BBC -A bomb scare at the Australian prime minister’s home originated from written threats directed at a Chinese dance and music group banned by Beijing.

In emails seen by local media, performers of the Shen Yun group were told to cancel their upcoming Australian shows or risk explosives being detonated at Anthony Albanese’s official residence in the nation’s capital.

Authorities refused to comment on the emails, only confirming they had attended an “alleged security incident” at the leader’s home on Tuesday and “nothing suspicious was located”.

Shen Yun was founded by the religious movement Falun Gong, which is banned in China.

Albanese was evacuated from his home at 18:00 local time (07:00 GMT) and taken to another location for several hours, police said.

One of the emails, which was written in Chinese, said large quantities of nitro-glycerine explosives have been placed around the Lodge, the name of the prime minister’s official residence in Canberra.

“If you insist on proceeding with the performance, then the Prime Minister’s Lodge will be blown into ruins and blood will flow like a river.”

The threat was reported to police by Shen Yun on Tuesday, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A statement from Shen Yun, said they would proceed with their performances in Australia and called on the Australian government to conduct a comprehensive investigation.

Asked about the email threats, a spokesperson for the Australian Federal Police declined to comment.

In a social media post on Wednesday morning, Albanese thanked police and people who had sent in “kind messages”, accompanied by a photo of his cavoodle guarding the door.

“Toto on alert but all good,” he said.

Interrupted by protesters at an event on Wednesday, Albanese also repeated previous calls to lower the temperature of political debate in the country.

“I think it’s just a reminder to take every opportunity to tell people turn the heat down, for goodness sake, we can’t take these things for granted.”

Religious group banned in China

The incident follows a similar bomb threat made last week in the US, which forced an evacuation of the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts in Washington DC. US media reports said the threat was directed at Shen Yun who perform at the centre.

Wednesday’s statement from Shen Yun claims the dance troupe has faced scores of threats to its performances held across the world in the last two years.

Falun Gong has been banned in China since 1999 when the Chinese government branded the group an illegal cult and launched a crackdown.

Based in upstate New York, the group started Shen Yun in 2006, which puts on elaborate dance performances containing thinly veiled attacks on the Chinese Communist Party. In recent years the dance troupe has faced allegations that it mistreats its employees, which it has denied.

Falun Gong has claimed for years that it is the target of attacks and repression from the Chinese government.

Asked about the incident on Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she was “not aware of the actual situation”, and added that “China consistently opposes all forms of violent attacks”.

An unnamed Australian government source told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that people should not “jump to any conclusions” about the bomb threat, and that it could have come from a member of the community hostile to Falun Gong.

BBC -Two sisters who believed they were fraternal twins discovered they were in fact identical – after one of them was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 23.

Caitlin and Grace Leggett, from Cardiff, were extremely close growing up, sharing many of the same hobbies, and both went to the University of Bristol, where they shared a student house.

They had always believed they were dizygotic twins – created from two separate eggs that were fertilised by two different sperm.

But when Caitlin was diagnosed with leukaemia last April and Grace prepared to donate stem cells, they were told by doctors they were monozygotic – identical – twins, created when a fertilised egg splits into two.

The sisters said being identical was “a bit cooler” than fraternal twins but the discovery complicated Caitlin’s treatment as Grace was unable to donate stem cells. They are now appealing for more people to sign up as stem cell donors.

“It can happen to anyone, really,” Caitlin said of her diagnosis. “Obviously I didn’t expect anything to happen to me.”

After graduating, Caitlin had planned to join the Army as an intelligence officer and had booked her medical assessment for April.

But in March, she developed a rash that did not improve despite using creams from a pharmacy.

Blood tests arranged by her GP led to an urgent call the following day instructing her to go to A&E.

She was referred to the Teenage Cancer Trust unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), an aggressive cancer affecting white blood cells.

Her treatment plan included chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant to replace the cancerous cells destroyed by treatment with healthy stem cells.

Both sisters had registered as donors with DKMS several years earlier, and family members were tested to see if any could be a match.

Initially, Grace was told that she would fit the bill – being her sibling, there was a high chance that her stem cells would be accepted by Caitlin’s body and would aid her recovery.

“I had to go to one of the hospitals in Cardiff and they did all the checks – my weight, they took around 15 little vials of blood to test for all different diseases and everything, checked heart rate and lungs,” Grace explained.

“Everything was fine, so they gave me a little pamphlet with all the information.

“And then I just had to wait.”

But doctors then made a surprising discovery. Caitlin said her consultant told her that after “triple checking”, they realised that “every single marker that we’ve looked for is exactly the same”.

They concluded the sisters were identical twins.

“I always wished I was an identical twin – I liked being a twin, but being an identical twin is a bit cooler,” Grace said.

Caitlin and Grace were in different amniotic sacs in the womb, so their parents believed they were fraternal twins. However, identical twins can, and often do, develop in separate amniotic sacs.

While the news came as a surprise, it also complicated Caitlin’s treatment. Because Caitlin and Grace had near-identical DNA, Grace was no longer eligible to donate her stem cells to her sister.

The transplant, which had been planned for August, was cancelled while doctors searched for another donor. During this time, Caitlin learned the leukaemia had spread to her skin and joined a clinical trial in Manchester to treat it.

Although the trial was successful, the cancer returned shortly before a second transplant date in December, meaning she required additional full-body radiotherapy.

“The radiation was probably the worst,” Caitlin said.

“I didn’t feel anything from chemo initially, but the first day of radiation, oh my God, I thought I was dying. It was crazy.

“I had, like, all the side effects on one day, but then by the second day, I got used to it, so I felt alright.”

In December, she underwent a successful stem cell transplant from an anonymous donor.

Both sisters are now encouraging others to register as stem cell donors.

“It takes maybe six hours maximum (to donate), and then for someone else, it changes their life,” Grace said.

“So I don’t see why you wouldn’t do it.”

The US Justice Department announced the arrest on Wednesday of a former Air Force fighter pilot who allegedly trained Chinese military personnel without authorization.

Gerald Brown, 65, was arrested in Indiana after having recently returned to the United States from China, where he had been since December 2023, a Justice Department statement said.

He is accused of having “conspired with foreign nationals to provide combat aircraft training to pilots in the Chinese Air Force” without a required license from the US State Department, the statement said.

FBI director Kash Patel posted on X: “Major story… the FBI and our partners have arrested a former US Air Force Pilot who was allegedly training pilots in the Chinese military.”

Brown had a 24-year career in the US Air Force during which he “commanded sensitive units with responsibility for nuclear weapons delivery systems, led combat missions, and served as a fighter pilot instructor and simulator instructor on a variety of fighter and attack aircraft.”

He had retired from the military in 1996 and worked as a cargo pilot, the statement said, but he later began a role as a US defense contractor training pilots to fly the A-10 and state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets.

He allegedly began negotiating a contract in August 2023 with Stephen Su Bin — a Chinese national who was imprisoned in the United States for four years beginning in 2016 over another espionage scheme — and traveled in December 2023 to China to begin his training job.

“The Chinese government continues to exploit the expertise of current and former members of the US armed forces to modernize China’s military capabilities,” said Roman Rozhavsky, an official with the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division.

“This arrest serves as a warning that the FBI and our partners will stop at nothing to hold accountable anyone who collaborates with our adversaries to harm our service members and jeopardize our national security,” he added.