☕️ Sam Kerr’s trial, explained

Here is today’s riddle: Sally saw seven sharks while swimming. Now, how many S’s are in this sentence?

Answer is in the tidbit!

"[The case] is supposed to be resolved here in court. It's not supposed to be resolved in the press”
Blake Lively’s attorney Michael Gottlieb yesterday, during the pre-trial hearing for the sexual harassment case levelled against Lively’s ‘It Ends With Us’ co-star Justin Baldoni, according to the BBC.

0.4%
The amount household spending rose in December, according to new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The rise was attributed to expenses of new vehicle purchases, dining out, air travel and streaming services.

2020
US President Donald Trump was acquitted of impeachment charges by the US Senate.

The 31-year-old has denied any wrongdoing, pleading not guilty to a charge of racially aggravated harassment.

In January 2023, a night of celebration ended in Kerr and her partner Kristie Mewis crawling out of the broken back window of a taxi following an argument over compensation for vomit in the vehicle.

The cab driver called the police, and instead of taking Kerr and Mewis to their home address, he drove to Twickenham police station as advised by the police phone operator.

At the time, Kerr told officers she and Mewis feared they were being kidnapped after the driver refused to let them out of his cab and proceeded to break the rear window.

Kerr was recorded twice calling police constable Stephen Lovell "f---ing stupid and white," and insisting on going to court rather than pay for the window, leading to her being arrested.

Kerr’s lawyer, Grace Forbes said: "Sam Kerr did not feel hostility to the officer because he is white. The words were a comment… about positions of power, about privilege and about how those things might colour perception."

The maximum penalty for racially aggravated abuse is 26 weeks in jail under UK law. The trial is expected to finish this week.

Kerr is under contract at Chelsea Football Club in the UK’s Women’s Super League. She is currently rehabilitating from a knee injury that occurred in January 2024 and is expected to return to the field within the next few months.

Reporting by George Finlayson.

The biggest political donors of the 2023/24 financial year have been revealed, as the Government looks to change how this data is released.

Only donations larger than $16,300 have been disclosed, and the data is released annually.

A new Government bill would require donations over $1,000 to be published monthly.

The Opposition withdrew its support for the Government’s bill late last year, meaning it’s stalled in Parliament.

Currently, there are no caps on political donations, meaning a person or entity can donate an unlimited amount to a political campaign.

The disclosure threshold for 2023/24 was $16,300, increasing to $16,900 for the 2024/25 financial year.

Disclosures take place in one of two instances: either 24 weeks after an election, or an annual report in February showing the total donations of an individual or organisation for the previous financial year.

On Monday, the election regulator – the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) – published the financial disclosures for the 2023/24 financial year.

At the federal level, Labor received $1.36 million in disclosable donations.

The Liberal Party received $1.29 million in donations, while the Greens received $445,000.

Paper company Visy’s billionaire chair Anthony Pratt donated $1 million to the Labor Party, making him the largest individual donor to a major party last year.

Fellow Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart’s company Hancock Prospecting gave around $500,000 to the Coalition.

‘Teal’ MPs Dr Monique Ryan ($680,000) and Allegra Spender ($570,000) reported the largest donation tallies of independents.

The Government proposed changes to the laws covering political donations last year. Under the changes, individual donation gifts would be capped at $20,000 per candidate per year.

The threshold for disclosure would also drop to $1,000.

Disclosures would occur every month and would increase in frequency once an election campaign begins.

If it had passed last year, the legislation would have come into effect in mid-2026— bypassing the upcoming federal election due by 17 May.

Labor introduced the bill to Parliament in the second-last sitting week of 2024, expecting it would pass before the year’s end.

While the reforms passed through the House of Representatives (lower house), they did not make it through the Senate, where the government doesn’t have a majority.

Over the past few months, the Labor Minister responsible for the reforms – Senator Don Farrell – has been trying to strike a deal with the Coalition and crossbenchers to get enough support.

The electoral reforms are scheduled to be debated in the Senate over the next sitting fortnight.

It’s not clear whether the Government has gained enough support for the reforms to pass.

Australia Institute democracy director Bill Browne said: “The mass release of political donations data highlights the lack of transparency and integrity in Australian politics.”

However, he criticised the Government’s current reforms, saying it amounts to “politicians voting together to give political parties more money”.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters said the disclosures this week showed the need to introduce meaningful reform.

“We urgently need real-time donations disclosure so the public can see who is buying influence in the lead up to the federal election, not 20 months afterwards,“ Waters said.

The Greens voted against the Government’s bill, saying it doesn’t go far enough to curb the influence of major corporations in politics.

Reporting by Harry Sekulich.

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🍊Sam Kerr faces first day in court. More details.
🍊 66th inducted to Aussie cricket Hall of Fame. Who?
🍊 18-year-old Aussie runner breaks 17-year-old record.
🗞️ Also in the Sport Newsletter: NRL, triathlon, and more…

The zoo has been trying to conserve the species of Darwin’s frogs, named after Charles Darwin who discovered them in 1834, for 15 years. Eleven male frogs, who have an unusual and unique reproductive cycle, carried the tadpoles “inside their vocal sacs” before they transform into little froglets “and ‘give birth’ through their mouths.”

Last year, a team of specialists went to an island off the coast of Chile to collect the frogs and take them to the zoo where a breeding and research program began. The London Zoo said in a statement: “These precious froglets are a symbol of hope for one of the world's rarest species.”

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Reporting by Billi FitzSimons.

Most 82-year-olds are retired — but not former U.S. President Joe Biden.

The ex-President has re-signed with a talent agency in LA just two weeks after departing the White House.

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the leading Hollywood agencies, previously represented Biden during Trump’s first Presidency.

During this time, he participated in speaking engagements, released a memoir, and commentated on the U.S. political landscape.

Reporting by Rosa Bowden.

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Riddle answer: 4. The question is in regards to the second sentence.

From stacking shelves to tapping away at the till, shops in Australia are run by workers whose future pay and conditions hang in the balance. Australia’s workplace tribunal, the Fair Work Commission, is hearing a case that could see the minimum gap between shifts cut from 12 to 10 hours and scrap rest breaks for higher-paid retail managers, a measure supported by some of Australia’s biggest companies – including Woolworths, Coles, Kmart, and MECCA.

It comes as more than 300 ex-Lovisa staff launch a class action against the jewellery company over allegations they were underpaid, and regularly and illegally deprived of rest breaks. TDA’s deep dive will dig into some of the big legal battles set to redefine Australia’s retail scene.