Police in Middlebury, Vermont, released this photo of Lia Smith. Middlebury Police Department
(MIDDLEBURY, Vt.) — Police in Vermont said they are searching for a missing college student who hasn’t been seen for nearly a week.
Lia Smith, 21, a senior at Middlebury College, was reported missing on Sunday, according to police.
The California native was last seen in a building on campus on Friday at approximately 9 p.m., according to the Middlebury Police Department.
The search has involved the use of a drone, with investigators “working to identify additional potential search areas,” the police department said on Monday.
Middlebury College said its Department of Public Safety is also assisting the Middlebury Police Department in the search.
“We will do everything we can to find Lia,” Middlebury officials said in a statement to the school community on Monday. “She is a beloved member of our Middlebury family and there is nothing more important than the health, safety, and wellbeing of our students and of our entire community.”
The school said it has been in touch with the student’s family and friends “to offer support and learn all we can about the student’s recent activities and whereabouts.” Counseling services are also being offered, it said.
When contacted on Wednesday for the latest on the missing student, a school spokesperson referred ABC News to its Monday update.
ABC News reached out to the Middlebury Police Department on Wednesday for updates on the search but has not yet received a response.
Smith is described by police as being 5 feet, 11 inches tall and approximately 160 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information on her or her whereabouts is asked to contact the Middlebury Police Department at 802-388-3191.
Sean Grayson fatally shot Sonya Massey while responding to her 911 call for help. (Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office)
(PEORIA, Ill.) — The trial began on Wednesday of Sean Grayson, the former sheriff’s deputy, who was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the July 2024 fatal shooting of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 to report a possible intruder at her home in Springfield, Illinois.
The Sangamon County deputy was charged with a total of three counts in connection with Massey’s death — first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.
Grayson’s attorney, Daniel Fultz, declined to provide comment to ABC News ahead of the trial, but confirmed on Friday that his client has “pleaded not guilty to all charges.”
Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser, who delivered opening arguments on Wednesday for the prosecution, walked the jury through key moments during the night that Massey died.
“Make no mistake, we are here in this courthouse today because of the actions of Sean Grayson,” Milhiser said. “On July 6, 2024, in her kitchen, without lawful justification, he shot and killed [Sonya Massey]. That’s why we are here.”
“You will see captured on video what happens when the defendant gets mad at a woman who is standing in her own kitchen calling for help,” he added.
Milhiser said that prosecutors will show the jury the body camera footage, which shows the incident from the point of view of Grayson’s partner, who also responded to the scene. The footage released by Illinois State Police shows the incident from the partner’s point of view because Grayson did not turn on his own body camera until after the shooting, according to court documents reviewed by ABC News.
“The defendant does not turn on his bodycam — Which is a pattern you’ll see throughout this trial,” Milhiser said.
Meanwhile, Grayson’s attorney Daniel Fultz, who delivered opening arguments for the defense on Wednesday, urged jurors not to make up their minds early about this case.
“Making your mind up early closes the possibility you will miss facts that will affect your decision,” Fultz said, arguing that Grayson “believed that he would suffer great bodily harm or death” during his encounter with Massey.
“Ms. Massey made the decision to lift the pot of boiling water above her head to attempt to throw that at Dept. Grayson. It was at that moment and only at that moment that Dept. Grayson discharged his weapon,” Fultz said.
“What happened [to] Ms. Massey was a tragedy. But it was not a crime,” he added.
Witness testimony also began on Wednesday in the trial, which is being held in Peoria, Illinois.
The trial began with jury selection on Monday, where a panel of 12 jurors was seated, according to ABC News’ affiliate in Springfield, WICS. The process took more than five hours and ended with a jury made up of nine white women, one Black man and two white men, as well as two white men and one white woman selected as alternate jurors.
The trial was moved from Sangamon County to Peoria County due to extensive media publicity.
What the video shows
Body camera footage of the incident released by Illinois State Police on July 22, 2024 shows Massey telling the two responding deputies, “Please, don’t hurt me,” once she answered their knocks on her door.
“I don’t want to hurt you; you called us,” Grayson responded.
Later in the video, while inside Massey’s home as she searches for her ID, Grayson points out a pot of boiling water on her stove and says, “We don’t need a fire while we’re in here.”
