Wednesday, 18 June - I never can say goodbye

June 18, 2025

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, 18 June. In your Squiz Today…

  • Trump leaves the G7 early, skipping his meeting with the PM

  • The body of missing teen Pheobe Bishop has been found

  • And a jacket fit to live in…

🎧 Listen to the podcast

🤓 This email will take you 5 minutes to read

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

“It’s the Mona Lisa moan out here”

Said tourist Kevin Walker about a surprise shutdown of the Louvre in Paris, the most visited museum in the world. The museum was forced to close for the day because its staff went on strike as part of protests against overtourism throughout Europe. Ce n’est pas bon… 

Trump makes an early exit…

The Squiz

US President Donald Trump is back in Washington DC after cutting his trip to Canada for the G7 Summit short yesterday as the Israeli-Iranian conflict continued. He said he and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to leave early “for obvious reasons” - which French President Emmanuel Macron later expanded on, saying the US is helping to steer truce talks between the 2 Middle Eastern countries to avoid a full-blown war. But Trump posted on Truth Social that Macron was “wrong” and that his leaving early “certainly has nothing to do with a ceasefire - much bigger than that”. So that raised more questions than answers…

The fighting’s continuing, then…

Yep - at least for now. And with missiles continuing to fall over both countries, Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” ahead of a US National Security Council meeting to discuss the conflict. We’re still waiting to see what comes out of that. And we had a notable update from Israeli officials overnight… The Israeli Defence Forces (the IDF) says Ali Shadmani, Iran’s “highest military commander”, has been killed in one of their strikes. And he's not the only one in their sights… Trump says the US and Israel know where Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is hiding - and while reports say the President told Israel to hold off on targeting the Ayatollah last week - he said he's an "easy target", but he's safe "at least for now".

What about the Trump-Albanese meeting?

Good question - it was supposed to happen in the early hours of this morning, but it was canned as Trump left early. And it seems like PM Anthony Albanese didn’t get much of a heads up… Minutes before the White House said Trump was leaving, Albanese said he was looking forward to the 1:1. He was expected to make the case for Trump to drop the tariffs on Aussie exports to the US, and to discuss the US’s commitment to the AUKUS security deal. Trump and UK PM Keir Starmer both reckon the deal is “proceeding” despite the US review launched last week. But for now, with no Oz-US meeting in the pipeline, official confirmation that it’s still on track is up in the air…

If you want some extra background to the conflict between Israel and Iran, we’ve got a Squiz Shortcut for you…

A small gift makes a big difference

Catherine Hamlin Fistula Foundation raises much needed funds for the work of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, an organisation dedicated to ensuring no woman endures the trauma of obstetric fistula. It's a devastating childbirth injury that’s all too common in rural areas and approximately 267 Ethiopian mothers die per 100,000 births. In Australia, it’s virtually zero... If you want to support their important work, consider donating a Comfort Package. Donations are also tax-deductible. Head here for the details

Squiz the Rest

The body of Pheobe Bishop has been found

Police have confirmed that human remains they discovered a couple of weeks ago in bushland are those of the teenager who went missing in May. The 17yo from Queensland didn't board a flight to Western Oz from Bundaberg, and that raised the alarm - and when police found remains in the Good Night Scrub National Park, they weren't able to identify them immediately. But they've since been in contact with Bishop's family and confirmed that it's her. In the weeks since she went missing, police have arrested her former housemates - their names are James Wood and Tamika Bromley - and charged them with one count of murder each. They'll be back in court to answer those charges in August. 

Still a lot of LNG to go under the bridge…

…says Treasurer Jim Chalmers (not in so many words) when asked about the chances of the government signing off on a $30 billion takeover bid from the state-owned Abu Dhabi oil company for major Aussie energy company Santos. Chalmers said the bid “has got a long way to run yet”, and given that foreign ownership of Oz energy assets has a bunch of implications for our economy and national security, he’ll be taking advice from the Foreign Investment Review Board first. Speaking of the Treasurer, he’s got a big speech set for today where he’ll be talking about the Albanese Government’s second-term economic plan. He’s expected to outline how he’ll steer our economy through a “world of churn and change” - and with productivity, oil prices, tariffs and the new super tax plan all hot topics, he’s got a lot to get through… 

An update in the Matthew Perry case

Prosecutors said yesterday that Dr Salvador Plasencia, who supplied the Friends star with ketamine ahead of his October 2023 death, will plead guilty to 4 counts of distributing ketamine - which has a maximum sentence of 4 years in prison. That doctor is just one of 5 people who have been charged in relation to Perry’s overdose - the prosecutors in the case say a ring of dealers and doctors were involved in supplying him with the drug. Perry played Chandler Bing in the long-running sitcom, and his death from the overdose hit fans and his colleagues hard. To give you an idea of what he meant to people, in the days and weeks afterwards, each of his castmates posted tributes about him - you can read them here. 

