher increase than Afghanistan, where an additional 5.3 million people fell into multidimensional poverty during the country’s latest assessment period.
“In absolute terms, the largest increase in the number of poor people is seen in Nigeria, where although poverty had decreased in the previous period (2018–2021), in the recent period (2021–2024), 17.9 million people became multidimensionally poor, followed by 5.3 million in Afghanistan,” the report stated.
The findings place Nigeria among five countries that recorded increases in multidimensional poverty during their respective assessment periods, alongside Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Guinea and Kyrgyzstan.
The development highlights the scale of Nigeria’s poverty challenge, particularly as rising living costs, food insecurity and inadequate access to essential services continue to put pressure on households. It also raises concerns about the sustainability of previous gains in poverty reduction and the country’s progress towards the United Nations’ target of significantly reducing poverty by 2030.
Poverty rate rises to 38.7%
The report’s harmonised historical comparison showed that Nigeria’s multidimensional poverty rate rose from 33 per cent in 2021 to 38.7 per cent in 2024, an increase of 5.7 percentage points.
The number of people affected increased from 72.21 million to 90.07 million over the period, while the country’s Multidimensional Poverty Index value rose from 0.175 to 0.208, indicating worsening deprivation.
However, a separate national estimate for 2024 put the number of Nigerians living in multidimensional poverty at 113.32 million, representing 48.7 per cent of the population.
The report explained that the higher figure was based on the latest survey without the adjustments applied to the harmonised historical comparison. The two estimates therefore reflect different approaches to measuring poverty and should not be treated as directly interchangeable.
It also found that 28.7 per cent of Nigerians experienced severe multidimensional poverty, while another 18.1 per cent were vulnerable to falling into multidimensional poverty.
“In Nigeria, poverty incidence declined from 2018–2021, then increased from 2021–2024,” the report stated.
What multidimensional poverty means
Unlike conventional poverty measures that focus primarily on income or expenditure, the Global MPI assesses poverty by examining overlapping disadvantages in health, education and living standards.
Its indicators include nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, access to electricity, drinking water, sanitation, housing and basic household assets.
Under the methodology, a person is classified as multidimensionally poor when they experience deprivation in at least one-third of the weighted indicators.
The approach captures forms of hardship that income-based measurements may not fully reflect. For instance, a household may earn some income but still lack clean water, adequate sanitation, electricity or access to education and healthcare.
The index is designed to help governments identify not only how many people are poor but also the nature and severity of the disadvantages they face, providing a basis for more targeted policies and interventions.
Northern states face heavier poverty burdens
At the subnational level, the report found substantial differences in the extent and causes of multidimensional poverty across Nigerian states.
Kebbi, Yobe and Sokoto were among the states with the highest multidimensional poverty burdens, while Lagos recorded the lowest MPI value.
The findings also showed that states with similarly high poverty levels could face different underlying challenges.
In Yobe, nutrition and child mortality contributed more significantly to deprivation, while inadequate access to water and electricity were stronger contributors in Sokoto.
The report said identifying such differences was essential to designing interventions that address the specific needs of affected communities rather than relying on a uniform approach to poverty reduction.
The findings point to the importance of improving basic services, including healthcare, education, electricity, water and sanitation, particularly in communities where several forms of deprivation occur simultaneously.
Africa accounts for more than half of global poverty
Globally, the report estimated that 1.2 billion people, representing 18.9 per cent of the population covered by the index, lived in acute multidimensional poverty.
Of these, 534 million experienced severe poverty, while another 952 million people were classified as vulnerable to multidimensional poverty.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 616 million people living in multidimensional poverty, representing more than half of the global total.
Children bore a disproportionate share of the burden, with 617 million people below the age of 18 classified as multidimensionally poor worldwide.
“Roughly one in every three children is multidimensionally poor, compared to one in seven adults,” the report stated.
