Brazil’s Lula says US warships in Caribbean are a source of ‘tension’
US naval forces have unsettled some in South America who see them as a precursor to possible intervention in Venezuela. Published On 8 Sep 20258 Sep 2025 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has criticised the deployment of United States naval forces to the Caribbean, calling them a source of strain that could undermine peace in the region. The South American leader expressed concern on Monday over the concentration of US forces, seen by some as a possible prelude to an attack on Venezuela. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “The presence of the armed forces of the largest power in the Caribbean Sea is a factor of tension,” Lula said during the opening of a virtual BRICS summit. The US has said its military forces are in the region to counter drug trafficking. But the deployment has been paired with US threats against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom US President Donald Trump’s administration has accused of being closely linked with drug trafficking groups. The Trump administration has provided no evidence for those claims and has often used vague allegations of connections to drug trafficking or criminal groups to justify extraordinary measures both at home and abroad. Last week, the US carried out an unprecedented lethal attack on what the Trump administration said was a boat transporting drugs from Venezuela. Analysts have said the extrajudicial strike, which killed 11 people, was likely illegal, but US officials have promised to carry out more attacks in the region. Maduro has said the deployment is part of an effort to depose his government and called on the military and civilians to make preparations for a possible attack. Advertisement BRICS meeting As the Trump administration takes aggressive steps to advance its priorities on issues such as trade, immigration and drug trafficking, some countries are seeking to bolster ties with powers like China. Addressing the virtual BRICS conference via video call on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for more cooperation in areas such as technology, finance and trade, according to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua. “The closer the BRICS countries cooperate, the more confidence, options and effective results they will have in addressing external risks and challenges,” he was quoted as saying. Officials from India – a country, like Brazil and China, that has become a recent target of the Trump administration’s severe tariff policies – also called for greater collaboration. “The world requires constructive and cooperative approaches to promote trade that is sustainable,” External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in comments published by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. “Increasing barriers and complicating transactions will not help. Neither would the linking of trade measures to nontrade matters.” The virtual conference came a week after leaders from China, Russia, India and other Eurasian nations gathered in Tianjin, China, where they presented a vision of a new international order at a moment of widening rifts between partner nations and the US. Adblock test (Why?)
US court upholds sexual assault defamation order against Trump
Appeals court upholds $83.3m verdict against Trump for defaming E Jean Carroll over her 2019 sexual assault claims. Published On 8 Sep 20258 Sep 2025 A federal appeals court has refused to throw out an $83.3m jury verdict against US President Donald Trump for damaging the reputation of the writer E Jean Carroll in 2019 when he denied her rape claim. The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan on Monday rejected Trump’s argument that the January 2024 verdict should be overturned because he deserved presidential immunity from Carroll’s lawsuit. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “We hold that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s duly rendered damages awards were reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case,” the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote. Neither the White House nor Trump’s personal lawyers in the case immediately responded to requests for comment. The Second Circuit court on June 13 upheld Carroll’s separate $5m jury verdict against Trump in May 2023 for a similar defamation and sexual assault suit. Carroll, 81, a former Elle magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room. Trump first denied her claim in June 2019, telling a reporter that Carroll was “not my type” and had concocted the story to sell a book called What Do We Need Men For? – a memoir about her life. Trump essentially repeated his comments in an October 2022 Truth Social post, leading to the $5m verdict, though the jury did not find that he had raped Carroll. E Jean Carroll exits the New York Federal Court on Friday, September 6, 2024, after US President Donald Trump appeared in court, in Manhattan, New York City [Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP] The $83.3m award comprised $18.3m of damages for emotional and reputational harm, and $65m of punitive damages. Advertisement In his latest appeal, Trump argued that the US Supreme Court’s July 2024 decision providing him with substantial criminal immunity shielded him from liability in Carroll’s civil case. He added that he had spoken about Carroll in 2019 in his capacity as president, and that failing to give him immunity could undermine the independence of the executive branch of the US government. Trump also said US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw both trials, had made other mistakes, including by striking out his testimony that, in speaking about Carroll, “I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly the presidency.” In June, Carroll released another memoir, called Not My Type: One Woman vs a President, about her legal battles against Trump. Adblock test (Why?)
