Category: Sport

A skeleton which could belong to d’Artagnan, the French soldier who inspired the novel “The Three Musketeers,” has been discovered in a church in the Dutch city where he died centuries ago, local media reported Wednesday.

The skeleton was found in Maastricht, in the nave of a modern church whose origins date back to at least the 13th century, during repairs related to a partial floor collapse in February, reported L1 Nieuws, a media outlet in the province of Limburg.

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d’Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.

The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas’s hero in “The Three Musketeers” in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.

D’Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A French coin was found near the skeleton in Maastricht, according to Deacon Jos Valke, who was present during the initial excavation.

“Furthermore, the location of the grave indicates that this was an important person: the skeleton was found where the altar used to be, and only royalty or other important figures were buried under an altar at that time,” he told L1 Nieuws.

Valke told the outlet that there are other clues that suggest the skeleton belongs to the famous French musketeer.

Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women’s events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with President Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,” the International Olympic Committee said, to be determined by a mandatory gene test once in an athlete’s career.

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level. No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, though weightlifter Laurel Hubbard did at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal.

The eligibility policy that will apply from the LA Olympics in July 2028 “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category,” the IOC said.

“It is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” said the IOC, whose Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right.

After an executive board meeting, the International Olympic Committee published a 10-page policy document which also restricts female athletes such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSD.

The IOC and its president, Kirsty Coventry, have wanted a clear policy instead of continuing to advise sports’ governing bodies who previously have drafted their own rules.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, said in a statement. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

The Iranian response to the U.S.’ 15-point framework for a peace deal is expected on Friday, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

President Trump and top White House officials have been told that Iran’s counter-proposal would likely arrive Friday via interlocutors, two of the sources said. At the time of publication the response had not yet been received by intermediaries.

White House officials are cautiously hopeful that the latest negotiations are making progress, two of the sources said.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said Thursday that the administration had presented Iran, through Pakistan as an intermediary, a 15-point plan for a potential peace deal. A regional source told CBS News that Pakistan had direct contact with Iran’s security establishment that controls the country, not just the foreign ministry.

Mr. Trump said Thursday that a number of his top advisers are working on negotiations with Iran, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance in addition to Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Rubio said Thursday that “intermediary countries” are passing messages and claimed that “some concrete progress has been made.” He pointed to a “growing amount of energy” flowing through the Strait of Hormuz as evidence of progress.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Friday: “These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the United States will not negotiate through the news media. As President Trump and his negotiators explore this newfound possibility of diplomacy, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated to achieve the military objectives laid out by the Commander in Chief and the Pentagon.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a representative in the U.S. based at the United Nations in New York. Their mission declined to comment on active diplomacy.

Mr. Trump also claimed that Iran had already “agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon.” The Islamic Republic of Iran has long maintained that it was never pursuing a nuclear weapon, and it had agreed both as part of an international accord in 2015, and stated again publicly in 2026 that it did not seek one.

Multiple countries in the region, including Turkey, have been speaking to Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Aragchi to initiate talks. The IAEA’s Director-General Rafael Grossi told CBS News last week that he was in contact with both the White House and Iran’s Aragchi.

During the past two failed rounds of diplomacy, Aragchi and Witkoff have spoken by phone but the majority of the talks are handled via a third party. The U.S. and Iran do not officially have diplomatic relations.

A massive 12-ton shipment of Nestle’s crunch KitKat bars was stolen in a chocolaty heist that risks causing a shortage in stores right before Easter.

KitKat, owned by Swiss food giant Nestle, told AFP on Saturday that “a truck transporting 413,793 units of its new chocolate range has been stolen during transit in Europe.” The shipment disappeared last week while heading between production and distribution locations, the company said.

“We’ve always encouraged people to have a break with KitKat,” a spokesperson told AFP, referring to its famous catchphrase. “But it seems thieves have taken the message too literally and made a break with more than 12 tons of our chocolate.”

The company said the stolen truck had left a factory in central Italy and was making its way to Poland when it was stolen, adding that “the vehicle and its contents remain unaccounted for.”

“Investigations are ongoing in close collaboration with local authorities and supply chain partners,” Nestle said.

The chocolatier warned that the missing chocolate bars may lead to a shortage of KitKats appearing on shelves and buyers may struggle to find their favorite chocolates ahead of Easter.

It also said the missing chocolate bars “could enter unofficial sales channels across European markets.”

When 36-year-old Princeton University graduate student Elizabeth Tsurkov was kidnapped in Iraq, it set off a grueling 903-day fight her sister never expected.

“I honestly was so naive when she was kidnapped. I had no idea what it would take,” Elizabeth’s sister, Emma, told “CBS Sunday Morning.”

In March 2023, Elizabeth — an Israeli Russian dual citizen — was abducted off the street and held for ransom by members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, a terrorist organization based in Iraq and funded by Iran. She was conducting fieldwork for her PhD in political science at the time, something she had done safely many times before.

Emma, who earned her PhD at Stanford and is married to an American, said Elizabeth “doesn’t just sit in some ivy tower reading books about Iraq. She believes in going to talk to Iraqis.”

Fighting to rescue Elizabeth Tsurkov
When Emma learned her sister had been abducted, she first reached out to Russian authorities for help. But Emma said the Russian government showed little interest in rescuing her sister, pointing to Elizabeth’s public opinions online as a human rights activist.

Then the Israeli government stepped up to help, but the assistance stalled after the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack. Suddenly, nearly eight months after her sister’s capture, headlines were overtaken by news of the 250 hostages.

As Israel intensified its strikes on Gaza, Emma feared her sister’s captors might retaliate, putting her life at greater risk.

“I would go to sleep every night. I would — not sleep — I would attempt to sleep every night and just check my phone. Let there not be a picture of her dead body. Let there not be a video of a beheading,” Emma said.

Emma continued to ramp up her campaign to save her sister.

“I realized I have to be that responsible adult. There’s no one else. If I’m not willing to see her die in captivity, and I’m not, then I have no choice but to put my big girl pants on and just go into the world and fight for her,” she said.

Shortly after, a video released online showed Elizabeth was alive, though Emma says she appeared to be under duress and in pain. To Emma, it was clear her sister was being tortured.

“More importantly, she looked terrified. Terrified. I’ve never seen her so scared in my life,” Emma recalled.

“Don’t hope. Help.”
In late 2023 and into the following year, Emma continued to lobby State Department officials in the Biden administration, urging them to pressure the Iraqi government — heavily dependent on U.S. aid — to help locate Elizabeth and negotiate her release. But she says few in the State Department would meet with her or even take her calls.

“I would often hear, ‘Oh. We feel — we feel for you. This is terrible. We know your sister. She is so brilliant. We really hope that she comes out of captivity.’ But what do you mean we hope? Don’t hope. Help,” Emma said.

Fighting for her sister, Emma says, brought out a fearlessness she didn’t know she had.

In April 2024, when the Iraqi prime minister visited Washington, Emma was there too. This time, she said she decided it was “time for some guerilla tactics.”

Emma and others projected laser messages onto the Willard Hotel, where the Iraqi delegation was staying. At a later event, Emma stood in the back of the room and addressed the prime minister directly.

“My sister’s been held hostage for 13 months, and you don’t care. You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re not doing anything to help her. She’s innocent — and you know it,” she shouted. Yet, her sister remained in captivity.