The findings underscore the disproportionate impact of poverty on children, particularly in households where inadequate nutrition, poor living conditions and limited access to education and healthcare reinforce one another.
Thank goodness Nigerians don't run English football. There's a reason why Nigeria finds itself in its current state of backwardness and you're a prime example of the mentality that has made Nigeria what it is.
RealityKings1: Sporty is meant to be fun and for commercial purposes too. If the rules are too strict, then the purpose can be defeated. If you resign, no one might miss you
The chair of the Independent Football Regulator (IFR), David Kogan, has said he will resign if he faces any political pressure on how to respond to Manchester City being found guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules over a nine-year period, insisting “my independence is absolute”.
Kogan could remove City’s Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) should the damning verdict of an independent commission be upheld at the end of an ongoing appeal process. Concern had been raised, however, that the proximity of City’s ownership to Abu Dhabi’s rulers could trigger a political intervention by the UK government and an immediate test of the new regulator’s powers.
Those concerns have been rebuffed by Kogan. “Our independence is absolute and my independence personally is absolute,” he said. “I [have] made it very clear … any form of political interference on the way we operate is going to result in my resigning from this role, and I stand by that completely. And, just to be crystal clear, we’ve come under absolutely no political pressure whatsoever on this or any other topic.”
Kogan was speaking on Tuesday at the launch of the long-awaited State of the Game report, a document that lays out the financial challenges facing the English football pyramid. The City case has cast a huge shadow as the regulator prepares to introduce a new licensing regime for clubs later this season. “We have powers within the legislation that allow us to review not only owners and directors and senior executives, but also whether those owners are fit and proper people to run clubs going forward,” said Kogan, describing the process by which the regulator might intervene.
“That process is reliant on us having very detailed knowledge and information, which requires a certain amount of investigation. Then we would take judgments based on the legal advice that we then receive.”
Should a club owner ultimately be found to have failed a “fitness” test related to “integrity, honesty and financial soundness”, the regulator could force the club to be sold. “We deal with issues of this type much more frequently than you might realise because we are constantly looking at clubs,” Kogan said, stating if any decision by the regulator became the subject of legal action then clubs would be asked to foot the bill through a funding levy.
The acceleration of revenues among the Premier League’s biggest clubs is one of the key findings in the State of the Game report. The highest earning top-flight club currently earns 605 times the revenue of the lowest earning National League club. At the same time, spending has increased at all levels of the game, with 94% of the 116 clubs under the regulator’s regime posting a financial loss in 2025-26. In one particularly eye-catching statistic, the report found 11 Football League clubs recorded costs that exceeded their income even once player wages had been stripped out.
Kogan argued that a number of external factors that fall outside the regulator’s purview are affecting the game, including the expansion of the club calendar, the regulation of players’ agents and the recent rise in interest rates. However, he argued that one key measure – the agreement of a redistribution deal between the Premier League and EFL – could unlock change immediately.
While Kogan accepts the Premier League’s argument regarding the need for parachute payments due to “colossal” drops in revenue caused by relegation, he believes they have had a “distortive effect that’s grown over the years”. Kogan said that if a deal was done that reduced parachute payments but increased the amount going to all clubs then “that will go some way towards looking at the distorted effect”. Once that money was distributed, he said, “you’re going to see a softening effect going through down the 116 clubs”.
The Premier League welcomed the publication of the report, arguing: “It recognises what English football has built – the world’s most popular league, the leading second tier, and a pyramid of unmatched depth.”
The league argued that a recent offer of financial redistribution to the EFL – understood to amount to £320m per season – “meets the objectives the IFR has set out in its report” and said it “remains committed to concluding a long-term partnership with the EFL that is fair, generous and balances the interests of all clubs”.
The EFL said the report’s findings “reinforce the EFL’s longstanding position that English football generates sufficient revenue to sustain both a successful Premier League and a thriving pyramid” and it remained “committed to working constructively with the Premier League and the regulator to secure a financial settlement in the interests of the whole game”.
