As the 51st anniversary of the event looms, the Hoffa family makes a passionate plea to the FBI. They urge the agency to keep the missing person case open and demand transparency regarding any knowledge of the legendary union leader’s death.

James Hoffa, speaking to News Media, voiced a widespread sentiment: “We, and countless Americans, want resolution instead of resignation. This case deserves to be closed with answers, not by shelving it away.”

Expressing disbelief at the prospect of the case being closed, he remarked, “It’s astonishing that the government would consider shutting down such a pivotal investigation. As a matter of national importance, the FBI should dedicate all resources to uncovering the truth. Our family seeks closure, and solving this crime is essential for accountability and healing.”

In a letter obtained by News Media to FBI Director Kash Patel, James Hoffa writes that he and his sister, Barbara Crancer, would find closing the case “disturbing,” and urged Patel to let all the information the bureau has on his father’s disappearance be made public.

“It is important to us, and the country, that the truth about my father’s disappearance [be] told and those involved in his disappearance, even if they are deceased, be exposed,” he said. “My sister Barbara and I urge the FBI to keep the case open and active, and to continue the investigation.”

Jimmy Hoffa vanished July 30, 1975, on his way to what he thought was a meeting to help in his bid to regain the Teamsters union presidency.

He was last seen in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, at about 2:30 p.m. local time getting into a car that whisked him away.

Jimmy Hoffa’s remains have never been recovered and no one has been charged in connection to his disappearance.

In the documentary series, “Riddle, The Search for James R. Hoffa,” streaming on Fox Nation, one theory speculates Jimmy Hoffa was picked up at the restaurant by Detroit mob capo Vito “Billy Jack” Giaclone and mobster Anthony “Tony Pal” Palazzolo, and driven to a nearby home owned by mobster Carlo Licata, where he was killed.

The theory states his remains were then possibly disposed of in a mob-run sanitation facility in Hamtramck.

Jimmy Hoffa was allegedly told that he would be meeting with Giacalone’s brother, powerful Detroit mobster Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, and New Jersey Teamsters local president Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, a bitter union enemy who was also a capo in the New York City-based Genovese crime family.

He needed the support of Provenzano’s 10,000-member New Jersey local in his campaign for the union’s top job.

While there have long been conflicting theories about Jimmy Hoffa’s fate, Fox Nation reported that an informant told the FBI that he was present when Jimmy Hoffa died and said that Vito “Billy Jack” Giacalone was the person who killed him.

Such information would have been documented in FBI records, called 302s. But so far, the information has not been made public.

“We and likely many other Americans would rather have the case solved, not shelved. We seek closure, not millions of documents that continue the mystery,” Hoffa’s son wrote to Patel.

The status of the criminal case is unclear.

In a statement to News Media, the FBI said it is “dedicated to deliver[ing] transparency to the American public.”

“The release of these historic files on Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance is yet another step in that direction,” the FBI said.

The bureau previously released thousands of documents, but most are heavily redacted and hide potentially vital information.

James Hoffa suggested the unredacted files could be turned over to the National Archives, without the case being shut down.

“We want the case solved, we don’t want tons of redacted paper sent to us,” James Hoffa said.

The FBI’s Detroit field office has taken over the case, and the bureau has said it continues to take the investigation seriously.

“The FBI has worked for five decades to investigate every lead and process evidence related to this investigation,” a spokesperson told News Media. “FBI offices across the country have assisted over the years and we have received countless tips and information from the public, which has been of tremendous help to the FBI. We appreciate the public, and more importantly, the Hoffa family’s assistance and support over the years.”

James Hoffa said, “It is time for the FBI to solve the case and to hold people accountable and name names, even if they are deceased, to solve this national mystery.”

The eight-part series “Riddle, The Search for James R. Hoffa,” is streaming on Fox Nation.

In a move that underscores the influence of progressive politics over legal tradition in New York, Chief Judge Rowan Wilson has appointed actress Cynthia Nixon to play a crucial role in shaping the future of the state’s highest court.

