Global Pulse

分类： society

  • Watch: Pittsburgh bridge demolished in dramatic explosion

    Watch: Pittsburgh bridge demolished in dramatic explosion

    Onlookers gathered and cameras rolled as a decades-old bridge in Pittsburgh fell to the ground in a carefully orchestrated controlled explosion this week, marking a major milestone in a transformative infrastructure improvement project for the region.

    The dramatic implosion, which was planned for months to minimize disruption to surrounding communities, brought the aging span down safely in a matter of seconds. Local transportation authorities have confirmed that the existing structure was reaching the end of its service life, with escalating maintenance costs and growing safety concerns justifying its full replacement rather than incremental repairs.

    What makes this replacement project particularly notable is the innovative construction method that crews will deploy next. Rather than engaging in a years-long on-site build that would keep the corridor closed to traffic for an extended period, project managers have already constructed an entirely new span off-site. This prefabricated structure will be slid into the place of the old bridge in what officials are calling the largest lateral bridge slide project ever undertaken in the state of Pennsylvania.

    The lateral slide technique is designed to drastically cut down on construction-related delays for commuters and local businesses. Unlike traditional bridge replacements that can close key transportation routes for months, this method will see the entire new span moved into position over a matter of days, allowing the corridor to reopen to traffic much faster than conventional approaches. Transportation department representatives note that the project is designed to improve connectivity, boost safety for the thousands of vehicles that use the crossing daily, and support long-term economic activity in the Pittsburgh area.

    Local residents who gathered to watch the demolition expressed a mix of nostalgia for the old bridge and excitement about the improved infrastructure that will soon serve their community, with many documenting the explosive event on personal devices to share with friends and family online.

  • Orphanage fire in Algeria kills 11 children, injures 19 others

    Orphanage fire in Algeria kills 11 children, injures 19 others

    On Thursday, a devastating blaze ripped through a two-story orphanage in Mohammedia, an eastern suburb of the Algerian capital Algiers, leaving 11 children dead and 19 others injured, local authorities confirmed.

    According to Algeria’s official Civil Protection agency, the fire ignited at approximately 3:30 a.m. local time while children and staff were resting at the childcare facility. As of the latest update, officials have not released the ages of the deceased victims, and have reported no fatalities or harm to adult workers at the site. The root cause of the blaze remains under official investigation, with no preliminary findings released to the public.

    Lt. Col. Nassim Bernaoui, communications director for the Civil Protection department, outlined the details of the emergency response: five children with reduced mobility were successfully pulled from the burning structure by rescue teams, while multiple injured children were rushed to a specialized burn treatment hospital for urgent care.

    The tragedy occurred on a day of national celebration: Algeria’s National Children’s Day. In a statement released from Berlin, where he is currently conducting an official state visit, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune extended his deepest condolences to the families and communities affected by the disaster. “It is with a heart resigned to the will of Allah that I learned of the death of children and the injuries suffered by other children of Algeria following the fire that broke out in a childcare institution,” the president said.

    The fatal orphanage fire comes as Algeria grapples with a widespread heatwave that has fueled nearly 1,000 blazes across the country in recent days, Civil Protection data shows. The extreme heat has created high fire risk conditions across the North African nation, straining emergency response resources as teams work to contain multiple simultaneous blazes.

  • Deadly Bangkok bar fire exposes Thailand’s safety loopholes for nightlife venues

    Deadly Bangkok bar fire exposes Thailand’s safety loopholes for nightlife venues

    Less than a week after a devastating blaze tore through a popular Bangkok nightlife venue, leaving at least 33 dead and more than 70 injured, Thailand is confronting long-unaddressed gaps in its public safety legislation and licensing systems that experts say directly enabled the tragedy.

    The fire broke out Sunday night at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar, a popular live music spot in northern Bangkok. As of Thursday, Erawan emergency services confirmed that 27 injured victims remained hospitalized, with most fatalities caused by toxic smoke inhalation and a smaller number attributed to severe burn injuries. While the venue publicly claimed capacity for roughly 600 patrons, official investigations have not yet confirmed how many people were inside when the fire started. Authorities are still working to pinpoint the exact cause of the rapid flash blaze and the factors that led to such a high death toll.

