Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix has pledged to come back even stronger next season, after winning three Commonwealth Games medals — including double gold — at Birmingham 2022.
The 17-year-old, who made the British team at the last Olympics but largely went under the radar, rounded off the final day of competition yesterday with gold in the 10metre mixed synchronized platform diving competition alongside Noah Williams.
It added to a gold in the individual event as well as silver in the women’s synchro event to mark her out as a potential star for the next Olympics in Paris.
Spendolini-Sirieix will compete at the upcoming European Championships before drawing a close to an impressive season.
Following her Birmingham heroics, she said: “Now we have got the Europeans, so I will focus on that. After that, I will take a break, have a summer holiday and come back even stronger.”
The Team England athlete was again cheered on from the stands by her father, Fred Sirieix, the star of television series First Dates.
Her medal haul will only ramp up expectation, but she said: “I’m not going to put pressure on myself.
“Whether there is external pressure or not, the internal pressure is the one which makes you crumble. But I’m very excited for the next two years.
Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix won three medals at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham
/ Getty Images
“I’m learning about dealing with the pressure in competition. If I can keep the internal pressure under control, that’s good. I’m still learning and I’m going to make mistakes.
“This has given me a lot of confidence but success in competition comes from training hard and working hard.”
Teacher salaries could rise to up to $130,000 a year as Australia battles an increasing shortage in the sector.
The new plan follows a number of strikes in recent months as teachers walked off the job to demand better pay and working conditions.
One recent report suggested that huge numbers of teachers were planning to leave the education sector in the next five years due to the difficult environment.
Should we increase salaries for top teachers to $130,000?
Australia is considering radical steps to stop teachers leaving education. (Getty)
Education Ministers from around Australia will meet tomorrow to discuss plans to shore up the sector, including retaining current teachers and attracting new talent.
Among the ideas being flagged are salaries of $130,000 a year, and lowering university fees to make it more affordable to join the profession.
An apprenticeship-style system of on-the-job training is also being mooted.
Teachers have gone on strike in recent months to demand better pay and conditions. (Brook Mitchell)
NSW Teachers Federation head Angelo Gavrielatos said recently that an entire generation of students were missing out on a proper education because of the teaching sector woes.
Every day, he said, thousands of students were reporting that they had their classes merged, forgotten, or cancelled, as schools scrambled to plug teaching gaps.
Gavrielatos said while the pandemic had exacerbated the issue, the teacher crisis predated COVID-19 by years.
Surprise find upends human history in North America
He said that teachers had not had their working conditions changed for, in some cases, seventy years.
“The government has got thousands of pages of research and analysis that says the two most important factors here are unsustainable workloads and uncompetitive pay,” Gavrielatos said.
“Yet the government appears to be wanting to do everything else other than dealing with the root cause of the issue.”
On New Year’s Day 2008, Said took his two daughters for a ride in his taxi. Hours later, the girls’ lifeless bodies were found, with multiple gunshots wounds, in Said’s abandoned cab. Before she died, Sarah made a brief, desperate call for help. By the time the police located the cab, the sisters were dead, and Said had disappeared, along with his handgun and all of his savings, CNN previously reported.
Said remained a fugitive for more than 12 years, with six of those years being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List, before being captured without incident on August 26, 2020, in Justin, Texas, according to the release.
After six days of trial, a Dallas County jury deliberated for three hours before returning a verdict of guilty Tuesday, the release said.
“There is nothing honorable about what Yaser Said did on January 1, 2008. Dallas County has shown Mr. Said that there is no excuse for taking another human life. He must now spend the rest of his days confined to a prison cell living under the control of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,” District Attorney Creuzot said. “While this verdict does not bring Sarah and Amina back, my office and this jury have done all that is in our power to see that justice is done.”
Said’s public defender, Bradley Lollar, told CNN, “We are disappointed in the verdict, but accept it. We are planning on appealing.”
Lollar added, “This was a case where there were no witnesses, no physical evidence of any kind, no surveillance videos, or confession. To the contrary, our client always maintained innocence of the crime.”
CNN’s Jennifer Henderson, Ed Lavandera, and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
John Irwin is the general manager of Steritech and on the frontline of Australia’s ongoing gas crisis.