Massey then appears to pour some of the water into the sink and tells the deputy, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” video shows.
Grayson threatens to shoot her, the video shows, and Massey apologizes and ducks down behind a counter, covering her face with what appears to be a red oven mitt. She briefly rises, and Grayson shoots her three times, the footage shows.
Massey died from a gunshot wound to her head, according to an autopsy report released in July 2024, Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon confirmed to ABC News.
Prosecutors alleged that Grayson discouraged his partner from retrieving the medical kit to render aid to Massey after the shooting because he allegedly thought the injuries were too severe to revive her.
“No, headshot, dude. She’s done. You can go get it, but that’s a headshot,” Grayson tells his partner after he says he is going to retrieve the medical kit, body camera video shows. “What else do we do? I’m not taking pot boiling water to the [expletive] face and it already reached us,” Grayson adds.
The judge in the case ruled during a pre-trial hearing last month against the defense’s request to exclude body camera footage that shows what happened after Massey was shot, according to WICS.
Grayson said he feared for his life during his encounter with Massey, according to documents released by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in August 2024.
“While on scene, I was in fear Dep. (redacted) and I were going to receive great bodily harm or death. Due to being in fear of our safety and life, I fired my duty weapon,” Grayson wrote in his field case report.
Attorney Ben Crump, who represents Massey’s family, said during a statement at the time that the autopsy confirmed that this was an “unnecessary, excessive use of force, completely unnecessary, certainly not justified.”
Crump said that Massey struggled with her mental health and body camera footage released in Sept. 2024 shows her interacting with officers on July 5 — 16 hours before she was fatally shot — after her mother called 911 to report that her daughter was having a mental health episode.
A review of the case by the Illinois State Police found Grayson was not justified in his use of deadly force. Garyson was fired in July 2024 by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office after he was indicted in this case.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger looks on as Rep. Destin Hall speaks during a press conference at the North Carolina Republican Party headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (Ethan Hyman/The News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — The North Carolina House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to pass a new congressional map into law, two days after the state Senate approved it, giving the Republican Party the chance to net a new seat in the 2026 midterms.
Republican legislators said they want to adopt the new map to bolster President Donald Trump and the effort comes as the White House continues encouraging Republicans to redraw their state maps ahead of the midterm elections in order to help Republicans flip more seats.
In a striking moment just ahead of a committee vote on Tuesday, protesters in the hearing room chanted “Berger’s maps are racist maps!” — referring to state Sen. Phil Berger, who introduced the redistricting proposal, and “Fascists!” as they were led out by law enforcement.
Democrats argue the new map could impact Black voters and could cause U.S. Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat and one of three Black members of the state’s congressional delegation, to lose his seat in the midterms.
At a rally outside the Capitol ahead of Tuesday’s vote, U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, another member of the state’s Democratic delegation, said, “We know they’re lying when they say, ‘Well, it’s not racial.’ It is racial. They’re going to take out, trying to take out, the only Black male that we have.”
Republicans argue the map was not drawn with racial considerations and is meant to combat Democratic-aligned congressional map-drawing in other states, such as California.
Berger, who announced the mid-decade redistricting push last week, wrote on X on Tuesday morning ahead of the vote, “Across the country, Democrat-run states have spent decades ensuring that Republicans would be drawn out of Congress. North Carolina Republicans will not sit quietly and watch Democrats continue to ignore the will of the people in an attempt to force their liberal agenda on our citizens.”
North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Josh Stein, has slammed the redistricting effort but has no power to veto any district maps, according to an analysis of state law by the Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics
Currently, North Carolina’s congressional delegation is made up of 10 Republicans and four Democrats.
Trump himself has been openly supportive of the effort. In a post on his social media platform on Friday, he called on legislators to adopt the map: “this new Map would give the fantastic people of North Carolina the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections, which would be A HUGE VICTORY for our America First Agenda, not just in North Carolina, but across our Nation.”
Davis, the Democratic member whose seat is put at risk by the new map, told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday that he has never heard any requests from constituents for a new map.
“In the 2024 election with record voter turnout, NC’s First Congressional District elected both President Trump and me,” Davis wrote. “Since the start of this new term, my office has received 46,616 messages from constituents of different political parties, including those unaffiliated, expressing a range of opinions, views, and requests.