Meanwhile, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, Lisa Nandy, said the stark figures covered in the report had “blown the doors off the game”. She urged football authorities to “consider these findings for the good of the game, for the fans, and for the communities of which they are so often the bedrock”.
He had lived with a disability since he was 3 years old. He couldn't walk without crutches. That was one of the things that endeared him to fans of Breaking Bad, the fact that he was able to overcome his disability to give such good performances on screen. At the time the series started in 2008, he was just 16
I know he complained about being frustrated because of not being able to get a lot of acting roles after the series ended because of his disability.
It looks like he might have ended his life because of his disappointment with his career prospects.
US actor RJ Mitte, best known for his role as the defiant son of drug kingpin Walter White in the drama series Breaking Bad, has died at the age of 34.
"It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of beloved actor, philanthropist, and passionate disability rights advocate RJ Mitte," his representative told the BBC.
Mitte died in Brownsvillle, Texas, on Monday. His publicist confirmed that he took his own life.
The actor, who had cerebral palsy, drew on his own experience for his role as Walter 'Flynn' White Jr in the Emmy-winning drama series. Bryan Cranston, who played his father, led the tributes, writing that he was in "deep despair" following the news.
Cranston played a high school chemistry teacher who turned to a life of crime to support his family after a cancer diagnosis.
"I met him when he was only 14 years old when he was cast as Walter White Jr., a part he played with such joy and enthusiasm," said Cranston.
"That kid was pretty raw when we started shooting the pilot in February of 2007, but little by little we watched him grow into a really fine actor."
Cranston praised Mitte's advocacy for performers with disabilities, and noted that he never allowed his cerebral palsy to "be an excuse for anything".
"All that promise and potential now is such a loss," wrote the actor, adding that he "thoroughly enjoyed being with him throughout the years on the series, and after the spotlight on Breaking Bad dimmed".
He said "it is especially devastating to hear that he took his own life."
Cranston added: "I'll miss you, son."
Mitte's representative, Sean Reilly, said in a statement to the BBC: "Mitte brought authenticity to the role and built a platform on disability awareness and inclusion."
The star also served as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Children's.
He created The Mitte Foundation to support philanthropic efforts and community initiatives, using his platform "to challenge stereotypes and promote greater representation for people with disabilities", Reilly said.
In a statement shared with the Hollywood Reporter, Aaron Paul, who played Breaking Bad's Jesse Pinkman, said he was at a loss and heartbroken.
"RJ, I love you my friend. You will be missed," he said. "And to whoever happens to be reading this, please know you are loved, and you are not alone. Always remember that."
Dean Norris, who played Mitte's uncle, Hank Schrader, posted that although "RJ didn't play my TV son, I always looked out for him as a young kid on set".
"He was a sweetheart of a young man and will be greatly missed," Norris wrote.
Mitte, who grew up in Louisiana, was a young teen when he auditioned for the breakthrough role after moving to Los Angeles to support his younger sister's acting career in 2005.
He had said that his first audition in Los Angeles was for a California state public service announcement for an anti-meth commercial.
"Fast forward to auditioning for Breaking Bad, which is still, in my opinion, an anti-meth thing because it doesn't end well for anyone," he said on the Joe Vulpis Podcast earlier this month.
His character was based on the show's creator Vince Gilligan's late friend who had a more severe case of cerebral palsy and used forearm crutches, which Mitte did not require.
Mitte was seen as playing the role with honesty and accessibility, cracking jokes as a teen whose health condition was rarely mentioned in the series.
Breaking Bad aired on US cable broadcaster AMC for five seasons from 2008-13.
After shooting to fame, Mitte fought for more varied roles and complex depictions of characters with disabilities, both visible and invisible.
"Whenever awards season rolls around, we always hope to see a diverse group of projects that reflect all of us, in body and mind," he told the BBC in 2021.