Key points:
State and federal energy ministers meet on Friday for the first time since the ACCC’s scathing report on the east coast gas market
Industry has called for the government to “stand on the throat of gas producers” to ensure supply and fair prices
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association says there is no gas cartel controlling prices on the east coast
“Without natural gas, we don’t operate our operations,” he said.
Steritech was one of the hundreds of manufacturers left exposed to the spot market when energy retailer Weston Energy collapsed in July.
Only two other gas providers were willing to consider signing a new supply deal with Steritech.
“And both of them were very unwilling to negotiate what we would consider a fair and long term price,” Mr Irwin said.
“It’s take it or leave it, you really don’t have a choice.”
Steritech is now paying up to four times what it used to for gas.
Mr Irwin said the dramatic price hike will eventually be passed through to patients on surgery operating tables around the country.
His company sterilises medical devices in procedure packs that are used in approximately 90 per cent of major operations in Australia.
“So increasing the price of those means that your health insurance is going to go up, and governments’ are going to have to spend more money in the public system for the materials being used,” Mr Irwin said.
Plenty of gas
Australia has plenty of gas and for decades the nation enjoyed cheap prices of around $5-a-gigajoule.
Technology enabled gas to be liquefied and sent overseas and Australia’s price became linked to the global market where prices are higher.
Recently prices on the east coast have skyrocketed as producers ramp up exports to supply a desperate global market caught short because of the war in Ukraine.
Mr Irwin does not hold back when it comes to who is responsible for the gas crisis.
“Both sides of politics have been in a situation where I don’t think they’ve represented the country too well,” he said.
“You’ve got to go back and look at who came up with a deal that does not ensure that we had appropriate domestic gas.
“The Australian community owns the gas in the ground, we license it out to gas companies to be able to extract it and deliver it to us, and you would expect that’s going to be done at a fair price.”
Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister in 2017 when he sat down with the heads of Santos, Shell and Origin and got them to agree to supply enough gas to the domestic market to fill projected shortfalls.
But he did not impose export or price controls, much like the current federal government in this current gas crisis.
Australia exports more LNG than it uses. (Supplied)
Australians have been left paying more for our gas than overseas customers for long periods.
Last week the ACCC delivered a scathing report on the east coast gas market which detailed concerns about price-fixing behavior by exporters.
It also found profits had exploded compared to the cost of extracting gas.
It made similar findings in 2015, concluding that gas suppliers on the east coast had used a market restructure to hike prices on domestic consumers and evidence of collusion.
In its most recent report, the consumer watchdog concluded the east coast market is highly concentrated and dominated by the three LNG exporters, APLNG, GLNG and QCLNG, and their associates – controlling 90 per cent of the proven and probable gas reserves.
The damning ACCC report found exporters were withdrawing more from the domestic market than they were supplying, risking a 56 petajoule shortfall in 2023.
“On top of that it showed that they [exporters] pretty much ignored the heads of agreement that they had agreed with the Australian government [in 2017],” Mark Ogge, principal adviser on climate and energy at the Australian Institute, said.
“They weren’t providing gas at reasonable prices and reasonable terms and conditions to Australian gas customers – they were sending it overseas instead.
“The ACCC report doesn’t use the word cartel, but it describes cartel behaviour.
“If there’s cartel behaviour, if they have been colluding to keep prices high, then they’ve broken the law and that should be investigated.”
Mark Ogge is a gas and energy analyst at the Australia Institute.(ABC News: Peter Drought )
The Australian Energy Market Regulator has said it plans to investigate potentially illegal behavior by the gas companies.
The ACCC said it will review the arrangements of exporters and “where appropriate consider enforcement action”.
Bruce Robertson, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said Australia was in “a rolling energy crisis caused by the gas cartel”.
“They control and fix the price through their contracting mechanisms. All these are detailed in the ACCC report, and if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, it is a duck.
“What the gas cartel is doing is starving the Australian market of gas to force up the price. That’s what cartels do. They fix prices.
“This is a price fixing cartel. It’s illegal and it should be dealt with with the full force of the Australian law.”
Energy analyst Bruce Robertson says gas companies on the east coast act like a “price fixing cartel”.(ABC News: Wiriya Sati )
Since the ACCC report was released on August 1, the gas price has been noticeably lower dropping to as low as $10.50-a-gigajoule.
