By CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Attorneys for Sami Hamdi, a British political commentator being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in California, are challenging his detention in court, his legal team said Wednesday.

Hamdi, who is Muslim, was detained Sunday by ICE officers at San Francisco International Airport, according to federal officials. His lawyers say the arrest was triggered by his criticism of the Israeli government, while U.S. officials have pointed to comments he made after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, which they claim celebrated the violence.

The detention was the latest in broader efforts by the administration to identify and potentially expel thousands of foreigners in the United States who it says have either fomented or participated in unrest or publicly supported protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Those enforcement actions have been criticized by civil rights groups as violations of constitutional protections for freedom of speech, which apply to anyone in the United States and not just to American citizens.

Lawyers with the the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who are representing Hamdi, on Tuesday filed a writ of habeas corpus demanding that the government justify why he is being held, the council said.

In addition, they asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order seeking a bond hearing and blocking Hamdi’s removal from the U.S. while the case is adjudicated.

“If the government can cancel a valid visa because it does not like what a person says, then anyone legally visiting, studying, or working in our country is in danger of politically motivated abduction,” the group said in a statement. “This must end with Sami Hamdi.”

The advocacy group said Hamdi, 35, was detained in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during a U.S. speaking tour. On Saturday, he had addressed the annual gala for the group’s Sacramento, California, chapter. Hamdi was scheduled to speak at the group’s event in Florida on Sunday.

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Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called Hamdi’s court filings “a desperate Hail Mary attempt to keep an illegal alien and terrorist sympathizer” in the U.S.

“Following the Oct. 7 terror attack, Sami Hamdi cheered on Hamas: ‘How many of you felt it in your hearts when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allah Akbar!’” McLaughlin said in a statement Wednesday, apparently citing comments Hamdi made in a video posted online shortly after Hamas’ attack.

“Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country,” McLaughlin said. “That’s just common sense.”

Critics accuse Hamdi of celebrating Hamas’ attacks in the online video. He has denied that he was praising the attacks, saying he meant the violence was “a natural consequence of the oppression that is being put on the Palestinians.”

ICE said Sunday that Hamdi entered the U.S. on Oct. 19 on a visitor visa, which was revoked on Oct. 24, and he was placed in immigration proceedings for removal.

By NG HAN GUAN, ANDY WONG, AARON FAVILA and DAKE KANG

BEIJING, China (AP) — The Chinese government has blanketed the country with the world’s largest network of surveillance cameras.

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Some cameras swivel, ensuring sweeping views of public squares. Others scan license plates of passing cars, allowing police to track vehicles in real-time. At night, cameras light up across China’s cities, shining lights down alleys and corners.

Over the past few decades, the Chinese government has rolled out a series of high-tech surveillance projects aimed at bringing the entire country under watch, including “Sky Net” and the “Golden Shield”.

The latest such project is called the “Xueliang Project,” or Sharp Eyes, a reference to a quote from Communist China’s founder, Mao Zedong, who once said “the people have sharp eyes” when urging them to root out neighbors opposed to socialist values.

AP investigations have found that American companies to a large degree designed and built China’s surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known. The U.S. government repeatedly allowed and even actively helped American firms to sell technology to the Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, AP found.

The cameras studding China are knitted together in policing systems that allow authorities to track and control virtually anyone in the country, often targeting perceived threats to the state like dissidents, religious believers or ethnic minorities. Following directives from Beijing to ensure “100 percent coverage” in key public areas, authorities have installed facial-recognition cameras across the country, including in unlikely locations:

Ski slopes.

Beaches.

Remote country roads.

The Great Wall of China.

A slew of cameras greets visitors to Beijing, with a screen underneath announcing: “Amazing China travel starts here!”

At times, entire neighborhoods have been demolished and rebuilt in part to make it easier for cameras to keep watch. The historic quarter of Xinjiang’s ancient silk road city of Kashgar, once a maze-like warren of twisting alleys, was demolished and rebuilt with wider avenues and thousands of camera that light up at night.

China’s cities, roads and villages are now studded with more cameras than the rest of the world combined, analysts say — roughly one for every two people.

The goal is clear, according to authorities: Total surveillance in every corner of the country, with “no blind spots” to be found.

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

By THOMAS ADAMSON and SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Two suspects in the Louvre jewel heist have “partially” admitted their participation and are believed to be the men who forced their way into the world’s most visited museum, a Paris prosecutor said Wednesday.

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Laure Beccuau told a news conference that the two face preliminary charges of theft committed by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy, and are expected to be held in provisional detention. She did not give details about their comments.

It took thieves less than eight minutes to steal the jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) on Oct. 19, shocking the world. The thieves forced open a window, cut into cases with power tools and fled with eight pieces of the French crown jewels.

One suspect is a 34-year-old Algerian national who has been living in France since 2010, Beccuau said. He was arrested Saturday night at Charles de Gaulle airport as he was about to fly to Algeria with no return ticket. He was living in Paris’ northern suburb of Aubervilliers and was known to police mostly for road traffic offenses, Beccuau said.

The other suspect, 39, was arrested Saturday night at his home in Aubervilliers. “There is no evidence to suggest that he was about to leave the country,” Beccuau said. The man was known to police for several thefts, and his DNA was found on one of the glass cases where the jewels were displayed and on items the thieves left behind, she added.

