By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and R.J. RICO

NEW YORK (AP) — Just days after a stunning heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris, speculation is growing around where the lavish, stolen jewels that once adorned France’s royals might end up.

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A handful of experts warn that the artifacts valued at more than $100 million (88 million euros) could soon — if not already — be melted or broken into parts. If done successfully, some say those smaller pieces could later go up for sale as part of a new necklace, earrings or other jewelry, without turning too many heads.

“You don’t even have to put them on a black market, you just put them in a jewelry store,” said Erin Thompson, an art crime professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “It could be sold down the street from the Louvre.”

Thompson and others say that this has become increasingly common with stolen jeweled and metal goods, noting that it’s a way thieves can try to cover their tracks and make money. It’s not like someone could publicly wear one of France’s Crown Jewels stolen on Sunday — and finding a market to sell the full artifacts would be incredibly difficult after “everyone and their sister” has seen photos of them over the last week, said Christopher Marinello, a lawyer and founder of Art Recovery International.

The jewels may be hard to monetize

“By breaking them apart, they will hide their theft,” Marinello said, adding that these items could become even more “traceless” if they’re taken out of France and through jewel cutters and robust supply chains in other countries.

Still, such pieces are often sold for a fraction of the value of what was stolen — due to their smaller size, but also because melting or breaking down high-profile items removes the historical worth.

It isn’t a simple process.

“The real art in an art heist isn’t the stealing, it’s the selling,” explained Robert Wittman, former senior investigator of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s art crime team. Wittman, who has since formed his own private practice, said that the individuals behind such heists are typically “better criminals or thieves than they are businessmen.”

Unlike others, Wittman is skeptical about Sunday’s thieves successfully monetizing the artifacts they stole from the Louvre — which include an emerald necklace and earrings, two crowns, two brooches, a sapphire necklace and a single earring worn by 19th-century royals. He notes the gems may still be identifiable by their clarity, for example, and gold that was refined when the pieces were made hundreds of years ago is not as pure as what’s typically in demand today.

Visitors walk in the lobby of the Louvre museum three days after historic jewels were stolen in a daring daylight heist, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

“Because of what they are, there’s really no point destroying them,” Wittman said, while pointing to the risks of selling such high-profile stolen goods.

Scott Guginsky, executive vice president of the Jewelers’ Security Alliance, a nonprofit trade association focused on preventing jewelry crime, also notes the age and quality of the artifacts’ diamonds. He suspects they’re probably not graded.

“It’s not something that you can move on the open market. It’s nothing that can go through an auction house,” said Guginsky, who used to run the New York Police Department’s organized theft squad.

Given the amount of preparation that the thieves likely put into this, Guginsky believes they have a plan for selling the jewels, even if they might first decide to “sit on” the jewelry and wait out suspicion.

“I can’t see them stealing it without having an idea what they want to do,” he said. “There’s always a person willing to buy stolen jewelry. No matter what it is, somebody will buy it.”

Sara Yood, CEO and general counsel of the Jewelers Vigilance Committee, notes most jewelry businesses implement anti-money laundering programs and look out for red flags like unusual orders, repeated purchases and requests for secrecy.

Still, she and others say the age of some jewels — if broken down effectively — could actually make it harder to track. Newer gemstones, for example, sometimes carry a laser inscription inside that can be evaluated in a lab. But “because these are historical pieces, it’s rather unlikely that it has those identifying features,” noted Yood.

Experts like Thompson say bigger gems can be recut to a point that they’re unrecognizable. A challenge is finding people who have the skill to do that and don’t ask too many questions — but it’s possible, she said.

Whether the people behind Sunday’s heist had those contacts or certain buyers lined up is unknown. But it’s important to also note that “the guys who actually enter the museums are usually all hired hands, and they’re almost always caught in these cases,” Thompson added.

Chances of recovery look dim

She and others say that museums have increasingly faced a rash of similar thefts over recent years. Thompson notes that stealing from storage can go undetected for longer: the British Museum in London, which has accused a former curator of stealing artifacts and selling them online, is still trying to recover some of the 2,000 items stolen.

Some past thieves have made ransom demands for stolen artwork overall, or wait for a potential “no questions asked” reward from an insurance company — which can amount to about a 10% cut for some insured pieces in Europe, Thompson says. The jewels stolen from the Louvre Sunday, however, were reportedly not privately insured.

Sometimes government offers of a reward for information about a high-profile heist can also quicken the investigation, although the French government has yet to publicize such an incentive. If that changes, or promising leads are uncovered from the evidence left behind at the Louvre, experts like Wittman note it could increase the chances of recovering the artifacts.

