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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen confirmed on Monday that she unwittingly ate a dish containing hallucinogenic mushrooms at a restaurant during a visit to China last month. “So I went with this large group of people and the person who had arranged our dinner did the ordering. There was a delicious mushroom dish,” she said on Monday. “I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later.” “I … read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were, at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact,” she added. “But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms, the restaurant and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them.” During the Treasury official’s visit to China last month, she and her team stopped at a location of Yi Zuo Yi Wang, a restaurant chain specialising in dishes from the Yunnan province, where a food blogger on Weibo spotted the top official eating a variety of Chinese dishes. “When I walked by their table on my way to the washroom, I slowed down to take a glance at the dishes they ordered,” the blogger wrote. That included an order of potentially hallucinogenic jian shou qing mushrooms, a delicacy in Yunnan province. “Our staff said she loved mushrooms very much,” the restaurant wrote on social media. “She ordered four portions of jian shou qing (a Yunnan wild mushroom species). It was an extremely magical day.” The mushrooms are “considered poisonous as they can be hallucinogenic,” Dr Peter Mortimer, a professor at Kunming Institute of Botany who studies the region’s mushrooms, told CNN. “However, scientists have not, as of yet, identified the compounds responsible for causing the hallucinations,”he added. “It remains a bit of a mystery, and most evidence is anecdotal. I have a friend who mistakenly ate them and hallucinated for three days.” Chinese state media quoted diners praising Ms Yellen for her interest in Chinese cuisine and warning about the impacts of the mushrooms. “You thought you were walking straight but you just fell sideways,” one person who had eaten a similar dish told the Xinhua state news agency. The restaurant where the secretary ate was quickly flooded with reservations. "We received a larger number of inquiries about bookings. We are fully booked for Friday and Saturday," a staff member told the state-owned Global Times. Read More Biden signs order barring US investment in Chinese chips, quantum computing and AI sectors Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reportedly ate hallucinogenic mushrooms at restaurant during China visit China's Xi tells Kissinger that China-US ties are at a crossroads and stability is still possible

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A Russian warship fired warning shots at a dry cargo ship in the Black Sea on Sunday, after the Russian defence ministry said it intercepted the Palau-flagged “Sukru Okan” ship heading towards Ukraine. Issuing a statement, Russia said its Vasily Bykov patrol ship open fired with an automatic weapon at the vessel after its captain did not respond to their request to halt for an inspection. "To forcibly stop the vessel, warning fire was opened from automatic weapons," the Russian defence ministy said. A Ka-29 helicopter carrying Russian soldiers was then scrambled to inspect the ship. While Russia claims the ship was heading towards Ukraine’s port of Izmail, Refinitiv shipping data showed the ship was heading north towards the coast of Bulgaria, reported Reuters. "After the inspection group completed its work on board, the Sukru Okan continued on its way to the port of Izmail," the Russian defence ministry said. Shipping databases list the Sukru Okan as a Palau-flagged vessel with a tonnage of 2155 whose home port is Istanbul. The Black Sea handled about 95 per cent of Ukrainian grain exports before Russia’s invasion, according to Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. Earlier last month, Russia ended a UN-brokered grain deal that ensured Ukraine could get its agricultural produce to market via the Black Sea and Moscow cautioned that it would deem all ships heading to Ukrainian waters to be potentially carrying weapons. Ukraine, a major supplier of corn, wheat, barley and vegetable oil to the world, shipped 32.9 million metric tonnes of grain under the nearly year-long deal designed to ease a global food crisis. It has been able to export an additional two million to 2.5 million metric tonnes monthly via the Danube River, road and rail through Europe. Those are now the only routes to ship Ukrainian grain, Mr Glauber earlier told the Associated Press. Ukraine’s response including sea-drone attacks on a Russian oil tanker and a warship at its Novorossiysk naval base, next door to a major grain and oil port, has added to these new dangers for transport in the Black Sea. Additional reporting by agencies Read More Russia vows retaliation after Ukraine launches attack on key Crimea bridge Ukraine accuses Russia of targeting rescue workers in latest missile strikes Moment sea drone ‘hits Russian tanker’ near Crimea captured in dramatic footage The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary