Happy Friday. The domino effect of the Dominion-Fox settlement earlier this week has hit Australian shores, with Lachlan Murdoch dropping his defamation lawsuit against Crikey.
In a statement, Murdoch said he was confident he would have won but didn’t want to “enable Crikey’s use of the court to … facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers”. The chief executive of Crikey’s publisher called it “a victory for free speech”.
And in good news for would-be EV drivers in Queensland, the state today doubled its rebate.
Top news
Murdoch drops Crikey lawsuit | Murdoch launched defamation proceedings in August against Crikey over a June article that named the Murdoch family as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the US Capitol attack. “We stand by what we published last June, and everything we laid out in our defence to the court,” said Will Hayward, the CEO of Private Media.
New NSW Liberal leader | Mark Speakman, the moderate Cronulla MP and former attorney general, has vowed to modernise the party after winning the leadership contest. And in separate weather news for Sydney, the harbour city has broken a century-old record to have 184 days of 20C or higher.
Queensland doubles EV rebate | The sunshine state is now the most generous when it comes to incentivising electric cars, after boosting the rebate to $6,000 for EV purchases up to $68,000.
Twitter blue checks disappear | Celebrities, politicians and journalists woke up today to find their Twitter blue checks had vanished, after the Elon Musk-run platform took away verification status from those who had not paid the US$8 monthly fee. But blue checks were still visible on some Australian accounts, including those of Peter Dutton, Pauline Hanson and David Pocock, suggesting they have paid to keep the symbol.
US man allegedly shoots six-year-old girl | … as well as her parents after a basketball that the child was playing with rolled into the attacker’s yard. No one was killed, but the girl and her father were seriously hurt. The accused, Robert Singletary, has been arrested.
Sudan ceasefire | The RSF paramilitary group has agreed to a 72-hour truce to coincide with Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. Meanwhile, the US is preparing to send a large number of additional troops to its base in Djibouti in case it needs to evacuate its embassy in Khartoum.
Russian plane bombs Russian city | A Sukhoi Su-34 air force plane accidentally fired at the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border, causing an explosion, damaging buildings and leaving a 20m crater.
UK foreign minister on Pacific tour | It’s the first time a British foreign minister has visited some Pacific nations since the 1970s, which is being seen as a renewed push by the UK to engage the Pacific amid concerns over China’s growing influence.
Full Story
Times are tough. Does Labor have the right priorities? – with Lenore Taylor
The Labor government has said no to jobseeker and yes to stage-three tax cuts that benefit the wealthy. Does it have its priorities right? Our editors discuss in this 19-minute episode.
What they said …
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Some celebrities, such as author Stephen King, had to make clear they had not paid for the blue checks that mysteriously remained on their Twitter accounts.
In numbers
Emissions went up despite the development being home to the world’s largest industrial carbon capture and storage system.
Before bed read
Footy fans, have you grown tired (like me) of the clickbait-driven, built-up outrage that now makes up much of the AFL media landscape, when all you want is some smart game analysis? So has sports columnist Jonathan Horn.
“It’s symptomatic of a media where a handful of loud, opinionated and well-paid voices dominate the landscape, where all that matters is the click, the engagement, the outrage.”
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: HIP. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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