"Watching the awareness grow around disability representation has been great to see, but breakthroughs sometimes come in pieces and moments instead of larger change," he said.
Mitte's other on-screen credits include Hannah Montana, Switched at Birth, Westhampton and his latest project, Talking to Strangers, which came out earlier this year.
Weeks After Divorce, Spider-Man’s Tobey Maguire Officiates Ex-Wife’s Wedding
Jennifer Meyer and Tobey Maguire have kept their children at the center of their relationship long after their divorce. That family-first approach was visible at a milestone in Hawaii, where Meyer married Geoffrey Ogunlesi, and Maguire took on a central role in the ceremony.
Meyer and Ogunlesi exchanged vows Saturday at the Four Seasons Resort Lanai. Photos obtained by PEOPLE show Maguire officiating, just weeks after he and Meyer legally ended their marriage. Ogunlesi is the son of Nigerian billionaire lawyer and investment banker Adebayo Ogunlesi.
Maguire and Meyer's relationship finally reached its closing chapter, ending a legal process that stretched years beyond their breakup. Their romance began in 2003, when Maguire was working on Seabiscuit, and the pair said "I do" in September 2007. By June 2016, however, they had gone their separate ways. Meyer officially filed for divorce in 2020, with Maguire submitting his response in July 2025. On Sept. 21, the couple's divorce was officially finalized.
Meyer entered this new chapter of her life with plenty to celebrate. She was engaged to Ogunlesi and had given birth to their daughter in May by the time her divorce from Maguire became official. The wedding doubled as a family affair, with her and Maguire's children, Ruby, 19, and Otis, 17, joining the festivities alongside their baby half-sister.
The star-studded guest list brought plenty of Hollywood wattage to the occasion. Rachel Zoe, Courteney Cox, Kate Hudson and Leonardo DiCaprio attended, with DiCaprio accompanied by girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos were also among the guests.
Meyer has previously said the split did not erase their friendship. She told PEOPLE they decided early that their children would come first and that neither parent wanted to miss holidays or family celebrations. She praised Maguire as "an incredible father" and "an incredible ex-husband," adding that Ogunlesi also shares a loving relationship with him.
I'm surprised. I was expecting Gareth Barry, Ryan Giggs and Paolo Maldini to make this list. Pele's career started when he was 15 and ended when he was 37, so I'm also surprised he didn't make this list.
Not surprised that there are so many goalkeepers on the list.
Jesus called God His Father. Where in the koran is allah ever referred to as a father?
NOETHNICITY: I asked you a specific question, you can either say I don’t know or you go ahead and answer, instead throwing the question back to me.
Regarding your question about Jesus being on the cross, my question to you is simply an internal critique, it’s not like I believe in what the Bible says. Going back to my question, what did Jesus specifically call God when he was on the cross according to your Bible.
As seen on X, a Chinese graphic designer company is printing campaign materials for various APC candidates
APC is importing their campaign materials from China. There are many of you who can do this but they are outsourcing it to Chinese. pic.twitter.com/FcOITXv9H6
As I was reading the Bible, I just knew that Jesus is God. He's not a prophet. I was reading about the miracles he was doing, and I was like, I've never seen miracles in Islam. I'm reading about the way he heals people, and I'm like, no, this can't just be another prophet, cuz even Muhammad wasn't doing what he's doing. I start feeling conviction.
Why do I not like the things I used to love? It's just strictly the Bible. The Bible's literally convicting me, but it's bringing healing to me. God's literally, within 3 months, completely renewing my mind from how I view homosexuality, how I view sex before marriage, secular music, drinking. August 15th, 2 days after my birthday, I was like, oh, I want to get baptized.
I remember in front of my whole church, I said, "My name is Nadine, and I declare Jesus is the Lord and savior of my life!
