A British bride has battled depression and has been unable to work in the nearly two years since she was drenched in black paint by her spiteful sister-in-law. The attack occurred moments before she was slated to walk down the aisle to wed her childhood sweetheart — the climax of a revenge attack amid an ongoing feud.

Gemma Monk, 35, a mother of two, was looking forward to marrying her now-husband, Ken Monk, in May 2024. She was walking with her father on a cream-colored carpet at the venue in Maidstone, England, when someone called out her name. Seconds later, she was splashed with black paint, she told Kent Online in an article published Friday.

Realizing the attacker was her sister-in-law, Antonia Eastwood, who is married to Gemma’s older brother, Ashley, Gemma grabbed her by the hair, but Eastwood managed to get away. The bride was left distraught and in tears.

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"This has had a dramatic impact on my life," Monk told Kent Online on Wednesday, after Eastwood was sentenced by a British court for two offenses of criminal damage. "Even while I was providing this statement at the police station, I got extremely emotional and started crying while talking about the incident.

"Since the incident, if it wasn’t for my children or my family, I don’t think I would even get out of bed to care for myself," she added. "I have lost all my dignity and good habits in life. I have lost who I used to be. This has turned the most special day of my life into the worst memory — one I will never forget, and neither will my family."

The attack occurred after Monk had lost significant weight during a cancer scare. Though she has since been given a clean bill of health, Monk said her sister-in-law knew about the medical struggle at the time but "still decided to ruin the most important day of my life and put me at risk."

Eastwood, 49, had been banned from the wedding following a feud that stemmed from her own nuptials, during which Monk was accused of "trying to trip up" Eastwood.

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In court, Eastwood was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months. She was also ordered to perform 160 hours of community service. 

"This was meant to be a special day for Gemma Monk and her family. Courtesy of your conduct, it turned into a nightmare," Judge Oliver Saxby told Eastwood before imposing the sentence.

Eastwood's husband, Ashley, was once Ken Monk's best friend and actually introduced him to Gemma when she was only 14.

Despite the attack, Gemma scrubbed the paint from her face and body in the changing room and borrowed a dress fetched by an usher so she could marry her partner of more than 20 years. 

"We had waited for that day for so long. Nothing was going to stop me," she said. "I did not think twice; I would have walked down the aisle in my knickers and with black paint over my face if I had to."

However, Monk, a mental health worker, has since suffered from depression and has been unable to work. In a statement to the court, she said the incident changed her outlook on life and "made me question whether I had done something really bad, whether I had done something wrong."

The couple also called off a planned honeymoon to the Maldives because Gemma "wasn't up to it."

"I had a gut feeling—a bad feeling that something was wrong—when I got out of the car with my dad," Monk said. "But he said it must be nerves."

"I will never accept her apology," she added. "I thought the sentence was too light. She should have received at least 23 months for the wait we have had to get this to court."

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, walked free on bail from a Sydney prison on Friday, 10 days after he was charged with war crimes in the killings of five people while serving in Afghanistan.

Judge Greg Grogin granted Roberts-Smith bail in a Sydney court around five hours earlier, ruling the former Special Air Service Regiment corporal had established exceptional circumstances to justify his release from custody. Prosecutors had opposed bail and argued there was a risk that Roberts-Smith would flee Australia or interfere with witnesses and evidence.

Roberts-Smith, 47, was arrested on April 7 and charged with five counts of war crime murder involving the deaths of five Afghans in Uruzgan province in 2009 and 2012.

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Australian law defines war crime murder as the intentional killing in a context of armed conflict of a person who is not taking an active part in the hostilities, such as a civilian, prisoner of war or a wounded soldier.

Roberts-Smith was driven away from Sydney’s Silverwater Correctional Complex late Friday apparently wearing the same clothes he wore when police escorted him from a commercial airliner at Sydney Airport last week, news media images showed.

Roberts-Smith was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan and is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence elite SAS and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants. Around 40,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, of whom 41 were killed.

Similar allegations against Roberts-Smith were found credible in a civil court case in 2023 when a judge rejected his claims that newspaper articles defamed him.

AUSTRALIA'S MOST DECORATED WAR VETERAN APPEALS COURT RULING THAT BLAMED HIM FOR UNLAWFUL KILLING OF AFGHANS

At that trial, Roberts-Smith testified he had never killed an unarmed Afghan and denied ever committing a war crime. He claimed he has the victim of spiteful fellow soldiers’ lies and of others’ envy of his medals.

