Making news: New Meghan Markle dirt and Em Rata's husband's 'dog acts'
All the news that's fit to mint.
All the news that's fit to mint.
What's happening in (The) Oz today:
🦠 Covid payments are back
🍿 The new series of Greens v The Government has started
👩🏻🏫 Uni degrees are shit and expensive
🎾 Celebrating the OG Kyrgios, Lleyton Hewitt
🐮 An important message about foot-and-mouth disease
🏌🏻♀️ This Aussie bloke is confusing a lot of golf nuts in the UK
🐳 A Migaloo update
☔️ Sydney ready for more rain
🥵 London to melt
👑 Meghan Markle was pissed at Vanity Fair
🎶 Britney is singing again
😳 Dream woman Em Rata is single
Good morning!
(language warning)
It is indeed Monday and I too am feeling this as Britney is back.
Guard your morning cappuccino as this video of Ms Spears singing for the first time publicly since that whole horrific conservatorship saga will blow your foam back.
Here she is at the weekend just casually folding the washing and giving us a glimpse into what she wanted Baby...One More Time to sound like all those years ago.
Speaking of one more time...
Covid payments have been reinstated by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after the National Cabinet regrouped over the weekend.
He also confirmed Covid cases are expected to peak next month.
“It is expected from the indications of (Chief Medical Officer) Paul Kelly that we can expect an increase in the number of cases over coming weeks,” Albanese said.
The announcement comes as we've faced a recent surge of cases, with a whopping 43,491 cases reported in the last 24-hours across the country.
The $750-pandemic leave disaster payment will now remain in place until September for workers who are left out of pocket when they’re forced to isolate with the spicy cough.
The Greens are set to be a real thorn
In the side of the new Labor government.
With just a little more than a week until parliament kicks off, Greens leader Adam Bandt continues to come out swinging regarding climate change and the government's proposal to legislate that we'll work toward a 43% reduction in emissions by 2030.
Parliament is set to get super interesting, as the government holds a majority in the lower house but it's got to work with the Greens and ACT senator David Pocock to pass its legislation in the Senate.
Bandt outlined the amendments the Greens want to see happen, else they'll - potentially - side with the Libs, Nats and maybe folk like Pauline Hanson to vote down the climate change bill.
There are four amendments the Greens want to see:
- Making the 43% target "a floor not a ceiling"
- Ensuring there is no ability for future governments to relax the target
- No new coal and gas projects
- That the government be held to account on action.
Considering Covid, rising cost of living issues, a looming biosecurity disaster in Indonesia, an energy crisis which keeps bubbling away and this, grab your popcorn.
Tertiary terror
I regret to inform you, HECS, like petrol, iceberg lettuce and interest rates, is about to get hectic.
Uni students and grads with a debt will be slugged 3.9% indexation on outstanding student loans this year.
Student debt will balloon like my legs on a long-haul flight after the indexation rate on the higher education loan program (HELP) debts rose from 0.6 % last year to 3.9% this year.
"The ATO data reveals student loan debt has more than doubled over the past seven years with nearly 3 million students and graduates owing taxpayers a total of $69 billion, which they must pay back through the tax system once they start earning more than the minimum wage," The Australian - the HD to our Pass - reports today.
The indexation increase is a double whammy for millennial students who will be lumbered with higher debts as they try to enter an inflated housing market with rising rents and mortgage rates.
Because, get this, student debts slice into how much you'll be able to borrow, as banks take HELP debts into account when deciding how much to lend for housing loans.
Meanwhile, as uni gets more expensive, its value for money is being called into question.
National Union of Students president Georgie Beatty said many institutions have failed to reinstate the face-to-face lessons that were standard before the pandemic forced courses online.
"The quality of education has gotten to the stage where it’s considered completely acceptable for you to pay $3000 for a subject and have to sit in a Zoom class with 40 other kids,” Beatty said.
“We’re hearing so many stories of academic quality going down across the board. But there is no quality control and no protection or complaints mechanism in place, so we have to deal with a crap education. We are helpless in the face of these mighty vice-chancellors.”
Lleyton Hewitt is a Hall of Famer
Before there was Nick Kyrgios, there was Lleyton Hewitt.
Hewitt, now 41, is one of our greatest tennis players and has (finally) been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in the US at the weekend, making him the 34th Australian player to be so honoured.
The former Wimbledon and US Open champion, world number one, two-time David Cup Champion, with 30 singles titles to his name, entered the pantheon of top players alongside other Aussie greats including Rod Laver, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Pat Rafter, Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde.
He married Home & Away star and singer Bec Hewitt. They have three kids. Their son Cruz is rumoured to be one to watch in the coming years. He regularly takes to the court smashing backhands while riding a hover board.
