Afternoon Update: rallies urge action on gendered violence; calls to lift jobseeker; and how to get out of a reading rut
Welcome, everyone, to the Afternoon Update.
Thousands of Australians are set to hit the streets this weekend, calling for greater action on a growing epidemic of women killed in violent attacks.
Organised by advocacy group What Were You Wearing, the first rallies will be held in Ballarat and Newcastle on Friday, with more rallies held in other cities around Australia over the weekend.
“Enough is enough,” the rallies’ organisers posted to social media. “The number keeps going up and this is why we are protesting this weekend. Fight with us for change.”
There is no official counter for women’s deaths, but the number of women who die due to gendered violence is collated by Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women and Femicide Watch’s Red Heart Campaign. According to their figures, an average of one woman a week was killed in domestic violence incidents last year. This year, that average has grown to almost one women murdered every four days.
Top news
Gardener charged with murder after alleged attack on elderly Brisbane couple | Homicide detectives have charged a man with murder after a man was found dead and a woman suffered serious head injuries at a home north of Brisbane. Det Insp David Harbison said Frederick Steel Sayers, 26, was not previously known to the victims, saying: “We believe he just attended today to do some form of gardening duties.”
Sydney man wrongly named as Bondi Junction murderer settles with Seven | Benjamin Cohen, who was wrongly named by Seven News as the Bondi Junction killer, has reached a confidential settlement with the network. Jeff Howard, the managing director and CEO of Seven who took over from James Warburton a week ago, told Cohen he accepted that the identification “was a grave mistake”.
Company banned from using Centrepay to sign up customers | The Australian Security and Investments Commission has banned the clothing store Urban Rampage from using the government’s Centrepay system to sign up mostly vulnerable Indigenous customers to “inherently inappropriate” credit arrangements that place them at risk of financial harm.
Homicide detectives search bushland for missing Sydney woman | Homicide squad detectives are using sniffer dogs to search bushland near the Jenolan Caves in New South Wales for the body of Sydney woman Jessica Zrinski. The then-30-year-old was last seen outside a Sydney pub in November 2022 before being driven towards the Blue Mountains.
Personal mRNA vaccine for melanoma trialled | Doctors have begun trialling in hundreds of patients the world’s first personalised mRNA cancer vaccine for melanoma, as experts hailed its “gamechanging” potential to permanently cure cancer.
Poverty experts tell Labor jobseeker rate should be lifted | Jobseeker payments should be raised to 90% of the age pension and indexed to prevent people going “without life’s essentials”, the government’s poverty experts have said. The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee released its pre-budget report on Friday, warning that jobseeker and other working-age payments were still “too low” despite last year’s $40 increase in the base rate.
X pushes back at order to hide Sydney church stabbing | Social media platform X says it has complied with Australian federal court orders to remove footage of the Wakeley church stabbing, even as the video itself appeared in a post directly below the announcement, visible to users in Australia.
Peak Muslim bodies deny being consulted by police ahead of anti-terror raids | At a joint press conference this morning, the Australian National Imams Council, the Alliance of Australian Muslims and the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network criticised law enforcement agencies for their handling of the investigation into associates of a teenager who allegedly stabbed a bishop at a church last week.
Police allegedly use rubber bullets and teargas at university protest in Georgia | Police have carried out multiple violent arrests at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia in what appears to be the first campus crackdown in recent days to involve rubber bullets and teargas, after students set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestine and against Cop City.
In pictures
The Imperial War Museum in the UK will open its first exhibition dedicated to work of the multi-award-winning conflict photographer Tim Hetherington, who died 13 years ago on assignment covering the Libyan civil war. You can see his work here.
Full Story
Newsroom edition: Musk, Meta and TikTok – can governments control big tech?
As the Australian government faces off with Elon Musk, editor-in-chief Lenore Taylor and deputy editor Patrick Keneally discuss the difficulties of regulating social media companies, and how it will affect the future of journalism.
What they said …
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“We’ve got full confidence in our wheels.” – Jane Jones, Skyline Attractions’ business manager
Jones was talking about the company’s plan to open a second ferris wheel in Melbourne’s CBD for the next six months. The city has a poor track record with wheels, with the Melbourne Star still sitting idle after years.
In numbers
Data released by the force show that sexual assault, intentionally causing injury, recklessly causing injury and unlawful assault were the most common charges.
Before bed read
The experts: librarians on 20 easy, enjoyable ways to read more brilliant books
Every bookworm has been there – the reading rut. All of a sudden you realise weeks (months, possibly even years!) have gone by where you’ve been picking up your phone and letting that novel gather dust. So how do you get out of it? Sarah Phillips looks at how to get lost in literature again.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: UREA. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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