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Burglar who tried to smash his way into Anya Taylor-Joy’s bedroom jailed for 3 years

LONDON (AP) — An armed robber who smashed into a luxury London home where Hollywood star Anya Taylor-Joy was staying and tried to force his way into the actor’s bedroom with a crowbar was sentenced to three years in prison, officials said Wednesday.

Prosecutors said that the way Kirk Holdrick and another masked man tried to get into the star’s bedroom, rather than steal expensive items in the house, suggested they intended to target Taylor-Joy and her husband personally.

The “Queen’s Gambit” star and her husband, musician Malcolm McRae, were staying at a London house on Feb. 12, 2023 when Holdrick and another man, who were both wearing balaclavas and gloves, scaled a wall and broke into the property.

McRae locked the door of their bedroom before the intruders tried to prise the door open. The burglars fled after McRae shouted out that he had a gun.

The Crown Prosecution Service said Holdrick was sentenced to three years in prison for the case at London’s Woolwich Crown Court on Dec. 12. The details of the case were reported Tuesday by the Press Association news agency, which obtained the sentencing documents.

Holdrick, who was already serving other sentences for separate armed robberies, initially denied being responsible for the burglary but later changed his plea to guilty.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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