It was around 1.30 a.m., after the crowds had thinned from the streets of Bordeaux, when Manon felt the prick of a hypodermic needle going into her arm.

Despite not knowing what she had been injected with – or who had done it – she said she “didn’t want to panic.”

Manon, 22, was one of nearly 150 people in France who reported being pricked with syringes during a nationwide street music festival at the weekend. According to the interior ministry, it remains unclear if date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB were used in the “needle spiking” attacks, which took place across the country and appear to have involved multiple perpetrators.

Ahead of the festival, which drew crowds of millions of people to the streets, a feminist influencer had warned that calls had been made on social media for women to be targeted with syringes.

After spending 4 a.m. to 7.a.m on Sunday in the emergency room, Manon shared a video of her experience on TikTok.

“It was important for me to raise awareness, because I hadn’t seen any testimonies from people who had been injected,” said Manon, who declined to give her last name for safety reasons.

“We had been told on social media to be careful, but I think people want to know more – how it happens, the symptoms, how it unfolds. It reassured me to talk about it, because at the time, I was completely alone.”

After she got home from the hospital, Manon filed a police report. “It’s important because if we’re too lax, if we say, ‘oh, others will file complaints’, nothing ever changes. I told myself maybe it can have an impact.”

Since Saturday, French police have detained 14 men – aged between 19 and 44 and including both French citizens and foreign nationals, police spokeswoman Agathe Foucault told Radio France Tuesday – but have made no arrests in connection with the needle spikings.

The minister said authorities would also pursue those who had called for the attacks online.

“We are implementing a criminal policy to prosecute those responsible on social media for these very unhealthy injection games targeting women,” Darmanin said.

“When people start saying that there will be needle attacks, it spreads in the form of rumor –– some people mention it in group chats, others pick it up, it just gets amplified,” she said, adding, “We need to help women feel safer.”

Manon, who faces a wait of three weeks for her toxicology results, said she had “barely slept the last few days” – but she refuses to be cowed by her experience.

“The Fête de la Musique is meant to be a time of good vibes, music, dancing, having fun. Someone wanted to ruin that moment, to kill that spirit. I told myself I wasn’t going to let it defeat me. I don’t want to be sad or angry. I don’t want to let them win.”

A young Brazilian hiker who fell hundreds of meters from the ridge of a towering Indonesian volcano and was trapped there for almost four days was found dead on Tuesday, Brazil’s government said. For days, millions of people in Brazil had watched, posted and prayed as rescuers tried to locate her.

The tourist, 26-year-old Juliana Marins, began summiting on June 21 Mount Rinjani, an active 3,726-meter (12,224-foot) volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok, with a guide and five other foreigners when she fell some 600 meters (1,968 feet), Indonesian authorities said.

“No signs of life were found,” said Mohammad Syafii, head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.

Marins’ family in Brazil confirmed her death.

The Indonesian rescue team said it found Marins’ body beside a crater using a thermal drone after four days of intensive searches complicated by extremely harsh terrain and weather.

The difficult conditions and limited visibility delayed the evacuation process, Syafii said, as the rescue team climbed carrying Marins’ body to Sembalun basecamp but would have to wait until Wednesday for transport to a police hospital.

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry called her death a tragedy and said that the country’s embassy in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, had coordinated the rescue with local authorities.

Marins’ ordeal has riveted her home country, Brazil, with millions following the dramatic search-and-rescue efforts since news broke of her fall.

Authorities did not say when exactly she died.

Adding to the frenzy in Brazil over her ordeal, Brazil’s embassy in Jakarta had accused the Indonesian government of fabricating Marins’ rescue and misinforming her family that she had been located and given food and water just hours after her fall.

There was no immediate response from the Indonesian government on that claim.

Indonesia’s island of Lombok lies east of Jakarta and neighbors the island of Bali. Mount Rinjani, the country’s second-tallest peak, is a popular destination for trekkers.

In an Instagram post, Marins’ family thanked the many Brazilians who had prayed for their daughter’s safety.

Marins, a dancer who lived in Niteroi, outside Rio de Janeiro, had been traveling across Asia since February, her family said. She had visited the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand before reaching Indonesia.

