Monday, 15 September - Sisters are doin' it for themselves

Good morning, it’s Monday, 15 September. In your Squiz Today…

• The Albanese Government earmarks billions of dollars for defence

• An arrest in the Charlie Kirk assassination

• And David Bowie’s favourite tracks…

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Emmys host Nate Bargatze, explaining his unique approach to keeping award speeches short for this morning’s ceremony - docking cash from a planned $100,000 charitable donation. Thankfully, Oscars record-holder Adrien Brody is not nominated…

No sub-liminal messaging

The Squiz

Another week, another defence spending announcement from the Albanese Government - this time $12 billion for a hub south of Perth. The Henderson Defence Precinct will be used partly as a spot where the nuclear-powered submarines Oz is buying under the AUKUS agreement can be docked and maintained. This investment is just the start - the precinct will cost $25 billion all up - and follows last week’s $1.7 billion commitment to ‘ghost shark’ submarines.

What are the details?

Quick refresher: under AUKUS - the defence pact between Oz, the UK and the US - we will buy 3 subs from the US, and 5 from the UK. Those subs will be nuclear-powered, so they'll need some special facilities that we'll have to build. On top of that, the government says the US is welcome to use it to look after its subs operating in the Indo-Pacific region, too. But it all depends on the US still being on board with the idea of AUKUS in the first place... It's currently reviewing the agreement and would like to see Oz up its defence spending by quite a bit. Asked if the recent cash splashes had anything to do with keeping things sweet with the US, Defence Minister Richard Marles said nope, this was “an announcement for Australia”, though he did note the US would likely welcome it.  

So will the US stay on board?

We don't know for sure, but the Washington Post is reporting (paywall) that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave Marles a heads-up that AUKUS was mostly all good... The next step in locking this in is a face-to-face meeting between Albanese and US President Donald Trump, which might happen next week at the UN General Assembly in New York. Before that, both men have some jet-setting on the cards - this week, Trump is making a state visit to the UK, which saw massive anti-immigration protests on the weekend. And Albanese is heading to Papua New Guinea today, where he’s set to sign a security treaty. We’ll see if he has better luck with this than last week’s planned security agreement with Vanuatu, which fell at the final hurdle... 

Jetting all over the joint?

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Squiz the Rest

Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer has been arrested…

He’s been named as 22yo Tyler Robinson, a resident of Utah - the US state where he’s accused of shooting Kirk, a right-wing commentator, at a college campus mid-last week. You can find out more about Robinson here, but to catch you up, he was arrested by authorities following an intense manhunt involving the FBI, but was only caught after a tip-off from his father. Reports say that Robinson's dad recognised his son in CCTV footage from the shooting and confronted him. Robinson allegedly refused to turn himself in at first, but eventually agreed. He's expected to be formally charged in the coming days, but for now, he’s being held in custody without bail, and reports say he isn’t cooperating with police and hasn't confessed to the shooting. 

The ALP notches a win

NSW Labor’s Katelin McInerney has claimed victory in the Kiama by-election over the weekend - and she clinched it by quite a bit, winning more than 60% of the 2-party preferred vote. The by-election was called for Kiama, an electorate more than 130km south of Sydney, after the former local MP, Liberal-turned-Independent, Gareth Ward, was convicted of sexual and indecent assault in July. It’s been noted in some reports that it’s uncommon for a state government to gain a seat during a by-election, so Premier Chris Minns is particularly happy with McInerney’s win, saying he “views this result as an invitation to work even harder for the entire state”. As for the Liberals, candidate Serena Copley won about 40% of the vote - and there’s speculation that could spell trouble for leader Mark Speakman. The news doesn't get brighter for the Libs, with the latest Newspoll results showing support for the Coalition has fallen to an all-time low…

