AUSTRALIA
Granny sorry over drug treat
A great-grandmother said she is “extremely remorseful” after letting a teenager use her cannabis butter to cook a batch of muffins to share with friends at school. Pam Annette Bickerton, 73, on Wednesday last week faced a pre-sentencing hearing at Adelaide Magistrates Court last week, after admitting to a count of supplying or administering a controlled drug to a child, court documents showed. She had prepared the drug-laced butter to help deal with a sleeping disorder, the court hearing heard, according a report in the Adelaide Advertiser. The teenager, who has not been identified, woke up the great-grandmother to ask to use the cannabis butter for some muffins. “Still in a state of tiredness and unfortunately ... she said ‘go for it — just make sure that you clean up afterwards,’” her lawyer was quoted as saying. Bickerton is due back in court for sentencing on Thursday next week.
JORDAN
Israel arrests lawmaker
Israel has detained a Jordanian lawmaker on suspicion of smuggling arms and gold into the West Bank and Amman is working to secure his release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said on Sunday. Imad al Adwan had crossed a main border crossing along the Jordan River earlier on Sunday by car, was being held and interrogated by Israeli authorities, ministry spokesperson Sinan al Majali said in a statement to state media. A spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment. Prominent Jordanian lawmaker Khalil Atiya said the government would be held responsible if it failed to act quickly. “There should be no room left for the enemy to harm the dignity of Jordanians by detaining and jailing a member of the parliament,” Atiya said.
GERMANY
Activists stop traffic
Climate campaigners yesterday blocked dozens of streets in Berlin to protest the government’s climate policy, causing widespread transport disruption in the capital. “We no longer accept that the government has no plan to stop the destruction of the basis of our existence,” Carla Rochel, a spokeswoman for Last Generation, the leading group behind the protests, said in a statement. Campaigners halted traffic across the city by glueing themselves to the street surface, including on the busy motorway A100. “Some 33 points” were blocked at 9am, a spokeswoman for the Berlin police said. About 500 officers had been deployed to tackle the protests, which began at about 7:30am, she said. Last Generation has signaled its intention to continue with the blockades over the coming days.
UNITED STATES
Disney dragon catches fire
Spectators at Disneyland’s popular “Fantasmic!” show got a shock this weekend when the feature’s fire-breathing animatronic dragon suddenly burst into flames. No injuries were reported following the blaze on Saturday night at the southern California theme park, the Anaheim Fire Department said. Ryan Laux, a frequent Disneyland visitor, said he knew something was awry when flames did not come from where they usually do. “The head started going on fire instead of the fire projecting out,” said Laux, who captured the blaze on video. The show was stopped almost immediately “and then right after that, the dragon started catching fire and the whole body was up in flames,” he said. The extent of the damage was not immediately known.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
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