    Leading structural and fire safety experts have already outlined the most likely contributing factors. Amorn Pimanmas, president of the Thailand Structural Engineers Association, pointed to three common hazards linked to lax regulation: overcrowding, the use of highly flammable interior materials, and blocked emergency exits. In a blunt assessment, Amorn noted the tragedy was entirely avoidable: “If proper engineering principles and all relevant laws and regulations had been strictly followed, this loss of life would never have happened.”

    This is not the first time Thailand has been forced to re-evaluate its nightlife safety rules after a mass casualty fire. The country’s primary legislation governing entertainment venues, the Entertainment Place Act, was first introduced in 1966 and last updated in 2012. That revision came three years after a 2009 New Year’s Eve fire at Bangkok’s Santika nightclub that killed 67 people and injured more than 200. The updated rules imposed strict requirements for venues, mandating fire-resistant or non-flammable materials for interior decor and soundproofing, as well as adequate smoke ventilation systems, sprinkler systems, and sized-appropriate fire escape routes.

    But a critical flaw in the law limits the scope of these protections: the strict safety standards only apply to entertainment venues licensed to operate in officially designated entertainment zones, three of which exist in Bangkok. Outside these zones, venues cannot obtain formal entertainment licenses — even if operators are willing to comply with the full safety requirements.

    Opposition People’s Party lawmaker Paramait Vithayaruksun told Parliament this week that the 1966-era law, last updated in 2012, is “outdated and unrealistic.” To operate outside the designated zones, thousands of nightlife venues across the country register instead as restaurants, which are only required to meet far less stringent safety regulations. Rong Beer Na Ladprao, the site of Sunday’s fire, was registered as a alcohol-selling restaurant with live music, and sat outside Bangkok’s official entertainment zones, local authorities confirmed.

    Data from Thailand’s Department of Provincial Administration shows this systemic loophole is not limited to Bangkok: the restricted entertainment zoning rule is active in 55 of Thailand’s 77 provinces, while 22 provinces do not offer any entertainment venue licenses at all. This framework has created a widespread system where venues circumvent strict safety rules with little consequence, Paramait explained. Restaurants face no requirements for fire-resistant soundproofing, for example, leading many operators to install cheap, highly flammable foam soundproofing for live music events — a material that can accelerate a blaze and release toxic smoke in minutes.

    Thailand’s restrictive zoning rules have been shaped in large part by the country’s conservative Buddhist cultural context, which has led policymakers to impose tight limits on nightlife to mitigate perceived negative social impacts. Current rules prohibit entertainment venues within 1.2 miles of any temple or school, a restriction that further limits available space for licensed entertainment operations.

    In the wake of Sunday’s tragedy, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has publicly acknowledged the systemic flaws in existing legislation and confirmed that a full review of the law will be conducted. “Times have changed. I’ve asked officials to study how we should adjust the rules,” Anutin said this week. “We need to look at it from every angle — what society is like today, as well as our culture, customs and traditions.”

    Safety inspectors and engineering experts are calling for fundamental shifts in how compliance is enforced. Wasawat Kitsiriteeraphak, former president of the Building Inspectors Association, argued that inspections should be based on how a building is actually used, not just its official licensed classification. “The risks to lives and assets of the people depends on the actual use of the building rather than how the business is called,” he said in a public statement. Wasawat joined other experts in urging Thai authorities to launch a nationwide, operation-based safety audit of all venues that operate as nightlife spots, regardless of their official licensing classification, to prevent further preventable tragedies.

  • Moment US Navy jet stuns packed Florida beach with low flypast

    Moment US Navy jet stuns packed Florida beach with low flypast

    On a sun-drenched weekend at Florida’s iconic Pensacola Beach, where thousands of vacationers had spread out across the sand to soak up warm Gulf of Mexico waters and clear skies, a sudden and unexpected event disrupted the idyllic scene. A high-performance U.S. Navy Blue Angels jet, conducting a low-altitude flypast over the popular coastal recreation spot, generated a powerful shockwave from its jet engines that sent unsecured beach gear—including umbrellas, coolers, beach towels, and folding chairs—hurtling into the air across large swathes of the packed shoreline.