Despite not holding any legal qualifications, Nixon’s television portrayal of a lawyer and her progressive credentials have secured her a spot on the Commission on Judicial Nomination. Here, she’ll be involved in recommending judges for the Court of Appeals.

This development signals a deepening of one-party control, further complicating governance in the state.

Wilson himself was appointed as the chief judge after lawmakers consistently pushed for a candidate who aligned with far-left ideals, rejecting others who didn’t meet this criterion.

The Senate notably dismissed Hector LaSalle, Governor Kathy Hochul’s nominee, who was highly qualified yet unwilling to promise to advance their legislative agenda without due process.

Yes, Wilson is a lawyer (unlike Nixon) and even served on the top court before becoming chief judge, but he has inappropriately campaigned for legislation (prompting an ethics complaint) and against long prison sentences.

And he’s even scolded judges for using harsh language against monstrous criminals, whose cause he’s championed.

That’s not the kind of neutrality expected of judges, let alone those on the state’s highest court.

But that it’s precisely such biases that made him so attractive to lefty lawmakers.

And now he’s tapped Nixon, who ran for gov on a far left platform in 2018, to help choose future judges on the top court.

She might not know the first thing about the state Constitution, the law in general or what makes a good jurist, but she’s earned solid cred on the far left — and that’s all that matters.

She now gets real power: Governors can only choose among the commission’s nominees in tapping new judges for the state’s top court.

The dirty games that installed Wilson as chief judge already flipped the high court into rubber-stamping gerrymandering of election districts, and now it’s likely to become even more contemptuous of the letter and even spirit of the law.

The hard left keeps making more progress in ensuring that no democratic vote can remove it from power: Pray for New York.

In a remarkable story bridging nearly two decades, Lionel Messi has reflected on a viral photograph capturing him bathing a young Lamine Yamal, calling it “crazy” as the two are poised to face off in the World Cup final.

Wednesday night’s triumph by Argentina over England sets the stage for a thrilling clash against Spain on Sunday. This highly anticipated match will see Messi, the world champion, compete against the 19-year-old prodigy Yamal, who is already being hailed as his potential successor.

As fans buzz with excitement ahead of this epic showdown, an extraordinary photo, first taken in 2007, has made the rounds again on social media, capturing a moment that seems too astonishing to be true.

The image portrays then-Barcelona superstar Messi during a photoshoot for the local newspaper Diario Sport and UNICEF. In a tender scene, Messi is seen helping to bathe a baby Yamal in a small blue plastic tub, later holding him snugly in a towel.

This heartwarming moment was shared on Instagram by Yamal’s father, Mounir Nasraoui, in 2024, accompanied by the prophetic words: “The beginning of two legends.”

Two days before they meet in the World Cup final, Messi was asked about the extraordinary images of him with a young Yamal after appearing at Fanatics Fest in New York City.

‘That picture, it was crazy. Him as a baby, and now we are facing each other… so once again what a crazy picture,’ the soccer legend said when asked by NFL icon Tom Brady about the photos.

‘I just wish him the best of luck, and he’s part of the Barcelona squad as well. We will try to give them [Spain] the best match possible, [but] Lamine is not the only great player that Spain has. So again we will give it our all.’

Before addressing the UNICEF photos, Messi described Yamal as ‘one of the best players in the world right now.’

‘He’s only 19 years old and he has all of his future ahead. He has the opportunity to make history, but we are also going to give it our best,’ he added.

Photographer Joan Monfort, who works as a freelance photojournalist for the AP, took the photos of Messi and Yamal in 2007 as part of a charity calendar produced by local newspaper Sport and UNICEF.

‘I have never been a believer or thought that anything was destined to occur, but I am beginning to have my doubts. This is beyond all reasonable explanations,’ Monfort said on Friday.

Luck dictated that Yamal’s mother, who appears in the calendar photo, won a raffle of families in the city of Mataro, near Barcelona, who wanted to participate. 

Soccer destiny then deemed that her baby boy, who would become a star for Barcelona some 15 years later, was paired up with the Argentine who would become one of the greatest of all time.

