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an odd-couple relationship that has proved brittle in the past and has been blighted by hostility, rivalries and cultural misunderstandings.
• • It has been a long time since an Australian leader accused Malaysia of being "barbaric," or since a Malaysian official offered a snide comment about Australia's origins as a British penal colony. And the countries appear to have recovered from a more recent tiff set off by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's party when it was in the opposition.
• • "At this difficult time, Australia has proven an invaluable friend," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said last week during a visit to Australia, where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Abbott and inspected the headquarters of the multinational air and sea search of the southern Indian Ocean.
• • "Our nations are longstanding friends who work very well together and, to use the Australian term, we're good mates," Angus Houston, the former Australian defense chief who heads the search coordination center, told the Malaysian leader.
• • Malaysia, the country where the missing Malaysian Airlines plane was registered, officially runs the search, but Australia, which is closest to the plane's suspected location, is tasked with coordinating the effort.
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• • NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- When a 6-foot-5, 270-pound man with a history of violence broke out of a mental health ward near Philadelphia and tried to withdraw money from a bank, a confrontation with police seemed likely.
• • But Lower Merion Township police officer Matthew Freind used his mental health training to calmly talk to the man and defuse the crisis.
• • "No force was necessary," Freind said. "He thanked me. He said, 'You're the only person that's ever truly listened to me.' That was a situation where things could've gotten out of hand very quickly."
• • Sometimes, they do, especially if police aren't trained how to respond to the severely mentally ill.
• • Dozens of mentally ill people die in run-ins with police every year. Just last month, a homeless camper in Albuquerque, N.M., was killed in a shooting captured on an officer's helmet camera, sparking an FBI investigation and a protest that forced the city to call out riot police.
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