IN THE NEWS
Trump refuses to rule out using military to take Panama Canal and Greenland (The Guardian) — We’d kind of forgotten just what a Trump presidency involves hadn’t we. Like, we knew, but also, we’d deleted it from our memory. Anyway, here we go again. On Tuesday, Donald Trump held a press conference at which he refused to rule out using American military force to retake control of the Panama Canal and seize Greenland, The Guardian reports. “When it came to Greenland, Trump threatened economic retaliation against Denmark, noting that if that country resisted his territorial ambitions he ‘would tariff Denmark at a very high level’,” the paper reports. The 78-year-old’s son Donald Trump Jr just happens to be currently visiting Greenland, where he has pledged to “make Greenland great again” (I know, I know). The president-elect also used his press conference to threaten Canada with “very serious tariffs” and dismissed its military capabilities. The BBC also flags Trump said he would use “economic force” against Canada and called the US-Canada border an “artificially drawn line”.
Meta to end fact-checking program in shift ahead of Trump term (The New York Times) — Meta has announced it is effectively ending its fact-checking program aimed at preventing the spread of misinformation. Rather than using third-party groups and news organisations to check content, Meta will instead rely on users adding notes to posts which may contain misleading or fake information, similar to the Community Notes used on X, The New York Times reports. The paper says the reversal of the years-old policy “is a stark sign of how the company is repositioning itself for the Trump presidency in the weeks before it begins”. At his Mar-a-Lago press conference the president-elect said the changes were “probably” due to threats he has previously made against the company and its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Oh and UFC boss and Trump ally Dana White has joined Meta’s board.
Australian home prices tipped to keep falling in early 2025 (ABC) — According to “a wide range of analysts” house prices are set to keep falling in the first half of this year, the ABC reports. Data from both CoreLogic and PropTrack showed home values experienced their first monthly decline in about two years last month. The broadcaster flags economists at Westpac and AMP expect house prices to ease at the start of the year before ending the year 3% higher. As always, there’s a split in predictions on whether the Reserve Bank of Australia will announce a rate cut next month.
New inflation and retail data to hold clues for RBA’s next moves (Capital Brief) — Talking of which, Capital Brief reminds us that today we get the latest inflation data. The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the Monthly Consumer Price Index indicator for November at 11:30am AEDT. Reminder: Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said “anything with a two in front of it” will be a success.
Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese spar over power prices, policy pain (The Australian) — The federal election hasn’t been called yet but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s tour of electorates this week is producing predictable headlines such as this one in The Australian. Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton spent yesterday criticising each other’s energy plans in the usual manner. The paper reports the PM said Dutton would jeopardise Australia’s green manufacturing future and “stop investment” in Australia, while Dutton said Albanese was a “desperate PM leading a desperate government with no vision for the future”, adding: “On nuclear, all the PM has got is a scare campaign.”
META’S OZ FACT-CHECKERS KEEP WORKING
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has moved to roll back the company’s efforts to fight misinformation and hateful content on its platforms, citing the “cultural tipping point” of Donald Trump’s election. The most high-profile change is the ending of the company’s fact-checking program. But as Cam Wilson exclusively reports, at least one Australian fact-checking outlet will continue their work with Meta until at least 2026.
AFP AIMS AT FORMER MATE OF MARLES
Deputy PM Richard Marles once described David Collard as “innately entrepreneurial [and] values driven”. But now the AFP has recommended charges be laid against the entrepreneur, along with a pair of associates, over an alleged $126 million tax fraud. Sean Johnson reports.
APPLE AI TECH ENABLING SCAMS
Apple’s new artificial intelligence features are rephrasing scam messages and emails to iPhone and Mac users to make them look more legitimate and then flagging them as a priority. Cam Wilson reports on the technology that has been rolled out to millions of Australia users that has experts concerned.
