Thursday, 8 October - My hump, my hump, my hump

Good morning, it’s Thursday, 8 October. In your Squiz Today…

• A landmark court ruling could have big implications for future mining projects

• Smart glasses have been pulled from sale at Kmart

• And the latest Roo-ver is here…

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

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said cameleer Rodney Sansom, whose camel ‘Thirsty’ led a team of 32 to set an Australian record for the most camels hauling a wagon at the Good Old Days Festival in southern NSW last weekend. Sansom clearly has a way with words…

A climate of change

The Squiz

In the first judgment of its kind, the High Court of Australia yesterday sided with a local community group to block the expansion of a coal mine in NSW’s Hunter Valley. This decision was all about whether emissions from coal that’s shipped overseas and burned there should count when a mine is up for approval - and the High Court says they do. And while this case involved a mine in NSW, experts reckon it’ll change the game for all fossil fuel projects here in Oz… 

Back it up a bit…

In 2022, the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) greenlit the expansion of MACH Energy's Mount Pleasant coal mine without trying to minimise ‘downstream’ emissions - aka the ones caused by the coal after it leaves the mine. About 98% of the project’s emissions would come from coal exported and burned overseas - and it assessed that they don't count toward Australia's emissions tally. That approval was overturned by the Court of Appeal, which found the IPC should have considered how greenhouse gases from coal burned offshore could come back to bite us via extreme weather events in Oz. The matter ended up in the High Court, which yesterday upheld the appeal decision to block the mine's expansion. But the reaction has been mixed…

How has it gone down?

MACH says thousands of people in the Hunter region rely on the mine for jobs, and it'll look at options to keep it running into the future. The Minerals Council of Australia isn't happy either - it says the decision sends a negative signal to our trade partners. The Coalition and One Nation want the government to find a legal way around it if the ruling threatens our mining exports, but Environment Minister Murray Watt said it didn't automatically impact Commonwealth approvals. The decision was praised by climate groups, the Greens, and the community group at the centre of things. That's the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group, which said the court "said what we have always known: we cannot dig up coal, ship it overseas, watch it drive climate change, and then pretend the consequences have nothing to do with us and won't be felt by us".

A new partnership

Over the coming months we will be helping to explain to you the factors that are influencing the mood around the property market and why, for many of us, it can feel overwhelming. Through this partnership, we will try to help reduce that feeling by providing clear options around locations, products, price points, community benefits and how to take practical steps to get into the market.

Squiz the Rest

Christa Pike is awake

Lawyers for the death row inmate say that she’s conscious and speaking following her botched execution last week. Pike was set to be executed via lethal injection for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, but she survived 2 attempts to inject her with the drug pentobarbital - a sedative that can stop brain activity in high doses. She’s now the only known person to have survived a lethal injection in the US - while there have been botched executions before, only Pike has lived after actually being injected with the drug. The incident has caused widespread condemnation and a pause in all executions in Tennessee, and this morning Pike’s legal team is appearing in court to ensure documents and evidence from the failed execution are preserved, to figure out what went wrong. 

Sam Wood to face court on domestic violence charges

The fitness influencer and former Bachelor is due to face Maroochydore Magistrates Court today after being charged with assault occasioning bodily harm and strangulation last weekend. He was the third Bachelor on the Aussie series, where he met his partner Snezana ‘Snez’ Markoski. After his TV dating days, he co-founded Australian Life Tech, a digital fitness/nutrition app in 2016, which was bought by Melbourne company myDNA for $71 million in 2022. It now trades as 28 Group under the pharma company DBG. But since news of his arrest broke, the company has cut ties with Wood, and other fitness influencers have also distanced themselves. Wood’s lawyer says he’ll defend the charges, and he’s likely to apply for bail today.  

