'The Roaring Lion' portrait of Winston Churchill stolen from Canadian hotel is found in Italy

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Canadian police say a renowned portrait of Winston Churchill that was reported stolen from an Ottawa hotel has been tracked down in Italy.

Investigators will travel to Rome later this month to retrieve the 1941 portrait of the British leader taken by Ottawa photographer Yousuf Karsh, police said in a news release.

“Once in Ottawa police custody, the portrait will be ready for the last step of its journey home to the Fairmont Château Laurier, where it will once again be displayed as a notable historic portrait,” police said.

Police said “The Roaring Lion” was stolen from the Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, sometime between Christmas Day 2021 and Jan. 6, 2022, and replaced with a forgery. The swap was only uncovered months later, in August, when a hotel worker noticed the frame was not hung properly and looked different than the others.

“It was determined that the portrait was sold through an auction house in London to a buyer in Italy, both of whom were unaware that the piece was stolen,” the release said. “With the help of public tips, forensic analysis, and international co-operation, investigators tracked down the individual responsible for the theft.”

Nicola Cassinelli, a lawyer in Genoa, Italy, purchased the portrait in May 2022 at an online Sotheby’s auction for 5,292 British pounds. He says he got a phone call from the auction house that October advising him not to sell or otherwise transfer the portrait due to an investigation into the Ottawa theft.

Cassinelli said he was surprised to learn that the answer to the high-profile heist might be hanging on his living room wall. He plans to attend a ceremony at the Canadian Embassy in Rome next Thursday to mark the return of the portrait.

At a press conference at the hotel Wednesday afternoon, Geneviève Dumas, general manager of the Fairmont Château Laurier, said the theft happened at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Everything was closed, and we narrowed the gap to 12 days,” Dumas said. “The way that happened, there was nobody in the hotel and we discovered it only eight months later.”

Ottawa police Det. Akiva Gellar said the portrait was recovered after “a very extensive investigation” that took more than two years but offered few specifics.

Much of the investigation is “still very sensitive because the matter is before the courts,” he said.

“A lot of the details about how we found it, and further details will be released during the ceremony in Rome,” said Gellar. “And later down the road, once we have the portrait back in Canada, we will be able to speak more about that.”

Police arrested a 43-year-old man from Powassan, Ontario, in April and have charged him with stealing and trafficking the portrait.

The man, whose name is protected by a publication ban, faces charges that include forgery, theft over $5,000 and trafficking in property obtained by crime exceeding $5,000.

The famous image was taken by Karsh during Churchill’s wartime visit to the Canadian Parliament in December 1941.

It helped launch the career of Karsh, who photographed of some of the 20th century’s most famed icons, including Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein and Queen Elizabeth.

Fairmont Chateau Laurier General Manager Genevieve Dumas listens to Ottawa Police Services Detective Akiva Gellar speak about the stolen Yousuf Karsh portrait of Winston Churchill, during a news conference in the hotel in Ottawa, Canada, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

Fairmont Chateau Laurier General Manager Genevieve Dumas, right, speaks with Ottawa Police Services Detective Akiva Gellar as they make their way to a news conference to speak about the stolen Yousuf Karsh portrait of Winston Churchill, during a news conference in the hotel in Ottawa, Canada, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

Fairmont Chateau Laurier General Manager Genevieve Dumas, right, speaks with Ottawa Police Services Detective Akiva Gellar as they make their way to a news conference to speak about the stolen Yousuf Karsh portrait of Winston Churchill, during a news conference in the hotel in Ottawa, Canada, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

Fairmont Chateau Laurier General Manager Genevieve Dumas looks on as Ottawa Police Services Detective Akiva Gellar speaks about the stolen Yousuf Karsh portrait of Winston Churchill, during a news conference in the hotel in Ottawa, Canada, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

Instagram is making teen accounts mandatory for those under 18 as it tries to make the platform safer for children amid a growing backlash against how social media affects young people's lives.

Beginning Tuesday in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, anyone under under 18 who signs up for Instagram will be placed into teen accounts — which will be private by default — and those with existing accounts will be migrated over the next 60 days. Teens in the European Union will see their accounts adjusted later this year.

Meta acknowledges that teenagers may lie about their age and says it will require them to verify their ages in more instances, like if they try to create a new account with an adult birthday. The Menlo Park, California company also said it is building technology that proactively finds teen accounts that pretend to be grownups and automatically places them into the restricted teen accounts.

The teen accounts will be private by default. Private messages are restricted so teens can only receive them from people they follow or are already connected to. “Sensitive content,” such as videos of people fighting or those promoting cosmetic procedures, will be limited, Meta said. Teens will also get notifications if they are on Instagram for more than 60 minutes and a “sleep mode” will be enabled that turns off notifications and sends auto-replies to direct messages from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m.

While these settings will be turned on for all teens, 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to turn them off. Kids under 16 will need their parents' permission to do so.

“The three concerns we’re hearing from parents are that their teens are seeing content that they don’t want to see or that they’re getting contacted by people they don’t want to be contacted by or that they’re spending too much on the app,” said Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta. “So teen accounts is really focused on addressing those three concerns.”

The announcement comes as the company faces lawsuits from dozens of U.S. states that accuse it of harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.

In the past, Meta's efforts at addressing teen safety and mental health on its platforms have been met with criticism that the changes don't go far enough. For instance, while kids will get a notification when they've spent 60 minutes on the app, they will be able to bypass it and continue scrolling.

That's unless the child's parents turn on “parental supervision” mode, where parents can limit teens' time on Instagram to a specific amount of time, such as 15 minutes.

With the latest changes, Meta is giving parents more options to oversee their kids' accounts. Those under 16 will need a parent or guardian's permission to change their settings to less restrictive ones. They can do this by setting up “parental supervision” on their accounts and connecting them to a parent or guardian.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said last week that parents don't use the parental controls the company has introduced in recent years.

Gleit said she thinks teen accounts will create a “big incentive for parents and teens to set up parental supervision.”

“Parents will be able to see, via the family center, who is messaging their teen and hopefully have a conversation with their teen,” she said. “If there is bullying or harassment happening, parents will have visibility into who their teen’s following, who’s following their teen, who their teen has messaged in the past seven days and hopefully have some of these conversations and help them navigate these really difficult situations online.”

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said last year that tech companies put too much on parents when it comes to keeping children safe on social media.

“We’re asking parents to manage a technology that’s rapidly evolving that fundamentally changes how their kids think about themselves, how they build friendships, how they experience the world — and technology, by the way, that prior generations never had to manage,” Murthy said in May 2023.

File - The Instagram logo is seen on a cell phone in Boston, Oct. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

FILE - Students use their cellphones as they leave for the day the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts High School in downtown Los Angeles, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)