“Not a single one of them included a request for a new congressional map redrawing eastern North Carolina. Clearly, this new congressional map is beyond the pale.”
One of the speakers who joined a rally with North Carolina Democrats on Tuesday, Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier, has her own experience with fighting mid-decade redistricting — as one of the Texas House Democrats who left the state to deny a quorum when Republican legislators tried to push through a new congressional map. Collier also was temporarily confined to the Texas House after she refused a law enforcement escort for having previously broken quorum.
She told ABC station WTVD’s Michael Perchick that she has been telling legislators to continue to fight, and to “Never quit. Keep fighting. That means take it to the streets and into the courts. We’ve got to fight this in the court system.”
ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump talks during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Oct. 9, 2025, joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. military has carried out another airstrike on an alleged drug cartel vessel on Tuesday night, according to two U.S. officials, this time in the Pacific Ocean.
It is the eighth known U.S. strike against an alleged drug boat since early September.
There were no survivors of Tuesday night’s strike and it is believed that two to three people aboard were killed, according to the officials.
Tuesday night’s strike occurred in the waters west of Central America, according to one of the officials. The other seven airstrikes targeted alleged drug cartel vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
It is now believed that at least 34 individuals have been killed in these strikes carried out by the U.S. military.
CBS News was first to report this latest airstrike.
The use of lethal military force is unprecedented and has raised legal questions. Past administrations relied on law enforcement to interdict drug shipments. The Trump administration’s defended the strikes as part of what they said is a “war” against cartels.
“They have faster boats. Some of these boats are seriously — I mean, they’re world-class speedboats — but they’re not faster than missiles,” Trump said last week.
Two people survived a U.S. strike earlier this month on a semi-submersible vessel in the Caribbean. Trump said that the survivors were being sent back to their home countries.
President Donald Trump talks during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Oct. 9, 2025, joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. military has carried out another airstrike on an alleged drug cartel vessel on Tuesday night, according to two U.S. officials, this time in the Pacific Ocean.
It is the eighth known U.S. strike against an alleged drug boat since early September.
There were no survivors of Tuesday night’s strike and it is believed that two to three people aboard were killed, according to the officials.
Tuesday night’s strike occurred in the waters west of Central America, according to one of the officials. The other seven airstrikes targeted alleged drug cartel vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
It is now believed that at least 34 individuals have been killed in these strikes carried out by the U.S. military.
CBS News was first to report this latest airstrike.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released video of strike on social media on Wednesday. Hegseth confirmed the strike killed two people and took place in the Eastern Pacific. He wrote that no U.S. forces were harmed in the strike.
“Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores, will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere. Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people. There will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice,” Hegseth posted on X.
The use of lethal military force is unprecedented and has raised legal questions. Past administrations relied on law enforcement to interdict drug shipments.The Trump administration’s defended the strikes as part of what they said is a “war” against cartels.
“They have faster boats. Some of these boats are seriously — I mean, they’re world-class speedboats — but they’re not faster than missiles,” Trump said last week.
Two people survived a U.S. strike earlier this month on a semi-submersible vessel in the Caribbean. Trump said that the survivors were being sent back to their home countries.
The Louvre looks empty during a normally busy Sunday on October 19, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by Remon Haazen/Getty Images)
(PARIS) — The director of the Louvre in Paris took the hot seat on Wednesday, telling lawmakers she submitted her resignation following Sunday’s brazen daylight heist of more than $100 million in jewels from the museum’s orate Apollo Gallery.
Appearing in front of France’s Senate Culture Committee for two hours, Laurence des Cars, the president and director of the Louvre, said her resignation was rejected.
“Last Sunday, after acknowledging … the consequences of the terrible attack we had just suffered, I submitted my resignation to the Minister of Culture. She refused it,” des Cars said.
Amid mounting criticism over the colossal lapse in security at one of the world’s most famous museums, des Cars conceded, “We have been defeated.”
“This tragedy deeply shocked museum staff, fellow citizens, and admirers of the Louvre around the world,” said des Cars, reading an opening statement. “This is an immense wound that has been inflicted on us.”
Des Cars added, “This theft hurts our institution.”
Des Cars said all of the museum’s alarms worked, as did its video cameras, but noted a “weakness” in security.
