Wednesday, 30 April - Baby when the lights go out

April 30, 2025

On the road with the AEC

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, 30 April. In your Squiz Today…

  • Erin Patterson’s trial over a deadly mushroom lunch gets underway

  • Carney holds onto power in Canada

  • And a climber’s tale of trail and error… ⛰️

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

“No hypothesis or possibility is being ruled out”

Said Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez on what caused a huge blackout that left many people stranded across Spain and Portugal on Monday/Tuesday. The power has mostly been restored, but authorities say they’re still in the dark about how it happened…

A major murder trial gets underway

The Squiz

The Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court in the regional Victorian town of Morwell was a hive of activity yesterday as Erin Patterson’s trial proceedings began. She’s the 50yo woman who allegedly served a meal laced with poisonous death cap mushrooms at a family gathering in Leongatha, about 130km south-east of Melbourne, which resulted in 3 deaths. Prosecutors yesterday dropped some of the charges against Patterson related to her ex-husband, but she's still facing several murder and attempted murder charges. She's pleaded not guilty and elected for the Supreme Court trial to be held in the regional courthouse, closer to her home. Yesterday, the 15-member jury was selected…

Remind me what happened…

Patterson served the Beef Wellington meal to 4 of her in-laws on 29 July 2023, all of whom became ill afterwards and needed hospitalisation. Over the next week, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, died. Ian, Heather's husband, survived and was released from hospital almost 2 months later. At the time, Patterson said she was also hospitalised with stomach pains and diarrhoea - which the local health service confirmed - but police have said she didn’t suffer any symptoms of poisoning. She gave a written statement to police saying she bought the mushrooms at an Asian grocery store in Melbourne's Mount Waverley - and also denied any responsibility over the deaths, saying she had “no reason to hurt these people, whom I loved”. 

So the trial will get some attention, then…

“Highly anticipated” is how it’s been described in some reports. The story made international headlines back in 2023, and to give you an idea of the level of interest now - accommodation in the town of Morwell (population: about 14,300…) has been fully booked out, and extra security has been stationed at the courthouse. It’s all fodder for the true crime podcasts (yep, more than one…) that have sprung up about the case - which Victorian Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale, who’s overseeing the trial, is clearly aware of… Yesterday, he told jurors it was their job to “dispassionately weigh the evidence” and “completely ignore anything you have seen or heard in the media, including social media”. The trial is expected to run for about 6 weeks.

Away on Polling Day? No sweat…

Every good weekend away requires a bit of planning - and so does voting if you’re going to be away from home on 3 May. There are heaps of ways you can vote if you’re going to be out of state on election day - and one of those options is to head to an interstate voting centre. Not every polling station can take interstate votes, so you’ll need to find out where to go… Head to the AEC website to find out more.

Squiz the Rest

Carney holds onto power

Canada’s Liberal party will retain power for a fourth term, securing at least 168 seats with final counting still underway. It might fall short of the 172 seats it needs to form a majority government, but it’s still been described as a “stunning comeback”. In January, polls were predicting they’d lose by a landslide to the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre. But since then, former central banker Mark Carney took the helm of the Liberals after longtime PM Justin Trudeau resigned, just as US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian imports, sparking a trade war between the former besties. Political analysts say that was a turning point for Canadians, with Carney campaigning on his ability to stand up to Trump, who he said was “trying to break us so America can own us … That will never, ever happen”.

A hero police officer testifies

Police inspector Amy Scott, the officer who shot Joel Cauchi to end his stabbing attack on the Bondi Junction shopping centre last year, has told a coronial inquest that she thought Cauchi was “going to kill her”. Scott talked about getting a call about the attack over her police radio, entering the shopping centre alone, confronting Cauchi to distract him away from hurting anyone else, and eventually shooting him as he ran towards her with a knife. She said that without a vest or a partner, she was worried about her survival, but the support of French carpenters Silas Despreaux and Damien Guerot - also known as “bollard man” - was “wonderful”. Despite the tragic events of the day, Scott said the actions of those who helped, including her fellow officers, “restored [my] faith in humanity.”

