Indiana set to execute man convicted of 2001 rape and murder of small-town teenage girl.

The execution of Roy Lee Ward is scheduled before sunrise Friday at the state prison in Michigan City, Ind. The 53-year-old has exhausted his legal options to challenge the sentence.

Ward’s execution by lethal injection comes amid questions about Indiana’s handling of pentobarbital, the drug it has used in recent executions.

Here’s a closer look at the case:
A brutal death shocks an Indiana town

Authorities say Ward entered the home of 15-year-old Stacy Payne on July 11, 2001, raped her and struck and stabbed the girl repeatedly with a dumbbell and a knife. She was airlifted from her town of Dale to a hospital and died hours later.

Matt Keller, former town marshal, discovered Stacy and arrested Ward who was still at the home.

“I cannot imagine the immense pain, suffering, and sheer terror that Stacy experienced during the last moments of her young life,” Keller said at Ward’s clemency hearing in Indianapolis last month.

Payne’s death rocked the southern Indiana community, which is home to about 1,500 people. Her father still lives at the house, her Raggedy Ann doll collection untouched.

A nearby church has planned a prayer vigil to honour the girl hours before the execution “with the sharing of cherished memories.”
A long court battle

Ward’s case has wound through the courts for decades. He was found guilty of murder and rape in 2002 and sentenced to death. But the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial.

Ward then pleaded guilty in 2007. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2017.

Two years later, he sued Indiana seeking to halt all executions. He argued that Indiana’s manner of carrying out “capital punishment is arbitrary” and “offensive to evolving standards of decency.”

The Indiana Supreme Court declined to stay the execution last month. That’s also when Gov. Mike Braun rejected Ward’s clemency after board members noted the killing’s “brutal nature.”

Arguing against clemency, the state’s attorneys mentioned Ward’s criminal history, including indecent exposure charges and a robbery conviction.

“He is a murderer and a rapist,” Deputy Attorney General Tyler Banks told the parole board. “He’s also predatory and manipulative.”

Ward has exhausted his legal avenues, attorneys said.

“He is pretty resigned to the fact that it’s happening and has been for awhile,” said Joanna Green, one of Ward’s attorneys. “He said, `If I could take every bit of the pain I caused with me, I would.”'
Questions about execution drugs

Indiana resumed executions in 2024 after a 15-year hiatus. State officials said they’d been able to obtain drugs used in lethal injections that had been unavailable for years.

But those drugs came at a high cost, more than US$1 million for four doses. In June, Braun said the state wouldn’t immediately buy more, raising questions about if Indiana would consider a new execution method. The first-term Republican cited the high cost and short shelf life.

Ward’s attorneys challenged the use of the drug in court, saying it can cause flash pulmonary edema, in which fluid rushes through quickly disintegrating membranes into lungs and airways, causing pain similar to being suffocated. They noted that witnesses to the May execution of Ben Ritchie said the man lurched forward before he died.

“There are still a lot of unanswered questions about what happened during Ben’s execution,” Green said.

Among 27 states with death penalty laws, Indiana is one of two that bar media witnesses.

Indiana Department of Correction officials confirmed Wednesday that the agency “has enough pentobarbital to follow the required protocol” for the execution but didn’t comment further.

Green said they discovered through their lawsuit that the pentobarbital to be used in Ward’s execution is manufactured and not compounded. Ward’s attorneys said that means fewer concerns about the drug deteriorating quickly and they received assurances about proper handling of the drug, including temperature control. The lawsuit was dropped, as was another legal challenge over execution chamber conditions.
Remembered for a love of life

Relatives said Payne, who loved the song “You Are My Sunshine,” was full of life.

An honour student and cheerleader, she was saving money from her pizzeria job, her mother Julie Wininger told the parole board.

“Stacy’s life was so short but was filled with so much meaning,” she said.

Wininger tallies each of the 8,000 plus days since Payne’s passing. She asked the parole board for justice to be carried out.

