1. Hero mum breaks neck shielding her children from a falling tree.
A mother-of-three in New York City is being called a ‘hero’ after she was critically injured trying to shield her children from a falling tree in Central Park on Tuesday morning.
Fashion editor Anne Monoky Goldman, 39, was walking through the park with her newborn James strapped to her chest, and pushing her two eldest boys Grant, 2 and Will, 4, in a stroller when an elm tree above started to topple.
“She hit her head trying to shield branches from striking the children” FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer told the New York Post.
One witness, Jamie Brown from Virginia, described the ordeal as “terrifying”.
“You heard the tree fall and didn’t know what happened, and then you heard a baby scream,” he said.
Rescuers needed a chainsaw to free the Manhattan mother from beneath the branches. She was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital where she is receiving treatment for a fractured neck. Grant, 2, suffered a cracked skull, but his two brothers were discharged from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon.
2. Another day, another politician questioned over dual-citizenship.
Michael Keenan may be the next Turnbull minister to run foul of the citizenship row.
The justice minister may be a British citizen courtesy of his father Peter, who was born in England in 1943 and emigrated to Australia, where he married, Fairfax Media reports.
Me Keenan took to social media on Thursday morning to insist he renounced his British citizenship in 2004 before he entered parliament.
“I am an Australian citizen and I do not hold citizenship of any other country,” he tweeted.
3. Girl, 10, escapes as man tries to grab her on NSW street.
A 10-year-old girl has escaped after being grabbed from behind by a man as she walked along a street in the NSW town of Muswellbrook, in the Upper Hunter region, AAP reports.
The child was walking along Bligh Street between 4.30pm and 5pm on Wednesday when police say a car (Ford Falcon sedan, light grey) pulled up behind her.
The male driver then got out of the car, grabbed her and began to pull her towards the car. She tried to scream for help and punched and kicked at the man, finally managing to break free.
Police are looking for a man of Caucasian appearance, 196cm tall, aged between 20 and 30, with a slim build; brown eyes and a black and brown short goatee. He was last seen wearing a black hooded top and dark-coloured pants.
4. Second man arrested over UK model’s alleged kidnapping.
British police have arrested the brother of a man suspected of abducting a British model in Milan and threatening to auction her online unless a ransom was paid.
Model Chloe Ayling told Italian police she had been held captive for six days after being lured to a photo shoot in Italy last month where she was drugged, gagged, bound, stuffed into a bag, and kidnapped. Her lawyer said the plot was to sell the model for sex in an online auction.
Italian police said they had arrested the alleged kidnapper, Lukasz Pawel Herba, a British resident born in Poland who has confessed. Now, officers have detained his brother, Michal Konrad Herba, 36, who’s due to appear at London’s Westminster Magistrates Court on August 17.
5. Same-sex marriage plebiscite in front of the High Court again today.
The High Court will hold a second directions hearing today into a challenge against the government’s same-sex marriage survey.
The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) and Public Interest Advocacy Centre say the survey should be scrapped because it breaches the constitution and the government has over-reached its powers in funding it.
“There are important questions about the lawfulness of this postal plebiscite. It is appropriate for the High Court to consider them,” HRLC legal director Anna Brown said.
The government has said it won’t distribute any survey forms until the case is finalised, which is expected soon after the final court hearings on September 5 and 6.
6. Kids cured of peanut allergy in Australian medical trial.
Australian researchers have made a breakthrough in the treatment of the deadly peanut allergy in children, AAP reports.
A small clinical trial conducted at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute has seen two-thirds of children treated with an experimental immunotherapy treatment cured of their allergy – with no signs of it returning for up to four years after treatment.
Peanut allergy is the most common cause of anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction, and one of the most common causes of death from food allergy.
To combat this, immunologist and allergist Professor Tang pioneered a new form of treatment that combines a probiotic with peanut oral immunotherapy, known as PPOIT.
Instead of avoiding the allergen, the treatment is designed to reprogram the immune system’s response to peanut and eventually develop a tolerance.
Top Comments
Fantastic!
At the beginning when the first two senators, resigned, wouldn't it have been a good idea for the major party's to get together, passing legislation to grant a three month amnesty to allow all potentially affected pollies to clear up their citizenship. Rather than start trying to one up each other and ask silly questions in question time. Get back to governing the fucking country and spend my tax dollars on things more worthwhile than this crap
An amnesty is a bloody good idea, they're dropping like flies at the moment!
while it is very rare for me to agree with cory bernardi his idea for turnbull to call off parliament until this dual citizenship stuff is sorted including if by elections need to happen. a broken clock is right twice a day