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.
FILE - Anya Taylor-Joy attends the closing ceremony of the Marrakech International Film Festival, in Morocco, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy, File)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Artemis II astronauts have captured our blue planet’s brilliant beauty as they zoom ever closer to the moon.
NASA released the crew’s first downlinked images Friday, 1 1/2 days into the first astronaut moonshot in more than half a century.
The first photo taken by commander Reid Wiseman shows a curved slice of Earth in one of the capsule’s windows. The second shows the entire globe with the oceans topped by swirling white tendrils of clouds. A green aurora even glows, according to NASA.
“It’s great to think that with the exception of our four friends, all of us are represented in this image," said NASA's Lakiesha Hawkins, an exploration systems leader. She added the mission was going well.
As of late Friday afternoon, Wiseman and his crew were more than 110,000 miles (180,000 kilometers) from Earth and were quickly gaining on the moon with another 150,000 miles (240,000 kilometers) to go. They should reach their destination on Monday.
The three Americans and one Canadian will swing around the moon in their Orion capsule, hang a U-turn and then head straight back home without stopping. They fired Orion's main engine Thursday night that set them on their course.
After Mission Control shifted the position of their capsule, the entire Earth complete with northern lights filled their windows.
“It was the most spectacular moment, and it paused all four of us in our tracks,” Wiseman said in a TV interview.
They're the first lunar travelers since Apollo 17 in 1972.
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NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the Artemis II crew, from left, Canadien astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and pilot Victor Glover as they appear on a video conference from the moon's orbit Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This image provided by NASA shows a downlink image of Earth taken by NASA’s Artemis II astronaut commander Reid Wiseman inside the Orion capsule on Friday, April 3, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This image provided by NASA shows a view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman from of the Orion spacecraft's window after completing the translunar injection burn on April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)
