A man has been jailed for 13 years and six months for abducting a four-year-old girl from a remote Western Australia (WA) campsite. Terence Kelly, 37, pleaded guilty last year to taking Cleo Smith from her family’s tent in October 2021. After a huge police search, Cleo was found alive 18 days later at Kelly’s house, minutes from her own home. Kelly was arrested and later admitted child stealing in a case which attracted global attention. Handing down the sentence at Perth District Court, Chief Judge Julie Wager said the crime displayed “the highest level of seriousness”. Kelly will serve more than 11 years before being eligible for parole. The court heard how Kelly kept Cleo at his house for the entire 18 days, in a bedroom with a door modified to be lockable from the outside. He turned up the radio to drown out the noise of Cleo pleading for her mother, the court was told.(BBC)…[+]

Johnson & Johnson has proposed to pay almost $9bn to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits it faces in North America that claim its baby powder and other talc-based products cause cancer. The healthcare giant said it still believed the claims were “specious” but was hoping the new settlement offer would help conclude its legal battle. The figure marks a big boost over the $2bn it had proposed previously. The new offer has significant support from people tied to the case, it said. The company is facing more than 40,000 lawsuits from former customers who say using its talc-based baby powder caused cancer, including some who allege the product contained cancer-causing asbestos. It stopped US sales of its talc-based baby powder in 2020, citing “misinformation” that had sapped demand for the product, applied to prevent nappy rash and for other cosmetic uses, including dry shampoo. Last year, it announced plans to end sales globally. Before that decision, the company had sold the baby powder for almost 130 years. It continues to sell a version of the product that contains cornstarch.(BBC)…[+]

As so often in the past, the latest scenes of violence at Jerusalem’s most important holy site for Muslims and Jews are igniting widespread anger. In one social media video, heavily armed Israeli police apparently use a rifle butt and sticks to beat Palestinian worshippers who had barricaded themselves inside the al-Aqsa mosque. Israeli police have released their own footage which seems to show fireworks thrown by Palestinians, lighting up the prayer hall. Pictures of the aftermath show overturned furniture and prayer mats scattered across the carpet. With tensions already running high in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, for months, officials and diplomats have been warning about the risk of a new round of violence in this sacred spot at a highly sensitive time.(BBC)…[+]