Friday, 13 February - Gonna be golden

Good morning, it’s Friday, 13 February. In your Squiz Today…

• The Liberal leadership vote is on, with Angus Taylor to challenge Sussan Ley for the top job

• Aussie mogul skier Cooper Woods wins Olympic gold…

• And some droolworthy dumplings… 🥟

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said the platform’s boss, who was testifying in a landmark social media addiction trial in the US yesterday. He reckons it’s the same for other habits, like watching the telly, but there's a bit of a difference between bingeing a show and realising you've been watching a series of strangers organise their pantries for 45 minutes…

Challenge is in the air…

The Squiz

Buckle up for a big day in Canberra, where Liberal MPs and senators are meeting at 9am this morning to vote on their leadership team. Yesterday, Angus Taylor confirmed he’ll challenge Sussan Ley for the top job, saying “the Liberal Party has lost its way” and that he believes they need “strong, decisive leadership that gives Australians clarity, courage and confidence in providing a vision for the future”. That was backed by his frontbench supporters resigning from their portfolios so they could back their man in.

How’s all that gone down with Ley?

She hasn't commented on the challenge publicly yet, but her supporters have pushed back on Taylor’s camp… Senator Andrew Bragg says it’s “premature” to challenge Ley when she has only been in the role for 9 months. He said she “has policies which are ready to go” and thinks “she ought to be given an opportunity to do that work”. But Senator James Paterson, who quit his role in Ley’s shadow cabinet yesterday, said that while he thinks she’s a “decent person” and a “good Liberal”, he doesn’t have “confidence in her ability to turn this ship around” given the recent polling. He said they’re losing “more than 7,000 votes a day” (aka he reckons, if the polls are right, 2.1 million Aussies who voted for the Coalition last year have deserted the party)... 

So what happens after the vote?

As Patterson says, turning the ship around will be top of the agenda - and a big task… Once a leader is decided today, he or she will likely be keen to get back to business sooner rather than later, given there’s a lot of work ahead of them in repairing the fractured Coalition and stopping the bleeding of supporters to One Nation. Some analysts say the Coalition’s internal chaos will make it hard to turn around that polling, even under new leadership… And that’s especially the case when you consider the Coalition’s well-documented issues in attracting/retaining female voters - and what rolling its first female leader in less than a year could look like to voters. If Taylor does get up, insiders reckon that’ll be a big consideration in who’s selected as his deputy out of those jockeying for the role. Giddy up…

More rides, more choice, more freedom

Australia’s a big country, and transport can be a challenge - especially for Aussies living with disability. Many people rely on state-funded taxi subsidy schemes for access to the transport they need for work, play and everyday life. But those schemes were designed decades ago, so Uber - with the help of disability and inclusivity consultants Get Skilled Access - has run a trial looking at giving people who rely on the schemes more choice by opening them up to rideshare. For more information, check out the full report here.

Squiz the Rest

Closing the Gap’s still off track… 

PM Anthony Albanese has condemned the “white supremacy ideology” behind a terror attack at last month’s Invasion Day rally in Perth… He says ​​Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a right to “express their views without fear of violence”, as well as “a full and equal place in our nation and our future”. But equality still isn’t being reached in 15 of the 19 Closing the Gap targets (which Albanese was out giving an update on yesterday…), and 4 areas are going backwards - including Indigenous rates of suicide, prompting a $13.9 million funding boost for 13YARN. Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe isn’t happy - she says “without enforceable accountability, [Closing the Gap] has become little more than a reporting exercise”. We’ll get more reporting next month, with the next batch of data due…

Soaring to new heights

Winter Olympians aren’t the only ones going for gold - the ASX was close to reaching an all-time high yesterday before closing slightly above where it opened… Economists put the surge down to strong financial results reported by the big banks, including ANZ's 6% growth in first quarter profit, and CBA's half-year profit of $5.4 billion. Along with finance sector shares, mining and energy stocks were also strong, but it wasn't all rosy - AMP fell more than 26% following lacklustre full-year results, and homewares company Temple & Webster closed significantly lower. Adding to that, we learned yesterday that retailer Barbeques Galore has gone bust, threatening 500 jobs… AMP’s Chief Economist Shane Oliver says the initial surge was underpinned by strong results and that, after seeing share earnings fall for 3 consecutive financial years, there’s “a little bit of catch up going on” and “the market is celebrating”. 

