AUSTRALIA
Family ordered to pay tax
A Christian family that refuses to pay rates and taxes because it is “against God’s will” has been ordered to pay A$2.3 million (US$1.62 million) by the Tasmanian Supreme Court. Fanny and Rembertus Beerepoot, who previously owned the Melita honey farm in northern Tasmania, have refused to pay income tax since 2011. The pair, who represented themselves, told the court they did not need to pay a A$930,000 bill because everything they owned belonged to God and the nation’s tax law fell under the jurisdiction of the Bible, Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported. Rembertus Beerepoot said “the law of the almighty God” was “the supreme law of this land.” On Wednesday, Associate Justice Stephen Holt disagreed. He told the pair that there was no passage in the Bible that said “thou shalt not pay tax.”
AUSTRALIA
Bottle found after 50 years
A boy who discovered a message in a bottle on a remote beach might have a new pen pal after the Englishman who dropped it from a ship 50 years ago was tracked down, but Jyah Elliott, 9, might have to wait some time as the message’s now 63-year-old author is once again at sea — this time on a cruise in the Baltic, ABC reported. Jyah discovered the decades-old treasure in sand dunes on an Eyre Peninsula beach on Tuesday and by the next day the writer had been located. Paul Gilmore was just 13 when on Nov. 17, 1969, he dropped the bottle into the Indian Ocean hoping to reach a new friend. Although Jyah initially thought the letter was a fake, he was quick to post a reply on Wednesday. “He was so excited,” his mother, Carla Elliott, told ABC. Gilmore’s sister, Annie Crossland, told ABC that her brother was on a cruise, but would be sure to contact Jyah when he returns home. “It’s amazing, absolutely incredible,” Crossland said. “He’ll be chuffed to bits.”
AUSTRALIA
Toad captured near Sydney
A toxic cane toad prevalent in the tropical north has been captured near Sydney, sparking fears the invasive species could be adapting to cooler weather and spreading south. A family caught the adult male toad about 50km north of Sydney on Tuesday, the first time one of its kind had been found wild in the area, the Australian Reptile Park said. The toad has a highly poisonous venom that kills predators that try to eat it, causing catastrophic declines in native wildlife populations in the northeast. Conservationists are concerned that the tough and adaptable pest, introduced from Central America in 1935, might be adjusting to the climate in the southeast. “To find one in the middle of winter at a dam croaking ... is a concerning sign,” park manager Tim Faulkner said.
UNITED STATES
Spacey charges dropped
Prosecutors on Wednesday dropped sexual assault proceedings against Kevin Spacey after the case against the Hollywood star collapsed over his alleged victim’s refusal to testify. William Little had accused the 59-year-old Oscar winner of groping him in a bar in Nantucket in July 2016, but Massachusetts prosecutors filed a formal notice of abandonment of an indecent assault and battery indictment due to “the unavailability of the complaining witness.” Little chose to plead the fifth amendment, which allows witnesses not to testify so as not to incriminate themselves, after it was revealed that his smartphone — a key piece of evidence — could have been compromised. Little said he took a video of the incident, but the phone has disappeared.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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