The war in Ukraine is top of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s agenda as he starts a two-day trip to Washington

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The Flash has come and gone, failing to generate hype and bombing at the box

A worm has been found living inside a woman’s brain, in a horror-movie-style world first. Doctors in Canberra, Australia, were left stunned after they pulled the 8cm (3in) parasite from the patient’s damaged frontal lobe tissue during surgery last year. "Everyone [in] that operating theatre got the shock of their life when [the surgeon] took some forceps to pick up an abnormality and the abnormality turned out to be a wriggling, live 8cm light red worm," said infectious diseases doctor Sanjaya Senanayake, according to the BBC. "Even if you take away the yuck factor, this is a new infection never documented before in a human being." Senanayake and his colleagues believe the parasite could have been in there for up to two months. The patient, a 64-year-old woman from New South Wales, was first admitted to her local hospital in late January 2021 after suffering three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, followed by a constant dry cough, fever and night sweats, The Guardian reports. By 2022, her symptoms extended to forgetfulness and depression, and she was referred to Canberra Hospital, where an MRI scan of her brain revealed “abnormalities” that required surgery. “The neurosurgeon certainly didn’t go in there thinking they would find a wriggling worm,” Senanayake told the paper. “Neurosurgeons regularly deal with infections in the brain, but this was a once-in-a-career finding. No one was expecting to find that.” The team at the hospital sent the worm to an experienced parasite researcher who identified it as an Ophidascaris robertsi. This type of roundworm is commonly found in carpet pythons – non-venomous snakes that are ubiquitous across much of Australia. Writing in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Mehrab Hossain, a parasitologist, said she suspected that the patient became an "accidental host" to the worm after cooking with foraged plants. The 64-year-old was known to have often collected native grasses from around her lakeside home, Senanayake told The Guardian. He and his co-workers have concluded that the woman was probably infected after a python shed eggs from the parasite via its faeces into the grass. By touching the plants, she may then have transferred the eggs into her own food or kitchen utensils. Fortunately, the unlucky and unique patient is said to be making a good recovery. However, Senanayake told the BBC that her case should serve as an important warning to society more broadly. "It just shows as a human population burgeons, we move closer and encroach on animal habitats. This is an issue we see again and again, whether it's Nipah virus that's gone from wild bats to domestic pigs and then into people, whether its a coronavirus like Sars or Mers that has jumped from bats into possibly a secondary animal and then into humans,” he said. "Even though Covid is now slowly petering away, it is really important for epidemiologists… and governments to make sure they've got good infectious diseases surveillance around." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Tesla CEO has brought in huge changes at the former Twitter with mixed success but is still hoping to disrupt a swathe of social-media platforms.

YouTube parenting influncer Ruby Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were supposed to appear in court in St George, Utah on Friday afternoon over child abuse charges, but the proceeding was delayed as tech issues plagued the virtual hearing. Both women were ordered to be held without bail; their bond hearings are slated for 21 September. Ms Franke has reportedly been relocated to the medical unit of the jail, but the reasons for her move are unclear. Over 1,000 people tuned into the hearing and after a cacophony of bizarre noises and pleas to be quiet, the court shut down public access. It transpired later the Zoom link had been shared on TikTok. The pair were arrested on 30 August after Ms Franke’s 12-year-old son climbed out of a window and pleaded for neighbors to give him food and water, court documents showed. After a neighbor noticed that duct tape covering the boy’s ankles and wrists, prompting the neighbor to notify law enforcement. In a chilling 911 call, the neighbor can be heard describing the boy: “He is emaciated. He’s got tape around his legs. He’s hungry and he’s thirsty.” Read More Ruby Franke virtual court hearing on child abuse charges is derailed by tech issues as over 1,000 people join Chilling 911 call that led to Ruby Franke’s arrest revealed Who is Ruby Franke? Everything we know about the family vlogger’s rise to fame before child abuse charges Influencer Ruby Franke is formally charged with felony child abuse

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Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark -- one of the 18 co-defendants indicted alongside Donald Trump in a sweeping racketeering case in Georgia -- asked a judge Thursday to reject the Fulton County district attorney's proposed March 2024 trial date, according to a new court filing.