Masochists Khloe Kardashian and Hillary Clinton re-enact Freaky Friday

All the news that's fit to mint.

All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz today:

🤓 Nat Cab is back!

😬 ScoMo is also back!

💔👩🏻‍🏫 The new Heartbreak High is almost here

☢️ New York is preparing for a nuclear attack

🇮🇪 Say goodbye to Irish tradies

🎭 Dolly Parton storms Melbourne

🙅🏻‍♀️ Khloe Kardashian is a masochist  

📺 Hillary Clinton to debut her own TV show

Good morning!

Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese is back in Australia. Fresh from his successful jaunt to Fiji for the Pacific Islands Forum where he hugged it out with Solomon Islands leader Manasseh Sogavare - the dude that was not a fan of ours mere weeks ago.

Something might have twigged as China is rumoured to be lifting the ban on Australian coal, which may have little to do with our new government and more to do with the bonkers commodity prices almost crippling the Chinese steel sector.

Anyway, the Pacific is still a watch and act situation, but Covid is not.

Another wave is incoming according to health experts and carrying the BA.4 and BA.5 variants. Last week the fourth vaccine became available to over-30s and was encouraged for the over-50s. Now the PM has called a "snap" National Cabinet meeting early next week to figure out WTF is going on with this virus and how he will deal with it.

There's growing dissent within the ALP and wider Labor movement over Albanese refusal to reinstate the $750-pandemic leave payments and extend the availability of free RATs to pensioners as more then 310,000 of us are recouping from the spicy cough right now. Millions more, according to the chief medical officer Paul Kelly, are expected to catch it (some even again) in the coming weeks.

Speaking of comebacks

Scott Morrison has emerged from wherever it was he went, and has popped up in Korea.

He was presenting a keynote at the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul on Thursday, where he defended his initial response to Covid and suggested the world had failed to act as China took over disputed territory in the South China Sea and "such activity would continue unless the region stood firm".

Scott Morrison has made his first official remarks since losing his job in May.

He also accused Chinese President Xi Jinping of steering Beijing "down an autocratic path", saying if Indo-Pacific countries, including Australia, failed to stand their ground, further "Chinese incursions into the region would be made".

While arguing that the world had not faced a more unstable environment since the 1930s, the former prime minister said conflict in the Indo-Pacific was not an inevitable outcome of the geopolitical tensions.

Interestingly the guy who lost his job at the May election (well the big one, he'll join the Liberal backbench when parliament starts soon) re-emerged the day we learned there are too many jobs ripe for the picking.

You see, not that they'll tell you but right now, your boss needs you more than you need them as the unemployment rate in Australia has dropped to record lows.

About 88,000 jobs were added to the economy in June, leaving the unemployment rate at a low 3.5%, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Read about how to leverage this power here.

Now this is a comeback 

Heartbreak High - the seminal, edgy and coming of age after school show of the 1990s - has been revived for a new generation.

While some of us, hypothetically, may have encountered our sexual and social awakening during its original run thanks to the eyebrow ring wearing, skate boarding bad boy Drazic, Netflix tapped local creators to give the series a distinct 2022 feel.

"A discovery makes Amerie an instant pariah at Hartley High, and causes a mysterious and very public rift with her ride-or-die Harper. With her new friends - outsiders Quinni and Darren - Amerie must repair her reputation while navigating love, sex, and heartbreak," the synopsis published on Thursday read.

The brilliant Gracie Otto will direct the series which will star model and actor Josh Heuston.

New York is cooked

At least we hope not literally. 

If it's not Julia Fox publishing PSAs about Monkeypox vaccines, or watching kids how to prepare for their schools to be shot up, it's watching New Yorkers become preppers. 

The City's latest official public service announcement is all about how to survive nuclear war.

It opens in a 3D rendering of a street filled with houses that look like Carrie Bradshaw's, there’s some rubble and the distant sounds of sirens. The sky is clear. “So there’s been a nuclear attack,” a woman says as she strides into the scene. "Don’t ask me how or why, just know that the big one has hit.”

