Your noon Briefing: On the sauce no excuse, says Latham

Your 2-minute digest of the day’s top stories and a long read for lunchtime.

Hello readers. Mark Latham lashes Hanson’s ‘on the sauce’ henchmen, and inside Apple’s great pivot to subscription services.

18/03/2019: Mark Latham, former Labor leader, is running for the upper house for One Nation in the NSW election, and looks likely to win. He's campaigning in traditional Labor heartland, Blacktown, on Monday. Hollie Adams/The Australian

‘Sauce no excuse’

New MP Mark Latham blasts Pauline Hanson’s right-hand men, who were caught on tape seeking $20m from the US gun lobby.

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Eric Lobbecke Op Ed Cartoon for 27-03-2019. Version: Ozoped Artwork (1280x720 - Aspect ratio preserved, Canvas added)COPYRIGHT: The Australian's artists each have different copyright agreements in place regarding re-use of their work in other publications.Please seek advice from the artists themselves or the Managing Editor of The Australian regarding re-use.

Airports gouge

Anyone with common sense knows the money-sucking qualities of our airports. Except, it seems, the one agency that could fix it.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Box Hill for Lunar New Year celebrations. Opposition leader Bill Shorten. Picture: Lawrence Pinder

Chinese damage control

Bill Shorten turns WeChat into an electoral battleground in a live Q&A with Chinese Australians after the NSW election disaster.

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CUPERTINO, CA - MARCH 25: Filmmaker Steven Spielberg speaks during an Apple product launch event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park on March 25, 2019 in Cupertino, California. Apple announced the launch of it's new video streaming service, unveiled a premium subscription tier to its News app, and announced it would release its own credit card, called Apple Card. (Photo by Michael Short/Getty Images)

The long read: Apple in the newsroom

Apple has opened the lid on a brand new kit of services in its bid to overcome the inertia in the smartphone market, writes David Swan. Whether it’s games, movies, television or news, Apple is now banking on the billion-plus devices it has in the market globally to sell subscriptions.

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Comment of the day

“I’m shocked. Truly shocked. I was born in Canada, not Australia. But I find Anzac Day to be a solemn day for remembering those who have fallen so Australians of today can be free.

Perhaps this professor should travel through the Somme battlefields as I had done a few years ago and take in the landscape. Presently it is beautiful with farms reaching the horizon and, historically, solemn with patches of cemeteries strewn throughout.

He should stop at one of them, get out of his car, speak to the locals (who love Australians by the way) and stroll through the gravesites to take in the names of fallen soldiers. Maybe then he’ll see his approach to history as unfair to young students.”

Linda, in response to ‘Gallipoli Anzacs ‘killers’: lecturer’.