Prosecutors had faced a late Wednesday deadline to charge the suspects, release them or seek a judge’s extension.

The jewels are still missing

The jewels have not been recovered, Beccuau said.

“These jewels are now, of course, unsellable … Anyone who buys them would be guilty of concealment of stolen goods,” she warned. “It’s still time to give them back.”

Earlier Wednesday, French police acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre’s defenses — turning the dazzling daylight theft into a national reckoning over how France protects its treasures.

Paris Police Chief Patrice Faure told Senate lawmakers that aging systems and slow-moving fixes left weak seams in the museum.

“A technological step has not been taken,” he said, noting that parts of the video network are still analog, producing lower-quality images that are slow to share in real time.

A long-promised revamp — a $93 million project requiring roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) of new cabling — “will not be finished before 2029–2030,” he said.

Faure also disclosed that the Louvre’s authorization to operate its security cameras quietly expired in July and wasn’t renewed — a paperwork lapse that some see as a symbol of broader negligence.

The police chief said officers “arrived extremely fast” after the theft, but added the lag in response occurred earlier in the chain — from first detection, to museum security, to the emergency line, to police command.

Faure and his team said the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s alarms but from a cyclist outside who dialed the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift.

A lack of private insurance

The theft also exposed an insurance blind spot: Officials say the jewels were not privately insured.

The French state self-insures its national museums, because premiums for covering priceless heritage are astronomically high — meaning the Louvre will receive no payout for the loss. The financial blow, like the cultural wound, is total.

Faure pushed back on quick fixes. He rejected calls for a permanent police post inside the palace-museum, warning it would set an unworkable precedent and do little against fast, mobile crews. “The issue is not a guard at a door; it is speeding the chain of alert,” he said.

He urged lawmakers to authorize tools currently off-limits: AI-based anomaly detection and object tracking (not facial recognition) to flag suspicious movements and follow scooters or gear across city cameras in real time.

Former bank robber David Desclos has told the AP the theft was textbook and vulnerabilities were glaringly obvious in the layout of the gallery.

Museum and culture officials under pressure

Culture Minister Rachida Dati, under pressure, has refused the Louvre director’s resignation and insisted that alarms worked, while acknowledging “security gaps did exist.” She has kept details to a minimum, citing ongoing investigations.

The museum was already under strain. In June, the Louvre shut in a spontaneous staff strike — including security agents — over unmanageable crowds, chronic understaffing and “untenable” conditions. Unions say mass tourism and construction pinch points create blind spots, a vulnerability underscored by the thieves who rolled a basket lift to the Seine-facing façade.

Faure said police will now track surveillance-permit deadlines across institutions to prevent repeats of the July lapse. But he stressed the larger fix is disruptive and slow: ripping out and rebuilding core systems while the palace stays open, and updating the law so police can act on suspicious movement in real time.

Experts fear the stolen pieces may already be broken down and stones recut to erase their past.

By SYLVIE CORBET

PARIS (AP) — France’s Senate gave its final approval on Wednesday to a bill defining rape and other sexual assault as any non-consensual sexual act, a move that comes after the landmark drugging and rape trial that shook France and turned Gisèle Pelicot into a global icon.

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Senators voted 327-0 in favor of the bill, with 15 abstentions.

The bill was presented in January following the conviction of 51 men for the rape and abuse of Gisèle Pelicot in a case which spurred a national reckoning over rape culture in France.

Marie-Charlotte Garin and Véronique Riotton, lawmakers for the Greens and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, respectively, who championed the bill, wrote: “It’s time to take action and take a new step forward in the fight against sexual violence.”

The bill states that “any non-consensual sexual act constitutes sexual assault.”

Consent is defined as “freely given, informed, specific, prior and revocable” and assessed “in the light of the circumstances.” The text says it “cannot be inferred solely from the silence or the lack of reaction of the victim.”

The bill also specifies that there is no consent if the sexual act is committed with “violence, coercion, threat or surprise.”

Last week, it was widely approved by lawmakers from almost all ranks at the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament. The far right voted against it.

The Senate’s approval is the last step before the bill becomes law via official publication.

France rejoins many other European nations that have similar consent-based laws on rape, including neighboring Germany, Belgium and Spain.

Until now, rape under French law was defined as penetration or oral sex using “violence, coercion, threat or surprise.” France has taken other steps in recent years to toughen punishment for sexual misconduct, including setting 15 as the age of consent.

Gisele Pelicot followed by her son Florian Pelicot leave the courtroom during the appeals trial in the case of a man challenging his conviction, less than a year after the landmark verdict in a drugging and rape trial that shook France Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025 in Nimes, southern France. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

In December, Pelicot’s ex-husband and 50 other men were convicted of sexually assaulting her between 2011 and 2020 while she was under chemical submission.

Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while sentences for other defendants ranged from three to 15 years imprisonment. An appeals court handed a stiffer 10-year sentence earlier this month to the only man who challenged his conviction.

The harrowing and unprecedented trial exposed how pornography, chatrooms and men’s disdain for, or hazy understanding of, consent is fueling rape culture.

Gisèle Pelicot has since become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence.