Latest news with #Ute
Herald Sun
6 days ago
- General
- Herald Sun
Thomas Howden in Bairnsdale court for drug driving in Glenaladale
Don't miss out on the headlines from Bass Coast News. Followed categories will be added to My News. A methed-up stock and station agent has been booted off the roads again after he was busted drug driving for the second time in three months. Thomas Fredrick Howden, 31, faced the Bairnsdale Magistrates' Court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to failing an oral fluid test and driving while his licence was suspended. Howden was driving a Ute in Glenaladale when he was pulled over by police in December last year. After officers discovered he was driving without a licence, he was drug tested, which returned positive for methamphetamine. His car was impounded for 30 days. The court heard Howden had previously been caught drug driving. Howden told the court he had completed a behavioural change program as part of a community corrections order. He said he was working as a stock and station agent where he sold cows and sheep and was trying to rebuild his reputation. Magistrate Mia Stylianou asked what was going through his head at the time — to which Howden replied 'a lot of stupid things'. 'Around country roads — you've got to have your wits about you, you really do,' Ms Stylianou said. Get the latest news straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email newsletters. 'Some of these roads are really tricky to navigate and if you're affected by drugs in any way — it's beyond my comprehension how anyone can get behind the wheel and thinking that they're going to drive to the best of their ability. 'There's a reason why these offences are offences.' Howden's licence was cancelled and disqualified for a year with a conviction recorded and was fined $1200. 'Hopefully there won't be a next time,' Ms Stylianou said.
International Business Times
26-04-2025
- International Business Times
Virginia Giuffre: Chilling New Details Emerge About Epstein's Sexual Abuse Victim's Death as Family and Friends Reach Her Mansion
New details have surfaced about Virginia Giuffre's final moments after she was found unresponsive in a small rural town in Western Australia — as her loved ones were seen gathering at the family's $1.9 million mansion in Perth. Giuffre, who was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein when she was a teen, died by suicide at her farmhouse in Neergabby on Friday night. A spokesperson for the WA Police Force told Daily Mail Australia that initial investigations suggested her death was "not suspicious" and confirmed that paramedics had provided "emergency first aid" moments after they reached the scene. The police also said that her death is not being investigated as a homicide case. Moments Before Death "About 9.50pm Friday 25 April, emergency services received a report a woman had been located unresponsive at a residence in Neergabby," police said, adding, "Police and St John WA attended and provided emergency first aid. Sadly, the 41-year-old woman was declared deceased at the scene. "The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; early indication is the death is not suspicious." On Saturday morning, friends and family members were seen arriving at Giuffre's upscale six-bedroom beachside home in Ocean Reef. A man and a woman arrived in a black Ute believed to belong to Giuffre's former husband, Robert. However, Robert was not in the vehicle. The man, dressed in a white t-shirt and black pants, was seen carrying a stack of cake boxes into the house. The woman, wearing a dark hoodie, also went inside the home. Giuffre's family confirmed her death in a statement, revealing that she died by suicide after a long struggle with the trauma of being sex trafficked during her teenage years. "It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia," her family said in a statement. "She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking. Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. "She was the light that lifted so many survivors. Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright. She will be missed beyond measure. Tribute to Loving Sister Earlier on Saturday, Giuffre's heartbroken brother, Danny Wilson, paid a touching tribute to her by sharing a sweet photo on Facebook that shows the two of them alongside another man. It is believed to be the final photo of Giuffre. In the photo, Giuffre is seen smiling candidly at the camera with her arm wrapped around Danny. The third person in the photo is believed to be their older brother, Sky. Wilson also updated his Facebook cover photo to a photo of a sunset over Perth, seemingly as a tribute to his sister's death. Giuffre gained attention in 2015 when she filed a lawsuit against billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, claiming she was sex trafficked at the age of 16 after being recruited by his former partner and convicted madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, while working as a locker room attendant at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. The mother of three also accused disgraced Prince Andrew of forcing her into having sex on three separate occasions when she was 17 — including incidents at Epstein's private island, Little St. James, in New Mexico, and at Maxwell's home in London, where the infamous photo of her with King Charles' brother was taken. Giuffre allegations went on to become the biggest scandal to hit the royal family in decades. Although Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied the claims, he reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in 2022, paying a whopping $12 million. Giuffre suffered abuse by a family friend when she was a child, which set her on a troubled path that eventually left her homeless as a teenager, according to NBC News. In recent years, Giuffre had been living in Australia with her young family. Just last month, she made headlines after sharing a photo of her bruised face on social media, claiming she had been hit by a bus and only had "four days to live." "This has been the worst start to a new year," she wrote in the caption of the disturbing Instagram post. "I'm ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time, but you know what they say about wishes," Giuffre's caption read. Giuffre later alleged that she was physically abused by her husband, Robert Giuffre, for years. The two recently ended their 22-year marriage. According to The Independent, Robert Giuffre also violated a restraining order that Virginia had filed against him in their hometown of Perth.
