SYDNEY: Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appeared to fall off a stage on Thursday during a campaign event for May’s national election, but quickly recovered and insisted he was “sweet” afterwards.
The leader of the center-left Labor party, 62, was posing for photos following his speech at the Mining and Energy Union Conference held in New South Wales, when he stepped back and lost his footing, drawing gasps from the audience.
Albanese promptly got back on his feet and gestured to the crowd with two hands that he was fine.
Video footage from the event showed Albanese had tumbled off the stage, although he shrugged off the incident when asked about it during a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“I stepped back one step. I didn’t fall off the stage ... just one leg went down, but I was sweet,” he said.
Albanese is currently on the campaign trail for an election on May 3. The Labor party is running neck-and-neck in opinion polls with the conservative Liberal-National opposition led by Peter Dutton.
Australia PM Albanese falls off stage during election campaign event
https://arab.news/bfpjk
Australia PM Albanese falls off stage during election campaign event
- Albanese was posing for photos following his speech when he stepped back and lost his footing
- Albanese promptly got back on his feet and gestured to the crowd with two hands that he was fine
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
