Month: August 2022

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US

Suspects used slur, monkeypox reference in DC attack

Suspects used slur, monkeypox reference in DC attack

Police in DC are investigating an attack on two men as a suspected hate crime, after the assailants referenced monkeypox and called them an anti-gay slur.

Police in DC are investigating an attack on two men as a suspected hate crime, after the assailants referenced monkeypox and called them an anti-gay slur.

It happened on Sunday in the 1700 block of 7th Street Northwest in the Shaw neighborhood. The men were walking southbound on the east side of the street when they were approached by a group of people.

The men told NBC Washington that the group consisted of teenagers. The people in the group called the men “monkeypox” followed by an anti-gay slur, and then punched them several times, a DC police report said.

The group then went northbound on 7th Street.

“One of them comes up to me and punches me in the jaw, giving me a gash right here that needed about three stitches,” one of the victims told NBC Washington, adding that he is not shocked at what happened, as there had been a buildup over the last couple of months regarding monkeypox.

Below is the area where it happened.

The federal government declared a public health emergency last week to bolster the response to the monkeypox outbreak that has affected more than 9,000 people in the US as of Tuesday.

Last month, DC reported the largest outbreak of monkeypox per capita in the nation. Currently, DC has 318 cases, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count.

There has been stigma related to monkeypox, especially surrounding how it can be transmitted.

Monkeypox can spread from person to person through direct contact with an infectious rash, scabs or body fluids. It also can be spread by respiratory secretions during prolonged, face-to-face contact or during intimate physical contact, such as kissing, cuddling or sex, the CDC said.

Major Muriel Bowser said in a statement that she was “extremely disturbed by the reported hate crime.”

She criticized those who use public health to “stigmatize and discriminate against members of the LGBTQ+ community,” and said it’s everyone’s responsibility to understand how to build a safer community for DC residents and visitors.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US’ top infectious disease expert, told WTOP’s “DMV Download” podcast last week, “Don’t stigmatize. Don’t point fingers. That’s about the worst thing you can do.”

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Categories
Technology

The Morning After: Netflix’s slow start in gaming

The Morning After

Netflix’s entry into the gaming market has been quiet. According to analysis by Apptopia, Netflix games have been downloaded 23.3 million times and have an average 1.7 million daily users. Framed against the 221 million customers paying for the streaming service, it’s not a great number — just one percent of them. The company indicated it didn’t expect its gaming division to be profitable immediately. “We’re going to be experimental and try a bunch of things,” Netflix COO Greg Peters told investors during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings calls last year.

But given that Netflix is ​​not afraid to cut well-regarded shows after a few seasons, how long will it be willing to run a gaming arm before it’s successful? And what does success look like for Netflix? Earlier this year, the company paid $72 million to acquire Next Games, the studio behind Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales. More recently, it secured exclusive mobile rights to beloved indie titles like Spiritfarer and Into The Breach.

For what it’s worth, poinpy is a pretty wonderful game worthy of your smartphone gaming time.

— Matt Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

Tornado Cash helped North Korea, according to the Treasury.

The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash, a mixer that allegedly helped launder more than $7 billion in stolen crypto funds since its inception in 2019. Like a previous sanctions target, Blender, Tornado Cash is accused of “indiscriminately” helping thieves by hiding transaction details while failing to institute meaningful anti-laundering safeguards. Tornado Cash runs on the Ethereum blockchain. North Korea’s state-sponsored Lazarus Group hackers are believed to have funneled $455 million through the mixer so far.

Continue reading.

The $6,000 theme gives the EV a ‘darker and overtly sporting personality.’

TMA

lucid

Lucid is adding a new trim option to its Air electric vehicle. The idea behind Stealth Look is to give the car a “darker and overtly sporting personality,” according to the automaker. Lucid is swapping out 35 exterior components that have a platinum finish for versions with a darker appearance, with black gloss and satin graphite accents. Lucid plans to introduce the $6,000 option early next year, though whether you’ll actually be able to get your hands on an Air at all anytime soon is another matter. Earlier this month, Lucid once again revised its production target for 2022, this time from 20,000 to between 6,000 and 7,000 units.

Continue reading.

Not Adam Sandler though.