Vale James Van Der Beek

Squizers who grew up watching the actor as Dawson Leery in Dawson’s Creek will be sad to learn he died on Wednesday from bowel cancer aged 48yo. The teen drama (which also launched the careers of Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams) was a major hit from 1998 to 2003, and Van Der Beek went on to star in Varsity Blues, Rules of Attraction, and the sitcom Don’t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23. Fellow stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Chad Michael Murray paid tribute, as did Holmes in a handwritten letter - and actor Paul Walter Hauser said he’d help to raise funds for Van Der Beek’s family. Just on that, Van Der Beek’s widow Kimberley has launched a GoFundMe page, saying the cost of his treatment has left her and their 6 children with “an uncertain future”.

A bumpy road to the top

Cooper Woods blitzed the field in the men’s ski mogul final last night to win Australia’s first gold medal at the Milano-Cortina Olympics - and our seventh at a winter Games. After the race, the 25yo said he “had no words”, but he later found a few for his medal, describing it as “a pretty nice looking beer coaster”. Aussies Matt Graham and Jackson Harvey finished 5th and 8th respectively, but it’s not the last we'll be seeing of our mogul skiers - they’re competing in the new sport of dual moguls (where 2 freestyle skiers race head-to-head) from 8.30pm AEDT tomorrow night… Also in action tomorrow (but a lot earlier…) are snowboarders Scotty James and Valentino Guseli in the men’s halfpipe final from 5.30am AEDT. All up, a big weekend ahead. Here’s a handy guide to who’s on and when. C’mon…

Questions to love

Forget eyes meeting across a crowded room or simply swiping right - 36 increasingly personal questions is all it takes for strangers to feel closer or even fall in love, according to US psychologist Arthur Aron. To give you a taste, the questions include extreme icebreakers like: What was an embarrassing moment for you, and when did you last cry in front of someone…? Aron came up with the set in the '90s, but the theory was back doing the rounds this week ahead of Valentine's Day. The idea is simple enough: as the questions become more intimate, bonds are formed. And while love isn’t guaranteed, researchers say the prompts can also deepen friendly and professional relationships. Who doesn’t love an inquisition on the year’s most romantic day?

Friday Lites - 3 things we liked this week

In case you didn’t guess, we’ve got a case of winter Olympics fever - and snowboarder Scotty James has quite a bit to do with it… His Netflix doco Pipe Dream is a great watch that follows his career from the Yarra Valley to the Milano-Cortina Games, where he’s going for gold tomorrow morning…

We enjoyed listening to Margot Robbie on Table Manners, where she drops gems like if she had a cookbook, it’d be called Bogan’s Delight and include the dinners she grew up with, like rissoles and mash, bangers and mash, and spag bol. You can take the girl out of the Goldie…

The Year of the Horse is nearly here, symbolising energy and momentum, so in that spirit, we’ve got a game changer in the form of Marion Grasby’s baked dumplings. They’ll even impress a special someone if you’re cooking on Valentine’s Day - and a gift to you: one pan…

Squiz the Day

Friday
7.30am (AEDT) - PM Anthony Albanese and our Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd will attend an event to mark the 18th anniversary of the apology to Indigenous Australians - Canberra

9.00am (AEDT) - A Liberal party room meeting is being held to vote on a leadership spill, with Angus Taylor set to challenge current leader Sussan Ley - Canberra 

4.30pm (AEDT) - Cricket: Men's T20 World Cup, Australia v Zimbabwe at R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium - Sri Lanka, watch on Amazon Prime

First day of Mardi Gras, Sydney’s annual LGBT+ festival (on until 1 March) - Sydney

Day one of the Munich Security Conference (until 15 February). It’s a gathering of the world’s top security officials and academics, including more than 50 heads of state and government. You can learn more about the conference in this BBC article - Munich, Germany

World Radio Day - it’s a day to thank broadcasters for the news they deliver, the voices they amplify and the stories they share… you’re welcome.  

