Latest news with #Truong
Hamilton Spectator
01-06-2025
- Hamilton Spectator
Destroyed home is second explosion in east Hamilton neighborhood this week
A home on Tuxedo Avenue North exploded just before 5 a.m. Sunday. 'The young couple who live there said everything they have is gone now,' said Hoang Truong, who lives next door. The couple was away for the night, celebrating the wife's birthday, according to Truong, who was awakened in his own second-floor bedroom by 'a loud pop' that he at first thought was a car crash. 'But then I smelled smoke and saw siding coming apart on the house beside me. I yelled at my roommate to get up.' By the time he got to the street (which is between Main Street East and Dunsmure Road) there were 'bright flames' coming from the basement of the burning white bungalow. 'Looks like that was where it started,' he said. Video captured by neighbour Danielle Breedon of a home exploding on Tuxedo Avenue North. When firefighters arrived, Truong confirmed nobody was home at the single-family house. Police found the couple who owns the place and they came to the scene, visibly upset by what they discovered, says Truong. Fire crews were unable to enter the house because it was too dangerous. The structure was collapsed and 'fully involved with heavy flame,' said Hamilton Fire Chief Dave Cunliffe. In the chaos, Truong said firefighters broke down his front door. Several of his windows were shattered. But Truong is able to stay at his home. The house on the other side of the fire was also evacuated. One of the residents there uses a wheelchair, according to Truong. A chair-lift close to the exploded bungalow appears to have been damaged. A few doors north, Danielle Breedon and her boyfriend were sleeping when she heard a loud bang and a picture fell off the wall. 'I thought Daisy fell off the bed,' she said, referring to her Golden Retriever. Once she and her boyfriend got up to investigate, 'we could see the flames out our bedroom window' and the smell of smoke was heavy. The Ontario Fire Marshal's Office was on the scene, having been called in 'based on the suspected nature of the incident,' said a news release from the fire chief, although he also said the cause of the explosion is unknown. The call was upgraded to a multi-alarm fire with 12 units on scene, or about 50 firefighters, at the height of the blaze. A home on Tuxedo Avenue North was destroyed by an explosion and fire early Sunday morning. Firefighters used an aerial ladder to defend the adjacent homes from flames. The burned-out home is 'structurally unsafe,' said Cunliffe. 'The walls are pushed out, the foundation is damaged and the roof is collapsed.' Mid-afternoon Sunday, firefighters were still on scene 'performing fire watch' in case the blaze reignited. A fire investigator used a drone to survey the damage from above. The house is expected to be a complete loss with estimated damage of more than $500,000, the fire chief said. Breedon and Truong each mentioned that this is the second explosion in their neighbourhood in a matter of days. Early Friday morning there was a small explosion and fire at an illegal magic mushroom store just around the corner on Main Street East. Around 3:45 a.m. a vehicle was seen pulling up in front of Shroomyz . Two people got out and smashed the front window, police said. They went in, but a moment later a fire broke out and the intruders fled. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
The Star
24-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Perak MCA Youth publishes guideline for Vietnamese spouses
IPOH: Perak MCA Youth has introduced a guideline to assist Vietnamese individuals married to Malaysians in applying for a spouse visa. Perak MCA Youth chief Daniel Wa stated that the guideline was developed following numerous complaints from locals and their Vietnamese spouses about the difficulties faced in obtaining the visa. "The Malaysia-Vietnam Friendship Association (MVFA) has also encountered such issues, and it's challenging to provide individual consultations. "Therefore, we decided to publish this guideline, available in both Vietnamese and Bahasa Malaysia, to reach more people," he said during a press conference at Wisma MCA Perak on Friday (May 23). Wa highlighted that Vietnamese individuals often face issues such as exorbitant fees for the visa application process. "Some have resorted to using middlemen or websites, paying at least RM8,000, and still not obtaining the correct visa," he said, adding that some have even resorted to illegal means to acquire the visa. "With the guideline, we simplify the process for them," he added. Wa mentioned that about 1,000 copies of the guideline have been printed and are available at Wisma MCA Perak, Kampar MCA office, and Shake & Bake Cafe. Each copy is priced at RM20. MCA deputy president Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon, who was also present, praised the effort by Wa and MVFA Perak chairman Kelly Truong in creating the guideline. He noted that the book also includes information on the lifestyles, cultures, and religions of Malaysia's three major races. "It explains how to respect various religious taboos," he said. "Wa is also considering creating similar guidelines for other nationalities if there is a need," he added. Dr Mah, who is also Perak MCA chairman, pointed out that there is a significant population of Vietnamese women married to Malaysian men, particularly in the Kinta Valley. "Adjusting to a new place can be stressful, especially when dealing with socio-economic and family issues. Truong herself faced similar challenges when she first married here," he said, noting that Truong teaches Bahasa Malaysia to other Vietnamese individuals. "We have also seen cases where some cannot cope and leave the country, leading to social issues," he added.
