New Zealand police have announced renewed efforts to find Thomas Callam Phillips, a fugitive who has been on the run with his three children since 2021.

Officers will be searching the area in and around Te Waitere and Te Maika, which are rural communities in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island, around 13 miles from where Phillips was last seen, over the next few days, police said in a statement published Wednesday.

Phillips has been evading police for three years since disappearing with his children Ember, Maverick and Jayda – who were 5, 7 and 8 at the time – into the rugged wilderness of the country’s North Island during a bitter family split in December 2021.

New Zealand’s North Island is home to the wild, awe-inspiring landscape that formed some of the backdrop to Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies.
Steep hills with sweeping views drop away into deep valleys, dotted with caves covered by a blanket of dense forest.

At first, Phillips was wanted for failing to appear in court on charges of wasting police resources but, three years on, his charge sheet has grown longer and more serious, with allegations that he robbed a bank in May 2023 with an unnamed female accomplice.
Police have scrambled search teams, helicopters and planes to investigate sporadic sightings but have failed to find them.

In October 2024, pig hunters made what is believed to be the first sighting of all three children since 2021 in Marokopa.

One recorded the four figures on video, providing the first proof of life of the missing Phillips children that their mother Cat has seen since they left.

The case has gripped New Zealand, with many questioning why authorities haven’t been able to track Phillips and his children down.

“This is not a big country we’re talking about,” said Lance Burdett, a former detective inspector and lead crisis negotiator for New Zealand Police, at the time.

“It’s very surprising that they haven’t been found, particularly since the number of sightings are in a very similar area.”

Max Baxter, mayor of the Otorohanga district that includes Marokopa, a rural community home to fewer than 100 people, says authorities believe Phillips is receiving help.

“We absolutely believe that somebody, or some people, are helping them,” Baxter said in October 2024.

“Tom still has a number of supporters out there believing that he is doing the right thing for him and his children.”

Phillips was raised in the Marokopa area and his parents still live there in the family home.
In a statement provided to TVNZ in 2023, his mother denied any knowledge of her son’s whereabouts and said the family would “like nothing more” than for the four to return.

While fans worldwide know him for his chart-topping hits, behind the scenes, Nigerian Afro-dancehall artist Patoranking has set out to change the lives of one million young people by 2035.

Born Patrick Nnaemeka Okorie, Patoranking rose from the slums of Ebute Metta, Lagos, to become one of Nigeria’s most versatile and successful musicians. Blending reggae, dancehall and Afrobeats, he has captivated audiences globally. However, beyond his musical talents, Patoranking is working to uplift African youth.

“Coming from a place where the chances of making it were slim, I knew I had to step up — not just for myself but for those around me.”

Overcoming adversity through music

Growing up in a slum, Patoranking faced harsh realities early on. His father, a “petty trader,” struggled to make ends meet. Higher education seemed out of reach, so instead, Patoranking turned to his natural gift — music. “I was influenced by the ghetto sounds of Daddy Showkey, Baba Fryo, and Tuface. Music was a way to express the struggles of my people, and I wanted to be the voice of the voiceless,” he recalled.

His breakthrough came in 2013 when Nigerian singer Timaya took him under his wing collaborating on and releasing the hit track “Alubarika” on Timaya’s record label.

The following year, Patoranking’s song “Girlie O” earned him a spot on MTV Base’s Official Naija Top 10 chart, as well as numerous awards.

Giving back to the community

Despite his meteoric rise, Patoranking never lost sight of his roots. In 2018, he launched the Patoranking Foundation, which aims to help one million youth with initiatives focused on education, sports and community development. “One of the dreams I had growing up was to be a footballer,” he said. “Since I couldn’t achieve that, I want to create opportunities for others.”

As part of this vision, Patoranking is building sports facilities in underserved communities, providing safe spaces for young people to play, learn and connect. The first was in his hometown, Ebute Metta, an area historically plagued by gang clashes.

“This is a genuine sports center, and by the grace of God, we’ve been able to build something that unifies our people,” he said.

A vision for Africa’s future

Over the next five years, Patoranking plans to build 100 such facilities across Africa, creating safe havens for young people in slums and marginalized communities. His foundation also supports education and vocational training.

“For me, philanthropy is personal. Before I became Patoranking, I prayed to God, saying, ‘If you put me in a position to make money, I want to touch lives,’” he said.

While the singer’s initial aspirations to become a professional footballer led him to build community soccer fields, it was his passion for technology and the financial barriers he faced in pursuing an education that drove him to make his biggest philanthropic investment.

“I’ve always wanted to become an information technologist, but my parents were not financially able to send me to university,” he said.