Smart glasses are back in focus

That’s after Kmart pulled their $89 Anko version from sale yesterday in response to an investigation into the Chinese-based software company behind the tech they use. Privacy commissioner Carly Kind announced an investigation into Shenzhen Qingcheng Future Technology, the company whose HeyCyan app is in the glasses (as well as ones sold on Big W Marketplace and Amazon) after asking for assurances that it’s protecting the personal data of Aussies. With no response, Kind has asked retailers whether they should continue selling them. The glasses sold out in a week when they were released in July, but their ability to film video without people knowing raised huge concerns over privacy in public places and led to a petition with more than 57,000 signatures. 
*If you want to know more about smart glasses and their privacy implications, we’ve got a Squiz Shortcut for you…

A penny for your pesticides 

Pesticide Action Australia released a report yesterday that found samples of fruit and veggies in Aussie supermarkets with pesticide levels above the maximum residue limit. That measure reflects good agricultural practice rather than a health threat, and nearly all detections still meet Australia’s Food Standards Code. But experts say it could point to a wider issue of illegal pesticide use by some farmers and should be looked into. Multiple government bodies are involved in the oversight of pesticide use in Australia, and the NSW Environment Protection Authority has encouraged Pesticide Action Australia to share its method and findings so it can further investigate what’s going on. 

Four small wheels, one giant leap…

The latest version of Roo-ver, Australia's first lunar rover was unveiled yesterday. It's the one that's going to help explore the moon's south pole in 2030 as part of NASA's Artemis program. It weighs about 20kg and is roughly the size of a suitcase, but it costs a bit more at $42 million smackeroos… Some fun facts about the Oz-built rover: before its big journey, it's learning how to navigate harsh environments. It has to survive temps ranging from -200C up to 150C+ and it’s being trained to climb rocks and handle large craters - all in a huge faux space sandpit. The Australian Space Agency says the moon is “essentially an analogue of what the Earth was like billions of years ago … So this will help us with things like drought, food security”.

Apropos of Nothing

Lionel Messi has played his final match for Argentina in a friendly against Benin. He scored a penalty and set up 2 other goals to win the match. Afterwards, he told the crowd: "I love all of you, and I will miss all of you. I am proud to be Argentine”. We can’t promise not to cry…

About 12 rescue kittens were taken to the aquarium for the Bitty Kitty Brigade’s annual field trip for orphaned kittens. An aquarium spokesperson said that they thought it was a “really fun, engaging thing for kittens to see”. Bet they left hungry…

And scientists have found the fossil of a crocodile species that hung out in the sea over what is now Egypt around 45 million years ago. It was found in the same bedrock that built the Great Sphinx, and the croc skull is also missing the tip of its nose - snap…

Squiz the Day

US President Donald Trump says he’s lining up a discussion with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin today about the death of a lab worker at a plague research centre in Siberia

9.30am (AEST) - Bail application for fitness influencer and former Bachelor star Sam Wood who’s charged with domestic violence offences - Maroochydore, Queensland

9.00am (AEDT) - Realestate.com owner REA Group’s AGM 

10.30am (AEDT) - Cricket: Sheffield Shield round one NSW v Tasmanian Tigers (until 11 October) - Sydney, watch on Kayo 

10.30am (AWST) - Cricket: Sheffield Shield round one Western Australia v Queensland Bulls (until 11 October) - Perth, watch on Kayo 

10.00pm (AEDT) - Nobel Prize in Literature announced - Stockholm, watch the live stream on YouTube

Motorsport: Supercars Championship Bathurst 1000, the final round of the Enduro Cup - Bathurst (until 11 October), watch on 7plus

The Social Reckoning will hit Aussie theatres 

International Lesbian Day

🐙 World Octopus Day

World Sight Day

Birthdays for Aussie actor Paul Hogan (1939), actor Matt Damon (1970) and singer Bruno Mars (1985)

Anniversary of:

• America's deadliest wildfire that claimed more than 1,200 lives in Peshtigo, Wisconsin (1871)

• the Second Opium War beginning that pitted the British and French Empires against the Qing dynasty of China (1856)

• the patent being filed for the microwave oven (1945)

• the release of John Lennon's album Imagine (1971)

Friday 
12.00am (AEDT) - Former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's High Court hearing on the legality of the search warrants used at Sandringham and at Royal Lodge in Windsor relating to his arrest in February - London

Housekeeping

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