Erin Patterson, the Australian woman accused of killing three people and attempting to kill a fourth with a meal laced with death cap mushrooms, has taken the stand in her own defense at a trial that has captured worldwide attention.

On Monday, the start of the sixth week of the trial, Patterson told the court about her relationship with her estranged husband Simon, whose parents, Don and Gail Patterson, were among the guests who died after attending lunch at her house in July 2023.

Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, also died after eating Beef Wellington at lunch, but her husband, Ian Wilkinson, a pastor at their local church, survived after spending several weeks in hospital with acute poisoning from Amanita phalloides, the world’s most toxic mushrooms.

Prosecutors allege that Patterson, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, deliberately laced the beef dish with lethal mushrooms, after seeing their location posted on a public website. Her defense lawyers argue the deaths were a “terrible accident,” and while they acknowledge Patterson, 50, repeatedly lied to police, they say she didn’t intend to kill her guests.

The mother of two told the court that her relationship with her husband was merely “functional” in July 2023, and that she had started becoming concerned that he wasn’t involving her in family gatherings anymore.

Her self-esteem was low, and she was so unhappy with her weight that she was considering gastric bypass surgery, she told the court.

“I’d been fighting a never-ending battle of low self-esteem most of my adult life, and the further inroads I made into being middle aged, the less I felt good about myself,” she said.

How Erin Patterson met her husband

Patterson’s defense attorney Colin Mandy SC asked her about the start of her relationship with Simon Patterson, the father of their two children. Patterson told the court she met Simon in 2004 at work at Monash City Council, in the Australian state of Victoria. They were friends at first, before a romance developed several months later.

They married in 2007, at a service attended by Don and Gail Patterson and Ian and Heather Wilkinson. Erin’s parents were on holiday when she got married, so Ian Wilkinson’s son David walked her down the aisle, she told the court.

Patterson said she was “very atheist” when she met Simon. “I was trying to convert him to being an atheist, but things happened in reverse, and I became Christian,” she told the court.

She said she had a “spiritual experience” during her first church service in 2005 at Korumburra Baptist Church, where Pastor Ian Wilkinson delivered the sermon. “I had what I would call a religious experience there, and it quite overwhelmed me,” she said

A traumatic birth

Patterson recalled the traumatic delivery of her first child, who was born by emergency cesarian, after an attempt with forceps failed. Her son spent some time in the intensive care unit, and Patterson said she discharged herself against medical advice so she could go home to be with her newborn.

Patterson spoke about the support Simon’s mother Gail gave her as she cared for her son. “She gave me good advice … relax and enjoy your baby,” she said.

When they were living in Perth, Western Australia, the couple briefly separated for the first time. In 2009, Patterson rented a cottage for herself and their baby, she told the court, while her husband rented a trailer close by. They reunited in January 2010. A second baby came later.

During the course of their relationship, Patterson told the court there were periods of separation.

“What we struggled with over the entire course or our relationship… we just couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed about something,” she said. “We could never communicate in a way that made each of us feel heard or understood, so we would just feel hurt and not know how to resolve it.”

Patterson will resume giving evidence on Tuesday.

Nearly 80 aid trucks traveling through southern and central Gaza were looted by desperate civilians on Saturday, the UN World Food Programme said as famine conditions worsen in the Palestinian enclave.

In a statement issued on X, the WFP said 77 trucks had crossed into Gaza loaded with flour. All of them “were stopped along the way, with food taken mainly by hungry people trying to feed their families.”

It added that “after 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to let food pass them by.”

WFP said in a post on X on Saturday that “the humanitarian situation in #Gaza is spiraling. Border closures, hunger, and desperation have made aid delivery volatile — trucks are looted, people risk everything for a bag of flour.”

“To restore hope, ease fear and prevent further chaos we must flood communities with food – now.”

Videos showed dozens of people in Khan Younis carrying away sacks of flour. Similar scenes played out in Netzarim, where bursts of gunfire could be heard as crowds rushed to grab sacks of flour.

Hunger has spread in Gaza, with UN agencies warning of impending famine without a drastic scaling up of aid entering the territory and being distributed across it. There have been multiple incidents of looting.

The United Arab Emirates said last week that only one of 24 truckloads it had organized had reached the planned destination.

Last week, chaos broke out when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). According to the Palestinian health ministry, 11 people were killed and dozens injured in that incident.

The GHF, a controversial private foundation backed by Israel and the US, says it is continuing to scale up distribution at its four hubs in central and southern Gaza. It said that on Saturday it had distributed 30 truckloads of food totaling 28,800 boxes at its hub in Rafah in southern Gaza, adding that “today’s meal distribution was the largest to date and five times more than yesterday.”