    Witness footage captured beachgoers diving for cover and scrambling to grab their belongings as the roar of the jet engine echoed across the coast, with many expressing shock at how close the aircraft flew to the ground. The Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s official flight demonstration squadron, regularly conduct training flights and air show appearances along the Florida Gulf Coast, with Pensacola serving as the squadron’s home base. As of initial reports, there have been no confirmed reports of serious injuries, though multiple beachgoers shared accounts of minor scrapes and scattered personal property left damaged by the unexpected gust of wind from the low flight.

    Local officials have not yet released a statement on why the flypast was conducted over the crowded public beach at the time, but the incident has quickly spread across social media, with viral videos of the moment drawing millions of views and sparking conversation about low-altitude military flight protocols near populated recreation areas.

  • ASIC warns of sophisticated pump-and-dump scams targeting elderly Australians

    ASIC warns of sophisticated pump-and-dump scams targeting elderly Australians

    Australia’s corporate investment regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), has issued an urgent public warning over a sharp rise in increasingly sophisticated pump-and-dump investment scams that have stolen millions of dollars from vulnerable Australian citizens, with elderly Australians bearing the brunt of the harm.

    These coordinated scams operate by leveraging deceptive tactics that many investors struggle to identify: scammers impersonate well-known financial institutions, forge endorsements from high-profile respected finance industry figures, and lure victims into private messaging groups on platforms such as WhatsApp. Once recruited, victims are pressured to purchase shares of low-value, lightly traded public companies to artificially inflate the stock price. After the price reaches a targeted peak, scammers sell off all of their own holdings for a profit, which triggers an immediate collapse in the share price and leaves victim investors holding worthless assets worth only a fraction of their original investment. What makes these scams particularly convincing, ASIC officials note, is that victims actually purchase legitimate shares through registered retail brokers, leading many to mistakenly trust the scheme is authentic.

    One recent, well-documented example illustrates how destructive these scams can be: a targeted stock’s price surged rapidly to nearly $US11 before crashing back to just $US1 in a matter of days, erasing nearly all of the victims’ investment overnight. Scammers have repeatedly used counterfeit endorsements and stolen identities of prominent finance experts; in one high-profile case, scammers created a fake social media post carrying the Commonwealth Bank logo, featuring a man impersonating former CommSec economist Tom Piotrowski to push fraudulent stock recommendations.

    Testimonies collected by ASIC from scam victims lay bare the catastrophic personal and financial toll of these schemes. One 74-year-old retired victim, who was lured into the scam via the fake Piotrowski post, explained how the scammers built trust by sharing a few small, initially profitable stock tips before pressuring her to invest increasing amounts of her retirement savings. The scam included forged branding from both ASIC and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), leading her to trust the offering was legitimate. “It had the logo, it had ASIC’s name on it, and it had AFCA’s name on it. Now if you see that, how can it be wrong?” she said, noting that after the share price collapsed overnight, she was left unable to return to work and surviving on a small aged pension. Another anonymous victim described being so traumatized by the loss that he did not leave his apartment for a full month. Reports from victims document life-altering harm including ruined retirement savings, home foreclosures, and even relationship breakdowns leading to divorce.

    ASIC data confirms that these pump-and-dump scams are growing at an alarming rate, with scammers continuously refining their tactics to appear more legitimate. “These scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and scammers are exploiting the trust Australians place in recognised experts, financial institutions and investment brands by faking their platforms and endorsements,” ASIC chair Sarah Court explained in the regulator’s warning. Court emphasized that legitimate investment opportunities never come from unsolicited messages from strangers on social media or messaging apps, and urged all Australians to treat any unsolicited stock tip shared through platforms such as WhatsApp or Telegram as a scam. The regulator has called on the public to remain extremely cautious of any investment opportunity promoted through social media or private messaging groups, particularly those that use well-known public identities to build credibility.

  • Eleven people die in fire at Algerian foster care home

    Eleven people die in fire at Algerian foster care home

    A devastating fire that broke out at a foster care facility in central Algiers, the capital city of Algeria, has claimed 11 lives and left 19 others hurt, according to the country’s General Directorate for Civil Protection. As of 6:50 a.m. local time on Thursday morning – which translates to 5:50 a.m. GMT – emergency response teams and firefighters were still on site working to fully extinguish the blaze and secure the area.

    In an official statement released Thursday, the civil protection department confirmed that five people with special needs were successfully evacuated from the burning structure and moved to a secure location, where they are now receiving care. At the time of this report, local authorities have not released further details about the age ranges of the deceased or injured, nor have they shared preliminary information about the possible cause of the fire.