A bun fight is brewing…

…between 2 of Australia's most popular cooks, with the award-winning cookbook author/blogger behind RecipeTin Eats, Nagi Maehashi, calling out Brooke Bellamy, who owns Brisbane's Brooki Bakehouse, for plagiarism. Maehashi made the accusation yesterday on her social platforms, claiming Bellamy copied her recipes for caramel slice and baklava that appear in the cookbook Bake With Brooki, which has sold nearly 93,000 copies. Maehashi said she had "nothing to gain by speaking out" but felt the similarities between the recipes were "too specific and detailed to be dismissed as a coincidence" and "staying silent would make me complicit". Both Bellamy and her publisher Penguin have denied the claims, but they've offered to remove the 2 recipes from future reprints of the book "to prevent further aggravation." 

Marking a historic milestone

It’s 50 years since the Fall of Saigon, when the South Vietnamese city - now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City - was captured by the Communist forces of North Vietnam. That marked the end of the Vietnam War, which had been going for over 20 years and cost millions of lives. And while today is celebrated annually in Vietnam with the Reunification Day public holiday, the cost of the war is still being counted - health problems caused by the chemical weapons used, like Agent Orange, still affect millions of Vietnamese people. About a year after the war ended, Australia began accepting refugees from Vietnam - 60,000 made the journey to our shores over the next decade, and some still vividly remember the momentous day. 

Trail and error

In a case of more than just bad luck, a climber has been airlifted from Mount Fuji not once but twice within the same week. Early last week, a Chinese student living in Japan had nearly reached the 3,776m peak when he started showing signs of altitude sickness and called for help. Then on Saturday, he returned to the Fujinomiya trail - to find his phone - before he was taken down yet again by the altitude and rescued, again, by local authorities. Though hikers aren’t fined for needing rescue or for trekking the trails outside of the July-September season - which attracted 220,000 climbers in 2023 - there has been a flurry of calls on social media for this particular climber to be charged. If at first you don’t succeed…

Apropos of Nothing

Time to pull out the pastel threads and low-lapel jackets, as Miami Vice is making (another) comeback. Top Gun: Maverick director is making a new film adaptation of the series, after Michael Mann had a go in 2006. No word on casting yet, but anyone would look good in this sort of getup…

During a high-speed race on an Arizona lake, a speedboat flipped 9 metres into the air while travelling at 322 km/hr. You can see the aquabatics here… The 2 racers inside are a bit banged up but okay, and they did manage to win. So there’s that… 

Not travelling quite as fast is Root the wood turtle, who is missing his right front foot. But specialists at Halifax’s Museum of Natural History came up with a solution to help him get around on land - they’ve fashioned Root a Lego mobility aid - with wheels and everything. Cowabunga… 

Squiz the Day

9.00am (AEST) - A public hearing and briefing on Jack’s Law (which grants police the power to use a hand-held scanner to detect if a person has a knife), will be held, with a view to making it permanent. The law is named after 17yo Jack Beasley who was fatally stabbed on a night out in 2019 - Brisbane

9.00am (AEST) - Rugby Union: The Wallabies are set to announce Queensland Reds coach Les Kiss as their next head coach - Sydney

6.00pm (AEST) - Postal voting closes for the election - check the AEC website for your options

7.30pm (AEST) - The APRA Music Awards are on - Melbourne, stream it here

ABS data release - Consumer Price Index, Australia, March Quarter 2025; Australia's population by country of birth, June 2024; Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, 2022

US President Donald Trump marks 100 days in office, and he’s celebrating with a rally in Michigan

NSW students head back to school for Term 2

Denim Day, campaigning for sexual violence prevention and education 

Stop Food Waste Day

Birthdays for actors Kirsten Dunst (1982) and Gal Gadot (1985), and singer Nikki Webster (1987)

Anniversary of:

  • the inauguration of George Washington, the first President of the United States of America (1789)

  • Mr Potato Head becoming the first toy to be advertised on television (1952)

  • Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson getting hitched (1988)

  • the World Wide Web (WWW) being launched in the public domain (1989)

  • the death of chef and Master Chef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo (2023)