Bandai Namco is developing a live-action Pac-Man film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Japanese gaming giant has reportedly tapped Wayfarer Studios, best known for its work on 2019’s Five Feet Apart, to produce the project. The film was reportedly pitched by sonic the hedgehog Producer Chuck Williams. In 2020, sonic the hedgehog broke the record for a US video game movie debut. So it’s all Sonic’s fault.

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Just in time for Discovery to make it obsolete.

TMA

HBO

Warner Bros. Discovery has finished rolling out its redesigned app on desktop, Android and iOS, delivering a more intuitive interface, a performance boost and some overdue features. You’ll also find a dedicated video download page, split-screen support and SharePlay — at least for Apple devices in the US. The timing isn’t great. Warner Bros. recently confirmed it’s merging HBO Max and Discovery+ into one service next summer. The app you see today won’t last long.

Continue reading.

The event happens on August 10 at 9 AM ET.

Splatoon 3 will arrive on September 9th, and Nintendo is setting the table with a dedicated Direct showcase. The stream will get underway at 9 AM ET on August 10th and have around 30 minutes of updates. Expect a deep dive into one of Nintendo’s tentpole Switch releases of the year, encompassing multiplayer changes and in-game mechanics.

Continue reading.

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Categories
Entertainment

Cutting costs, merging, shelving Batgirl: is this the end of HBO Max? | Warner Bros

The drama has been coming thick and fast at the AT&T-owned entertainment behemoth Warner Bros Discovery – unfortunately for the company, and its viewers, the action is all taking place in its boardrooms.

The company was formed after the spin-off of WarnerMedia by AT&T and its merger with Discovery in April last year, media watchers have been waiting to see how the new media powerhouse would reshape its business. Now a plan, of sorts, is emerging.

First, the studio announced plans to permanently shelve an already-shot Batgirl movie to the tune of an estimated $90m loss, a puzzling move explained in an official statement as symptomatic of a larger shift in company doctrine away from streaming, though more obscure imperatives of tax accounting surely played a role as well.

HBO Max subscribers then began combing the library and noticed that a handful of the original films produced for the platform had been quietly removed; the Seth Rogen vehicle American Pickle, for one, now exists only as a $3.99 rental from iTunes.

Rumors of staff layoffs and series cancellations swirled until the bomb was finally dropped by Warner/Discovery’s CEO, David Zaslav, during a second-quarter earnings report last Thursday: in 2023, HBO Max and Discovery Plus would be combined into a single entity, ideally with a name that doesn’t sound like a brand of batteries.

The decision to demolish the HBO Max brand and start over on the vacant lot it will leave behind comes as a shock to industry observers, who have watched as Warner went all in on streaming during the pandemic’s housebound early days.

The company caused a stir with “Project Popcorn”, an unorthodox business model under which they released their 2021 slate of films to HBO Max on the same day they hit theaters. Upwards of a dozen big-ticket titles – including The Suicide Squad, Cry Macho and In the Heights – materialized in America’s living rooms free of additional charge, an obvious ding to theatrical exhibition meant to funnel viewers into the streaming way of the future.

3D-chess-brained thinking yielded to good old common sense as executives noticed that it’s difficult to get people to pay for what they already have at home. Hopeful earners Dune, The Matrix: Resurrections and Space Jam 2 all underperformed at the box office, and time had come for a course correction.

During a report that sometimes played like a sweaty all-is-well press conference out of Succession, Zaslav pushed the headline of theatrical releasing’s comeback in no uncertain terms. “We will fully embrace theatrical,” he declared, laying out a development slate with a lessened emphasis on straight-to-streaming productions.

Anyone dedicated to the cause of cinema can see reason to rejoice in a renewed commitment to the forever-imperiled theatrical experience, the most optimistic among us envisioning a mini-boom for original concepts from distinctive artists. But Warners is far from the first studio to step out with the daring strategy of releasing only good movies instead of bad ones, an overhaul more easier said than put into practice.

The tone of the recent earnings call erred on the side of corporate inanity, particularly in how the C-suite understands the utility and future of HBO Max. One slideshow card summarily circulated as a meme on social media broke down the presumed appeal of the service, as contrasted with Discovery Plus.

Whereas HBO Max is “male skew”, “lean in” and “home of fandoms”; Discovery Plus is “female skew”, “lean back” and “home of genredoms”. The reasoning that “HBO equals Game of Thrones, which dudes like” versus “Discovery Plus equals Property Brothers, beloved of women” betrays a major misapprehension about the broader potential for these services, which could be hubs for a wider sampling of material catering to omnivorous tastes.

As much as the service has come a graveyard for its streaming-exclusive films, both deservedly (bland Roald Dahl adaptation The Witches, pandemic rush job Locked) and not (school shooting drama The Fallout and techno-thriller Kimi, both of which deserved higher profiles), it has found greater success in the series format.

The Flight Attendant and Hacks garnered attention from Emmy voters, Station Eleven and Tokyo Vice showed the seedlings of cult followings, and Our Flag Means Death boasted some of the best reviews of any debut in its season. Numbers aside, though HBO Max’s subscriber base dwarfs that of Discovery Plus by a margin in the dozens of millions, it was a success on the sole basis of bringing good entertainment to the people. The mad fusion of HBO Max with Discovery Plus – home of the 90 Day Fiancée Universe, the Food Network, and other reality TV stalwarts – runs the risk of losing the exploratory spirit that gave fan-beloved series like Search Party and The Other Two a home.

The real richness of the HBO Max project lay in its indefiniteness; without a daily schedule to fill or strict runtime requirements dictated by ad sales, it could have been a bastion for experimentation. Look at Terence Nance’s curious, boundary-busting sketch program Random Acts of Flyness on HBO proper, a heartening example of the greatness fostered when a budget and creative freedom are handed to an idiosyncratic talent.

Rather than a claustrophobic holding pen for franchise pictures meant to unfurl in an auditorium, the automatic platform could have been a valuable breeding ground for up-and-comers ready for a bump in exposure. It still could, one supposes, based on the vague language Zaslav has used about streaming’s cloudy future.

the pictographic representation of this bright new day, however, doesn’t inspire much confidence. A perfectly circular blob labeled “Content” feeds a chevron-shaped block emblazoned with “Streaming”, flanked above and below by “Movies” and “TV”. So long as the stewards of art continue to see it as indiscriminate product to be moved around in rejiggered combinations, the renaissance they’re waiting for won’t come any time soon.

Categories
Sports

Former Fremantle Docker Zac Clarke banned for incident which left ex-Saint Eli Templeton with serious injuries

Former Fremantle Docker Zac Clarke banned for incident which left ex-Saint Eli Templeton with serious injuries

Former Fremantle Dockers ruck Zac Clarke has been slapped with a ban for a scary on-field incident which left a fellow former AFL player with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.

Clarke was playing for Doncaster East in Melbourne’s Eastern Football Netball League when chased St Kilda player Eli Templeton towards the boundary-line, before pushing him in the back and sending him into a water container and over a wire fence.

Templeton hit his head on a footpath just outside the fence with some force. Spectators and players appeared visibly distressed by the incident as trainers rushed to help.

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Categories
Australia

Mark McGowan in security scare after University of WA student targets him over abortion at press conference

Mark McGowan in security scare after University of WA student targets him over abortion at press conference

A University of Western Australia student gate crashed a press conference being held by Premier Mark McGowan and had to be ushered away by his security team as she demanded to know whether abortion would be made free across the State.

The female student approached Mr McGowan as he was preparing to answer questions from reporters after announcing a contract had been awarded for the installation of 98 electric vehicle chargers as part of WA’s electric highway.

“I’m a student here at UWA and I just wanted to know if you were planning to make abortion free in WA,” the young woman said as she walked towards Mr McGowan.

Protester lead away from Premier Mark McGowan announcing the latest milestone in the EV charging network project.
Camera IconThe student was dealt with by the Premier’s bodyguards. Credit: Andrew Richie/The West Australian

The Premier’s minders immediately jumped into action, getting between the woman and Mr McGowan and attempting to move her away from the gathered media.

She asked one of Mr McGowan’s male bodyguards why he had placed his hands on her but seemed to accept the explanation when told he was part of the Premier’s personal security team.