Trump cheers West Point’s cancellation of award ceremony for Tom Hanks
Actor Tom Hanks’s planned West Point honour is cancelled as President Donald Trump praises moves against critics of his administration. Published On 8 Sep 20258 Sep 2025 United States President Donald Trump has praised a decision by the prestigious military academy West Point to cancel a ceremony honouring Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, a frequent critic of Trump. Trump, who has sought to purge critics from government institutions and crack down on dissent, celebrated the move in a social media post on Monday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Important move!” Trump said. “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!!” Hanks, who has starred in numerous films set during World War II and been an avid supporter of veterans of the armed services, has been a sharp critic of Trump. He was set to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award from the West Point Association of Graduates (WPAOG), which is granted to people whose accomplishments further the US national interests and ideals of the military academy. The famous actor was set to receive the award at a WPAOG ceremony on September 25, and the Washington Post has reported that it is unclear whether Hanks will still receive the award without the accompanying ceremony. Known for his leading role in the World War II film Saving Private Ryan, Hanks has been at the forefront of efforts to dramatise and commemorate US efforts during that conflict. He also produced several popular miniseries depicting US forces in various theatres during World War II, such as Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Masters of the Air. Advertisement Hanks – who also served as a national spokesperson for the World War II memorial campaign and was chair of the D-day museum capital campaign – had expressed excitement about visiting West Point. “To have my first ever visit to the Academy be to accept such an honour as the Thayer Award is simply astounding,” a WPAOG statement had quoted Hanks as saying. Earlier this year, the Trump administration ordered West Point to discard books and resources on topics such as transgender people, diversity, and anti-racism. Adblock test (Why?)
French no-confidence vote: What’s next if the government collapses?
The French government looks set to collapse in a vote of no confidence and tip the eurozone’s second biggest economy into a political crisis. Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is expected to be ousted, casting doubt over President Emmanuel Macron’s future. Monday’s vote hinges on Bayrou’s unpopular budget proposal for 2026, designed to slash France’s fiscal deficit. The 74-year-old political veteran, who called the vote himself in a bid to pressure lawmakers to back his plans, has been in office for only nine months. France has had four prime ministers in less than two years, and a fifth probably won’t be enough to break the country’s political deadlock. The paralysis is reminiscent of the instability last observed in 1958 when the Fifth Republic was established. Ahead of the no-confidence vote, Bayrou spoke on Monday afternoon in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, where he told lawmakers that the economy faced serious risks because of its deep indebtedness. He is expected to field questions from parliamentarians. The vote itself will take place in the evening with the result expected between 8pm and 9pm (18:00 and 19:00 GMT). Here’s what you need to know: What could happen next? For several weeks, lawmakers have made it clear they will vote against Bayrou’s state-slashing budget. Opposition parties from the far left to the far right hold 330 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly – more than enough to oust him. If Bayrou loses Monday’s vote and the government falls, he would stay in office until President Emmanuel Macron decides what to do next. Unfortunately for the president, France lacks a consensus figure to replace Bayrou. Advertisement Macron is faced with uniquely hard choices – appoint another prime minister in the hope he or she can pass an unpopular budget, call new elections to try to re-establish a parliamentary majority or stand down himself, something he has refused to do before his term ends in 2027. Most experts expected Bayrou to lose the vote, which would force Macron to find a replacement. But with the arithmetic in parliament unchanged, that risks simply repeating the events from last year when Bayrou succeeded Michel Barnier. A fiscal conservative, Macron is unlikely to appoint a premier who advocates for higher state spending. But after the government recently tried to cut deals on the right of the political spectrum, some wonder if Macron might try something new. According to Stefano Palombarini, assistant professor of economics at the University of Paris VIII, “the two previous appointments, Barnier and Bayrou, both failed. He [Macron] lost a lot of credibility in that process, and if he tries a similarly centrist approach, he’d lose even more.” Palombarini told Al