AUSTRALIA
Manhunt in bush continues
Police yesterday said they would not rest until they catch a 56-year-old gunman who fled into the bush two days earlier after allegedly killing two officers. Detectives said they were speaking to the man’s partner and searching rugged, forested terrain near the small town of Porepunkah, in Victoria’s northeast. The suspect, identified by police as Dezi Freeman, escaped on foot after opening fire when a team of 10 police arrived at his property on Tuesday, allegedly killing two policemen and wounding a third. Police said the man — described by local media as a radicalized conspiracy theorist — is heavily armed, has bush survival skills and knows the area well.
Photo: AFP
MEXICO
Senators come to blows
Senators on Wednesday came to blows after a heated debate over alleged opposition calls for the US to intervene militarily against drug cartels. Senator Alejandro Moreno, leader of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), went to the podium as Wednesday’s session ended and angrily confronted Senate President Gerardo Fernandez Norona, of the ruling Morena party, for not being given the floor. Moreno can be seen in a video posted on social media by the Senate pushing Fernandez Norona several times, slapping him on the neck and pushing another man to the ground when he tried to intervene. The brawl followed a heated debate during which the opposition PRI and National Action Party were accused of calling for US military intervention, a claim the parties deny. Fernandez Norona later said he would file a complaint against Moreno for bodily harm and request that his legislative immunity be revoked. “The debate could be very harsh, very bitter, very strong ... today when [opposition legislators] are exposed for their treason; they lose their minds because they were exposed,” he said.
AUSTRALIA
Lawmaker threatens reporter
Veteran lawmaker Bob Katter yesterday threatened a television journalist at a news conference, shaking his fist and saying he had previously punched people for mentioning his Lebanese heritage. Katter called the news conference to discuss his proposed attendance of the March For Australia, an anti-immigration rally due to be held in several cities on Sunday. “You’ve got Lebanese heritage yourself,” a journalist said at the event in Brisbane, before Katter interrupted him. “Don’t say that. Because that irritates me, and I’ve punched blokes in the mouth for saying that,” Katter shouted, pointing his finger at Josh Bavas, a reporter from Channel Nine. “My family has been here for 140 years.” Katter said he was “restraining myself today” by not punching Bavas. “In my near 20 years in journalism, I’ve never experienced that kind of reaction from an elected representative,” Bavas said in a statement following the incident.
JAPAN
App shows nearest restroom
Toilet giant Toto has launched a service allowing those caught short in public to locate the nearest washrooms and see how busy they are in real-time with a cellphone and QR code. The system launched this month by Toto — famous for its water-spraying, musical toilets — links consumers up with existing Internet-connected facility management systems. It was developed to automatically notify facility staff if a particular cubicle is dirty or occupied for an unusually long time. Now users can scan a QR code with their phones to access a Web site showing restroom locations and live congestion levels.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
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