“I just, I don’t understand why Mr McGowan can’t just answer my question,” she shouted as she was moved away.

“I’m just a student at UWA and I want to know if abortion will be made free?”

Protester lead away from Premier Mark McGowan announcing the latest milestone in the EV charging network project.
Camera IconThe woman was ushered away during the press conference. Credit: Andrew Richie/The West Australian

Mr McGowan remained silent throughout the encounter, but later addressed the protester’s question — after she had been moved well away from the site of the press conference — when it was repeated by the media.

“We’re reviewing the law in relation to abortion reform as to whether or not further reforms need to be put in place to make it nationally consistent with other states,” the Premier said.

“You may not know but I was in the Parliament when abortion was made legal in Western Australia. I’m one of the few members still left from that period and I voted in favor of it.”

Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson in June revealed work was underway to modernize WA’s abortion laws, which have been described as among the most oppressive in Australia.

Protester lead away from Premier Mark McGowan announcing the latest milestone in the EV charging network project.
Camera IconSecurity staff swoop on the UWA student. Credit: Andrew Richie/The West Australian

“Cost is an issue and… women do fly interstate to access abortions past actually about 15 weeks. There are only two private providers and often their hours are limited,” she said.

Abortions cost vary from state to state and can run into hundreds of dollars depending on the medications or surgical procedures required.

In WA, women who seek an abortion after 20 weeks must have their request reviewed by an “ethics panel” consisting of six medical practitioners, two of whom must agree the mother or fetus has a severe medical condition that justifies the procedure.’

Mr McGowan said he understood the review of WA’s abortion regime would be completed by the end of the year.

“It’s obviously come into more focus recently with the Supreme Court decision in America and we’re looking at what we need to do to make it more nationally consistent and if there are anomalies that make it difficult for women in certain circumstances,” he said .

“They’re the sorts of things we’re looking at changing and repairing.”

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Categories
US

Freak beach accident leaves Florida man Sean Nagel dead

Freak beach accident leaves Florida man Sean Nagel dead

A Florida man died after getting buried alive by a sand dune that collapsed while he was enjoying the sunrise, authorities said.

The freak accident happened early Sunday morning at Rock Beach on Hutchinson Island — where a passerby spotted a pair of human legs sticking out from the sand and called for help, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office said.

The grim discovery was made just south of the House of Refuge Museum at around 9 am

Sean Nagel, 37, has died in a suspected accident when a beach dune under which he was recording a sunrise on a Florida beach collapsed on top of him on Sunday.
Sean Nagel, 37, has died in a suspected accident when a beach dune under which he was recording a sunrise on a Florida beach collapsed on top of him on Sunday.
Facebook/Will Nagel

Officials have determined that the man in the sand, who has been identified as 37-year-old Sean Nagel, from Stuart, “died hours earlier from asphyxia as a result of being trapped in the sand.”

Sheriff William Snyder confirmed to WPTV that when first responders dug up Nagel, sand was discovered in his lungs.

The release from the sheriff’s office stated that detectives believe Nagel was laying underneath a sand dune with his feet up while recording video of a sunrise between 5 and 6 am when the dune collapsed, trapping him. They do not suspect foul play.

The incident happened along Rock Beach on Hutchinson Island, Florida, early Sunday.
The incident happened along Rock Beach on Hutchinson Island, Florida, early Sunday.
TNS via Getty Images
A beachgoer found Sean Nagel's legs sticking out of the sand and called for help, but the man had been dead for a couple hours.
A beachgoer found Nagel’s legs sticking out of the sand and called for help, but the man had been dead for a couple hours.
Facebook/Will Nagel

A GoPro camera and a plastic bag were found next to Nagel’s body in the sand, reported TCPalm.com.

The sheriff’s office added that investigators were awaiting the results of toxicology tests, as per standard procedure, but it noted the results were “not likely to change the outcome of this incident being a tragic accident.”

Nagel’s older brother confirmed his death resuming from an accidental dune collapse in a Facebook post on Monday.

“I am grief-stricken and still in disbelief to tell you all that my younger brother Sean Alexander Nagel is no longer with us on this earth,” Will Nagel wrote. “Please remember to enjoy your life and don’t take a single second for granted.”

