Category Archives: Australia news

Australian deported from US says he was ‘targeted’ due to writing on pro-Palestine student protests

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Alistair Kitchen says he was detained and questioned about views on Israel and Palestine before being deported from LA to Melbourne

An Australian man who was detained upon arrival at Los Angeles airport and deported back to Melbourne says United States border officials told him it was due to his writing on pro-Palestine protests by university students.

Alistair Kitchen said he left Melbourne on Thursday bound for New York and was detained for 12 hours and interrogated by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials during the stopover in Los Angeles.

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News live: PM secures meeting with Trump; Australian man killed in Bali

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Albanese says he will meet with US president Donald Trump to discuss tariffs. Follow today’s news live

Good morning, and welcome to today’s blog. And if you were hoping to ease into it, apologies – there’s quite a bit going on.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese has managed to shore up a meeting with US president Donald Trump. They’ll catch up on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday. Tariffs are top of the agenda, but the Aukus deal is now looking shaky so that will likely feature as well. Albanese said:

Obviously, there are issues that the US president is dealing with at the moment, but I expect that we will be able to have a constructive engagement.

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Deadly algal bloom in South Australia’s Coorong an environmental ‘eye opener’, ecologist says

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Among the dead in the internationally significant wetland are estuarine snails, shore crabs, baby flounder and ‘a thick stew of polychaete worms’

When South Australia’s algal bloom arrived in the Coorong, it stained the water like strong tea before turning it into a slurry of dead worms.

Many had hoped the storm in late May would break up the bloom of Karenia mikimotoi algae, which has killed more than 200 different marine species. Instead, high tides swept the algae into the Coorong, an internationally significant Ramsar wetland at the mouth of the Murray River.

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Daylight saving shapes how we spend, socialise and travel, NSW data reveals

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Exclusive: As the shortest day of the year draws near, government study shows how earlier sunsets curb economic activity and public transport trips

Daylight saving and its delayed sunsets encourages people to stay out later and spend more money, New South Wales government data shows. The data also found more evening light attracts people to public transport and out of their cars.

Conversely, that uptick in mobility almost entirely vanishes in the days after clocks are wound back an hour, as earlier sunsets cut post-work social and economic activity, the data showed.

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Plastics campaigners warn Australia’s pledge at UN needs to be matched with ‘high ambition at home’

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Environment minister Murray Watt is returning from oceans conference where he pledged to curb the scourge of plastics and ratify a treaty to protect the high seas

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The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, is returning from a UN oceans conference where he pledged to curb the scourge of plastics and make good on Australia’s promise to ratify a treaty to protect the high seas.

The five-day meeting in Nice, France finished on Friday, and conservationists celebrated some key steps towards protecting wildlife in international waters.

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Minns government backs bill promoting hunting in NSW’s state forests and crown land

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Critics say history shows recreational shooting is not as effective as evidence-based baiting and aerial shooting programs

In a back-to-the-future move, the Minns Labor government has backed a Shooters and Fishers party bill that will promote hunting in state forests and crown lands in NSW and recognise “conservation hunting” as a legitimate tool to control feral animals.

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has thrown his support behind a proposed Conservation Hunting Council, to the horror of environmental groups which warn of a repeat of the now-defunct Game Council.

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Explosion in Sydney apartment blows out brick wall and damages adjoining units

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Cause of blast in Lidcombe unit unknown, with one person taken to hospital

Officials are unsure of the cause of an explosion at an apartment block in western Sydney that saw one person taken to hospital, saying “there is no fire”.

Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) responded to reports just before 6.30am on Friday of an explosion at an apartment block in Lidcombe.

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Proposed Macquarie University restructure will ‘hollow out’ humanities, academics say

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Macquarie blames prospect of international student caps and ‘uncertainty’ about domestic student numbers for proposed academic job cuts, fewer arts courses

Academics have accused Macquarie University of “hollowing out” the humanities after the institution announced a restructure that would halve some arts faculties and drastically reduce course offerings for some degrees.

Under the proposed changes, seen by Guardian Australia, 42 full-time equivalent academic roles in the faculty of arts and 33 in the faculty of science and engineering would be cut, making about $15m in net savings. Curriculum changes would be made in 2026 and 2027, with mergers and reductions largely attributed to low enrolment figures.

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NSW government failing to measure or reduce gambling harm, damning audit finds

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Gambling losses and calls to helplines both up but Minns government has no benchmarks or measures to assess its harm minimisation strategy, report says

The New South Wales government has not set targets to reduce the harm caused by about 90,000 poker machines in the state and does not know if it is protecting people, according to a damning audit.

The state’s auditor general has also said the NSW government is doing “relatively little” to assess whether pubs and clubs are identifying and preventing gambling harm at their venues.

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Erin Patterson says she didn’t deliberately source death caps and serve to guests as murder trial evidence concludes

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Patterson tells court her children were mistaken when they said she served herself leftover beef wellington the night of the lunch

Erin Patterson has finished giving evidence in her triple murder trial, bringing an end to eight days of testimony in the Victorian supreme court.

Patterson answered “disagree” to three final questions from prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC on Thursday morning: that she deliberately sourced death caps in 2023, included them in beef wellingtons served to her lunch guests, and intended to kill them when she did so.

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Australia mushroom trial live: evidence concludes in Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial after weeks of testimony from witnesses

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Victorian woman, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder after a fatal beef wellington lunch in Leongatha in 2023. Follow live

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC turns to evidence about factory resets performed on the mobile referred to as “Phone B”.