“We will never see Stacy smile again,” Wininger said, crying. “We will never hear her voice, never have the joy of watching her grow into the incredible woman she was meant to be.”
His final days

Ward, who declined interview requests through his attorneys, has said little publicly.

He didn’t comment when sentenced in 2007. He also declined a parole board interview, saying he didn’t want to force the victim’s family travel to Michigan City. Attorneys also said he’s remorseful but has a hard time expressing it.

Ward was recently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, an issue attorneys had raised in challenges.

In a Sept. 17 affidavit, Ward said he declined a parole board appearance because “due to my learning disability and language impairments the messages I mean to convey are sometimes difficult for me to accurately express.”

While behind bars, he lost relatives, including his mother who moved to Michigan City to be closer to him. Through a prison program, he took care of a cat named Sadie, who was rehomed ahead of his execution.

He’s renewed his faith and was baptized in prison. He keeps close contact with spiritual advisers who say he’s expressed regret.

“He’s not hiding the fact that it happened,” said Deacon Brian Nosbusch. “He’s definitely a changed person.”

Sophia Tareen, The Associated Press

Russian strike seriously damages Ukrainian power plant as winter approaches, officials say.


Two workers were injured in the attack, according to DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest electricity operator. It provided no further information, including the plant’s location.

Ukrainian authorities release few details about the routine Russian attacks on its power grid so as not to give away intelligence to the enemy. Repair crews, meanwhile, work round the clock to undo the damage.

The energy sector has been a key battleground since Russia launched its all-out invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago.

Each year, Russia has tried to cripple the Ukrainian power grid ahead of the bitter winter, hoping to erode public morale and disrupt military manufacturing. Ukraine has accused Moscow of weaponizing winter.

Ukraine’s winter runs from late October through March, with January and February the coldest months.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has been hitting back with long-range strikes on the Russian energy supply, recently causing outages in some Russian regions along the border.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its air defenses overnight intercepted 53 Ukrainian drones over nine Russian regions.

The Ukrainian town of Shostka, in the northeastern Sumy region, has been hard hit by the Russian onslaught against the power supply, officials say.

Authorities there have put up tents where locals can warm up, drink hot tea, charge their phones and receive psychological support, according to regional head Oleh Hryhorov.

He posted photos on Telegram of people cooking in outdoor kitchens in the street over open fires on Tuesday.

Shostka Mayor Mykola Noha posted the locations of 11 places in the town where locals can get food and tea. “Please bring your own dishes,” he wrote on Facebook Wednesday morning.

Russia also struck energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv, southern Kherson and southeastern Dnipropetrovsk regions, authorities said.

Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted or jammed 154 out of 183 Russian strike and decoy drones fired at the country overnight.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian rockets killed three people and wounded one more in Russia’s Belgorod border region, where previous attacks have brought power outages, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said Wednesday.

#Putin says Russia has captured nearly 5,000 square kilometres in Ukraine this year.

Putin, addressing a meeting with Russian top military commanders, said Ukrainian forces were retreating in all sectors of the front. He said Kyiv was trying to strike deep into Russian territory, but it would not help it to change the situation in the more than 3 1/2-year-old war.

“At this time, the Russian armed forces fully hold the strategic initiative,” Putin told the meeting in northwestern Russia, according to a Kremlin transcript.

“This year, we have liberated nearly 5,000 square kilometres of territory - 4,900 - and 212 localities.”

Ukrainian forces, he said, “are retreating throughout the line of combat contact, despite attempts at fierce resistance.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday reported the capture of two more villages along the front, which Ukraine’s top commander says now extends over 1,250 km (775 miles).

Ukrainian accounts of the situation on the front line say Kyiv’s forces have made gains in the Donetsk region, particularly near the town of Dobropillia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also said Ukrainian forces have regained ground in the border Sumy region, where Russia has established a foothold.

