Australia mushroom trial live: evidence concludes in Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial after weeks of testimony from witnesses

Victorian woman, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder after a fatal beef wellington lunch in Leongatha in 2023. Follow live

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC turns to evidence about factory resets performed on the mobile referred to as “Phone B”.

The court previously heard four resets – one in February 2023 and three in August 2023 – were performed on the phone that Erin Patterson provided to police during the search on 5 August 2023.

Rogers says one of these resets were done when she was left alone to call a lawyer while police searched Patterson’s Leongatha home.

Patterson rejects this and says she phoned a lawyer at 2pm.

Rogers says Patterson performed the three factory resets after the lunch to “conceal” the contents on Phone B.

Patterson rejects this.

Rogers then turns to her final points in the cross-examination.

She suggests Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023.

Patterson rejects this.

Rogers says Patterson deliberately included death cap mushrooms in the beef wellingtons she served her lunch guests.

It’s an agreed fact in this case.... that this [phone number] lost connection ... could be due to:

a. The sim card being removed from the handset;

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Moira Deeming offered John Pesutto chance to avoid bankruptcy on condition Liberal party assured her preselection

Payment of $2.3m in defamation costs Pesutto owes would have been delayed until 2027 under deal, which was not accepted by Liberal party

Moira Deeming offered John Pesutto a chance to avoid bankruptcy and delay payment of $2.3m in legal costs until 2027 on the condition her preselection for the next election be assured by the Liberal party.

The upper house MP commenced bankruptcy proceedings earlier this month after the former Liberal leader failed to pay the costs ordered by the federal court in May. The court found Pesutto repeatedly defamed Deeming by falsely implying she sympathised with neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

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Tasmania to hold early election after governor grants embattled premier Jeremy Rockliff’s request

Barbara Baker agrees to poll despite ‘public interest in avoiding the cost’ because no possibility of alternative government forming

Tasmania will hold an early election on 19 July – just 16 months after last going to the polls – after the state’s governor agreed to a request from the Liberal premier, Jeremy Rockliff.

The announcement followed a dramatic week in which the parliament narrowly supported a no-confidence motion in Rockliff moved by the Labor leader, Dean Winter, and the state’s three main political parties each argued a fresh election could be avoided.

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ABC confirms Q+A to be axed amid wider changes including about 40 redundancies

Political and current affairs discussion program being cut alongside the ABC’s Innovation Lab

The ABC’s Q+A program has been cancelled after 18 years, the broadcaster has confirmed, and another major restructure of screen, digital and audio content will result in scores of redundancies across the public broadcaster.

The savings from staff cuts will be “reinvested directly into more content and services for audiences”, the managing director, Hugh Marks, has told staff.

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Australian universities hesitate on antisemitism definition amid academic freedom concerns

Peak Jewish groups accuse ANU of making campus ‘unsafe’ after board declines to adopt definition endorsed by Universities Australia

Months after the release of a new definition of antisemitism, a string of Australian universities are yet to adopt it amid concerns it may contravene academic freedom.

The academic board at the Australian National University (ANU) has declined to adopt the definition, paving the way for the university to become the first to reject the policy, while at least 11 other institutions have not yet made a decision.

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ABC expected to axe Q+A in fresh round of cuts

Managing director Hugh Marks to unveil changes at public broadcaster on Wednesday

The ABC’s managing director, Hugh Marks, is expected to unveil his first tranche of changes at the public broadcaster on Wednesday morning, including a new round of redundancies and the axing of Q+A after 18 years.

The weekly flagship discussion program was launched in 2007 by executive producer Peter McEvoy and host Tony Jones and was highly influential in its early years.

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Australia mushroom trial live: Erin Patterson says she felt anxious at hospital that doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning

Victorian woman, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder following a fatal beef wellington lunch in Leongatha in 2023. Follow live

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC says Erin Patterson’s son gave evidence that she did not tell him she was sick on the day of the lunch.

“I don’t know if I did or I didn’t,” Patterson says.

The first thing he said to me was something like: I’ve got a sore tummy.

How could I? It’s vomit. Unless you can see a bean or a piece of corn.

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Albanese says footage of Nine journalist Lauren Tomasi being shot by LA police with rubber bullet is ‘horrific’

The PM says he has expressed his concern to the US government over the incident that occurred during protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles

Full report: Pentagon deploys 700 US marines to LA amid immigration protests
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Anthony Albanese says footage of the Nine correspondent Lauren Tomasi being shot by a rubber bullet live on air is “horrific” and he has expressed his concern to the US government.

Tomasi was shot while reporting on protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, with the incident caught live on camera. Footage showed an officer taking aim in the direction of Tomasi and her camera operator and then firing.

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‘You knew how suspicious it would look’: Erin Patterson makes series of denials in tense cross-examination

Patterson also tells triple-murder trial she’s ‘puzzled’ clinic she says she had an appointment with for a gastric bypass offers no such surgery

Erin Patterson says she is “puzzled” that a clinic in which she said she had an appointment for a gastric bypass offers no such surgery, and denies lying about making herself vomit in the hours immediately after the beef wellington lunch, a court has heard.

In her sixth day in the witness box, Patterson was repeatedly asked under cross-examination by prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC whether she was lying about the deadly lunch and other parts of her evidence before her triple-murder trial.

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Monash IVF admits second bungled embryo implant, this time at Victorian clinic

Patient’s own embryo instead of partner’s was ‘incorrectly transferred’, fertility company tells ASX, months after revealing separate Queensland clinic error

A second bungled embryo implant at Monash IVF has sparked a new investigation and the expansion of a review into the first incident, which led to a woman unknowingly giving birth to a stranger’s baby.

