Thursday, 20 March - I'm beautiful in my way

March 20, 2025

Good morning, it’s Thursday, 20 March. In your Squiz Today…

  • NASA astronauts Butch and Suni are back on Earth

  • Cheaper PBS meds are coming our way

  • And the ‘world’s ugliest animal’ gets a new crown…

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

“It’s still a bronze in my head. It’s still a bronze in my heart."

Said US gymnast Jordan Chiles, revealing she still has a bronze medal from the Paris Olympics in her possession, despite the fact an appeal from the Romanian team bumped her down to fifth. She’s now appealing the appeal - this is a story with lots of twists and turns…

A seaside splashdown

The Squiz

After more than 9 months far, far away, NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams are getting their feet back under them on Earth. The pair had left the International Space Station (also known as the ISS) 17 hours earlier with their colleagues, Aleksandr Gorbunov and Nick Hague, and splashed down off the coast of Florida just before 9am yesterday. After being stranded in space for so long, there was a lot of fanfare to welcome them home - media, live streams, and even a pod of dolphins. After landing, Hague told mission control that everyone onboard was “grinning ear to ear”.

Remind me what happened…

It’s a whole saga, but to summarise: Butch and Suni left for an 8-day mission on 5 June. It was the first astronaut-crewed flight of a Boeing Starliner capsule to the ISS, but the spacecraft ran into difficulties early on - so to keep the 2 astronauts safe, NASA ended up flying the capsule home unmanned. As for why it took so long to get Butch and Suni home, it’s because space travel isn’t like an international flight schedule - there aren’t a lot of seats available on spacecraft to and from Earth. A couple were freed up on a 4-person SpaceX Dragon Capsule, and the rest is history. They weren’t twiddling their thumbs while they waited on the ISS either - you can get a glimpse into what their days looked like here.

So that’s it, then…

Not quite. Butch and Suni’s mission is complete, but the broader space race between big players like China, Russia, and the US is still up and running… You can read up on it here, but essentially, the emergence of commercial ventures - such as Boeing and Elon Musk’s SpaceX - has made space missions cheaper. That’s made space (ahem…) for agencies to get cracking on more lunar exploration, infrastructure planning and resource extraction - so missions like Butch and Suni’s are considered integral to that. As for the astronauts in question, they headed back to NASA’s space centre in Houston for a debrief before they were reunited with their families - and experts say they have a long road ahead of them to recover physically and mentally from their journey.

If you want to know more about Butch and Suni’s mission and their time on the ISS, you might enjoy our Squiz Shortcut - and here’s a link to listen to the pod version…

A dinner worth budgeting for

With the federal election coming up fast, you might be keen to hear from some big names in policymaking at Future Women's Federal Budget Dinner in Canberra. Senator Katy Gallagher will lead the event, joined by Grattan Institute CEO Aruna Sathanapally, Deloitte's Sruthi Srikanthan, and MP Zoe McKenzie. They'll be discussing all things policy and current economic trends. To nab your seat, visit events.futurewomen.com.

Squiz the Rest

Another ceasefire is up in the air

Less than a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said his military would stop targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, the 2 warring nations have launched airstrikes on each others’ energy sites. Putin made that commitment during a phone call with US President Donald Trump, but refused the full 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine agreed to last week - unless international support for Ukraine’s military, including from the US, is cut off. That’s something Ukraine’s allies have already ruled out… Despite yesterday’s sparring, the partial ceasefire was confirmed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after an hour-long call with Trump - first time the 2 have spoken since their blowup in the Oval Office. Zelensky said he’s instructed his teams to implement the plan and that he believes “lasting peace can be achieved this year”. 

A pill for the hip pocket

Medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) will cost no more than $25 if Labor is re-elected, PM Anthony Albanese has promised - and the Coalition says it'll match the policy. The latest election sweetener - to begin next year - would cut the cost of meds listed on the PBS from $31.60, saving Aussies $786 million over 4 years and costing taxpayers $690 million. It comes as US President Donald Trump has our pharma industry next in his sights for tariffs. We'll cover this further in a Squiz Shortcut later today, but essentially, US medical companies view our PBS as a trade barrier forcing down what they can charge, and they're pushing for the Trump administration to impose retaliatory tariffs. But the PM says he's "got Aussies' backs" and that health is a major plank of the government's cost of living focus.

