DALLAS (AP) — The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.

The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stir when it popped up on eBay last fall. The sellers quickly took it down, and then contacted Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to authenticate it. Last weekend, the auction house facilitated the model’s return.

Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.

“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”

Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”

They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”

Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it to makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979.

“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.

The 3-foot (0.91-meter) model of the USS Enterprise was used in the show’s original pilot episode as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11-foot (3-meter) version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever-expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted Trekkies can’t get enough of memorabilia.

This USS Enterprise model would easily sell for more than $1 million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.

“It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”

Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he’d thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on eBay.

“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.

He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.

“This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.

Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he’d thrown it into a pool.

“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.

Law enforcement agencies in Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota and Texas reported temporary outages to 911 services before saying hours later that services had been restored. It was not immediately clear what caused the outages or whether they were related.

Also unclear was whether any emergency situations were impacted. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which houses the National 911 Program, said in a statement that its Office of Emergency Medical Services “is monitoring this issue.” A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for additional information. A message also was left Thursday with the Federal Communications Commission.

The South Dakota Department of Public Safety said in statement posted on social media Wednesday night that it was aware of a 911 service interruption throughout the state. The agency noted that texting to 911 was working in most locations and people could still reach local law enforcement through non-emergency lines. Less than two hours later, the agency said service was restored to the state’s 911 system.

The same evening, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department 911 Communications warned of an outage affecting 911 and non-emergency calls in a social media post. Calls from landlines were not working, but officials said they could see the numbers of those who called from cellphones.

“Dial on a mobile device, and we will be able to see your number and will call you back right away,” the department posted.

About two hours later, the department posted that service was restored, and everyone who called during the outage had been called back and provided assistance.

In Nebraska, the sheriff’s offices in several counties, including Dundy, Kearney, and Howard, warned Wednesday night that 911 services were down, but advised a few hours later that services had been restored.

Cut fiber lines and other problems have caused 911 outages in recent years in Nebraska. The issue was worrisome enough that the Nebraska Public Service Commission hosted a hearing on the topic in December.

The police department in Del Rio, Texas, a city of 35,000 residents along the U.S.-Mexico border, posted that “an outage with a major cellular carrier” was to blame. It didn’t say which carrier. Del Rio had the opposite problem of Las Vegas — 911 calls from cellphones didn’t work, so those needing help were urged to use a landline or another cell carrier.

The outages, ironically, occurred in the midst of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A man who has served more than half of his life in prison for his role in the 2001 stabbing deaths of two married Dartmouth College professors as part of a plan to rob and kill people before fleeing overseas was granted parole Thursday.

James Parker was 16 when he was part of a conspiracy with his best friend that resulted in the deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop in Hanover, New Hampshire. Now just shy of 40, he appeared before the state parole board, years after pleading guilty to being an accomplice to second-degree murder and serving nearly the minimum term of his 25-years-to-life sentence.

His lawyer and Department of Corrections staff said he has taken many steps through the years to rehabilitate himself and make life better for fellow inmates. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in prison and created paintings that are displayed in the building. He’s been a part of theatrical, musical and sports activities and has helped develop inmate education guides.

Parker sought a sentence reduction in 2018. Under the law, he was eligible to do so because he had served two-thirds of his term, but he withdrew the petition in 2019 after the Zantops’ two daughters objected.

Parker and then-17-year-old Robert Tulloch, bored with their lives in nearby Chelsea, Vermont, wanted to move to Australia and estimated they needed $10,000 for the trip. They eventually decided they would knock on homeowners’ doors under the pretext of conducting a survey on environmental issues, then tie up their victims and steal their credit cards and ATM information. They planned to make their captives provide the pin numbers before killing them.

Parker, who cooperated with prosecutors and agreed to testify against Tulloch, said they picked the Zantop house because it looked expensive and it was surrounded by trees. Half Zantop let them in on Jan. 27, 2001. Parker told police the interview lasted at least 10 minutes before Tulloch stabbed Zantop and then directed him to attack Susanne Zantop. Tulloch also stabbed her.