The United Kingdom is to purchase 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, from the United States.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will make the announcement during Wednesday’s NATO summit, as he calls on NATO members to do more to support the alliance.

“The UK’s commitment to NATO is unquestionable, as is the alliance’s contribution to keeping the UK safe and secure,” Starmer will say, according to Downing Street.

“But we must all step up to protect the Euro-Atlantic area for generations to come.”

The announcement follows repeated criticisms by US President Donald Trump that NATO countries are not spending enough on defense.

The fifth-generation fighter aircraft, built primarily by US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, is one of the most advanced fighter jets on the planet – but it is also one of the most expensive.

The decision to acquire aircraft with the capacity to carry nuclear weapons also represents a major strengthening of Britain’s nuclear posture.

It means that in addition of UK’s existing sea-borne nuclear deterrent, the country will also now join NATO’s dual capable aircraft nuclear mission.

“In an era of radical uncertainty we can no longer take peace for granted,” Starmer will say.

According to the British government, the decision will support 20,000 jobs in the F35 program in the UK, with 15% of the global supply chain for the jets based in Britain.

A Venezuelan influencer who criticized both gangs and allegedly corrupt cops was shot and killed on Monday while livestreaming on TikTok, authorities said.

Venezuela’s Ministry of Public Safety said in a statement on Instagram that influencer Gabriel Jesús Sarmiento died in the city of Maracay.

Sarmiento often criticized criminal groups and alleged corruption in law enforcement through his content online, and the ministry added that his death came shortly after he reported “threats made against him by members of the GEDOs (Organized Crime Structured Groups, in Spanish) and alleged police officials.”

Maracay is the capital of Aragua, the region from which the notorious Tren de Aragua gang takes its name, though there is no known connection between the TikToker’s death and the criminal group.

The ministry also said it assigned the 69th Prosecutor’s Office Against Organized Crime to “investigate, identify, and prosecute” those responsible for Sarmiento’s death.

“What happened, what happened?” shouts the man in the recording, followed by a heavy burst of gunfire.

“They shot me!” the man then screams. The video ends with the image of two unidentified armed men. Seconds later, the livestream stops and the video ends.

Sarmiento’s death comes just over a month after another Latin American influencer was killed while livestreaming. Mexican beauty influencer Valeria Marquez was shot and killed in a salon in Jalisco in May, sparking outrage over high rates of femicide in the region.

Just days before Marquez’s death, another woman – a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz – was shot dead, also during a livestream, alongside three other people.

Canada believes US President Donald Trump is no longer interested in turning it into the 51st state, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday.

“He admires Canada,” Carney told Amanpour. “I think it’s fair to say, maybe for a period of time (he) coveted Canada.”

Carney has frequently pronounced the old, close partnership between Canada and the United States as “over.” He began his term by courting European partners in the United Kingdom and France, and even collaborating with Australia on new radar systems for the Canadian Arctic.

Still, Carney credited Trump for pushing Canada toward higher defense spending, especially meeting the defense spending benchmark for NATO members.

“The president is focused on changing a series of bilateral relations,” Carney told Amanpour. “We’re at NATO. He’s been focused on making sure that all members, Canada included … pay their fair share. I think we’re doing that now.”

Trump now has the “potential to be decisive” in the situation in the Middle East, Carney also told Amanpour. While a broader peace in the region is the ultimate goal, he added, the current priority should be getting “the basics”: a ceasefire, a full resumption of humanitarian aid and the release of all hostages held in the strip.

“He’s used his influence and US power in other situations. We’ve just seen it in Iran. It does create possibility of moving forward and there’s a moral imperative to move forward,” Carney added.

The Canadian leader also credited Iran for its “proportionate” response to the US having bombed three nuclear sites: a highly telegraphed strike on a regional US military base, which was largely intercepted.

“The military action was also a diplomatic move by Iran. We never welcome, obviously, hostilities and reactions, but it was proportionate, it was de-escalatory, it appears to have been previewed,” Carney said.

Seventy-five years ago this week, more than 135,000 North Korean troops invaded South Korea, starting a war that cost millions of lives and left scars that linger to this day.

