Erin Patterson, the Australian woman accused of killing three relatives with a meal of death cap mushrooms baked in a Beef Wellington lunch, has been found guilty of three counts of murder and the attempted murder of the lone survivor.

A 12-member jury reached the verdict after around six days of deliberation following a 10-week trial in Morwell, a tiny town about an hour’s drive from the suburban dining room in Leongatha, Victoria, where the lethal lunch was served in July 2023.

Patterson’s former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, died along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson. Heather’s husband Ian, their local pastor, survived after a weekslong stay in hospital.

Prosecutors alleged that Patterson deliberately laced the lunch with death cap mushrooms, highly toxic fungi that she picked after seeing their location posted on a public website.

Her defense lawyers argued the deaths were a “terrible accident” and that Patterson repeatedly lied to police out of panic when she realized she may have added foraged mushrooms to the meal.

Under Australian law, none of the jurors can be publicly identified, and they’re prohibited from disclosing jury room deliberations even after the trial ends.

It will never be known which pieces of evidence influenced each juror’s decision, but all 12 were required to agree on the verdict.

The trial has captivated audiences worldwide via news reports and four podcasts dedicated to unpacking each day’s evidence.

Patterson sat in court, listening as prosecutors called witness after witness, whose testimony, they alleged, told a compelling story of a triple murder that the jury found satisfied the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

The fateful lunch

The agreed facts were that Patterson asked five people to lunch on July 29, 2023, including her estranged husband Simon Patterson, who pulled out the day before.

Within hours of the meal, the four lunch guests – Simon’s parents Don and Gail, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson – became ill with vomiting and diarrhea. They went to hospital where they were placed in induced comas as doctors tried to save them.

Gail and Heather died on August 4 from multiorgan failure, followed by Don on August 5, after he failed to respond to a liver transplant. Ian Wilkinson survived and was finally discharged from hospital in late September, after almost two months of intensive treatment.

Death cap mushrooms contain amanita toxins that prevent the production of proteins in liver cells, leading to cell death and possible liver failure from about two days after ingestion.

Native to Europe, the lethal mushrooms have been found growing in several Australian states, and around the time of the lunch, they had been seen within a short drive of Patterson’s home in rural Victoria.

In finding Patterson guilty, jury members indicated they were convinced beyond reasonable doubt that she planned to kill all four guests by hiding death cap mushrooms in the lunch.

During the trial, the prosecution argued that Patterson had the opportunity to pick lethal mushrooms after seeing their location posted on the citizen science iNaturalist website.

The guilty verdict suggests the jury accepted the prosecution’s argument that she likely traveled to two sites in April and May 2023, and deliberately picked the mushrooms used in the meal.

Patterson admitted that on April 28 – the same day as cellphone signals put her in the vicinity of death cap mushrooms – she bought a dehydrator that she later dumped at a waste recycling center on August 2.

It had her fingerprints on it and contained remnants of death cap mushrooms.

The prosecution alleged that Patterson faked illness in the days after serving the lunch and tried to cover her tracks by disposing of the dehydrator and factory resetting her devices to delete evidence.

The prosecution did not have to prove motive.

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC accused Patterson of having two faces: One she showed the world that suggested she had a good relationship with the Pattersons, the parents of her estranged husband, and a hidden face she showed only her Facebook friends that suggested she wanted to cut ties with them.

In Facebook messages sent in December 2022, Patterson had expressed anger and frustration over Don and Gail’s reluctance to get involved in their son’s marriage breakdown.

“I’m sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,” she wrote. “I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son’s personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.”

And another message read: “This family I swear to f***ing god.”

During eight days of testimony including cross-examination, Patterson consistently pleaded her innocence, claiming she inadvertently added foraged mushrooms to the meal.

In his directions to the jury, Justice Christopher Beale said that Patterson’s admission that she told lies and disposed of evidence must not cause them to be prejudiced against her.

“This is a court of law, not a court of morals,” he said.

“The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she is criminally responsible for those consequences,” he said.

The jury found that Patterson had intended to kill all four lunch guests and lied repeatedly on the stand to claim she didn’t.

Patterson will be sentenced at a later date.

This is a developing story. More to come

Indonesia’s rumbling Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted Monday, sending a column of volcanic materials as high as 18 kilometers (11 miles) into the sky and depositing ash on villages.

The volcano has been at the highest alert level since last month and no casualties were immediately reported.

Indonesia’s Geology Agency recorded an avalanche of searing gas clouds mixed with rocks and lava traveling up to 5 kilometers (3 miles) down the volcano’s slopes during the eruption. Observations from drones showed lava filling the crater, indicating deep movement of magma that set off volcanic earthquakes.