Jazeera that “in this context, it would make the scenario of a relative opening towards the left possible. Some Macronist, Socialist and Green politicians say they’re ready for compromises to form a government that lasts until 2027.” Does this mean there is a clear political path? Not really. According to an opinion poll this month for Le Figaro Magazine by the Verian Group, just 15 percent of the electorate has confidence in Macron, down 6 percentage points since July. However, the president has consistently ruled out resigning from office. Separate surveys by Ifop, Elabe and Toluna Harris Interactive indicated that 56 to 69 percent of French people want snap parliamentary elections, indicating growing dissatisfaction with current party politics in a country run by minority cabinets since 2022. For Palombarini, “there’s general political malaise [in France] and also dissatisfaction specifically with Macron. So overall, opinion polls are actually quite stable.” Indeed, the latest polls show no material change in voting intentions over the past year. This means there is no certainty that a new prime minister would be safe from a similar fate as Bayrou. What are the origins of this crisis? At the heart of France’s political paralysis is Macron’s risky decision to call snap parliamentary elections last year. That came after he was re-elected in 2022. Macron’s gamble in June 2024 was an effort to shore up support for the political centre. But French voters edged towards the extremes, leaving Macron with a weakened minority government and limiting his ability to pass legislation. Advertisement The vote resulted in a hung parliament split between three groups. A left alliance won the most seats but fell far short of a majority. The far-right National Rally won the most votes but also doesn’t have a majority. Macron’s centrist coalition lost seats but still forms a significant third bloc. This parliamentary shake-up has made France hard to govern. Divisions have shown up most clearly around spending. How does the budget fit into it? The immediate reason for Bayrou’s fall is his budget proposal for next year. His unpopular 44-billion-euro ($51bn) deficit-reduction plan, including freezing most welfare spending and scrapping two public holidays, has been widely rejected by parliamentarians. On August 25, Jordan Bardella, head of the National Rally, said his party would “never vote in favour of a government whose decisions are making the French suffer”. Bayrou in effect has announced “the end of his government”, Bardella said. The French budget deficit is now nearly 169 billion euros ($196bn), or 5.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), well above the 3 percent limit set by the European Union for countries using the euro. Bayrou is trying to lower the government’s borrowing to 4.6 percent of GDP in 2026 and to 2.8 percent by 2029. In turn, that would lower the overall debt-to-GDP ratio to 117.2 percent in 2029, compared with 125.3 percent if no changes are made. Bayrou recently said young people will be saddled with years of debt payments “for the sake of the comfort of boomers” if France fails to tackle its fiscal pressures. Born in 1951, Bayrou himself qualifies as a baby boomer, the generation born in the years soon after World War II. But any attempt to curtail social benefits is politically difficult in France, as made clear by conflicts in 2023 over Macron’s
Israel’s settler outposts choke Palestinian life in West Bank’s villages
On a sweltering summer day, the insides of villagers’ homes in Ras Ein al-Auja smelled of rot. The villagers said that the day before, settlers had – not for the first time – severed the power lines between their homes and the off-grid electricity networks the community had built up with help from humanitarian organisations, causing the food in their refrigerators to spoil. Israeli authorities have long denied access to basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation to this Palestinian community and others in Area C, and almost all of these communities face demolition orders. Israel typically accuses Palestinians of building without permits to justify the orders, but it makes it near impossible to acquire the permits. The Israeli military did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment for this article. According to Ghawanmeh, Israeli settlers from the three surrounding outposts – all established in the past two years – cut the off-grid electricity systems “five or six times a week”. Last year, settlers prohibited the Bedouins from accessing the al-Auja spring, which locals depend on for both their herds’ and their own water needs. The Palestinian villagers and local reports indicate that Israeli military forces allowed the settlers to block access to the spring. Now, all of the land where the Palestinian locals had grazed their herds is off-limits, forcing them to keep their livestock penned up. Ibrahim Kaabneh, 35, has only 40 sheep and goats left. He once had 250, but he said he sold most of his herd after he and a relative were attacked by settlers last year and the settlers stole his