Australia
Bayton road rage driver to spend Christmas behind bars
Amanda Downs was allegedly photographed pointing a 'gun' at another driver
That photo was ..

- Amanda Downs was allegedly photographed pointing a 'gun' at another driver
- That photo was taken on August 2; police recalled an identical incident from July
- Downs appeared in court on Tuesday and was denied bond over the incidents
- According to police, Downs was using a folding knife shaped like a gun
- She was arrested & charged in Aug with aggravated assault with deadly weapon
By Valerie Edwards For Dailymail.com
Published: 11:03 EST, 20 December 2017 | Updated: 11:08 EST, 20 December 2017
Amanda Downs, 25, was arrested in August and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with two road rage incidents
A Texas road rage driver will be spending Christmas and New Years behind bars after she was denied bond for allegedly waving a 'gun' at other drivers.
Amanda Downs, 25, of Baytown, was arrested in August and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with two road rage incidents.
Downs appeared in court on Tuesday and was denied bond.
She's due back in court on January 3.
Downs was charged with the two separate road rage incidents after police were given a photo of her apparently brandishing a gun at another driver.
The first incident occurred in July when she allegedly threatened other drivers with the weapon.
Then on August 2, Downs was driving down State Highway 225 when a driver took a picture of her waving what appeared to be a gun out of the window of her red Silverado pickup, La Porte Police Department said in a statement.
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Downs (center) appeared in court on Tuesday and was denied bond. She's due back in court on January 3
Downs (pictured) was charged with the two separate road rage incidents after police were given a photo of her apparently brandishing a gun at another driver on August 2
That incident involved Ben McNeil and his son Jacob who were on their way to work when a woman in a red pickup truck pointed what appeared to be a handgun at them.
His son caught the incident on a cellphone.
'She was right on our bumper, she was going left and right and we started filming,' Ben McNeil told KPRC 2.
'She came around, she pointed the gun out the window and then break-checked us. So I dodged to the right to go around her and then she tried to pass us again.'
'We weren't going to chase her down, once we had the video we just went to call the cops,' Jacob McNeil told the station.
Downs confessed to both incidents, police said, and handed over what appeared to be a gun but turned out to be a 'large folding knife' shaped like a firearm
After being given the photo, 'the LPPD Criminal Investigations Division recognized the case was nearly identical to a previously reported case and immediately went to work,' police said.
Detectives canvased the area for two days, eventually finding Downs and her pickup in an industrial estate.
Downs confessed to both incidents, police said, and handed over what appeared to be a gun but turned out to be a 'large folding knife' shaped like a firearm.
Harris County District Attorney's Office has charged her with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
'The La Porte Police Department wants to remind the motoring public that Road Rage can quickly escalate to the point where a person is seriously injured or killed,' a police statement said.
'If you are a victim of Road Rage, call 911 and immediately begin driving toward the nearest police station or public place,' police added.
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Australia
Saudi women in Sydney: Sisters’ bodies lay undiscovered for a month

Australian police are baffled after the bodies of two Saudi women, believed to have lain undiscovered for a month, were found in a Sydney apartment.
Sisters Asra Abdullah Alsehli, 24, and Amaal Abdullah Alsehli, 23, were found dead on 7 June in separate beds at home in the suburb of Canterbury.
Police, who were called to the property for a welfare check, said the women are believed to have died in early May.
But despite “extensive inquiries”, they still do not know how or why.
The sisters moved to Australia from Saudi Arabia in 2017 and may have sought asylum, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Police refused to confirm this, saying they do not comment on residential status.
A human rights organisation said it should be established whether the women fled Saudi Arabia because of domestic violence or harsh laws governing women. However, there is no evidence this is the case.
Police said they had been in contact with the women’s family, which is assisting them with inquiries.
Lina al-Hathloul, head of monitoring and communications at Saudi human rights organisation ALQST, said it “would not be the first case” of Saudi women who were killed abroad after fleeing domestic violence.
“There are no protections for women who are victims of domestic violence in Saudi Arabia, so they flee abroad,” she told the BBC.
She added: “I’m not saying that is the case here, just that we need a thorough investigation. It is frustrating not to have any information.”
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, there had been signs that something was wrong.
Last year, the women told their building manager they thought someone was tampering with their food deliveries, the paper reported.
A plumber who visited the apartment also said he believed there was “something mysterious” going on, and that police had been called in the past over concerns for the women.
New South Wales Police issued a renewed plea to the public on Wednesday, saying “any piece of information” could be the key to solving this case.
The local community is close-knit, police said in a statement, asking anyone who may have known or seen the women to come forward.
A report from Australian current affairs programme Four Corners in 2019 found 80 Saudi women had tried to seek asylum in Australia in recent years. Many of them were fleeing male guardianship laws.
Read from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62331116
Australia
Australia election: Why is Australia’s parliament so white?

Australia
Scott Morrison effectively ditches his promise to establish a federal anti-corruption commission

Scott Morrison has effectively abandoned his promise to establish a federal anti-corruption watchdog, confirming he would only proceed with legislation in the new parliament if Labor agreed to pass the Coalition’s heavily criticised proposal without amendments.
Morrison pledged before the 2019 election to legislate a federal integrity body in the parliamentary term that has just ended. The prime minister broke that promise, failing to introduce his own proposal before the 46th parliament was prorogued.
On the hustings on Wednesday, Morrison was asked – given his previous undertaking to create the body – whether he would promise to put his proposal to a vote in the next parliament in the event the Coalition won the 21 May election.
Morrison declined to make that promise. “Our position on this hasn’t changed,” the prime minister said. “Our view has been the same – when the Labor party is prepared to support that legislation in that form, then we will proceed with it.”
The prime minister has attempted to inoculate himself from criticism about breaking an election promise by saying he tabled the integrity commission proposal in the parliament.
Tabling an exposure draft, which is what the prime minister did, is not the same as introducing finished legislation to the House of Representatives or the Senate that is then debated and voted on.
As well as repeatedly fudging what happened in parliament, Morrison has also created the impression the proposal can only proceed if Labor agrees to its passage without amendments.
All governments routinely introduce legislation for debate without any undertaking that it will be passed by the opposition. Labor favours a stronger model than the Coalition’s proposal.
Morrison’s lack of urgency on the issue created tensions within government ranks. Late last year, the Tasmanian Liberal MP Bridget Archer crossed the floor to support independent MP Helen Haines’ bill to establish a federal integrity commission. Archer accused the government of “inertia” over the issue.
At that time, Archer said she was “perplexed” at her own government’s failure to release a revised bill almost three years after it was promised before the last election.
While Morrison clearly wants to move on from the issue, he will face renewed pressure from crossbench independents if the coming election is close enough to deliver a hung parliament.
A number of independents running against Liberals in metropolitan seats have made it clear that establishing a credible national integrity commission will be a key demand in the event any new government – Liberal or Labor – is seeking agreements for confidence and supply.
Haines blasted Morrison’s comments on Wednesday. “Mr Morrison broke an election promise to introduce an anti-corruption commission and his pathway to creating one is still as vague as it was in the last parliament,” she said.
The crossbench independent said it was “nonsense” for the prime minister to claim that he could not proceed unless Labor agreed with the Coalition’s proposal without seeking any amendments. “It would appear we are in the same void as we were before,” Haines said.
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