The column of hot clouds that rose into the sky was the volcano’s highest since the major eruption in November 2024 that killed nine people and injured dozens, said Muhammad Wafid, the Geology Agency chief. It also erupted in March.

“An eruption of that size certainly carries a higher potential for danger, including its impact on aviation,” Wafid told The Associated Press from Switzerland where he was attending a seminar. “We shall reevaluate to enlarge its danger zone that must be cleared of villagers and tourist activities.”

The volcano monitoring agency had increased the alert status for Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki to the highest level after an eruption on June 18, and more than doubled an exclusion zone to a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) radius since then as eruptions became more frequent.

After an eruption early last year, about 6,500 people evacuated and the island’s Frans Seda Airport was closed. The airport has remained closed since then due to the continuing seismic activity.

The 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) mountain is a twin volcano with Mount Lewotobi Perempuan in the district of Flores Timur.

Monday’s eruption was one of Indonesia’s largest volcano eruptions since 2010 when Mount Merapi, the country’s most volatile volcano erupted on the densely populated island of Java. That eruption killed 353 people and forced over 350,000 people to evacuate affected areas.

Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 280 million people with frequent seismic activity. It has 120 active volcanoes and sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

The owners of a pet lion that jumped a wall and attacked a woman and two children in the Pakistani city of Lahore have been arrested.

The woman and her two young children, aged 5 and 7, were taken to hospital, after being attacked in an alleyway when the lion escaped from a farmhouse in the neighborhood of Johan town on Thursday.

Security camera footage released by police showed the lion leaping over a concrete wall and pouncing on a woman from behind, knocking her to the ground. A man can be seen running out of the property the lion escaped from with an object in hand and chasing the lion away from the woman, before the wild cat takes off further down the road where the children were attacked.

They sustained injuries to their faces and arms but are now in stable condition, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Lahore police said in a video posted to social media that the lion had escaped from an open cage at the farmhouse and that it was recaptured by the owners, who promptly put it in a vehicle and went into hiding in another district.

Muhammad Faisal Kamran, Deputy Inspector General of Lahore Police Operations, said three people were arrested on Friday morning. “We’ve also captured the lion and transferred it to Wildlife authorities,” Kamran said.

Lahore police shared an image of three men in a police cell and video of the lion in a cage.

Owning wild cats as pets is seen as a status symbol in Pakistan and is not uncommon, but a license is required, and large cats must be kept outside city limits.

“This unfortunate incident highlights how wild animals are often kept in such places without a license, or permission — with no legal procedures followed — endangering the lives of many people,” Kamran said.

The Punjab government announced Sunday that it was undertaking a province-wide crackdown on those keeping lions without a license. So far, 13 lions have been captured and five individuals arrested in connection with violating wildlife regulations.

Japan’s government on Saturday warned of more possible strong earthquakes in waters southwest of its main islands, but urged the public not to believe unfounded predictions of a major disaster.

Authorities on Friday evacuated some residents from remote islands close to the epicenter of a 5.5-magnitude quake off the tip of the southernmost main island of Kyushu.

That quake on Thursday, strong enough to make standing difficult, was one of more than 1,000 tremors in the islands of Kagoshima prefecture in the past two weeks that have fueled rumors stemming from a comic book prediction that a major disaster would befall the country this month.

“With our current scientific knowledge, it’s difficult to predict the exact time, place or scale of an earthquake,” said Ayataka Ebita, director of the Japan Meteorological Agency’s earthquake and tsunami monitoring division, after a 5.4-magnitude quake shook the area again on Saturday.

“We ask that people base their understanding on scientific evidence,” Ebita told a press conference.

The manga, which some have interpreted as predicting a catastrophic event on Saturday, has prompted some travelers to avoid Japan. Arrivals from Hong Kong, where the rumors have circulated widely, were down 11% in May from the same month last year, according to the latest data.

Japan has had record visitor numbers this year, with April setting an record monthly high of 3.9 million travelers.

Ryo Tatsuki, the artist behind the manga “The Future I Saw,” first published in 1999 and re-released in 2021, said she was “not a prophet,” in a statement issued by her publisher.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. It accounts for about one-fifth of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

Ukraine said it struck a Russian air base on Saturday, while Russia continued to pound Ukraine with hundreds of drones overnight as part of a stepped-up bombing campaign that has dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the more than 3-year-old war.

Ukraine’s military General Staff said that Ukrainian forces had struck the Borisoglebsk air base in Russia’s Voronezh region, describing it as the home base of Russia’s Su-34, Su-35S and Su-30SM fighter jets.

Writing on Facebook, the General Staff said it hit a depot containing glide bombs, a training aircraft and “possibly other aircraft.”

Russian officials did not immediately comment on the attack.

