AUSTRALIA
Man survives croc attack
A man searching for food in a river by a remote Aboriginal community has survived multiple bite wounds after a crocodile mauled his chest and arm, paramedics said yesterday. The 54-year-old was “collecting food in the local waterway” in Palumpa, 353km southwest of Darwin, on Tuesday afternoon when he was attacked, NT CareFlight Rescue Helicopter said. “He was able to fend off the crocodile which was 2m in length — a juvenile saltwater crocodile,” CareFlight’s David Wheeldon said. The man, who was not named, suffered multiple bites and was “bleeding a lot,” but was able to walk away from the Daly River and get someone to drive him to a local medical center, Wheeldon said. He was treated and then taken by CareFlight to the Royal Darwin Hospital, where he remains in a stable condition. “There was nothing out of the ordinary [in what the man was doing], it’s a natural hazard which has been there for thousands of years,” Wheeldon said. “He knew how to handle himself and luckily ... the community looked after him to get him to the care he needed.”
AUSTRALIA
Baby breastfed in Senate
A Greens senator made political history by becoming the first person to breastfeed a baby in the federal parliament. Larissa Waters on Tuesday returned to the Senate for the first time since giving birth to her second child and brought the baby in for a feed during a vote. “So proud that my daughter Alia is the first baby to be breastfed in the federal Parliament! We need more #women & parents in Parli,” she wrote on Twitter. Being able to breastfeed in the chamber follows new rules introduced last year to create a more a “family friendly” parliament in the wake of what has been described as a “baby boom” among politicians. Under previous rules, children were technically banned.
CHINA
Knife attack injures 18
Police in Changchun said 18 people were injured when a man attacked people on a city street with a knife. The Changchun police department said on its microblog that the 50-year-old suspect in Tuesday’s attack was taken into custody after being shot. It said none of the injuries were life-threatening and officers were looking further into any possible motivations. The police blog cited family members as saying that the suspect, Wang Yunwei (王運維), had formerly been hospitalized for mental health issues.
UNITED KINGDOM
Girl dies after park accident
An 11-year-old girl on Tuesday died in hospital after falling from a water ride during a school trip to a theme park, police said. The accident happened while she and classmates were on the “Splash Canyon” ride, described by Drayton Manor Park in central England as “the most unpredictable and thrilling of river rapid rides.” The young girl was rescued from the water by park employees before the emergency services arrived. She was then airlifted to hospital where she died of her injuries, police said. “Ambulance staff administered advanced life support before she was flown to Birmingham Children’s Hospital, with the doctor continuing treatment enroute. Unfortunately, shortly after arrival at hospital the girl passed away,” an ambulance spokesman said, without giving the girl’s name or details of her injuries. A visitor to the park, Fiona Fletcher, told the BBC she saw Drayton staff with “tears running down their face.”
UNITED STATES
Diddy sued by personal chef
Rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been sued by a personal chef who says she worked long hours without extra pay and was made uneasy by serving meals after sex parties. Cindy Rueda sought an unspecified amount in damages for allegations — denied by Combs — that include sexual harassment and failure to pay overtime wages. Rueda said she sometimes worked from 9am to 2am as she cooked at the Los Angeles home of Combs, who was formerly known as Puff Daddy. The lawsuit filed on Monday in a Los Angeles court said the rapper would ask Rueda “to prepare and serve entrees and appetizers to him and his guests while Mr Combs and his guests were engaged in or immediately following sexual activity.” The lawsuit said she at least once “was summoned by Mr Combs to serve him a post-coital meal” in which he made suggestive remarks. On at least one other occasion, she said a naked male visitor entered the kitchen as she cooked and asked her “to look at and admire his genitals after he had engaged in sexual activity with another house guest.”
UNITED STATES
Teen eyes Twitter nuggets
A Twitter plea from a Nevada teen for a year of free chicken nuggets from Wendy’s is now the most retweeted post of all time. Carter Wilkerson last month asked the fast food chain on Twitter how many retweets it would take for him to get free nuggets for a year. Wendy’s replied, “18 million.” Wilkerson’s screenshot of the exchange has moved past Ellen DeGeneres’ viral tweet from the 2014 Oscars on Tuesday with more than 3.4 million retweets. Twitter on Tuesday confirmed the record to reporters. Wendy’s said Wilkerson has earned the nuggets despite not hitting the 18 million mark. Wilkerson appeared on DeGeneres’ show last month. She gave him a year’s worth of Ellen-branded underwear and a TV, but threatened to take the gifts back if he passed her.
UNITED STATES
Friendly deer licks shotgun
Some daring deer approached a group of hunters in central Indiana over the weekend and one was so unafraid that it licked the barrel of a shotgun and allowed one of the men to stroke its neck. Perhaps they knew the men were hoping to bag a turkey? Leon Champine said the young animals did not have their mother with them “to teach them what is dangerous.” Champine, of Indianapolis, told WXIN-TV that he and his friends encountered the inquisitive animals in Hendricks County. One of the men, Corey Cook, recorded video footage showing the deer wandering toward the camouflaged men who are hidden in the undergrowth. The video shows one nuzzling the barrel of a gun in the waning afternoon sunlight. Champine calls it a “once in a lifetime encounter.”
UNITED STATES
Escapee python back home
A 5.2m-long python that had caused concern in a community north of Anchorage, Alaska, since it went missing two weeks ago has returned home. Matanuska-Susitna Borough Animal Care reports that Sam slithered back into view on Monday in the living room of its owners’ home in the town of Meadow Lakes. Sam had attracted international media attention after it went missing 14 days ago. One of its owners told the borough’s Animal Care department that Sam was fed a 11kg rabbit before it disappeared. Animal Care Officer Darla Erskine reported that the owner did not know where Sam had been hiding. There are no wild snakes in most of Alaska.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was