relatives’ herd. “I needed to get money to feed the rest of the herd before they would die or be stolen by the settlers,” he said inside his sparse family home with his children looking on quietly in the summer heat. With settlers attacking them if they bring out their herds to graze and no longer able to access the water spring as well as being denied access to the nearby water pipes connected to Israeli settlements, Kaabneh now must spend about 200 shekels ($60) a day on fodder for his animals while paying for water tanks every two days. “Even the livestock that we still have, we feel like they’re not ours,” Kaabneh said. “Any moment, they can be stolen. Any moment, they can be attacked.” Kaabneh lives about 200 metres (220 yards) away from a second Israeli outpost that was established a year ago. The outpost, containing a corrugated iron pen allegedly stolen from an already-expelled Bedouin community nearby, is a preview of what the newest outpost will look like as it expands, according to locals. The outpost established in August is even closer to the Bedouins living here. This has added to the fears among community members who feel “suffocated” by encroaching settlers. Since the war in Gaza started, settlers have burned homes in the community and are alleged to have assaulted community members, including Kaabneh’s uncle, who was struck by a bulldozer. Settlers also come to the village inappropriately dressed or drunk, the Palestinians say. Kaabneh says he has trouble sleeping, and he is wary of leaving his home even to get groceries because he fears for his family. Women and children avoid leaving their homes for more than an hour or two at a time. An access road to the community – built with funding from the United States Agency for International Development, as a billboard attests – now has at its entrance a series of concrete blocks painted with Israeli flags, and community members face constant harassment to run the most basic of errands. “Once we step outside of the house, it seems like we’re doing something wrong or we’re doing something illegal,” Ghawanmeh explained. “Children, the women and everyone here is in constant fear and in constant danger whenever they leave the house for whatever necessary reason.” “What we are living at the moment is a disaster,” he continued. “To move from accessing 20,000 dunums of land to accessing nothing and from having a free water source to now not having it at all is crippling.” Adblock test (Why?)
Trump asks Supreme Court to let it cut billions in foreign aid
Published On 8 Sep 20258 Sep 2025 Days after a federal judge ruled that United States President Donald Trump’s administration cannot unilaterally slash billions in foreign aid funding, the Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court to intervene. In a court filing on Monday, lawyers for the administration asked for an emergency stay to halt the order issued by the lower court and allow the administration to continue to withhold about $4bn in congressionally approved funds. Last month, Trump said he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a US president roughly 50 years ago. Last week, US District Judge Amir Ali ruled that the Republican administration’s decision to withhold the funding was likely illegal. The money at issue in the case was approved by Congress for foreign aid, United Nations peacekeeping operations and democracy-promotion efforts overseas. The Justice Department said in its filing on Monday that the administration views the $4bn of disputed foreign aid funding as “contrary to US foreign policy”. Congress budgeted billions in foreign aid last year, about $11bn of which must be spent or obligated before a deadline of September 30 – the last day of the US government’s current fiscal year – lest it expire. After being sued by aid groups that expected to compete for the funding, the administration said last month that it intended to spend $6.5bn of the disputed funds. Trump also sought to block $4bn of the funding through an unusual step called a “pocket rescission”, which bypasses Congress. Advertisement Ali ruled on Wednesday that the administration cannot simply choose to withhold the money and it must comply with appropriations laws unless Congress changes them. The judge’s injunction “raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers”, Justice Department lawyers wrote in Monday’s filing, adding that it would be “self-defeating and senseless for the executive branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind”. Under the US Constitution, the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches are assigned different powers. Trump budget director Russell Vought has argued that the president can withhold funds for 45 days after requesting a rescission, which would run out the clock until the end of the fiscal year. The White House said the tactic was last used in 1977. Lauren Bateman, a lawyer for a group of plaintiffs, said on Monday that the administration is asking the Supreme Court “to defend the illegal tactic of a pocket rescission.” “The administration is effectively asking the