Such attacks on Russian air bases aim to dent Russia’s military capability and demonstrate Ukraine’s capability to hit high-value targets in Russia. Last month, Ukraine said it destroyed more than 40 Russian planes stationed at several airfields deep in Russia’s territory in a surprise drone attack.

Russia fired 322 drones and decoys into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said. Of these, 157 were shot down and 135 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

According to the air force, Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region was the main target of the attack. Regional Gov. Serhii Tyurin said Saturday that no damage, injuries or deaths had been reported.

Russia has been stepping up its long-range attacks on Ukraine. Waves of drones and missiles targeted Kyiv overnight into Friday in the largest aerial assault since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began. On Saturday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the number of people killed in the assault had increased to two. A further 31 people were wounded.

The fresh wave of attacks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that he had a “very important and productive” phone call with US President Donald Trump.

The two leaders discussed how Ukrainian air defenses might be strengthened, possible joint weapons production between the US and Ukraine, and broader US-led efforts to end the war with Russia, according to a statement by Zelensky.

Asked Friday night by reporters about the call, Trump said, “We had a very good call, I think.”

When asked about finding a way to end the fighting, Trump said: “I don’t know. I can’t tell you whether or not that’s going to happen.”

The US has paused some shipments of military aid to Ukraine, including crucial air defense missiles. Ukraine’s main European backers are considering how they can help pick up the slack. Zelensky says plans are afoot to build up Ukraine’s domestic arms industry, but scaling up will take time.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it shot down 94 Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday, along with 45 further drones Saturday morning and early afternoon. No casualties were reported, but local officials in the Saratov region said 25 apartments were damaged by Ukrainian drones in the city of Engels.

Four Ukrainian drones were shot down while approaching Moscow on Saturday, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Air traffic was briefly halted as a precaution at one of Moscow’s airports, Sheremetyevo, Russia’s aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attended a religious gathering on Saturday, according to Iranian state media outlet Press TV, the first time he has appeared in public in several weeks.

Khamenei had not made a public appearance since his country was plunged into conflict on June 13, when Israel unilaterally bombed Iranian military and nuclear sites. The US later joined in, bombing three key Iranian nuclear sites before US President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire.

In video posted by Press TV on X, Khamenei waves to a crowd of black-clad worshippers marking the eve of Ashura, when Shia Muslims commemorate and mourn the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali. The crowd greeted the cleric in turn with cheers and chants.

Weeks in hiding

Khamenei, the longest-ruling leader in the Middle East, reportedly spent the 12-day conflict with Israel and the US hiding in a bunker with little access to outside communications. During the conflict, both Israeli politicians and Trump openly discussed overthrowing Khamenei’s government and deposing him by force.

After reportedly rejecting an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei, Trump stated in late June that the cleric was an “easy target.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule out targeting Khamenei either, saying that his death would “not … escalate the conflict,” but rather “end” it.

In a recorded statement posted from an undisclosed location days after the ceasefire began, Khamenei was defiant, declaring victory over both Israel and the US. Khamenei took time to respond directly to US President Donald Trump, who had called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” shortly before ordering US airstrikes.

“This (conflict) is not about our nuclear program,” Khamenei said. “This is about Iran surrendering … in his statement, (Trump) revealed the truth, he showed his hand. The Americans have had a fundamental issue with Islamic Iran since our revolution.”

“And it will never happen,” Khamenei said of Trump’s demand.

“The Islamic Republic had one social contract with society, which is that it deprived them of all freedoms … in return for providing security,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group. “Now, that image has been shattered in the eyes of the Iranian people.”

US ‘won’t allow’ Iranian nuclear program

Khamenei’s new public appearance comes a day after Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the US won’t allow Iran to restart its nuclear program.

“If they did start, there’d be a problem. We wouldn’t allow that to happen,” Trump said Friday.

Trump said he would discuss the previous strikes with Netanyahu, who is due to visit Washington on Monday.

The comments echo remarks made earlier on Friday by Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, who said his country must maintain “aerial superiority” over Iran to ensure it cannot rebuild its nuclear or missile production programs.

Trump reiterated his claim that Iran wants to meet with the US for talks, a statement Iranian officials have repeatedly denied.

The Trump administration has discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a nuclear program for civilian energy production, easing sanctions, and freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds – all part of an intensifying attempt to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table, four sources familiar with the matter said.

A summit of leaders from the BRICS group of major emerging economies kicks off in Brazil Sunday – but without the top leader of its most powerful member.

For the first time in more than one decade of rule, Chinese leader Xi Jinping – who has made BRICS a centerpiece of his push to reshape the global balance of power – will not attend the annual leaders’ gathering.

Xi’s absence from the two-day summit in Rio de Janeiro comes at a critical moment for BRICS, which owes its acronym to early members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and since 2024 has expanded to include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.