Daily Mail
26-04-2025
- Daily Mail
Chilling new details about Virginia Giuffre's final moments before suicide aged 41 - as those closest to her break cover at her $1.9million mansion
New details have emerged about Virginia Giuffre 's final moments after she was found unresponsive in a rural town in Western Australia - as those closest to her break cover at the family's $1.9million mansion in Perth. Ms Giuffre, who was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein as a teenager, took her own life at her farmhouse in Neergabby on Friday night. A WA Police Force spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia preliminary findings indicated the death was 'not suspicious' and that paramedics had provided 'emergency first aid' shortly after arriving at the home. 'About 9.50pm Friday 25 April, emergency services received a report a woman had been located unresponsive at a residence in Neergabby,' they said. 'Police and St John WA attended and provided emergency first-aid. Sadly, the 41-year-old woman was declared deceased at the scene. 'The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; early indication is the death is not suspicious.' Family acquaintances were seen visiting Ms Giuffre's luxury, six-bedroom beachside mansion in Ocean Reef earlier on Saturday. A man and a woman arrived in a black Ute believed to be owned by Ms Giuffre's ex-husband Robert, though he was not in the vehicle. A man wearing a white t-shirt and black pants exited the vehicle and retrieved a stack of cake boxes which he carried into the home. The woman, wearing a dark hoodie, also entered the family home. Ms Giuffre's family confirmed her death in a statement, writing that she had lost her life to suicide after grappling with being a sex trafficking victim in her teens. 'Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking,' the family wrote in the statement. 'She was the light that lifted so many survivors. In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.' Earlier on Saturday, Ms Giuffre's brother Danny Wilson paid tribute to his sister on Facebook with a sweet photo of the 41-year-old inbetween himself and another man believed to be her other brother, Sky Roberts. Ms Giuffre claimed she was sexually abused by Prince Andrew at the behest of Epstein's associate, jailed British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, when she was just 17. She filed a federal lawsuit against Andrew in 2021 which he agreed to settle for an undisclosed fee in 2022. He has consistently denied ever having sex with her. She had alleged she had sex with Andrew three times, in London during a 2001 trip, at Epstein's New York mansion when she was 17 and in the Virgin Islands at age 18. Andrew repeatedly denied her allegations and has said he can't recall ever meeting her, although a photograph of them together in a London townhouse, his arm around her bare midriff, was included in Giuffre's lawsuit against him. Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving dozens of teenage girls and young women, some as young as 14. In lawsuits, Ms Giuffre said she was a teenage spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's Palm Beach club, when she was approached in 2000 by Epstein's girlfriend and later employee, Maxwell. Ms Giuffre said Maxwell hired her as a masseuse for Epstein, but the couple effectively made her a sexual servant, pressuring her into gratifying not only Epstein but his friends and associates. Originally born in Florida, Ms Giuffre had moved to Australia with her husband Robert in 2019 prior to Epstein being arrested. The couple share three children. Most recently, she had been sharing images of herself to Instagram from a hospital bed after being in a car crash, stating doctors told her she had just days to live. She said her car had been hit by a school bus travelling at over 60mph and the accident had left her with kidney failure. The photograph showed discolouration to Ms Giuffre's face and chest which has been described as severe bruising. Three days after the picture emerged, a spokesman for Giuffre said she had 'made a mistake' and had not intended to share the post publicly.