The court previously heard four resets – one in February 2023 and three in August 2023 – were performed on the phone that Erin Patterson provided to police during the search on 5 August 2023.

Rogers says one of these resets were done when she was left alone to call a lawyer while police searched Patterson’s Leongatha home.

Patterson rejects this and says she phoned a lawyer at 2pm.

Rogers says Patterson performed the three factory resets after the lunch to “conceal” the contents on Phone B.

Patterson rejects this.

Rogers then turns to her final points in the cross-examination.

She suggests Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023.

Patterson rejects this.

Rogers says Patterson deliberately included death cap mushrooms in the beef wellingtons she served her lunch guests.

It’s an agreed fact in this case.... that this [phone number] lost connection ... could be due to:

a. The sim card being removed from the handset;

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Moira Deeming offered John Pesutto chance to avoid bankruptcy on condition Liberal party assured her preselection

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Payment of $2.3m in defamation costs Pesutto owes would have been delayed until 2027 under deal, which was not accepted by Liberal party

Moira Deeming offered John Pesutto a chance to avoid bankruptcy and delay payment of $2.3m in legal costs until 2027 on the condition her preselection for the next election be assured by the Liberal party.

The upper house MP commenced bankruptcy proceedings earlier this month after the former Liberal leader failed to pay the costs ordered by the federal court in May. The court found Pesutto repeatedly defamed Deeming by falsely implying she sympathised with neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

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Tasmania to hold early election after governor grants embattled premier Jeremy Rockliff’s request

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Barbara Baker agrees to poll despite ‘public interest in avoiding the cost’ because no possibility of alternative government forming

Tasmania will hold an early election on 19 July – just 16 months after last going to the polls – after the state’s governor agreed to a request from the Liberal premier, Jeremy Rockliff.

The announcement followed a dramatic week in which the parliament narrowly supported a no-confidence motion in Rockliff moved by the Labor leader, Dean Winter, and the state’s three main political parties each argued a fresh election could be avoided.

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ABC confirms Q+A to be axed amid wider changes including about 40 redundancies

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Political and current affairs discussion program being cut alongside the ABC’s Innovation Lab

The ABC’s Q+A program has been cancelled after 18 years, the broadcaster has confirmed, and another major restructure of screen, digital and audio content will result in scores of redundancies across the public broadcaster.

The savings from staff cuts will be “reinvested directly into more content and services for audiences”, the managing director, Hugh Marks, has told staff.

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Australian universities hesitate on antisemitism definition amid academic freedom concerns

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Peak Jewish groups accuse ANU of making campus ‘unsafe’ after board declines to adopt definition endorsed by Universities Australia

Months after the release of a new definition of antisemitism, a string of Australian universities are yet to adopt it amid concerns it may contravene academic freedom.

The academic board at the Australian National University (ANU) has declined to adopt the definition, paving the way for the university to become the first to reject the policy, while at least 11 other institutions have not yet made a decision.

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ABC expected to axe Q+A in fresh round of cuts

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Managing director Hugh Marks to unveil changes at public broadcaster on Wednesday

The ABC’s managing director, Hugh Marks, is expected to unveil his first tranche of changes at the public broadcaster on Wednesday morning, including a new round of redundancies and the axing of Q+A after 18 years.

The weekly flagship discussion program was launched in 2007 by executive producer Peter McEvoy and host Tony Jones and was highly influential in its early years.

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Australia mushroom trial live: Erin Patterson says she felt anxious at hospital that doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning

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Victorian woman, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder following a fatal beef wellington lunch in Leongatha in 2023. Follow live

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC says Erin Patterson’s son gave evidence that she did not tell him she was sick on the day of the lunch.

“I don’t know if I did or I didn’t,” Patterson says.

The first thing he said to me was something like: I’ve got a sore tummy.

How could I? It’s vomit. Unless you can see a bean or a piece of corn.

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Albanese says footage of Nine journalist Lauren Tomasi being shot by LA police with rubber bullet is ‘horrific’

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The PM says he has expressed his concern to the US government over the incident that occurred during protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles

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Anthony Albanese says footage of the Nine correspondent Lauren Tomasi being shot by a rubber bullet live on air is “horrific” and he has expressed his concern to the US government.

Tomasi was shot while reporting on protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, with the incident caught live on camera. Footage showed an officer taking aim in the direction of Tomasi and her camera operator and then firing.

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‘You knew how suspicious it would look’: Erin Patterson makes series of denials in tense cross-examination

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Patterson also tells triple-murder trial she’s ‘puzzled’ clinic she says she had an appointment with for a gastric bypass offers no such surgery

Erin Patterson says she is “puzzled” that a clinic in which she said she had an appointment for a gastric bypass offers no such surgery, and denies lying about making herself vomit in the hours immediately after the beef wellington lunch, a court has heard.

In her sixth day in the witness box, Patterson was repeatedly asked under cross-examination by prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC whether she was lying about the deadly lunch and other parts of her evidence before her triple-murder trial.

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Monash IVF admits second bungled embryo implant, this time at Victorian clinic

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Patient’s own embryo instead of partner’s was ‘incorrectly transferred’, fertility company tells ASX, months after revealing separate Queensland clinic error

A second bungled embryo implant at Monash IVF has sparked a new investigation and the expansion of a review into the first incident, which led to a woman unknowingly giving birth to a stranger’s baby.

Monash IVF said in a statement on Tuesday that in June “a patient’s own embryo was incorrectly transferred to that patient, contrary to the treatment plan which designated the transfer of an embryo of the patient’s partner”.

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