He launched the Sky Level Initiative to provide access to advanced technology training and education for 170 children in Ebonyi State in southeastern Nigeria. In partnership with the African Leadership University (ALU), one of the continent’s leading tech and skills training institutions, in 2020 Patoranking launched a scholarship to help young people further their careers in tech and entrepreneurship.

Fred Swaniker, founder of the ALU, said the scholarship “Creates tremendous opportunities, because young people tend to be more creative, more entrepreneurial, hungry, and passionate. I believe that many of the world’s problems will be solved by harnessing the power of African youth.”

Last year, Patoranking was appointed UN Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador for Africa, tasked with championing youth innovation and enterprise development. As he continues to break boundaries in the music industry and beyond, he remains optimistic about the future of the next generation.

“Anything they want to achieve is achievable,” he said.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has announced a “strategic alliance” to fight organized crime with Erik Prince, the founder of the controversial private defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

Noboa, who launched a divisive military operation against criminal groups last year, posted a photo on X and Instagram showing him chatting with Prince at an office with an Ecuadorian flag in the background.

“We have established a strategic alliance to strengthen our capabilities in the fight against narcoterrorism and the protection of our waters from illegal fishing,” Noboa wrote on Tuesday. “There is no truce. There is no retreat. We are moving forward,” he added.

The president did not provide details on the partnership.

Noboa’s announcement has raised eyebrows in Ecuador. Former Army commander Luis Altamirano criticized the partnership, calling it “deplorable” that “they seek to hire the services of a mercenary army.”

“It’s truly deplorable that, under the guise of ‘international cooperation,’ they seek to hire the services of a mercenary army. In the end, the announced ‘special forces’ were a dubious private company. Is this announcement just another smokescreen?” the retired general said on X.

Prince, who is the brother of US President Donald Trump’s former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, founded Blackwater, which gained notoriety in 2007 during the Iraq War, when its private contractors opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians.

Four contractors were convicted and later pardoned by Trump.

Following the massacre, the company changed its name and Prince sold the firm in 2010. He currently identifies himself on his website as an investor, entrepreneur and leader in military affair reforms.

Prince was a prominent Trump supporter during the 2016 campaign. He spent time around senior transition officials and informally advised the Trump White House on some major foreign policy decisions early in Trump’s first term.

Ecuador’s crime crackdown

In his post announcing the partnership with Prince, Ecuador’s president wrote: “Organized crime has sown fear and believed it can operate with impunity. Their time is up. International aid begins in Ecuador.”

In early 2024, Noboa launched a nationwide crackdown to stop an outburst of gang violence. But the president, who is seeking reelection this year, has insisted that his country needs foreign support to solve the security crisis driven by local criminal groups linked to international drug cartels.

Ecuador has the highest homicide rate in Latin America, with 38.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the most recent report from the organized crime research and analysis center InSight Crime. It is followed by Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, and Brazil.

The Ecuadorian Ministry of the Interior says the start to the year has been the most violent in the country’s history, with more than 1,000 homicides.

The president said in a radio interview on Monday that Ecuador would receive international assistance and support in the coming days through “special forces abroad” that would arrive in the country to join the fight against organized crime.

Noboa did not specify where this new international support would come from, nor under what mechanisms foreign forces would operate in the country.

This is the first time the military has acknowledged that there is “reasonable suspicion” to believe soldiers forced civilians to take part in military operations.

“In several cases, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened investigations after reasonable suspicion arose regarding the use of Palestinians for military missions during the operations,” the IDF said.

The military would not confirm how many investigations had been opened, nor who was being investigated.

“Those investigations are still ongoing, and accordingly, other details cannot be provided at this time,” the IDF said.

The practice was reportedly so common in the Israeli military that it had a name: “mosquito protocol.”

The exact scale and scope of the practice by the Israeli military is not known. But the testimony of both the soldier and five civilians last year indicated that it was widespread across the territory: in northern Gaza, Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah.

“They would ask us to do things like, ‘move this carpet,’ saying they were looking for tunnels,” he said. “‘Film under the stairs,’ they would say. If they found something, they would tell us to bring it outside. For example, they would ask us to remove belongings from the house, clean here, move the sofa, open the fridge, and open the cupboard.”

With his hands and feet handcuffed, tied leg to leg with other detainees, José Daniel Simancas Rodríguez was put on a plane. He says he was told he would go to Miami.

Hours later, when they landed, Simancas and his fellow passengers were transferred to a bus with the windows covered by bags. By then he already suspected where he had arrived: Guantanamo. What he did not imagine was that this was just the beginning of a nightmare that would last 15 days.

Simancas was one of 177 Venezuelans deported by the United States who had been transferred to the US naval base in Cuba, a measure criticized by human rights organizations who say the base is not appropriate for housing migrants.

Although at some point he had been told that he would be deported, the 30-year-old Venezuelan feared that he would never see his five children again. “I had already completely given up,” he recalls.