They fled with Half Zantop’s wallet, which contained about $340 and a list of numbers, but then realized they had left sheaths to their knives at the house. They attempted to go back but saw a police officer was in the driveway. Fingerprints on a knife sheath and a bloody boot print linked them to the crime, but after being questioned by police, they fled and hitchhiked west. They were arrested at an Indiana truck stop weeks later.

Tulloch, now 40, had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He got the mandatory sentence of life without parole. He is scheduled for a resentencing hearing in June. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 2012 that it is unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to mandatory life imprisonment without parole, and the state Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that Tulloch and four other men who received such sentences for murders they committed as teenagers should be re-sentenced.

Susanne Zantop, 55 and Half Zantop, 62, were born in Germany. She was head of Dartmouth’s German studies department. He taught Earth sciences. Respected in their fields, the professors were beloved by colleagues and students, many of whom had an open invitation to their home a few miles from the Dartmouth campus.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and U.K. on Thursday imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran as concern grows that Tehran’s unprecedented attack on Israel could fuel a wider war in the Middle East.

The sanctions were meant to hold Iran accountable for its weekend attack and to deter further such activity. But the practical impact is likely to be limited because many of the targeted companies already were subject to U.S. sanctions and the individuals singled out for new sanctions are unlikely to have assets in U.S. jurisdictions.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control targeted 16 people and two entities in Iran that produce engines that power the drones used in the April 13 attack on Israel. OFAC also sanctioned five firms involved in steel production and three subsidiaries of Iranian automaker Bahman Group — which is accused of materially supporting Iran’s military and other sanctioned groups. A representative from Bahman was not immediately available for comment.

Additionally, the U.K. is targeting several Iranian military branches and individuals involved in Iran’s drone and ballistic missile industries.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that he had directed U.S. Treasury “to continue to impose sanctions that further degrade Iran’s military industries.” “Let it be clear to all those who enable or support Iran’s attacks,” he said, “we will not hesitate to take all necessary action to hold you accountable.”

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement that the sanctions “will further limit Iran’s ability to destabilize the region.”

In addition to Treasury’s sanctions, the U.S. Commerce Department is imposing new controls to restrict Iran’s access to basic commercial grade microelectronics, which apply to items manufactured outside the U.S. that are produced using U.S. technology.

The actions come after U.S. officials earlier this week warned that they were readying new sanctions in response to Iran’s activity in the region and to prevent future attacks. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill also have been quickly pushing forward legislation that would financially punish the Islamic Republic and its leaders.

Iran’s attack on Israel early Sunday came in response to what it says was an Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria earlier this month. Israel’s military chief said Monday that his country will respond to the Iranian attack, while world leaders caution against retaliation, trying to avoid a spiral of violence.

European Union leaders also vowed on Wednesday to ramp up sanctions on Iran, targeting its drone and missile deliveries to proxies in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the existing EU sanctions regime would be strengthened and expanded to punish Tehran and help prevent future attacks on Israel. At the same time, he said, Israel needed to exercise restraint.

“I don’t want to exaggerate, but we are on the edge of a war, a regional war in the Middle East, which will be sending shockwaves to the rest of the world, and in particular to Europe,” he warned. “So stop it.”

The U.S. has already sanctioned hundreds of entities and people in Iran — from the central bank and government officials to drone producers and money exchangers — accused of materially supporting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and foreign militant groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

And U.S. efforts to limit Iran’s income from oil and petroleum products span back decades.

The question remains how effective sanctions will be, and have been, in preventing Iran from ramping up its production of military equipment. American defense officials accuse Iran of supplying drones to Russia as it pursues its invasion of Ukraine, which has reached a third year.

Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a press conference that the U.S. has “been working to diminish Iran’s ability to export oil.”

”There may be more that we could do,” she said.

By Leah Douglas

(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development will distribute $1 billion in U.S. commodities to countries with high hunger rates, the agencies said on Thursday.

