Tuesday, 21 October - You’ve been struck by a smooth criminal

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, 21 October. In your Squiz Today…

• Oz and the US have signed a critical minerals deal after the PM’s meeting with President Trump

• A huge Amazon outage has put dozens of major websites, games and apps out of action

• And more details about the Louvre jewel heist…

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Oz swimmer Kaylee McKeown after she set a world short-course record with 1:57.87 in the 200m backstroke at the Swimming World Cup in the US - a day after Mollie O’Callaghan did the same in the 200m freestyle. That’s one way to turn a bad week around…

All smiles on the White House front…

The Squiz

PM Anthony Albanese’s long-awaited meeting with US President Donald Trump has gone mostly swimmingly, with the 2 leaders signing a rare earths/critical minerals agreement this morning. Albanese said Oz and the US were “great friends and great allies” and praised Trump for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, while Trump said the PM had been doing a “fantastic job” and it was “a great honour” to have him in the States. Plus, the PM invited Trump to visit Australia next September, and Trump said he’s considering it… 

What was discussed?

The critical minerals deal was the big ticket - Albanese said it was a multi-billion dollar deal that will involve joint investments between Australia, the US and Japan into projects in Australia. The critical minerals issue has caused trade trouble between the US and China over the last couple of weeks after China put restrictions on its exports - which upset Trump - and the President said this deal would provide the US with “so much critical minerals and rare earths you won’t know what to do with them”. Trump was also asked about AUKUS - the defence agreement between Australia, the UK and the US, which the latter has been reviewing. While no definitive announcement was made, Trump said it was all “moving along very rapidly” and guaranteed that Oz would get the nuclear subs it’s owed under the agreement.

So, all sunshine and rainbows?

Not quite… While things were all hunky-dory between the PM and Trump, it was a bit less cordial between Trump and Oz Ambassador Kevin Rudd. Trump was asked about some negative comments Rudd made about him before he took on the role - he said he didn’t know anything about Rudd or the comments, but when Rudd (who was at the conference) tried to explain, Trump cut him off and said “I don’t like you either, and probably never will”. He also criticised parts of the Oz media, calling one Sydney Morning Herald journalist who asked him a question a “nasty guy”. But the 2 leaders themselves seemed to get along well - Trump said Australia has “a great Prime Minister” and the PM joked that he’ll “use that in my (election) ads in ‘28”. After the meeting, it was off to lunch - fall green salad, rosemary roast chicken, and Red Bartlett Pear pavlova, in case you’re curious…

Keeping little ones cool this summer

Those with little ones (or shopping for them) know the drill - summer heat plus kids equals constant outfit changes and cranky wake ups. Love to Dream's new bamboo range tackles both. The fabric is clever - it stretches with every move, making the what-time-is-it nappy changes less of a wrestling match, and the bamboo in it helps with sweaty backs for a better sleep all round. The range covers everything from bodysuits to PJs, and they've built them to survive your washing machine's heavy rotation. Worth bookmarking for baby shower gifts too... Check the collection out here.

Squiz the Rest

A diplomatic flare-up

Speaking of China… Australia is asking questions of the country’s government after an incident over the South China Sea. Defence Minister Richard Marles said yesterday that an Oz surveillance plane was flying in the area when a Chinese fighter jet released some flares. Marles said that “no damage was done” but called the jet’s actions dangerous and unsafe, and stressed the outcome could easily have been different. China’s military has responded by saying Oz forces had “intruded” into its airspace in a “grave violation of China’s sovereignty”. It’s the latest in a list of military incidents between the 2 countries - there was another flare incident in February this year, and the same month, Chinese warships sailing off our coast caused some concern as well. China’s government hasn’t responded as yet… 

A shaky truce continues…

…in Gaza, where the Israeli military has stuck by its “renewed enforcement of the ceasefire” overnight, following the airstrikes it launched on Hamas across the enclave on Sunday. The IDF said those strikes were in response to Hamas firing “anti-tank missile and gunfire” toward its soldiers in Rafah, killing 2 of them. Its retaliatory strikes killed at least 26 people, local health authorities say, with one strike hitting a former school where displaced Palestinians have been sheltering. For its part, Hamas is sticking by its statement that it was “unaware” of any clashes in the area where Israeli troops were… Israel also halted the delivery of aid to Gaza, but restarted it yesterday after pressure from US officials. Some of them, including President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, have landed in Israel to reportedly shore up the deal…

Turning it off and Amaz-on again

The internet went into meltdown overnight with the outage of dozens of major websites, apps and games that use Amazon Web Services (AWS), impacting millions of people around the world. Huge platforms like Canva, Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, some banking services, and Grammarly (!!) were down from about 8pm for several hours... AWS provides cloud storage space for companies who work online and it connects traffic to their sites. In an update, the company says its technicians have found a “potential root cause” (an internal issue with a domain name) and that it’s put “mitigations” in place. But it’s been a rough day for businesses, with some experts predicting the financial disruption caused by the outage could cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The company reckons its back on track this morning, but issues are still being reported online. Watch this space (if you can)…