“The weakness of the Louvre is its perimeter security, which has been a problem for a long time … certainly due to underinvestment,” des Cars told the lawmakers.
She said a “Grand Louvre renovation project” began 40 years ago “and has only affected half of the museum.”
“We did not spot the criminals arriving from outside early enough,” des Cars said.
She said the only camera installed outside the Apollo Gallery was facing west and did not cover the window where the thieves used power tools to break in.
“The security system, as installed in the Apollo Gallery, worked perfectly,” des Cars said. “The question that arises is how to adapt this system to a new type of attack and modus operandi that we could not have foreseen.”
Des Cars also said the fortified glass cases that held the stolen jewels from the collection of Emperor Napoleon and his wives were not broken but were cracked.
“The thieves tried to sneak their hands in, but the glass actually held,” des Cars said. “The high-quality display cases were designed to withstand attacks with weapons and to withstand the heavy materials used during last Sunday’s incident.”
Having said that, des Cars added, “Today we are witnessing a terrible failure at the Louvre. The security of the Louvre is one of my top priorities during my term of office, and I repeat that I was appalled by the museum’s security situation when I arrived in 2021.”
Des Cars said the 232-year-old museum’s “aging infrastructure” has hindered “the instalation of modern equipment.”
She said one way to improve security would be to place a police station within the museum.
“I would like to ask the Department of the Interior to look into whether it would be feasible to set up a police station within the museum,” des Cars said.
Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced on Tuesday that those gems are estimated to be worth $102 million.
Des Cars testimony came as the Louvre reopened for the first time since Sunday’s robbery.
A large crowd of visitors was lined up when most of the Louvre reopened at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The Apollo Galley, still considered a crime scene, remained temporarily closed, according to the Louvre’s website.
In an interview with the French radio network RTL, Beccuau called the figure “spectacular,” but said it was nothing compared to the “historical loss caused by the theft.”
“We can maybe hope that [the perpetrators] think about it and won’t destroy these jewels for no reason,” Beccuau said.
Hundreds of police officers are a part of the ongoing investigation in the Louvre heist. There are four main suspects in the ongoing investigation, but it’s possible there were other accomplices, Beccuau said.
A nationwide manhunt for the Louvre thieves has been in high gear since the theft on Sunday. French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that authorities would catch those responsible for the “attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history.”
The thieves went directly to two displays, breaking them and taking a “significant amount of loot,” French Culture Minister Rachida Dati told ABC News.
“They knew exactly where they were going,” Dati said. “It looks like something very organized and very professional.”
Dati said the evidence collected so far points to “organized crime,” but added that investigators have not ruled out that the heist could have been an inside job.
ABC News’ Aicha El Hammar Castano and Hugo Leenhardt contributed to this report.
People inspect the area among the rubbles of burnt houses during Eaton wildfire in Altadena of Los Angeles County, California, United States, January 9, 2025. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — For decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s billion-dollar disaster dataset put a dollar figure on the cost of climate change and severe weather events. Understanding the scope and frequency of weather-related damage helped first responders, the insurance industry, and researchers with their planning, recovery operations, and assessments.
But in May, the Trump administration announced it was shutting down the website that hosted the dataset. That made it difficult for the public and experts to track the impact of major disasters, as the program used a combination of private and public data, some of which was not available to organizations outside the government.
However, Climate Central, a nonprofit research organization comprised of scientists and communicators, announced on Monday it brought the billion-dollar disaster dataset back to life. And, it’s being run by the very scientist, Adam Smith, who once managed it at NOAA and who is now Climate Central’s Senior Climate Impacts Scientist.
“The billion-dollar disaster analysis is vital in demonstrating the economic impact of extreme weather and climate events, which helps communities understand the real-world consequences of climate change and the increasing impact of these different events,” said Smith
“I would also say this dataset was simply too important to stop being updated,” Smith added. “We’ve seen a widespread demand for its revival from many aspects of society and industry, including the private sector, academia, local community decision makers, even Congress.”
Smith said Climate Central was able to replicate all the data sources and partnerships that supplied the original NOAA dataset.
In the months since the website was taken offline, Climate Central has recorded 14 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the United States. It estimates the total damage exceeds $101 billion.