Russian Army General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of Russia’s armed forces, told the meeting of top commanders that Russian forces were “advancing in practically all directions.” Ukrainian forces, he said, were focused on slowing the Russian advance.

Gerasimov, overall commander of Russia’s war effort, said Moscow’s troops were moving on the key cities of Siversk and Kostyantynivka in the main theater of the Donetsk region.

He said they were clearing Ukrainian forces from the city of Kupiansk, under Russian attack for months in Ukraine’s northeast, and were moving forward in Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions further south. They were also progressing in setting up buffer zones in Sumy and Kharkiv regions in the north.

In his remarks to the meeting, Putin said Russia’s objectives remained the same as when he launched its “special military operation” in February 2022, saying it was aimed at “demilitarizing and denazifying” its smaller neighbor.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Chris Reese and Rod Nickel)

#FBI employees ordered to immediately search for records related to Amelia Earhart, source says.

Employees at the FBI’s Washington Field Office received a highly unusual message from their leadership flagged with high importance late Tuesday telling them: “Per a priority request from the Executive Office of the President of the United States, please search any areas where papers or physical media records may be stored, to include both opening or closed cases, for records responsive to Amelia Earhart.”

FBI employees were given a priority deadline of Wednesday to respond to the request, which comes on the seventh day of an ongoing federal government shutdown.

Earhart was attempting to become the first woman to fly around the world when her plane went missing over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. She was declared lost at sea following a 16-day search.

President Donald Trump last month said he was directing his administration to “declassify and release all government records” related to Earhart.

“Her disappearance, almost 90 years ago, has captivated millions. I am ordering my Administration to declassify and release all Government Records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Earhart, the first female pilot to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean, broke a number of aviation records, and she has been a source of public fascination during her life and after.

Conspiracy theories have developed since the aviator’s disappearance, but as CNN noted in 2024, the US government suspected that Earhart and her navigator crashed into the Pacific when the plane ran out of fuel.

Trump has previously ordered the release of documents related to other high-profile deaths that have sparked conspiracy theories, including records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Josh Campbell. CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.

Gaza peace talks enter second day on two-year anniversary of the beginning of the war.

The second day of indirect negotiations in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh are focused on a plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump last week that aims to bring about an end to the war in Gaza.

After several hours of talks Monday, an Egyptian official with knowledge of the discussions said the parties agreed on most of the first-phase terms, which include the release of hostages and establishing a ceasefire. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meetings.

The plan has received widespread international backing and Trump told reporters on Monday that he thought there was a “really good chance” of a “lasting deal.”

“This is beyond Gaza,” he said. “Gaza is a big deal, but this is really peace in the Middle East.”
Trump’s peace plan

Many uncertainties remain, however, including the demand that Hamas disarm and the future governance of Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long said Hamas must surrender and disarm, but Hamas has not yet commented on whether it would be willing to.

The plan envisions Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza after Hamas disarms, and an international security force being put in place. The territory would then be placed under international governance, with Trump and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair overseeing it.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251.

The devastating war that has ensued has upended global politics, resulted in the deaths of 67,160 Palestinians nearly 170,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and has left the Gaza Strip in ruins.

The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the United Nations and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

A growing number of experts, including those commissioned by a U.N. body, have said Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip amounts to genocide - an accusation Israel vehemently denies.

On Tuesday at the area attacked by Hamas two years ago, thousands of Israelis gathered to pay tribute to their loved ones who were killed and kidnapped. An explosion from Gaza echoed across the fields as they reflected, following the launch of a rocket in northern Gaza. No damage or injuries were reported.

In Gaza City, meantime, residents said Israeli attacks continued until the early hours of the morning on Tuesday, though there were no immediate reports of casualties.
A promise of humanitarian relief

Ahead of the resumption of talks on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an end to the hostilities, which have created “a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale that defied comprehension.”

“The recent proposal by US President Donald J. Trump presents an opportunity that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end,” Guterres said.

