
Snake on a plane delays Australia flight as snake catcher summoned
MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian domestic flight was delayed for two hours after a stowaway snake was found in the plane's cargo hold, officials said on Wednesday.
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The snake was found on Tuesday as passengers were boarding Virgin Australia Flight VA337 at Melbourne Airport bound for Brisbane, according to snake catcher Mark Pelley.
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The snake turned out to be a harmless 60-centimetre green tree snake. But Pelly said he thought it could be venomous when he approached it in the darkened hold.
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'It wasn't until after I caught the snake that I realized that it wasn't venomous. Until that point, it looked very dangerous to me,' Pelley said.
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When Pelley entered the cargo hold, the snake was half hidden behind a panel and could have disappeared deeper into the plane.
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Pelley said he told an aircraft engineer and airline staff that they would have to evacuate the aircraft if the snake disappeared inside the plane.
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'I said to them if I don't get this in one shot, it's going to sneak through the panels and you're going to have to evacuate the plane, because at that stage I did not know what kind of snake it was,' Pelley said.
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'But thankfully, I got it on the first try and captured it,' Pelley added. 'If I didn't get it that first time, the engineers and I would be pulling apart a (Boeing) 737 looking for a snake still right now.'
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Pelley said he had taken 30 minutes to drive to the airport and was then delayed by security before he could reach the airliner.
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An airline official said the flight was delayed around two hours.
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Because the snake is native to the Brisbane region, Pelley suspects it came aboard inside a passenger's luggage and escaped during the two-hour flight from Brisbane to Melbourne.
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The snake, which is a protected species, has been given to a Melbourne veterinarian to find a home with a licensed snake keeper.
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Winnipeg Free Press
17 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump's trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family's business
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — Lashed by cold winds and overlooking choppy, steel-gray North Sea waters, the breathtaking sand dunes of Scotland's northeastern coast rank among Donald Trump 's favorite spots on earth. 'At some point, maybe in my very old age, I'll go there and do the most beautiful thing you've ever seen,' Trump said in 2023, during his New York civil fraud trial, talking about his plans for future developments on his property in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire. At 79 and back in the White House, Trump is making at least part of that pledge a reality, traveling to Scotland on Friday as his family's business prepares for the Aug. 13 opening of a new course it is billing as 'the greatest 36 holes in golf.' While there, Trump will talk trade with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a meeting he's said will take place at 'probably one of my properties.' The Aberdeen area is already home to another of his courses, Trump International Scotland, and the president also plans to visit a Trump course near Turnberry, around 200 miles (320 kilometers) away on Scotland's southwest coast. Using this week's presidential overseas trip — with its sprawling entourage of advisers, White House and support staffers, Secret Service agents and reporters — to help show off Trump-brand golf destinations demonstrates how the president has become increasingly comfortable intermingling his governing pursuits with promoting his family's business interests. The White House has brushed off questions about potential conflicts of interest, arguing that Trump's business success before he entered politics was a key to his appeal with voters. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the Scotland swing a 'working trip.' But she added that Trump 'has built the best and most beautiful world-class golf courses anywhere in the world, which is why they continue to be used for prestigious tournaments and by the most elite players in the sport.' Trump family's new golf course has tee times for sale Trump went to Scotland to play his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018 while en route to a meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This time, his trip comes as the new golf course is about to debut and is already actively selling tee times. It's not cheap for the president to travel. The helicopters that operate as Marine One when the president is on board cost between $16,700 and nearly $20,000 per hour to operate, according to Pentagon data for fiscal year 2022. The modified Boeing 747s that serve as the iconic Air Force One cost about $200,000 per hour to fly. That's not to mention the military cargo aircraft that fly ahead of the president with his armored limousines and other official vehicles. 