WHAT I’M READING
As we enter the new year (and all the potential chaos the above news events may bring), many people are inevitably thinking about how to live a healthier, more stress-free life and working on avoiding burnout. Chang Che’s long read in The Guardian this week looks at China’s burnout generation and examines support groups such as Li Jianxiong’s Heartify which have emerged since the COVID pandemic.
“For people like Li and many of Heartify’s customers, who grew up poor in China’s rural provinces, the gospel of the New China, which promised prosperity in exchange for hard work and sacrifice, was the closest thing to a religious faith they ever had. But by the mid-2010s, and especially since COVID, many of those same people came to see their devotion as a false promise. In China today, nearly one in five young people are unemployed. Local governments are bogged down in debt. The flagging property market, once the engine of the Chinese economy, has caused the country’s annual growth rates to fall to the low single digits. Though the Communist Party has tried to reenergise the country under the banner of ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ — which envisions a muscular future powered by hi-tech industries and a revival of Confucian traditions — many Chinese have begun to wonder about the wisdom of striving endlessly for a better future that never seems to arrive.
“Li established Heartify as a response to this malaise. Though diverse in their backgrounds and occupations, his clients share a loss of faith in the social structures that once sustained their ambition and hard work. ‘When reality doesn’t give them enough space, either because of the slowing economy or other factors, more people will be pushed to turn inward,’ Li told me. Heartify is one of many projects and services around self-exploration that have emerged in a post-pandemic China, where a slack economy and a frozen political system have left the country’s urban population disillusioned with the Chinese Dream. Li, whose crisis in 2018 led him to renounce that ideal earlier than many of his peers, became a natural guide. In the words of one Heartify employee, after the pandemic, when ‘everyone was lost’, Li was ‘the one person who was searching for a light, a direction’.”
Talking of trying to relax, I’ve finally got round to reading this piece from Joseph Pisani in The Wall Street Journal on “professional scratchers”, the people making money scratching people’s backs. Seriously.
“Rebecca Benvie started WhisperWave in January, scratching backs in two New York studios, one in Manhattan and the other in Brooklyn. She learned how to do it by trial and error, watching what customers respond to. For those wanting to start a similar business, she offers a $250 online tutorial. ‘I see it as a growing market,’ said Benvie, who scratches part time while working at a tech startup full time.
“Her one-hour sessions cost $162, and include the crinkling of cat toys by the ears or tracing words of affirmation on her clients’ arms, such as ‘I am safe’. She’ll also use her finger to trace a scene on the client’s back while whispering what it looks like. Usually it’s a house by the woods with a long table filled with folks eating, laughing and sharing stories. ‘I want people to feel as far away from New York City as possible,’ she said. At the end of the session, she waits for her clients outside the room. ‘Without fail,’ Benvie says, ‘they come tumbling out in a daze.’
I’ve also learnt through this piece by Camille Bromley in The New York Times that there’s a whole movement online of people convinced their dogs can communicate with them using “talking buttons”. Apparently on the likes of TikTok and Instagram, dog owners are posting countless videos showing their pets stepping on multicoloured plastic buttons on the floor which emit a word when pressed.
“When I talked with Rossano in July, he had a beleaguered air. His second paper on the buttons was about to come out, but the path to publication had been slow and onerous. For the past two years, his papers were consistently rejected or not even considered for review. It felt like gatekeeping. Earlier that day another scientist asked him, ‘Are you the person responsible for my wife wasting my time with clips of dogs?’ He was looking forward to going dark for three weeks in Kenya, where he would follow a troop of about 150 baboons on foot across the savanna to observe their collective decision-making.
“Rossano reminded me that he had started at a place of skepticism. ‘I definitely have a lot of issues with the social media part of this thing,’ he said. ‘But there are, right now, several thousand people who are doing this to their pets, and I think we should try to take it seriously. Is this good? Is it bad? What would it tell us about these animals’ minds?’
