Tuesday, 3 November - Hopping and bopping to the crocodile rock

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, 3 November. In your Squiz Today…

• Millions of Americans are getting ready to vote in the US midterms

• The Reserve Bank prepares to announce its latest rates decision

• And the seabirds struggling with jet lag… 🦅

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

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Francesco Harka, who’s turned a north London cash machine into a tiramisu hatch, just around the corner from Arsenal’s football ground, and the Italian desserts are based on his nonna’s recipe. Forget your kebabs and meat pies, Arsenal fans are a classy bunch…

Uncertain midterms

The Squiz

The US is heading to the voting booth today for its midterm elections - so named because they take place at the midpoint of a president’s term. In this case, that’s US President Donald Trump - who is dealing with some bleak opinion polls. And even though he’s not on the ballot, the midterms are generally seen as a referendum on his presidency - so let’s have a look at how they might pan out.

How do they work?

Americans will be voting for members of both houses of the US Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Reps is the lower house, and all 435 seats there are up for grabs - but only 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate (the upper house). Analysts say the interconnected issues of the war in Iran, rising fuel prices and the cost of living are all front of mind for voters this year - and they’re all issues affecting Trump’s approval ratings. While the party occupying the White House usually takes an electoral hit in the midterms, the President’s relative unpopularity could cost the Republicans - who currently control both houses - more than usual this time. But that doesn’t mean the Democrats are going to have it all their own way…

What’s the challenge for them?

With more seats up for grabs and a big lead in the polls, the Democrats are widely expected to win the House. But they’ve had a harder time making headway in the Senate, where they need a net gain of 4 seats - and their targets are in traditionally Republican territory. If they do flip both houses, they’ll have far more power to put the handbrake on Trump’s agenda and potentially turn him into a ‘lame duck’ - a president with drastically reduced power. That means the state of politics in the US over the rest of Trump’s term will largely depend on a few key Senate races, including Alaska, Michigan, Ohio, Maine and Texas. And the overall result matters here too - a Democratic-controlled Congress could try to block Trump’s tariffs on Aussie exports. We’re likely to get a sense of the results tomorrow afternoon, so stay tuned…

Squiz the Rest

Bets are on for an interest rate rise

The Melbourne Cup isn’t the only call a lot of Aussies will be listening out for today - we’ll also find out whether the Reserve Bank will raise the official interest rate for the fifth time this year. The board began its meeting yesterday, and in light of last week’s higher-than-expected inflation figures, the big 4 banks are predicting a rise of 0.25% to 4.85% - the highest the rate’s been since 2008. It comes as our second-largest lender, Westpac, posted a yearly profit of $6.8 billion, and auction clearance rates dropped to their lowest in 6 years. Almost a quarter of those scheduled auctions were pulled by owners, which analysts say shows people were spooked by the possibility of a rate rise. Keep an eye out at 2.30pm AEDT for the RBA’s decision.
* Want to swot up on how interest rates work? Check out our Squiz Shortcut here.

Canavan of dreams

Nationals leader Matt Canavan says he’s switching from the Senate to the House of Reps - and he’ll be running to be preselected (aka chosen as the Nationals’ candidate) for the Central Queensland seat of Capricornia ahead of the next federal election. Canavan is the first Nationals leader to come from the Senate, but reports say it’s tricky to lead a party from the upper house and he’d be a more effective leader if he were a lower house MP, partly because that’s where the higher-profile debates take place. If he is preselected, he’ll likely be taking on One Nation, which has said it’ll also put plenty of resources towards winning the seat - though neither leader Pauline Hanson nor national director James Ashby will run for it themselves. Canavan admits winning the seat will be tough - as he put it, he “may politically die in this endeavour”. 

