OCEANIA

Photo Credit: AFP

Tim Shaddock was picked up with his dog "Bella" by a tuna vessel after the pair survived for weeks on raw fish and rainwater on their storm-crippled boat.

He arrived Tuesday at the Mexican port of Manzanillo, thin, with a bushy beard and wild hair bunched into a red cap sporting a logo of fishing company Grupomar, whose vessel had come to his rescue.

"To the captain and this fishing company that saved my life, I mean, what do you say? I'm just so grateful," Shaddock told waiting reporters.

"I'm alive... I really didn't think I'd make it, you know? So thank you, thank you so much."

Photo Credit: Andy Buchanan / AFP

The Australian state of Victoria pulled out of hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games on Tuesday citing major cost blow-outs, leaving organisers fuming as they scrambled to keep the multi-sport event afloat.

State Premier Daniel Andrews said the initial estimated Aus$2 billion (US$1.36 billion) needed to hold the Games would more likely be around Aus$7 billion, which he called "well and truly too much".

"I've made a lot of difficult calls, a lot of very difficult decisions in this job. This is not one of them. Frankly, $7 billion for a sporting event, we are not doing that," he said at a press conference in Melbourne.

"I will not take money out of hospitals and schools to host an event that is three times the cost estimated and budgeted for last year.

Photo Credit: Lawrence Smith

Tourists received no health and safety warnings before they landed on New Zealand’s most active volcano ahead of a 2019 eruption that killed 22 people, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

There were 47 people on White Island, the tip of an undersea volcano also known by its Indigenous Maori name Whakaari, when superheated steam erupted on Dec. 9. Most of the 25 people who survived were severely burned.

The island’s owners, brothers Andrew, James and Peter Buttle, their company Whakaari Management Ltd. and tour operators I.D. Tours NZ Ltd. and Tauranga Tourism Services Ltd. went on trial Tuesday in Auckland District Court for allegedly failing to adequately protect tourists and staff.

Photo Credit:AP

Australia is now the first country to allow psychiatrists to prescribe certain psychedelic substances to patients with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Beginning Saturday, Australian physicians can prescribe doses of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, for PTSD. Psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, can be given to people who have hard-to-treat depression. The country put the two drugs on the list of approved medicines by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Photo Credit: David Zalubowski

Australia is now the first country to allow psychiatrists to prescribe certain psychedelic substances to patients with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Beginning Saturday, Australian physicians can prescribe doses of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, for PTSD. Psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, can be given to people who have hard-to-treat depression. The country put the two drugs on the list of approved medicines by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Scientists in Australia were surprised by the move, which was announced in February but took effect July 1. One scientist said it puts Australia “at the forefront of research in this field.”

Chris Langmead, deputy director of the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said there have been very few advancements on treatment of persistent mental health issues in the last 50 years.