    This is an active, developing breaking news story. Additional updates will be published as more official information becomes available to the public. For more coverage of news across the African continent, audiences can visit BBCAfrica.com, and follow BBC Africa’s social media channels on Twitter at @BBCAfrica, Facebook at BBC Africa, and Instagram at bbcafrica.

  • Italy court to deliver verdict in deadly bridge collapse

    Italy court to deliver verdict in deadly bridge collapse

    Nearly eight years after one of Italy’s deadliest infrastructure disasters claimed 43 lives, an Italian court is scheduled to issue its long-awaited verdict on Thursday for the collapse of Genoa’s Morandi Bridge. The landmark structure, a critical link on the highway connecting France and Italy, crumbled during torrential rain on August 14, 2018, sending dozens of vehicles and their occupants plummeting into the void below. On the eve of the verdict announcement, crowds of victims’ relatives and reporters from dozens of international and domestic media outlets gathered outside the Genoa court building to await the outcome of the four-year legal process.

    Fifty-seven defendants have stood trial throughout the proceedings, facing charges that range from manslaughter and endangerment of public transport safety to falsification of official government documents. Prosecutors have collectively requested more than 400 years of combined prison sentences for all accused parties.

    For many family members, the verdict carries more symbolic than personal weight. Egle Possetti, who leads a support committee for victims’ relatives, lost her sister, nephew, niece, and brother-in-law when the bridge’s ninth pillar gave way. Speaking to reporters from AFP as she entered the court Thursday, Possetti acknowledged that a conviction would not reverse the tragedy or bring her loved ones back. “But clearly the most important thing for the victims is that the truth finally comes out,” she said. She also voiced the frustration shared by many grieving families, noting that through years of trial hearings, “not a single person has said, ‘I bear some responsibility.’ That has been hard.” The court is expected to release its ruling after 12:00 GMT.

    Investigative findings from magistrates paint a damning picture of systemic neglect. Official documents confirm that between the bridge’s inauguration in 1967 and its collapse 51 years later, no minimal structural reinforcement or critical maintenance work was ever completed on the stays of pillar nine. While limited upgrades were carried out on the adjacent 10th and 11th pillars, planned reinforcement work on pillar nine was repeatedly delayed. Lead prosecutor Walter Cotugno famously described the decaying infrastructure as “a ticking time bomb” long before the disaster occurred.

    The majority of defendants are senior executives and lead technicians from Autostrade per l’Italia (ASPI), the company that manages nearly half of Italy’s entire motorway network, and Spea, the private engineering firm contracted to oversee the bridge’s ongoing maintenance. High-profile accused include Giovanni Castellucci, ASPI’s general manager at the time of the collapse, and Antonino Galata, Spea’s former chief executive, alongside multiple senior officials from Italy’s infrastructure ministry. Castellucci faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted, as prosecutors hold him directly responsible for repeatedly postponing critical reinforcement work on pillar nine. Notably, Castellucci is already serving a prison sentence for his role in a separate 2013 highway accident that left 40 people dead when a bus crashed through viaduct barriers.

    Defense attorneys for the accused have centered their case on an alternative narrative, arguing that the collapse was caused by an unidentifiable, hidden construction defect—specifically, internal corrosion of the bridge’s support cables—rather than intentional or negligent lack of maintenance.

    While their former top executives remain on trial, both ASPI and Spea reached an out-of-court settlement with prosecutors prior to the verdict. The agreement requires the firms to pay 29 million euros ($30 million) in compensation to the Italian state. At the time of the 2018 disaster, ASPI was owned by the Atlantia group, which was controlled by Italy’s wealthy Benetton family. Widespread public outrage over the disaster and evidence of systemic neglect forced the Benetton family to sell its entire stake in the company to the Italian state in the aftermath of the tragedy.

  • Suspected ringleader among eight facing court over SA fight club trend

    Suspected ringleader among eight facing court over SA fight club trend

    Weeks after shocking unsanctioned youth fight videos sparked public fury across South Australia, police have announced a major breakthrough in their investigation: the 17-year-old suspected of organizing the underground “South Australian Fight Club” has been arrested and charged, joining seven other young people who will soon appear in court for their alleged involvement.