The countries that will receive the aid – including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, South Sudan, Sudan, and Haiti – are among the most stricken by hunger, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Global hunger is getting worse, with 745 million more people moderately to severely hungry worldwide in 2023 than in 2015, leaving the world off-track to meet a sustainable development goal of ending hunger by 2030, according to the United Nations.

The causes of expanded hunger are global conflict, climate change, and the long tail of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic for the world’s poor, the U.N. says.

Hunger is rising the most in Sub-Saharan Africa.

CONTEXT

The U.S.-grown commodities to be purchased and sent abroad include grains and beans, the USDA said.

The USDA will buy the commodities and USAID will distribute them, the agencies said.

The U.S. is also facing high hunger rates in the wake of the pandemic, and USDA in 2022 spent $2.3 billion on food purchases for schools and food banks.

KEY QUOTE

“With many millions of people in dire need worldwide, the U.S. agricultural sector is well positioned to provide lifesaving food assistance,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

NEW YORK (AP) — Jury selection in Donald Trump ’s hush money case encountered new setbacks Thursday as a previously seated juror was excused after backtracking on whether she felt she could be impartial and fair. The status of a second sworn-in juror was also in limbo over concerns that some of his previous answers to questions were not accurate.

Seven jurors were sworn in on Tuesday, but with the excusal of at least one lawyers now need to pick 12 others to serve on the panel that will decide the first-ever criminal case against a former U.S. president.

Prosecutors on Thursday also asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to sanction Trump over seven more social media posts they say violate a gag order that bars Trump from attacking witnesses.

The prosecution on Monday sought a $3,000 fine against Trump over three Truth Social posts.

Questioning of a second wave of prospective jurors began mid-morning. Over half of the group of 96 people was excused after saying they couldn’t serve.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged scheme to bury stories he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign.

The allegations focus on payoffs to two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump years earlier, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child he alleged Trump had out of wedlock. Trump says none of these supposed sexual encounters occurred.

The case is the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial.

Currently:

— Jury selection process follows a familiar pattern with an unpredictable outcome

— Trump lawyers say Stormy Daniels refused subpoena outside a Brooklyn bar

— After 7 jurors were seated in Trump’s trial on Tuesday, he trekked to a New York bodega to campaign

— Only 1 in 3 US adults think Trump acted illegally in New York hush money case, AP-NORC poll shows

— Trump trial: Why can’t Americans see or hear what is happening inside the courtroom?

Here’s the latest:

Instead of disclosing where they work, as other potential jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money case had done earlier this week, the latest group gave more generic answers on Thursday.

The shift in demeanor came after Judge Juan M. Merchan scolded the press for reporting identifiable details about the potential jurors, ordering them not to report on questions about their current and former employers and noting the answers would be redacted from court transcripts.

“There’s a reason that this is an anonymous jury,” Merchan had said. “It kind of defeats the purpose of that when so much information is put out there that it is very easy for anyone to identify who the jurors are.”

It wasn’t clear if they were directly instructed to avoid giving specifics about their employers.

The first prospective juror was an attorney who mentioned having attended the Women’s March and reading a book by former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz. Pomerantz previously oversaw the investigation into the allegations at the center of the hush money case, and his book detailed his work on it.

“I’ve discussed the legal merits of this case with many coworkers,” she added. When asked whether she could still be a fair and impartial juror despite that, she let out a deep sigh before responding, “Yes.”

Fifty-seven out of the second round of 96 potential jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial have been excused after saying they can’t serve.

Some 48 people indicated Thursday morning that they could not serve fairly and impartially. An additional nine said they couldn’t serve for some other reason, which they were not asked to state.

The second wave of potential jurors in Donald Trump’s criminal trial is now in court to begin the questioning phase of jury selection.

As with the first big group, the judge will explain the basics of jury service along with the case, then ask for a show of hands from any panelists who don’t believe they can serve fairly and impartially. After, he’ll ask for a similar indication from any who don’t believe they can serve for another reason.

