Qantas accused of misleading conduct over advertising flight own sales staff could not find

Airline denies misleading conduct after customer was unable to find flight to London for advertised $2,455 return price

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Qantas has denied it is engaging in misleading conduct despite promoting a special return fare to London on its website that was scarcely available and which its own sales staff were unable to book for customers.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is considering a complaint which alleges Qantas breached Australia’s consumer law by advertising return economy airfares from Sydney to London’s Heathrow airport as one of its “top offers”, with prices from $2,455 per adult.

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Australia to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles in $1.7bn spend on long-range defence capability

Anti-radiation and anti-tank missiles among purchase which will be locked in just days after raucous internal debate at Labor conference over Aukus pact

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The Albanese government has announced a $1.7bn spend on hi-tech missiles which the defence minister, Richard Marles, said are needed “to hold our adversaries further from our shores and keep Australians safe”.

Australia will become just the third nation after the US and the UK to have access to Tomahawk cruise missiles, with $1.3bn being spent on 200 of the long range missiles to boost the capability of the three Hobart-class air warfare destroyers.

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Hurricane Hilary approaches California amid warnings of ‘serious threat’

‘Catastrophic’ flooding expected despite weakening to category 1 cyclone after wildfires in Maui and Washington state

Hurricane Hilary was closing in on southern California on Sunday as federal emergency officials, stretched by deadly wildfires in Maui and Washington state, warned of a “serious impact and threat”.

Despite weakening to a category 1 cyclone, the storm was still packing winds of 80mph as it approached Mexico and the south-western US, with “catastrophic” flooding expected to follow landfall.

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Australia’s population to grow at slowest rate since federation, intergenerational report forecasts

Australians are expected to live longer and remain healthier to an older age, while having fewer children over the next 40 years

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Australia’s population is forecast to grow at its slowest rate since federation, the latest intergenerational report from Treasury has found.

The report, which forecasts what the next four decades will look like, has found population growth is projected to slow to an annual average of 1.1% over the next 40 years, compared to 1.4% over the past four decades.

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Victorian recycling company found to have systematically underpaid refugees and asylum seekers

Company formerly known as Polytrade fined more than $375,000 in the federal court

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Refugees and asylum seekers employed to sort rubbish were systematically exploited and underpaid by one of the biggest recycling organisations in Victoria.

A recycling company formerly known as Polytrade, a linked subsidiary, and its owners, were fined more than $375,000 in the federal court this month, over what a judge described as “obnoxious conduct” and a “cavalier disregard” for the law, grossly underpaying migrant workers who spoke little English and were vulnerable to exploitation.

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We love bacon, and today is the day to celebrate our love for it. What's your favorite recipe involving it? [Interesting]

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Commons committee demands answers from Post Office over inquiry bonus payments

Post Office refusing to fully claw back executive bonuses linked to inquiry into Horizon IT miscarriage of justice

Post Office bosses may be hauled back in front of the Commons business watchdog after refusing to fully claw back executive bonuses payments linked to the inquiry into the scandal of wrongly convicted postmasters.

Darren Jones, chair of parliament’s business committee, has written to the Post Office to demand more answers after the company said it would not seek the full return of bonus payments awarded for work related to the inquiry into the Horizon miscarriage of justice.

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Former minister suggests broadcasting Lucy Letby’s sentencing to her cell

Tory Robert Buckland, a former justice secretary, says killer nurse should have ‘nowhere to hide’ if she won’t attend court

Lucy Letby’s sentencing should be broadcast into her cell if she refuses to attend court, a former justice secretary has said, as the government says it is still committed to forcing criminals to face judgment in person.

Robert Buckland, a senior Conservative, said the court currently had no power to compel Letby to attend but playing the sentence into her cell could ensure she had “nowhere to hide” from justice.

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Earned income taxed more heavily than capital gains in UK, thinktank finds

Study says increasing capital gains tax rates to same as employment tax would raise £10bn extra

A graduate earning £35,000 a year pays almost double the average tax of someone with same income from rent on property, according to a study of inequality in the UK tax system.

The combined effect of income tax and national insurance payments forces people in employment to pay much higher rates of tax than those who benefit from lower capital gains tax (CGT) rates on property and shares income, according to the Intergenerational Foundation thinktank.

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Ukraine wants its people back – but first it needs glass for broken windows

Lack of glass is impeding efforts to rebuild and repopulate areas hit by Russian shelling such as the village of Shevchenkove

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The village of Shevchenkove wants its villagers back. There is one significant problem: very many of its buildings do not have windows.

From the early days of the war, up until November last year when the Russian forces were pushed over to the other side of the Dnipro River, Shevchenkove and its surrounding hamlets in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson were on the frontline.

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Don't Think of Superman: Legacy as a "Young Superman" Film, Says James Gunn

Before we learned that David Corenswet would be playing Superman in DC movies for the next several years, various outlets such as ourselves reported that James Gunn’s Superman movie was going to focus on a younger version of the character. It was an important thing to note at the time since Henry Cavill’s Superman…

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Hutchinson makes Republican debate – and says he ‘doesn’t expect Trump to be nominee’

Ex-Arkansas says he will sign nominee pledge and insists former president, with more than 50% support, will not take nomination

The former Arkansas governor and Trump critic Asa Hutchinson said on Sunday he had qualified for the first Republican presidential debate, in Milwaukee on Wednesday, and would sign a required pledge to support the eventual nominee.

