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Good morning!
I hope you’re all excited for the Winter Olympics to officially start tomorrow. We hear it will be just as entertaining as watching an ice hockey game in Heated Rivalry!
(If you know, you know. If you don’t, then just know it’s a joke we can only make on a Friday.)
The opening ceremony starts tomorrow morning at 6am - coverage will be on the Nine Network.
See you there!
I’ve got 10 seconds
The quote: “This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organisations.”
Martin Baron, former executive editor of The Washington Post, in a post to LinkedIn on the news that the newspaper is firing a third of its staff. The paper is owned by Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos; its slogan is “Democracy dies in darkness”.
The stat: 16. The age of Indra Brown, the youngest Australian athlete at the Winter Olympic Games, which begin this week.
The big question:
Yesterday’s results: 72% of you prefer reading a physical book when you’re reading it for the first time. [2,800 votes].
I’ve got 30 seconds
Some headlines from this morning:
The disappearance and likely death of four-year-old boy Gus Lamont has been declared a major crime, with a person known to him declared a suspect. Gus was last seen in late September by his grandmother playing on a mound of dirt at a sheep station in outback South Australia. His disappearance sparked intensive searches spanning almost 500 square kilometres by hundreds of team members using aerial support and mounted units. Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke on Thursday said Gus' disappearance had been declared a major crime. "We don't believe now that Gus is alive," he told reporters.
U.S. morning news host Savannah Guthrie has pleaded for contact from anyone who might be holding her elderly mother, who vanished from her home in the U.S. state of Arizona several days ago. Investigators have said they believe Guthrie's mother was abducted, but they don’t know by whom. In a video on Thursday, the journalist said in a video message: "We are ready to talk… We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her. We want to hear from you and we are ready to listen. Please, reach out to us." Multiple media organisations reported receiving purported ransom notes on Tuesday, U.S. time, which they handed over to investigators. Guthrie has been co-host of NBC’s Today show since 2012.
Together with AAP.
Recommendation of the day
Why drinking less beer matters beyond the pub
People around the world are drinking less beer– and that change is having knock-on effects you might not expect.
This story looks at how fewer beers being poured overseas can affect Australian farmers at home, and how changes in what people buy can travel through the economy in surprising ways.
You can read the full story at CommBank Newsroom.
I’ve got 1 minute
The attempted bombing of a Perth Invasion Day rally has now been classified as a terrorist attack.
WA Police said the targeted First Nations attack was allegedly “motivated by hateful, racist ideology”.
The 31-year-old man who allegedly threw a homemade bomb into the crowd has now been charged with one count of engaging in a terrorist act.
It is the first time this charge has been laid in WA.
Bomb
On 26 January, an Invasion Day rally was held in the Perth CBD. Police say about 2,500 people were in attendance.
Investigators allege a man removed a “home-made improvised explosive” from his bag and threw it at the crowd, before fleeing the scene. However, the device did not detonate.
Following the incident, police confirmed the bomb included “a mixture of volatile and potentially explosive chemicals, with nails and metal ball bearings affixed to the exterior”.
Terrorism
Police have now labelled the incident as terrorism.
WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch told media last month: “To be an act of terrorism it requires one of three things: either political motivation, a religious motivation, or some type of ideology and advancing that cause.”
In an update on Thursday, Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said “the threshold has been met for a terrorism offence.”
“The people in the crowd that day were peacefully protesting, as is their right as Australians,” WA Premier Roger Cook said.
“I know this event has impacted people Australia-wide, and it is deeply felt by our Indigenous communities. I know that there is anger. We have every right to be angry. Any attack on our First Nations people is an attack on all of us,” he added.
Quick hits
🎧 On today’s TDA podcast, Zara and Billi unpack what the developments at The Washington Post mean for the media landscape.
🌞 Need some good news? You can sign up to TDA’s dedicated Good News newsletter here, and wake up to silver linings in your inbox on Sunday morning.
Good finds
Grabbing a coffee in the sun? Nice. Getting UV damage while you wait for your order? Not so nice. Don’t forget: shade is your friend.
*Transparency: This is a sponsored part of the newsletter - the best way to keep the newsletter free for you.
I’ve got 2 minutes
A NSW coroner has handed down the findings from a six-week inquest into the fatal 2024 Bondi Junction stabbing.
Queensland man Joel Cauchi stabbed 16 people at a shopping centre in Sydney’s east in April 2024, killing six.