Yet, the Korean War has been forever overshadowed by World War II, a much larger conflict that ended less than five years earlier. Even the US Army refers to Korea as “the Forgotten War” – despite more than 36,000 American lives lost.

Sixteen nations, including the United States, sent combat troops in aid of South Korea under the United Nations Command. Chinese troops intervened on the North Korean side.

War broke out on June 25, 1950, when North Korean forces stormed across the 38th parallel dividing North and South Korea. An armistice signed on July 27, 1953, stopped the conflict, but the war never officially ended because there was no peace treaty.

While the twists and turns of today’s US-North Korea relationship have put a spotlight on the Korean War’s legacy, it is still a widely overlooked conflict.

Here are six things you might not know about the Korean War:

The US Army once controlled one of the world’s most secretive cities

It’s almost impossible for Americans to travel to North Korea or its capital city Pyongyang. US passport holders are not allowed to go there without special permission from the US State Department.

But for eight weeks in 1950, Pyongyang was under control of the US Army.

On October 19 of that year, the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division along with a division of South Korean soldiers captured the North Korean capital, according to US Army histories.

The US forces quickly made themselves at home, according to the histories.

By October 22, the US Eighth Army had set up its advance headquarters in what was the headquarters building for North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.

A picture from the time shows an American intelligence officer sitting at Kim’s desk with a portrait of Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin hanging on the wall behind him.

But the US military’s occupation of Pyongyang was short-lived. When Chinese troops entered the war in late November 1950, they quickly pushed south and vanquished US forces from Pyongyang by December 5.

The US dropped more bombs on North Korea than on the entire region during WWII

Most images of the Korean War are of ground battles fought in places like the Chosin Reservoir and Incheon. But much of the destruction wreaked on North Korea by the US military was done in a relentless bombing campaign.

During the three years of the Korean War, US aircraft dropped 635,000 tons of bombs – both high explosive and incendiary – on North Korea. That’s more than the 500,000 tons of bombs the US dropped in the Pacific in the entirety of the Second World War, according to figures cited by historian Charles Armstrong in the Asia-Pacific Journal.

Journalists, international observers and American prisoners of war who were in North Korea during the war reported nearly every substantial building had been destroyed. By November 1950, North Korea was advising its citizens to dig holes for housing and shelter.

North Korea didn’t keep official casualty figures from the bombings, but information obtained from Russian archives by the Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project put the number at more than 280,000.

Gen. Curtis LeMay, the father of US strategic bombing and the architect of fire raids that destroyed swathes of Japanese cities in World War II, said this of the American bombing of North Korea:

“We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another.”

Armstrong said that bombing of North Korea has effects that linger to this day.

“The DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea) government never forgot the lesson of North Korea’s vulnerability to American air attack, and for half a century after the Armistice continued to strengthen antiaircraft defenses, build underground installations, and eventually develop nuclear weapons to ensure that North Korea would not find itself in such a position again,” Armstrong wrote.

North Korea convinced the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin to let the war happen

When World War II ended, control of the Korean Peninsula – occupied by defeated Japanese troops – was divided between the Soviet Union in the north and the United States in the south.

Kim Il Sung, the leader of North Korea, wanted to unite the two Koreas under communist rule and sought permission of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to do so by force, according to records from the Wilson Center.

Upon Kim’s first request to invade in March 1949, Stalin was wary and did not want to be pulled into a conflict with the United States, which still had occupation troops in South Korea.

But when those troops were pulled in the summer of 1949, Stalin’s opposition softened, and by April 1950 the Soviet leader was ready to hear Kim out again when the North Korean leader visited Moscow.

Stalin told Kim that the USSR would back the invasion, but only if Kim got communist China to approve too.

Emboldened by communist China’s victory over Nationalist forces in 1949 – in a civil war in which Washington did not intervene – Chinese leader Mao Zedong agreed and offered to be a backup force for North Korean troops in the eventuality the US intervened.

With that, Kim had the green light to invade.

The Korean War saved Taiwan from a potential communist takeover

In 1949, communist China was amassing forces along its coast to invade Taiwan, the island to which Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist forces had fled after losing to Mao and the communists in the Chinese Civil War.

But the outbreak of the Korean War put a big roadblock in the way of communist China’s plans – the US Navy. Fearful of the fighting in Korea spreading across East Asia, President Harry Truman dispatched US warships to the waters between China and Taiwan.

