Thursday, 26 February - Living in America

Good morning, it’s Thursday, 26 February. In your Squiz Today…

• The PM urges people to “turn the temperature down” after a security threat at The Lodge

• US President Donald Trump delivers a high-stakes State of the Union address

• And a certain Canadian cottage sparks heated rivalry online… 🔥

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said pastoralist Dennis Mannion, whose outback property near the NSW/South Oz border got a much-needed drink from heavy rainfall that’s swept across Central Australia in the past 2 days. With a year’s worth expected before the week’s out, some say the deluge is drought-breaking. Better call Marge…

Security scares prompt police probes

The Squiz

The fallout from the bomb threat at the PM’s residence in Canberra on Tuesday continued yesterday, with the revelation it was linked to a Chinese dance group with ties to a spiritual movement that’s banned in China. PM Anthony Albanese was taken to another location for several hours while Federal Police (the AFP) searched the Lodge - ultimately turning up nothing. He said it’s “a reminder to take every opportunity to tell people turn the heat down” when it comes to issues of public debate… But by yesterday afternoon, we’d also learned that Queensland Police were investigating another bomb threat made against the same group on Monday before a scheduled Gold Coast performance.

What actually happened?

In the case of the PM, police were called to the Lodge around 6pm on Tuesday after reports of an “alleged security incident”. The threat was reported by a Chinese dance and music group, Shen Yun - which is linked to the Falun Gong/Falun Dafa movement. You can read about it here, but its critics describe it and Shen Yun - which has shows in several Oz cities in the coming weeks - as a cult. Melbourne’s Chinese Embassy last month called the shows “a political tool” that “maliciously slander the Chinese government … defaming and distorting Chinese culture”. On Tuesday, Shen Yun passed a threat it had received to police… It said “large quantities of nitro-glycerine explosives” had been placed around the PM’s Lodge and “if you insist on proceeding with the performance, [it] will be blown into ruins”.

Yikes…

Yep, and while Falun Gong is no stranger to bomb threats (last year the group had one before a performance scheduled at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the US…), the AFP said nothing was found at the Lodge (or at the theatre on the Gold Coast…), and there’s no current threat to the community. Still, AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett warned last year that threats against our parliamentarians are on the rise and set up a new team to tackle them. ASIO boss Mike Burgess has also said “the aggrieved, the opportunistic and the cunning are ... are exploiting and amplifying existing discord” and we’re losing the ability to “converse with civility and debate with respect”. In November, he said: “our words matter, our decisions matter, our actions matter”.

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Squiz the Rest

Trump trots out a marathon speech

At nearly 2 hours long, yesterday’s State of the Union address from US President Donald Trump was the longest in history, besting Bill Clinton’s 2000 time by nearly 20 minutes. There were plenty of surprises, including a family reunion for a Venezuelan political prisoner and a cameo from the US men’s ice hockey team. Other notes: Trump had a crack at the Supreme Court - sitting in front of him - for knocking back his tariffs, and claimed the US was thriving economically. And he said that the US military buildup around Iran is about deterring them from developing a nuclear weapon. Just on that, the third round of talks between the 2 countries is happening in Geneva today - and with tensions rising again in the Middle East, our government has directed the families of Oz diplomats in Israel and Lebanon to leave post-haste.

Charges in the Baghsarian case

Yesterday morning, NSW police arrested a 29yo man from Kenthurst and a 24yo man from Castle Hill in Sydney’s north-west in relation to the alleged kidnapping/murder of 85yo grandfather Chris Baghsarian. As we’ve been following, Baghsarian was kidnapped on 13 February in what police say is a case of mistaken identity - the alleged culprits were trying to abduct someone linked to a major crime family, but Baghsarian has no known criminal background. The 2 suspects were charged last night with kidnapping and murder. It comes after Baghsarian’s remains were discovered by police on Tuesday. His family says they “welcome the news of the recent arrests” but are still trying to “come to terms with the incident”.  

A tough week on the jobs front

Major Oz tech logistics company Wisetech announced yesterday it’s axing 2,000 staff over 2 years, as it deals with the impact of artificial intelligence on its business. That's nearly 30% of its overall staff, with product, development and customer service roles the first to go. CEO Zubin Appoo says the changes are because "software development has experienced its most significant shift in decades". It's worth noting that WiseTech was one of the Oz tech companies whose share price plunged as part of a global selloff of software companies a couple of weeks ago, driven by new developments in AI. It follows in the job-cutting footsteps of Commonwealth Bank (300 jobs) and Optus (an estimated 200 jobs) - adding to the growing number of Oz companies changing things up as AI moves in.