Some members are up against a July 9 deadline to negotiate US tariffs set to be imposed by US President Donald Trump, and all face the global economic uncertainty brought on by his upending of American trade relations – putting the club under more pressure show solidarity.

Xi’s absence means the Chinese leader is missing a key opportunity to showcase China as a stable alternative leader to the US. That’s an image Beijing has long looked to project to the Global South, and one recently elevated by Trump’s shift to an “America First” policy and the US decision last month to join Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.

But the Chinese leader’s decision not to attend – sending his No. 2 official Li Qiang instead – doesn’t mean Beijing has downgraded the significance it places on BRICS, observers say, or that it’s less important to Beijing’s bid to build out groups to counterbalance Western power.

“(BRICS) is part and parcel of Beijing’s effort to make sure it isn’t hemmed in by the US allies,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.

But that pressure may have lessened with Trump in office, Chong added, referencing the US president’s shake-up of relations even with key partners, and for Xi, BRICS may just not be “his greatest priority” as he focuses on steering China’s domestic economy. Beijing may also have low expectations for major breakthroughs at this year’s summit, he said.

BRICS attendance sheet

Xi is not the only head of state expected to be absent in Rio.

The Chinese leader’s closest ally in the group, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, will only attend via video link, for the same reason he also joined a 2023 BRICS gathering in South Africa remotely. Brazil, like South Africa, is a signatory to the International Criminal Court and so would be obligated to arrest Putin on a court charge alleging war crimes in Ukraine.

The absence of two global heavy hitters leaves ample limelight for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will visit Brazil both for the summit and a state visit. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is also expected to attend.

Some new club members have yet to announce their plans, though Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto is expected in Rio after Southeast Asia’s largest economy officially joined BRICS earlier this year. BRICS partner countries, including some who aspire to join the group, will also send delegations. Uncertainty remains over whether Saudi Arabia has accepted an invitation to become a full member.

The sting of Xi’s absence for Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may be blunted by the fact that the Chinese leader visited Brazil in November for the G20 summit and a state visit, when he and Lula inked a raft of cooperation agreements. The Brazilian leader also visited China in May, after attending a military parade in Moscow alongside Xi.

That recent diplomacy, low expectations for major breakthroughs at this year’s summit, and a heightened focus on domestic issues all likely factored into Xi’s decision to send Li, a trusted second-in-command, observers say.

China is facing steep economic challenges in the face of trade frictions with the US – and its leaders are busy charting a course for the five years ahead of a key political conclave expected this year.

In Rio, Li will likely be charged with advancing priorities like shoring up energy ties between Beijing and BRICS’ major oil-exporting members, while pushing for the expanded use of China’s offshore and digital currency for trade within the group, according to Brian Wong, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, who added that Xi’s absence shouldn’t be interpreted as a snub to BRICS.

“Whether it be the Sino-Russian partnership or Beijing’s desire to project its purported leadership of the Global South, there is much in BRICS+ that resonates with Xi’s foreign policy worldview,” said Wong, using a term for the extended group.

De-dollarization?

Launched in 2009 as an economic coalition of Brazil, Russia, India and China before South Africa joined a year later, BRICS roughly positions itself as the Global South’s answer to the Group of Seven (G7) major developed economies.

It’s taken on greater significance as countries have increasingly pushed for a “multipolar world” where power is more distributed – and as Beijing and Moscow have looked to bolster their international clout alongside deepening tensions with the West.

But BRICS’ composition – a mix of countries with vastly different political and economic systems, and with occasional friction between each other – and its recent expansion have also drawn criticism as leaving the group too unwieldy to be effective.

The disparate group’s efforts to speak with one voice distinct from that of the West often become mired in opposing views. A statement last month expressed “grave concern” over the military strikes against BRICS member Iran, but stopped short of specifically naming the US or Israel, the two countries that carried out the strikes.

Nonetheless, the US will be watching how the countries talk about one issue that has typically united them: moving their trade and finance to national currencies – and away from the dollar. Such de-dollarization is particularly attractive to member countries such as Russia and Iran, which are heavily sanctioned by the US.

Earlier this year, among the goals of Brazil’s host term, Lula included “increasing payment options” to reduce “vulnerabilities and costs.” Russia last year pushed for the development of a unique cross-border payments system, when it hosted the club.

What’s unlikely to be on the negotiating table, however, is the lofty goal of a “BRICS currency” – an idea suggested by Lula in 2023 that has drawn ire from Trump even as other BRICS leaders have not signaled it’s a group priority.

The US president in January threatened to place “100% tariffs” on “seemingly hostile” BRICS countries if they supported a BRICS currency, or backed another currency to replace “the mighty U.S. Dollar.”

As countries convene in Rio, observers will be tracking how strident their leaders are in promoting the use of national currencies at a meeting of a group where China is the leading member, but US global economic clout still looms large.