Sean Nagel’s old Facebook posts suggest that he is survived by a young son.

In May, an 18-year-old was killed when a sand hole he was digging at a New Jersey beach suddenly collapsed.

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Categories
Technology

How to Create Synthetic AI Art With Midjourney

How to Create Synthetic AI Art With Midjourney

A wizard in a hall of computers.
Midjourney / Benj Edwards

AI-based image generators like DALL-E 2 have boomed in popularity. People love to enter bizarre prompts and see what gets spit out. Midjourney is one of the more advanced tools for this, and you can try it now.

What Is Midjourney?

Before we talk about Midjourney, let’s start with DALL-E 2, the one you may have heard about. DALL-E 2 sits at the high end of these AI-based image generator tools. It can create completely brand new images from a simple text prompt. You enter “a robot eating a taco,” and it creates an image depicting a robot eating a taco.

At the more basic level is Craiyon, formerly known as “DALL-E mini.” This is a free web tool that anyone can use, but it’s not nearly as sophisticated as DALL-E 2. The results are often strange and somewhat creepy, but it’s still very fun to play with.

Midjourney sits somewhere in the middle of DALL-E 2 and Craiyon. It also uses AI and machine learning to generate images based on text prompts. The results are usually quite good, but not as mind-blowing as DALL-E 2. The important thing is anyone can try the beta version of Midjourney right now (as of August 2022,) unlike DALL-E 2. No waiting period required .

RELATED: OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 AI Is Only Bad News for Some Artists

How to Use Midjourney Beta

The only thing you need to use the Midjourney Beta is a Discord account. That’s where you will give text prompts to the Midjourney bot. You can sign up for a free account on Discord’s website. After that, you can use Discord in a web browser or download the app for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iPhone.

Once you’re all set up with Discord, we’ll head over to the Midjourney website and select “Join the Beta.”

This will take you to Discord, where we can select “Accept Invite.”

We’re in. There are a couple of things to know about the beta. You start with a free trial that includes around 25 prompts. After that, you can buy a full membership if you’d like it.

To get started, go to one of the “Newcomer Rooms” channels in the sidebar. We’ll be using “#newbies-42,” but there are a number of others.

Enter one of the newbie channels.

In the text box, enter /imagine and then type your prompt and submit it.

Enter "/imagine" and your prompt.

You can watch the progress as the four images are created.

Images being created.

When the images are finished, they’ll be displayed in a new message. Now you have some additional options.

  • U = Upscale: Creates a larger version of the image.
  • V = Variation: Creates a new image based on the one you selected.
  • Refresh: Get four new images from the same prompt.

Image options.

The results will be delivered in a new message just like before, and you’ll have some new options to make more variations or upscale it to the max.

Options after upscale.

If at any time you’d like to save the images, simply select the image and tap the download icon on mobile or “Open Original” on desktop to see the full-size image to save.

Save the results.

That’s pretty much all there is to the Midjourney Beta! Simply type /imagine and you can follow it with a prompt. Keep in mind certain words aren’t allowed, but it’s mostly fair game, and you can see what others are creating. There’s some pretty crazy AI out there these days, go have fun!

RELATED: What Is Google’s LaMDA AI, and Why Does a Google Engineer Believe It’s Sentient?

Categories
Entertainment

G Flip gushes over ‘cute and sexy’ girlfriend Chrishell Stause

Sweet: G Flip gushed over 'cute and sexy' girlfriend Chrishell Stause as she shared a throwback snap on Tuesday of the Selling Sunset star giving them a tattoo

G Flip gushes over ‘cute and sexy’ girlfriend Chrishell Stause as she shares throwback snap of the Selling Sunset star giving them a tattoo

By Brian Marks For Dailymail.com

Published: | Updated:

G Flip gushed over girlfriend Chrishell Stause in a sweet Instagram post on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old Australian musician, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, had asked her Instagram followers to give them recommendations for a Los Angeles based tattoo artists.

Fans then suggested that they get Chrishell, 41, to do the honors, as they had previously let the Selling Sunset star ink a message on their thigh.

