Tuesday, 7 April - The name of the game

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, 7 April. In your Squiz Today…

• Another deadline looms for the war in the Middle East, as Iran rejects the latest ceasefire offer

• A historical meeting between Taiwan’s opposition leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping is happening

• And a Japanese dating event with an unusual twist…

🎧 Listen to the podcast

🤓 This email will take you 5 minutes to read

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman after the lunar mission’s daily crew wake-up song - Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club - cut out just a minute in. The crew has now broken the record for the farthest distance travelled from Earth, so we expect Imagine Dragons’ On Top of the World can’t be far off…

Another deadline approaches

The Squiz

If you’re waking up this morning after a news break and hoping things have calmed down in the Middle East, we’ve got bad news for you… US President Donald Trump has ramped up his rhetoric, if anything, saying that Iran has until 10am AEST tomorrow to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. After posting a profane message threatening the country’s infrastructure on Monday, Trump warned in a press conference this morning that “the entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.”

What else might I have missed? 

Reports say the US and Iran have been discussing a 45-day ceasefire proposal, which Iranian state media says it’s rejected - the country is looking for a permanent end to the war instead. All sides have continued to strike each other across Iran, Israel and southern Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah and Israel are also locked in an ongoing conflict. One major story from the weekend was the rescue of an injured US airman who was shot down over southwestern Iran - you can read all about that here. And as for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz - which has caused major disruption to the world’s fuel supplies - Iran’s military commanders have claimed that even if the war ends, it “may never return to the way that it was.” 

What are we doing about it at home?

Fuel’s been the big pressure point in Oz, and the latest update from Energy Minister Chris Bowen is that we have secured fuel “well into May”. Oz has also received guarantees from our major fuel suppliers in Asia (Japan, South Korea and Singapore) that they will continue shipping fuel to us. It’s not just fuel we need guarantees for - Indonesia has also reportedly given us assurances that it will keep supplying fertiliser and urea (an ingredient of fertiliser), which is crucial for farmers particularly as winter approaches. But the fuel crisis hasn’t been bad news for everyone - e-bike sales have gone through the roof as more Aussies look for an alternative to driving their car around…

Spreading life saving advice further

Surf Life Saving Australia doesn’t need much introduction… It’s an organisation that keeps beachgoers safe along our coastlines every year - with almost 4,000 rescues over the 2025/26 summer period alone. But, like all safety organisations, they can always use a hand getting their messaging to more people - and that’s why their partnership with Airbnb is so important. Airbnb’s helping to share SLSA’s safety advice with hosts and travellers before they even set foot on the sand. You can read some of that advice here.

Squiz the Rest

A historic visit to China

For the first time in 10 years, the Taiwanese opposition leader is set to meet with the Chinese President today. Cheng Li-Wun has been leader of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party since November last year, and she’s an advocate for building closer ties between the 2. She says that her upcoming meeting with Xi Jinping is an opportunity to do that - but given Taiwan’s long movement for independence from China (something Cheng used to support (paywall) and China continuously rejects), many Taiwanese people aren’t so keen on that idea. So the visit promises to be a controversial one, and it’s also coming about 6 weeks before another world leader comes to visit Xi - US President Donald Trump… 

The Dezi Freeman investigation continues

Police are continuing to look into how Freeman, who killed 2 police officers and injured one other last year, managed to evade them for 7 months. After he was shot and killed by police on Monday morning, police arrested 2 of his associates - a man and a woman - on Saturday morning, before releasing them on Sunday, pending “further inquiries.” We also learned on Sunday that the sisters of one of the killed officers, Neal Thompson, are planning to sue Victoria Police over their brother’s death. Dianne Thompson and Lois Kirk say Freeman should have been arrested by a specialist squad on the day he murdered the 2 officers, and they’ve also raised concerns about a lack of info while the hunt for Freeman was going on. So the story is set to continue for a while yet… 

A Re-Deeming in Victoria

Remember last week when we told you that controversial Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming had been dumped from the party’s ticket for this year’s election? Well, a lot’s happened since then - she was originally defeated in the preselection battle by Dinesh Gourisetty, but he had to step aside after it emerged that he’d given a character reference for a man who was later convicted on child sex offences. So the party went back to the drawing board, and all of Deeming’s potential challengers dropped out - leading to her winning her spot back as the top candidate for the state’s Western Metropolitan Region yesterday. The election is set for 28 November, and the polls reckon it’s gonna be a close one… 

A brouhaha brews over Kanye

The US rapper, who now goes by just ‘Ye’, was set to headline a music festival in the UK before many critics - including UK PM Keir Starmer - raised an objection. West has made a series of antisemitic, pro-Nazi posts and comments in the past few years, and he was banned from entering Australia last year as a result. In the leadup to the release of his new album, he apologised for those comments - but Starmer says he should never have been booked as the headliner of the Wireless Festival in July. In the past couple of days, Pepsi, Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan have all withdrawn their sponsorship of the festival, and whether West would even be allowed to enter the UK remains an open question… 

The name of the dating game

A Japanese matchmaking company has launched a new dating event with an unusual twist - all the matches will have the same surname. Japan is the only country in the world where married couples must have the same surname, and in almost all cases, it's the woman (same-sex marriage isn't legal) who has to take her husband's name. Aside from the sex discrimination issues, it's creating problems for professional women and the businesses that employ them. So this new dating event is looking to cut out the middle moniker altogether - matching all (unrelated) Suzukis at the first event, with some of Japan’s other popular surnames - Ito, Tanaka and Sato - to come.

Apropos of Nothing

Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow has published a lengthy new piece overnight on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman after an 18-month investigation. We could read it without a subscription (just refresh the page if it doesn’t open on first click) and it’s fascinating…

The Sydney Kings are your new NBL champions, after defeating the Adelaide 36ers 3-2 in a close, topsy-turvy finals series. And the fans showed up in droves - over 70,000 across all 5 games, setting an all-time record for the league. The NBL execs will be cock-a-hoop… 

Despite some rumours last week that he’d died, the world’s oldest living land animal - Jonathan the 193yo tortoise - is still going strong. Officials say the original news was a hoax/scam, and Jonathan is still on track to crack that double-century mark…

Squiz the Day

World Health Day

Term 1 school holidays start in NSW (until 17 April) 

10.50am (AEST) - Basketball: Final of the men’s college national championship (known as March Madness) UConn Huskies (with 19yo Aussie Jacob Furphy in the team) v Michigan Wolverines - Indianapolis, Indiana, watch on ESPN

Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Rwanda Genocide

Birthdays for director Francis Ford Coppola (1939), and actors Jackie Chan (1954) and Russell Crowe (1964)



ABS release: Monthly Household Spending Indicator, February 2026

National No Housework Day

🍺 National Beer Day

Anniversary of:

• Australian Teddy Flack winning gold in the 1,500m final at the first Olympic Games in Athens (1896)

• the release of the world's first animated cartoon Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J Stuart Blackton (1906)

• Billie Holliday's birthday (1915)

• the High Court quashing Cardinal George Pell’s child sex abuse convictions (2020)