Supreme Court to bless its attempt to unlawfully accumulate power,” Bateman said. In recent months, the Supreme Court has issued a number of decisions in Trump’s favour through the use of emergency rulings – rarely requested by previous administrations but which Trump has sought and received in record number. From the beginning of his second term in January to early August, Trump had sought 22 emergency rulings, surpassing the 19 requested in all four years of President Joe Biden’s administration and nearly three times as many as the eight requested during each of the presidencies of Barack Obama and George W Bush, both of whom served two terms, or eight years. The rulings differ from typical cases in that they are often issued in extremely short, unsigned orders that give little in the way of legal reasoning despite the high stakes involved. That lack of transparency has led to criticism from legal scholars as well as rare pushback from federal judges. As of August, the court had sided with Trump in 16 out of the 22 emergency ruling cases. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel intensifies Gaza City destruction, bombs another high-rise tower
Israel has destroyed another high-rise in Gaza City, bringing the number of buildings razed during its campaign to seize the largest urban centre in the Gaza Strip to at least 50, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence. The attack on Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday came as Israeli forces killed at least 65 people across the Gaza Strip, including 49 in the northern part of the besieged enclave. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The Israeli military said it struck Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday after issuing an evacuation threat, forcing residents and displaced families sheltering in makeshift tents in the neighbourhood to flee. The head of the Palestinian NGOs Network, Amjad Shawa, who was near the site of the attack, told Al Jazeera that the situation “is scary”, with panic spreading among the people. “Today, hundreds of families lost their shelters. Israel [is] aiming to force Palestinians to the southern areas using these explosions, but everyone knows that there is no safe place in the south or any humanitarian zone,” Shawa said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the military was “eliminating terrorist infrastructure and nefarious terrorist high-rises”, a talking point that Israel often repeats as it obliterates civilian infrastructure in Gaza. The attack on Al-Ruya – a five-storey building with 24 apartments, as well as department stores, a clinic and a gym – follows an earlier one on the Al Jazeera Club in central Gaza City, where tents housing displaced families were also hit. It comes after Israel targeted the 15-storey Soussi Tower on Saturday and the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower on Friday. Several Palestinians sheltering in tent encampments around those towers were wounded. One family that had their shelter destroyed when the Soussi Tower was reduced to rubble said, “We have nothing left for us.” Advertisement “We quickly left the building without bringing anything with us. The Israelis attacked the building half an hour later,” the Palestinian man said. “Now, we are trying to stay away from the eyes of the other people by trying to sew some fabrics and sheets,” he said, referring to his family’s attempt to put up a new shelter. Israeli escalation in Gaza City Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for the military occupation of Gaza City in August, a move Netanyahu suggested had already led to the displacement of 100,000 Palestinians. As Israel pushes to displace residents of Gaza City to the south of the enclave, Palestinians have been saying that nowhere is safe in the territory. Gaza’s Ministry of Interior issued a statement on Sunday warning Palestinians in Gaza City not to trust Israel’s claim that it had set up a humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis. “We call on citizens in Gaza City to beware of the occupation’s deceitful claims about the existence of a humanitarian safe zone in the south of the Strip,” it said in a statement. The Israeli military had designated al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone” early on in its campaign against Gaza. Since then, it has been bombed repeatedly. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that “every five to 10 minutes, you can hear the sounds of explosions from all directions in Gaza City”, including heavy bombing in the Sabra and Zeitoun neighbourhoods. “Israeli forces are using remotely controlled explosive robots, and detonating them in residential streets, destroying neighbourhoods,” he said. In Sheikh Radwan, Mahmoud added, homes, public facilities, schools and a mosque had been hit. Rescuers reported that at least eight Palestinians, including children, were killed when Israeli forces bombed the al-Farabi school-turned-shelter, west of Gaza City. Sohaib Foda, who was sleeping on a mattress in Gaza City’s al-Farabi School when the attack took place, said the attack left her and a young relative wounded. “I heard a thud, and a block fell on my face. My cousin’s daughter, who was sleeping here, got injured and fell beside me. Another block then fell on her head,” Foda said. “Everyone was screaming. I was scared. When I touched my face, it was covered in blood, and I realised I had been injured.” Mohammed Ayed, who witnessed the attack, said the school was hit by two rockets. He said teams were still working in the rubble to rescue missing people or recover their remains. “We have recovered two hands so far,” he said. “As you can see, these are children’s hands.” Advertisement Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 64,368 Palestinians and wounded 162,776 since October 2023, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Thousands more remain buried under the rubble as famine continues to spread across the enclave. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, meanwhile, said at least five people, including three children, have starved to death in Gaza over the past day. These figures bring the total number of malnutrition deaths in Gaza to 387, including 138 children, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. Since the global hunger monitor, IPC, confirmed the famine in northern Gaza on August 22, at least 109 hunger-related deaths have been recorded, 23 of them children, the ministry added. Academics, United Nations experts and leading rights groups have described the horrific Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a genocide. Later on Sunday, United States President Donald Trump suggested that he put forward a new proposal to end the war in Gaza, calling it a “final warning” for Hamas. The Palestinian group acknowledged receiving “ideas” from the US, saying that it welcomes any efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire. Adblock test (Why?)
Australia ‘mushroom murderer’ Erin Patterson sentenced to life in prison
Published On 8 Sep 20258 Sep 2025 An Australian judge has sentenced a woman convicted of killing three of her estranged husband’s relatives with toxic mushrooms to life in prison, with a non-parole period of 33 years. The sentence on Monday came after a jury found Erin Patterson guilty of killing her mother-in-law and father-in-law, Gail and Donald Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them a lunch of Beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The 50-year-old was also convicted of attempting to murder Wilkinson’s husband, Ian, who spent weeks in a hospital. Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, was invited but did not attend the July 2023 lunch served at her home in Leongatha, some 135km (84 miles) southeast of Melbourne. Justice Christopher Beale said that the substantial planning of the murders and Patterson’s lack of remorse meant her sentence should be lengthy. “The devastating impact of your crimes is not limited to your direct victims. Your crimes have harmed a great many people,” he said at the hearing in Melbourne. “Not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson’s health, thereby devastating the extended Patterson and Wilkinson families, you inflicted untold suffering on your own children, whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents,” he added. Life sentence Both prosecution and defence lawyers had agreed that a life sentence was an appropriate punishment for Patterson on three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. The defence lawyers had asked for Patterson to become eligible for parole after serving 30 years. Prosecutors had argued she should never be considered for parole because she did not deserve the court’s mercy. Advertisement Beale on Monday agreed that Patterson should receive the maximum penalty, and gave her three life sentences for the counts of murder and a 25-year-prison sentence for the count of attempted murder. All of the sentences are to be served concurrently. Beale gave her a chance at parole, however, after she serves a minimum period of 33 years. This means she will be 81 before she can be considered for release. In his remarks, Beale said Patterson had also intended to kill her husband if he had accepted his invitation to lunch. She had pretended to have been diagnosed with cancer as a reason to bring them together, and claimed to have wanted advice on how to break the news to her two children, who were not present at the lunch. Beale accepted Ian Wilkinson’s account that the guests were served grey plates while Patterson ate from an orange-tan plate. This was to ensure she did not accidentally eat a poisoned meal, Beale said. The judge said he would not speculate on her motive. Patterson maintained that she had added foraged mushrooms to the meals by accident. Patterson has been in custody since she was charged on November 2, 2023. A corrections officer has previously told the court that she was being kept in isolation for her own safety, and was permitted contact with only one other prisoner who is in jail for “terrorism” offences. Patterson now has 28 days to appeal her sentence, but has not indicated whether