Hi there. It's Thursday, June 23 and you're reading The Loop, a quick wrap-up of today's news.
Let's start here
The Taliban says the death toll from a magnitude-6.1 earthquake in Afghanistan's east has risen to more than 1,000, with another 1,500 people injured.
Interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi said the death toll was likely to rise further "as some of the villages are in remote areas in the mountains and it will take some time to collect details".
Paktika resident Firdaus Khan told the ABC the only public hospital in the province of nearly one million inhabitants had been overwhelmed by earthquake casualties.
"Most of the victims are women and children, because they were caught asleep by the calamity … there is [an] absolute shortage of resources, doctors and all other things needed," he said.
News while you snoozed
- US central bank chief Jerome Powell says the Federal Reserve is not trying to engineer a recession to stop inflation but is fully committed to bringing prices under control, even if doing so risks an economic downturn. Last week, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, its biggest hike since 1994
- Australia's women's 4x200m freestyle relay team have picked up a silver medal at the world championships. It's the third medal of the competition for Mollie O'Callaghan — the 18-year-old raced alongside Madi Wilson, Leah Neale and Kiah Melverton, who collectively improved on their heat time by several seconds.
What Australia has been searching for online
- Dick Caine. ICYMI yesterday, the former Australian swim coach has been arrested and charged over the alleged sexual abuse of two girls in the 1970s. His wife told the court that he's suffering from terminal lung and throat cancer and only has "about six months" to live.
- Rupert Murdoch. The New York Times is reporting that the media mogul and his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, are divorcing. The article cites anonymous sources "with knowledge of the decision".
One more thing
Amazon says it's developing a system to let Alexa, its voice assistant, mimic any voice after hearing less than a minute of audio.
The company's senior vice-president Rohit Prasad told a conference that the goal was to "make the memories last" after "so many of us have lost someone we love" during the pandemic.
Amazon shared its vision for companionship with Alexa at the conference, showing a video of a child who asked, "Alexa, can grandma finish reading me the Wizard of Oz?" to which Alexa changed her voice.
It's cool tech, but similar projects have sparked big ethical discussions: for example, Microsoft has recently restricted which businesses could use its software to parrot voices, which was created to help people with speech impairments but some worry it could be used for deepfakes.
There's no indication at this stage of when such a feature might be rolled out.
You're up to date
See you again soon.
ABC/wires