Messi was only 20 when he met a baby Yamal, just a couple of years before he emerged as the greatest player on the planet.

At the age of 39, and while no longer playing in one of Europe’s top five leagues, the Argentina captain is still proving to be the best in the world after inspiring his country to a second straight World Cup final.

Many believe Yamal will succeed him as soccer’s new GOAT, nevertheless, after already helping Spain become European champions and winning three Spanish titles with Barcelona before he turned 19.

In a race against time, rescue teams in Chongqing, a sprawling city in southwestern China, are scrambling to locate survivors following a catastrophic landslide. With at least eight confirmed dead and 34 others still unaccounted for, the urgency mounts.

The landslide struck on Friday morning in Pengshui County, a region on the periphery of Chongqing municipality. A deluge of rocks and soil cascaded down a slope, engulfing more than ten residential structures in its wake, as reported by state broadcaster CCTV.

Rescue operations have successfully extracted ten individuals, all of whom have been transported to local hospitals for medical attention. Additionally, over 1,100 residents have been evacuated to safer areas.

Dramatic images and videos from the Associated Press reveal the overwhelming extent of the disaster. One massive rock, appearing larger than a multistory building, lies amidst the destruction, with debris littered across the rugged landscape. In startling scenes, the roof of one building has collapsed while a vehicle is partially submerged near another.

Providing further insight into the magnitude of the landslide, Wang Chuanjun, head of Planning and Natural Resources in Pengshui County, disclosed that an estimated 18,000 cubic meters of rock and soil were displaced. The biggest boulder alone accounted for around 3,000 cubic meters, he revealed during a Friday press briefing.

CCTV said persistent rain hit Pengshui from Friday night to Saturday morning and nearly 8 inches of rainfall was recorded at a weather station.

The unstable weather made the rescue operation more challenging, it said.

As the rain eased slightly, rescue teams entered the site to conduct on-the-ground inspections of the collapsed buildings and riverbank areas.

While rescue operations are being carried out on one side of the massive rocks, teams will later need to look beneath them, where they may risk injury if the boulders become unstable and slide, CCTV reported.

Once the search of the surrounding areas is complete, officers will drill into the boulders and fill the holes with explosives to break them apart, it said.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission on Saturday allocated a relief fund of 30 million yuan ($4.4 million) to support the restoration of infrastructure and public service facilities following the disaster.

The rain-triggered landslide occurred near a stretch of the Wujiang River, which cuts through karst mountains peppered with small towns and terraces.

Pengshui County is located in the southeast part of Chongqing, bordering the provinces of Hubei and Guizhou.

The anticipation leading up to the so-called ‘low-key family meeting’ had the media buzzing with excitement.

However, the atmosphere shifted dramatically after Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and their kids, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, shared tea with the King and Queen at Highgrove last Friday. Since then, a shroud of silence has enveloped the occasion.

Weeks ago, I disclosed that this meeting’s terms demanded a complete media blackout—no cameras, no leaked discussions, and certainly no Instagram posts about even the most mundane details, such as jam.

Apparently, Harry accepted these conditions instantly and has kept his promise with unwavering integrity.

A close friend shared, ‘Harry was never going to disappoint the kids; they were so keen on making this trip.’

‘They FaceTime with Charles all the time, so they already have a relationship but they were so excited to finally come. It was their first proper chance to meet.’

Meghan, 44, had not visited the UK since the Queen’s funeral in September 2022. The children meanwhile had not been in the UK since the Platinum Jubilee in June that year.

Queen Camilla, described by Harry as ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’ who left ‘bodies in the street’ in a television interview to promote Spare just three years ago, sat out his previous (brief) meeting with the King in February 2024. This time, significantly, she was also there.

However, this week People magazine – long understood to be the unofficial Sussex mouthpiece – reported that there was actually ‘a lot of sadness’ over how the week unfolded.

Meghan was upset not to be able to be by her husband’s side in public and the fact that the chaos over their security arrangements was hashed out in public left her feeling ‘humiliated’.

But in the end the most important objective was achieved and those close to the Prince say that this significant step towards making peace with his father was actually all that mattered.

