☕️ Sole survivor in India plane crash

There’s been some tragic news out of India overnight.

An Air India flight bound for London has crashed soon after take-off in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, with 242 people on board.

Air India has confirmed there was only one survivor, a British national of Indian origin.

The aircraft involved is a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.

“Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.”
Film studios Universal and Disney in a joint lawsuit against AI image-generator Midjourney, alleging it plagiarises their intellectual property.

280
The number of people from the Pacific Island nation Tuvalu who will be allowed to settle in Australia under a treaty signed in 2023. Applications open next week, with the 280 Tuvaluans selected randomly. Tuvalu is at significant risk from rising sea levels.

Fans of Pitbull are dressing up as him at his concerts — bald caps included. Lovers of Mr Worldwide have congregated in the mosh pit with bald caps on, as seen in many TikToks.

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Former film producer and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of one count of sexual assault by a Manhattan jury.

The verdict concludes a re-trial, the result of Weinstein successfully appealing a 2020 conviction on the grounds that one witness should not have been allowed to give evidence.

The jury found Weinstein not guilty of the second charge of sexual assault and delivered a mixed verdict on whether he was guilty of rape.

He maintains his innocence.

Weinstein was convicted in 2020 of historical rape and sexual assault charges in New York.

The charges related to allegations made by three female actors.

He was accused of demanding sexual favours in exchange for helping the actors advance their careers.

Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

In 2022, Weinstein was sentenced to a further 16 years in prison after being found guilty on another three counts of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles.

He was set to begin serving his 16-year sentence after the conclusion of his 23-year New York prison term.

In early 2024, the New York Court of Appeals found “egregious errors” in the process that led to Weinstein’s 2020 conviction.

This largely related to allowing the court to hear testimony from women who claimed that Weinstein assaulted them, even though they were not part of the charges he faced.

The court found that Weinstein wasn’t judged on the conduct for which he was charged, but rather “irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts”.

They called it an “abuse of judicial discretion” to allow “untested allegations” in court.

The retrial focused on three charges: the same sexual assault charge and rape charge brought against Weinstein in 2020, and an additional count of sexual assault brought by an unnamed female complainant last year.

The jury deliberated for five days, ultimately finding Weinstein guilty of one count of sexual assault and not guilty of the other.

The jury reached a mixed verdict about Weinstein’s count of rape. This means they will continue to discuss the case in order to reach a final verdict.

A spokesperson for Weinstein told U.S. media his legal team considers the not guilty verdict on the second count of sexual assault “a little bit of a victory”. The spokesperson said Weinstein feels “hopeful” about the mixed verdict.

Following the result, complainant Miriam Haley said: “[Yesterday’s] verdict gives me hope. Hope that there’s new awareness around sexual violence”. Her claims of assault against Weinstein led to a guilty verdict on Thursday.

Reporting by Annabel Whitehouse.

The U.S. Defence Department (the Pentagon) yesterday announced a review of the AUKUS agreement.

AUKUS is a defence deal involving the Australian, UK, and U.S. governments. It includes plans to arm Australia with nuclear-powered submarines within the next 30 years.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has brushed off concerns about the deal’s future, saying it has widespread support.

AUKUS was first announced in September 2021.

Its central aim is to “promote security and stability” in the Indo-Pacific region. The agreement has been broadly seen as an attempt by Western nations to curb China’s influence in the region.

For Australia, the main part of the deal involved obtaining and developing nuclear-powered submarines, estimated to cost up to $368 billion over the next 30 years.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently urged Australia to increase defence spending to 3.5% of GDP (gross domestic product), up from 2%.

If the increase was implemented this year, it would cost around $40 billion on top of what Australia already spends.

Defence Minister Richard Marles responded, saying: “We will make this decision about what we spend on defence based on our own national interest”.

Overnight, UK newspaper the Financial Times reported the Pentagon had set up a review into the AUKUS deal. Within hours, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the reports to American media.

“The Department is reviewing AUKUS as part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous Administration is aligned with the President’s America First agenda,” the spokesperson said.

The Pentagon has not yet confirmed further details, including whether it will reconsider U.S. involvement in the deal.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has downplayed concerns about the future of AUKUS.

“It is natural that the [Trump] Administration would want to examine this major undertaking including progress and delivery, just as the UK Government recently concluded an AUKUS review,” a spokesperson for Marles said.

The UK Government’s defence review resulted in a commitment to build an additional 12 nuclear-powered submarines to expand AUKUS.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his senior ministers have directly discussed AUKUS with their U.S. counterparts on five occasions this year.

In a statement, Shadow Defence Minister Angus Taylor urged the Government to “seek a direct meeting with President Trump to safeguard the AUKUS agreement”.

Albanese is attending a major summit of world leaders in Canada next week, where he plans to meet with Trump.

Reporting by Harry Sekulich.

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Researchers made the finding while analysing a dinosaur collection from a Mongolian museum. Paleontologists concluded that two of the skeletons they’d studied were from a previously unknown dinosaur species, thought to be the tyrannosaurs’ closest known relative. Findings published in the journal Nature estimate the fossils are over 86 million years old. Researchers said the species show how their ancestors evolved from small dinosaurs into large apex predators, “rewriting the evolutionary history of tyrannosaurs.”

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Reporting by Annabel Whitehouse.

A life-sized Labubu doll has sold for 1.08 million yuan ($AU230,000) at an auction in Beijing, according to Reuters.

The Labubu doll is 131 centimetres (ok fine, nearly life-sized!).

Labubu dolls are plush toys, often used as key chains, that have risen in global popularity across the last few weeks.

In Australia, a typical Labubu doll retails for around $20-100.

Reporting by Annabel Whitehouse.

This week, the United Nations released its most comprehensive report yet on the state of fertility around the world. The report confirmed that global fertility rates are dropping, and that it’s not necessarily for the reasons we’re often told it is.

In today’s podcast, we’ll unpack the findings of the UN report, how this is manifesting here in Australia, and how governments can address this issue moving forward.