A koala-ty solution

Late last week, regulators approved a new vaccine for use in Australia - for koalas. The vaccine is a world-first, and it’s aimed at protecting koalas from chlamydia, which causes high levels of infertility in the endangered animals, thinning their numbers even more. The vaccine took over a decade to develop, and it’s the brainchild of Oz microbiology professor Bruce Timms. He says it’s a single-dose vaccine (no boosters for our koala friends) that will reduce chlamydia in the wild by 65% or more. But koala experts are warning that chlamydia is far from the only problem facing koalas - Deborah Tabart, the chair of the Australian Koala Foundation, said saving the habitat of the koala was a higher priority. The vaccine rollout will begin early next year - if they can catch the koalas in the first place… 

An epic finish in the NRL…

The Brisbane Broncos upset minor premiers Canberra Raiders in a final that had everything - biff, extra time, golden point and this try from Kaeo Weekes. Canberra are still alive - they’ll play Cronulla next week, but for the NZ Warriors and Sydney Roosters, it was season over. In the AFL, Gold Coast and Adelaide are both out of the finals race, leaving Brisbane, Collingwood, Geelong and Hawthorn to fight it out for the flag. It was a tough weekend for our rugby teams - the Wallaroos exited the Women’s World Cup and the Wallabies lost to Argentina. And there was no bounce-back in the tennis - our Davis Cup team went down to Belgium overnight. But it was better news for Aussie runner Jess Hull who’s made tomorrow night’s 1,500m final at the World Athletics Champs in Tokyo… 

Sound and vision

We’re coming up on a decade since the death of music icon David Bowie, and a new David Bowie Centre honouring his life and work is about to open in London. And one of the exhibits reveals a bit about Bowie’s own musical taste… It features a list of Bowie’s fave bangers, and as you might expect, it’s an eclectic mix… Probably the most famous song on the list is Across the Universe by the Beatles, but there’s also some classical (Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme), jazz (Miles Davis’ Some Day My Prince Will Come and a couple of more modern tracks like Sonic Youth’s Tom Violence. So if you’re thinking of immersing yourself in the mind of a musical genius, that playlist seems like a good place to start… 

Apropos of Nothing

In Ghana, “fantasy coffins” are becoming increasingly popular as people search for unique and personalised ways to bury their loved ones. They’re hand-crafted coffins in the shapes of, well, pretty much anything, and as you can see, they get very detailed/creative…

The golfer John Daly has had a varied career - a 2-time major winner, a substantial role in Happy Gilmore 2 - and now he can add ‘worst recorded golf score’ to his CV, hitting 19 shots on the weekend playing a hole where the average is 5. A record’s a record… 

And a trio of Austrian nuns who escaped from their retirement home to return to their convent in Salzburg have rustled up a 10,000-strong Instagram following in support of their plight. They say they were told their transfer would be temporary, but after a year, the sisters stood on their own 2 feet and went home…

Squiz the Day

9.00am (AEST) - Queensland Clean Energy Summit begins, bringing together leaders from the state’s renewable energy community and solar sector (until 16 September) - Brisbane

9.00am (AEST) - The 5th World Conference of Women's Shelters starts, with over 1,000 delegates from more than 100 countries convening to share approaches to ending gender-based violence (until 18 September) - Sydney

10.00am (AEST) - The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards are on - Los Angeles, stream the ceremony here

10.00am (AEST) - The final public hearing of a NSW parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism is set to hear from Andrew Moore, an expert on right-wing extremism, and Multicultural NSW Chief Executive Joseph La Posta - Sydney

12.00 noon (AEST) - The National Tech Summit is set to hear from leaders across government, industry and investment sectors, including Chair of the Tech Council of Australia/Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar (until 17 September) - Sydney

Syria is due to hold its first parliamentary elections since President Ahmed al-Sharaa took power after ousting the Assad regime in December last year (until 20 September) - Syria

World Lymphoma Awareness Day 

Start of Dementia Action Week (until 21 September) 

International Day of Democracy (for a deeper understanding of the relationship between media literacy and democracy, check out the latest episode of our News Club series, The Big Threat…)

Independence Days for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua

World Afro Day

👑 Prince Harry’s birthday (1984)

Anniversary of:

• the birthdays of Marco Polo (1254) and Agatha Christie (1890)

• Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin (1928)

• the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games (2000)