“A permanent ceasefire and a credible political process are essential to prevent further bloodshed and pave the way for peace. International law must be respected.”

Mediators from Qatar and Egypt were facilitating the talks, meeting first on Monday with members of the delegation from Hamas, then later with those from Israel.

Israel’s delegation included Gal Hirsch, coordinator for the hostages and the missing from Netanyahu’s office, while Hamas representatives included Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s top negotiator.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Monday that U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were on hand to talk part in the talks and keep the president apprised.

She did not comment on a specific deadline for concluding the talks, but said it is important “that we get this done quickly.”

Part of the plan is to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza, where more than two million Palestinian are facing hunger and in some areas famine.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the organization was poised and ready to act.

“The machinery is cranked up and ready to go as soon as we get the green light,” Dujarric said. “There are many thousands of metric tons in the pipeline of goods ready to enter” from Jordan, the Israeli port of Ashdod and elsewhere, he added.

___

Samy Magdy and David Rising, The Associated Press

Rising reported from Bangkok. Melanie Lidman in Reim, Israel, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this story.

Southern right whales awe admirers in Patagonia after coming back from brink of extinction.

Peninsula Valdes, located in the Patagonian province of Chubut, is globally important for the conservation of marine mammals and is home to a key breeding population of Southern right whales — an endangered species — as well as elephant seals and sea lions.

“I’ve seen whales in Canada and California, but this was the best and probably the largest number of whales I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Tino Ventz, a German tourist who recently visited the peninsula with his girlfriend.

The Southern right whale was nearly exterminated by hunting expeditions up until the last century. Before large-scale whaling began, the population in southern waters was estimated at around 100,000, before it was decimated to about 600. Since then, it has slowly recovered to roughly 4,700 whales around Peninsula Valdes today.

Whale-watching season in the south American country peaks between August and September. This year, more than 2,000 whales have been spotted, though the actual number is likely higher, scientists say.

Ventz, 24, and his partner joined Argentine Andrea Delfino and her children on a boat trip. Southern winds stirred the whales into more acrobatic breaching, a spectacle that leaves an indelible impression on those who witness it.

Other tourists preferred to watch the whales from the shore, as is common in neighbouring Brazil or Uruguay.

Watching from the beach, Agustina Guidolín, fulfilled her dream of witnessing “the immensity that borders on the magical and the wild.” The tourists were at El Doradillo Park, a protected natural area in Puerto Madryn where whales give birth very close to the shore with their young after giving birth.

In addition to Peninsula Valdes and other points in Patagonia, the whales’ migration route extends along Uruguay’s eastern coast and southern Brazil.

Santiago Fernández, a biologist with Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, is part of a project that since 1999 has carried out two to three aerial surveys each year along 640 km (400 miles) of Patagonian coastline. This year’s count recorded 2,100 whales — 863 of them mothers with calves, and the rest solitary individuals.

“We’re underestimating the number of whales in the area,” Fernández said of the census, noting that it represents only a snapshot, since whales move in and out of the same region as they migrate.

He explained that in 1999 “about 500 whales were counted along that same route,” and that “we’re currently seeing a three per cent annual growth rate.”

Fernández added that another project, “Following Whales,” conducted by several national and international organizations, tracks individual whales via satellite telemetry within the San Matias Gulf to the north, the San Jorge Gulf to the south, and beyond, to better understand their routes.

From that project, which began in 2014, scientists learned that once the calves grow, the mothers lead them deeper into the gulfs — whales that are therefore not included in the aerial census.

The growing population is leading to a dispersal — especially of juveniles and mothers that have already calved — toward the San Matias and San Jorge gulfs, and even as far north as the coast of Buenos Aires province.

This expansion also brings the whales closer to risks posed by human activity, such as fishing nets and boat propellers, researchers have found, based on injuries suffered by whales unable to return to Antarctica at the end and beginning of their natural cycle.