Still, as more time passes, others feel that the fate of finding the historic jewels looks dim.

“I think they’re going to catch the criminals,” said Marinello. “But I don’t think they’ll find them with the jewels intact.”

Rico reported from Atlanta.

By KEN MORITSUGU, HUIZHONG WU and CHAN HO-HIM

BEIJING (AP) — China’s ruling Communist Party said Thursday it will focus on speeding up self-reliance in science and technology, a long-running push that has become more pronounced as the U.S. has imposed increasingly tight controls on access to semiconductors and other high-tech items.

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The announcement by state media came in a communique after a four-day meeting that approved a draft of the party’s next five-year development plan.

China faces “profound and complex” changes and rising uncertainty, it said. The communique did not directly mention the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. China’s leader Xi Jinping is expected to meet Trump for talks in South Korea next week.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has ramped up tariffs on imports in an effort to compel manufacturers to shift factories to the United States. That has added to pressure on the Chinese economy at a time when the leadership is struggling to resolve a prolonged downturn in the property market and stoke stronger domestic demand.

But China has managed to keep exports growing by shifting to other markets, and the statement signaled the government is confident it can counter external threats with domestic policy tools, said Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis, a French investment bank.

“It means China will likely demand more from the U.S. to reach a deal, if one is to be reached,” he said.

The communique contained few surprises, largely echoing the policy direction set out by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who wants to build China into a tech leader and global power with a robust military able to command respect and exert international influence.

It provided only a broad overview of the coming 2026-2030 five-year plan, indicating its scope without details. More information may be released in the coming days, but the full plan won’t be known until March, when the legislature gives a rubber-stamp approval to the plan at its annual meeting.

“The general impression of the communique is that it highlights much more continuity than change,” said Xin Sun, a senior lecturer in Chinese and East Asian Business at King’s College London.

Ng said that compared to the previous plan five years ago, the government is deepening its push for technological self-sufficiency, income redistribution and a transition to clean energy.

The country’s industrial policy has driven the rapid development of the electric car and wind and solar industries in recent years and has turned now to robotics and artificial intelligence.

The party will “accelerate the all-out green transformation of economic and social development,” the statement said.

It said that China would continue to boost domestic demand and spending, an objective that economists said is important for the country’s economic growth, though it didn’t signal any significant change to that approach.

China has rolled out various policies to help increase consumption — such as subsidies for consumer loans and child care and trade-in programs for electric vehicles and appliances. Economists are watching for more measures to support consumption by the year’s end.

Beijing said this week it is still on a “solid foundation” to achieve its full-year official growth target of around 5%, after China’s economy grew 4.8% in the July to September quarter.

The meeting of the party’s Central Committee was notable for the low number of deputies, an indication of Xi’s deep purges among the Communist Party’s top ranks. Out of 205 members, 168 attended the meeting, the communique said, along with 147 out of 171 alternates. Eleven alternates were made voting members to fill vacancies on the committee.

The party meeting chose a replacement for China’s second-highest-ranking general. He was expelled from the party along with eight other senior military officials on suspicion of corruption, the Defense Ministry announced just days before this week’s meeting.

Zhang Shengmin was named vice chair of the Central Military Commission, the top military body. He was already a member of the commission and holds the rank of general in the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force. He is secretary of the commission’s Discipline and Inspection Commission, which investigates corruption.

The elevation of Zhang shows an emphasis on political loyalty and anti-corruption as Xi continues a push to modernize China’s military, Sun said.

Wu reported from Bangkok and Chan reported from Hong Kong. Associated Press researchers Yu Bing and Shihuan Chen in Beijing contributed.

“The city must guarantee family-sized units by ensuring that at least 20 percent of Housing Connect apartments are three-bedrooms or larger,” the author writes. “It must align ‘affordable’ rents with voucher standards so that developers receiving subsidies cannot set prices above Section 8 limits.”

A building with income-restricted apartments in Brooklyn. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

With a mayoral election and City Council races on the horizon, New York’s leaders are promising bold action on affordability. But for families like mine, the housing system is already broken.

In New York City, one of the most common ways to pursue a highly coveted “affordable apartment” is through the Housing Connect lottery. Like many New Yorkers, I check the listings regularly, hoping to find something that fits my household of six. With my Housing Choice Voucher in hand, the process should be straightforward: apply as a working family with rental assistance, and finally secure stability.

After months of checking, I found a listing that seemed like the perfect fit—a three-bedroom apartment near my children’s schools. On paper, it should have worked. Instead, I was rejected because the rent was higher than my voucher allowed.

I appealed, as the system instructs families to do. I explained why the decision should be reconsidered, submitted the documents, and waited. Months later, I am still waiting.

This silence reveals a deeper truth: for larger households, the “choice” in the Housing Choice Voucher program is often an illusion—a mirage that families are told to chase but can never reach.

The first barrier is supply. Families like mine are required to rent three-bedroom or larger apartments, yet these units are exceedingly rare. According to the New York City Independent Budget Office, only about 8 to 10 percent of Housing Connect listings are three-bedroom units, and four-bedrooms are almost nonexistent.

Meanwhile, City Limits reported that New York lost over 23,000 four-bedroom apartments between 2010 and 2017, even as thousands of smaller units were added. This means large households are left competing for a sliver of the city’s affordable housing stock.

Even when a three-bedroom apartment appears, affordability remains out of reach. As of July 1, 2025, the standard Section 8 payment for a newly leased three-bedroom in Brooklyn is $3,811. Yet Housing Connect “affordable” three-bedrooms in high-opportunity neighborhoods—communities with strong schools, safe parks, and access to jobs—are often priced at $4,000 or more. 

Developers receiving subsidies and tax breaks can set rents above voucher limits. While landlords can negotiate rents down to match what vouchers will cover, this rarely happens. Families with vouchers are excluded from the units meant to stabilize them.

Challenging a denial also offers little recourse. My own appeal has gone unanswered for months. Many families report the same experience: applications rejected, appeals submitted, and then silence. An appeals process that exists only on paper, without transparency or timelines, cannot protect families from unfair rejections or errors.

Meanwhile, delays further erode opportunity. The Citizens Housing and Planning Council finds that it takes an average of 371 days for Housing Connect apartments to be fully leased and 430 days from application to occupancy. That means children lose continuity in school, parents face longer commutes and fewer job options, and the promise of stability slips further away.

As a licensed social worker, PhD candidate researching housing and community sustainability, and director of community services in Brooklyn, I see every day how policy gaps become real struggles for families like mine.

The Housing Choice Voucher program was designed to give families not just housing, but options—including access to neighborhoods where children can thrive. Today, that promise is broken. But it can be restored.

First, the city must guarantee family-sized units by ensuring that at least 20 percent of Housing Connect apartments are three-bedrooms or larger and that they are distributed across all neighborhoods. It must align “affordable” rents with voucher standards so that developers receiving subsidies cannot set prices above Section 8 limits.

The appeals process also needs to be fixed, with clear timelines and transparent reviews so families are not left waiting indefinitely. Finally, affordable housing must provide access to opportunity, which means prioritizing neighborhoods with strong schools and resources, not reinforcing segregation by steering families to areas struggling with concentrated poverty.

The Section 8 voucher program was created to give families real choice—the ability to live in safe, stable, opportunity-rich neighborhoods. For large families like mine, that choice has never been real. Families across New York are applying, being denied, appealing, and then being ignored. Until the city acknowledges that the current system excludes larger households and takes steps to fix it, the promise of Housing Choice will remain unkept.

New York can do better. Until large households are included, this system will remain what it is today: affordable housing in name, but not in reality.

Allysha Bryant is a licensed social worker, PhD candidate, and housing policy researcher. She directs community social services in Brooklyn and serves on state and national social work policy committees.

The post Opinion: Why Section 8 Vouchers Don’t Add Up for Larger Families appeared first on City Limits.

Emmer seems to have forgotten basic civics

I would like to remind U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minnesota, of some basic civics lessons that he seems to have forgotten recently.

The First Amendment of the Bills of Rights guarantees all Americans the right to protest and publicly assemble in peace. I feel it is my civic duty to speak up and stand up when the constitution of the U.S. is being violated daily. We are seeing consolidation of power under a president who overtly admires other authoritarian regimes. We object!

The founding fathers specifically created a mechanism of government that included checks and balances of power. Protesting the systematic destruction of those long-established checks and balances is to me an expression of my deep loyalty to the Constitution, not to one very partisan president who increasingly governs only for the benefit of his supporters.

I am an American who deeply loves my country and plans to join the No Kings Rally as a profound expression of that love. Rep. Emmer’s ill-founded statements on 10/10 put me and my neighbors in harm’s way based on lies.

Katherine F Guthrie, Eagan

New laws won’t matter if we don’t put the bad guys away

On page two of the Oct. 15 issue it is reported that Jaleel Jackson Bey was sentenced to six years for shooting three people. In Minnesota this means that he will serve only four years behind bars, if that, and then be on probation for two years. On the next page there is an article advising that Mayors Carter and Frey are wanting to implement some local city laws regarding guns. The laws that they would like to put on the books are good. But come on, when people can go on a shooting rampage and get such a laughable sentence new laws will not help. Yes, enact the laws but put the bad guys in jail when they break them.