The UN’s aid agencies have criticized the GHF’s aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians.

Philippe Lazzarini, executive director of UNRWA – the UN agency that serves Palestinian territories – said 900 trucks had reportedly been sent into Gaza over the past two weeks, since an Israeli blockade was partially relaxed. The UN also says that it is struggling to coordinate safe distribution of aid inside Gaza once it arrives.

“That’s just over 10 per cent of the daily needs of people in Gaza. The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery to the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Lazzarini posted on X, comparing the quantity to the 600 to 800 truckloads coming into Gaza daily during the ceasefire earlier this year.

“The current mass starvation can be stopped. It takes political will,” he said.

India’s military has acknowledged for the first time that an unspecified number of its fighter jets were shot down during strikes on Pakistani-controlled territory amid intense fighting between the neighbors in early May.

Indian officials had previously refused to confirm even a single aircraft loss.

Asked by a Bloomberg correspondent on Saturday if Pakistan was correct in its claim that “six Indian jets” were downed, Anil Chauhan, the chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, initially denied the veracity of the claim, stating: “Absolutely incorrect and that is not information which, as I said, is important.”

But he went on to say that “what is important is why they went down,” seeming to imply that a number of jets were shot down during fighting between the historic foes, although not confirming how many. “That is more important for us. And what did we do after that? That’s more important,” he said, speaking to Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense forum, in Singapore.

The official also accepted that India’s military had made a “tactical mistake,” in response to another question about Pakistan’s claim.

“The good part is we were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it and then implement it again after two days and flew all our jets, again targeting at long range,” he said.

Pakistan claimed its pilots shot down five Indian fighter jets in aerial battles – including three advanced French-made Rafales – after India launched its military operation against Pakistan in early May. Pakistan said it used Chinese-made fighter jets to shoot down the Indian combat aircraft, including the Rafales.

The fighting was a major escalation between the South Asian neighbors and came in response to the killing of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in April. India blamed Pakistan for the attack, an accusation rejected by Islamabad. A truce between Islamabad and New Delhi was announced on May 10.

Hamas says that it has responded to a ceasefire plan put forward by President Trump’s envoy on Gaza, but did not make clear what its exact response was.

In a statement Saturday, Hamas said that its “proposal” to the mediators – Qatar and Egypt — “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip.”

“As part of this agreement, ten living Israeli prisoners held by the resistance will be released, in addition to the return of eighteen bodies, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners,” the statement said.

Negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire would begin immediately on the first day of the 60-day truce, according to the proposal. The terms of the agreement would also allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza “immediately” and be distributed “through agreed upon channels,” including the United Nations and the Red Crescent, according to the proposal.

But the draft agreement contained no intrinsic guarantee of a permanent end to the war, a key Hamas demand, nor assurances that the ceasefire will be extended as long as negotiations continue. Instead, it said that US President Donald Trump is “committed to working to ensure that good faith negotiations continue until a final agreement is reached.”

Hamas had initially signaled reluctance to accept the terms of the deal. Bassem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said on Facebook Thursday that the framework did “not respond to any of our people’s demands” but that discussions were underway, nonetheless.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Turkish authorities escalated their crackdown on the opposition-run Istanbul municipality Saturday over alleged corruption charges, detaining 30 people.

Those held include a former MP of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and the mayors of three CHP-run districts of Istanbul.

State-run Anadolu Agency reported that the detentions were part of four separate corruption investigations involving the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

Saturday’s detentions are the fifth wave of a legal crackdown against the Istanbul administration since March 19, when Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested on corruption charges.

The arrest of Imamoglu, who is seen as the most viable challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 22-year rule, sparked widespread demonstrations calling for his release and an end to Turkey’s democratic backsliding under Erdogan.

The opposition and its supporters claim his arrest, and the subsequent arrest of dozens more from the CHP, are politically motivated.

“This time the coup didn’t come with boots and tanks, but with prosecutor’s robes,” said CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel on Saturday before a crowd of supporters in the northwestern city of Duzce.

However, the government insists Turkey’s judiciary is independent and free of political influence.

The second crackdown on CHP-run municipalities and districts occurred in late April, and the third and fourth waves were in late May, resulting in dozens of detentions.

The popular Mexican regional music band Grupo Firme announced on Friday that it was canceling a performance in a music festival in California over the weekend after the United States government suspended the musicians’ visas.

It comes after the US State Department has revoked visas of a number of Mexican musicians for playing a genre of music that it says glorifies cartel violence.

The group, which has soared to international fame playing Mexican regional music, said in a statement posted on its Instagram account that the visas of them and their team are currently under “administrative review by the US Embassy” and that it would make it “impossible” for them to perform in the La Onda Fest to be held in the city of Napa Valley, California on June 1.