Sydney Morning Herald
16-05-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Inside the forensic journey to unmask a deadly mushroom meal
An urgent taxi transported the leftovers further east to the Royal Botanic Gardens, but mycologist Camille Truong had already left for the day. As if following the script of the Ann Brashares novel the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, but for food, a colleague then dropped the food at Truong's suburban home. There the scientist extracted mushrooms from the leftovers with tweezers for the first time. Truong didn't see any death cap mushrooms inside, so she put the lunch leftovers in her fridge at home before taking them back to work and testing again later the next day. Despite using specialist tools, she told the jury she was unable to visually identify traces of death cap mushrooms using her microscope, finding only common field mushrooms. As the meal made its way across Melbourne, the court heard staff at Monash and the Austin hospitals were working around the clock to try to save the lives of the Pattersons and the Wilkinsons. The baked leftovers, now four days old, continued their forensic journey next into the hands of the Health Department and Agriculture Victoria. But still, the jury heard, there was no positive identification of the toxic mushrooms that were by now suspected of sitting decomposing inside the puff pastry wrapped morsels. On August 2, 2023, the leftovers were examined by David Lovelock, a virologist at Agriculture Victoria, who painstakingly examined the samples from the blue plastic bags. Photographs of the travelling lunch food displayed to the jury show the mushroom paste was by now distorted and mashed. Using DNA extraction techniques, Lovelock said he too was also unable to identify any death cap toxins in the sample. Lovelock told the jury he was, however, able to detect death caps in samples taken from a dehydrator that Erin Patterson had used to dry the mushrooms. He said they tested the samples against DNA from Amanita phalloides (the scientific name for death cap mushrooms), ghost mushrooms and yellow staining mushrooms. 'We were able to detect Amanita phalloides in two of the seven test tubes,' he said. Despite receiving treatment for suspected death cap mushroom poisoning on August 4, 2023, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died. The following day, Don Patterson also succumbed, unable to be saved by a liver transplant. It would be another few weeks before the dissected beef Wellington sample continued its journey by road, this time to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Southbank. At 11.30am on August 29, 2023 – a month after the fatal lunch – the court heard the zip-sealed bags arrived at the Kavanagh Street building that also houses the state's morgue. Here, marked with the words biological hazard, the bags were photographed and emptied, again, onto four 12-centimetre-wide trays, picked apart and placed into nine clear vials with white lids. Head of forensic science and chief toxicologist Dimitri Gerostamoulos says his department dissected the meal into tiny samples – separated into pastry, meat and mushroom paste – and let them sit for three hours in a solvent used to draw out substances for detection. This time, for the first time, the court heard the tests finally confirmed doctors' suspicions – traces of death cap mushroom toxins inside the mushroom paste and beef samples. 'I can't comment on the way they've been handled, only on the fact we received them in a large ziplock bag,' Gerostamoulos told defence lawyer Colin Mandy, KC. This court heard this week that it takes three tablespoons of death cap mushroom toxin, or about 50 grams, to kill an average-sized adult. Gerostamoulos agreed the following factors could affect how someone recovers from ingesting toxic mushrooms: the amount they consume, the concentration of toxins within the meal, and their general health, age and weight. Loading The jury heard the toxins in death caps – alpha amanitin, beta amanitin and gamma amanitin – cause cells to stop replicating, and affect kidney and liver function. 'They are quite toxic in terms of their potency. They can lead to someone experiencing symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting and feeling quite unwell,' he said. Gerostamoulos said the toxins, which are only found in small amounts in the mushrooms, can also cause tissue necrosis, organ failure, and eventually lead to the patient's death if they are not treated appropriately in hospital. Samples taken from Don Patterson and Ian Wilkinson, Gerostamoulos says, also later tested positive for a mushroom toxin, known as alpha and beta amanitin. Samples taken from Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson returned undetectable results. Gerostamoulos said this meant the levels were not detectable in the women's samples – but that didn't eliminate the possibility the toxin might have been present. Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder. Her lawyers have said the deaths were a terrible accident.
