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THE Bellingen community gathered on Saturday, May 18 to celebrate the opening of new netball courts at Connell Park. Bellingen Shire Mayor Steve Allan officiated the opening, which was followed by the first official game on the courts featuring ladies first grade teams, alongside a social game on the second court. Advertise with News of...

The post Connell Park courts a win for Bellingen netballers appeared first on News Of The Area.

The Washington Post did a fact check on this absurd brouhaha about the FBI instructions when they served the warrant on Mar-a-Lago. He points to a particular right wing reporter, Julie Kelly, as the source of the hysteria and laid out the timeline: 1:28 p.m. To her first tweet, Kelly attached another tweet in which she highlighted another document: “Oh my God. Armed FBI agents were preparing to confront Trump and even engage Secret Service if necessary. They were going to go door to door to terrorize MAL guests and even pick the locks. Gestapo.” This page from the filing, titled “contingencies,” laid out procedures in the event the media or Trump unexpectedly arrived at the scene. The document, laden with abbreviations, says that if Trump were to appear, the Miami FBI executive manager and the on-scene coordinator “will be prepared to engage with FPOTUS [former president of the United States] and USSS [Secret Service] Security team.” In this context, “engage” means talk and coordinate.

ZARA Baldwin, an esteemed educator at Bishop Druitt College (BDC), has been named a Rising Star of the Year awardee in the prestigious 2024 Australian Education Awards in recognition of her exceptional contributions to education and sports. Zara joined BDC in 2022 as a Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) teacher, and quickly developed...

The post Bishop Druitt College teacher named Rising Star of the Year appeared first on News Of The Area.

Trump has his people fanning out all over the world meeting with foreign leaders making god-knows-what promises. I’m sure there’s an understanding between him and Vlad over this just as the Iranians released the hostages on the day Reagan was inaugurated. (It was no a coincidence.) Trump doesn’t even have to try to hide his cozy relationship with Putin. Nobody even comments on it anymore. Selling out Americans has been completely normalized.

Shalev Hulio is remaking his image but is still involved in a web of cybersecurity ventures with his old colleagues from NSO Group.

The post After Pegasus Was Blacklisted, Its CEO Swore Off Spyware. Now He’s the King of Israeli AI. appeared first on The Intercept.

As you know, Leonard Leo is the mastermind of the right wing legal assault on democracy. And he and his good buddy Samuel Alito are obviously part of an insurrectionist cabal. Some might even call them traitors. As Tom discussed this morning, Dahlia Lithwick has a great piece today on this subject over at Slate and I want to highlight the same conclusion he did: No, I have come to conclude that this is an us problem. Because rather than hurling ourselves headlong into the “Alito Must Recuse” brick wall of “yeah, no,” we need to dedicate the upcoming election cycle, and the attendant election news cycle, to a discussion of the courts. Not just Alito or Thomas, who happen to go to work every day at the court, and not just Dobbs and gun control, which happen to have come out of the very same court, but the connection between those two tales: what it means to have a Supreme Court that is functionally immune from political pressure, from internal norms of behavior, from judicial ethics and disclosure constraints, and from congressional oversight, and why that is deeply dangerous.

With the surgical precision of a scalpel, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has severed what remained of the moral authority of the West. The reactions and indifference, led by the United States, has done more to undermine the global rules based order than any action initiated by China, which is usually painted as the arch Continue reading »

“Only the struggle counts … death is nothing.” Eloi Machoro – ‘the Che Guevara of the Pacific’ – shortly before he was gunned down by a French sniper on 12 January 1985. Eloi Machoro, one of the leaders of the newly-formed FLNKS – today the main organising movement for New Caledonia’s Kanak people – slowly Continue reading »

Where “Two plus two equals five if the party says so” (George Orwell) and when drilling methane wells reduces global warming. Having turned a blind eye to climate science, ignoring the evidence that extreme atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) rise and ocean acidification have led to mass extinctions of species through time, humanity allows Continue reading »

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The ABC is running jolly programmes on and for the Pacific as part of a government policy to counter Chinese influence. But in a closer, bigger and more important region already eyed by Beijing the national broadcaster and its paymaster offer indifference and ignorance. Or is that arrogance? The flagship of the international service ABC Continue reading »

The ACT Labor-Greens coalition is widely seen as the most permissive and truly liberal government in the country. It is moving to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 and its criminal legislation is generally seen as quite generous, and its courts quite lenient, toward defendants. Indeed, many NSW colleagues are regularly Continue reading »

Imagine you have been asked by the Australian government to draft its new population policy. You first ask to see the old policy but are told there isn’t one: immigration policy has been the de-facto population policy for as long as anyone can remember. You start to make a list of relevant issues. First, you Continue reading »

Taiwan’s new leader, Lai Ching-te, delivered his inaugural speech on Monday, comprehensively expounding his stance on “Taiwan independence”. Unlike his two predecessors, Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen, Lai failed to clearly refer to the 1992 Consensus and the one-China principle, indirectly indicating his rejection of both crucial notions. Instead, Lai unabashedly referred to the notions Continue reading »

The Biden administration has reportedly approved of an Israeli assault on Rafah, the last slightly safe city in the Gaza Strip, and is openly preparing to work with Congress to punish the International Criminal Court for seeking arrest warrants of Israeli officials for war crimes. Biden is a monster who belongs in a cell at Continue reading »

Adam Diver became embroiled in a row with the minister after Mercer branded a Tweet about him being denied a vote as “fake news from a fake bloke”

Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies offered some teases about "spooky" and "strange" episode "73 Yards" ahead of a sneak preview.

Look for more of this. Using civil rights laws to crack down on diversity hiring is just *chefs kiss* Florida’s top legal officer on Wednesday said the state will investigate Starbucks, the multinational chain of coffeehouses, for its diversity, equity and inclusion practices. “So many of these DEI policies that have been pushed in corporate America that were meant to address and prevent discrimination are now pushing policies and programs and initiatives that may in fact be unlawful employment practices, in fact becoming discriminatory themselves,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said, while appearing on Sean Hannity’s radio show, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis guest hosted. Moody filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations, which she said would launch a “full investigation.” The decades-old commission is meant to enforce the Florida Civil Rights Act and address discrimination issues.

The last few years have seen a sustained effort on the part of the UK government to clamp down on protest labelled ‘disruptive’ and ‘illegal’. After the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023, we are now presented with John Woodcock’s ominously titled report Protecting our Democracy from […]

“Nikki Haley says she’ll vote for Trump, despite previously saying he’s ‘not qualified’ to be president.” – CBS News, 5/22/24

I’m voting for Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean I’m vouching for him. The difference between a promise to vote for someone and a formal endorsement is so vast that the average mind simply cannot comprehend it. So I’ll break it down for you simpletons: by announcing that I’ll vote for him, I’m pledging my allegiance to the crown without lowering myself to any ring kissing. I’m a self-respecting Republican woman, after all.

An endorsement would mean I’m staking my own character against his, and that would be insane. He’s a very bad man. I’m not doing that. But I am voting for him.