Your afternoon Briefing

Good afternoon, readers. Here’s what made news this Friday.

Good afternoon, readers. Here’s what made news this Friday.

Current Chief of Army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell is announced by PM Malcolm Turnbull as the next Chief of the Defence Force at a press conference, Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

Army ‘death symbols’ banned

Defence’s soon to be new chief has banned soldiers from using any display of the “symbols of death” like skulls and cross bones in patches, badges or imagery.

Chief of Army Lt Gen Campbell issued the directive to the Army banning the “display or adoption of symbols, emblems and iconography” which he says are “ at odds with the army’s values and the ethical force we seek to build and sustain”.

Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion have welcomed a baby boy.

Barnaby welcomes baby boy

Barnaby Joyce and his partner Vikki Campion have welcomed the birth of their son.

The former deputy prime minister has confirmed his son, Sebastian, was born on Monday.

He weighed 8 pounds 7 ounces (3.8kgs) at birth.

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Teen Vogue images of Yassmin Abdel-Magied. Source: Supplied

Yassmin’s Anzac Day call

Controversial media personality Yassmin Abdel-Magied has endorsed a former GetUp!director’s call for thousands of people to tweet “Lest we forget (Manus)” on Anzac Day.

Incoming Change.org national director Sally Rugg tweeted last night:

“What if thousands of us all tweeted ‘lest we forget (Manus)’ next week on April 25th…”

Ms Abdel-Magied sparked widespread controversy when she wrote “Lest We Forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine ...)” in a Facebook post last year.

The engineer and former ABC presenter endorsed Ms Rugg’s suggestion this morning, quote tweeting the original message with “Do it.”

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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin

Putin’s hooker boast to Trump

Vladimir Putin boasted to Donald Trump that Russia had “the most beautiful hookers in the world,” according to memos kept by former FBI director James Comey.

The comment came during a brief meeting between the US President and Mr Comey in February last year, during a conversation about the so-called Steele dossier which accused Mr Trump of using prostitutes in Moscow.

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