But the post didn’t detail what it would mean in the long term for the musical group.

The US Embassy in Mexico and the State Department said that visa cases are confidential according to US law and couldn’t provide more information on the case.

The suspension is just the latest in a series of moves the administration of US President Donald Trump has taken targeting Mexican artists in the genre, who in some cases have glorified the leaders of cartels as sort of Robin Hood figures.

While the genre of “narco-corridos” has stirred controversy, much of the music also speaks to the harsh realities facing Mexican youth caught in cartel violence.

Two months ago, the Mexican musical group Los Alegres del Barranco was sanctioned after it projected images of the leader of the feared Jalisco New Generation Cartel at a concert in the western state of Jalisco.

“I’m a firm believer in freedom of expression, but that doesn’t mean that expression should be free of consequences,” US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said at the time.

“The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists.”

But Grupo Firme has taken steps in recent months to distance itself from the facet of the musical genre glorifying criminal groups, announcing in April shortly after the controversy that it would not sing such music in concerts.

Every president thinks they can change the world – and Donald Trump has an even greater sense of personal omnipotence than his recent predecessors.

But it’s not working out too well for the 47th president. Trump might intimidate tech titans to toe the line and use government power to try to bend institutions like Harvard University and judges, but some world leaders are harder to bully.

He keeps being ignored and humiliated by Russian President Vladimir Putin who is defying the US effort to end the war in Ukraine. Russian media is now portraying Trump as the tough talker who always blinks and never imposes consequences.

The president also thought that he could shape China to his will by facing down leader Xi Jinping in a trade war. But he misunderstood Chinese politics. The one thing an authoritarian in Beijing can never do is bow down to a US president. US officials say now they’re frustrated that China hasn’t followed through on commitments meant to deescalate the trade conflict.

As with China, Trump backed down in his tariff war with the European Union. Then Financial Times commentator Robert Armstrong enraged the president by coining the term TACO trade — “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

Everyone thought that Trump would be on the same page as Benjamin Netanyahu. After all, in his first term he offered the Israeli prime minister pretty much everything he wanted. But now that he’s trying to broker peace in the Middle East, Trump is finding that prolonging the Gaza conflict is existential for Netanyahu’s political career, much like Ukraine for Putin. And Trump’s ambition for an Iranian nuclear deal is frustrating Israeli plans to use a moment of strategic weakness for the Islamic Republic to try to take out its reactors militarily.

Powerful leaders are pursuing their own versions of the national interest that exist in a parallel reality and on different historical and actual timelines to shorter, more transactional, aspirations of American presidents. Most aren’t susceptible to personal appeals with no payback. And after Trump’s attempts to humiliate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, the lure of the White House is waning.

Trump spent months on the campaign trail last year boasting that his “very good relationship” with Putin or Xi would magically solve deep geopolitical and economic problems between global powers that might be unsolvable.

He’s far from the first US leader to suffer from such delusions. President George W. Bush famously looked into the Kremlin tyrant’s eyes and “got a sense of his soul.” President Barack Obama disdained Russia as a decaying regional power and once dismissed Putin as the “bored kid in the back of the classroom.” That didn’t work out so well when the bored kid annexed Crimea.

More broadly, the 21st century presidents have all acted as though they’re men of destiny. Bush came to office determined not to act as the global policeman. But the September 11 attacks in 2001 made him exactly that. He started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — which the US won, then lost the peace. And his failed second term goal to democratize the Arab world never went anywhere.

Obama tried to make amends for the global war on terror and travelled to Egypt to tell Muslims it was time for “a new beginning.” His early presidency pulsated with a sense that his charisma and unique background would in itself be a global elixir.

Joe Biden traveled the globe telling everyone that “America is back” after ejecting Trump from the White House. But four years later, partly due to his own disastrous decision to run for a second term, America — or at least the internationalist post-World War II version – was gone again. And Trump was back.

Trump’s “America First” populism relies on the premise that the US has been ripped off for decades, never mind that its alliances and shaping of global capitalism made it the most powerful nation in the planet’s history. Now playing at being a strongman who everyone must obey, he is busily squandering this legacy and shattering US soft power — ie. the power to persuade — with his belligerence.

The first four months of the Trump presidency, with its tariff threats, warnings of US territorial expansion in Canada and Greenland and evisceration of global humanitarian aid programs show that the rest of the world gets a say in what happens too. So far, leaders in China, Russia, Israel, Europe and Canada appear to have calculated that Trump is not as powerful as he thinks he is, that there’s no price for defying him or that their own internal politics make resistance mandatory.