“The gas price was as high as $55-a-gigajoule just two weeks ago in Sydney. So what we’ve seen is a collapse in the gas price. That could not have occurred without the gas cartel fixing the price,” Mr Robertson said.
“They’ve simply flooded the market in the short term, responding to political pressure that has come on with the ridiculous prices that they were charging Australian consumers.”
The peak body for gas producers the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), said prices had dropped because of planned maintenance on LNG export facilities.
“That’s meant more gas has been able to flow into the market because those facilities are down for scheduled maintenance,” Damian Dwyer, APPEA acting chief executive said.
“And that’s a regular thing that happens this time of year and we’ve also seen warmer weather conditions that have meant less draw on gas for heating and power generation purposes than we saw in May.”
Mr Dwyer said there had been no collusion between gas companies.
“There’s been no behavior of that kind going on, what we’ve got is a market that has been under significant pressure,” he said.
“And that’s the energy market more broadly, not the gas market, the invasion of Ukraine and the international geopolitical tensions and disruptions to the energy market that have arisen from that.”
Electricity prices are going up
Gas is known as a price-setter in the National Electricity Market because gas-fired power plants step in to “smooth” the demand for energy when aging coal power stations are down or renewables aren’t working.
“A fair proportion of the electricity we use is generated by gas power stations at the moment,” Mr Ogge said.
“And with the price of gas going up to $40-a-gigajoule it meant that some gas power stations couldn’t produce gas for under $500-a-megawatt-hour.
“Previously the wholesale price of electricity was around $80 MWh, and these enormously high prices will flow onto Australian households and businesses.”
Damian Dwyer, APPEA acting chief executive, says there is no east coast gas cartel.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
What’s the solution?
Unlike in Western Australia, which requires companies to reserve 15 per cent of gas for domestic use, there are no export limits or price caps on east coast gas.
Innes Willox from AiGroup said the longer the gas crisis drags on the more justification there was for an east coast reservation policy.
“It really is going to need government intervention, both at a federal and state level,” he said.
“And it’s going to need governments, quite frankly, to put their foot on the throat of gas producers to make sure they uphold their end of the bargain.
Mr Willox spent much of last year acting on behalf of industry trying to set up a code of conduct between gas producers and consumers – in the end, it fell over.
“Gas producers refused to touch issues around price, they wouldn’t go near it with a barge pole,” he said.
“They wouldn’t have price, content transparency as any part of a code of conduct, which rendered any sort of idea of a code of conduct completely useless, quite frankly.”
Innes Willox, AiGroup chief executive, says without energy at fair prices there will be no industry.
AiGroup does not support a “full blown reservation policy” but one that would only apply to new gas fields and take into consideration a “national interest test” on whether Australia had enough domestic supply.
Mr Robertson disagrees and argues that there should be no hesitation to apply a retrospective gas reservation policy with price controls, because gas companies have broken their original approval conditions by affecting the domestic market with exports.
“These players are now buying gas out of the domestic market, this is in direct contravention of their approval conditions,” Mr Robertson said.
“But law breaking just seems to go on and on in the gas industry in Australia and the government seems impotent.”
Windfall profits tax
Mr Ogge argues for a windfall profits tax, as the UK government has recently adopted in the face of soaring energy prices.
“A windfall profits tax is the only thing that we know will be effective,” he said.
“That’s because it would be very effective in reducing gas prices, because it removes the incentive for the LNG producers to export all their excess gas overseas to cash in on high gas prices.
“And it removes the incentive for them to charge Australian customers exorbitant prices for the gas that we use.
“On top of that, it provides funds for us to compensate Australian customers and businesses and households, and, money to actually help us electrify and get off gas so that we’re not permanently over the barrel of high international prices.”
tax time
According to analysis from the Australia Institute, five of the nation’s biggest gas producers haven’t paid income tax in at least seven years – despite combined earnings of $138 billion.
“It’s extraordinary when you think about it, that almost half the gas produced in Australia isn’t subject to any royalties at all – so they’re getting the gas for free,” Mr Ogge said.
“We’re getting a woefully inadequate return for Australians, and we’re paying huge additional energy costs.
“It’s high time the Australian government got onto this issue and fixed it.”
Mr Dwyer said the industry is paying its fair share of tax.
“The industry pays taxes or royalties to every jurisdiction. And the way in which that plays out just depends on the jurisdiction in question.”