Víctor Caivano And Ramiro Barreiro, The Associated Press

5 Nobel-worthy scientific advances that haven’t won the prize.

Prizes in chemistry, physics, and physiology or medicine, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, will be announced this week, along with prizes in peace and literature.

The awards are a pinnacle of scientific achievement. But predicting who will win is largely guesswork.

The short list and nominators remain a secret, and documents revealing the details of the selection process for the accolades are sealed from public view for 50 years.

There is, however, no shortage of worthy scientific advances from which the Nobel Prize committees can pick. Here are five life-changing breakthroughs and discoveries that experts think are Nobel-worthy.
Groundbreaking treatments for obesity

The development of blockbuster type-2 diabetes and weight-loss drugs that mimic a hormone called glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1, has shaken up the world of health care.

One in 8 people in the world live with obesity — a figure that has more than doubled since 1990 — and the medication, which lowers blood sugar and curbs appetite, has the potential to usher in a new era for obesity treatment and related conditions such as type 2 diabetes.

Three scientists — Svetlana Mojsov, Dr. Joel Habener and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen — involved in the development of the drug, known as semaglutide, won the 2024 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, often considered an indicator of whether a specific breakthrough or scientist will win a Nobel Prize.

Mojsov, a biochemist and associate research professor at Rockefeller University, and Habener, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, helped identify and synthesize GLP-1. Knudsen, chief scientific adviser in research and early development at Novo Nordisk, played a pivotal role in turning it into an effective drug promoting weight loss that millions of people take today.

The same three scientists, along with Dr. Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist and professor at the University of Toronto, and Danish physician Dr. Jens Juul Holst, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, were awarded the Breakthrough Prize, founded by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg and others, in life sciences in April.
Quantum computing pioneers

Quantum computing is an emerging field that is ripe for some Nobel recognition, according to David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information.

Pendlebury identifies “Nobel-worthy” individuals by analyzing how often fellow scientists cite their key scientific papers throughout the years.

This year, he tipped two physicists for their work on quantum bits, or qubits, the basic unit of information used to encode data in quantum computing: David P. DiVincenzo, a professor at the Institute for Quantum Information at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, and Daniel Loss, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

“There’s certainly, of course, a lot of anticipation of quantum computing, and probably, for that matter, a lot of hype, but I went back to these extremely highly cited papers, and I think this one by DiVincenzo and Loss was cited almost 10,000 times, an astronomical number,” Pendlebury said, referring to a 1998 study in the journal Physical Review A. “Their insight was to use qubits as the fundamental mechanism of making a quantum computer.”

Other pioneers in the field include David Deutsch, a visiting professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation at the UK’s University of Oxford, who shared the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics.
Finding a treatment for cystic fibrosis

Two years ago, the Make-A-Wish Foundation announced that the genetic disorder cystic fibrosis was no longer automatically a qualifying condition for the children with fatal diseases it seeks to help.

That’s largely because of life-changing advances in how the disease is treated that three scientists helped to pioneer. The disease causes an overabundance of mucus, trapping infections and blocking airways in the lungs.

Dr. Michael J. Welsh, a professor of internal medicine-pulmonary, critical care and occupational medicine at the University of Iowa, revealed how the protein that underlies this lethal genetic disease functions and what can go wrong with it in people with the illness.

This discovery allowed two other researchers to find ways to correct the misbehaving protein that culminated in a drug combination that has turned cystic fibrosis into a manageable condition. Jesús (Tito) González, a physical organic chemist formerly at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, pioneered a system used to screen for promising compounds, and cell biologist Paul Negulescu, who works at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, led and championed the research, according to a statement from the Lasker Foundation.

The trio won the 2025 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in September.
Understanding the gut microbiome

Trillions of microbes — bacteria, viruses and fungi — live on and in the human body, collectively known as the human microbiome.

With advances in genetic sequencing in the past two decades, scientists have been better able to understand what these microbes do and how they talk to one another and interact with human cells, particularly in the gut.

