ADELAIDE, Australia — A former South Australian Labor Member of Parliament and her businessman husband will answer blackmail charges against them in August. Annabel Digance, 63, and her husband Greg Digance, 60, appeared for a second time in Adelaide Magistrates Court on June 15, where prosecutors said the charges against them would proceed. The pair were arrested first in April at their Strathalbyn home, south of Adelaide, over allegations they tried to blackmail South Australia Labor leader Peter Malinauskas. They did not comment on the brief court appearance, with magistrate Simon Smart setting down August 10 as the date to enter pleas. Their bail was…
Author: zenger.news
SYDNEY — A very drunk party goer in Australia’s state of New South Wales, who killed a fellow guest trying to stop him from getting behind the wheel has been jailed for at least four years and three months. Darryle Tailford, who had vomited and was slurring his words, left his car, obtained a carving fork from a knife block, and used it to lash out at the good Samaritan, his girlfriend’s brother. Richard “Ricky” Eggins had tried to restrain Tailford to prevent him endangering himself, and other road users in central west New South Wales, Justice Stephen Rothman said on June 15.…
SYDNEY — Less than a year after it reversed a decision to move the Powerhouse Museum from Sydney’s Central Business District, New South Wales’s southeastern Australian state government has pledged to transform the site into a design and fashion hub. New South Wales Arts Minister Don Harwin on June 15 announced the Ultimo museum would undergo renovations, with a design contest to be held to find an architectural team to lead the project. “Like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Smithsonian in the U.S., the Powerhouse Collection has encyclopedic breadth,” he said in a statement. “Our investment in transforming Powerhouse Ultimo alongside establishing the Powerhouse Parramatta…
CANBERRA, Australia — New laws set to pass in Australian parliament will unmask and punish online predators and curtail their hosts. The online safety bill gives the eSafety commissioner new powers to have threats, violent material, revenge porn, and other vile content removed within 24 hours and pursue perpetrators with fines and jail terms. High-profile victims of cyber-bullying, Erin Molan, backed the new framework targeting people who threaten, intimidate, menace, or harass others online. “It can ruin lives, it can end lives, so this is really crucial,” said Molan. The sports reporter, who has been a victim of vile abuse over the past…
Led by strong economic growth, a rally in the price of crude oil has pushed retail gas prices to multi-year highs, with demand also continuing to surge upward, analysts told Zenger News. Auto club AAA reported a national average retail price of $3.08 a gallon for regular gasoline on Tuesday — just a fraction of a percent lower than the previous day. The last time prices topped $3 on a weekly basis was in late October 2014, according to U.S. federal data. However, AAA spokesperson Jeanette McGee said some relief could be coming if crude oil production increases and creates…
Calvin Richardson did not immediately reap the rewards of pursuing his passion. However, his remarkable voice, belief in himself and his work ethic eventually produced the success he was seeking. Richardson always bet on himself and eventually it paid off. A hit-maker in every sense of the word, he seems to get better with time. He has lived up to his “Prince of Soul” moniker by continuously providing heartfelt music that led to three Grammy nominations. His voice gracefully spans several genres, and his fan base includes all ages. He has released eight solo projects in his 20-year career and…
Lisa Kytösaho, a Swedish conservationist, helps raise cheetahs at a South African rescue center and prepares them for their return to the wild — without fearing for her own safety among the big cats. Kytösaho, who has lived in South Africa for over 10 years, is director of the Western Cape Cheetah Conservation, which rescues and rehabilitates cheetahs in the country. “I am not afraid of them. I see the cheetahs as my friends,” she said. “We have respect and trust for each other, and I do not push them to be with me, but wait for them to come…
It’s not unusual to find the Jews and Arabs of Jerusalem side by side in stores, buses and trains, working together in hospitals and studying together in institutions of higher education. It is quite unusual, however, to find a Jewish and Arab duo who are close friends and startup co-founders. That’s what makes Hesham Taha and Avi Israel’s story so intriguing — and so hopeful for a shared future in this city of 936,000 people, 62 percent of whom are Jewish and 38 percent Arab. Their company, Teramount, connects optical fibers to silicon chips, enabling the transfer of terabytes of…
An Alpine range in Germany is now home to two female bearded vultures for the first time since they were eradicated in the area 140 years ago. The Berchtesgaden National Park, located in southern Germany near the border with Austria, welcomed the pair on June 10. The bearded vultures, Wally and Bavaria, are about 100 days old and were born in the Andalusian breeding station in Spain, run by the Vulture Conservation Foundation as a part of the EAZA Ex-situ Programme. The two birds are supposed to strengthen the Central European population of the species and close an important geographical…
An innovative optical technology that can instantly and non-invasively detect and distinguish between different types of skin cancer has been developed by an Israeli scientist at Tel Aviv University. The new method created by professor Abraham Katzir at the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, employs infrared sensors and optical fibers in order to determine the properties of various lesions on the skin and to successfully identify them based on their coloration within the infrared spectrum. “We figured that with the help of devices that can identify these ’colors,’ healthy skin and each of the benign and malignant…