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Key Posts
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s controversial $6 million election promise to a golf club in his electorate was based on rough estimates and internet research, a Senate inquiry heard yesterday, raising fresh questions about the allocation of taxpayer funds in the PM’s seat.
- Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has defended the cost to Australian taxpayers for his trip to this year’s COP31 summit in Turkey, including the tens of thousands of dollars spent on offering free coffees at the conference. He told reporters yesterday it was originally Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s idea to make the offering, back when he was minister for energy in 2021.
- Meanwhile, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg slammed Australia’s net zero pace as she broke her recent boycott of COP conferences to denounce this year’s leadership for losing control of rising temperatures.
- And Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has resigned after allegations he had two extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy.
Latest Posts
Washington: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has given a top award to the service member who scolded him and his staff at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier following a Veterans’ Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
Hegseth posted photos on social media that show him pinning the award and shaking hands with a soldier. His post says, “We love soldiers. We love standards. Well done, Specialist.”
Hegseth welcomed to the Pentagon the Army unit that guards the tomb and awarded Spc. Thomas Iglesias with the Joint Service Commendation Medal “for the execution of his duties at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on November 11, 2026″, the Pentagon said.
Iglesias reprimanded Hegseth and a group of his staffers when a loud laugh was heard after they took photos at the site following a ceremony that included President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Liberal senator Dave Sharma says he is not sure whether reopening an investigation into the 2018 ball-tampering scandal surrounding the Australian cricket team is productive, and warned of the possibility that fresh headlines were triggering a “witch hunt”.
“I don’t really like raking over old coals. I feel like this story was several years old now … I definitely think that if there was a cover-up at the time, people need to come clean now,” he told Nine’s Today show.
“I’m not sure how much you know Australian cricket or the integrity of Australian cricket is advanced in pursuing a further witch hunt eight or nine years later.”
Appearing alongside Sharma was Greens leader David Shoebridge, who said it was important that if there were “cultural issues” in the sport that they be brought to light.
Australia captain Pat Cummins is due to front the media later this morning to address Usman Khawaja’s claims that the whole squad knew about the cheating plot.
A widespread outage hit Microsoft platforms including Outlook this morning, with many users encountering trouble using their email accounts and other errors across the tech giant’s suite of apps.
Nearly 130,000 users on outage tracker Downdetector reported problems accessing Outlook. Reports have since fallen but many said they couldn’t send and receive emails, or have had trouble loading their inboxes altogether. Thousands also reported issues with Microsoft’s workplace messaging app Teams, as well as its AI assistant Copilot and wider Microsoft 365 services.
Microsoft said it was investigating customer reports related to email and Teams.
In updates posted on social media, Microsoft said it was aware of users “experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas”.
Washington: US President Donald Trump said the US does not need a deal with Iran and directed Vice President JD Vance, who has played a role in efforts to resolve the war, to focus “his complete and total attention” on alleged crime and corruption in Democratic-run cities and states.
Trump’s directive came a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance was considering face-to-face peace talks with a hard-line Iranian security official, and a week after the vice president blamed the costly war with Iran for Republicans’ midterm elections drubbing.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!” Trump wrote on social media, referring to the Strait of Hormuz.
Vance has long been seen as sceptical of the war the US and Israel launched on Iran in February. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Australian motorists are finally seeing some relief at the petrol pump, new analysis shows, as steep falls in global oil prices start flowing through to service stations, wiping roughly 20¢ a litre off local fuel costs so far this month.
For the first time since August, average petrol and diesel prices have started to tumble nationwide, driven by a sharp 20 per cent drop in the cost of Tapis crude, Australia’s regional oil benchmark, over the past fortnight.
NRMA figures to be released today show the national average for regular unleaded has fallen by almost 22¢ since late October to $2.23 a litre. Diesel prices, meanwhile, have fallen by more than 20¢ to $2.71 a litre. At some service stations, unleaded has now dipped back below the $2 mark.
The price retreat comes as markets are responding to a long-awaited lift in Middle East oil shipments and signs that Donald Trump wants to de-escalate the Iran war following his party’s heavy losses in the United States midterm elections.
Read the full story here.
Hello and welcome back to our rolling coverage of Australian and world news this Friday, November 13. Here’s what is making headlines today.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s controversial $6 million election promise to a golf club in his electorate was based on rough estimates and internet research, a Senate inquiry heard yesterday, raising fresh questions about the allocation of taxpayer funds in the PM’s seat.
- Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has defended the cost to Australian taxpayers for his trip to this year’s COP31 summit in Turkey, including the tens of thousands of dollars spent on offering free coffees at the conference. He told reporters yesterday it was originally Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s idea to make the offering, back when he was minister for energy in 2021.
- Meanwhile, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg slammed Australia’s net zero pace as she broke her recent boycott of COP conferences to denounce this year’s leadership for losing control of rising temperatures.
- And Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has resigned after allegations he had two extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy.
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