Epoch Times
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
San Francisco Mayor Says City Heading ‘In the Right Direction' in 100 Days Remarks
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said on April 17 that the city is 'trending in the right direction' in a speech marking his first 100 days in office. In his address at Ute and William K. Bowes, Jr., Center for Performing Arts, Lurie highlighted improvements to public safety, progress in tackling homelessness and drug issues, and in revitalizing the city's economy. 'Over the past few years, our foundation has been shaken, we lost our way.' Lurie said. 'It's not a political thing to want to feel safe walking our kids to school, open a business, or have clean streets.' Citywide homeless people's tents and structures reached the lowest level since track began in 2019, and crime in San Francisco is at its lowest point in 23 years: violent crime is down 15 percent, and car break-ins, which account for more than half of all property crime in San Francisco, are at a 22-year low, Some of these trends started from the end of former Mayor London Breed's term, Lurie told reporters after the speech. He said he's excited about the numbers. 'I don't care who gets the credit. I want crime to go down. I want families to feel safe in our city again.' Related Stories 4/17/2025 4/17/2025 As his first priority to address the fentanyl crisis and homelessness issues, the mayor restructured the street response team with a new model that coordinates seven key departments to deliver one unified neighborhood-based approach. 'We will not shy away from making tough calls,' Lurie said in his speech. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie shakes hands with Supervisor Matt Dorsey after his speech on the eve of his 100 days in office on April 17, 2025. Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times Under his 'Breaking the Cycle' executive directive, a decades-old city practice handling drug use supplies for free has been stopped, and addicts must now receive treatment, counseling, or be connected to services to receive them. Kunal Modi, director of Health, Homelessness, & Family Services, shared a 'We are going to continue to let the world know that you don't come to San Francisco to deal drugs anymore, you don't come here to sit on the streets and do drugs anymore, and you don't come here to sleep on our streets. And that is a message that has not broken through, and that is a message that we will break through,' Lurie said to the media. Lurie touted the sign of improvements in the economy: Moscone Convention Center bookings have increased 53 percent compared to last year, generating $174 million in revenue, and the NBA All-Star Weekend alone generated an estimated $350 million in economic activity for the Bay Area. 'People are betting on San Francisco again,' said Lurie, adding that fashion brand Zara had decided against closing their store and are now bringing a four-story flagship to Union Square. Under Lurie's order, two recently established civic organizations will help with San Francisco's economic revitalization. 'The Downtown Development Corporation is focusing on the revival of our economic core, while the Partnership for San Francisco, a council of some of the most innovative business leaders of our time, will serve as ambassadors for those in this city and around the world who are interested in bringing business back to San Francisco,' the mayor. Just after his inauguration on Jan. 8, Lurie issued a hiring freeze and contracting pause knowing the city was facing a nearly $1 billion deficit—the largest in city's history. According to the latest evaluation from the Controllers' Office, San Francisco will have a $840 million 'It's not just a billion dollars that is possibly on the table, it's more. And so we have to tighten our belts now.' Lurie will have to submit his budget to the Board of Supervisors in June. He said it will be a balanced budget and that 'the city will be on better financial footing because of what we're going through right now.'
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
In Warm Springs, tribal members and other central Oregon residents share budget feedback
Warm Springs elder Linda Meanus, who graduated from college at 65, urges lawmakers to prioritize measures to support students on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle) WARM SPRINGS— Oregonians aren't supposed to clap — or cheer, boo, hiss or stomp their feet — at legislative hearings. But there was no containing the applause in the old school gym that served as a hearing room on Friday night when Louie Pitt Jr. finished his two minutes of testimony. Pitt, a former director of government affairs and planning for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, thanked lawmakers on the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee for work on laws to investigate the deaths and disappearances of Indigenous people, and said tribal members and their neighbors in central Oregon still need help accessing clean drinking water and affordable housing. La Grande Friday, April 11, 5 p.m. – 7:00pm Eastern Oregon University, Hoke Union Building #339 1 University Boulevard, La Grande, OR 97850 Register to testify here Salem (statewide virtual testimony prioritized) Wednesday, April 16, 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Oregon Capitol Building, Hearing Room F 900 Court St NE, Salem, OR 97301 Register to testify here Klamath Falls Friday, April 25, 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Klamath Community College, Building 4 Commons 7390 South 6th Street, Klamath Falls, OR 97603 Register to testify here Pitt closed with a welcome — and a reminder. 'Welcome to Indian Country,' he said. 