The industry rejects the need for a reservation policy or price controls, arguing there is not a supply problem — at the same it wants to extract gas from new fields.
“We need is ongoing investment to bring more gas supply into the market, so we’re keen to talk with the government about their way forward,” Mr Dwyer said.
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The cost of living is set to soar as the gas crisis bites.
VALORANT’S French sentinel Chamber has been gutted with several nerfs in Patch 5.03, Riot Games announced today.
Since his introduction, Chamber has become one of the most popular agents in VALORANT, with professional players using his kit to dominate the competition. Many players have complained about his ability to teleport instantly and his impressive firepower from him.
Chamber’s ability to teleport using his Rendezvous (E) has allowed the agent to play from different angles and take fights most characters can’t afford to take. Riot has nerfed several aspects of his Rendezvous from him, with the range and cooldown set to be hit with nerfs.
Here are the specific nerfs coming to Chamber in Patch 5.03:
Rendezvous (E)
Base cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds
Recall cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds
Cooldown set to 45 seconds whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed
The diameter size of the “ring” Chamber can stand that allows him to activate Rendezvous decreased 21 from 15 units.
Chamber’s Trademark allows him to lock down an area and is the hallmark of his sentinel title. This ability was previously nerfed in VALORANT Patch 4.09, with two traps going down to just one. The ability will be nerfed once more with a decrease to the slow after enemies have triggered the Trademark.
Trademark (C)
Slow duration decreased from 9.5 to six seconds
His ultimate ability, Tour De Force (X), brings out the big guns for Chamber. He has a pocket operator with a built-in slow after he gets a kill. The ability is being nerfed with the number of ultimate points required being increased and the slow duration being decreased.
Tour De Force (X)
Ultimate points required increased from seven to eight
Slow duration decreased from 9.5 seconds to six seconds
Leg shot multiplier reduced from 1.0 to 0.85
Many professional players have coined the Headhunter (Q) as the “pocket guardian”—and for good reason. This cheap ability allows Chamber to pull out a pistol that takes down enemies with a few body shots and one shot to the head.
Headhunter (Q)
Single bullet cost increased from 100 to 150
VALORANT Patch 5.03 is set to be released today, Tuesday, Aug. 9.
BIRMINGHAM: Australia demolished India 7-0 in the men’s hockey final on Monday to maintain their perfect record at the Commonwealth Games and end their gold medal hunt in style.
The six-time defending champions showed their opponents no mercy in sweltering conditions on the final day of sporting action in Birmingham.
Australia have won every gold medal in men’s hockey since the sport joined the Commonwealth Games program in 1998.
The dominant Australians were 2-0 up after the first quarter and two goals from Jacob Anderson helped put them 5-0 up after 30 minutes.
GOLD medalists England’s James Willstrop and James Declan (C) stand on the podium alongside silver medalists England’s Adrian Waller and Daryl Selby (L) and bronze winners Greg Lobban and Rory Stewart of Scotland during the medal presentation ceremony for the men’s doubles squash event of the Commonwealth Games at the University of Birmingham Hockey and Squash Center on Monday.—AFP
Nathan Ephraums scored his second to make it 6-0 and Flynn Ogilvie completed the route early in the final quarter.
Australia’s Blake Govers said the team had saved their best performance until last.
That’s what we pride ourselves on,” he said.“It’s awesome to do it without too much of a heart problem. We had to play with confidence and play forward and take the game on from the start, and that’s what we did. That’s the difference between the two games [final and semi-final against England].” Host nation England beat South Africa 6-3 to take bronze.
AUSTRALIAN opener Beth Mooney plays a shot as Indian wicket-keeper Yastika Bhatia looks on during the women’s Twenty20 cricket gold medal match of the Commonwealth Games at Edgbaston.—AFP
Australia have topped the medals table with 67 golds — 10 ahead of England. Canada are third with 26 golds and India have 22.
The closing ceremony takes place at Alexander Stadium later on Monday, bringing to an end 11 days of sporting action at the 22nd Commonwealth Games.
Elsewhere on Monday, Scotland’s James Heatly and Grace Reid won the mixed synchronized 3m springboard final, with England pair Noah Williams and Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix taking gold in the 10m event.
PV Sindhu of India competes against Canada’s Michelle Li during their women’s singles badminton final of the Commonwealth Games at the NEC arena on Monday.—Reuters
India celebrated a golden double in badminton.