'We're at a point where the Trump administration is so intertwined with the Trump business that he doesn't seem to see much of a difference,' said Jordan Libowitz, vice president and spokesperson for the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'It's as if the White House were almost an arm of the Trump Organization.' During his first term, the Trump Organization signed an ethics pact barring deals with foreign companies. An ethics frameworks for Trump's second term allows them. Trump's assets are in a trust run by his children, who are also handling day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization while he's in the White House. The company has inked many recent, lucrative foreign agreements involving golf courses, including plans to build luxury developments in Qatar and Vietnam, even as the administration continues to negotiate tariff rates for those countries and around the globe. Trump's first Aberdeen course has sparked legal battles Trump's existing Aberdeenshire course, meanwhile, has a history nearly as rocky as the area's cliffs. It has struggled to turn a profit and was found by Scottish conservation authorities to have partially destroyed nearby sand dunes. Trump's company also was ordered to cover the Scottish government's legal costs after the course unsuccessfully sued over the construction of a nearby wind farm, arguing in part that it hurt golfers' views. And the development was part of the massive civil case, which accused Trump of inflating his wealth to secure loans and make business deals. Trump's company's initial plans for his first Aberdeen-area course called for a luxury hotel and nearby housing. His company received permission to build 500 houses, but Trump suggested he'd be allowed to build five times as many and borrowed against their values without actually building any homes, the lawsuit alleged. Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable last year and ordered his company to pay $355 million in fines — a judgment that has grown with interest to more than $510 million as Trump appeals. Golfers-in-chief Family financial interests aside, Trump isn't the first sitting U.S. president to golf in Scotland. That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played in Turnberry in 1959. George W. Bush visited the famed course at Gleneagles in 2005 but didn't play. Many historians trace golf back to Scotland in the Middle Ages. Among the earliest known references to game was a Scottish Parliament resolution in 1457 that tried to ban it, along with soccer, because of fears both were distracting men from practicing archery — then considered vital to national defense. The first U.S. president to golf regularly was William Howard Taft, who served from 1909 to 1913 and ignored warnings from his predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, that playing too much would make it seem like he wasn't working hard enough. Woodrow Wilson played nearly every day but Sundays, and even had the Secret Service paint his golf balls red so he could practice in the snow, said Mike Trostel, director of the World Golf Hall of Fame. Warren G. Harding trained his dog Laddie Boy to fetch golf balls while he practiced. Lyndon B. Johnson's swing was sometimes described as looking like a man trying to kill a rattlesnake. Bill Clinton, who liked to joke that he was the only president whose game improved while in office, restored a putting green on the White House's South Lawn. It was originally installed by Eisenhower, who was such an avid user that he left cleat marks in the wooden floors of the Oval Office by the door leading out to it. Bush stopped golfing after the start of the Iraq war in 2003 because of the optics. Barack Obama had a golf simulator installed in the White House that Trump upgraded during his first term, Trostel said. John F. Kennedy largely hid his love of the game as president, but he played on Harvard's golf team and nearly made a hole-in-one at California's renowned Cypress Point Golf Club just before the 1960 Democratic National Convention. 'I'd say, between President Trump and President John F. Kennedy, those are two of the most skilled golfers we've had in the White House,' Trostel said. Trump, Trostel said, has a handicap index — how many strokes above par a golfer is likely to score — of a very strong 2.5, though he's not posted an official round with the U.S. Golf Association since 2021. That's better than Joe Biden's handicap of 6.7, which also might be outdated, and Obama, who once described his own handicap as an 'honest 13.' The White House described Trump as a championship-level golfer but said he plays with no handicap. ___ Associated Press writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.


