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Reçu aujourd’hui — 19 juin 20256.9 📰 Infos English

Australia mushroom trial live: defence set to conclude closing address in murder trial of Erin Patterson

19 juin 2025 à 02:40

Accused, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder over a beef wellington lunch she served to in-laws

The jurors have entered the court room in Morwell.

Justice Christopher Beale tells the jury he will begin instructing them on Tuesday, before they begin their deliberations. He says his instructions, called the judge’s charge, will take two days.

Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, said his client was “not on trial for being a liar”. He told jurors the court was not one of “moral judgment”.

The prosecution’s case that Patterson wanted her estranged husband, Simon, to attend the lunch so she could kill him was “absurd”, Mandy said.

The defence said the jury should reject the evidence from the sole surviving lunch guest, Ian Wilkinson, that Patterson served her guests on four large grey plates while eating from an orangey-tan coloured plate. Mandy said Ian was “honestly mistaken”.

Mandy said the December 2022 Facebook group chat messages, where Patterson said her in-laws were a “lost cause”, were being used by the prosecution as a distraction from the evidence in the case. He said the messages, which related to a disagreement over child support with Simon, stood out because they were about the only disagreement between Patterson and her in-laws.

Mandy says online searches about death cap mushrooms – discovered on a computer police seized from Patterson’s house – showed his client’s “idle curiosity” and was not a person “carefully studying this information”.

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© Composite: Guardian Design/AAP

© Composite: Guardian Design/AAP

Ukraine war briefing: Russia can defend itself, says Putin, as North Korea sends more soldiers

Death toll rises to 28 after Russian attack on Kyiv apartments; Zelenskyy planning to attend Nato summit in The Hague. What we know on day 1,212

Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready to meet with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy but only during a “final phase” of negotiations “so as not to sit there and divide things up endlessly, but to put an end to it”. Putin made his customary false accusation that Zelenskyy is not Ukraine’s legitimate president.

In a round-table interview in St Petersburg with international news agencies, Putin said on Nato: “We do not consider any Nato rearmament to be a threat to the Russian Federation, because we are self-sufficient in terms of ensuring our security.” Russia has brought in thousands of North Korean soldiers to help defend Kursk; and has relied on a flood of arms and ammunition from North Korea as well as Iranian drones and missiles to wage war on Ukraine; while also receiving suspected help from China to continue arming a “special military operation” that Putin thought would be over in three days. The potential collapse of the Iranian regime would be a serious blow to Putin, Russian affairs reporter Pjotr Sauer writes.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to attend the Nato summit in The Hague on 24-25 June, a source in the Ukrainian presidency told the AFP news agency on Wednesday. “The decision will be made on the eve of the summit. This is just the schedule,” the source said, describing the meeting as “an opportunity to maintain support and promote a ceasefire”. Nato leaders want to keep the summit brief so as not to aggravate Donald Trump and his short attention span, the Times has reported (£).

Senior Ukrainian officials at the G7 summit in Canada discussed with US counterparts the possibility of supporting defence projects in Ukraine under a joint investment fund set up in May, Kyiv’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said on Wednesday. The talks included the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, Svyrydenko said.

The death toll from Tuesday’s Russian attack on Kyiv stood at 28, with more than 130 injured, as the recovery of bodies continued at destroyed apartment blocks.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces hit a Ukrainian troop position in the Sumy region with an Iskander missile. The Reuters news agency said it could not independently confirm the battlefield report, or determine exactly when it took place. Ukrainian authorities on Monday reported an Iskander missile strike on Konotop damaged flats in multi-storey buildings with no casualties. Ukraine is trying to drive Russian forces from the Sumy region where border areas are gripped by heavy fighting.

Slovak police have detained eight people, including defence ministry officials, in an investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office into possible misuse of €7.4m for military aid to Ukraine at the start of the war in February 2022. Jaroslav Nad, who was Slovakia’s defence minister at the time, has called the police action “theatre”. Slovakia’s pro-Russia current prime minister, Robert Fico, has taken sharp policy turns since taking power in 2023 – stopping military aid to Ukraine and making a trip to Moscow that fuelled large and widespread protests in opposition to his stance on Ukraine.

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© Photograph: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Reuters

© Photograph: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Reuters

Bear necessity: lid stuck around US animal’s neck removed after two years

19 juin 2025 à 02:08

Michigan wildlife experts surprised by the bear’s ability to eat and sleep despite the uncomfortable accessory

Michigan wildlife experts finally were able to trap a black bear and remove a large lid that was stuck around his neck – after two years.

“It’s pretty incredible that the bear survived and was able to feed itself,” Cody Norton, a state bear specialist, said Wednesday. “The neck was scarred and missing hair, but the bear was in much better condition than we expected it to be.”

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© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

New Zealand halts millions of dollars in aid to Cook Islands over deals struck with China

19 juin 2025 à 01:56

Wellington says it has paused payment of some funding until Pacific island nation takes steps to ‘repair the relationship and restore trust’

New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over the “breadth and content” of agreements the smaller Pacific nation made with China, officials from the New Zealand foreign minister’s office has said.

New Zealand, which is the Cook Islands biggest funder, won’t consider any new money for the nation until the relationship improves, a spokesperson for foreign minister Winston Peters told the Associated Press on Thursday. Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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© Photograph: Holger Leue/Getty Images

© Photograph: Holger Leue/Getty Images

Cambodia bans fruit imports and soap operas from Thailand as border dispute sours

19 juin 2025 à 01:41

The border dispute has led to a surge in nationalist sentiment and tit-for-tat actions by both governments

Cambodia has banned imports of fruit and vegetables from Thailand, the latest escalation in a series of retaliatory actions sparked by a long-running border dispute between the South-east Asian neighbours.

Tensions flared in May when troops briefly exchanged fire at a contested area of the border, killing a Cambodian soldier.

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© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

Social Security Benefits Could Be Cut in 8 Years Unless Congress Acts

The nation’s key program for retiree benefits continues to see financing shortfalls. Unless Congress acts, those drops could lead to payment cuts in eight years.

© Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

Social Security benefits could be reduced by about 23 percent in less than a decade if Congress does not shore up the program, its trustees said on Wednesday.
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