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The Coalition has questioned why the government is using drones to monitor people released from immigration detention.

Cabinet minister Murray Watt confirmed on Insiders earlier that “drones are being used as part of this operation, but more in the sense of monitoring the accommodation that people are living in, in for example ensuring that it’s not too close to schools or other areas that they’re not supposed to be living close to.”

There’s a couple of issues here. One, either Andrew Giles accidentally and casually disclosed a previously secret drone surveillance program operating domestically in Australia in a Sky News interview with your colleague Kieran Gilbert. Or he made it up and it’s not actually happening at all.

And in a fresh statement provided by the Department of Home Affairs to SBS, I understand yesterday afternoon, they refer to using aerial surveillance to look at people’s locations and other buildings in the area.

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Giorgia Meloni has emerged as a kingmaker for the EU – but will she turn to centre right or far right? | Jon Henley

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Even her toughest opponents admit she’s played it cleverly. Yet the long-term aims of Italy’s prime minister remain unclear

When she became Italy’s prime minister in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni looked like Brussels’ worst nightmare. Until then, the fiery leader of the Brothers of Italy – a party with neofascist roots – had seemed anything but EU-friendly.

For years, railing against the bloc had been Meloni’s stock in trade: the euro amounted to enslavement, the European Commission was effectively a loan shark. “Bring down this EU!” she urged the 2019 conservative CPAC conference in the US.

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China’s defence chief repeats threat of force against Taiwanese independence

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Dong Jun rails at length about democratic island’s ‘separatists’ during Shangri-la Dialogue defence conference in Singapore

Peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan remains China’s goal but the prospect is being eroded by Taiwanese “separatists” and external forces, the Chinese defence minister, Dong Jun, has said.

Taiwan – which is democratically governed, and has never been ruled from the Communist-run People’s Republic of China – on 20 May inaugurated its newly elected president, Lai Ching-te. The routine democratic transition was greeted with fury by the Chinese Communist party, which staged war games around the island as a “punishment”.

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Labor minister denies direction 99 was a mistake and says community safety ‘number one priority’

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Federal cabinet minister Murray Watt also claims Labor has deported more criminals in its first year than under Peter Dutton’s reign

A new ministerial direction on deporting foreign-born criminals will prioritise “community safety” over their ties to Australia, federal cabinet minister Murray Watt has said as he denied the government made a mistake with the controversial “direction 99”.

But mystery still surrounds the government’s purported use of drones to monitor people released from immigration detention, with no confirmation of which agency is operating them.

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‘We refuse to disappear’: the Hong Kong 47 facing life in jail after crackdown

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Last week’s conviction of dissidents came in the biggest case since introduction of a new national security law

The verdict wasn’t surprising but outside room no 2 of the West Kowloon courthouse, people still wept. The panel of Hong Kong national security judges had set down two days for the hearing but dispensed with the core business in about 15 minutes. In the city’s largest ever national security trial – involving the prosecution of pro-democracy campaigners and activists from a group known as the “Hong Kong 47” – almost all the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion.

Their crime was trying to win an election, holding unofficial primaries in 2020 attended by an estimated 600,000 residents.

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Predictive blood test hailed as ‘incredibly exciting’ breast cancer breakthrough

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New ‘liquid biopsy’ will act as an early warning sign to anticipate risk of tumours returning

A new blood test can predict the risk of breast cancer returning three years before any tumours show up on scans in an “incredibly exciting” breakthrough that could help more women beat the disease for good.

More than 2 million women are diagnosed every year with breast cancer, the most prevalent type of the disease. Although treatment has improved in recent decades, the cancer often returns, and if it does, it is usually at a more advanced stage.

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Stormy Daniels says Donald Trump should be jailed after felony conviction

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Ex-president should also be made ‘the volunteer punching bag at a women’s shelter’, says former actor, following guilty verdict

Stormy Daniels has called for Donald Trump to be jailed after he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

The adult film star, who was paid $130,000 as “legal expenses” for her silence about her affair with the former US president, warned the presidential candidate is “completely and utterly out of touch with reality”.

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King turns to David Beckham to rebuild charity hit by cash-for-honours scandal

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Former England captain will become ambassador for foundation that was embroiled in controversy when Charles was Prince of Wales

King Charles has turned to brand Beckham to help him rebuild the reputation of his main charitable foundation after a cash-for-honours scandal.

Former England footballer David Beckham is to become an ambassador for the King’s Foundation, formerly the Prince’s Foundation, to help promote its work. Beckham met the monarch at his Highgrove home in Gloucestershire last month, where he was given a personal tour. The 49-year-old said he was looking forward to exploring a newly discovered shared interest with the monarch in rural skills, nature and the British countryside. They had also swapped beekeeping tips, said Beckham.

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Dutton is demanding Australia resist ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders – and a Howard-era law could help him

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Legal experts say a ‘carve-out’ clause in the law relating to extraditions could let the attorney general decline to enforce arrest warrants issued under international law

In 2002, a little-known backbencher by the name of Peter Dutton rose in parliament to ask the then prime minister, John Howard, about a new mechanism for prosecuting war crimes.

The newly elected member for Dickson’s dixer to Howard was straightforward: “What is the basis of the government’s decision to ratify the statute of the International Criminal Court?”

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Toby Jones praises ‘extraordinary dignity’ of Post Office accused

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Actor, who played campaigner Alan Bates in TV drama, calls Horizon scandal a ‘Hitchcockian nightmare’ at Hay festival

The post office operators prosecuted in the Post Office Horizon scandal have “extraordinary dignity” after living 20 years in a “Hitchcockian nightmare”, according to actor Toby Jones.