A data centre delay in the Top End

The June 2028 start date of one of the biggest data centre projects planned for the Northern Territory has been scrapped. Project Ares is set to be a 19,150ha development of ‘data halls’, solar panels and a gas plant on remote Murranji Station, but the independent NT environmental regulator has pressed pause on assessing the project while it waits on advice from the federal government on new rules for data centres. It’s one of a number of projects in the works for the NT, which leaders have pitched as a potential “data centre of the globe” due to its space, sunshine and proximity to Asia. This is the biggest project in the country to hit the brakes so far, but developer Energy North says it has finance lined up and still plans to go ahead once the terms are known.

Kimi Antonelli makes Formula 1 history

The 20yo Italian became the youngest ever F1 world champion yesterday morning. Antonelli needed to finish in at least ninth place in the Mexico City Grand Prix to take the title and did better than that - he finished third, which put him too far in front on points to be caught, even with 4 races left. He takes the record from German Sebastian Vettel, who won at 23yo in 2010, and he’s the first Italian to take the title since Alberto Ascari in 1953. The race wasn’t without drama - a crash stopped it at one point - but Antonelli managed to avoid getting into trouble, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen claimed the win. Antonelli was emotional after the race, saying: “It's a day I will remember forever”.

The early (sea)bird is actually jet-lagged

UK researchers have found evidence that some seabirds suffer from jet lag. The birds in this particular study, Manx shearwaters, can fly more than 1,000km into the North Atlantic and use the sun as a compass to get home. But because the sun moves across the sky and the seabirds’ body clocks don’t account for the distance they’ve travelled, the research found that they can end up veering off course by as much as 15 degrees. It’s not clear whether these birds suffer from any of the other unpleasantness that comes with jet lag, but if they or other animals have evolved to find a way to cope with the symptoms, there could be lessons for how we humans may feel less yucky after a long-haul flight.

Snapropos of Nothing 

A croc was spotted on the banks of the Fitzroy River in Rockhampton on Saturday, which is a bit awkward because it’s the spot set to host the 2032 Brisbane Olympics canoeing and rowing events. Maybe it’ll motivate everyone to row faster… 

In a much closer encounter, a fisherman in the Northern Territory came face to face with a large croc that perched its head on the edge of the boat. The man wasn’t hurt but said he was shocked at how quietly it got there. Stay safe, our northern friends…

And to do some light PR work for the crocs after that, 2 crocodiles raised in a wildlife park in Malaysia have gone viral for videos of their keeper cradling and rocking them to lullabies. We just hope Robert Irwin knows about them.

Squiz the Day

Public holiday in Victoria for Melbourne Cup Day 

9.00am (AEDT) - The High Court hearing begins in the challenge to the under-16s social media ban brought by Reddit and the Digital Freedom Project - Canberra 

9.00am (ACST) - Third public hearing on the Greens-led inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres - Darwin 

9.30am (ACDT) - Sentencing for AFL Adelaide Crows player Josh Worrell on driving without due care charge after hitting a pedestrian in July - Adelaide 

10.00am (AEDT) - Resumption of hearings in the inquest into the Hillcrest Primary School jumping castle tragedy in which 6 children died - Devonport 

2.30pm (AEDT) - RBA announces its latest interest rate decision, followed by a media conference 

3.00pm (AEDT) - Racing: Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse - Melbourne, watch on 9Now

8.00pm (AEDT) - Cut-off for Victorians to enrol to vote ahead of the state election

US midterm elections

Writ issued for Victorian state election 

CFDA Fashion Awards

National Days for Dominica, Micronesia and Panama

🥪 National Sandwich Day - US

Birthdays for fashion editor Anna Wintour (1949), Aussie cricketer and former soccer player Ellyse Perry (1990), and model Kendall Jenner (1995)

Anniversary of:

• the English Parliament passing the Act of Supremacy, which saw Henry VIII become Head of the Church of England (1534)

• the patenting of the first modern bra by New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob (1914) 

• the Soviet Union launching Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard, the first animal to orbit Earth (1957)

• the election of US presidents Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) and Bill Clinton (1992)

• the release of Whitney Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s single I Will Always Love You (1992)

• LA Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant becoming the then-youngest player to make his NBA debut at 18yo (1996)

• Michelle Payne becoming the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup (2015)

Housekeeping

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