The Age
16-05-2025
- The Age
Inside the forensic journey to unmask a deadly mushroom meal
An urgent taxi transported the leftovers further east to the Royal Botanic Gardens, but mycologist Camille Truong had already left for the day. As if following the script of the Ann Brashares novel the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, but for food, a colleague then dropped the food at Truong's suburban home. There the scientist extracted mushrooms from the leftovers with tweezers for the first time. Truong didn't see any death cap mushrooms inside, so she put the lunch leftovers in her fridge at home before taking them back to work and testing again later the next day. Despite using specialist tools, she told the jury she was unable to visually identify traces of death cap mushrooms using her microscope, finding only common field mushrooms. As the meal made its way across Melbourne, the court heard staff at Monash and the Austin hospitals were working around the clock to try to save the lives of the Pattersons and the Wilkinsons. The baked leftovers, now four days old, continued their forensic journey next into the hands of the Health Department and Agriculture Victoria. But still, the jury heard, there was no positive identification of the toxic mushrooms that were by now suspected of sitting decomposing inside the puff pastry wrapped morsels. On August 2, 2023, the leftovers were examined by David Lovelock, a virologist at Agriculture Victoria, who painstakingly examined the samples from the blue plastic bags. Photographs of the travelling lunch food displayed to the jury show the mushroom paste was by now distorted and mashed. Using DNA extraction techniques, Lovelock said he too was also unable to identify any death cap toxins in the sample. Lovelock told the jury he was, however, able to detect death caps in samples taken from a dehydrator that Erin Patterson had used to dry the mushrooms. He said they tested the samples against DNA from Amanita phalloides (the scientific name for death cap mushrooms), ghost mushrooms and yellow staining mushrooms. 'We were able to detect Amanita phalloides in two of the seven test tubes,' he said. Despite receiving treatment for suspected death cap mushroom poisoning on August 4, 2023, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died. The following day, Don Patterson also succumbed, unable to be saved by a liver transplant. It would be another few weeks before the dissected beef Wellington sample continued its journey by road, this time to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Southbank. At 11.30am on August 29, 2023 – a month after the fatal lunch – the court heard the zip-sealed bags arrived at the Kavanagh Street building that also houses the state's morgue. Here, marked with the words biological hazard, the bags were photographed and emptied, again, onto four 12-centimetre-wide trays, picked apart and placed into nine clear vials with white lids. Head of forensic science and chief toxicologist Dimitri Gerostamoulos says his department dissected the meal into tiny samples – separated into pastry, meat and mushroom paste – and let them sit for three hours in a solvent used to draw out substances for detection. This time, for the first time, the court heard the tests finally confirmed doctors' suspicions – traces of death cap mushroom toxins inside the mushroom paste and beef samples. 'I can't comment on the way they've been handled, only on the fact we received them in a large ziplock bag,' Gerostamoulos told defence lawyer Colin Mandy, KC. This court heard this week that it takes three tablespoons of death cap mushroom toxin, or about 50 grams, to kill an average-sized adult. Gerostamoulos agreed the following factors could affect how someone recovers from ingesting toxic mushrooms: the amount they consume, the concentration of toxins within the meal, and their general health, age and weight. Loading The jury heard the toxins in death caps – alpha amanitin, beta amanitin and gamma amanitin – cause cells to stop replicating, and affect kidney and liver function. 'They are quite toxic in terms of their potency. They can lead to someone experiencing symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting and feeling quite unwell,' he said. Gerostamoulos said the toxins, which are only found in small amounts in the mushrooms, can also cause tissue necrosis, organ failure, and eventually lead to the patient's death if they are not treated appropriately in hospital. Samples taken from Don Patterson and Ian Wilkinson, Gerostamoulos says, also later tested positive for a mushroom toxin, known as alpha and beta amanitin. Samples taken from Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson returned undetectable results. Gerostamoulos said this meant the levels were not detectable in the women's samples – but that didn't eliminate the possibility the toxin might have been present. Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder. Her lawyers have said the deaths were a terrible accident.