But while the civil court found the war crimes allegations were mostly proven on a balance of probabilities, the war crime murder charges would have to be proved in a criminal court to a higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

Roberts-Smith is accused of personally shooting dead two victims. He allegedly ordered subordinates to shoot the other three victims.

In opposing bail, prosecutor Simon Buchen described the charges against Roberts-Smith as "among the most serious known to the criminal law."

Buchen said Roberts-Smith had been "on the cusp of relocating overseas" without telling authorities when he became aware that prosectors were considering charges.

Roberts-Smith had made "advanced plans to relocate overseas. Consideration was being given to moving to various destinations overseas," Buchen told the court.

Roberts-Smith faces a potential maximum sentence of life in prison on each conviction. He has yet to enter pleas.

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Defense lawyer Slade Howell told the bail hearing Roberts-Smith’s case "may properly be described as exceptional in the sense that it is out of the ordinary."

"The use of domestic courts to prosecute alleged war crimes committed by a highly decorated Australian soldier deployed overseas repeatedly by the Australian government to fight a war on its behalf is unprecedented and is uncharted legal territory of the common law of this country," Howell said.

Howell also said Roberts-Smith’s "proceedings will be beset by a multitude of delays, many of which are peculiar to these proceeding."

Potential delays could arise if prosecutors decide to charge one or more of Roberts-Smith’s fellow veterans, some of whom now live overseas, Howell said.

Roberts-Smith took part in the bail hearing by video link from prison and spoke only when asked by the judge to confirm that he could see and hear proceedings.

As British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron convene a summit Friday on the future of the Strait of Hormuz, the two leaders are pushing a European-led plan to reopen the vital shipping lane after the war, without U.S. leadership.

The proposal envisions a post-conflict naval mission made up of Britain, France and other "non-belligerent" countries that would deploy only after fighting ends. Unlike President Donald Trump’s current strategy of blockading Iranian ports with U.S. naval power, the Anglo-French initiative is intended to be separate from the warring parties and focused on restoring commercial shipping.

A senior European official insisted the initiative is not meant to go around Washington, telling Fox News Digital that Paris began discussing a future maritime mission "from day one" of the conflict and is now formalizing those plans jointly with London.

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Macron and Starmer are expected to host a summit to advance what both governments describe as a "coordinated, independent, multinational plan" to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once the fighting ends.

"France and the United Kingdom will also host a conference in Paris this Friday, bringing together by video conference non-belligerent countries ready to contribute, alongside us, to a multilateral and purely defensive mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait when security conditions allow," Macron wrote on X.

Starmer similarly described the effort as a "coordinated, independent, multinational plan to safeguard international shipping when the conflict ends," saying Britain had already convened more than 40 nations around the initiative, Reuters reported. Washington was not part of those earlier talks.

The European senior official said the proposed force would be "strictly defensive" and would only deploy after active fighting and bombardment have ended, with the goal of restoring normal shipping rather than enforcing a wartime corridor.

"What we want in the end is no blockade, no toll, no nothing that blocks the fluidity of what is going through the Strait of Hormuz," the official told Fox News Digital, while stressing that Iran remains "the first problem."

The official also rejected suggestions that Paris and London are trying to sideline the Trump administration, saying the U.S. has been kept informed and that there is extensive coordination with Washington even if the emerging mission is currently limited to "non-belligerent" countries.

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"We’re coordinating a lot with them," the official said, adding that the goal is to create a framework that can operate once the conflict is over.

Macron has repeatedly emphasized that France’s envisioned mission would be "strictly defensive" and ruled out escorting ships while "bombings" are ongoing. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said "several dozen countries" already had participated in preparatory discussions led by military chiefs of staff, and that any future mission would also require coordination with Gulf coastal states, according to Reuters.

The Anglo-French initiative comes as Trump has taken a far more aggressive approach, ordering the U.S. Navy to blockade Iranian ports and continue operations aimed at securing the strategic waterway after ceasefire talks between the U.S. and Iran collapsed in Pakistan.

Critics argue that without American military power, the European proposal risks being largely symbolic.

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Britain and France are overstating what they can realistically achieve, The Henry Jackson Society analyst Barak Seener said. 