Slip, slop, slapped down

The consumer advocate group Choice caused a bit of a hubbub amongst outdoorsy types last week when it said that 16 of the 20 sunscreen brands it tested fell short of their sun protection factor (SPF) claims. But after one of Ultra Violette’s products received the worst rating, the brand hit back saying the way Choice transferred the products to an independent lab might have skewed the results. But Choice wasn’t having it - CEO Ashley de Silva said they followed the instructions of the independent labs they used to the letter. The Therapeutic Goods Administration, which approves most sunscreens in Oz but doesn’t test them itself, is going to look into all the ones Choice says didn’t cut the mustard - so this will probably be a burning issue for a while yet… 

A jacket to block out a racket

You might know (or be…) someone who seems to live in a puffer jacket, but soon enough they might be able to do so for real… A prototype high-tech puffer jacket/tent/bed is on display at a tech expo in Japan, a country which has real struggles with sleep deprivation. The company behind the prototype, Konei, says it wants to invent “portable sleep” (we’re in…) How it works: first of all, it’s really big so you can nestle snugly into it, and it also has high-tech components that take the biometric data of the wearer and uses that to create light and sound that helps with sleep - red light and soothing helps you nod off, or blue light wakes you up. And beyond all its nap-happy apps, it’s also quite the fashion statement… 

Apropos of Nothing - Tech tricks edition

Some whizkids at Bowral High School in NSW have built an app to detect levels of PFAS - a nasty class of chemicals - in supermarket items. While it’s still a prototype, if you’ve seen the reports on PFAS levels in the human body, it could be one worth using some phone storage on… 

A telecommunications scientist has had a look into the mystery of those phantom phone calls - where you have a missed call but your phone never rang. From the 3G shutdown to different phones not playing well together, this is a handy list of excuses reasons why you never picked up…  

And the first-ever man-made solar eclipse has been created by 2 satellites launched from India last year. Nicknamed the proba-3, the pair fly 150m apart, with one going to block the sun and the other snapping a pic - kind of like the photos you take at the leaning tower of Pisa…

Squiz the Day

8.30am (ACST) - The International Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Conference begins, hosted by Lowitja Institute (until 19 June) - Adelaide

9.00am (AEST) - Australian Energy Week 2025 gets underway - Melbourne

10.00am (AEST) - A High Court judgement on the CFMEU’s challenge against the Commonwealth placing it in administration is due - Canberra

11.00am (AEST) - "Shaping the Future of Whistleblower Protection" - National Whistleblowing Symposium - Canberra

12.30pm (AEST) - Treasurer Jim Chalmers will speak at the National Press Club in Canberra on Australia's Second Term Economic Agenda - Canberra

6.05pm (AWST) - NRL: The NSW Blues play the Queensland Maroons in Game 2 of the Men’s State of Origin at Optus Stadium - Perth, watch it on 9Now

11.30pm (AEST) Hockey: Australia v Ireland in the Men’s FIH Pro League - Antwerp, Belgium, watch on 7+

Dr Margot McNeil will take over as CEO of the Canberra Institute of Technology following a corruption scandal with Leanne Cover 

ABS data release - Disability, Ageing and Carers, 2022

🍎 Red Apple Day supporting Bowel Cancer Australia 

A birthday for Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney (1942)

Anniversary of:

  • the Battle of Waterloo, which saw Napoleon defeated by Britain (1815)

  • Amelia Earhart becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean (1928)

  • the UN Commission on Human Rights adopting the International Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

  • Sally Ride becoming the first US woman in space (1983)

Thursday
2.45am (AEST) Hockey: Australia v England in the Women’s FIH Pro League - London, UK watch on 7+