More than half of the 96 potential jurors in the first group were dismissed after they said they couldn’t be fair and impartial.

The status of a second juror seated for Donald Trump’s hush money trial was in limbo Thursday after he failed to report to court to address concerns that some of his answers in court may not have been accurate.

Prosecutors found an article from the 1990s about a man with the same name as the juror being arrested for tearing down political advertisements in suburban Westchester County. The posters were on the political right, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said.

Steinglass also disclosed that a relative of the man may have been involved in a nonprosecution agreement in the 1990s with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Trump’s case.

Judge Juan M. Merchan had instructed the man to come to court at 9:15 a.m. Thursday to answer questions and verify whether the people involved were him or his relative.

Merchan noted the juror’s apparent “reluctance to come in” and asked both sides if they’d consent to having him removed without further inquiry. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche declined, saying he wanted to first hear what the man had to say.

Under questioning earlier this week, the man had said he hadn’t been convicted of a crime.

Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial told Judge Juan M. Merchan on Thursday that they wanted the former president held in contempt and sanctioned for seven more posts they said violated his gag order.

Trump’s new posts came after the prosecutors initially sought a $3,000 fine on Monday for three other Truth Social posts.

Prosecutor Christopher Conroy said several of the new posts involved an article that referred to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen as a “serial perjurer” and another from Wednesday that repeated a claim by a Fox News host that liberal activists were lying to get on the jury.

Trump lawyer Emil Bove said Cohen “has been attacking President Trump in public statements,” and that Trump was just replying.

Merchan had already scheduled a hearing for next week on the prosecution’s request for contempt sanctions over Trump’s posts.

After dismissing a seated juror in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, Judge Juan M. Merchan admonished the media for reporting details about the seated and potential jurors that could be used to identify them, ordering them not to report prospective jurors’ answers to questions about their current and former employers.

“As evidenced by what’s happened already, it’s become a problem,” he said Thursday morning.

He also directed reporters to “abide by common sense” and avoid writing about the physical characteristics of the people called to serve.

“We just lost what probably would have been a very good juror,” the judge continued. “She said she was afraid and intimidated by the press, all the press.”

A juror who had been selected for Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial was dismissed Thursday after she told the court she’d become concerned about her ability to be impartial.

Although the jurors’ names are being kept confidential, the woman, a nurse, “conveyed that after sleeping on it overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case,” Judge Juan M. Merchan said before calling her into the room for questioning.

The woman said her family members and friends were questioning her about being a juror.

With the woman’s dismissal, the total number of seated jurors dropped to six. Attorneys now need to pick 12 more people to serve on the panel that will decide the former president’s criminal case.

Merchan admonished the media for reporting details about the jurors that could be used to identify them.

“There’s a reason that this is an anonymous jury,” Merchan said. “It kind of defeats the purpose of that when so much information is put out there that it is very easy for anyone to identify who the jurors are.”

“The press is certainly entitled to write about anything that’s said on the record because it’s on the record,” Merchan said, but he added that he’s directing reporters to “abide by common sense” and not do things like writing about physical characteristics of the people called to serve.

Donald Trump sat at the defense table in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday morning, talking on a cell phone for about 30 seconds before his lawyers came over and put it away.

Trump looked sternly ahead while being photographed, a stark contrast from a moment earlier when he was casually chatting with lawyer Todd Blanche before the photographers arrived.

While the trial cannot be televised, Judge Juan M. Merchan is allowing a handful of still photographers to shoot photos of Trump before each day’s proceedings start.

Harvey Weinstein was famously admonished for playing with his phone by a different judge during his trial in the same courtroom four years ago.

Trump’s cell phone usage happened while court was not in session and before the judge had taken the bench.

Generally, cell phone usage — and certainly making or taking calls — is prohibited in New York courtrooms.

Former president Donald Trump has left Trump Tower, on his way to court in Manhattan on Thursday for another day of jury selection in his criminal hush money trial.

The jury selection process has moved swifter than expected, prompting Trump when departing the courthouse on Tuesday to complain to reporters that the judge, Juan M. Merchan, was “rushing” the trial.

