Interesting, Non Political News

The Sydney grandmother has won widespread sympathy after a court in Kuala Lumpur heard how she was set up through an online boyfriend scam. Initially, Exposto was acquitted of trafficking 1.5kg of methamphetamine into Malaysia, but faced a prosecution appeal and was subsequently found guilty last May and sentenced to death.

The prosecution in Exposto’s appeal argued she had been wilfully blind, said her defence was simply made up and that she had engaged in a “sly game.” Her lawyers argued Exposto was an innocent carrier hoodwinked by an internet romance scam. A bench of three judges noted the ultimate penalty was mandatory for drug trafficking, but added she had the right to appeal and wished her luck.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was internationally praised by humanitarian groups after his government announced in October the death penalty would be abolished. But smiles turned to disappointment on Wednesday when Mahathir’s deputy minister, Hanipa Maidin, told parliament of the change. Shafee said the mandatory death penalty was also being challenged in the Federal Court, but added there was still widespread support for executions in Malaysia.

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J&J, through subsidiaries based in Tasmania, grew opium poppies used in its Nucynta medication and sold to other drugmakers for use in their opioid-based products, court filings in Oklahoma show. The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company also wrongfully targeted children and the elderly in its marketing, the state contends.

Those actions made J&J a “kingpin behind the public-health emergency, profiting at every stage,’’ lawyers for Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said in a February state court document. Oklahoma is slated to be the first state to bring claims against opioid makers such as J&J’s Janssen unit and Purdue Pharma LP to trial in May. The state is seeking more than $25 billion in damages and penalties over what it says was the illegal marketing of the painkillers.

J&J’s Janssen unit sold the U.S. rights to Nucynta in 2015 to DepoMed Inc., renamed Assertio Therapeutics Inc., for $1.05 billion. J&J still sells Duragesic, a fentanyl-based pain patch.

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Towering high above the Kenyan landscape, this female elephant is huge, her long tusks curving right down to the ground. Known as a “big tusker” she’s a rare and extraordinary sight—it’s estimated that fewer than 30 of these animals still exist in Africa. British photographer Will Burrard-Lucas captured a series of black-and-white photographs of this animal—that he calls the Elephant Queen—roaming in the natural landscape around Kenya’s Tsavo National Park shortly before the animal died of natural causes.

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Angler Tee Hokin had the honor of reeling in the specimen, which measured about 15 centimeters long, while out on the Mary River with a group one day. She explained that it immediately looked like she’d stumbled across one of the horrifying creatures from the 1979 Sigourney Weaver flick. And sure enough, she learned in short order that she wasn’t the only person who felt that way.

The actual name of the creature is a “worm goby,” a mud-dwelling fish that’s generally considered harmless to humans. Armed with the knowledge that they can grow up to 50 centimeters in length, though, and have some pretty horrifying teeth, the internet had a bit of fun with the wild catch.

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“A 43-year-old man drove into his driveway on Nimbin Road and got out of his car,” said New South Wales police in a statement. “He noticed another man, who is known to him, standing outside his property allegedly armed with a bow and arrow. It’s alleged the man fired the arrow at the resident which pierced through the man’s mobile phone causing the phone to hit him in the chin. It left a small laceration that didn’t require medical treatment.”

The 39-year-old man was arrested at the scene and has been charged with being armed with intent to commit an indictable offense, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and malicious damage.

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The penny belonged to Private John Trickett, who kept it in the top breast pocket of his uniform as a "poignant reminder of home" during the war. While on a French battlefield fighting German forces in 1914, a German soldier shot at Trickett. The bullet hit the penny, nestled firmly in Trickett's breast pocket, ricocheted through his nose and went out back of his ear, Maureen Coulson, Trickett’s granddaughter, said.

“Everyone in our family saw the penny and heard the story of how it saved my grandfather’s life," Coulson said. "He had to come home because of the injury. It damaged his left-hand side and left him deaf in his left ear. It also affected his balance." The penny was made in 1889 and was passed on from generation to generation in Trickett's family until now.

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The verdict issued Tuesday marks another setback for Bayer, which has come under intense pressure since a jury in August reached a $289.2 million verdict in the first case over the weedkiller to go to trial. That decision, which sent Bayer shares down sharply, came soon after the German company completed its acquisition of Monsanto Co. Bayer has appealed that verdict, which the trial judge cut down to $78.5 million.

Bayer faces lawsuits in the U.S. from about 11,200 farmers, home gardeners and landscapers claiming its glyphosate-based herbicides cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers. Six more trials are due to start this year in federal and state courts.

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