☕️ What happened at this year's climate conference

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“The sad fact is that these events, the killing of women and girls, has been a constant presence for as long as I can remember. Women should feel safe everywhere, always.”
Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley in a speech to Parliament on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

$US164 million ($AU252 million)
How much the film ‘Wicked’ made at the box office worldwide in its opening weekend — the highest-ever first-weekend ticket sales in the U.S. for a Broadway musical adaptation, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

1922
Archaeologists Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb of Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, the first people to do so in thousands of years.

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A woman has won a civil rape case against UFC fighter Conor McGregor in an Irish court.

Nikita Hand alleged McGregor and another man raped her at a Dublin hotel in 2018. The court heard evidence that Hand had to have a tampon removed by a doctor following the assault.

The jury found McGregor did assault Hand, but the other man did not.

The court awarded Hand €250,000 ($AU400,000) in damages.

While criminal trials involve the prosecution of a person for an alleged crime, civil trials are disputes between parties – one party claiming to have been wronged by another, often seeking financial compensation for the resulting harm.

While criminal convictions must be proven beyond a 'reasonable doubt', civil matters are decided on 'the balance of probabilities' (is it more likely than not that the party was wronged).

Hand told media: “I want to show [my daughter] and every other girl and boy that you can stand up for yourself, if something happens to you, no matter who the person is, and justice will be served.”

1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

Wealthy nations have agreed to pay developing countries $US300 billion ($AU460 billion) a year to help them adapt to climate change.

The new “climate finance goal” was announced at the end of the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference — COP29.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen represented Australia at the conference – hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan this year – where he helped negotiate the deal.

Senior UN official Simon Stiell said: “No country got everything they wanted, and we [have] a mountain of work to do.”

COP29 is the 29th UN Climate Conference.

Its attendees are the 198 countries that have signed the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. The framework aims to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate.

At COP21 in 2015, countries negotiated the Paris Agreement — a commitment to stop global average temperatures from warming more than 1.5°C above 18th century levels.

At COP27 in 2022, countries agreed to compensate “particularly vulnerable” developing countries for climate-related “loss and damage”.

The details and structure of how this compensation would work were negotiated at last year’s COP28.

Going into COP29, countries’ main focus was a new “climate finance goal”.

Following negotiations at the conference this month, officials said the loss and damage fund will be “up and running and ready to distribute money in 2025”.

First developed at COP15 in 2009, the climate finance goal was a payment of $US100 billion per year ($AU150 billion) to developing countries, to help them adapt to climate change.

Countries increased their annual contributions until the goal of $100 billion a year was reached in 2022.

Now, countries have agreed to aim for $US300 billion a year to developing countries by 2035.

Stiell said that the goal “is an insurance policy for humanity,” meaning it won’t work unless “premiums are paid in full, and on time.”

India’s representative at COP29, Chandni Raina, told the conference the goal “is nothing more than an optical illusion [that] will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face.”

In a post to X, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said: “I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome... to meet the scale of the great challenge we face”.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

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🍊 Emma McKeon has retired. Here's what she said.
🍊 Thai golfer wins golf's biggest prize. How much money?!
🍊 Italy won the Davis Cup. More details here.
🗞️ Also in the Sport Newsletter: a random fact, rugby, and more…

In a worldwide clinical trial, researchers found a way to recycle pacemakers so they could work just “as well as new devices”. These life-saving devices were donated to around 300 patients across Africa and the Americas who could not otherwise afford them.

A scientist from Michigan University said: “These positive early results bring us closer to the reality of a large-scale pacemaker donation… that could save lives across the globe.”

Want more good news? Sign up to our weekly Good Newsletter here - we promise it’ll make your week better!

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

A South Korean man has been found guilty of trying to eat his way out of mandatory military service.

According to The Korea Herald, a young man has been handed a suspended sentence for evading the country’s national service.

He was found to have deliberately gained enough weight to guarantee he wouldn’t be considered fit enough to serve in combat. While he still completed service, it was at a desk job, not in the field.

A friend who developed a diet for him was also sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence. He defended himself by saying that he never believed his friend would go through with the plan.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

Two 19-year-olds from Melbourne are among six people to have died from a suspected methanol poisoning incident in Laos. Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles were visiting a tourist town in the Southeast Asian country when they fell ill. They were rushed to separate hospitals in Thailand, where they died late last week.

The suspected poisoning has also claimed the lives of tourists from Denmark, the U.S. and the UK, in what’s now become a multi-national investigation. Authorities in Laos have conducted raids and detained some people for questioning, but no one has been charged. We’ll take you through everything you need to know about this story.