Sweet: G Flip gushed over 'cute and sexy' girlfriend Chrishell Stause as she shared a throwback snap on Tuesday of the Selling Sunset star giving them a tattoo

Sweet: G Flip gushed over ‘cute and sexy’ girlfriend Chrishell Stause as she shared a throwback snap on Tuesday of the Selling Sunset star giving them a tattoo

Sharing a throwback snap of the tattoo session, G Flip then quipped that Chrishell was too busy ‘focusing on being hecktikly cute & sexIIII [sic].’

Back in May, G Flip — born Georgia Flipo — had allowed the real estate star to ink a scrawled ‘Get Me Outta Here’ on their thigh.

Although G Flip had previously posted photos of the aftermath in May, the video proved that it was their girlfriend responsible for the tattoo.

Cute couple: The lovebirds met in February, when Chrishell starred in a music video for G Flip, but it wasn't until May that she announced on the Selling Sunset reunion that they were dating

Cute couple: The lovebirds met in February, when Chrishell starred in a music video for G Flip, but it wasn’t until May that she announced on the Selling Sunset reunion that they were dating

‘Thank you everyone recommending @chrishell.stause. Her books by Ella are currently closed and she is focusing on being hecktikly cute & sexiiii, ‘G Flip captioned the clip, adding a kissing emoji.

The couple set off engagement rumors in July when Chrishell was seen wearing what appeared to be an engagement ring on her left ring finger, but a rep for the reality star subsequently denied that they were engaged.

The lovebirds met in February, when Chrishell starred in a music video for G Flip, but it wasn’t until May that she announced on the Selling Sunset reunion that they were dating.

Whoops: G Flip — born Georgia Flipo — unintentionally invited the joke responses when the shared a video from the back of a car while asking for tattoo artist recommendations in LA

Whoops: G Flip — born Georgia Flipo — unintentionally invited the joke responses when the shared a video from the back of a car while asking for tattoo artist recommendations in LA

Receipts: Although G Flip previously posted photos of the aftermath in May, the video proved that it was their girlfriend responsible for the tattoo

Receipts: Although G Flip previously posted photos of the aftermath in May, the video proved that it was their girlfriend responsible for the tattoo

The setting could have been awkward, as Chrishell previously dated the Oppenheim Group’s co-founder Jason Oppenheim, but he seemed happy for her.

‘They seem like a bada**, for one,’ he said of G Flip. ‘And two, the smile that’s been on your face the last couple [of] minutes makes me very happy. So I’m proud of you.’

She and the Oppenheim Group CEO ended their five-month-long relationship back in December 2021.

Prior to that relationship, she dated Dancing With The Stars pro Keo Motsepe for three months from 2020 to 2021.

The former soap opera actress was formerly married to This Is Us star Justin Hartley beginning in 2017, but he filed for divorce in 2019.

Connection: Chrishell began dating G Flip after starring in a music video for them in February; seen June 30

Making it official: Chrishell went public with the romance in May; seen June 5

Making it official: Chrishell began dating G Flip after starring in a music video for them in February. She went public with the romance in May

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Categories
Sports

Meg Lanning takes indefinite break from cricket for personal reasons

Meg Lanning takes indefinite break from cricket for personal reasons

Australia captain Meg Lanning will take an indefinite break from the game for personal reasons.

It means Lanning, who recently led Australia to the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games to follow their T20 and ODI World Cup titles in 2020 and 2022, will miss the Hundred where she would have played for Trent Rockets. Australia’s domestic season starts in late September with the WNCL ahead of the WBBL in October.

Australia’s next series is an away T20I tour of India in mid-December ahead of hosting Pakistan next January before the T20 World Cup in South Africa.

“After a busy couple of years, I’ve made the decision to take a step back to enable me to spend time focusing on myself,” Lanning said in a statement. “I’m grateful for the support of CA and my team-mates and ask that my privacy is respected during this time.”

Cricket Australia’s head of performance, women’s cricket, Shawn Flegler said: “We’re proud of Meg for acknowledging that she needs a break and will continue to support her during this time.

“She’s been an incredible contributor to Australian cricket over the last decade, achieving remarkable feats both individually and as part of the team, and has been a brilliant role model for young kids.