Merchan has suggested that opening statements could start on Monday.

The seating of the Manhattan jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial will be a seminal moment in the case, setting the stage for a trial that will place the former president’s legal jeopardy at the heart of the campaign against Democrat Joe Biden and feature potentially unflattering testimony about Trump’s private life in the years before he became president.

The process of picking a jury is a critical phase of any criminal trial but especially so when the defendant is a former U.S. commander-in-chief and the presumptive Republican nominee for this year’s presidential election.

Inside the court, there’s broad acknowledgment of the futility in trying to find jurors without knowledge of Trump, with a prosecutor this week saying that lawyers were not looking for people who had been “living under a rock for the past eight years.”

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Democrat who represented southeast Wisconsin in Congress in the 1990s before going on to become a leader in the Assembly and state revenue secretary announced Thursday that he’s running for Congress again.

Peter Barca announced his bid against Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who is seeking a fourth term. Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, previously represented by former House Speaker Paul Ryan, leans Republican but was made more competitive under new boundary lines adopted in 2022.

The seat is a target for Democrats nationally as they attempt to regain majority control of the House. It is one of only two congressional districts in Wisconsin that are viewed as competitive. The other is western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District held by Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

Republicans hold six of Wisconsin’s eight congressional seats.

Barca, 68, previously held the 1st Congressional District seat from 1993 to 1995. He had previously considered running again for the seat after Ryan stepped down in 2018.

Barca is the first well-known Democrat to get into the race. National Democrats are expected to back Barca’s campaign. The primary is Aug. 13.

Barca, in a statement announcing his campaign, said his long record of public service showed that he was a fighter for working families and contrasted himself with a “do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress.”

“We need someone to step up and start going to bat for our families again,” he said.

The Steil campaign said in a statement that Barca has “put his political career ahead of Wisconsin families” over the past 40 years. The campaign also faulted Barca for opposing a 2016 bill that would have banned sanctuary cities and for voting in 1993 for a budget bill in Congress that raised the gas tax.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella branded Barca as a “sacrificial lamb” who has “put his out of touch policies ahead of Wisconsinites.”

Steil was elected in 2018 by 12 percentage points, and won reelection by 19 points in 2020 and 9 points in 2022.

Barca was elected to serve in the state Assembly from 1985 until 1993 when he resigned after winning a special election to Congress. After he lost in 1995, former President Bill Clinton appointed him to serve as Midwest regional administrator to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

He was elected again to the Assembly in 2008 and served as Democratic minority leader from 2011 to 2017.

Barca was leader of Democrats in 2011 during the fight over collective bargaining rights. While his Democratic colleagues in the Senate fled to Illinois in an attempt to block passage of a bill that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers, Barca helped organize a filibuster in the Assembly that lasted more than 60 hours.

Barca stepped down as minority leader, in part over grumbling from fellow Democrats over his support for a $3 billion incentive package for Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing company that had planned to locate a massive facility in his district.

Barca left the Assembly in 2019 when Gov. Tony Evers tapped him to be secretary of the state Department of Revenue. He resigned last month.

By Steve Holland and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senior U.S. and Israeli officials will hold a virtual meeting on Thursday about Israel’s plans for the southern Gaza city of Rafah as Washington seeks alternatives to an Israeli offensive, U.S. and Israeli officials said.

The meeting is a follow-up to a similar meeting held on April 1.

President Joe Biden has urged Israel not to conduct a large-scale offensive in Rafah to avoid more Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, where Palestinian health authorities say more than 33,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault.

The meeting comes as Israel considers launching an attack on Iranian targets in response to Iran’s launching of a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles last weekend against Israel.

Washington is trying to dissuade the Israelis from retaliatory strikes to avoid inflaming an already tense situation, a second U.S. official said.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan was to lead the talks from the U.S. side, with participation from Biden’s Middle East envoy, Brett McGurk, among others.

Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi are again expected to head the Israeli delegation in the virtual talks, an Israeli official said. The official said topics would include “the operational and humanitarian planning for Rafah.”

Plans for in-person talks on Rafah have been delayed in the aftermath of Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel, the official said.

In Ramallah, the Palestinian government called on the Biden administration to “intervene immediately to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression against our Palestinian people.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

ROME (Reuters) – Italian police arrested a “most wanted” U.S. fugitive last week who was carrying three concealed knives in a crowded St Peter’s Square outside the Vatican, a judicial source said on Thursday.

The fugitive, now in police custody, was named as Moises Tejada, who is classified as violent by the New York state prison service’s investigations unit.

He is listed among the department’s most wanted individuals.

The arrest was first reported by Italy’s la Repubblica newspaper and confirmed by the source.

Tejada, whose name has the alternative spelling of Teiada, attracted the suspicion of police who detained him and found he was carrying knives that were 20 cm (8 inches) long.

St Peter’s Square was busy with pilgrims and tourists as Pope Francis was holding a general audience that day, Wednesday April 10. It was not clear if Tejada, who has convictions for robbery and kidnapping, posed any threat to the pope.

Investigators have found that he had recently arrived in Rome from Moldova, having previously spent time in Ukraine.

He has told investigators he had been in Ukraine since 2022 fighting against the Russian invasion, la Repubblica reported.

The Italian authorities are waiting to hear if their U.S. counterparts want to extradite him.

(Reporting by Marco Carta and Alvise Armellini; Writing by Keith Weir, editing by Gavin Jones and Angus MacSwan)

By David Brunnstrom and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Thursday announced new sanctions on Iran targeting its unarmed aerial vehicle production after its attack on Israel, and U.S. President Joe Biden said G7 leaders were committed to acting together to increase economic pressure on Tehran.

Biden said the United States and its allies had helped Israel beat back the April 13 missile and drone strike and were now holding Iran accountable with the new sanctions and export controls.

“The sanctions target leaders and entities connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s Defense Ministry, and the Iranian government’s missile and drone program that enabled this brazen assault,” Biden said in a statement.

Britain announced that it was also introducing sanctions on Iran in co-ordination with Washington.

“Iran’s behaviour is unacceptable,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major Western powers in Italy.

“(It) is a message to Israel that we want to play our part in having a coordinated strategy that deals with Iran’s aggression,” he said.

The U.S. Treasury Department said the U.S. measures targeted 16 individuals and two entities enabling Iran’s UAV production, including engine types that power Iran’s Shahed variant UAVs, which were used in the April 13 attack.

Tehran says it carried out the attack in retaliation for a presumed Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus which killed two generals and several others on April 1.

Israel has said it will retaliate against Iran’s unprecedented launch of missiles and drones, while a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Thursday Iran could review its “nuclear doctrine” following Israeli threats.

SANCTION TARGETS

Treasury said it was also designating five companies in multiple jurisdictions providing component materials for steel production to Iran’s Khuzestan Steel Company (KSC), one of Iran’s largest steel producers, or purchasing KSC’s finished steel products.

Also targeted were three subsidiaries of Iranian automaker Bahman Group, which it said had materially supported Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The statement said the U.S. Commerce Department was also imposing new controls to restrict Iran’s access to technologies, such as basic commercial grade microelectronics.

Britain said it was sanctioning seven individuals and six entities, including the Armed Forces General Staff and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.

The West has imposed repeated sanctions on Iran over the years, with Britain saying that it alone had introduced more than 400 different economic restrictions on Israel’s arch foe.

“We’re using Treasury’s economic tools to degrade and disrupt key aspects of Iran’s malign activity, including its UAV program and the revenue the regime generates to support its terrorism,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in the statement.

“We will continue to deploy our sanctions authority to counter Iran with further actions in the days and weeks ahead.”

European Union leaders also decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran’s attack on Israel raised concerns about a wider conflict in the Middle East.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Crispian Balmer in Capri; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Angus MacSwan and Alistair Bell)