Tuesday, 24 June - A sky full of stars

June 24, 2025

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, 24 June. In your Squiz Today…

  • Iran has fired missiles at US military bases in the Middle East

  • A mass syringe attack has happened in France

  • And Acca Dacca’s coming home to tour…

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

“This is a win for the fans.”

Said Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, after being named MVP of his team’s NBA finals series victory over the Indiana Pacers. The Thunder won yesterday’s deciding Game 7 103-91 to take home the title and the basketball world by, uh, storm…

Iran strikes back

The Squiz

The crisis in the Middle East has escalated overnight, with Iran firing ballistic missiles at US military bases in Qatar and Iraq in retaliation for America's bombing of 3 of its key nuclear sites on Sunday. Reports say the US bases had been evacuated, and there were no casualties after Iran warned them of the impending strikes - and the missiles were successfully intercepted. But Qatar isn't happy about Iran launching missiles against targets on its soil. In a statement, the Qatari Government said it "strongly condemns the attack" and views it as "a flagrant violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and airspace”.

So there’s a lot happening…

Yep. We’re yet to hear from US President Donald Trump about the retaliatory strikes - but he’d previously warned Iran against them. And while Israel and Iran continue to fire missiles at each other, there’s something else to clock - Iran’s parliament has voted to close the Strait of Hormuz. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a major shipping channel for Middle Eastern oil/gas being transported around the world, and reports say its closure could block $1 billion of oil shipments a day. That’d be a big hit to the global economy - one economist reckons it could lead to Australian petrol prices climbing to $2.30-$2.50 a litre… But the passage hasn’t been closed just yet - Iran’s Supreme Council will make the final call. It’s something the US and UK don’t want, and they’re urging Iran to come back to the negotiating table.

And what's the global reaction been?

A bunch of world leaders have spoken since the US strikes - you can read some of their comments here. But the general themes have been pushing for de-escalation/diplomacy… That’s in line with what our PM Anthony Albanese has said, but at a press conference yesterday, he also pointed out that the consensus between Western allies has long been that Iran cannot obtain nuclear weapons, so Oz supports “action to prevent that”. We also heard from Foreign Minister Penny Wong about the more than 4,000 Australian citizens waiting to evacuate Israel and Iran… She says the closed Israeli airspace is still making things difficult, but officials stationed at the Azerbaijani/Iran border have been able to help some Aussies to leave.

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Squiz the Rest

A series of syringe attacks in France

Local police have 12 suspects in custody after 145 people - many of them teenage girls - were attacked with needles during a weekend music festival. While it’s not clear at this point what was in the syringes, several of those attacked went to hospital and had toxicology tests - the results of those are still TBD. The attacks happened during the Fête de la Musique, an annual event that saw millions of people celebrating on the streets of France. The attacks happened right across the country - from Paris to regional cities and towns like Metz and Angoulême - so police are investigating if and how they were linked, but local media is pointing to a series of social media posts leading up to the event as a possible cause. 

A record death toll on Aussie roads

The Australian Automobile Association (AAA) says our road toll is heading in the wrong direction after we had our worst year of deaths since 2010. Those numbers come from our National Road Safety Data Hub, which was set up last year by Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King to get a better idea of how our National Road Safety Strategy is going. The short answer is not well: in the 12 months to 31 May, 1337 people died on Aussie roads - that’s nearly 5% higher than the previous 12 months. One factor behind that rise is an increase in the number of cyclists (41) and pedestrians (192) who have been killed over the last year, and the AAA says the road safety strategy has to be reviewed ASAP if we’re going to turn things around. 

Some galactic happy snaps

Millions of stars and galaxies as we've never seen them before have been captured in the first video clips and images taken by the world's most powerful digital camera at the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile. The new snaps show galaxies in ultra-high definition and millions of unseen asteroids, and to say scientists are excited is putting it mildly. The camera is so powerful that if a ninth planet exists in our solar system, it'll find it - the US National Science Foundation says it will "capture more information about our universe than all telescopes throughout history combined". Here's the full overnight livestream from the observatory if you’re keen on a deep dive into the mysteries of the universe to start your day… 

A big win for Minjee Lee

Aussie golf fans would have been a bit nervy watching the Perth-born golfer yesterday morning as she played the final round of the Women’s PGA Championship in Texas, especially after she struggled a bit during the first 6 holes. But Lee came good after that, finishing with a 2-over par 74 which was all she needed to win the equal-richest prize in women’s golf. Fun fact: there are 5 major tournaments in women’s golf (as opposed to the 4 in tennis and men’s golf), and Lee now has 3 of them - this one, the Evian Championship and the US Open. If the 29yo picks up either the British Open or Chevron Championship, she’ll have a career grand slam, and if she wins both, she’ll have a super career grand slam - and only Aussie champ Karrie Webb has ever done that. She’s in rarefied air… 

For those still rocking, we salute you

Get your flatcaps out and exercise those index/pinky fingers, because come November, AC/DC are going to play their first shows on home soil in almost 10 years. The Aussie leg of the band’s Power Up world tour will kick off at the MCG on 12 November before heading to Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. If you’ve got hardy ears and you’re keen on a ticket, they’re on sale this Thursday, though they probably won’t be dirt cheap… But, as part of the bargain, you’ll be able to see the resolutely NSFW Melbourne band Amyl and the Sniffers, who will be the support act for the Aussie leg of the tour. With Metallica and Oasis also touring Oz at the same time, November is going to be a huge month for music fans…

Apropos of Nothing

The price of a letter is probably going up again - Australia Post says if it’s approved, a standard bit of snail mail will cost you $1.70 as of 17 July, up from $1.50 last year. You could almost get an actual snail for that - no, really - we checked… 

A famous Greek theatre called the Herod of Odeon Atticus will be shutting down for a while for a bit of maintenance and restoration work. Given the theatre is 18 centuries old, it’s not a bog-standard reno - the whole process is going to take 3 years… 

And the animation studio Pixar just had its worst ever opening weekend with Elio, a film about a boy who’s mistaken for Earth’s ambassador by aliens. The film made just over $30 million in the US - a long way from the $240 million Inside Out 2 raked in last year...

Squiz the Day

8.30am (ACST) - 3rd Australian Space Cyber Forum - Adelaide

9.45am (AEST) - Minister Josh Wilson to speak at Disaster Relief, Australia’s first anniversary of the National Operations Centre - Canberra

11.30am (AEST) - Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, will address the National Press Club of Australia on ‘Swimming between the digital flags: helping young Australians navigate social media’s dangerous currents’ - Canberra

6.00pm (AEST) - NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte will open the 2025 NATO Summit (until 25 June) - The Netherlands

6.15pm (AEST) - The launch of the 2025 Lowy Institute Poll: Australian attitudes to the world - Canberra 

The state budgets for Queensland, NSW and the ACT will be handed down

St John Ambulance celebrates 100 years of its youth program

Birthdays for musician Mick Fleetwood (1947), Australian champion sprinter Raelene Boyle (1951), comedian Mindy Kaling (1979), singer Solange Knowles (1986) and soccer player Lionel Messi (1987)

Anniversary of:

  • Julia Gillard becoming Australia’s 27th Prime Minister (2010)

  • the longest match in tennis history, where American John Isner defeated France’s Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon after 11 hours, 5 minutes of play over 3 days (2010)

  • women being allowed to drive for the first time in Saudi Arabia after the ban was lifted (2018)

  • the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, effectively criminalising abortion in much of the nation (2022)