Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Google and Facebook are fighting legislation that would force them to enter into negotiations with news media companies for payment for content
Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia and Facebook has threatened to remove news from its feed for all Australian users if a code forcing the companies to negotiate payments to news media companies goes ahead.
The move would mean the 19 million Australians who use Google every month would no longer be able to use Google Search, and 17 million Australians who log into Facebook every month would not be able to see or post any news articles on the social media site.
Airline will fly to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane from Monday; Spanish star Paula Badosa has coronavirus. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
Daniel Andrews frustrated by the decision to award an Australia Day honour to Margaret Court:
Do we really have to do this every single summer? But apparently we do. I thought we might not have had to have this debate this summer.
But anyway, others have saw fit to honour her in that way. They’re not decisions that I make; you’ve asked me if I support it, I’ve indicated no, and I’ve also given a sense of why.
More from Andrews on Margaret Court receiving an Australia Day honour. He invokes the recent debate in Victorian parliament about outlawing gay conversion therapy in the state:
I think calling out bigotry is always important. We have just had a debate in the parliament of Victoria to outlaw the bigoted quackery that costs lives.
My position on this has been consistent. I don’t seek to quarrel with people but I’ve been asked a question and I’ve answered it.
Jason Renwick had pleaded not guilty to sexual assault over the 2019 incident in Brisbane, which he said was a ‘workplace accident’
A jury has been unable to reach a verdict in the case of a police sergeant charged with indecently touching a female colleague during a training exercise.
Jason Scott Renwick, 49, pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault over the incident at a Brisbane training facility in February 2019.
I increased my dosage of antidepressants today. With the loosening of Victoria’s Covid restrictions and the surge of New Year’s weight loss marketing, my eating disorder has once again overwhelmed me with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing.
As our West Australian readers start to log-on, I bring to you news of possible secession. I have not clicked through to see what other images/tweets etc come up under #WAXIT but please feel free to do so:
A group of business leaders in Western Australia want the state to break away from Australia… calling the campaign #WAXIT.
A $7bn funding injection into social housing would address surging homelessness caused by the pandemic, advocates say.
This just in from AAP:
Social housing advocates fear a surge in homelessness stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, and are urging swift action from the federal government to ensure Australians have a roof over their heads.
A national campaign to end homelessness, Everybody’s Home, estimates a $7bn injection into social housing would make a serious dent in homelessness, while creating 18,000 jobs a year over the next four years.
That’s where I’m going to leave you for today. Thanks as always for reading along.
Here’s what we learned today:
Fragments of Covid-19 have been detected in sewage at three sites in Queensland, the state’s health department has said.
Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said in a statement released just now that viral fragments of the virus had been detected at wastewater treatment plants after samples were collected last week. The positive results were detected at three locations:
While this does not mean we have new cases of Covid-19 in these communities, we are treating these detections seriously.
A positive sewage result means that someone who has been infected was shedding the virus. Infected people can shed viral fragments and that shedding can happen for several weeks after the person is no longer infectious.
Labor-chaired probe into $100m program requests further information from McKenzie while she says she has already addressed relevant points
Bridget McKenzie has offered to appear before the sports rorts inquiry for just one hour, warning she has nothing further to add and doesn’t wish to participate in a “cheap political stunt”.
The former federal sports minister wrote to the committee examining the $100m community sport infrastructure grant program disputing claims she had refused to appear but asking for more information to “justify [her] need to attend”.
One of the worst moments of Jim Taylor’s eight-year career as a Western Australian police officer was the day he strip-searched a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy.
Taylor, now 44, was working in Perth in the Juvenile Aid Group, or “Jag”. He says he was driving around the city’s central business district with his senior sergeant and two other officers when they came across a group of four young Aboriginal kids. They rounded them up and took them back to the station.
Victoria premier Daniel Andrews says people in most of Sydney can apply for a permit to travel to the state while 10 LGAs still remain in red zones. Follow latest updates live
The ABC has spoken to one of the tennis players who is isolating as part of strict restrictions applied to those who travelled for the Australian Open.
#AusOpen player Artem Sitak happy to be in Melbourne for the tournament. A lot of the players have now realised it's an unfortunate situation. News of the long Victorian lockdown & of Australians unable to return home is making them feel very lucky to be in Melbourne. #Springstpic.twitter.com/EgQ9CEix9P
Of course I’m happy. As I said, I was prepared for the worst and unfortunately it happened to me, but I’m – I’m definitely happy. I’m here, I love Australian Open. I think it’s going to be any sixth or seventh Australian Open and I love playing here. There’s always a really – a really vocal huge crowd. Hopefully this time it will be – I don’t know the percentage of spectators that are allowed but there will still be a lot of people. We haven’t played in front of spectators since back in August. And this is going to be a lot of fun.