    The controversy erupted earlier this month when graphic clips of organised brawls between teenagers began circulating on social media. Filmed in a hidden location in Adelaide’s northern Elizabeth suburbs, the footage revealed a structured, unregulated fighting circuit modeled after professional combat sports. Participants were divided by weight classes, awarded championship belts, and fought under formalised rules, with competitors as young as 13 taking part in the violent, unauthorized matches.

    South Australia Police confirmed on Wednesday that the alleged ringleader, a 17-year-old resident of Davoren Park, was taken into custody at his home earlier this week. He faces 14 total charges: seven counts of aiding and abetting public fighting, and an additional seven counts of publishing material that depicts criminal offences. Following his arrest, the teen was released on bail and is scheduled to make his first appearance at Elizabeth Youth Court on September 4.

    He is not the only young person facing legal consequences for the scheme. Police have confirmed that seven other teenagers have been linked to the fight club and will be summoned to court at a later date. The group of co-accused includes a 14-year-old boy from Elizabeth South, a 14-year-old from Hillier, a 17-year-old from Elizabeth, a 13-year-old girl from Elizabeth Downs, a 15-year-old girl from Paralowie, a 17-year-old from Salisbury, and a 14-year-old from Riverle. The youngest person implicated in the case is the 13-year-old girl, making up two female suspects among the eight total people facing court proceedings.

    When the fight club first came to light, it triggered immediate widespread condemnation from community leaders and the public. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas previously spoke out against the unregulated brawls, saying he was “absolutely appalled” by the activity. “It is completely unsafe and perpetuates raw violence in a way that cannot be tolerated, particularly among children,” Malinauskas said in the wake of the videos going viral.

    Authorities launched a full investigation after the footage emerged, and have previously confirmed they are working to identify more than 36 additional people suspected of participating in or organizing the fight events. The arrest of the alleged ringleader marks the most significant progress in the case to date, as police continue to untangle the full scope of the underground youth fighting ring.

  • Verdict due in trial over 2018 bridge collapse in Italy that killed dozens

    Verdict due in trial over 2018 bridge collapse in Italy that killed dozens

    GENOA, Italy – Nearly eight years after one of Italy’s deadliest infrastructure disasters killed 43 people, a Genoese courtroom is set to deliver long-awaited verdicts Thursday in the trial of 57 defendants charged over the collapse of Genoa’s Morandi highway bridge. The disaster, which exposed systemic failures in Italy’s national infrastructure upkeep, has remained a raw wound for victims’ families and a national reckoning over public safety standards for years.

    The defendants facing judgement are a broad group that includes former senior executives from Autostrade per L’Italia, Italy’s major highway concession operator, lead engineering experts from the firm’s subsidiary SPEA, and ex-officials from Italy’s national Infrastructure Ministry. Nearly all defendants stand accused of negligent conduct leading to widespread disaster and multiple counts of manslaughter, stemming from allegations that they deliberately neglected mandatory upkeep and safety inspections for the aging bridge, a critical transit link connecting northern Italy to the French Riviera.

    The collapse unfolded on the morning of August 14, 2018, when a 200-meter section of the concrete bridge crumbled during a heavy rainstorm. Dozens of cars and heavy trucks fell more than 40 meters to the ground below, killing all occupants. Graphic footage of the destroyed span spread globally, sending shockwaves across Italy: the collapse occurred on the eve of Ferragosto, Italy’s iconic mid-summer public holiday, when millions of Italians were already traveling for summer vacation, making the disaster a national conversation overnight.

    Lead prosecuting attorneys have argued that decades of deferred maintenance and ignored safety warnings directly caused the structural failure, and have collectively called for nearly 400 years of combined prison sentences for the 57 defendants. All defendants have consistently denied any criminal wrongdoing, asserting that an inherent, unforeseen construction defect from the bridge’s original design was the root cause of the collapse.

    Thursday’s verdicts will bring a close to a sprawling trial that has stretched over four years and included more than 280 separate court hearings, as legal teams sifted through thousands of pages of engineering reports, maintenance records and witness testimony.

    For victims’ legal representatives, the core demand is not just harsh sentences, but formal recognition that the disaster was preventable. “Our expectation is to feel our pain recognized … and to have it acknowledged that this did not happen by chance, but because of serious failures in maintenance,” explained Raffaele Caruso, one of the lead attorneys representing multiple victims’ families.

