Monday is back

All the news that's fit to mint

All the news that's fit to mint

Quiet weekend? Same.

Ariarne Titmus not so much.

The human fish was busy breaking more world records.

The Olympic champion, who has more gold than the Kalgoorlie Super Pit prospectors, won the women's 400 metre freestyle at the Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide late last night and set a new world record.

Her time of 3:56.40 beat American Katie Ledecky's old record by 0.06 seconds. 

The pair are swimming's greatest rivals due to their elite performances and deep respect for each other and the sport.

Speaking of rivals...

We've got a new government (and an offical dog)

Toto: Australia's new First Dog.

Anthony Albanese is the new Prime Minister elect. He and the ALP defeated the Libs at the election over the weekend. He celebrated by walking his dog Toto and getting coffee with friends.

He'll be sworn in as PM today alongside a few of his new ministers as he has to head to Tokyo tonight to meet with world leaders at the Quad - an important security meeting between us and our allies, think of it as a Strata AGM but with less annoying participants.

While Albanese was cramming for that, the soon to be former leader Scott Morrison had a house party at Kirribilli House before he has to move out of the offical Sydney home of Prime Minister.

He and his family will head back to the Shire and Morrison will move to the lean looking Coalition backbench.

But on Sunday he went to Church, cried and then cracked a whip. 

Exclusive pictures of Scott Morrison’s last drinks at Kirribilli House. The outgoing PM gives whip cracking a go on the lawns of the famous Sydney homestead. ⁦@9NewsAUS⁩ #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/M4idOrabgo

— Chris O'Keefe (@cokeefe9) May 22, 2022

Putin makes his move

Another leader who was having a hard time over the weekend was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russia has reportedly taken complete control of Mariupol.

The port city, where the Ukrainian resistance had been stationed, surrendered as Moscow's troops pressed on with an offensive in other parts of the country.

Zelensky described the soldiers and marines who had defended Mariupol through a months long siege as national heroes. He said the military had told them to get out and save their lives.

Russia's Defence Ministry said a final group of about 530 Ukrainian fighters had been removed from bunkers under the sprawling Azovstal steel plant to "Russian-controlled territory".

Since the start of the conflict in February about 2400 people have been taken from the plant and imprisoned by Russian forces.

The jazz band on the sinking ship

Clive Palmer ran more than 150 candidates in the election, here he is illustrating how many were successful.

Clive Palmer, who spent another $100m on trying to make the United Australia Party a thing with bright yellow ads, hosted an election night party.

The difference with Palmer's affair, compared to the warm house white wine soaked Liberal wake in a Sydney hotel and the ALP's knees up powered by craft beer at an RSL, was the inclusion of a menu created by his two Michelin-starred chefs who served, and we quote from The Australian (the VIP to our gate crasher):

"For entrees, there was the choice of ‘beef tataki’ with ‘soy sauce sorbet wasabi foam’, or a ‘sashimi of kingfish’ with ‘coconut kim jim sauce'. Mains were a choice of Wagyu beef eye fillet with wild mushrooms, a chicken roulade with cauliflower puree, or teriyaki salmon with a cucumber and ginger salad, while for dessert, it was hard to go past the salted caramel cheesecake with white chocolate and 'torched banana'."

(I had to Google more than 6% of that word salad of a menu, which, coincidentally, is more than the amount of votes Palmer's UAP managed to secure.)

According to people at the 40-person party Palmer wasn't too concerned with the result, instead he distracted guests his collection of vintage Mercedes, Rolls Royce and Ferraris before the man who planned to build the Titanic II belted out a rendition of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On on the piano.

La Dolce Kravis

Hearts were full and the paps were kept busy in Italy as the Kardashian's touched down the third episode of "Kourtney and Travis Get Married". The couple were tying the knot (again) after two rehearsals, drunk in Vegas after the Grammys and last week went to a local courthouse to do the boring paperwork bit. 

Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker arrive in Italy for their big day. (Photo by NINO/GC Images)

It was gorgeously gaudy as the 43-year-old beaming bride walked down the aisle in a white mini dress with an astounding matching veil.

There was more Dolce & Gabbana on show than a divorcee conference on the Gold Coast. Why? Because the "event" was sponsored by the Italian fashion label.

Big 'Witches of Calabasas' take Calabria vibes.

But the MVP was the MOTB (mother of the bride) Kris Jenner, also in D&G.

Crypto chaos

An investigation by The Wall Street Journal has found that there could be some dodgy dealings happening in the virtual currency world.

Public data suggests that several anonymous crypto investors profited from inside knowledge of when tokens would be listed on exchanges.

"Over six days last August, one crypto wallet amassed a stake of $360,000 worth of Gnosis coins, a token tied to an effort to build blockchain-based prediction markets. On the seventh day, Binance - the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume -said in a blog post that it would list Gnosis, allowing it to be traded among its users," the WSJ reports.

As we've previously reported, what "psycho" behaviour.

FFS Facebook

Remember waking up one day last year and Facebook was just full of "5G towers cause Covid" ramblings by a high school mate and your second-cousin's 5oth invitation to join her Arbonne party? 

Well it turns out Facebook was preparing internally for Australia’s "news bargaining code" for at least five months, despite later blaming a "technical error" when it blocked charities, government services and critical health organisations from posting and publishing amid bushfires and the pandemic.

In February 2021, a week before parliament voted on the media bargaining laws (brokered by outgoing Treasurer Josh Frydenberg), Facebook said it would remove news from its platform. But, the pages that were removed also included hospitals, charities, emergency services and even the government.

Whistleblowers came forward a few weeks ago alleging the "take-down" was a deliberate tactic to wreak havoc and maximise leverage in its fight against the Australian government, while Facebook claims its failings were "inadvertent."

Andrew Bakaj, the lawyer representing a couple of Facebook whistleblowers, said that the terms of service changes prove Facebook’s decision to initiate the take-down was prepared months prior to that day in February 2021.

“This behaviour shows that they will do anything to get their way – even if it means extorting a nation state,” Bakaj said.