The Victorian police union is less welcoming of news that Covid-19 fines in Victoria will be waived. Here’s what Victorian Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt said on radio station 3AW earlier today, according to AAP:
It’s a wee bit frustrating.
None of this was fun for our members. It was bit of a thankless job.
Reaction has been coming today from Russian sources after Brazil’s health regulator said it was seeking further data on Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine before considering its approval for emergency use.
Documents supporting drugmaker Uniao Quimica’s application for emergency use of the vaccine have been returned to the company because they did not meet its minimum criteria, the watchdog said on Saturday.
While people over 75 living at home will be able to get vaccinated from Monday in France, there are concerns in the field that there are not enough doctors, Le Monde reports today.
Jacques Battistoni, president of MG France, a trade union for general practitioners, said: “We expect tensions and a difficult start to the week.”
Cyclone Kimi could rise to a category two system as residents in far north told to bunker down
A tropical cyclone has formed off the coast of far-north Queensland, with residents told to prepare to bunker down for gale-force winds and heavy rain.
The Bureau of Meteorology on Sunday declared the formation of tropical cyclone Kimi – a category one system – about 140km north-east of Cooktown.
Authorities say player ‘opened his door’ to have conversation with friends as players in strict isolation say they risk injury if not allowed to train
An Australian Open tennis player has been warned for breaching strict isolation rules by “opening his door” to talk to his friends, as players complain about “insane” quarantine requirements ahead of the tournament.
Four people have now tested positive for Covid-19 on charter planes bringing players in for the competition, which has forced 47 players into strict isolation where they cannot train for 14 days.
It is a problem not many us have to consider: how to ensure your multimillion dollar superyacht remains a coronavirus-free zone despite taking on board crew from around the world.
But for the billionaire owners of floating luxury homes there is now a solution – a very expensive one, naturally. An Australian naval architecture firm is launching a new double-hulled support vessel, in which new crew and guests can isolate while they await coronavirus test results from onboard medical staff.
It was John Jobber’s dying wish to visit the UK, spend time with family and say his goodbyes before returning to Australia and entering palliative care.
The trip was meant to last four weeks, but a year later he is stranded in Ireland, disoriented and getting progressively sicker, and his daughter, Samantha John, fears Emirates cancelling all flights to Australia’s east coast, including his, will be a life sentence.
Two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka is believed to be among a group of players who will be confined to their hotel rooms for the next 14 days after two people on the charter flight QR7493 from Los Angeles tested positive to Covid-19 on arrival in Melbourne.
A leaked email from Tennis Australia, which was sent to all players and officials who were aboard the flight and was posted on social media by Mexican world No 155 Santiago González, said players on the flight must isolate in their rooms for two weeks. This means they have no ability to train in the vital days leading up to the competition.
Prof Dominic Dwyer says he expects interesting answers even if they never find how and where the virus first infected humans
The medical virologist Prof Dominic Dwyer has barely been in China for 24 hours, but he has already joined several Zoom calls from his room in hotel quarantine planning the logistics of an ambitious investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The World Health Organization selected Dwyer, a director at New South Wales Health Pathology in Australia, for the complex and politically fraughttask, along with 14 other physicians, scientists and researchers from around the world. Most of the team arrived in China on Thursday after months of intense diplomatic negotiations with Chinese authorities and setbacks to their entry.
Rediscovered song, which has a ‘cheerful energy’, was likely written by a teenage sailor or shore whaler in New Zealand in the 1830s
Even from “the back of nowhere, far from any city” – not to mention the sea – John Archer caught wind of the sea shanty revival before anyone else.
From his home in landlocked Ōhakune, Archer had noticed a sharp uptick in visitors to the New Zealand Folk Song website he set up in 1998. One 19th-century seafaring epic was of particular interest: Soon May The Wellerman Come.
Victoria police say the woman’s husband – the father of the children – is assisting detectives but it would be unfair to presume culpability
A woman and her three young children have been found dead at a home in Melbourne’s north.
Victoria police said the woman’s husband, and the father of the three children, was assisting with the investigation but people should not presume culpability on that basis because “that would be grossly unfair”.
Amateur photographer Derry Moroney lives on the mid-corth coast of New South Wales in the community of Brooms Head. For the past three years he has been photographing landscapes, animals and insects. ‘With our pristine beaches and Yuraygir national park on my doorstep, I really didn’t have to travel very far,’ he says.
In July 2020 Moroney followed the water upstream from the estuary at Brooms Head and stumbled on to Lake Cakora. Using his drone he captured stunning images of arboreal-like drainage channels in Lake Cakora. ‘The tea trees along the banks colour the water running off into the lake after a big storm,’ he says, describing the patterns as ‘like a tree of life’.
You can see more of his work on Instagram at @derry_moroney_photography