Investigators searched storm drains with a powerful magnet, inspected the undersides of vehicles and even removed attic insulation while looking for the handgun prosecutors say former “American Idol” contestant Caleb Flynn used to kill his wife.

The extensive search produced no firearm, a Tipp City detective told jurors Monday during Flynn’s murder trial in Ohio.

Flynn is charged with fatally shooting his wife, Ashley Flynn, inside their home on Feb. 16 and then staging the scene to appear as though an intruder had broken in. He has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges.

Detective Adam Bernard detailed the investigation and the lengths police went to in the days following Ashley’s death to locate the missing weapon.

Police first searched the backyard and nearby wooded areas. Investigators then expanded the operation underground, using a high-powered magnet to check storm drains along multiple streets.

Bernard said officers removed drain covers, lowered the magnet into the openings and pulled it through connecting pipes. He also climbed into accessible culverts with a flashlight to inspect spots the magnet might not have reached.

Nothing was found.

Investigators later placed both vehicles from the Flynn residence on lifts, allowing them to examine the undercarriages and other potential hiding places, Bernard testified. That search also failed to uncover the gun.

Police also rented specialized equipment to remove insulation from the attic as they continued searching for the firearm.

Bernard testified that investigators pursued Flynn’s gun-purchase history after Flynn said he had bought a firearm in South Carolina, the state where he obtained his concealed-carry permit.

The detective said he contacted nearly two dozen South Carolina gun stores in an effort to find records showing the make, model and serial number of a weapon Flynn may have purchased.

The inquiries did not produce records linking a firearm to either Flynn or Ashley.

The detective’s testimony followed evidence from a forensic pathologist, who described Ashley’s autopsy and testified that she suffered two gunshot wounds to the back of her head.

Dr. Bryan Casto testified that the entrance wounds overlapped and that the bullets traveled through Ashley’s head along nearly parallel paths. One bullet exited her head and later entered her left arm near the elbow, where it was recovered during the autopsy.

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Casto said the injuries and bullet trajectories were consistent with a close-range shooting, though he could not determine the precise distance between Ashley and the gun when it was fired.

The pathologist concluded that Ashley died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

Earlier Monday, crime scene investigators with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation showed jurors evidence collected throughout the Flynn home as prosecutors worked to support their claim that the reported break-in had been staged.

A BCI crime scene technician who had examined between 20 and 30 forced-entry doors testified that the damage to a side garage door did not look like the forced entries she had previously investigated.

She said the damage was on the inside of the door rather than areas she would typically expect to be damaged if someone had kicked or pried their way inside.

Flynn’s defense challenged the state’s conclusions on cross-examination, pointing out that investigators could not determine when some of the door damage occurred and that no blood-spatter analysis was performed because conditions at the scene were not suitable for one.

David Hammond, a senior special agent with BCI, also testified that he was not aware of evidence showing blood spatter from Ashley’s shooting on Flynn’s clothing.

The defense later pressed Bernard about tips received after the killing, including one from a caller who referenced an alleged “hit.”

Bernard testified that he printed tips received by Tipp City police and passed them to the FBI for follow-up. He said he did not know whether the FBI investigated that particular tip.

The judge sustained objections when the defense tried to get into some of the caller’s specific claims.

Prosecutors also laid the groundwork Monday for the massive trove of messages they say Flynn exchanged with his mistress.

Bernard testified that a search warrant served on Microsoft produced 107,655 lines of data associated with an email address belonging to Flynn.

The records were admitted into evidence over a defense objection.

Music icon Lionel Richie has been hospitalized again after experiencing another heart-related problem, just three weeks after becoming unwell during a live performance.

The 77-year-old singer is receiving treatment for atrial fibrillation, commonly known as AFib, a condition that causes an irregular heartbeat.

A representative for Richie told the Daily Mail: “Lionel underwent a common procedure for atrial fibrillation (AFib).

“The doctor said everything went perfectly. Lionel is doing great but will take some time off and will be back on stage soon.”

The latest health setback has forced the singer to cancel his next three concerts with Earth, Wind & Fire.

The canceled dates on the Sing a Song All Night Long Tour were scheduled for this Saturday in San Francisco, September 30 in Chicago and October 2 in Columbus, Ohio.

The hospitalization is the third involving the “All Night Long” hitmaker within a matter of months.

