Your noon Briefing

Welcome to your noon roundup of how the day has played out so far and what to watch for.

Hello readers. Here is your noon digest of what’s making news and a long read for lunchtime.

Minister for Education Simon Birmingham during Question Time in the Senate chamber in Canberra, Monday, March 19, 2018. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) NO ARCHIVING

Birmo ‘must apologise’

Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor has called for Simon Birmingham to apologise to the Catholic Education Office and parents who send their children to Catholic schools, after the Education Minister used a reference to Judas in response to the church’s campaign against the government’s school funding package.

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Salim Mehajer

Mehajer bankrupt

The flamboyant, jailed former deputy mayor of western Sydney’s Auburn, Salim Mehajer, has been declared bankrupt after one of his property development companies failed to repay over $200,000 to its creditors. The Federal Circuit Court this morning ordered Mehajer be declared bankrupt over the debts owed by SM Project Developments, including unpaid taxes.

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NO BYLINE - General photographs of students leaving Malek Fahd Islamic School on Waterloo Road in Greenacre NSW Australia - Government is discussing whether to remove funding from the school or not after funds have been misused.

Appeal lost

Australia’s largest Islamic school, which has been at the centre of a long-running furore over the handling of millions of dollars in its finances, is considering its legal options after losing a Federal Court appeal to continue its Commonwealth funding. The Malek Fahd Islamic School, which has several thousand students and staff at three campuses in Sydney’s southwest, lost a crucial bid to maintain its roughly $19 million a year in federal funding.

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This handout picture released by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation on April 21, 2017 shows a modified genuine Boeing 777 flaperon tested in waters near Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, to help determine where the final resting place of missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 might be. Missing flight MH370 "most likely" lies north of a former search zone in the remote Indian Ocean, Australian authorities said on April 21, 2017, in a new report that offers hope the plane may one day be found. / AFP PHOTO / COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANISATION / Handout / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / HO / COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANISATION" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS - NO ARCHIVE

The long read: Disappearing path of MH370

Four years ago this month, MH370 disappeared, and as you read this, the search continues using the same flawed theory. It’s extraordinary, writes Byron Bailey, that four years on, and despite more and more evidence to the contrary from an ever-growing number of independent experts, the hunt for MH370 is still based on the false premise that no one was flying the plane at the end.

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Comment of the day

“MH 370 will ultimately be found and when it is those in the ATSB should face criminal charges for gross negligence, and possibly deception.”

Peter, in response to ‘Disappearing path of MH370’.