“That’s what torture is, confinement. You are not alive. You are there and you are not alive, where you don’t know if it is day or night, you don’t really know the time, you are eating poorly, every day that you are there you are dying little by little. I cried every day during those 15 days.”

He says that in 15 days, he was allowed to shower only twice and that to do so they took him to the bathroom with handcuffs, carried out thorough security checks on him and kept him under constant surveillance. He felt that he was being treated like a terrorist, he says.

The hunger he suffered during his stay in Guantanamo is what he remembers most, he says. Three plates a day of food that he does not remember fondly and in portions that he believes were very small. “He licked the plate” as if the food was very tasty, but in reality he did it because he was so hungry.

A long road to ‘hell’

Like many immigrants, Simancas says he arrived illegally in the United States in May 2024 through the dangerous Darien jungle. He had previously lived in Ecuador, where he says he stayed until 2022. He then spent time in Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico while continuing his journey north. This entire journey was aimed at finding a better life, he says.

From a very young age, he says he has worked in construction, first as a laborer and then as a construction foreman in Venezuela, Ecuador and Costa Rica. His plan was to do the same on American soil.

However, when he arrived in the United States, he was detained and spent eight days in a federal prison and then in the US Immigration Service Detention Center located in El Paso, Texas, he says, where he remained for nine months awaiting deportation.

During his interview by immigration agents, he said he was born in Maracay, Aragua state – a detail that he believes may have raised alarm bells for US officials. Then they saw that he had tattoos, which he says he has had since he was 16. Officials began asking him questions to determine if he had any ties to the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua, considered a terrorist group by the United States.

US authorities have previously claimed that Venezuelan migrants sent to Guantanamo had ties to Tren de Aragua.

“I was the only one they set aside, just for saying I was from Maracay … for them, I was already part of the Tren de Aragua,” said Simancas, who added that they immediately accused him of being a criminal.

The Trump administration had announced that Guantanamo Bay was reserved for transferring “the worst of the worst,” although several court filings revealed that not all those sent there represent a “high threat.”

Simancas says that the group of 15 people with whom he was detained had been told that they would be transferred to Miami, but they ended up at the base in Cuba.

His stay in Guantanamo ended on February 20, when the Venezuelans held at the military base were taken to Honduras and then picked up there by a plane from Venezuela’s state airline Conviasa, sent by the Venezuelan government.

The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said at the time that it had requested the repatriation of the Venezuelans who were “unjustly” held in Guantanamo.

“They are not criminals, they are not bad people, they were people who emigrated as a consequence of the sanctions [of the United States] … in Venezuela, we welcome them as a productive force, with a hug of love,” said Maduro.

According to UNHCR, almost 8 million people have left Venezuela since 2014 as a result of the political, economic and social crisis in the South American nation.

Maduro said on Saturday that the decision of the United States to revoke the license for the American oil company Chevron to carry out some operations in the South American country “affected” the dialogue between both nations, as well as the flights to repatriate Venezuelan migrants.

He now says he wants to try to find opportunities doing what he says he has always done, working in construction and leaving behind his hopes of fulfilling the American dream that ended up full of memories he now prefers to forget.

“I have spoken with everyone and they tell me that they do not sleep. If they did all that to prevent one from returning to the country, they succeeded. They wanted to give us a trauma, they succeeded,” said Simancas about his return to Venezuela, adding that in Guantanamo, “you want to kill yourself every day.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health issues, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 in the US. Click here for help in Latin American countries and Spain. Learn more at cnne.com/ayuda.

Russian forces have recaptured Sudzha, the largest town that Ukraine once occupied in the Kursk region, according to Moscow, threatening Kyiv’s sole territorial bargaining chip amid pressure to negotiate an end to the war.

“In the course of the offensive operations, units of the North military group liberated the settlements of Melovoy, Podol and Sudzha,” the Russian defense ministry said Thursday.

Wearing military uniform in video broadcast by Russian state television, Putin told frontline troops that Moscow’s goal is to “completely liberate” Kursk as soon as possible, during his first trip to the western region since Ukraine’s unexpected incursion there last year.

Putin’s carefully choreographed visit appeared designed to boost morale as Russian forces advance on the final remnants of Ukraine’s holdouts inside Russia, a day after peace talks between US and Ukrainian officials resulted in Kyiv accepting a 30-day US-backed ceasefire covering the entire frontline.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the ball is now in Putin’s court as US representatives headed to Russia “right now as we speak,” to discuss the ceasefire proposal.

“We’re going to have to see. It’s up to Russia now,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, as he declined to comment on whether he has a meeting scheduled with the Russian leader.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that Putin was “carefully studying” the proposal, as Moscow waits to be briefed by US officials in the coming days.

This is a developing story and will be updated.