Wednesday, 6 November - There’s a choice we’re making

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, 6 November. In your Squiz Today…

• Americans head to the polls

• A hearing into the Hillcrest Primary jumping castle tragedy begins

• And tributes flow for music legend Quincy Jones…

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Edinburgh Zoo on social media as it announced its latest arrival - “an adorable pygmy hippo calf” named Haggis. Her team reckon she’s coming for Thailand pygmy hippo Moo Deng’s internet-fame crown, but they might be a bit biased about their bonnie lass…

From sea to shining sea…

The Squiz

Don’t expect much from the American politics nuts in your life today - they’re likely to have their eyes glued to the election results as they roll in… Voting is now well underway and polling stations across the US will close throughout the day, with most of the battleground states wrapped up by 1pm AEDT. From then, things will start to get interesting as they move towards confirming who will lead America for the next 4 years… 

What do I need to lodge in my brain? 

The number 270. That’s the number of electoral college votes candidates Kamala Harris/Donald Trump need to win to claim the White House. If you’re thinking ‘huh?’, this Squiz Shortcut will get you across how the US electoral college system works... But in short, there are 538 electors across the US, with the bigger/more populated states getting more of ‘em than the smaller ones… They’re the people who will nominate the candidate who won the vote in their state, so it’s a race to nab more than half of them. Going in, pollsters reckon Harris and Trump each have about 220 electoral college votes in the bag - which is why the 93 available from the 7 swing/battleground states are so important. 

So when will we know the result?

Look, we’re not going to make any promises… But those in the know say we should have a good idea of where things are at from around 3pm AEDT today. They also say if the race is as much of a dead heat as predicted, the first results trickling in won’t necessarily indicate the final outcome because there are still a lot of ballots lodged early to get through. In that case, settle in for a drawn-out count… While that’s happening, election officials will be keeping an eye on any evidence of interference (a big topic during the 2020 count, you might recall…). US cybersecurity experts have been hot on that this election cycle, with one saying “election infrastructure has never been more secure”. Good to know…

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Squiz the Rest

Tassie’s jumping castle tragedy lands in court

A criminal case into the deaths of 6 Tassie primary school students in December 2021 has heard in great detail how a mini tornado carried the inflatable castle 20m into the air. The Devonport Magistrates Court was told Chace Harrison, Jalailah Jayne-Maree Jones, Zane Mellor, Addison Stewart, Jye Sheehan and Peter Dodt were killed in December 2021 because the jumping castle was pegged down at half the points. What prosecutors say is the operator Rosemary Gamble had a duty to ensure it “was securely tethered to the ground”. Gamble’s pleading not guilty to a workplace health and safety offence - her lawyer says there’s expert evidence that even with proper pegging the wind was so severe “the outcome would still have been the same”. The case is expected to run for 2 weeks. 

The A-B-C of sorry

The national broadcaster is going to review its editorial policies after an external investigation found the sound of extra gunshots was "inaccurately" added to a story about war crimes allegedly carried out by Aussie soldiers in Afghanistan. The ABC's News boss Justin Stevens has told a Senate committee the editing “shouldn’t have occurred” while insisting it was not a deliberate attempt to deceive audiences. The ‘Line of Fire’ stories published in 2022 questioned the conduct of the 2nd Commando Regiment during the war - but former Commando Heston Russell later told Seven that helmet-cam vision of a soldier shooting from a helicopter had been doctored. Last year, the Federal Court ordered the ABC to pay Russell $390,000 over 2 other stories it said had defamed him…

A new topping at Domino’s 

Don Meij has been the head honcho at pizza chain Domino’s for 22 years, but he’s handing over the reins to a former Coca-Cola exec. Meij started as a pizza delivery driver in Queensland and made his way up to CEO. He listed the company on the Aussie Stock Exchange in 2005 and took it global, expanding into international markets like France, Japan, and (less successfully) Italy… While the company’s growth in Oz and Kiwiland is still going strong, the challenge for the new boss is those overseas stores which have been hit hard by global inflation… Speaking of inflation, the Reserve Bank isn’t ready to cut interest rates because underlying inflation (you know, the trimmed mean rate we spoke about last week…) is still too high. That sound you could hear at 2.30pm yesterday was the sigh of mortgage-holders… 

Vale Quincy Jones

Tributes are rolling in for the legendary American music producer who died at 91yo. The father of 7 kids - including Parks and Recreation actor Rashida - was born in Chicago and spent time with street gangs (he was stabbed in the hand at 7yo…) before finding his way to music. Once he did, he worked with everyone - no really, everyone… He's not only credited on some Frank Sinatra and Amy Winehouse songs, but he also produced the Live Aid song We Are The World. And remember that spooky Vincent Price voiceover in Michael Jackson's Thriller? That was Jones’ idea. His music made it to the moon; he produced The Color Purple and won 28 Grammys. If you’d like to learn more about the music giant, this feature piece in GQ has you sorted. And if there’s a concert for his memorial, it’s going to be a belter…

A dark horse wins the Cup

There was nothing in it, but rank outsider Knight’s Choice edged out Warp Speed in a photo finish to win the Melbourne Cup - paying $81 (for every dollar bet) for the win. He was ridden by Robbie Dolan (the singing Irish jockey who was a contestant on The Voice and once performed The Horses at the Cox Plate…) and trained by John Symons and Sheila Laxon, the first woman to train a Cup winner back in 2001. Dolan promised earlier in the day that he’d quit if he won - but he quickly changed his tune, saying “I won’t be giving up - that feeling was too good”. Trackside, red was a winner for Cup Ambassador/swimmer Ariarne Titmus, racing royalty Kate Waterhouse and telly presenter Sam Armytage - you can check out more of the looks here…

Apropos of Nothing - Notable old things edition

Some archaeologists have made quite the find in a tomb in Vergina, a small town in Northern Greece. They’ve dug up a purple and white tunic they reckon belonged to none other than Alexander the Great. How great wonderful… 

On the topic of tombs, there’s new research into why humans and Neanderthals started burying their dead. It might have been a way to mark their territory by marking graves outside the caves they were living in. That’s one way to keep people out…

Ever heard of a 'terror bird'? They were meat-eating, flightless birds that roamed the Earth millions of years ago and could grow to about 3m tall, and now scientists have discovered a fossil showing one species could’ve been even bigger. We’ll stick with bin chickens, thanks…

Squiz the Day

9.00am (AEDT) - The opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference gets underway (until 8 November) - Sydney

5.30pm (AEDT) - Tassie Australian of the Year award winners will be announced - Hobart, and broadcast live here

4.00pm (AEDT) - The last US polling booths close in Alaska and Hawaii. Here’s a guide to the timings if you’re keeping an eye on the voting…

Also for your news radar today: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has announced he’s fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over disagreements about Israel’s military operations, so we’ll be keeping an eye on that…

Annual general meetings for Domain, Fortescue Metals and Domino’s

ABS data release - Selected Living Cost Indexes, September 

International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict 

Day of Liberation of Kyiv

Birthdays for Sally Field (1946) and Emma Stone (1988)

Anniversary of:

• the deaths of Catherine the Great (1796) and composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1893)

• Abraham Lincoln election as US President (1860)

• the first performance of the Sex Pistols (1975)

• Australia voting against a proposal to become a republic (1999)