Canada News.Net
16-07-2025
- Canada News.Net
Australian PM reaches China, focuses on business ties
BEIJING, China: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese started a weeklong visit to China over the weekend. The visit aims to revitalize economic relations and expand cooperation between the two nations. The trip marks a significant moment in the ongoing thaw in relations following years of diplomatic strain. Albanese's first official engagement was a meeting in Shanghai on July 13 with Chen Jining, the city's Communist Party Secretary. The meeting is the first in a series of high-level discussions, including planned talks with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, and Zhao Leji, Chairman of the National People's Congress. "This is a very large business delegation, which underscores the significance of our economic relationship," Albanese said in an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CGTN shortly after landing in Shanghai. During the visit, Albanese is expected to meet business, tourism, and sports leaders in Shanghai and Chengdu. On Tuesday, he will attend a CEO roundtable in Beijing, part of an effort to expand commercial dialogue and investment opportunities. One notable development so far has been the signing of an agreement between Chinese travel giant and Tourism Australia, aimed at boosting Chinese tourism to Australia. The deal reflects a mutual interest in reviving travel and people-to-people exchanges that were disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is Albanese's second trip to China since his center-left Labor Party returned to power in 2022. The government was reelected with a stronger mandate in May, reinforcing its approach of steady engagement and pragmatic diplomacy with Beijing. Under Albanese's leadership, Australia has made significant progress in mending ties that had deteriorated during the tenure of the previous conservative administration. At the height of the tensions, Beijing had cut off ministerial communication and imposed a wide array of trade restrictions—both formal and informal—that severely affected Australian exporters, with estimated annual losses of more than 20 billion Australian dollars (US$13 billion). The diplomatic freeze was triggered by a range of contentious issues, most notably Australia's call for an independent international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. Since taking office, however, Albanese has sought to rebuild trust while also reducing Australia's overreliance on its largest trading partner. "My government very much values our relationship with China," Albanese said during his meeting with Chen. "We engage calmly and consistently. It's in our national interest to have strong relations with China, and we will continue to pursue those interests constructively." Chinese state media echoed the positive tone. An editorial by Xinhua News Agency on Saturday described bilateral ties as "steadily improving" and gaining "fresh momentum." The visit is widely seen as an essential step in reinforcing economic ties while maintaining a careful balance between strategic independence and commercial cooperation. As Australia navigates a complex regional environment, Albanese's approach underscores a return to dialogue and diplomacy to manage one of the country's most critical relationships. "There are no fundamental conflicts of interest between China and Australia," the editorial stated. "By managing differences through mutual respect and focusing on shared interests, the two sides can achieve common prosperity and benefit."


National Post
02-07-2025
- National Post
Snake on a plane delays Australia flight as snake catcher summoned
MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian domestic flight was delayed for two hours after a stowaway snake was found in the plane's cargo hold, officials said on Wednesday. Article content The snake was found on Tuesday as passengers were boarding Virgin Australia Flight VA337 at Melbourne Airport bound for Brisbane, according to snake catcher Mark Pelley. Article content The snake turned out to be a harmless 60-centimetre green tree snake. But Pelly said he thought it could be venomous when he approached it in the darkened hold. Article content Article content 'It wasn't until after I caught the snake that I realized that it wasn't venomous. Until that point, it looked very dangerous to me,' Pelley said. Article content Article content When Pelley entered the cargo hold, the snake was half hidden behind a panel and could have disappeared deeper into the plane. Article content Pelley said he told an aircraft engineer and airline staff that they would have to evacuate the aircraft if the snake disappeared inside the plane. Article content 'I said to them if I don't get this in one shot, it's going to sneak through the panels and you're going to have to evacuate the plane, because at that stage I did not know what kind of snake it was,' Pelley said. Article content 'But thankfully, I got it on the first try and captured it,' Pelley added. 'If I didn't get it that first time, the engineers and I would be pulling apart a (Boeing) 737 looking for a snake still right now.' Article content Pelley said he had taken 30 minutes to drive to the airport and was then delayed by security before he could reach the airliner. Article content Article content Article content Because the snake is native to the Brisbane region, Pelley suspects it came aboard inside a passenger's luggage and escaped during the two-hour flight from Brisbane to Melbourne. Article content The snake, which is a protected species, has been given to a Melbourne veterinarian to find a home with a licensed snake keeper. Article content