Insisting that nominee would not be Trump – who will not participate in the debate, conducting an interview with Tucker Carlson instead – Hutchinson refused to say what he would do if it was.

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Israeli embassy officials attempted to influence UK court cases, documents suggest

Exclusive: papers appear to show embassy officials pressing attorney general’s office over Palestine Action protesters

Israeli embassy officials in London attempted to get the attorney general’s office to intervene in UK court cases relating to the prosecution of protesters, documents seen by the Guardian suggest.

The papers, obtained through a freedom of information (FoI) request by Palestine Action, indicate that embassy officials pressed for the director general of the attorney general’s office (AGO), Douglas Wilson, to interfere into cases related to protests on UK soil.

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Ron Cephas Jones, This Is Us actor who won two Emmys, dies aged 66

Actor had a double lung transplant in 2020 because of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Ron Cephas Jones, a veteran stage actor who won two Emmy awards for his role as a long-lost father who finds redemption on the NBC series This Is Us, has died at age 66, a representative said.

Jones’s manager, Dan Spilo, said the actor died “due to a long-standing pulmonary issue”.

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Lessons the NHS needs to learn after Lucy Letby case

Public inquiry that is now almost inevitable will need to examine failings of people and processes – and result in meaningful changes

The scale of Lucy Letby’s crimes, and the Countess of Chester hospital’s failure to act on warnings that could have halted her killing spree, means the announcement ofan independent inquiry on Fridaywas almost inevitable.

It will have to forensically examine the failings of people and processes involved in her serial targeting of sick newborns and make detailed recommendations to ensure babies in neonatal units are much better protected.

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In Good Omens, diversity is divine

Good Omens second season highlights how good queer and disabled representation could be in the fantasy genre. | Image: Amazon

Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Good Omens

With the release of the second season of Good Omens on July 28th, writer Neil Gaiman has officially (and rather devastatingly) put any accusations of queerbaiting to bed. Leaving very little room for interpretation, Crowley and Aziraphale — the respectively demonic and angelic main characters of the Amazon fantasy-comedy series — engaged in some distressingly emotional snogging during the last moments of this season’s final episode, thereby ending over 30 years of speculation about the nature of their relationship. The fight is over. The shippers have won.

Well, not just the shippers.

I’ll provide some context for those of you who aren’t chronically online: “shipping”...

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Photoshop this Beverly Hills boulevard [Photoshop]

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CSB Sunday Morning: Got caught [CSB]

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Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in ‘final chapter’, ex-president’s grandson says

‘It’s clear we’re in the final chapter,’ Josh Carter says of grandparents, the first couple between 1977 and 1981, in interview

Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, are “still holding hands” as they enter their “final chapter” together at home in Plains, Georgia, the former US president’s grandson said.

“It’s clear we’re in the final chapter,” Josh Carter said of his grandparents, the first couple between 1977 and 1981, in an interview published by People magazine on Saturday.

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Ron DeSantis calls Trump supporters ‘listless vessels’ in Republican broadside

Aides to Florida governor say he meant allies in Congress, not Hillary Clinton-esque ‘deplorables’ comment Trump backers claim

His presidential campaign widely seen to be listing badly, Ron DeSantis fired a broadside at supporters of Donald Trump on Saturday, calling them “listless vessels”.

“A movement can’t be about the personality of one individual,” DeSantis told the Florida Standard.

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Lucy Letby NHS trust chair says hospital bosses misled the board

Sir Duncan Nichol says board was told there was ‘no criminal activity pointing to any one individual’ after reviews in late 2016

The former chair of the NHS trust where serial killer Lucy Letby worked has said the board was “misled” by hospital executives.

Sir Duncan Nichol, who was the board’s chair, said it was told there was “no criminal activity pointing to any one individual” after two hospital-commissioned reviews in late 2016.

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Could Trump be barred under the constitution’s ‘engaged in insurrection’ clause?

Experts suggest language in section 3 of 14th amendment is ‘actually very clearcut’ and could mean disqualification

As Donald Trump fights a mountain of criminal charges, a separate battle over his eligibility to run for president in 2024 is fast emerging.

The US constitution sets out just a handful of explicit requirements someone must meet to be the president. They must be at least 35 years old, a “natural-born” citizen, and a United States resident for at least 14 years. The constitution also bars someone who has served as president for two full terms from running again.

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Bedroom ‘used by slaves’ found by archaeologists near Pompeii

Finding at Civita Giuliana villa throws light on lowly status of slaves in ancient world

Archaeologists have discovered a small bedroom in a Roman villa near Pompeii that was almost certainly used by slaves, throwing light on their lowly status in the ancient world, Italy’s culture ministry said on Sunday.

The room was found at the Civita Giuliana villa, some 600 metres (2,000 ft) north of the walls of Pompeii, which was wiped out by a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago.

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Google's New Feature Ensures Your Pixel Phone Hasn't Been Hacked. Here’s How It Works

Pixel Binary Transparency is the latest security benefit for Pixel owners.

The Lawlessness of Large Numbers

Mathematicians can often figure out what happens as quantities grow infinitely large. What about when they are just a little big?