Monday, 12 October - Heavy, California, on the levee, can't afford you

Good morning, it’s Monday, 12 October. In your Squiz Today…

• Donald Trump announces an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine

• The Firmus float falls over

• And get ready for the Pumpkin Weigh-Off World Champs… 🎃

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🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Andrew Williams, Anna Pykett, Larissa Huntington and Sophie Felice

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said driver Anton De Pasquale after his car ran out of fuel on the final lap of the Bathurst 1000, allowing Brodie Kostecki to win the famous Aussie race for the Dick Johnson Racing team. A good reminder that empty tanks at awkward times happen to the best of us…

Truce and consequences

The Squiz

The rollercoaster ride that is US President Donald Trump’s position in the Russia/Ukraine war has had an especially eventful few days… Over the weekend, he struck a diesel deal with Russia, told Ukraine to get a new president, and now he’s announced an “energy ceasefire” between the 2 countries. That last announcement seems to have caught Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by surprise - he told US news outlet Axios that it was “news to me”, but has since said that he supports it - and has called on Russia to do the same. No word from the Russians yet…

Whoa, catch me up

Yeah, it’s been a lot… On Saturday, Trump announced that the US would suspend restrictions on Russian diesel exports until April next year (which could mean more money to help Russia fund its side of the war). It’s a big change from a few weeks back, when Trump signed a bill that would punish other countries that bought sanctioned Russian oil. A US official told the media that Trump’s change of heart came after Ukraine ignored the US’s requests to stop striking Russian oil refineries - strikes aimed at hurting Russia’s war funding, but which Trump reckons were also keeping diesel prices high both in the US and around the world. Zelensky wasn’t happy with the US/Russia deal - he said it was “a sign of weakness” from Trump. And you can probably imagine how that went down…

Lemme guess, poorly?

Poorly - Trump criticised Zelensky, claimed that he’d refused to make a deal and said “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president”. But then this morning, Trump posted that “effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the war between Russia and Ukraine.” While details are scarce, it came an hour after Zelensky told US media that Ukraine would stop hitting Russia’s refineries if Russia stopped hitting his country’s energy infrastructure. But we’ve been here before - back on 14 September, Trump announced a similar truce that didn’t stick. One other bit of context - fuel prices are high in the US right now, so Trump is under pressure to bring them down with the US midterm elections coming up. Some analysts have noted that the initial diesel deal is unlikely to do that in the short term, with the wars in the Middle East having a bigger impact. And speaking of which…

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Squiz the Rest

Missile strikes have hit Riyadh airport

All flights to and from the Saudi Arabian capital have been suspended or diverted after it was struck by a missile on Saturday that killed 12 people and injured 300 more. The Iran-backed Houthi militant group (which the Oz government lists as a terrorist organisation) claimed responsibility for the strike, one of 4 hits on the same airport in the last week. This followed Saudi Arabia joining the government of Yemen in launching airstrikes against the Houthis, which the Yemeni government is trying to expel from the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea, a crucial shipping lane (similar to the Strait of Hormuz). The Oz government is warning Aussies not to travel to Riyadh’s airport, and several major oil company execs have pulled out of an oil summit the capital was set to host this week.

C-PACking a punch

Coalition leader Angus Taylor became the first sitting opposition leader to address the Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane at the weekend - and copped a broadside from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson for his trouble. Taylor used his speech to have a crack at past Coalition governments for their policies on net zero and immigration, but that mea culpa didn’t earn him any favours from Hanson, who called him a “smarmy management consultant” - but she did also say she’d work with the Coalition if it was in a position to govern after the next election. According to those on the ground, Hanson was much more popular among the crowd than Taylor, but the latest Newspoll shows that One Nation’s primary vote is down. In fact, for the first time in the poll’s history, Labor, the Coalition and One Nation’s primary vote are all sitting in the 20s.