Perth Now
14-05-2025
- Perth Now
Bombshell testimony about mushroom lunch leftovers at Erin Patterson trial
Waste workers found a food dehydrator had been dumped at a tip by a woman in the days after a poisonous mushroom lunch was served, a triple-murder trial has been told. Video of a woman getting out of a red car and pulling a black dehydrator from the boot before she placed it in an e-waste bin inside a green shed was shown to the jury in Erin Patterson's trial on Wednesday. WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Bombshell testimony at Erin Patterson murder trial. Prosecutors claim Patterson disposed of the food dehydrator, which they allege contained death cap mushroom traces, after she served a poisoned beef Wellington to four former in-laws on July 29, 2023. The 50-year-old mother of two has pleaded not guilty to three murder charges over the lunch, which led to the deaths of Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66. Patterson claims the poisoning was unintentional and a terrible accident. Koonwarra Transfer Station operations manager Darren Canty told the jury police contacted him on August 4 about a person who had attended the waste facility two days earlier. 'As a result of that inquiry, I looked at the video footage that we had from that day and made a copy of that footage and passed it on,' he said. After the footage was played to the court in Morwell, regional Victoria, the jury was shown a photo of the black Sunbeam food dehydrator. Mr Canty said the woman paid by EFTPOS for the e-waste disposal before she left. Intensive care specialist Andrew Bersten was the next witness called on Wednesday, with the jury told he had been sent Patterson's medical records from her presentation at hospital after the lunch. This included ambulance records that showed Patterson had experienced 'five loose bowel actions' between 10am and 11.50am on July 31. 'She was somewhat dehydrated and therefore I thought it was consistent with a diarrhoeal illness,' he said. Earlier, the first scientist to test the beef Wellington remains said she did not find evidence of death cap mushrooms after examining the food with a microscope. Mycologist Camille Truong was working on-call for the Victorian Poisons Information Centre on July 31 when she received a call from Monash Hospital toxicology registrar Laura Muldoon. Four patients had been hospitalised after consuming a meal that contained mushrooms and Dr Muldoon asked for her help to identify the mushrooms, Dr Truong told the jury. Dr Muldoon arranged to deliver the sample to the Royal Botanic Gardens national herbarium for the scientist to analyse. It arrived about 5pm but Dr Truong said she left work early that day. A colleague brought the beef Wellington sample to Dr Truong's home, where she analysed it on her bench under a microscope. She did not find any death cap mushroom pieces and put the remains into her fridge overnight, Dr Truong told the jury. The next day she took the sample to the Royal Botanic Gardens where she re-examined it and again found the remnants did not contain death cap mushrooms. 'The mushroom I identified is called a field mushroom ... this is the typical mushrooms that you find in a supermarket,' Dr Truong said. 'That is the only mushroom that I found in this food item.' Defence barrister Sophie Stafford earlier discussed a coronial report about a woman who died in May 2024 after making herself a meal out of mushrooms picked from her garden. The elderly woman died from death cap mushroom poisoning, the jury was told. Mushroom expert Thomas May said Victoria's Department of Health had contacted him about the recommendations, which included that more public health messaging was needed on the dangers of consuming wild mushrooms. The trial before Justice Christopher Beale continues on Thursday.