READERS EDITOR’S SUMMER MEDIA DIET
In my tabs: Accused UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione was the most discussed topic with friends and family in my hometown over the summer break, prompting some interesting conversations with people you’d least expect. I found this essay in Current Affairs brought the most clarity to the muddied politics of the story.
On my bedside table: This week I am determined to finish the book that’s been sitting on my bedside far too long: Maria Dahvana Headley’s feminist interpretation of Beowulf. The modernised language makes the epic poem more accessible and a lot more fun; it actually reads like a rollicking adventure, while asking juicy questions about the way masculinity and entitlement are embedded in warrior mythology. If Beowulf is the hero, why am I rooting for Grendel’s mother, a monster, to defeat him? Why do I want the dragon to win? After that, I’ll get stuck into a book I got for Christmas, Patricia Clarke’s Bold Types, tracing the history of Australian women journalists from 1860 to the 1940s.
In my ears: I caught up on all the episodes of the Celebrity Memoir Book Club podcast I didn’t have time for last year. I’d never usually bother to read a celeb memoir, so it’s much better to have comedians Claire Parker and Ashley Hamilton give me the jist. There is no starstruck fawning here — it’s sharp commentary on celebrity culture that consistently makes me laugh out loud. For Crikey readers, I’d recommend the episodes on Al Pacino (he’s very endearing!); Alec Baldwin (comes across so badly the laughter made my cheeks hurt); or Brittney Griner (a fascinating story, with understandably fewer jokes).
On my screen: I just watched Nosferatu and it’s the only thing I want to talk about. When I got home from the cinema I promptly watched about 50 TikToks of other people talking about Nosferatu. Please email me if you also need to talk about Nosferatu! Elsewhere, comedian James Acaster, never, ever misses. His new special Hecklers Welcome is no exception. It’s a straightforward comedy bit — a show where the “normal” rules don’t apply and the audience is allowed to react, and interrupt, as they please. But Acaster’s disarmingly offbeat style expands it into an earnest, self-aware rumination on success as a performer.
On my plate: Or rather, next to my plate. I’ve spent the summer perfecting my preferred ratios in this cherry cola margarita — no-sugar cola is best, and if you don’t like tequila it also works with gin.
Say What?
We want to undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and too prone to over-enforcement.
Joel Kaplan
Meta’s chief global affairs officer, who has strong Republican ties, announced changes to Meta’s fact-checking program on Tuesday, just a week after taking over the role from former UK deputy PM Nick Clegg.
THE COMMENTARIAT
Don’t label me more moderate, I back Adam Bandt’s Greens — Bob Brown (The Australian): Adam Bandt has solidified the Greens as Australia’s third political party. He has the intention to help shape future government direction, but the Greens’ policy of taxing the rich to help the poor (via such things as public education, hospitals and housing) is as attractive to the Gina Rineharts of the world as coalmining is to Vanuatu. Bandt has my full backing. One angle being peddled is that I was a more moderate leader than Bandt (“Bob Brown’s Greens wouldn’t recognise their own party”, The Australian, 6/1/2025). That’s rubbish. We are different people sharing the same Greens credo of social justice and environmental protection.
Canada as a 51st state? Republicans would never win another general election — Aaron Ettinger (The Conversation): Given Canada’s left-of-conservative leanings, the state of Canada’s electoral college votes would likely go to the Democrat presidential candidate every time. That would have swung two Republican presidential victories in the Democrats’ favour this century (2000 and 2004) and would have made Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024 even smaller — so small, in fact, that American electoral math in the expanded US would be fundamentally changed.
So perhaps it’s time for Trump to recognise that Canada is a different country with its own history and political culture. Better yet, Trump could recognise that his churlish taunts trivialise a needless trade war that risks hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.
Trump could recognise that the countries he is antagonising are part of a strategic network of allies that sustains American power in the world. If that’s not enough for Trump to act seriously, he could at least follow his electoral instincts.