    When the Morandi Bridge opened to traffic in 1967, it was hailed as a groundbreaking engineering marvel, defined by its three distinctive A-shaped concrete pylons and unique concrete-encased stay cable design. Caruso noted that the trial has already confirmed that warning signs of structural degradation in the pylon that ultimately collapsed were documented as early as the 1990s. Maintenance work to address the same corrosion defect was completed on the bridge’s two other pylons starting in 1993, but work was never scheduled or carried out on the third failed pylon.

    “From 1993 onward, the problem was known. We had three identical pylons. Two had already shown the same defect, and no one seriously asked whether the third one had it as well,” Caruso told reporters ahead of the verdict.

    Ahead of Thursday’s ruling, current Autostrade chief executive Arrigo Giana, who took over the role last year, issued a formal public apology in an open letter published in all major Italian national newspapers Thursday morning. “The actions and decisions of some people left indelible scars,” Giana wrote. “Offering today the apology that was not made then is, for us, a moral imperative that goes beyond establishing legal responsibility and the course of justice toward the truth.”

    Earlier in the legal process, Autostrade and its engineering subsidiary SPEA reached a separate corporate liability settlement with prosecutors. The firms agreed to pay roughly 30 million euros ($34 million) in administrative fines, and implemented sweeping new corporate compliance protocols designed to prevent similar safety failures in the future. All victims and their families have already received full financial compensation through the agreement. In exchange, the companies avoided standing trial as corporate defendants, and escaped far harsher potential penalties that would have included a ban on bidding for future public infrastructure contracts across Italy.

    A replacement span, designed by world-renowned Genoa-born architect Renzo Piano, opened to traffic in 2020. The new bridge was built alongside a permanent public memorial honoring the 43 people killed in the 2018 collapse.

  • Billionaire Judith Neilson’s former secretary hit with new fraud charges

    Billionaire Judith Neilson’s former secretary hit with new fraud charges

    A high-profile fraud case involving one of Australia’s most prominent billionaire philanthropists has taken a new turn, with prosecutors adding 12 fresh criminal charges against the woman accused of stealing $1.6 million from her employer. Annalouise Spence, 51, who served as Judith Neilson’s personal secretary for several years until 2025, now faces a total of 140 charges connected to the alleged misuse of Neilson’s business credit card. The 12 new counts, all formalized in court on Thursday, are additional charges of dishonestly obtaining property through deception.

    Investigators allege that between December 2019 and November 2024, Spence used the company credit card to fund years of unauthorized spending on high-end personal goods and experiences. Among the documented extravagant purchases is a $29,118 trip to Seattle, Washington, which included first-class airfare and concert tickets to see the iconic rock band The Cure. Prosecutors have put the total value of the misappropriated funds at roughly $1.6 million Australian dollars.

    Neilson, a respected figure in Australia’s cultural and philanthropic sectors, is best known for founding the Judith Neilson Foundation, which supports at-risk communities across Australia and sub-Saharan Africa. She also owns two leading contemporary art galleries in Sydney, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2016 for her contributions to the arts, and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of New South Wales. She is the former wife of prominent Australian investment billionaire Kerr Neilson.

    Spence spent two months in pre-trial detention at Dillwynia Correctional Centre, a maximum-security women’s facility near Sydney, before she was granted bail in mid-June. Her release required a $1 million surety, and strict bail conditions mandate that she remain in a Sydney eastern suburbs mental health facility for ongoing treatment, a arrangement her legal team says will continue for the foreseeable future.

    During Thursday’s court hearing, Spence’s lead barrister Bryan Wrench, a high-profile Sydney legal figure, told the magistrate his team has yet to receive any official evidence brief from prosecutors in the case, despite the investigation dating back to April 2026. In an unusual and pointed observation, Wrench also noted the irony of Spence’s pre-trial detention: Neilson, the alleged victim, is a major donor to a prominent Australian organization that advocates for keeping low-risk women offenders out of prison.

    Wrench requested that Spence be excused from attending the next court hearing, scheduled for August 27, due to her ongoing residential mental health treatment. Magistrate Clare Farnan did not push back on the delay in evidence disclosure, noting that the slow progress in this case was far less problematic than other matters on her court docket that day.