Queensland man charged with murder after allegedly beating elderly pedestrian to death with pole

Joanna Howe posts on social media that if purported images of human foetuses are in fact sugar gliders, ‘it doesn’t actually matter’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe has conceded she may have used a “scam” email featuring a picture of sugar glider joeys, referring to them as human foetuses, to promote her views – but it “was an insignificant detail”.In a video posted to Facebook on Wednesday afternoon, Howe said it appeared she had been “scammed” when someone emailed her claiming to give details about their medical abortion, including an image that Howe referred to as twin girls she called Ruth and Emma. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Robinson, who has been at Reuters for 16 years, will be responsible for about 2,000 staff across the ABC’s news division A top news executive from Reuters, Simon Robinson, is expected to be appointed as news director of the ABC in coming days, Guardian Australia can reveal.He will be the external replacement for Justin Stevens who resigned on Wednesday after four years in the role, citing personal and professional reasons. Continue reading...

In CBS interview set to air Sunday, former first lady says she was ‘frightened’ during husband’s debate with TrumpJill Biden said she had been “frightened” as she watched Joe Biden’s faltering performance during his 2024 presidential debate, and thought her husband might have suffered a stroke.“I was frightened, because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” the former first lady said in an interview with CBS set to air on Sunday. Continue reading...

Markwayne Mullin, DHS secretary, said move would come in response to protests outside ICE facility in New JerseyThe Trump administration has threatened to stop processing international flights in major cities around the country as a reaction to protests against immigration enforcement.Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, said on Tuesday that the administration is “drawing up plans” to take the action, in response to days of clashes at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in New Jersey. Continue reading...

Urgent action needed to avoid ‘lost generation’, says the former Labour health secretary’s report, due on ThursdayBritain risks a 25% rise in the number of young people not in work or education to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action to avoid a “lost generation”, a landmark report has warned.Alan Milburn, the leader of the review into why so many young people are economically inactive, said the UK risked opening up a “generational fault line” between young and old without urgent steps to overhaul schools, the health service, the welfare system and the jobs market. Continue reading...

Anna Turley gives Reform leader 24 hours to report Russian hacking claim in ‘public and national interest’The Labour chair has given Nigel Farage 24 hours to report to security services the claim that his phone was hacked by Russia-linked actors or the party will do it for him.In a letter to the Reform UK leader, Anna Turley said it was “in the public and national interest” to ensure that a suspected overseas hack of a senior politician’s phone by a hostile state was properly investigated. Continue reading...

US president calls on US ally to ‘behave … or else we’ll have to blow them up’ in casual aside during cabinet meetingDonald Trump has threatened to “blow up” Oman if it fails to “behave” in a casual aside during a cabinet meeting, as the US scrambles to reopen the strait of Hormuz.The US president made the threat following reports of talks between Iran and Oman about jointly charging a toll for ships passing through the crucial waterway, which has been all but closed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran. Continue reading...

Social services minister ‘concerned’ by some providers meant to help welfare recipients find workGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastGood morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Krishani Dhanji with the main action.The social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, was on 7.30 last night defending her decision not to get rid of the controversial for-profit aspects of the jobseeker program. More coming up. Continue reading...

The satellite visuals reveal vast burn scars after blaze tore through rare ecosystems on Santa Rosa IslandImages from a Nasa satellite showcased the devastating scars left behind by a wildfire that consumed roughly a third of Santa Rosa Island, one of the five that make up Channel Islands national park off the southern California coast.Taken on 20 May, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (Modis) took the false-color image of the burn area, showing swaths of blackened land. Continue reading...

Sexual offender attended Interlochen camp in Michigan as teenager and donated hundreds of thousands of dollarsA Michigan summer arts camp and boarding school where Jeffrey Epstein has been accused of meeting at least two of his victims will tear down a lodge that once bore his name.The Interlochen Center for the Arts said this week that its board of trustees has approved a plan to demolish the Green Lake Lodge, which had been known as Jeffrey E Epstein Scholarship Lodge until the school cut ties and scrubbed references to the late millionaire sex offender after his first conviction in 2008. Continue reading...

There is no evidence Elliott Broidy’s links to Trump helped AI company win contract to monitor prisoners’ phone callsThe day before Donald Trump’s first term ended in 2021, he inked a pardon for Elliott Broidy, a scandal-plagued Republican fundraiser and former Republican National Committee official who had pleaded guilty three months earlier to trying to illegally lobby Trump and his administration.Last month, a company headed by Broidy won a $106m contract from the Department of Justice, according to federal contracting records. Continue reading...