Among those events, the Los Angeles wildfires in January were the costliest disaster of 2025 and the costliest wildfire on record, with more than $60 billion in damage, nearly double the previous record, according to Climate Central.
“This kind of helps deliver the fact that climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of some types of extreme events leading to more damages,” Smith said.
The Climate Central announcement comes after the former team responsible for climate.gov, a popular climate information website that stopped publishing new content in July after the Trump administration fired its staff, relaunched the site as climate.us with the help of several nonprofits.
Among the content, climate.us is now hosting the Fifth National Climate Assessment, one of the most comprehensive reports on the impacts of climate change in the U.S. The Trump administration took down that report and its accompanying website in June.
Climate Central said its disaster dataset uses the same peer-reviewed methodologies as the NOAA version and that it intends to regularly update the information, even expanding upon what’s available in the future. And if previous years are any indication, the cost of climate change will keep growing.
“Over the last 10 years, a conservative view of this analysis, these billion-dollar disasters alone have contributed more than $1.5 trillion in total direct losses. And I’d say that’s even a conservative investment because we’re not able to quantify things like environmental degradation, mental and physical healthcare-related calls after a disaster, or the supply chain ripple effects after a disaster,” Smith said.
Workers demolish the facade of the East Wing of the White House on October 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Demolition continued Wednesday at the White House to make way for President Donald Trump’s $250 million ballroom, but the renovation is far more extensive than he has let on.
While Trump had said back in July that the ballroom would not “interfere” with the existing building — would be “near it but not touching it” — a White House official confirmed to ABC News that the “entirety of the East Wing will be modernized.”
The extent of the demolition was first reported by The Washington Post, which published new photographs on Tuesday showing bulldozers razing most of the East Wing — what had been home to the first lady’s office, the White House military office and more.
A higher, seven-foot fence was visible Wednesday around the East Wing site, helping to block the demolition from public view.
A White House official said the East Wing was being “modernized” from its 1902 and 1942 constructions to support the ballroom project and the future home of the East Wing. The scope and size of the project, the official said, has always been subject to change as the process developed.
The Office of the First Lady and other East Wing components have been relocated on the White House complex within the White House and Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to a White House official.
Trump has long wanted to build a ballroom at the White House akin to that at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Mock-ups for the 90,000-square foot ballroom were unveiled this summer, and Trump said the build would be paid for by him and unidentified donors. The administration has said little since about who exactly is funding the project, sparking ethical and legal questions.
Trump indicated earlier this week that once the project is done, people would be able to walk directly from the White House East Room into the ballroom, suggesting the construction will touch the actual White House — something Trump himself had previously said would not happen.
The construction this week kicked off a torrent of criticism.
Former first lady Hillary Clinton weighed in on Tuesday, writing on X that Trump is “destroying” the White House.
“It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” Clinton wrote.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sent a letter to White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf, whom Trump also appointed to head the National Capital Planning Commission, an executive branch agency that provides planning guidance and reviews development proposals, voicing concerns about the demolition and ballroom plan, calling for a pause.
“While the National Trust acknowledges the utility of a larger meeting space at the White House, we are deeply concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself — it is 55,000 square feet — and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings,” wrote Dr. Carol Quillen, the trust’s president.
The nonprofit organization urged the administration “to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes, including consultation and review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, and to invite comment from the public.”
Plans for the ballroom have not yet been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, despite demolition being already underway. White House official confirmed to ABC News that the White House still intends to submit plans for the build to the commission.
The White House on Tuesday defended the renovations and the construction of the new ballroom in a lengthy press release stating the project is “a bold, necessary addition that echoes the storied history of improvements and additions from commanders-in-chief to keep the executive residence as a beacon of American excellence.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, appearing on Fox News “Jesse Watters Primetime” on Tuesday, called the backlash “fake outrage” and said presidents past have also made changes to the White House.
“He is the builder-in-chief, in large part he was elected back to this People’s House because he is good at building things. He has done it his entire life, his entire career,” Leavitt said. “And construction is a process. At the end, the East Wing which is an entirely separate structure from the Executive Mansion you see behind me, will be more modern and beautiful than ever. And then on top of that, the White House is going to have a big, beautiful ballroom for generations of Americans to come.”
But according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department (located next to the renovation site) has instructed employees not to share photos of the demolition.