I was like, I have to tell my family. I told my dad, and over 2 years, my dad had me blocked completely off everything. He attempted suicide for his third time because he found out I was a Christian. He said, "You have brought shame to our family." They found a whole suicide note about how, you know, he attempted because my daughter's a Christian. I failed. I failed in life.
During this time, I'm praying for my family. The Lord starts to show me, "Do you need to forgive your family? You need to forgive your dad for the ways he's abused you." And I'm like, "No. Why? Don't you see what he's done?" I cried, and I was just like, "Okay. Jesus, if you forgave me, I need to forgive." Cuz if he could forgive me, who am I not to forgive my dad? So, I started forgiving him. I said, "I'm going to say it. I forgive my father for all the abuse he's put me through. I forgive him. I forgive him. I forgive him." And as as I started to say that, something would just break. Something was breaking off me. The rejection and the pain was breaking off me. My dad, after 2 years, sends me a text message, maybe like five paragraphs of him apologizing to me for everything he had done to me since I was a little girl. I called him. I was like, "I love you." I don't see my dad as the person who abused me. I see him now as someone that God wants to reach. I have completely forgiven my father. I love him. I see him with the eyes of the Lord. And that's only only by God. It's only cuz I understand how much I've been forgiven. When you come to Jesus, it's not just a better life. It's a new life. It's a brand new life. Jesus is my savior. He's not just the savior. He's my savior. He saved me. He saved me from addiction. He saved me from homosexuality. He saved me from the lust of the world. He saved me and he wants to save you. He is the savior. There's no other savior. He is the only savior. You are never ever too far gone for God's love, mercy, and grace. He is ready to welcome you with open arms!
The man is 73 years old and he's taking like this. Truly, the Bible was right when it said that gray hair becomes a disgrace when it wears a crown of foolishness
clarocuzioo: I wonder why the DSS is yet to invite this terrorists. This fool keep heating up the polity. The continuous silence of security agencies from threats against opposition parties simply shows complicit. It is simply a recipe for disaster.
NB: Scores run from 0 to 100. Ranking is based on adult literacy rate, net enrollment rate, pupil-teacher ratio, school density and examination performance.
●South African anti-migrant protests: Cars torched and shops looted in Durban and Soweto
●Cars torched and shops looted as anti-migrant violence erupts in South Africa
At least 24 vehicles have been set ablaze and foreign-owned shops looted in South Africa as anti-immigration protests descended into violence in two major cities, police say.
Unrest broke out on Thursday in Soweto, a sprawling township outside Johannesburg, the country's largest city, and Durban, a major port on the east coast.
The violence comes amid growing anger over a court ruling which would allow some migrants who had arrived in the country illegally to apply for asylum.
This had led to long queues outside immigration centres and the government on Friday said it would change the way it would comply with that ruling, without giving details.
The Department of Home Affairs said the current policy had seen its staff "overwhelmed", while "serious threats to public safety and order had emerged".
It said that the new policy would still abide by the Constitutional Court ruling.
South Africa has experienced repeated outbreaks of xenophobic violence, often targeting migrants from neighbouring countries.
Thursday's demonstration turned violent following allegations that a foreign national had assaulted one of the protesters in Durban.
Three foreign nationals were arrested in connection with the alleged assault, police said.
In Durban, in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, protesters gathered outside a government refugee reception centre demanding that it stop accepting asylum applications.
Police fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds as businesses in the city centre shut their doors.
"There were clashes between foreign nationals in the area and South African nationals," senior local police officer Xolani Fihla told state broadcaster SABC.
"At the present moment, I can confirm that no injuries have been reported," he added.
Police said 14 vehicles were torched in Durban and 10 in Soweto, where gunshots were also reported during confrontations between residents and foreign shopkeepers.
Acting national police commissioner Lt Gen Puleng Dimpane condemned the destruction of property.
In Orlando West, a neighbourhood of Soweto, residents had initially gathered to demand the closure of small convenience stores, known locally as spaza shops, operated by foreign nationals.