Bali would be nice right now
But if you're lucky enough to jag an international jaunt it might pay to be aware of a disease kicking around called foot-and-mouth or FMD.
While it can't impact humans, we, like the 24 million feral pigs in Australia, carry and spread it onto livestock which is deadly. Both literally for the infected animals but also financially. If FMD takes hold here, it'll cripple primary industries as herds will have to be killed and the export trade will be stopped in its tracks to stop the spread.
Also, you think meat is expensive now? Safe, sustainable protein will also dry up.
Best you can do, wash EVERYTHING including your shoes if you're travelling home from Indonesia, or better yet, leave them there.
Farmer, advocate and ag legend Catherine Marriott sums it up best:
A passionate call for all Australians travelling to Indonesia. Please share with your urban friends & please be careful when bringing things back. @NationalFarmers @abcnews @JaneCaro @TurnbullMalcolm @Lisa_Wilkinson #agchatoz pic.twitter.com/mpTVuqBLjX
— Catherine Marriott (@roseycatherine) July 9, 2022
The bogan turning heads at the British Open
Cam Smith is a little bit Happy Gilmore and a lot of Aussie bloke™ on tour. Cameron Smith has won The Open, becoming Australia's first winner of The Open since Greg Norman in 1993.
Love that Cam Smith shot -5 67 wearing an old Wallabies training hoodie (circa late 1990s/early 2000s) Golf really has become cool. #150thopen pic.twitter.com/oxZvWIw4Bz
— Luke Elvy (@Luke_Elvy) July 14, 2022
Moving house ðŸ¡
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 16, 2022
Cam Smith with a magical chip from one side of the green to the other ⛳ï¸#The150thOpen pic.twitter.com/JxLcMyPhkN
In other white whale news
Migaloo - our beloved white whale mate - isn't dead.
The rumours were flying at the weekend Migaloo had died after a white humpback whale was found dead on the shores of a popular tourist town in Victoria’s Gippsland region.
Experts have confirmed late last night it died out at sea off the Mallacoota coast.
Victorian Environment, Land, Water, and Planning Department wildlife researcher Vanessa Pirotta said the whale might not actually be a rare white whale and said the mammal likely died and sea and its colours had bleached in the water.
“On the throat plates, there are barnacles attached to the outer skin which appears to be a darker colour,” Dr Pirotta said. “There’s no pigmentation on Migaloo of that colour.”
Don't forget your brolly
The rains are returning to NSW.
After a lovely sunny Sunday, the rains are set to return this week, with up to 50mm predicted to drop on Sydney over the next seven days.
Sunday’s forecast by the BOM reports the heaviest falls will hit on Wednesday and Thursday, with up to 15mm each day expected.
There are no emergency warnings yet, but we'll keep you posted.
However, spare a thought for mates in London and the UK who are facing another type of weather situation.
Weathers are set to hit 40 degrees and the UK Met Office is on the verge of calling it a national emergency.
It has issued its first ever "red extreme heat warning" for parts of the country including London and Manchester, calling the alert "a very serious situation."
People are also being told to travel via car or tube only for "essential journeys".
Another royal scandal book
A new book titled Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors, by UK journalist Tom Bower will outline how senior royals held a conference call just weeks after Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May 2018 to try to persuade her to reconcile with her father, how the Vanity Fair cover story of her in 2017 enraged the Palace. Because her philanthropic work and global activism couldn't be verified by Vanity Fair's fact checkers, so they instead wrote about her relationship with Harry instead.
Also, remember their 2018 Aussie tour when they'd just announced they were pregnant with Archie?
There's tea there too.
“Meghan was allegedly abrasive towards her four female staff and even towards the local British diplomats. According to one report, Meghan allegedly threw a cup of tea into the air. Her anger may have been partly fuelled by Harry. Every night he trawled social media, searching for snide comments on the internet. Every morning he and Meghan turned on their phones to surf the internet," Bower wrote.
“Thin-skinned, they were inflamed by the slightest criticism. Then, both bombarded their staff with demands for retribution and removal of the criticism.”
The book is out July 21.
Moron of the week has been awarded early this week
Emily Ratajkowski is single.
The model, actor and My Body author is reportedly filing for divorce from her husband, a film maker called Sebastian Bear McClard.
The pair got hitched about four years ago (she wore a fabulous mustard-coloured Zara suit) and they have a young son.
They were most recently spotted in public together in May when she walked the red carpet at Cannes.
Elle is reporting "infidelity" is the reason behind the break up with Rata calling him a "serial cheater".
Meghan Markle’s favourite face gym is opening in Australia, Greta Thunberg publishes Andrew Tate’s contact details
All the news that's fit to mint.
Emily Ratajkowski joins the competitive world of online dating, Nick Kyrgios quits at the last minute
All the news that's fit to mint.