☕️ Vigil held for Bondi Junction victims

Happy Monday!

Welcome to a short working week! Thursday is a public holiday because of ANZAC Day.

Fun fact: If you have also taken the Friday off, the French language has a phrase for that. They call it to “faire le pont”, to make the bridge - it’s when you take a day off next to a public holiday to join it to the weekend and you get a longer weekend!

I’ve got 10 seconds

Quote of the day

“While X respects the right of a country to enforce its laws within its jurisdiction, the eSafety Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X’s users can see globally. We will robustly challenge this unlawful and dangerous approach in court.”
X’s response to the demand by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to remove vision of the Sydney church stabbing in Sydney’s western suburbs last week.

Stat of the day

300 million
The number of streams of Taylor Swift’s new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ on Spotify on its first day – a record for the streaming platform.

Today in history

2016
The Paris Agreement was signed by 175 parties, including Australia. The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change.

I’ve got 30 seconds

Some headlines from this morning:

• Thousands have attended a candlelight vigil for the six victims of the Bondi Junction Westfield stabbing. Mental health workers were also in attendance at the gathering at the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach. Before the vigil, NSW Premier Chris Minns said he hoped the event offered survivors “some strength from the fact that there are many people that are standing with them during this time”.

• Over the weekend, Brittany Higgins published a statement following last week’s verdict in the defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann. In a statement, Higgins thanked Justice Lee for his “trauma-informed approach” and said she “hoped he had set a new precedent for how courts consider the testimonies of victim-survivors of sexual assault”. Last week, Justice Lee found that on the balance of probabilities, Lehrmann had sexually assaulted Higgins. Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence.

Recommendation of the day

I’ve got 1 minute

Queensland has enshrined a 75% emissions reduction target by 2035 into law

Queensland must reduce emissions by 75% by 2035, under new laws passed by state parliament last week.

Qld Premier Steven Miles said the laws would put the state “on par“ with the most ambitious targets in the country.

The laws

The Government passed two pieces of legislation addressing the effects of climate change.

The first was to create an emissions reductions target, and the second was to create a renewable energy target.

By enshrining these targets into law, future governments will be obligated to sustain efforts to reach the emission targets, provided they remain law.

The targets:

• Reducing emissions by 75% from 2005 levels by 2035

• 80% of Qld electricity to be generated by renewable energy sources by 2035

• Net zero emissions by 2050

Opposition

The Qld Opposition backed the emissions reduction target, with Shadow Environment Minister Sam O’Connor saying “we must do all we can”. He called the 75% target “ambitious, but... achievable”.

However, the Opposition did not support the renewable energy target. Shadow Energy Minister Deb Frecklington said the legislation “shackles Queenslanders to blindly higher bills and unreliable supply”.

The Labor Government has a majority of seats in Parliament, so didn’t need opposition support to pass the legislation.

I’ve got 2 minutes

Florida has passed a law that requires kindergarten students to learn about the “evils of communism”

The U.S. state of Florida has passed a law that will require state schools to teach the history of communism in the U.S., and its “threat” to the country, starting in 2026.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said the new educational standard would teach students “the truth about the evils and dangers of communism”.

It will apply to students in all years, from kindergarten up.

Communism

Communism is a political ideology based on a ‘classless society’, where people are not divided according to wealth.

Property and resources are distributed equally among citizens. In practice, this has meant governments are central to the organisation of society.

The U.S, by contrast, is built on a system of capitalism, centred on individual gain and profit, where the government has a more limited role to play in day-to-day lives.

The U.S. and its allies faced off against communist countries during the Cold War from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Communism took hold in Russia through a series of revolutions in the early 20th century, which transformed into the Soviet Union, led for decades by dictator Joseph Stalin.

Stalin had at least a million people executed in his crackdown against perceived political threats in society.

Florida law

Students at Florida public schools, from kindergarten up, will be taught about the “evils of communism” from 2026.

The new law requires the state’s education department to develop age-appropriate curriculums for teaching students:

• ‘The history of communism in the U.S.’

• ‘Atrocities committed under communist regimes’

• ‘The increasing threat of communism in the U.S. during the 20th century’

• ‘Cuba’s communist policies’

DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the purpose of the education reforms is to teach the “truth about the evils and dangers of communism”.

DeSantis said the new teaching areas will protect students from being “indoctrinated by communist apologists in schools”.

Opposition

The law had little opposition. Seven of 120 representatives in Florida’s lower house voted against the education reforms.

Democrat representative Anna Eskamani compared the bill to “McCarthyism”, a fear campaign during the early years of the Cold War in the U.S. against suspected communists.

Eskamani told local media she found it “disingenuous for Republican colleagues... to sponsor a bill that would require a specific political viewpoint to be espoused onto our students”.

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Give me some good news

Although Australia missed out on this year’s solar eclipse, the Devil Comet will be visible in the coming week.

The Devil Comet comes around every 71 years. It’s expected the comet will be the most visible on Thursday at around 6:30pm AEST. While the comet will be visible to the naked eye, it’s best viewed through a telescope or high quality camera.

TDA tidbit

New York City is known for the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, pizza by the slice… and rats (3 million of them).

Now, the city has turned to a new tactic to control its rat population. It might be putting them on ‘the pill’.

A bill introduced to the New York City Council last week would see contraceptive pellets scattered around city blocks that work on both male and female rats. 

The pellets are rich in salts and fats — the perfect rat meal. 

Want more from The Daily Aus? Listen to our podcast!

Iran and Israel have long been adversaries, with tensions between the two Middle Eastern countries developing over decades. However, this month marks the first time either country has launched a direct attack on the other.

In today's deep dive, we’re going to look at why direct conflict between these two nations is so significant, the context of geopolitical tension and why the global community is calling for immediate de-escalation.

TDA asks