Thursday, 29 August - Let’s get loud

Good morning, it’s Thursday, 29 August. In your Squiz Today…

• The Paralympics begin in Paris

• An Israeli hostage makes it home

• And the robo-chefs are coming… 🤖

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Aussie tennis “part-timer” Thanasi Kokkinakis who has secured the biggest win of his career at a grand slam by beating 11th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas to progress to the second round of the US Open. They only played for almost 4 hours in extreme heat, so who knows what he’s on about…

Pumped for the Paralympics

The Squiz

All eyes are back on the French capital as the Paralympics kicked off this morning with another stunning outdoor opening ceremony in central Paris. This time, the athletes weren’t sailing down the Seine, but nearly 4,400 of them from 164 nations paraded down the iconic Champs-Elysées before culminating at the iconic Place de la Concorde in front of 65,000 spectators. Leading our delegation as flagbearers were veteran para-athlete Madison de Rozario and para-swimmer Brenden Hall, both competing in their fifth Paralympics.

Give me the lowdown… 

It’s the first time France has hosted a Paralympics and it will be similar to the Olympics, with many of the iconic venues being repurposed over 11 days of competition. That includes the Grand Palais (aka the exhibition building with the glass roof) for Wheelchair Fencing and Para-taekwondo, the Equestrian events will be in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, and the Blind Football will be played in front of the Eiffel Tower. And hold your nose while upping the preventative antibiotics - the “stinky Seine” could strike again as the Para-triathlon will be held in the grey waters we came to know earlier this month… And for the Aussies who make it to the medals, they’ll win prize money for the first time, with $20,000 going for a gold. That brings competitors into line with Olympians after the Aussie Government decided to chip in. 

Who am I watching out for?

We’ll have 160 para-athletes competing in 17 events, including big names like Wheelchair Racing champ Angie Ballard who’ll make her seventh appearance, and Para-athletics competitor Jaryd Clifford who’s hungry for gold after taking 2 silver and a bronze medal in Tokyo. There are great expectations for our swimmers once again, with 30 of our finest taking to the pool… They include 3-time gold medallist Brenden Hall, Alexa Leary, Ahmed Kelly and Grant Patterson. And with day one of the competition featuring medal events in Para-Cycling and Para-Swimming, we could soon feel the gold rush... Also look out for the preliminary mixed-gender Wheelchair Rugby (aka “murderball”...) with Australia taking on Great Britain at 7.30pm Aussie Eastern time tonight. All the action is on Nine.

Celebrate everyday heroes

Fun fact: Westfield’s Local Heroes grants program is in its 7th year. That means there’s a huge list of alumni doing great things in their local communities as volunteers and leaders, welfare service providers, first responders, essential workers, health and medical experts, teachers, environmentalists, innovators, business people and social entrepreneurs. Impressive, huh… This year’s finalists (who are in the running for $30,000 worth of grants at their Westfield destination…) have been picked so it’s time to get voting at westfield.com.au/local-heroes

Squiz the Rest

Israeli raids on the West Bank - and a hostage makes it home

At least 9 Palestinians have been killed in raids and strikes by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on the West Bank overnight, Palestinian authorities say. Israeli forces said the move into the Palestinian-occupied area was a “counterterrorism operation” and that they’d killed “armed terrorists”. It comes a day after the IDF rescued 52yo Israeli hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi from a tunnel in Gaza after he was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October. Speaking to reporters, Alkadi said he asked PM Benjamin Netanyahu on a phone call to bring an end to the war so the hostages can be released. “It does not matter if they are Arab or Jewish, all have a family waiting for them. They also want to feel the joy”, he said. Reports about how Alkadi got out are mixed, but footage shows him being reunited with his family. His brother Hatem said “I can’t explain the feeling. It’s like being born again”. 

A new move against Trump

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has aired his frustrations about a revised federal indictment that’s been filed against him, calling it a “travesty”. You can read up here, but it’s related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. To summarise - the US Justice Department has updated its allegations against him in a bid to keep the case alive after the Supreme Court ruled last month that former presidents are broadly immune from criminal prosecution. The fresh indictment relates to Trump’s actions as a political candidate rather than as the leader of the nation. And on the other side of the race, Democratic presidential hopeful/current VP Kamala Harris and her VP pick Tim Walz have locked in their first media interview… It’s with CNN and it’ll air at 11am AEST tomorrow.

A Kiwi-shaped hit…

It was Woolworths’ turn to share its earnings for the last financial year yesterday, and the big takeaway was that its net profits fell to $108 million - a 93% drop on the previous year. That’s down to a $1.5 billion loss racked up by its Kiwi supermarkets. Analysts point out that if it hadn’t been for the issues across the ditch, the company would have posted a $1.7 billion profit. Outgoing boss Brad Banducci was asked about supermarket prices and inflation - a topic of conversation yesterday after new inflation data showed it’s fallen to 3.5%. For the retailer, Banducci said average prices have declined compared to the prior year. So what’s he going to do after finishing up next week? He’s going to work the checkouts in Western Sydney for a few weeks. “There’s something nice in the circularity of it,” he told the Financial Review (paywall)… 

An early start to the fire season

After the unseasonably hot weather in parts of Australia this week - leading to the hottest August day in Sydney in 7 years yesterday - residents in the city’s southwest got an early fire season preview… About 80 firefighters were called to a blaze that threatened homes at Horningsea Park yesterday afternoon but they managed to bring it under control. The Bureau of Meteorology's Angus Hines said the mercury climbed to 28.1C at lunchtime in the CBD - and that, combined with high winds, meant Sydney and the Illawarra’s fire danger ratings were high. “It is very windy, very warm, very sunny – all the things that contribute to fire danger,” Hines said. Further south, strong winds caused damage to buildings and infrastructure in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. That cold front is now on its way north…

Robots making salad chop chop

London is often at the forefront of new culinary trends, where reports say robot chefs are set to take over… That’s thanks to restaurant/tech start-up Kaikaku which has raised $2.5 million for its futuristic concept. Using a system called ‘Fusion’, bowls move along a conveyor belt, gradually filling up with ingredients before a final squirt of sauce - in under 10 seconds flat. It conjures images of a robotic Swedish chef for us, but apparently, it’s all very precise… Unlike other robot-run restaurants around the world, Kaikaku’s founders insist it’ll free up human workers to focus on customer service - and they reckon robots can quickly learn to cook complex dishes. But not everyone’s ready to tuck in… Human chef Dominic Chapman says it omits “love and care” and is another example of people jumping on the AI bandwagon “trying too hard”. Maybe he’s watched too much Westworld…

Apropos of Nothing

British businessman John Sainsbury is laughing from beyond the grave after a note he hid in 1990 inside a false column he objected to in London’s National Gallery has been found. Builders were surprised to discover the letter thanking them for demolishing the “unnecessary” pillar…

Melbourne’s famous Collins Street peregrine falcons are back with a female laying the first egg of the new breeding season. A webcam of the ledge-dwellers made them social media stars, with the live stream continuing to attract viewers 30 years after the birds first settled in.

And speaking of social media stars… TikTokker Jools Lebron - who coined the platform’s viral ‘very demure, very mindful’ catchphrase - is locked in a legal battle after Washington state man Jefferson Bates beat them to trademarking the expression. A lawsuit is now underway…

Squiz the Day

4.00am (AEST) - Grab your green and gold again, the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games begin (on until 8 September)

8.30am (AEST) - The Daily Telegraph's National Bush Summit - Orange, NSW

9.00am (AEST) - The Tourism & Transport Forum’s Leadership Qld: Tourism, Aviation and Transport Summit 2024 - Brisbane

9.15am (AEST) - The CEOs of CommBank and Westpac to appear before a parliamentary committee’s review of the big 4 banks - Canberra

11.10am (AEST) Julia Gillard to speak at a Women in Leadership Summit  - online

Company results -  Wesfarmers, Qantas, Atlas Arteria, Southern Cross Media Group 

International Day Against Nuclear Tests 

Birthdays for Lea Michele (1986) and Liam Payne (1993)

Anniversary of:

• Great Britain and China signing the Treaty of Nanking, ending the Opium War (1842)

• the founding of Netflix by Californians Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings as an online DVD rental business (1997)

• Hurricane Katrina hitting the US city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, ultimately killing 1,800 people (2005)