she will do so. ‘Half-alive’ The deaths have devastated the close-knit rural community of Korumburra, where all the victims lived. The court received a total of 28 victim impact statements, of which seven were read publicly at last month’s hearings. Ian Wilkinson, a pastor at a local church and the sole surviving guest of the lunch, told last month’s hearing that the death of his wife had left him bereft. “It’s a truly horrible thought to live with, that somebody could decide to take her life. I only feel half alive without her,” he said, breaking down in tears as he delivered his victim impact statement. The extraordinary media interest in the case, which gripped Australia for much of the 10-week trial, had been traumatic for the family, Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, said at the same hearing. Journalists and television crews from around the world descended on the town of Morwell when the trial began in April, with millions of Australians following proceedings live through one of several popular daily podcasts. For the first time in its history, the Supreme Court of Victoria on Monday allowed a television camera into the court to broadcast Beale’s sentencing remarks live due to overwhelming public interest. Advertisement The trial has already inspired several books, documentaries, and a drama series, Toxic, set to air on state broadcaster ABC. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,292
Here are the key events on day 1,292 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Published On 8 Sep 20258 Sep 2025 Here is how things stand on Monday, September 8: Fighting Russia launched its largest air attack of the war on Ukraine on Sunday, killing at least four people, including a one-year-old baby, and wounding 44 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The attack also set the main government building in central Kyiv on fire. It marked the first time that the building had been hit since the war began. “Such killings now, when real diplomacy could have already begun long ago, are a deliberate crime and a prolongation of the war,” Zelenskyy said in a post on social media, issuing a new appeal to allies to strengthen Ukrainian air defences. Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 810 drones and 13 missiles during the attack, which caused damage across the country, including the cities of Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih and Odesa, as well as in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions. Other Russian attacks killed three in the Zaporizhia region, two in Donetsk, a 66-year-old woman in Kharkiv, a 51-year-old woman in Sumy, and a 54-year-old man in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to Ukrainian officials. In Russian-occupied Donetsk, the TASS news agency reported that a Ukrainian attack injured six civilians. The Russian state media outlet cited Denis Pushilin, the head of the Moscow-installed authorities in Donetsk. Ukrainian forces also attacked the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia’s Bryansk region, inflicting “comprehensive fire damage”, the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert Brovdi, said on Telegram on Sunday. The Russian Ministry of Defence said that its forces shot down 210 Ukrainian drones and three aerial bombs in a 24-hour period. TASS also reported that Russia’s military has occupied the settlement of Khoroshe in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region. Sanctions and economic situation Advertisement US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the United States and Europe could prompt Russian President Vladimir Putin to enter peace talks with Ukraine by imposing more sanctions on Moscow, as well as “secondary tariffs” on the countries that buy Russian oil. “The Russian economy will be in full collapse, and that will bring President Putin to the table,” Bessent said on NBC’s Meet the Press. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said he is ready to move to a second phase of sanctioning Russia. He did not elaborate. Later on Sunday, he said that individual European leaders would visit the US on Monday or Tuesday to discuss how to resolve the war. The US president said he would speak to Putin soon, too. A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project departed from a Chinese port, ship tracking data showed on Sunday. The Russian-flagged tanker, with a cargo of 150,000 cubic metres (about 40 million gallons) of LNG, was loaded up at the Arctic LNG 2 facility in Gydan in northern Siberia on July 19, LSEG data showed, and was the second from the sanctioned project to dock in China this year. Politics and Diplomacy The US envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, condemned the latest Russian air attack on Ukraine, saying it “was not a signal that Russia wants to diplomatically end this war”. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer also said in a statement that he was appalled by Russia’s “latest brutal overnight assault on Kyiv and across Ukraine, which killed civilians and hit infrastructure”. Adblock test (Why?)