On August 30, Richie checked himself into a hospital in St. Louis following a concert. He spent several days in intensive care while doctors conducted tests related to his heart before being discharged three days later.

Video from the final song of his performance at The Muny in Forest Park, obtained by the Daily Mail, appeared to show Richie struggling for breath at points as he sang one of his best-known songs, “All Night Long.”

He also appeared to have trouble remaining on his feet. Early in the song, Richie sat on a piano bench and stayed there for the remainder of the performance.

The footage shows Richie returning to the stage for “All Night Long.” Within about 30 seconds, a stagehand brought out a piano bench without being prompted, indicating that the singer may have requested it backstage.

Richie continued performing before gesturing toward the bench, asking stagehands to move it closer to the front of the stage.

The former Commodores frontman, dressed entirely in black except for a red leather jacket emblazoned with “All Night Long” on the back, sat on the edge of the bench and carried on singing to the crowd.

Close-up footage appeared to show Richie short of breath at times, with his vocals fading beneath the song’s heavy backing vocals.

As “All Night Long” drew to a close, Richie repeatedly pumped his fists in the air.

Once the song ended, he rose from the bench and walked away with his back to the audience. He then turned to shout goodnight and spread his arms as images from earlier in his career played across the giant video screen behind him.

Days later, it was reported that Richie had been hospitalized in St Louis shortly after that performance.

Then back in June, he was rushed to the hospital after feeling ‘dizzy’ and ‘strange’ during a concert in St. Paul, Minnesota as he was forced toe cut the performance short before being taken away in an ambulance.

The septuagenarian hitmaker was performing at the Grand Casino Arena as the start of his joint Sing A Song All Night Long tour with Earth, Wind & Fire when he announced an unusual intermission after a performance of Three Times A Lady from his piano, according to Minnesota’s Bring Me The News.

Richie’s band reportedly also left the stage minutes later, but more than 40 minutes after he cut off the show, a band member returned to announce he wouldn’t be able to return because he was feeling ill.

‘Unfortunately, Lionel is not feeling well,’ said saxophonist Dino Soldo, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. ‘He won’t be able to continue. Additional information will be available.’

Richie has enjoyed an incredible career as he was  behind some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and 1980s including the aforementioned All Night Long and Hello.

The music icon, whose career has spanned more than five decades, rose to fame as the frontman of the Motown group Commodores before embarking on a hugely successful solo career that made him one of the best-selling artists of all time. 

His work has earned him four Grammy Awards and an Oscar. He also co-wrote 1985’s We Are the World, the all-star charity single that became one of the defining songs of its era. 

After launching his solo career, Richie quickly established himself as a powerhouse balladeer, with his music going on to sell more than 90 million records worldwide and cementing his place among the world’s best-selling artists. 

The artist has three children: 45-year-old daughter Nicole Richie, 28-year-old daughter Sofia Richie Grainge, and 32-year-old son Miles Richie.

Richie has been in a relationship with 37-year-old girlfriend Lisa Parigi since 2014.

A sweeping new study of the Roman Empire’s extensive road system is putting a modern twist on the familiar maxim, “All roads lead to Rome.”

Published Sept. 15 in Nature Communications, the research examined approximately 190,000 miles of Roman roads across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Researchers combined existing records to produce a new map of the empire’s road network, allowing them to study its structure on an empire-wide scale.

The team, led by Tom Brughmans, a classical archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, found that Rome was not the network’s only major center. Provincial capitals also served as crucial hubs for overland travel.

Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey, became an especially important transportation hub after Emperor Constantine established it as the imperial capital in the fourth century AD.

Its strategic position between Europe and Asia made Constantinople exceptionally central to travel throughout the empire, the researchers found.

That finding suggests the phrase “all roads lead to Rome” — coined centuries after the Roman Empire collapsed — does not tell the entire story.

Brughmans told Fox News Digital that the proverb, which he described as medieval in origin, should not be interpreted literally. He pointed out that none of the roads in Roman Britain actually led to Rome.

“It is quite surprising how persistently this maxim has shaped popular understanding of Roman roads,” he said.

“It’s fair to say our study complicates the proverb,” Brughmans added. “I prefer to say, ‘All roads lead to Rome and everywhere else.’”