He was said to feel ‘buoyed’ and ‘energised’ after the meeting and certainly was in high spirits the following day fooling around with water bombs and goat yoga at Maxstoke Castle, Warwickshire, for the Scotty’s Little Soldiers charity, which supports bereaved military children.

But then I can reveal what was at stake was more than simply a grandfather, who has not been in the best of health, spending time with his grandchildren or even healing the wounds caused by Oprah, Spare, Harry & Meghan on Netflix, the court actions against the Home Office and all the rest of it – the Sussexes are seeking to reverse Megxit.

It seems that a return to the UK is being contemplated in some form and that the couple’s holiday home in Portugal will be used as a staging post back to Britain.

I’m told there are two key reasons for this.

A friend of Prince Harry says: ‘There is definitely a feeling in his camp that he has started to feel a bit unwelcome in America.

‘That has been an increasing and significant shift in sentiment, a feeling that the American dream might not be all that it was cracked up to be.

‘I am told that this is coming from Meghan as well as from him. I hear that Meghan is all for rekindling with and reconnecting with Harry’s English side. She is fully behind it.’

Their dwindling star power and the end of their deals with Spotify and Netflix must surely play a part, as must Meghan’s fading popularity among the supporters, like Ted Sarandos of Netflix, who had previously been her cheerleaders.

The source adds: ‘England is where Harry’s heart has always lain. It is no secret that they went to the States to try and seek their fortune, to try to capitalise on his fame and his royalty to some degree.

‘They have had successes. A $100million Netflix deal is not nothing.

‘But that American dream is cooling and she feels an outcast status as well.

‘She feels like she is trying to push fresh thoughts and projects but it is not easy. So maybe enough water has now passed under the bridge here for some form of a return.’

That’s not a permanent or imminent return, but to hear it being mooted still feels like a bombshell.

Another source, who is less sympathetic to the Sussexes, says they suspect a different kind of cooling may lie behind the manoeuvres.

The source said: ‘I don’t think he’s ever wanted to be estranged from his family. I think when he was madly in love with Meghan he could be blind enough to choose her. Now things are different, and the veil is lifting.’

Prince Harry still sees himself as a ‘working royal’, but there’s a growing acceptance by the Palace that he and Meghan will have to be busy commercially if they are to fund their expensive life, and expensive private security, in Montecito.

The couple want to carry on making money in the US and elsewhere, but to be treated as ‘working royals’ when in the UK.

The situation now is that Harry earns money from sustainable travel company Travalyst and business coaching firm BetterUp, and is trying to make money from the Archewell production company, while Meghan has her lifestyle company As Ever and gets commission from plugging outfits she has worn on an e-commerce platform. But Harry is also undertaking charity work with his patronages on UK soil and being welcomed by the King in his home.

It is a short hop from that reality to Harry and his family staying in a royal palace when he is next in the UK.

And if that protocol is established, which Harry apparently feels sure can happen next time, then he looks as ‘half in and half out’ – precisely what the late Queen barred the couple from doing – as you can imagine.

What we do know is that Harry will be back in September for another charity event.

There is an expectation that there will be another meeting with the King, and that he will accept an offer to stay at Buckingham Palace – in good time, this time.

(On this visit he declared that he had accepted the offer to stay at Buckingham Palace but it then transpired that he had left it too late, and the offer had been withdrawn because it didn’t give staff enough notice.)

Next summer, he will be in Birmingham for all ten days of the Invictus Games and the plan is that Meghan will come with him for the whole thing. ‘If she is in the UK then they will want to bring the children too,’ says the friend.

If it is possible, I’m told he would like the children to see what he does and experience some of the atmosphere of the games, which are very close to his heart. Where might they stay? Highgrove would make perfect sense, geographically.

The view from the Palace side, as told to the Sunday Times, was that the King ‘will never shut the door on the possibility of spending time with his family because despite all the trouble, blood is blood’.

Crucially, this travelling to the UK is going to be made easier by the Sussexes’ purchase of a home in Portugal.

