Yahoo News Afternoon Update: PM defends Payman suspension; humpback whale rescued; and US offers Boeing ‘sweetheart’ plea deal
Good afternoon. The prime minister defended the decision to indefinitely suspend Senator Fatima Payman from the Labor caucus after she vowed she would cross the floor in support of Palestine again.
Anthony Albanese accused Labor’s youngest senator of disrupting the government’s message on a day its stage-three tax cuts rolled out. The Labor MP Anne Aly said she hoped Payman remained in the party, while Barnaby Joyce criticised the Labor pledge requiring all party MPs and senators to vote in line as a 130-year-old “relic”.
Payman found support from the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, who denounced Labor’s suspension as “shameful”, as well as peak Muslim leaders and organisations who released a joint statement calling on the Australian government to “recognise Palestinian statehood and implement military sanctions on Israel immediately”.
Top news
NSW man charged with alleged DV murder | Police officers took an hour to respond to a call after neighbours had reportedly heard screams from a woman’s Casino home. The woman, believed to be in her 40s, was found beaten and unconscious in the early hours of Saturday morning. Dwayne John Creighton, 31, has been charged with murder and refused bail.
Queensland bus crash kills three | Two men remain in a critical condition after a Greyhound bus carrying 33 people collided with a four-wheel drive towing a caravan on the Bruce Highway near Gumlu, in the Whitsunday region, about 11am on Sunday. Three women were killed and 27 people were assessed on the scene, with seven taken to hospital.
Humpback whale rescued off Gippsland coast | The whale became entangled in 800kg of fishing equipment near Lake Tyers off Victoria’s south-east coast. On Saturday a specialised team cut off the tangled ropes and buoy, allowing the animal to swim freely.
Biden’s family reportedly tell him to stay in race | Joe Biden’s family have urged him to stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance last week, according to reports in the US media, as senior Democrats and donors have expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for the event.
Nigeria suicide attacks | At least 18 people have been killed and 19 seriously injured in suicide attacks targeting a wedding, a hospital and a funeral in north-east Nigeria, authorities have said.
US accused of offering Boeing ‘sweetheart deal’ | Boeing is facing a fine, a three-year term of probation, and a corporate monitor as part of a plea deal over two fatal crashes five years ago, according to sources. “The memory of 346 innocents killed by Boeing demands more justice than this,” said Paul Cassell, who represents the families of 15 crash victims.
Chinese space rocket crashes | The space rocket of a Chinese private company crashed and exploded into flames after it was accidentally launched during a test.
In pictures
Australia’s best photos of June 2024
Nude swimmers make a splash, yoga students greet the solstice and Julian Assange touches down in Canberra. Click here to view the gallery.
What they said …
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“The federal government still hasn’t … enacted any meaningful reforms to combat gambling advertising. This is entirely unacceptable. It’s way beyond time for the government to stop kowtowing to the gambling industry, the media and the big sporting codes, and instead focus on protecting Australians from predatory industries like this by banning all online gambling advertising. Until that happens, people, including children, will continue to be exposed to gambling ads that normalise the practice.” – Andrew Wilkie, independent MP
In numbers
Labor has been accused of falling “victim to media commentary and a herd mentality” for blaming international students as “scapegoats for housing shortages”. The fee hikes will be used in addition to the international student cap as a means to clamp down on net migration.
Before bed read
Portland, Oregon has no Live Nation concert arena, and fans and artists love its fiercely independent music scene. But with a new venue looming, will all that change?
“[It] would be a death sentence for the music scene,” says Colescott Rubin, a jazz bassist who got his start busking on streets and booking shows in Portland as a teen. Thanks to Portland’s independence, he says, “you can talk with the people who are calling the shots on the spaces you’ll be performing in directly”. The arrival of Live Nation, he and others in the city’s music scene fear, would send Portland the way of cities such as Austin and Boston, where independent venues have shuttered and local journalists and musicians have lamented the corporatisation of scenes that once felt organic and unstoppable.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: COB. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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