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American Who Snatched a Baby Wombat from Its Mother Leaves Australia 

A wombat walks at a wildlife sanctuary in Bendalong on the South Coast, of Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2020. (AAP Image via AP)
A wombat walks at a wildlife sanctuary in Bendalong on the South Coast, of Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2020. (AAP Image via AP)
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American Who Snatched a Baby Wombat from Its Mother Leaves Australia 

A wombat walks at a wildlife sanctuary in Bendalong on the South Coast, of Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2020. (AAP Image via AP)
A wombat walks at a wildlife sanctuary in Bendalong on the South Coast, of Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2020. (AAP Image via AP)

An American influencer left Australia on Friday after the government announced it was reviewing her visa over a video she posted of her snatching a baby wombat from its mother.

Sam Jones, who describes herself as an “outdoor enthusiast & hunter,” made her Instagram account private Thursday after she was widely condemned for the video.

“There’s never been a better day to be a baby wombat in Australia,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement after a government official confirmed Jones had flown from the country voluntarily.

In the video, Montana-based Jones lifts the wombat joey by its front legs in darkness from a roadside then runs away from its mother. “I caught a baby wombat,” she said as a man filming her laughs. She returns the wombat to the roadside after several seconds.

Burke had said earlier Friday the conditions of her visa were being reviewed to determine whether immigration law has been breached. “I can’t wait for Australia to see the back of this individual, I don’t expect she will return,” he said in the statement received by The Associated Press.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese added his voice to the criticism. “To take a baby wombat from its mother, and clearly causing distress from the mother, is just an outrage,” Albanese said.

“I suggest to this so-called influencer, maybe she might try some other Australian animals. Take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there. Take another animal that can actually fight back rather than stealing a baby wombat from its mother,” Albanese added.

Jones, who also uses the name Samantha Strable, closed her social media channels to messages and couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.

The wombat appears to be common wombat, also known as a bare-nosed wombat. It is a protected marsupial found only in Australia.

Yolandi Vermaak, founder of the animal care charity Wombat Rescue, said separating the young wombat from its mother created a risk that the mother would reject her offspring.

“My biggest concern is that we didn’t actually see mom and baby getting reunited. When she put it down, it looked disoriented. It was turned away from where the mother was last seen. So we don’t know if mom and baby actually found each other again,” Vermaak said.

Vermaak also called on Jones to say where the wombat was after the video showed the joey had a skin disease. “The baby has mange and it’s a matter of time before it dies of mange, so it’s important for us to find where this happened and to get this baby and its mom treated as soon as possible,” Vermaak said.

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Varieties

Farmers Fear Drought as Italy's Longest River Runs Dry

The Po River has never fallen this low so early in the year. Stefano RELLANDINI / AFP
The Po River has never fallen this low so early in the year. Stefano RELLANDINI / AFP
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Farmers Fear Drought as Italy's Longest River Runs Dry

The Po River has never fallen this low so early in the year. Stefano RELLANDINI / AFP
The Po River has never fallen this low so early in the year. Stefano RELLANDINI / AFP

Seawater is seeping into Italy's longest river as the waterway starts to run dry in the heatwave, hitting a farming heartland that produces the milk for Parmesan cheese.

The Po River has never fallen this low so early in the year, raising fears of a devastating drought in July in this corner of northern Italy, AFP said.

On the bank of one of its branches, farmer Federica Vidali looked anxiously at her sunflower field. The first bloom of the season has appeared, but part of the field is already dry and starting to crack.

One of the two canals that irrigate it has been shut because the seawater would enter and damage the crops.

"We're left with the water that others are willing to leave us. But we're not second-division farmers!" Vidali told AFP.

The Po River's flow has collapsed in a matter of days, dropping below 300 cubic meters per second, compared with an average of around 1,500 in June, according to Aipo, the interregional river agency.

"It has never dropped so fast, so early," said Stefano Calderoni of the Italian irrigation association (Anbi).

Sandbanks are multiplying, depths fall to barely one meter in places, and the river's few remaining fishermen swelter in the heat.

"Before, we used to pass on the left; now the passage is to the right of the sandbank, and it's very, very narrow," said Daniela Cuoghi, a surveyor for Aipo.

The many Alpine lakes that feed the Po Valley, Italy's agro-industrial heartland, are still about 60 percent full. But farmers are drawing heavily from the waterways to irrigate fields parched by the heat.

It rained this winter, but the mountain snow that used to replenish the lake has already melted due to climate change.

"We're not in a drought situation yet, but at this rate, there's less than three weeks of water left in reserve," said Damiano Di Simine, an expert with environmental group Legambiente.

Drought last struck the Po Valley in 2022 -- but only at the end of July.

- 'Really big problems' -

Further downstream, at the river's mouth, the situation is already serious: seawater has pushed about 20 kilometers upstream.

Saltwater is beginning to contaminate farmland reclaimed over the past five centuries from the delta marshes.

Barriers have been placed in the river to stop seawater, but they only work if river's flow is strong enough.

"We'd need almost double the current flow for them to work," said Rodolfo Laurenti, the engineer in charge of irrigation in the delta.

Laurenti called for cooperation and solidarity between regions to manage water in the event of a crisis.

Farmers are also considering new dams or water retention basins, but "we're afraid that all these structures will still never be enough," Laurenti said.

A few kilometers closer to the sea, clam fishermen are also struggling with soaring June temperatures. The heat has warmed the lagoons, boosting the growth of algae that cover the shellfish.