'It's all Indian Country, of course.' Friday night's hearing at the old Warm Springs elementary school, one of a half-dozen hearings throughout the state for lawmakers to hear community feedback as they craft the state's budget, was the first since at least 2005 to be held on tribal land. Other visits this year are to Gresham, Astoria, La Grande and Klamath Falls, while a hearing in Salem next week will prioritize virtual testimony from Oregonians who couldn't attend an in-person event. Ensuring at least one of the traveling hearings was on tribal land was especially important to Rep. Tawna Sanchez, a Portland Democrat who is of Shoshone-Bannock, Ute, and Carrizo descent and the second Indigenous person elected to the Oregon Legislature. Before entering elected office, she co-founded the Native American Youth and Family Center, or NAYA, in Portland and spent years advocating on Indigenous issues. Sen. Kate Lieber, a Beaverton Democrat who co-chairs the committee with Sanchez, told the Capital Chronicle she and Sanchez looked over the past two decades worth of hearings to decide where to visit. 'We knew we needed to come to central Oregon, and of course everybody thinks of that as the Bend or Redmond area, but we really wanted to make sure that we included Warm Springs, especially given Representative Sanchez's heritage,' she said. 'So we decided to come to Warm Springs because we realized we'd never done it on tribal land before.' Ray Moody, the tribes' vice chair, prayed over the start of the hearing and told lawmakers he hoped they understood just how far they drove on the tribes' homelands, both the 644,000 acres of the reservation and the millions of acres members of the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute bands ceded to the federal government with an 1855 treaty. 'We hope that you understand our reach, not only through our own boundary but the land that we call ceded territory, over 10 million acres, that the things you do in the state affect us all the time,' Moody said. 'Our people are very humble and it is often hard to come to ask for assistance, but we will come to you when we need to. We will ask you, and we appreciate those who work hard to help us.' About one-fifth of the roughly five dozen people who spoke during the two-hour hearing were members of the Warm Springs tribes, while others traveled from central Oregon cities including Bend, Redmond, Madras, Prineville. Nearly all of them came with specific requests for government spending on projects and programs that would far outpace the state's resources as laid out in a $38 billion budget framework Sanchez and Lieber released last month. Most of their budget rough draft reflects continuing current programs, with $987.5 million available for additional spending — assuming proposals to cut federal spending responsible for about one-third of the state budget don't come to pass. 'In our framework, we have just under a billion dollars to invest, $987 million,' Sanchez said at the end of the hearing. 'And if everyone was listening carefully, and I was trying to, there are multiple billions of dollars being asked for. Every single one of those asks are worthy and important, and we will do our best.' After a fire season that burned a record-breaking 1.9 million acres, much of it in eastern Oregon grassland, Crook County Commissioner Seth Crawford urged lawmakers to pass House Bills 3349 and 3350, creating a new fund for rangeland protection with at least $1 million in the next budget. Prineville Council President Steve Uffelman said the city needs about $12 million for safety-related upgrades on U.S. Highway 26. And Redmond City Councilor Kathryn Osborne said her city wants about $1.5 to $2 million from the state to join a $500,000 investment from the city to add a traffic light at an intersection that has seen 260 car crashes, two of them fatal, in the past eight years. Warm Springs elder Linda Meanus urged lawmakers to support House Bills 3182 and 3183, which would provide more than $16 million for affordable housing for college students and $2 million for textbooks and education resources. Meanus started college at age 61 and graduated from Portland State University in 2016 at 65. She relied on tribal grants and scholarships to pay for school, which left her little money for rent, bills or groceries. 'I am here to tell you that the future of the tribe's in your hands,' she said. 'Many of the Warm Springs kids will need access to food, housing and textbooks. The student basic needs bills will make it much easier for the students to graduate.' Elizabeth Johnson, a public health nurse, urged Oregon lawmakers to keep funding health care in the face of potential federal cuts. 'Actions from the White House are only benefiting the mega-wealthy, but for Oregonians like myself, the family I support and my community, they mean job loss, loss of stability and are wreaking havoc on my ability to do my job, which is to prevent infectious diseases,' she said. 'Oregon must continue to hold the line on making unnecessary cuts to Medicaid and public health based on what might happen in Washington, D.C.' Madras resident Robyn Morrison asked lawmakers to keep in mind the big picture of climate change while making their budget decisions. Morrison, who moved from Montana to Madras to be closer to family, said her grandchildren are anxious about the climate crisis and that her generation hasn't done enough to block it. 'We cannot allow the tyranny of the present to distract us from our children's future,' she said. Former Oregon poet laureate Elizabeth Woody, now the executive director of the Museum at Warm Springs, urged support of the $8.9 million in grants to cultural organizations in House Bill 3191. The Museum at Warm Springs, which opened in 1993, would receive $1.5 million under that proposal. 'We provide a gateway to think about this land in a different way,' Woody said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