An Aussie link to the JFK assassination… 

…has come out of a batch of declassified files released by the US government yesterday. Quick refresher first: President John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in 1963, though many people believe there’s more to that story. The 80,000 pages released have already turned up a few tidbits, including an exchange in 1968 between the former Australian head of ASIO Charles Spry and the CIA. In the files, Spry asks to keep some anonymous calls made to the US Embassy in Canberra a secret. All we know about those calls is that they were about an assassination, and some were made before Kennedy was killed. Why they needed to be secret is TBC, but there are 80,000 pages to go through, so watch this space… 

The mystery of the missing Netflix show

You may have come across the odd person who seems to get paid for doing nothing, but they’d struggle to hold a candle to Hollywood director Carl Erik Rinsch. Rinsch was paid over $17 million by Netflix to make a sci-fi show called White Horse, but it proved to be more of a white elephant, as the show never eventuated. Instead, Rinsch allegedly spent the money on, well, himself… At the start of his trial this week, prosecutors claimed the cash went on failed investments, antiques, 5 Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari - and legal fees to sue Netflix, funnily enough. Rinsch has only directed one major film - the 2013 Keanu Reeves-starring box office flop 47 Ronin - and he might struggle to get financing for another one anytime soon… 

Blob’s your uncle

Talk about a glow-up… the humble blobfish, once described as the world’s ugliest animal, has taken out New Zealand’s fish of the year competition. The comp aims to help raise awareness of the country's marine life, and it's the blobfish that will be the face of those efforts going forward. If you haven't had the pleasure, blobfish are usually about the size of a standard ruler and live right down on the sea bed. Here's the thing though - they look normal when they're in the water - it's only when they're brought to the surface in a rush that they end up looking like this. And spare a thought for the poor old orange roughy, which won the $10 for coming second in the fish beauty contest. That’s gotta sting… 

Apropos of Nothing - Winning entertainment edition

Nearly 30 years after the original, Happy Gilmore 2 is on its way to Netflix this year - star Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen and Christopher McDonald (that’s Shooter McGavin to you) are all back, and a stack of pro golfers will be making cameos as well. It’ll be out on 25 July.

Reviews are coming in for a new book in The Hunger Games series… Sunrise on the Reaping, is a prequel about the character Haymitch Abernathy, and critics reckon it's pretty good but perhaps unsurprisingly for a book series about child murder tournaments, also pretty grim… 

30 Rock star Tracy Morgan says he’s on the improve after being violently ill while sitting courtside at a New York Knicks game - be very wary of coming across that footage online. Morgan joked the Knicks got the win, so maybe he should throw up in the middle of games more often…

Squiz the Day

9.30am (AEDT) - Beau Lamarre-Condon (the former police officer accused of murdering Jesse Baird and Luke Davies) is due back in court - Sydney

10.45am (AEDT) - Coalition leader Peter Dutton is set to address the Lowy Institute on the coalition’s foreign policy agenda - Sydney

8.10pm (AEDT) - Soccer: Socceroos v Indonesia in a World Cup qualifier - Sydney, and watch on 10Play

Disney's much-discussed live-action movie Snow White is set to premiere in Aussie cinemas

ABS data release - Labour force, February; Population, September; Tourism, December

National Close the Gap Day

Nowruz (Persian) New Year

International Astrology Day

UN French Language Day

Birthdays for Aussie author David Malouf (1934), film director Spike Lee (1957), actor Holly Hunter (1958), and Aussie model/actor Ruby Rose (1986)

Anniversary of:

  • the founding of restaurant chain KFC (1930)

  • the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono (1969), and David and Angie Bowie (1970)

  • Oz closing the international border amid the COVID-19 pandemic (2020)

  • the deaths of Malcolm Fraser (2015) and Kenny Rogers (2020)