The field is another one long overdue for Nobel recognition, Pendlebury said.

Biologist Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, is a pioneer in the field.

Gordon strove to understand the human gut microbiome and how it shapes human health, starting with lab research in mice. He led work that found that the gut microbiome plays a role in the health effects of undernutrition, which affects almost 200 million children globally, and he is developing food interventions that target improved gut health.
Next-generation DNA sequencing

One often discussed candidate for the Nobel Prize is the mapping of the human genome, an audacious project that launched in 1990 and was completed in 2003. Cracking the genetic code of human life involved an international consortium of thousands of researchers in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and China.

The endeavor has had a far-reaching impact on biology, medicine and many other fields. But one reason the project may not have earned a Nobel Prize is the sheer number of people involved in the feat. According to the rules laid down by Nobel in his 1895 will, the prizes can only honor up to three people per award — a growing challenge given the collaborative nature of much scientific research.

In the same vein, Pendlebury said it was possible that the Nobel committee might recognize the work of chemists Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman at the University of Cambridge in the UK and French biophysicist Pascal Mayer of the University of Strasbourg for their work on next-generation sequencing technologies that can decode millions of fragments of DNA at once.

Before their inventions, sequencing a full human genome could take months and cost millions of dollars. Today, the process can be completed within a day and for only a few hundred dollars.

This work has transformed many fields, including medicine, biology, ecology and forensics, and means that doctors can understand the genetic underpinning of disease more easily, leading to personalized medicine and other treatments, Pendlebury said.

The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will be announced on Monday, followed by the physics prize on Tuesday and the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. The Nobel Prize for literature will be announced on Thursday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The International Criminal Court on Monday convicted the first militia leader ever put on trial for war crimes committed in Sudan's Darfur region more than 20 years ago.

#Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina led rallies championing reform when he came to power in a 2009 coup. Now, the former DJ and media mogul risks being toppled by student protesters frustrated by endemic corruption and a comatose economy.

#Balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes over Lithuania closed Vilnius Airport for hours.

VILNIUS, Lithuania — Up to 25 small hot-air balloons, some of them confirmed to be carrying smuggled cigarettes, entered Lithuanian airspace late Saturday and forced the shutdown of Vilnius Airport, delaying flights for hours, authorities said.

The balloons interfered with 30 flights, impacting some 6,000 passengers, according to Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center. Flights resumed at 4:50 a.m. (0150 GMT) Sunday.

While the balloons turned out to be ferrying cigarettes, Europe is on high alert after intrusions into NATO’s airspace reached an unprecedented scale last month. Some European officials described the incidents as Moscow testing NATO’s response, which raised questions about how prepared the alliance is against Russia.

Lithuania and the rest of the Baltics are especially concerned. On July 10, a drone identified as a Russian-made Gerbera flew into Lithuania from Belarus and crashed in Vilnius County.

Another crashed at a military training ground on July 28 and was found a week later. The military later said it was carrying an explosive device. After those incidents, the parliament voted to allow the armed forces to shoot down any unmanned drone violating its airspace.
18,000 packs of smuggled cigarettes were recovered

Two of the balloons flew above Vilnius Airport, according to spokesperson Darius Buta. More than two dozen reached the wider Vilnius County. The balloons were recorded flying between roughly 8:45 p.m. Saturday and 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

Border police recovered 11 balloons and some 18,000 packs of smuggled cigarettes in various locations, Buta told The Associated Press.

Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, is located some 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the border with Russian ally Belarus. Belarusian smugglers are increasingly using the balloons, which are much cheaper than drones, for smuggling cigarettes into the European Union, Buta said.

Similar incidents, but with fewer balloons, were reported in August. Last year, 966 hot-air balloons entering from Belarus were intercepted by Lithuanian authorities. There have been 544 recorded this year.

“Both smuggling balloons and drones are criminal activities, but not as provocations or acts of sabotage,” Buta said.

Liudas Dapkus, The Associated Press