Cochlear first-half financial results

National Apology Day

A birthday for singer Robbie Williams (1974) and Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams (2001)

Anniversary of:

• the start of the bombing of Dresden by Allied forces (1945)

• British boy band Take That officially announcing that they are disbanding, prompting the UK Government to set up counselling phone lines (1996)

• the National Apology to the Stolen Generations (2008)

Saturday
5.30am (AEDT) - Winter Olympics: Aussie Scotty James and Valentino Guseli are going for gold in the men's halfpipe final - Italy, watch on 9Now

10.30am (AEDT) - National Commemorative Service: 75th anniversary of National Service (conscription) 1951-1972 during the Cold War - Canberra

1.00pm (AWST) - Basketball: WNBL semi final series Perth Lynx v Bendigo Spirit, Perth High Performance Centre - Perth, watch on 9now 

6.30pm (AEDT) - All Elite Wrestling Grand Slam at Qudos Bank Arena - Sydney 

4.40pm (AWST) - AFL: State of Origin Western Australia v Victoria at Optus Stadium - Perth, watch on Kayo

4.00pm (AWST) - Athletics: Perth Track Classic at WA Athletics Stadium - Perth, watch on 7plus 

Iranian-Australian community global day of action - nationwide protests expected to stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and condemn the actions of the regime

Melbourne Fashion Festival begins (until 28 February) - you can see the program schedule here...   

Hilltop Hoods kick off their national Never Coming Home tour in Hobart 

💘 Valentine's Day

Birthdays for billionaire Michael Bloomberg (1942), actor Simon Pegg (1970) and cyclist Cadel Evans (1977)

Anniversary of:

• the death of Captain James Cook (1779)

• the release of the original Dracula film starring Bela Lugosi (1931)

• the patenting of the first microchip (called "micro on a chip") by Texas Instruments (1978)

• the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, which prompted widespread protests against gun violence in the US (2018)

Sunday
5.45am (AEDT) - Motorsport: Bathurst 12-Hour Race, at the Mount Panorama Circuit - Bathurst, watch it on 7plus

1.30pm (AEDT) - Women’s Rugby League: Aotearoa New Zealand Māori All Stars vs Australian Indigenous Women’s All Stars at FMG Stadium/Waikato Stadium - New Zealand, watch on 9now

3.45pm (AEDT) - Men’s Rugby League: Aotearoa New Zealand Māori All Stars vs Australian Indigenous men's All Stars at FMG Stadium/Waikato Stadium - New Zealand, watch on 9now

4.00pm (AEST) - Basketball: WNBL semi-final series Townsville Fire v Southside Melbourne Flyers at Townsville Entertainment and Convention Centre - Townsville, watch on 9now 

7.15pm (AEDT) - Cricket: Women's T20I, Australia v India (until 21 February) at SCG, Sydney, watch on 7plus

Spirit Awards - Actress and comedian Ego Nwodim will host

Nirvana Day - annual Buddhist festival that remembers the death of the Buddha when he reached Nirvana at the age of 80

International Childhood Cancer Day 

A birthday for Simpsons creator Matt Groening (1954), rapper Megan Thee Stallion (1995), video platform YouTube (2005)

Anniversary of:

• the birthdays of the 'father of science' Galileo Galilei (1564), and women's suffrage leader Susan B Anthony (1820)

• the production of the wartime propaganda poster "We Can Do It!" featuring Rosie the Riveter (1943)

• the first draft of the complete human genome is published in Nature (2001)