That’s a lot of diamonds…

We’re learning more about the French crown jewels stolen in Sunday’s Louvre heist… The 8 missing artefacts include tiaras, brooches and necklace/earring sets once belonging to Empress Marie Louise (Napoléon I’s wife…) and Empress Eugénie (Napoléon III’s…). Eugénie’s crown was stolen too, but dropped outside during the escape. That crown alone has over 1,300 diamonds and several large emeralds - and wasn’t even the most valuable… The stolen haul is worth hundreds of millions of euros. One (gold) lining: the Regent diamond - worth more than €60 million and housed in the same gallery - wasn’t touched. French magistrate Laure Beccuau says they're not sure why - and only when the thieves are caught “will we know what orders they had”. Police are hunting for 4 suspects, including one caught on CCTV…

And for a more law-abiding trip to Paris…

…that’s a (virtual) option becoming available to Aussies undergoing long hospital stays, thanks to a local charity program. The Holiday from Hospital program uses VR helmets to transport people battling serious illnesses out of their hospital room for a while - it was founded by Damien Thompson in 2019, after he found it worked for him during his treatment for leukaemia as a younger man. There was only one problem - while the program could take patients to Paris and Berlin, there were no Oz destinations. Thompson’s out to fix that, travelling around the country to record local holidays for patients who want to virtually explore their own backyard. You can read more about it here - it’s currently available in Townsville and Brisbane, with Western Oz next on the agenda. Technology, hey… 

Apropos of Nothing - Festival edition

Millions of people celebrated the Hindu festival of Diwali yesterday, and given Diwali is known as the festival of lights, you better believe there are some spectacular photos - you can find some good ones here…

Plenty of Spaniards flocked to the capital of Madrid over the weekend for the city’s annual Transhumance festival, in which sheep and goats are led through the streets as a celebration of the movement between seasonal pastures. It’s a wooly good time… 

And it was a festival for book lovers over on the ABC’s Radio National on the weekend, with the station’s Top 100 Books of the 21st Century countdown. In the end, local boy (and Squiz interviewee) Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe took the win. The people have spoken…

Squiz the Day

8.00am (AEDT) - Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen will speak at the Financial Review’s Energy & Climate Summit, which runs until Thursday - Sydney

9.00am (AEDT) - Hobart International Tournament director Darren Sturgess will make an announcement about the Hobart International 2026, a new tennis tournament that opens this summer - Hobart

9.30am (AEST) - Industry and Innovation Minister Tim Ayres will speak at the CEDA 2025 AI Leadership Summit, which runs until Wednesday - Brisbane

10.00am (AEDT) - Cricket: The Women’s T20 Spring Challenge begins with Sydney Sixers v Hobart Hurricanes, and Brisbane Heat v Melbourne Renegades - Sydney, watch on Kayo

10.00am (ACDT) - A reburial ceremony will be held at the Kaurna Wangayarta Smithfield Memorial Park for the remains of Kaurna ancestors repatriated from the South Australian Museum, University of Adelaide and Edinburgh University - Adelaide 

10.30am (ACDT) - Independent South Australian Minister Troy Bell will be sentenced over charges of theft and dishonesty while working for the Department of Education - Adelaide

10.30am (AEDT) - MyState Bank will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) - Hobart

11.00am (AEDT) - Bendigo and Adelaide Bank will hold its AGM - Bendigo

11.30am (AEDT) - Materials Scientist, Engineer and Inventor Professor Veena Sahajwalla will speak at the National Press Club of Australia on ‘The Hidden Value in Our Rubbish’ - Canberra

6.45pm (AEDT) - Football: Melbourne City play Thailand’s Buriram United in the Asian Champions League at AAMI Park - Melbourne, watch on ESPN

After deferring last week’s scheduled vote, Japan’s parliament will vote to elect its next Prime Minister, with the new leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Sanae Takaichi, expected to be the first female PM - Tokyo, Japan… If you’d like to know more about Takaichi, check out our Squiz Who profile series on Instagram

Virginia Giuffre's posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl, will be released

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is set to begin his 5-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi 

Donald Day Jr, a US man tied to the Wiembilla shootings, is set to appear in court for a 2-day trial in Phoenix, Arizona

🌶️ International Day of the Nacho 

Back to the Future Day, celebrating the date that Doc Brown and Marty McFly travel to in Back to the Future Part II

Birthdays for American attorney Judith Sheindlin, aka Judge Judy (1942), and reality TV personality Kim Kardashian (1980)

Anniversary of:

• English scientist John Dalton unveiling his atomic theory in the “Table of Atomic Weights” at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (1803)

• the publication of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

• the mining disaster in the Welsh town of Aberfan, which killed 122 people, including 116 children (1966) 

• the death of former PM Gough Whitlam (2014)

• Australian newspapers blanking out their front pages in protest against press restrictions on the reporting of legal proceedings against Cardinal George Pell (2019)