Protesters forced foreign traders out of some areas, while shops were attacked and a building was set on fire, local media reported.
Police said reinforcements had been deployed to prevent further violence.
The authorities have promised to pursue those responsible for the destruction.
The latest unrest follows a July ruling by Constitutional Court, South Africa's highest court, which struck down restrictions preventing some people from seeking asylum because of how they entered the country or missed immigration deadlines.
The judgment means asylum seekers must be allowed to submit applications, even if they entered South Africa without the required documents.
This prompted hundreds of people to gather at refugee reception centres, fuelling anger among anti-immigration campaigners who fear the decision will encourage undocumented migration.
Government spokesman William Baloyi told Reuters news agency that people had deliberately spread false claims about the judgment, creating the impression that undocumented migrants would automatically be granted legal status.
Baloyi insisted that the ruling does not automatically give migrants refugee status or the right to remain permanently in South Africa.
Officials say applications will still be assessed individually and applicants will remain subject to immigration checks.
The protests forced tens of thousands of migrants to flee, with some returning home through repatriation programmes organised by their governments.
South Africa has struggled with xenophobic attacks for nearly two decades. In 2008, more than 60 people were killed and tens of thousands displaced during widespread attacks on foreign nationals.
The latest unrest comes against a backdrop of widespread poverty, deep inequality and unemployment affecting roughly a third of the workforce.
Migrants are frequently accused of taking jobs, contributing to crime and placing pressure on public services, although researchers say such sweeping claims are not supported by evidence.
Despite its economic difficulties, South Africa remains one of the continent's main destinations for migrants seeking employment, safety and better opportunities.
An Ado-Ekiti-born mini-truck driver, Adeleye Adeniyi, has said he borrowed N3.5m to support the re-election bids of President Bola Tinubu, Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele and Ekiti State House of Assembly member Steve Fatoba.
Adeniyi, popularly known as “Online Loan Man for BAO”, disclosed this in an interview with journalists now circulating on Friday, in which he displayed a Wema Bank cardboard cheque indicating N2m for Tinubu, N1m for Bamidele and N500,000 for Fatoba.
He said he was prepared to campaign for the three politicians ahead of the forthcoming elections, citing what he described as their performance in office.
“I am supporting Mr President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for his second-term ambition. I have borrowed money. I want to use this money to support him because he’s doing a very great job,” he said.
Adeniyi also pledged to campaign for Tinubu, adding, “Like I said again, I am fully ready to go out to campaign for him. And I’m going to use this song to back him up. On your mandate, we shall stand.”
He appealed to Nigerians to vote for Tinubu, Bamidele and Fatoba, saying he believed the President would deliver more benefits if re-elected.
“I will appeal to my fellow Nigerians that we should demonstrate love by giving him, by voting him for his second term in office, because we are still going to see much more, more than what we have received,” he said.
The driver also praised Bamidele and Ekiti State Governor Biodun Oyebanji for what he described as their contributions to healthcare, education, electricity and rural infrastructure in the state.
“Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, this man, I pray that we are still going to higher places. Most times, I look at the kind of projects that you always put on, you always supported. It always encouraged me that, no, indeed, this is a good leader,” he said.
Adeniyi previously attracted attention in February 2026 after reportedly borrowing money through the digital lending platform OPay to brand a vehicle in support of Oyebanji’s second-term bid.
The mini-truck driver, who operates around the BAO Timber Market along Ilawe Road in Ado-Ekiti, said at the time that his decision was motivated by his admiration for the governor’s administration.
He also praised Oyebanji and Tinubu over their policies on education, healthcare and citizens’ welfare, urging residents to support the governor’s re-election bid.
In the latest video, Adeniyi said he had again taken a loan to demonstrate his support for the politicians.
Foreign Affairs › Re: Lev Stupnikov: Russian Soldier Helped Ukraine Kill Hundreds Of Russian Soldiers by BlackViper(op): 2:00am On Oct 19