A big star sparks a hoop-la

The grand finals of the Women’s National Basketball League begin tonight with the Townsville Fire taking on the Perth Lynx in a best-of-3 series. It’s been quite a remarkable season for the Lynx, who signed 211cm Chinese centre Han Xu midway through the season, and promptly won 15 of their next 17 games to make the finals. That’s not all she’s brought to the table - Lynx GM Chris Earle says Xu’s arrival has also boosted attendances and merch sales, putting the team on the brink of their first championship in 34 years. Standing in their way are the Fire, who finished top of the table and are gunning for their fifth WNBL title. But overcoming Xu and the Lynx will be (and you had to know this was coming), a tall order… You can watch Game One on 9Now at 6pm Brisbane time tonight.  

Setting up a cottage industry

If you’ve barrelled through the Canadian hockey/romance series Heated Rivalry in the last few months, you may be familiar with a certain cottage from the season finale… No great spoilers here, but it's the setting for some pivotal developments in the relationship between leads Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, and it'll soon be available to rent on Airbnb. So, for around $1030 per night (or if you’re lucky, a promo price of $248.10 Canadian as a nod to the leads’ jersey numbers), you can set up a few pivotal relationship moments of your own… Aside from its huge glass windows and “open concept kitchen”, Barlochan Cottage also features an innovative radiant heating system, which even in the chilly Canadian climate, keeps things nice and, well, heated…

Apropos of Nothing

Political news website POLITICO is making its way to our virtual shores, with a local version to open up later this year. Aussie journalist Ryan Heath is in charge of the local effort, coming nearly 20 years after the website first set up shop in the US back in 2007. Better late than never…

Longtime Oz Open chief Craig Tiley has confirmed he’s moving on after 20 years running the tennis major - he’ll be moving to the US to take on the same role with the US Open. As long as we get to keep the Happy Slam nickname - you can’t have that, America… 

And the Australian Chamber Orchestra is welcoming a remarkable piece of history into its ranks - a 416yo viola. The historic instrument will cost the ACO a tidy $3 million and it sounds so beautiful that principal viola player Stefanie Farrands says she “burst into tears” - which is what we’d do if we dropped it.

Squiz the Day

9.30am (AEDT) - A bail hearing for Greg Lynn, who’s awaiting a retrial over the high-country murder of Carol Clay, will take place in Victoria’s Supreme Court - Melbourne

9.30am (AEDT) - A hearing in a constitutional challenge to anti-protest laws brought in the wake of the Bondi Beach antisemitic terrorist attack will take place in the NSW Supreme Court - Sydney

11.00am (AEDT) - A public hearing for the Inquiry into Triple Zero outages, with particular reference to the Optus triple zero service outage of 18 September last year, is happening at Parliament House - Canberra

9.00am (AWST) - Gambling billionaire Laurence Escalante is due to return to court charged with family violence, assault, and burglary offences, Perth Magistrates Court - Perth  

6.00pm (AEST) - Basketball: WNBL Grand Final series (game one) Townsville Fire v Perth Lynx - Townsville Entertainment and Convention Centre, Townsville, watch on 9now  

Representatives from the US and Iran will meet in the third round of talks over the Iranian regime’s nuclear program - Geneva

Hillary Clinton is set to testify before the House Oversight Committee of the US Congress about her ties to billionaire financier/sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (her husband Bill is up tomorrow) - New York

ABS data release: Average weekly earnings, November; Private new capital expenditure and expected expenditure, December; Labour force (detailed), January

Qantas and Super Retail Group half-year results released

Part 2 of Bridgerton season 4 drops on Netflix

The Testament of Ann Lee starring Amanda Seyfried is released in Australian theatres

Birthdays for former Kiwi PM Helen Clark (1950), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954)

Anniversary of:

• P&O’s SS Ceylon beginning the world’s first round-the-world pleasure cruise from Liverpool (1881)

• the infamous Oscars mixup with La La Land mistakenly awarded Best Film instead of Moonlight (2017)

• Cardinal George Pell being convicted of child sexual abuse charges - later overturned on appeal (2019)