Trump, hosting Senate Republicans for lunch on Tuesday at his newly-renovated Rose Garden Club, celebrated the ballroom build.
“You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction in the back. You hear that? Oh, that’s music to my ears,” Trump said. “I love that sound. Other people don’t like it, I love it.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
In this photo illustration, Mega Millions lottery tickets are displayed on August 01, 2023 in San Anselmo, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The Mega Million jackpot is now up to $680 million after no winners were selected in Tuesday night’s drawing.
The next drawing is Friday night at 11 p.m.
While no one won the big prize, one person in Illinois did win $3 million for matching all of the white balls. The numbers drawn Saturday night were: 2, 18, 27, 34 and 59, plus the gold Mega Ball 18.
There have been 33 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. The last jackpot of $348 million was last won on June 27 in Virginia.
The current jackpot prize has a cash value of $318.2 million, which can be offered as a one-time lump sum payment or an immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336, according to Mega Millions.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $5 for one play.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot prize ever won was a $1.6 billion prize won on Aug. 8, 2023. The $680 million jackpot would the ninth-largest in Mega Millions history.
The Louvre looks empty during a normally busy Sunday on October 19, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by Remon Haazen/Getty Images)
(PARIS) — The director of the Louvre in Paris took the hot seat on Wednesday, answering questions from lawmakers amid mounting criticism over apparent security lapses that enabled thieves to pull off Sunday’s brazen daylight heist of more than $100 million in jewels from the museum’s ornate Apollo Gallery.
Laurence des Cars, the president and director of the Louvre, testified in front of France’s Senate Culture Committee, saying, “We have been defeated.”
“This tragedy deeply shocked museum staff, fellow citizens, and admirers of the Louvre around the world,” said des Cars, reading an opening statement. “This is an immense wound that has been inflicted on us.”
Des Cars added, “This theft hurts our institution.”
Des Cars said all of the museum’s alarms worked, as did its video cameras, but noted a “weakness” in security.
“The weakness of the Louvre is its perimeter security, which has been a problem for a long time … certainly due to underinvestment,” des Cars told the lawmakers.
She said a “Grand Louvre renovation project” began 40 years ago “and has only affected half of the museum.”
“We did not spot the criminals arriving from outside early enough,” des Cars said.
She said the only camera installed outside the Apollo Gallery was facing west and did not cover the window where the thieves used power tools to break in.
Des Cars said the 232-year-old museum’s “aging infrastructure” has hindered “the instalation of modern equipment.”
She said one way to improve security would be to place a police station within the museum.
“I would like to ask the Department of the Interior to look into whether it would be feasible to set up a police station within the museum,” des Cars said.
Some lawmakers have called for des Cars resignation in the wake of the robbery.
During her testimony on Wednesday, des Cars said she submitted her resignation and it was refused.
“Last Sunday, after acknowledging … the consequences of the terrible attack we had just suffered, I submitted my resignation to the Minister of Culture. She refused it,” des Cars said.
Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced on Tuesday that those gems are estimated to be worth $102 million.
Des Cars testimony came as the Louvre reopened for the first time since Sunday’s robbery.
A large crowd of visitors was lined up when most of the Louvre reopened at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The Apollo Galley, still considered a crime scene, remained temporarily closed, according to the Louvre’s website.
In an interview with the French radio network RTL, Beccuau called the figure “spectacular,” but said it was nothing compared to the “historical loss caused by the theft.”
“We can maybe hope that [the perpetrators] think about it and won’t destroy these jewels for no reason,” Beccuau said.
Hundreds of police officers are a part of the ongoing investigation in the Louvre heist. There are four main suspects in the ongoing investigation, but it’s possible there were other accomplices, Beccuau said.
A nationwide manhunt for the Louvre thieves has been in high gear since the theft on Sunday. French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that authorities would catch those responsible for the “attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history.”
The thieves went directly to two displays, breaking them and taking a “significant amount of loot,” French Culture Minister Rachida Dati told ABC News.
“They knew exactly where they were going,” Dati said. “It looks like something very organized and very professional.”
Dati said the evidence collected so far points to “organized crime,” but added that investigators have not ruled out that the heist could have been an inside job.
ABC News’ Léontine Gallois contributed to this report.