The video, which we still can't detect if it's some late night TV show attempt as subversive satire, has been viewed about 600,000 times. Considering the island is home to more than 8m people - not many of them will know what to do if shit gets real.

Don't mess with the IRA

Building a house and your schedule has been pushed back more times than a Covid wedding?

Prepare for another delay as Ireland wants its tradies back.

"When Mary Lou McDonald ­arrives in Australia next week, she will come with a message that Australians trying to find a tradie may not want to hear. McDonald, the current head of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Provisional IRA, and tipped to be the next Ireland prime minister, wants to bring the working Irish diaspora back home with her," The Australian - the brick to our weatherboard and iron - reports today.

Mary Lou McDonald replaced Gerry Adams as the president of Sinn Fein following retirement back in 2018 after 34-years as the figurehead of the Irish republican movement.

“Well, it’s home you know, and I know there will be a joke about a bidding war for these extra­ordinarily skilled and talented people,’’ McDonald said.

Ireland , like Australia, is undergoing a harsh domestic and housing crisis as well as this looming global one - there aren’t enough construction workers to build the homes the Irish so desperately need.

Sinn Fein, led by McDonald, is now the most supported political party across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Hello Dolly!

What we lose in brickies, we'll make up for with Broadway.

Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 musical with messages about women’s and workers' rights is set to hit Melbourne after successful runs on Broadway, the West End and Sydney.

Producer Suzanne Jones said tickets to the shows Sydney performances were in high demand over the past few months, and she expected similar uptake in Melbourne. 

Based on the movie starring Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin of the same name, 9 to 5 tells the story of three enterprising women who dream up a scheme to kidnap their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” of a boss and change the culture of their office.

Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda were the OG stars of 9 to 5 when the film premiered in 1980.

What a week for it to open in Melbourne, the same week we learned the gender pay gap is nearing $1bn a week.

@theoz.com.au

We know #women in #australia earn less than men… but what does that look like practically? #paygap #genderpaygap #payequity

♬ original sound - The Oz

Oh Koko

Khloe Kardashian is expecting her second baby.

She and her ... whatever he is now... (partner? overgrown man child? Peter Pan with size 13 feet?) Tristan Thompson conceived a sibling for their daughter True via a surrogate last November.

The baby was conceived prior to the revelation that Tristan had cheated on Khloe and fathered another child - a son - with a woman he met while travelling for work back in June 2021.

Tristan Thompson and Khloe Kardashian with their daughter, True.

The timing of this news, and the new potential narrative arc, comes as the family's latest reality TV franchise has been confirmed for another season.

Kris Jenner, her momager and mother, teased the toxic couple might have another baby.

"You never know around here," telling Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show the NBA player had been “hanging around a lot” with Khloe.

Kris added: “Like I said, I never count anybody out for the count. You never know what’s going to happen. I guess that’s why we’ve been around for all these seasons. 20 seasons.”

The sex of the new bub hasn't been confirmed but her bin days have. General waste is due for collection on Fridays and he's beyond recycling by now surely?

Read more about the curse of the Kardashian men here.

However, if they do decide to make a go of it (again) she could call former Queensland politician George Christensen to perform an exorcism.

A post from the former politician, turned blogger's Facebook page that has more than 122,000 followers.

I have many questions too, none of which I care to have answered.

Hillary did it first

Smart women sometimes fall for silly things. Like Khloe ⬆️ and also the former US Secretary of State who married Bill Clinton.

While rumours swirl around Washington that Hillary Clinton will run for President again in 2024, she's pulled a Kardashian and has created her own TV show. One that will even include Kim.

Gutsy - a short doco series - will feature "intimate conversations" between Hills, her daughter Chelsea and a bunch of women they admire.

Maybe the rumours are true.

I mean television didn't hurt Donald Trump chances of getting elected...