Firmus co-founder Oliver Curtis has been speaking…

… after what was supposed to be the second-largest float in Oz history fell apart last week. To rewind - Firmus is an Aussie company that builds and runs data centres, and there was a lot of hype around its plan to list on the ASX, with a value around $44 billion. But a chunk of that value hinged on sites that don’t exist yet - think of it like listing a restaurant that hasn’t been built yet, valued on bookings it hopes to get. The IPO (initial public offering) got shelved after investors got cold feet - with some suggesting its $11 share offer price was too high. Curtis has told The Australian his business is in a “perfectly good position” and it was “a missed opportunity for Australia”. Reports say Firmus is now pursuing further private funding, with plans to list on the Nasdaq next year.

Aussie football’s Cinderella story

The old sports cliché got a good run on Saturday night at AAMI Park, when second-tier club South Melbourne defeated multi-time A-League champions Melbourne Victory in a penalty shootout to win the Australia Cup. The Australia Cup is a knockout tournament based on England’s FA Cup, where a whole range of local clubs - not just the elites in the A-League - can have a crack at winning. But it’s only ever been won by A-League teams - until Saturday night. For South Melbourne, which missed out on a A-League spot to the Victory when the league began in 2005, it’s a bit of sweet revenge as well - and it did it in front of 29,911 fans, the largest-ever crowd for any sport at that venue. It all makes quite the entrée for the kick-off of the A-League season, which is this Friday, 16 October.

Goodbye fat bears, hello plump pumpkins

Look, maybe we’re just searching for something to replace the hole in our hearts left by the end of Fat Bear Week, but this other weight-based competition caught our eye - the World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. It’s known as the Super Bowl of Weigh-Offs, and competitors bring their ginormous gourds to the Californian town of Half Moon Bay,  where they compete for the title of the most sizeable squash. Last year’s winner was Brandon Dawson and his almost-1,100kg monster pumpkin, which is as heavy as a small car. The whole shebang kicks off at 1am AEDT tomorrow, and if you’re up late and fancy perusing some pumpkins, there’s even a livestream…

Apropos of Nothing

A group of 186 fashion-forward types gathered in Hobart on Saturday to try set a record for the most Tassie tuxedos (a black puffer jacket, basically - it’s cold there) in one place. We say ‘set’ and not ‘break’ because perhaps unsurprisingly, no previous record is known to exist… 

Jumping over the Bass Strait, and here’s one for the anthomaniacs (that’s someone who loves flowers) - the Tesselaar Tulip Festival in the Victorian town of Silvan has just wound up, and here’s a gallery of some of the floral fun…

And for a much longer trip now, let’s cross the Nullarbor to the Western Oz town of Nannup, where the Gravel Cycling World Champs took place over the weekend. Competitors race across kilometres of gravel, giving a whole new meaning to crunch time…

Squiz the Day

Senate and House sitting in the Federal Parliament 

6.00am (AEDT) Rock band Powderfinger is expected to announce details of its upcoming reunion tour, set to begin September next year

9.30am (AEDT) - Mention for former Liberal senator Greg Mirabella on assault-related charges - Wangaratta 

9.00am (AWST) - Committal mention for 68yo Glenda Joy McGregor, charged alongside author Craig Silvey over child exploitation material - Perth 

12.30pm (AEDT) - RSL Australia President Peter Tinley to address the National Press Club on 'The Missing Line of Defence: The Duty Nobody Holds' - Canberra, watch on ABC iView 

2.00pm (AEDT) - Cricket: Men's One Day Cup Victoria v South Australia - Melbourne, watch on Kayo 

8.45pm (AEDT) - Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel announced - Stockholm, watch the livestream on YouTube 

IMF and World Bank annual meetings (until 18 October) - Bangkok

School returns in South Australia and Western Australia for term 4 

Spain’s National Day

Independence Day in Equatorial Guinea

World Arthritis Day

Birthdays for actors Hugh Jackman (1968) and Josh Hutcherson (1992)

Anniversary of:

• the first Oktoberfest, when the Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen (1810)

• Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh begins selling raincoats (macs) after patenting them (1823)

• The Day of Six Billion: when the 6 billionth human in the world was born (1999)

• the Bali terrorist attacks that killed 202 people – including 88 Australians (2002)

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