The US State Department tells how close Taiwan, now a self-governed democaracy that Beijing still claims as part of China, came to a potential communist takeover.

“In late 1949 and early 1950, American officials were prepared to let PRC (People’s Republic of China) forces cross the Strait and defeat Chiang, but after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the United States sent its Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent the Korean conflict from spreading south,” reads a passage from the department’s Office of the Historian.

“The appearance of the Seventh Fleet angered the Chinese communists, who transferred their troops poised for an invasion of Taiwan to the Korean front,” it reads.

By October 19, 1950, 12 divisions of communist Chinese troops, more than a quarter-million men, were in North Korea, according to a Brookings Institution account.

Those Chinese troops would inflict horrific losses on the US and South Korean troops they faced, eventually driving them out of North Korea completely.

But China also suffered massive losses; more than 180,000 of its troops were killed.

The first jet-vs-jet dogfight

Jet fighters entered military service in World War II with the introduction of the German Messerschmidt 262. But the jet fighters didn’t go head-to-head in a “Top Gun”-style dogfight until the Korean War.

Records seem to agree that first dogfight occurred over Sinuiju in North Korea, near the Yalu River, and its border with China on November 8, 1950. The Americans, flying F-80 Shooting Star jets, were confronted by MiG-15s, Soviet-made jets that were probably being piloted by Soviet pilots from bases in China.

According to a report from the historian of the US Air Force’s 51st Fighter Wing, eight to 12 MiGs came after an American flight of four F-80s that day. In a 60-second encounter with one of those MIGs, Air Force 1st Lt. Russell Brown hit a MiG-15 with fire from his jet’s cannon and saw it explode in flames, becoming the first jet fighter pilot to score a kill in a dogfight, the report says.

But others dispute that account, with a report from the US Naval Institute (USNI) saying that Soviet records show no MiGs were lost that day.

What is certain is that the next day, November 9, 1950, US Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Amen, flying an F9F fighter off the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea, shot down a MiG-15 during airstrikes against bridges on the Yalu River.

Soviet records confirm the MiG-15 loss that day, according to the USNI report.

Later in the war, the US introduced the F-86 jet to the Korean conflict. That plane won fame in battles against the MiG-15 in what was know as “MiG Alley,” the area along the Korea-China border, where the Soviet pilots flew out of bases on the Chinese side.

The National Museum of the US Air Force in Ohio explains MiG Alley this way:

“Large formations of MiGs would lie in wait on the Manchurian side of the border. When UN aircraft entered MiG Alley, these MiGs would swoop down from high altitude to attack. If the MiGs ran into trouble, they would try to escape back over the border into communist China. (To prevent a wider war, UN pilots were ordered not to attack targets in Manchuria.) Even with this advantage, communist pilots still could not compete against the better-trained Sabre pilots of the US Air Force, who scored a kill ratio of about 8:1 against the MiGs.”

The United States never declared war

Though millions of lives were lost during the fighting on the Korean Peninsula between 1950 and 1953, they were technically casualties of what was called a “police action.”

Under the US Constitution, only the US Congress can declare war on another nation. But it has not done so since World War II.

When North Korea invaded the South in 1950, US President Harry Truman sent the US military to intervene as part of a combined effort approved by the United Nations Security Council.

“Fifteen other nations also sent troops under the UN command. Truman did not seek a formal declaration of war from Congress; officially, America’s presence in Korea amounted to no more than a ‘police action,’” reads a passage from the US National Archives.

And those police actions have become the norm for US military intervention ever since. The Vietnam War, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, all have seen US troops enter combat under congressional authorizations for the use of military force (AUMF), according to the US House of Representatives website.

Though the AUMF had been around since the beginning of the republic, “after World War II … AUMFs became much broader, often granting Presidents sweeping authority to engage America’s military around the world,” the US House website says.

“The war was the first large overseas US conflict without a declaration of war, setting a precedent for the unilateral presidential power exercised today,” Emory University law professor Mary Dudziak wrote in a 2019 opinion column for the Washington Post.

“The Korean War has helped to enable this century’s forever wars,” Dudziak wrote.