As revealed in October 2024 by Richard Eden in this newspaper, the home on a private estate in Alentejo is near to one owned by Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank.

A source says: ‘They had a house built in Portugal for the kids to be close to their royal side in case they want to participate. It’s in a private part, I’m not sure it’s finished yet. Meghan was having Soho House decorate it.’

Harry’s friend says: ‘The house in Portugal is a foot on the right side of the pond and I believe that they spent time there after being in the UK last week and before it as well. It’s striking distance for them to get to London.

‘Harry has no desire to be Eurotrash, he is very proudly British and English and wants to be in England but Portugal could be a kind of a stepping stone for a couple of years.’

The issue which vexed last week’s visit was security. Harry felt that the provision, unchanged for the past five years, wasn’t good enough.

He wanted RAVEC, the Home Office committee, to reassess the security he and his family were given, and he wanted his own private security to receive intelligence from the security services.

According to briefings from Team Sussex, he believed this was going to happen but then, after announcing that he, Meghan and the children were coming to the UK together it became apparent that the security situation was unchanged. Within 24 hours, his PR team said that an ‘upset’ Prince had to reconsider everything in the light of their safety.

A few days on, a briefing document from his security team which said there were a number of credible terrorist threats to his safety somehow found its way to ITN News, to add to the pressure. Still nothing changed.

Meghan didn’t go to the Invictus ‘One Year To Go’ event, nor was she at his side for any public engagements. It felt like an ugly stalemate.

But she and the children still travelled privately to Highgrove, and are thought to have then gone on to Althorp to be hosted by Harry’s uncle, Earl Spencer, and pay a visit to his mother’s grave on the estate.

A friend says that despite appearances, and without going into operational details, security actually was ‘improved’ this time for the visit.

‘He would have liked full security from the start but that was not on the table. But what was on the table was a considerable upping of what was there previously. For that reason the visit was very much better and everything is in a better place. It is still baby steps, but there is reason to hope going forward.’

The Prince apparently believes his security will continue to improve and after the shocking murder of former MP Ann Widdecombe – that seems to be a fair assumption.

There’s no prospect of any further legal action from him against the Home Office – that legal action which had put his father in such a difficult position because he would not and could not intervene and which Harry lost on appeal last May. Indeed, I am told: ‘There are no more fights to come. That era has closed.’

The colossal defeat against Associated Newspapers, the publishers of the Daily Mail, over wild allegations of bugging and hacking will, according to friends, be the very last time the Prince comes to court. ‘That’s it now, he is putting down his fists,’ says the friend.

The loss was ‘absolutely a no-go area for discussion’ during his visit.

The judgment was handed down on Tuesday last week, as Harry prepared to give a speech.

A friend says: ‘He was deeply disappointed but also somewhat embarrassed. He ended up with significant egg on his face.

‘The “CG” revelations [the release of a host of friendly messages in court between him and Mail on Sunday journalist Charlotte Griffiths] was a very embarrassing moment for him. The follow up piece in the Daily Mail last week [by Charlotte detailing their friendship] was mortifying, too.

‘It was a disaster which didn’t need to happen. He is shutting up about it – silence, silence silence now.’

First, though, he released an intemperate statement attacking the High Court Judge, Justice Nicklin, and saying the judgment was an ‘obvious whitewash’.

According to a well-sourced report in the Sunday Times last weekend, it caused astonishment in Palace circles.

‘There were jaws on the floor with a statement attacking not just a High Court judge but the entire judicial system that acts in the King’s name. There is profound upset constitutionally about that attack,’ a source said.

However, if he chooses to move on and be silent, there can surely only be relief for the Palace.

What remains unresolved is the schism between Harry and his brother Prince William, the heir to his spare.

Friends of Harry claim the two men ‘do communicate’ and say: ‘It would have been the most amazing signal to everybody if William had managed to be at Highgrove.’

That seems the faintest of prospects but Harry must be serious indeed about reconciliation to even talk about aiming for this outcome. As one Sussex source observes: ‘Everyone knows their future is not in his dad’s hands – it’s in his brother’s.’