They must also clear algae from the nets protecting clams from invasive blue crabs, which arrived from North America in recent years.

"On top of all the problems we already have, we now have this crazy, long, and unexpected heat," said Paolo Mancin, head of the local fishermen's cooperative, standing with in water at 31C.

"Macroalgae are forming, there's a high mortality rate among clams... If it were something that lasted a week, we could get through it.

"But this prolonged heat is now causing really big problems."

Varieties

Heavy Rain Pounds Western Japan as 2 Tropical Storms Approach

People clean mud and debris from a flooded area after heavy rain brought by Tropical Storm Mekkhala in Hsinchu, Taiwan, June 26, 2026. (Reuters)
People clean mud and debris from a flooded area after heavy rain brought by Tropical Storm Mekkhala in Hsinchu, Taiwan, June 26, 2026. (Reuters)
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Heavy Rain Pounds Western Japan as 2 Tropical Storms Approach

People clean mud and debris from a flooded area after heavy rain brought by Tropical Storm Mekkhala in Hsinchu, Taiwan, June 26, 2026. (Reuters)
People clean mud and debris from a flooded area after heavy rain brought by Tropical Storm Mekkhala in Hsinchu, Taiwan, June 26, 2026. (Reuters)

Heavy downpours triggered flooding in parts of western Japan on Friday as two approaching tropical storms added to a seasonal rain front already stuck above the country.

Storm Mekkhala was off the western coast of Japan's southern remote island of Amami as of late afternoon Friday as it headed northeast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Another storm, Higos, was traveling nearby and the two storms are expected to reach the Tokyo region Saturday while dumping heavy rain, the JMA said.

Earlier Friday, a man was injured as he fell into a waterway in Nara, according to Japan's NHK public television.

Television footage from Kyoto showed the Kamo River swollen with muddy water. A flooding alert was issued in parts of Kyoto, Osaka and other areas in western Japan.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said more than 30 homes were flooded in Nara and Hiroshima on Friday. Heavy rain also disrupted some train operations and flights in the area.

Varieties

Swiss Glaciers Facing Drastic Loss from Heatwave

Switzerland's glaciers are taking a hammering from the European heatwave. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP/File
Switzerland's glaciers are taking a hammering from the European heatwave. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP/File
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Swiss Glaciers Facing Drastic Loss from Heatwave

Switzerland's glaciers are taking a hammering from the European heatwave. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP/File
Switzerland's glaciers are taking a hammering from the European heatwave. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP/File

Swiss glaciers are set to lose an enormous amount of ice due to the heatwave battering Europe, the head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) told AFP.

The snow and ice accumulated last winter by Switzerland's glaciers is expected to have all melted away by Monday, marking the alarming second-earliest arrival on record of the tipping point known as glacier loss day.

All further melting between now and October will see the size of glaciers in the Swiss Alps shrink.

In data going back to 2000, the only time that the tipping point arrived even earlier was in 2022, when it came on June 26.

The grim scenario is driven by the current heatwave, as well as the one in May -- both coming on the back of another winter with poor snowfall.

"We're just seeing enormous ablation, ice melt rates and snow melt rates all over the Alps," GLAMOS network chief Matthias Huss told AFP on Friday, as multiple Swiss weather stations registered new all-time records.

"We are three months too early compared to a healthy state."

This century, the tipping point, on average, has been reached in mid-August -- itself already bad news for the nation's glaciers, which are shrinking at a staggering rate.

- Glaciers in 'very bad state' -

Much of the water that flows into the Rhine and the Rhone, two of Europe's major rivers, comes from the Alpine glaciers.

Huss said he had just returned from the Rhone Glacier, and in the 10 days since his previous visit, "there was one meter of ice melted in the vertical direction -- one meter of melting within just the last 10 days".

"It's very impressive to see, and this is just the effect of the heatwave."

But, said Huss, "one heatwave alone is not a big problem for glaciers".

"The problem is rather that we have very high temperatures that last for a very long time.

"The more days that are added that are very high temperatures, not even mattering whether it's 35C or 40C, this is just very bad for the glaciers."

Huss said the "very bad state of the glaciers at the moment" was down to a "combination of bad circumstances", including less snowfall, and the arrival of dust from the Sahara Desert in March.

He said 2026 was "surprisingly similar" to 2022, which for glaciers was "by far the most extreme year ever recorded in the Alps, with melt rates shattering everything we had seen before".

- Melting away -

He said this year had seen 25 percent less snow replenishing the surface of the glaciers compared to the 2010-2020 figures.

Meanwhile May was warm, causing the snowpack to disappear earlier.

Once the reflective white snow coverage from winter is gone from the top of the glacier, the darker, more absorbent grey surface of the bare ice is exposed.

This absorbs radiation more quickly, meaning extreme melting produces an accelerating feedback effect, worsening the situation even further.

While the full scale of this year's damage will be measured in September, "it is clear already now that we will have very strong ice loss also this year".

Glaciers in the Swiss Alps began to retreat about 170 years ago.

The retreat was initially modest but in recent decades, melting has accelerated significantly as the climate warms.

The volume of Swiss glaciers shrank by 38 percent between 2000 and 2024.

Huss said Switzerland had already lost 1,200 glaciers in the past 50 years, and there now only 1,300 left.

"Those lost were small glaciers, but they were still relevant in peripheral regions of the Alps," the glaciologist said.

"If warming continues as it did over the last decades, by 2100 we will only be left with some little remnants of ice."