Jones played Alan Bates, a former post office operator and leading campaigner for justice for staff wrongly blamed for accounting shortfalls caused by faulty software, in the ITV drama that put the scandal back in the spotlight.

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Students walk out of University of Chicago graduation over Israel policies

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Pro-Palestinian students staged the walkout as school withheld degrees of four seniors pending disciplinary review over protests

Dozens of students protesting Israel’s ongoing military strikes in Gaza walked out of the University of Chicago’s commencement on Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Palestinian encampment.

The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to “stop genocide”. A crowd of students walked out in between speeches and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Palestinian flags while others donned traditional keffiyehs, black-and-white checkered scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their robes.

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Four more boys arrested on suspicion of rape in Nottinghamshire

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Twelve-year-old among eight now bailed after attack on teenage girl reported in Newark on 25 May

Four more boys including a 12-year-old have been arrested on suspicion of the rape of a teenage girl in Newark.

Nottinghamshire police received a report that a teenage girl had been attacked on Yorke Drive playing fields, Nottinghamshire, between 5.30pm and 7pm on 25 May.

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Julia Gillard says progress on gender equality is ‘really glacial’

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Former Australian prime minister issues warning that young men’s thinking on the issue is going backward

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has said global progress on gender equality is “really glacial and slow” as she warned that it is going backwards among young people.

Gillard cited recent polling by King’s College London’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, which showed that 51% of respondents believe that men are doing too much to support gender equality, while 46% think that men are now discriminated against.

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Woman who killed pensioner in queue row in Welwyn Garden City sentenced

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Myra Coutinho-Lopez, 82, who had dementia became confused at bank counter, leading to altercation with Courtney Richman, 26

A 26-year-old woman who killed an elderly pensioner with dementia during a row over a long queue at a bank has been given a suspended sentence.

Courtney Richman had been waiting behind 82-year-old Myra Coutinho-Lopez when the argument began on 6 December 2021 at a branch in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, a court heard.

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Sunak suffers poll blow as levelling-up cash-for-votes row erupts

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New poll gives Labour its biggest lead since Liz Truss meltdown as ‘Tory towns’ gain most from new funds

The Tory general election campaign hit more trouble on Saturday as Rishi Sunak faced accusations of using levelling up funds to win votes and Labour opened its biggest poll lead since the disastrous premiership of Liz Truss.

As Sunak tried to fire up his ­party’s campaign before the first crucial TV debate with Keir Starmer on Tuesday, it emerged that more than half of the 30 towns each promised £20m of regeneration funding on Saturday were in constituencies won by Tory MPs at the last election.

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Chad Daybell sentenced to death for murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s children

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Idaho case marked by Daybell and girlfriend Lori Vallow Daybell’s extremist religious beliefs about doomsday

Chad Daybell was sentenced to death Saturday for the murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children in Idaho in a case marked by his and his girlfriend’s extremist religious beliefs about doomsday.

The sentence was handed down after an Idaho jury unanimously agreed that imposing the death penalty would be a just resolution to the triple-murder case. The sentence marks the end of a grim investigation that began with a search for two missing children in 2019. The next year, their bodies were found buried in Daybell’s eastern Idaho yard.

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Biden’s botched Gaza ceasefire deal only demonstrates his lack of influence | Julian Borger

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The US president’s announcement on Friday suggested a ceasefire might be close, but Benjamin Netanyahu’s rebuke was swift and decisive

The latest peace plan for Gaza was given a launch worthy of a historic turning point, with the US president delivering remarks directly to camera from the White House state dining room, declaring it finally “time for this war to end”.

Yet even as Joe Biden spelled out the proposal – leading in theory to a permanent end to hostilities, large-scale food deliveries and the start of reconstruction, there was clearly something awry.

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Modi’s alliance to win easily in India election, exit polls project

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Prime minister claims victory but opposition dismisses poll results as fixed and unscientific

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP)-led alliance is projected to win a big majority in the general election that concluded on Saturday, TV exit polls said, suggesting it would do better than expected by most analysts.

Most exit polls projected the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could win a two-thirds majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament, where 272 is needed for a simple majority. A two-thirds majority will allow the government to usher in far-reaching amendments to the constitution.

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Minnesota representative Dean Phillips calls on New York governor to pardon Trump

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Failed contender for the Democratic presidential nomination says Kathy Hochul should grant pardon ‘for the good of the country’

The outgoing Democratic US congressman who failed in his presidential primary challenge against Joe Biden called on the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, to pardon Donald Trump over his criminal conviction for hush-money payments to influence the 2016 election “for the good of the country”.

Minnesota representative Dean Phillips, who was the first Democrat to call on fellow party member Henry Cuellar to resign following bribery charges against the Texas congressman, urged for the pardon on Friday in a post on X.

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Labour is already dominating the online general election campaign | Matthew McGregor

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Starmer’s party was quicker out of the digital gate, with slicker, more engaging content than the Tory offering

The video opens with an old clip of Cilla Black singing her classic ‘Surprise, Surprise!’. The caption reads “POV: Rishi Sunak turns up at your 18th birthday to send you to war.”

This appeared on Labour’s TikTok account the day after the Conservatives launched their national service policy. It fitted perfectly with TikTok’s meme-heavy, wry and sarcastic culture and has been watched 4.5 million times. The video racked up almost 700,000 likes, more than double the likes on all the Tories’ TikToks put together.

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