"Britain and France are playing at being relevant as so-called ‘Middle Powers’ in international affairs," Seener told Fox News Digital.

"Keir Starmer’s assertion ‘We’re not getting dragged into the war’ disguises the embarrassing fact that the Royal Navy is facing a hollowed out crisis, causing the initiative to be ‘strictly defensive’," he said.

"France’s navy is also facing structural and budgetary pressures that strain its ability to conduct high-tempo operations."

"It is laughable that a European coalition of ‘non-belligerent’ countries that are only willing to engage once hostilities have ended can even speak of protecting its shipping lanes," Seener added.

"Ultimately, the U.S.’s deployment of hard power, consisting of carrier strike groups and fighter aircraft to blockade Iranian ports and clear mines from the Strait of Hormuz, can protect shipping lanes."

The U.K. government and the White House did not reply to Fox News Digital’s request for comment before publication.

The Chinese government is increasing pressure on underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled church while tightening surveillance and restrictions on an estimated 12 million Catholics, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

The group said in its report that the increased pressure is part of a decade-old campaign to ensure religious groups align with Communist Party ideology.

The Associated Press reported that the Chinese government has rejected the claim, saying Human Rights Watch is "consistently biased against China."

China’s Catholics have long been split between a state-run church and an underground church loyal to the Vatican. In 2018, Pope Francis reached a deal allowing the Chinese government a role in appointing bishops to ease tensions.

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"A decade into Xi Jinping’s Sinicization campaign and nearly eight years since the 2018 Holy See-China agreement, Catholics in China face escalating repression that violates their religious freedoms," Human Rights Watch researcher Yalkun Uluyol said in the report. "Pope Leo XIV should urgently review the agreement and press Beijing to end the persecution and intimidation of underground churches, clergy, and worshipers."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s office told The Associated Press that Human Rights Watch "fabricates all manner of lies and rumors, and lacks any credibility whatsoever."

The office added that the government "oversees religious affairs in accordance with the law and protects citizens’ freedom of religious belief and normal religious activities."

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Human Rights Watch said its researchers are not allowed into China and that the report is based on interviews with people outside the country who had firsthand knowledge of Catholic life in China, along with experts on Catholicism and religious freedom.

The 2018 agreement stipulates that Beijing proposes candidates for bishop, which the pope can veto, though the full text has never been made public.

In June 2025, Pope Leo XIV, who had just become the pope, appointed a Chinese bishop under the 2018 agreement and said he would continue to honor the deal "in the short term."

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"I’m also in ongoing dialogue with a number of people, Chinese, on both sides of some of the issues that are there," Leo said. "It’s a very difficult situation. In the long term, I don’t pretend to say this is what I will and will not do, but after two months, I’ve already begun having discussions at several levels on that topic."

Since 2018, Human Rights Watch says Chinese authorities have pressured underground Catholics to join the state-run church through detentions, disappearances and house arrests, citing accounts from unnamed individuals who have left China.

The report also said China has tightened ideological control, surveillance and restrictions on religious activity and foreign ties, including requiring state approval for clergy travel, while officially recognizing and closely overseeing five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam.

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Xi Jinping said in 2016 that he would "Sinicize" the country’s religions, a policy aimed at aligning religious practices with Communist Party ideology.

Human Rights Watch said authorities have taken sweeping steps to curb religious practice, including tearing down churches and crosses, blocking gatherings at unregistered churches and seizing religious materials not approved by the state.

The group said the broader "Sinicization" campaign has also led to intensified crackdowns on Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Testimony at a major South African corruption inquiry was briefly overshadowed Tuesday by an unscripted moment — a suspended police chief with a tissue stuck to his brow.

Julius Mkhwanazi, the former deputy chief of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department, was testifying before the Madlanga Commission when the awkward moment unfolded.

Mkhwanazi, who was suspended in November 2025 amid misconduct allegations, had been wiping sweat from his face after answering questions from the commission.

Part of the tissue, however, remained stuck to his head.

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The slip didn’t go unnoticed for long. Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga halted proceedings as the room took in the scene.

"Oh, you have a tissue stuck on your forehead," Madlanga tells the ex-police chief.

"I’m sweaty," Mkhwanazi says. "Thank you, thank you."

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The Madlanga Commission is a public inquiry probing allegations of corruption and political interference in South Africa’s justice system. The current inquiry has been hearing testimony from current and former law enforcement officials.