Monash IVF said in a statement on Tuesday that in June “a patient’s own embryo was incorrectly transferred to that patient, contrary to the treatment plan which designated the transfer of an embryo of the patient’s partner”.

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Lex Greensill says SoftBank managers ‘felt threatened’ by his links to founder

Financier tells court he travelled to Tokyo ‘often weekly’ for mentoring sessions with Masayoshi Son

The financier Lex Greensill has told a court that senior managers at SoftBank “felt threatened” by his relationship with Masayoshi Son, the founder of the Japanese tech investor that pumped hundreds of millions of dollars in his specialist lender before its collapse.

Greensill said he travelled to Tokyo “often weekly” for in-person mentoring sessions with the billionaire founder, who he dined with and referred to by the Japanese honorific “Son-san”. Greensill made the comments in his first public courtroom appearance since the devastating demise in 2021 of his company, which counted former prime minister David Cameron as an adviser.

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Australian reporter shot with rubber bullet while covering anti-Ice protests in Los Angeles

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a statement declaring that ‘all journalists should be able to do their work safely’

An Australian reporter has been shot with a rubber bullet while reporting on protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, with the incident caught live on camera.

US authorities, including the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and national guard troops, clashed with demonstrators on Sunday. They were protesting against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

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Channel Ten cancels The Project after 16 years with new current affairs show to fill primetime slot

Groundbreaking commercial news and entertainment program to air final time on 27 June

Channel Ten’s The Project, a groundbreaking news and entertainment program which made a success of “news done differently” in prime time has been cancelled by the network after 16 years and 4,500 episodes.

It will air for the last time on Friday 27 June and will be replaced by a new national one-hour 6pm news, current affairs and analysis show after Channel Ten’s local 5pm news bulletin.

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Australian government to declare almost a third of its oceans ‘highly protected’ in the next five years

Murray Watt tells UN conference in France a review of Australia’s marine parks will ‘lay the foundation’ for increasing ocean protections

The Australian government plans to declare 30% of its ocean “highly protected” by 2030, raising expectations from conservationists it will ban fishing and drilling in nearly a third of the country’s waters.

The environment minister, Murray Watt, told the UN Ocean Conference in France a review of 44 of Australia’s marine parks would “lay the foundation” to increase the area of the country’s ocean with higher levels of protection.

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SBS’s Insight accused of betraying people living with chronic fatigue syndrome who appeared on program

Broadcaster receives hundreds of negative comments including claims it presented a potentially harmful and unscientific narrative

People living with ME or chronic fatigue syndrome who appeared on SBS’s Insight program have accused the broadcaster of betraying them in the final cut, which presented what they claim is a potentially harmful and unscientific narrative and favoured a person who said she had “cured herself” by “listening to her body”.

The SBS ombudsman is investigating their individual complaints, as well as one from Emerge Australia, the national advocacy body for patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

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Sydney’s second airport is nearly built. But will the airlines and people come?

Victoria’s Avalon has struggled to take wing, but some project Sydney’s new 24-hour, high-tech airport will one day match Heathrow for passenger numbers

It has been talked about for decades, and a year and a half out from its opening, Western Sydney International is looking more and more like an airport.

Last week, press gathered to mark the completion of its runway.

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Tim Wilson backs working from home as ‘happy workers tend to be more productive’ – as it happened

This blog is now closed.

With the count in the seat of Bradfield finalised, where the difference in the result came down to 26 votes, Paterson says he can’t confirm whether the Coalition will seek to challenge the result.

I understand that the New South Wales Liberal party is reviewing our legal options, and I really hope that we can find a way to have Gisele Kapterian in the parliament, because she’s exactly the type of person to make the Liberal party better and the parliament better. She has great insights and professional experience. She’s a person that I hope to be playing a big role in the future of the party. But it is up to the New South Wales division and ultimately, if we decide to make any application in the court of disputed returns to that.

I’m not going to publicly engage on debate about internal policy about that. I have the opportunity to do so through the shadow cabinet process. But if there is a byelection, I would back Gisele because she’s an outstanding candidate and outstanding Liberal and someone who is placed to make a big contribution to the future of our country inside one of the major parties that will ultimately form government in this country.

That’s not something that an independent can do. And if the independents were relatively inconsequential in the last parliament, they’ll be even less relevant in this one.

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Former federal Liberal MP Bridget Archer recruited by Rockliff for snap Tasmania poll

Bridget Archer lost Bass to Labor at the federal election and is a moderate ally of the premier who suffered a no confidence vote last week

Prominent former federal Liberal MP, Bridget Archer, has announced she will contest a snap Tasmanian election for the embattled state government, amid ongoing political upheaval.

The Liberal premier, Jeremy Rockliff, is expected to call an election on Tuesday – only 15 months after Tasmanians last went to the polls – after the state parliament passed a motion of no confidence in him.

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Confusion and chaos reign in Tasmanian parliament with no endgame in sight

A vote of no-confidence in Jeremy Rockliff’s government has pushed the state to the brink of an election that all the major players agree is a bad idea

Craig Garland, the fisherman turned maverick independent MP from Tasmania’s north-western corner, summed it up best when he told state parliament on Thursday morning he was “a bit confused”.

Garland wasn’t confused about what he was doing – he calmly backed a no-confidence motion in the Liberal premier, Jeremy Rockliff. But he expressed doubts about how the Tasmanian parliament got here, and what lay ahead.

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Should Sydney’s light rail carriages be modified after second death in two years?

Police believe man was crossing track between two carriages when struck, sparking safety debate

For the second time in two years, a pedestrian has died after being struck by a tram on Sydney’s light rail.

New South Wales police said they found a man under a tram carriage in Surry Hills on Thursday afternoon. Paramedics treated him at the scene, but he died.

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