NSW State Magistrate Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan recommended the Qld Health Ombudsman review the treatment Cauchi received from a psychiatrist in the 2010s, which she said was a “factor” in the stabbing.
Inquest
In NSW, a coronial inquest is held when a person dies in “sudden or unexplained” circumstances, and when there are “unresolved issues” left from an initial investigation.
It is not the same as a court hearing, and a coroner cannot find someone guilty of a crime. At the end of an inquest, the coroner may make recommendations to the Government or relevant agencies on ways to improve public health and safety.
Stabbing
On 13 April 2024, Queensland man Joel Cauchi fatally stabbed six people at Bondi Junction Westfield. Cauchi injured 10 more, including a nine-month-old baby.
The 40-year-old had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was homeless at the time.
The six people he killed were Dawn Singleton, Jade Young, Ashlee Good, Pikria Darchia, Yixuan Cheng, and Faraz Tahir.
Inspector Amy Scott, on duty in the area at the time, fatally shot Cauchi.
Findings
The report outlines Cauchi’s history of treatment for schizophrenia, including seeing a private psychiatrist in Toowoomba, Dr Andrea Boros-Lavack.
Cauchi saw Boros-Lavack from 2012 to 2020, when he moved to Brisbane. Over this period, Boros-Lavack reduced Cauchi’s doses of two anti-psychotics. By 2019, he was not medicated.
All experts who gave evidence to the inquest agreed the decision to slowly take Cauchi off medication was a reasonable course of action.
However, the coroner found that Boros-Lavack didn’t respond appropriately to concerns raised by Cauchi’s mother on several occasions between October 2019 and February 2020.
Cauchi’s mother told Boros-Lavack that her son had been “very unwell since he came off his medication,” was hearing voices, and was writing notes about “Satanic control”.
O’Sullivan found Boros-Lavack did not respond well to these “early warning signs and in some instances, embellished how well [Cauchi] was doing” in her notes.
The coroner said it was “a major failing” that Boros-Lavack did not try harder to ensure Cauchi resumed taking medication.
It was also found that Boros-Lavack should have included more information in a letter she wrote to Cauchi’s GP after the last time she saw him.
The coroner found Cauchi’s GP could not have known from Boros-Lavack’s letter that Cauchi needed to be reviewed urgently.
Ultimately, however, the coroner said these decisions could not be considered “a major reason” for the stabbing, but rather “one of the factors”.
Motivation?
The coroner did not make any conclusions on the motivation behind Cauchi’s attack.
One expert psychiatrist involved in the inquest suggested Cauchi specifically targeted young girls and women.
However, the other expert psychiatrists said they couldn’t reach a clear conclusion on this.
Five of the six people who died during the attack were women.
Recommendations
O’Sullivan recommended the Qld Health Ombudsman review Boros-Lavack’s “care and treatment” of Cauchi.
She made several recommendations to top doctors and psychiatrists’ bodies about updating guidelines for treatment and medication of schizophrenia and similar disorders.
O’Sullivan also recommended several people be considered for the Governor-General’s special award for bravery, including Inspector Amy Scott, and Damien Guerot and Silas Despreaux, who confronted Cauchi.
Reporting by Lucy Tassell.
A message from CommBank Newsroom
What’s the deal with CommBank and AI?
How AI is used, and how risks around it are managed, matters.
We're unpacking where CommBank uses AI, why there’s a focus on responsible use, and what Aussies think about AI in banking.
You can read the full story at CommBank Newsroom.
Give me some good news
Australia has named moguls skiers Jakara Anthony and Matt Graham as its flag bearers for the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Anthony is the defending Olympic champion and world number one in women’s moguls, having already won three World Cup events this season. Those victories lifted her to 26 career World Cup golds, the most by any Australian winter athlete. Graham, a silver medallist from PyeongChang in 2018, is ranked second overall in the World Cup standings. The Opening Ceremony will begin early Saturday morning (AEDT).
Reporting by George Finlayson.
TDA titbit
A group of people dressed as Robin Hood have stolen groceries from an organic supermarket in Montreal, Canada, and dropped off their spoils outside food banks and a social housing building.
The robbers are linked to an activist group called Les Soulèvements du Fleuve (The River’s Uprisings), which says they gave the food away in protest of high grocery prices.
“When having two jobs is not enough to eat, have a roof over your head and take care of your family, every means becomes legitimate,” an anonymous spokesperson said.
Reporting by Lucy Tassell.
TDA asks