Mkhwanazi has been under scrutiny since an internal audit recommended his suspension as part of a broader probe into alleged misconduct.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faces a "crimes against humanity" complaint at the United Nations over the treatment of the Chagossian people, as tensions rise after an Iranian missile attempt targeting Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Starmer, who is named in the filling, has been reported specifically over the removal of four people who returned to the island, in a complaint filed by the Attorney General for the Chagossian Government.

James Tumbridge's filing also comes as the exiled leadership stressed the importance of strong ties with the United States, telling Fox News Digital that Washington is a "brother in arms for global security."

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On March 20, Iran launched two ballistic missiles toward Diego Garcia from more than 2,300 miles away, missing the target but underscoring the base’s strategic importance.

Chagossian leaders have since backed continued U.S. presence, with First Minister Misley Mandarin saying they want to "uphold the 1966 agreement and consider the U.S. as a brother in arms for global security."

The 1966 agreement allowed the U.S. to use Diego Garcia for defense purposes, initially for 50 years.

"The desire of the Chagossian Government is to have a positive relationship with the U.S., and an ongoing presence on Diego Garcia of the U.S. military," Tumbridge also told Fox News Digital.

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Meanwhile, Tumbridge’s U.N. submission claims U.K. actions risk the "forced depopulation" of the Chagos Islands.

Expulsions began in 1968, when about 2,000 residents were removed, culminating in 1973, and in February the U.K. issued new removal orders to four Chagossians who had returned to the islands.

The filing calls the situation "forced displacement" that could constitute "a crime against humanity by forced depopulation of a territory."

It warns the British Government of a "fresh crime now" that could complete a decades-long erasure of the Indigenous population, stating, "The removal of these four persons would result in the total physical erasure of the Chagossian people," potentially "amounting to ethnic cleansing."

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"The BIOT commissioner accepted that the Chagossians were wronged in the past," Tumbridge said Wednesday.

"How can the U.K. prime minister, who claims to value the rule of law and human rights, not want to right that wrong and let the people return to their islands?" he added.

The filing also comes as the U.K. considers transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

This followed a 2019 International Court of Justice opinion, while preserving the Diego Garcia base under a 99-year lease.

President Donald Trump criticized the proposed handover, and the U.K. has since paused legislation to formalize the deal, with ministers saying it has become "impossible to agree at a political level."

The legislation was expected to be included in the King’s Speech outlining the next parliamentary session’s agenda.

Fox News Digital has reached out to 10 Downing Street for comment.

A 14-year-old boy is dead after allegedly killing at least nine people and wounding 13 more at a Turkish middle school Wednesday, according to media and official reports.

The boy reportedly carried out the violent attack, the second of its kind in as many days in Turkey, with guns belonging to his father, a former police officer, according to regional governor Mukerrem Unluer.

"A student came to school with guns that we believe belonged to his father in his backpack. He entered two classrooms and opened fire randomly, causing injuries and deaths," Unluer told reporters at the scene, per multiple media reports.

Eight of the deaths were students, while the other was of a teacher, Turkey's Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci told reporters, per Reuters.

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Ciftci was also adamant that this was a "sole incident" and not a terror attack.

The shooting took place at Ayser Çalık Middle School in Turkey's Kahramanmaras region, roughly 140 miles west of the high school where another student killed himself after injuring 16 others in a shooting one day earlier.

Shooting deaths are rare in Turkey, with just over 2.6 per 100,000 residents every year, compared to the U.S.'s 14.5. Applicants must be at least 21 years old and go through a rigorous medical clearance and background check process.

Firearm acquisition is, however, considerably more expedient for professionals with certain careers, such as law enforcement.

Despite the difficulties, Turkey has now been rocked by two mass shootings in two days. In response, the government has urged citizens not to spread misinformation and to protect the peace.

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"Managing the process with sound judgment, protecting societal peace, and particularly ensuring the psychological security of our children are of utmost importance," the country's Ministry of Communications also posted on X.

"It is essential for our media organizations to act with the utmost sense of responsibility in their broadcasting policies," the post continued, adding that "such incidents create a highly fertile ground for disinformation."

Four chief inspectors and four inspector generals have been assigned to an investigation into the incident, the Turkish Ministry of the Interior wrote on X.