Taco Terpstra, a professor of history and classics at Northwestern University in Illinois, told Fox News Digital that the findings do not lessen Rome’s importance as the empire’s center — and that the study’s authors are not suggesting otherwise.

Terpstra, who was not involved in the research, emphasized that Constantinople “was only created as such in the fourth century.”

“Before that, it was a sleepy fishing town called Byzantium,” he said. “So, we have to be careful a little bit about what time period we’re looking at.”

He added, “But once Constantinople becomes de facto the capital of the empire, it is clear that it attracts a lot of overland connectivity.”

Rome nevertheless remained the center of the empire’s political, military and ideological power for centuries, Terpstra said.

“Rome is the center of the empire. This is where power lies,” he said, noting that Alexandria, the empire’s second-largest city, had roughly half Rome’s population.

“This is where the emperor is. This is where the Senate is. … [It was the] largest city in the empire, a million inhabitants.”

The researchers also investigated another defining feature of Roman engineering: the impressive straightness of the empire’s roads. Still, mountains and other difficult terrain often forced builders to abandon the most direct route.

The roads were “about as straight as the Romans could make them” with the technology available at the time, Terpstra said.

The road system was initially built for military purposes, allowing Roman troops to move rapidly through conquered territory. Over time, the roads also became vital to the empire’s economy, Terpstra added.

“The roads in the first instance, and it’s often forgotten, were military infrastructure,” he said. “These were in the first place, after the conquest, intended to move troops quickly.”

And although Roman roads have stood the test of time and remain a marvel of ancient engineering, Terpstra said they were secondary to maritime transportation across the empire — which was far cheaper when it came to transporting goods.

“The main transportation network of the Roman Empire is maritime,” he said. “That is really where the major connectivity lies.”

With the war with Iran approaching its eighth month and continuing to affect global oil prices and stability across the Middle East, President Donald Trump addressed world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.

The gathering marks the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. Its central event, the general debate, begins Tuesday and will feature speeches from Trump, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Trump is also scheduled to meet Tuesday with Gulf leaders, many of whom have felt the war’s economic fallout. The talks come after Yemen’s Houthis targeted Saudi Arabia, a development that could place additional pressure on global gas prices.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz discussed the planned meeting during an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He said Trump “truly values hearing from them and hearing their concerns” firsthand.

Waltz said the leaders are expected to discuss attacks on cargo vessels in crucial maritime corridors, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

“… What you will see at the U.N. General Assembly is a lot of discussion of the freedom of the seas, the U.N. law of the sea, freedom of navigation. Whether it’s Straits of Hormuz, the Bab al-Mandab, Suez Canal, Panama Canal, Malacca Straits, we must have free and open commerce,” Waltz said.

The conflict, which Trump initially said would last four to six weeks, is now nearing its eighth month. During the summit, the president is expected to hear from numerous world leaders seeking a path toward ending the war.

Senior Iranian officials are expected to attend the assembly. The delegation’s full makeup has not been publicly released, but U.S. officials said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will be permitted to participate. For now, Trump has no plans to meet with Iranian officials.

The summit follows the release of a U.N. report that found “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States carried out two strikes in Iran that caused civilian casualties. The attacks, which hit a girls’ school and a sports center, provided “reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack resulting in loss of life or injury to civilians,” the report said.

A State Department official rejected the report’s conclusions, saying they “do not give credibility” to its findings.

“The Trump Administration formally withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council following the Council’s consistent failures to uphold its own ‘values’ as it pushes anti-American rhetoric and antisemitism, all while it appeases repressive regimes, thus making a mockery of the very ‘rights’ it claims to protect,” the State Department official said. “As such, we do not give credibility to findings [sic] this report.”

On Monday, Trump is scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.

The president will also meet Monday with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion.

Trump is expected to use the summit to hold talks with a broad group of the United States’ key allies.

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Among the meetings on Tuesday will be a face-to-face discussion with Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, in a pull-aside meeting.

It will be the first in-person meeting between the leaders since a U.S. operation in Venezuela captured then-President Nicolas Maduro. The encounter comes only weeks after Washington and Caracas reached a landmark oil agreement giving the U.S. government majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

“The peace track is our number one priority. There are ideas for de-escalation steps and for addressing fundamental security issues – energy security, food security, and the protection of human life. We are working together with the American team and are ready to take really serious steps,” Zelenskyy wrote in the post.