Trump threatens ‘war’ on Chicago as thousands protest federal crackdown
United States President Donald Trump has threatened to unleash his newly rebranded “Department of War” on Chicago, as thousands of protesters marched in the city as well as in Washington, DC, to denounce the deployment of National Guard troops and immigration agents to Democratic-led cities. Trump’s threat, posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, featured a parody image from the movie Apocalypse Now, showing a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the skyline of Chicago, the US’s third-largest city. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” The president offered no details beyond the label “Chipocalypse Now,” a play on the title of Francis Ford Coppola’s dystopian 1979 film set in the Vietnam war, in which a character says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”. The post from Trump follows his repeated threats to add Chicago to the list of other Democratic-led cities he has targeted for expanded federal enforcement. His administration is set to step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, as it did in Los Angeles, and deploy National Guard troops. Democratic Governor of Illinois JB Pritzker, where Chicago is located, voiced outrage at Trump’s post and said the state “won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator”. “The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” he wrote in a post on X. Thousands of demonstrators participate in the ‘We Are All DC’ national march, in solidarity with DC communities, and call for an end to Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in the US capital [Amid Farahi/AFP] Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also denounced Trump’s threat as “beneath the honor of our nation”. Advertisement “The reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution. We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump,” Johnson wrote on X. Protests in Chicago, DC In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Trump has deployed them since last month in Washington, DC, as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the country’s capital. He has also suggested that Baltimore and New Orleans could get the same treatment and, on Friday, even mentioned federal authorities possibly heading for Portland, Oregon, to “wipe ’em out”, meaning the protesters. The US president on Friday also signed an order changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, saying it sends “a message of victory” to the world. The troop and federal agent deployments have prompted legal challenges and protests, with critics calling them an authoritarian show of force. On Saturday, more than a thousand protesters marched through the streets of downtown Chicago, with signs bearing slogans like “I.C.E. out of Illinois, I.C.E. out of everywhere”, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Speakers offered the crowd instructions on what to do if encountering ICE agents. They also drew comparisons between the proposed ICE crackdown on Chicago and Israel’s presence in Gaza. “We are inspired by the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza, and it is why we refuse to cower to Trump and his threats,” Nazek Sankari, co-chair of the US Palestinian Community Network, said to the crowd as many waved Palestinian flags and donned keffiyehs. Viviana Barajas, leader with the community organisation Palenque LSNA, promised that Chicagoans would “stand up” as Los Angeles had if Trump deployed the National Guard in their city. “If he thinks these frivolous theatrics to undermine our sovereignty will shut out the passion we have for protecting our people, this is Chicago, and he is sorely mistaken,” Barajas said. “We have been studying LA and DC, and they have stood up for their cities.” In the US capital, protesters at the “We Are All DC” march, who also included supporters of Palestinian statehood, marched behind a bright red banner reading, “END THE D.C. OCCUPATION”, in English and Spanish. They chanted slogans denouncing Trump and carried posters, some of which read, “Trump must go now,” “Free DC”, and “Resist Tyranny”. Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Washington, DC, said the protesters were “furious” of Trump’s order, and were calling him “a fascist and an authoritarian”. Advertisement She noted that Trump had deployed the 2,000 troops last month to fight what he called a surge in violent crime, but that such offences in the US capital last year had hit “a 30-year low”. Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US diplomat who has been a DC resident for about a decade, told The Associated Press news agency on Saturday that he was worried about the “authoritarian nature” in which the administration is treating DC. “Federal agents, national guards patrolling our streets, that’s really an affront to the democracy of our city,” he said, adding that it is worse for DC residents due to their lack of federal representation. “We don’t have our own senators or members of the House of Representatives, so we’re at the mercy of a dictator like this, a wanna-be dictator.” Among the protesters on Saturday was Jun Lee, a printmaker artist, who showed up with a “Free DC” sign that she made on a woodcut block. She said she came to the protest because she was “saddened and heartbroken” about the impact of the federal intervention on her city. “This is my home, and I never, ever thought all the stuff that I watched in a history documentary that I’m actually living in person, and this is why this is important for everyone. This is our home; we need to fight, we need to resist,” she said. Trump has suggested that he has nearly limitless powers when it comes to deploying the National Guard. At times he has even touched on questions about his being a dictator. “Most