“The welfare of our players is always our number one priority, and we’ll continue to work with Meg to ensure she gets the support and space she needs.”

Melbourne Stars general manager Blair Crouch said: “We’re fully supportive of Meg’s desire to have a break from cricket and we will give her all the time, support and space she needs.”

Lanning made her international debut in 2010 and was named captain as a 21-year-old in 2014. She has led the team in 171 matches across all formats with 135 victories. Since 2017 she has only missed five internationals.

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Categories
Australia

Dog baiting on Sunshine Coast investigation ramps up as deaths sicken owners

A man holding a picture of a dog stands next to a woman on a set of stairs leading to a beach

For Samantha Barrass and her family, the loss of their golden labrador Pepper this week has been made even harder by the knowledge it may have stemmed from a deliberate, malicious act.

“It’s unbelievable… it just makes you sick to the stomach… there’s no words,” Ms Barrass said.

“I don’t know how you could harm let alone kill an innocent, defenseless animal and a dog… that provides so much joy.”

Pepper was one of five dogs to die after visiting Buddina beach — a popular off-leash area on the Sunshine Coast.

Pepper exhibited poisoning symptoms several hours after her walk.

Ms Barass said her dog died at the vet clinic on Tuesday

Breaking the news to her five-year-old daughter was one of the hardest things she’d had to do.

“She just wants Pepper to be home and can’t kind of comprehend what’s happened,” Ms Barass said.

“She was the happiest dog…stupidly happy…she was the brightest of all of us.”

A cream dog with a collar sits looking at the camera
Pepper’s family are devastated after she succumbed to poisoning symptoms on Tuesday.(Supplied: Samantha Barrass)

Dog bowls removed

Sunshine Coast police and the RSPCA are investigating, with at least seven dogs affected, including the five that have died.

A picture of a beach access sign in front of some trees and the beach
Sunshine Coast Council has removed a dog drinking bowl from beach access 210.(ABC Sunshine Coast: Jessica Ross)

Several of the owners told authorities their dogs had drunk from water bowls at Buddina, near beach access 210.

Sunshine Coast councilor Joe Natoli said portable drinking bowls had been removed while fixed bowls had been sealed to prevent further contamination.

“We’ll increase our surveillance of the area,” Mr Natoli said.

“Council is actually asking people that if they if they have their dogs, and they’re in off leash areas, to be very vigilant to make sure that they keep an eye on their dogs.”

Man with gray hair looking at camera with field behind him.
Joe Natoli says water bowls have been removed or sealed.(ABC Sunshine Coast: Kylie Bartholomew)

Kawana Waters police officer-in-charge Mark Cordwell encouraged pet owners to make an official report.

“We would like to try and pinpoint the location where all these dogs were may have frequented, as well as the times,” Senior Sergeant Cordwell said.

If found to be a deliberate act, those responsible could face up to seven years in jail.

“It’s certainly serious matters,” Senior Sergeant Cordwell said.

“It is concerning enough for us to commence an investigation.”

Beagle looking at camera
Billy the beagle is one of five dogs that have died after a spate of suspected poisonings.(Supplied: Doggie Adventure Playhouse)

dog lovers in shock

The news has rocked the Sunshine Coast community, particularly dog ​​park regulars.

Many took to social media to say they wouldn’t be visiting the area until the source of the poisoning had been found.

Buderim resident Gary, who didn’t want to give his full name, didn’t take his dog I went to the park on Wednesday but spent the morning warning other walkers.

“I thought I’d come down here and sit for half an hour and anyone with a dog coming along, I would mention to them just in case they hadn’t heard the news,” Gary said.

“So that they can be wary and maybe keep their dog on the leash and prevent them from eating something, if there’s something around.”

A man sits in the front seat of a car and a dog sits in the back
Gary, from Buderim, didn’t want to walk his dog I went after hearing of suspected poisonings.(ABC Sunshine Coast: Kylie Bartholomew)

Meanwhile, Ms Barrass said she was determined to help with the investigation into the dog deaths to ensure there was justice for the animals lost.

“Pepper was only four… it would be different if she went from old age or she developed a health complaint,” she said.

“For someone… an individual or a group of people… to be part of the death… that’s just viciousness.”

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