Tom Bates, St. Paul

How convenient

So, with two exceptions, the Republicans in the Senate have condoned President Trump’s administration murdering innocent people (innocent until proven guilty right?). When boats are destroyed at sea the alleged evidence is also destroyed, how convenient.

James Ashworth, St. Paul

More love and mercy, more unity

It is sad to see the polarization that continues to divide us as Americans.

A top place I see this is with my fellow Christians. For Christians, the main commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor. Jesus even defines who our neighbor is: the one who needs help, who is in a bad situation, is suffering, who is an alien in the land. People who need compassion, mercy and love shown to them.

There are many people who were suffering greatly in their home counties and have immigrated to the U.S. and are now being deported, many Christians are in support of this. From my discussions with people and from news sources, it is clear that many Christians believe that only bad criminals are being deported.  They are not aware that many of the people being deported are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters who strive every day to be good “citizens” and contribute to their neighborhood. They have jobs and pay their taxes. However, they may have had a traffic violation or missed some paperwork, sometimes 20 or 30 years ago. Homeland Security uses this to deport them.

As Christians, we are called to not only help immigrants who are scared, suffering and struggling, but also to walk with them and above all to love them. In some of the letters I see in this paper, as well as from some members of Congress and other conservatives, I do not see any compassion for the immigrant. I see a lot about the law and protecting our own money and jobs. That attitude is not a Christian attitude.

It saddens me to see how many Christians have embraced very non-Christian attitudes and stands. I understand why as I once had many of the same stands on these issues. God had mercy on me and opened my eyes to see how love is so much greater than the law and His mercy surpasses my form of justice. I encourage all Christians to consider what is happening in their lives and around them and measure it using love and mercy, not law and justice. Understand people and the full situation, not just a few talking points. If you know the people, you can have mercy, if you treat them as objects or “the other,” then mercy goes away, and our own justice replaces mercy.

With love and mercy, we can bring more unity to the United States.

Jim Rice, Roseville

‘Smart’ meters

Can anyone tell me why I have to pay $15 per month for my privacy rights to be respected by Xcel Energy?

For months Xcel contractors have been trying to install a “smart” meter at my home because I would not call and say the exact words “I accept additional charges for the non-communicating meter.” Even when I told them “I understand there will be additional charges on my bill” it was not enough.

This betrays the fact that Xcel knows they have no legal right to the more particular data the “smart” meters track without my consent — which they force by threatening to disconnect my power.

Here’s a more important question: Why do we stand for this state sponsored monopoly?

Why do we stand for this state-sanctioned bullying?

Chiara Dowell, Scandia

The point of administration citations for St. Paul

I believe people have the right to have a good job that pays a living wage and to safe, stable housing. I’ve lived in many parts of St. Paul over the last 18 years. I’ve been a renter most of my adult life, and lived in places in St. Paul I loved, and others I couldn’t wait to leave. At those apartments, there was trash in the hallways, residents having parties at all hours of the night, and water coming through leaking windows, which led to a mold infestation. I always wondered why no one at the city did anything to make these corporate-owned dwellings more liveable. I now know that the city couldn’t easily make these landlords do anything, because the Saint Paul City Charter did not authorize the City to charge financial penalties to landlords violating city rules: in other words, to use Administrative Citations.

Voters deserve context about Administrative Citations when they go to the ballot box this fall. Until this January, St. Paul was the only one of Minnesota’s 25 largest cities without the ability to use Administrative Citations to enforce city ordinances. Last December, the city’s Charter Commission approved an amendment to the city’s Charter to enable Administrative Citations; and in January, it was unanimously approved by the City Council and supported by the mayor. In spite of this, a small group of opponents collected enough signatures to force voters to weigh in on Administrative Citations through a ballot referendum, in a last-ditch effort to deny the city a common-sense tool for enforcing its own rules.

Currently, there are too many examples where St. Paul is left with two options to address an ordinance violation: inaction, or charging someone with a misdemeanor. Almost half of the residents in St. Paul are renters, and the majority of renters in our city are renters of color. To uplift our commitment to racial equity, we must enforce our local ordinances to protect all in our city across race, class and ward.  By giving the ordinances we pass together real teeth, we can create faster resolution to the health, safety, and wellbeing concerns of every worker, renter, and family. Let’s come together to hold corporate landlords and employers accountable so we all can live in safe housing and be paid on time.

Melissa Wenzel, St. Paul. The writer is co-chair of the civic group Sustain Saint Paul.

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