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We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. 1 of 3 Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage. To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories: In business news, the Australian sharemarket closed higher on Tuesday after three trading sessions of losses, with technology and healthcare stocks leading the way after solid gains on Wall Street overnight.Bonsai Casino Australia’s deadliest year on the roads in more than a decade has sparked calls for mandatory learner driver first-aid training to halt the climbing death toll. There were 1310 road fatalities last year, up 11.7 per cent on the previous financial year, according to data from the Australian Automobile Association. On average one person died every eight hours. The quarterly Benchmarking the Performance of the National Road Safety Strategy report is stark reading for road users, showing the nation is not on track to reduce fatalities and the number of child deaths almost doubled. Of those who died, 531 were driving a vehicle, 218 were passengers and 155 were pedestrians. The remaining deaths involved motorcyclists or cyclists. Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory all recorded road deaths per head of population that were more than the national average. NSW was the most deadly for road users with 358 deaths while the Northern Territory doubled its fatalities year-on-year from 26 to 54. In Victoria, deaths on the road increased by 9 per cent to 290. Only Tasmania and the ACT recorded a decrease. Association managing director Michael Bradley said the figures showed Australia’s approach to road deaths was failing and states and territories must report data on the causes of crashes, quality of roads and the effectiveness of policing. “We need a data-driven response to a problem killing more than 100 people every month,” he said. The first three to five minutes after a traffic accident were critical to survival, St John Ambulance NSW said. The organisation is calling on the NSW government to bring the state into line with numerous countries and mandate first-aid training for learner drivers. AAP with Lachlan Abbott The Australian sharemarket closed higher on Tuesday after three trading sessions of losses, with technology and healthcare stocks leading the way after solid gains on Wall Street overnight. The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 39.4 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 7971.1 at the close with all sectors except energy and miners moving higher. The ASX 200 stepped up on Tuesday.Credit: Louise Kennerley The Australian dollar was fetching US66.30¢. WiseTech shares (up 2.2 per cent) helped lift the tech sector (up 1.6 per cent). On the losing end, energy (down 2 per cent) was the worst-performing sector. Woodside shares fell 3.7 per cent to be the biggest large-cap decliner. Read the full market wrap here. A report into Australian aid worker Lalzawimi “Zomi” Frankcom’s death in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza may be publicly released soon after the federal government finalises consultation with her family, Assistant Defence Minister Matt Thistlethwaite has indicated. On ABC News 24’s Afternoon Briefing program this afternoon, Thistlethwaite confirmed former Australian Defence Force chief Mark Binskin’s report had been handed to the Albanese government, but added it was “a very sensitive matter” and its contents would be handled as such. “We will work through that and liaise with Zomi Frankcom’s family to ensure they can hopefully get closure from what has been a very traumatic period for them and their loved ones,” he said. Host Greg Jennett asked if communication with Franksom’s family was “the only impediment” to a government announcement about the probe. In response, Thistlethwaite said: “Yes, they deserve due respect with this. They deserve to see what the findings were before any public pronouncements are made regarding the report.” Assistant Defence Minister Matt Thistlethwaite.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen In early April, Frankhom was killed alongside six other aid workers when drones struck three vehicles marked as belonging to the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) that were travelling along a Gazan coastal road the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had designated as a corridor for humanitarian aid. An internal IDF review characterised the strikes as a “grave mistake” that violated IDF procedures, but concluded there was no intentional harm. “Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees,” it said. Zomi Frankcom, one of the workers who was killed in the air strike, at a World Central Kitchen site in Gaza in March. But the Albanese government, incensed by the strike and unsatisfied with the Israeli probe, appointed ex-Air Chief Marshal Binskin as a special adviser to lead an Australian review of Israel’s response to the incident. Australian National University international law professor Don Rothwell previously told this masthead the government’s move to review a friendly foreign country’s military actions directed against an Australian was “unprecedented in modern times”. Households are feeling better about their finances as stage 3 tax cuts begin to flow through to pay packets, but the joy may prove short-lived if next week’s inflation data raises the chances of an interest rate increase. Consumer confidence rose 5.9 percentage points to a six-month high of 84.4 per cent last week, according to ANZ-Roy Morgan data. ANZ economist Madeline Dunk said it was one of the biggest weekly increases in confidence since April 2021 and was spread over several categories. There was a particularly strong rise in households’ confidence in their current financial situation. Read the full story here. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have charged a Sydney man with trafficking a teenager to work in NSW brothels while officers in Indonesia arrested a woman who enlisted vulnerable young women from that country’s poor neighbourhoods and villages. Authorities say they have already identified 20 brothels and numerous women across Sydney and the Central Coast who could be linked to the syndicate’s sexual servitude. Australian authorities have arrested the alleged ringleader of a human trafficking syndicate. The Australian Border Force in December 2022 allegedly uncovered a cohort of women who appeared to have been brought to Australia on tourist visas only to end up working in brothels under dire conditions. They called in the AFP, who say they found evidence multiple women had been brought in from Indonesia by a crime syndicate. Read more here. Circulating fake, sexual images has the potential to ruin lives and while new laws have been welcomed, a parliamentary committee was told today more must be done to stop their initial creation. On Tuesday, a Senate inquiry into proposed new legislation outlawing sharing sexually explicit “deepfakes” without consent heard artificial intelligence (AI) had powered an alarming increase the images. Deepfakes involve digitally altered images of a person or their body, while AI can be used to generate an image based on a person’s photo or to superimpose their face onto pornographic material. Young people had taken their own lives after becoming victim to the sharing of offensive deepfake material, Association of Services Against Sexual Violence chief executive Nicole Lambert told the hearing. There was also a lack of support services, Queensland Sexual Assault Network executive officer Angela Lynch added, saying a 12-year-old rape victim in her state remained on a waiting list for help. Perpetrators of non-consensual deepfakes in one survey admitted the biggest deterrent for them committing the abuse would have been criminal penalties, Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy chief executive Rachel Burgin said. “So we’ve heard from the perpetrators’ mouths what would have stopped them,” she told the committee. “We need more than signs at bus stops. What we’re doing for prevention in Australia doesn’t work, that’s why we’ve had more than 50 women killed at the hands of men this year.” Deepfakes are often accompanied by doxxing, where personal information is shared online, which then makes people fear for their safety, Burgin said. “‘Terror’ is the word,” Burgin said, adding that sexual violence was a precursor to homicide. AAP A man has been arrested after dozens of police and emergency service workers scoured a property north-west of Melbourne this morning looking for a trace of missing man Adrian Romeo. Victoria Police – alongside the Victoria State Emergency Service, Australian Federal Police, and NSW Police’s cadaver sniffer dogs – executed a search warrant at a property in Wildwood, about 31 kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD, near Sunbury. Emergency services on the scene north-west of Melbourne today.Credit: Nine News On Sunday, the state’s homicide squad launched an appeal for information about 43-year-old Romeo’s mysterious disappearance five months ago, suspecting he met with foul play after leaving his family’s Craigieburn home saying he was meeting with associates in Greenvale, another northern Melbourne suburb. In the last hour, police revealed some of the results of today’s search in Wildwood: A number of dwellings and dams on the property are being searched as part of today’s warrant. Detectives have seized a firearm, ammunition and drugs from the property, [and] four stolen vehicles have also been located. A 34-year-old Wildwood man was arrested and will be interviewed by police in relation to the items located at the property.” On Sunday, Detective Inspector Dean Thomas of the homicide squad said there was nothing in Romeo’s background to suggest he needed to leave or that anyone would want him harmed, and he had a large circle of friends and tight-knit family. He said Romeo had “very, very little involvement with police” and he had no links to organised crime groups, describing his disappearance as “extremely out of character”. Police are appealing for information over the disappearance of Adrian Romeo. Four people face jail time after being criminally charged with operating a “pump and dump” scheme on encrypted messaging app Telegram. Syed Yusuf, Larissa Quinlan, Emma Summer and Kurt Stuart were charged in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court today with conspiracy to commit market rigging and false trading to artificially increase the price of shares listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) before dumping them. Syed Yusuf (right) leaves Downing Centre Local Court today.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos “Pump and dump” schemes involve co-ordinated moves by groups of investors to push up the value of a stock higher before dumping the shares en masse for a profit. ASIC alleges that the defendants formed a private group on Telegram where they discussed and selected penny stocks they would announce to the public Telegram group named the “ASX Pump and Dump Group” to entice other market participants to join in. If found guilty, the quartet face a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment and a fine of more than $1 million for market manipulation. Read the full story here. US Vice President Kamala Harris says she has secured enough Democratic delegates to become the party’s nominee and run against Donald Trump in the presidential election. An Associated Press survey of party delegates, who had been pledged to US President Joe Biden via earlier primaries before the 81-year-old sensationally dropped out of the White House race, found Harris had the support of well more than the 1976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot. “When I announced my campaign for president,” Harris said in a statement released this afternoon, Australian time, “I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top.” You can read the rest of Harris’ statement and follow along with our rolling coverage here. 1 of 3 Copyright © 2024