World number seven PV Sindhu won the women’s singles, overcoming Canada’s Michelle Li while Lakshya Sen beat Malaysia’s Ng Tze Yong to win the men’s gold.
India’s Sharath Kamal Achanta beat England’s Liam Pitchford 4-1 in the men’s singles table tennis gold-medal match.
The best two weeks of my 40 years of life,” said the winner, who won three golds and a silver in Birmingham. “It can’t get better.”
Birmingham 2022 CEO Ian Reid said the Games had been a huge boost for the city and the surrounding area.
He said more than 1.5 million tickets had been sold, with most venues above 90 percent capacity.
ENGLAND’S Delicious Orie (R) in action against Sagar Ahlawat of India during their super heavyweight boxing gold medal bout at the NEC Hall 4.—Reuters
One of the goals at the outset was to put the city on the world map and instill that huge pride across everyone that lives in the region and I think we’ve achieved that,” he told a briefing on Monday. I think that can lead to much bigger and greater things.”
On Sunday, Australia won the first women’s cricket gold medal in Commonwealth Games history as Scotland’s Laura Muir captured the 1500m title on the final night of athletics.
Elsewhere, England’s women won hockey gold and Australia beat Jamaica in the netball final.
Hot favorites Australia held their nerve to beat India by nine runs in a Twenty20 thriller in front of a big Edgbaston crowd and partied on the pitch as the lights went out around the stadium.
It’s absolutely huge,” said left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen. We are blessed enough to be part of some winning World Cup teams but to win the first gold medal for women’s cricket in the Commonwealth Games, you’re only ever going to do that once.”
Victory underlined the dominance of Australia’s women, who are also world champions in the 20-over and 50-over formats.
Muir ended her Commonwealth Games campaign with a flourish by winning gold in the 1500m at the Alexander Stadium.
SCOTLAND’S Laura Muir celebrates winning gold medal in the women’s 1,500m athletics final at the Alexander Stadium.—AFP
The 29-year-old’s team-mate, 10,000m champion Eilish McColgan, just failed in her bid for memorable double, finishing second behind Kenya’s impressive world silver medalist Beatrice Chebet in the women’s 5,000m.
Muir, who won bronze in the 800m on Saturday, kicked for glory before the bell and ran a fairly moderate field — lacking two-time Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon — ragged, timing 4min 02.75sec.
Wyclife Kinyamal defended his men’s 800m crown in a time of 1:47.52. It was an impressive turnaround for the 25-year-old, who finished last in the final of the world championships in July.
New Zealand cyclist Aaron Gate won the men’s road race to collect his fourth gold medal of the Commonwealth Games. In the women’s race, Australia’s Georgia Baker won her third gold of the games.
England won hockey gold for the first time after holding off a fightback from Australia to win 2-1.
Second-quarter goals from Holly Hunt and Tess Howard ultimately provided decisive 24 hours after the men’s team had suffered semi-final despair at the hands of Australia.
There was more joy for Australia in the netball competition, with a 55-51 over Jamaica in the final.
Australia also shone at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre. Cassiel Rousseau took the men’s 10m platform title and Maddison Keeney won her second gold of the games in the women’s 3m springboard.
England’s Delicious Orie won super heavyweight gold on a busy night of boxing, beating India’s Sagar Ahlawat.
India won three other golds in boxing but Northern Ireland took five, including a special double for Aidan Walsh and his sister Michaela.
CONCORD, NH (AP) — A jury on Tuesday acquired a commercial truck driver of causing the deaths of seven motorcyclists in a horrific head-on collision in northern New Hampshire that exposed fatal flaws in the processing of license revocations across states.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 26, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, was found innocent on seven counts of manslaughter, seven counts of negligent homicide and one count of reckless conduct in connection with the June 21, 2019, crash in Randolph. Jailed since the crash, he appeared to wipe away tears as the verdict was read and briefly raised his index finger skyward before leaving the courtroom.
Jurors deliberated for less than three hours after a two-week trial during which prosecutors argued that Zhukovskyy — who had taken heroin, fentanyl and cocaine earlier on the day of the crash — repeatedly swerved back and forth before the collision and told police he caused it . But a judge dismissed eight charges related to whether he was impaired, and his attorneys blamed the lead biker, Albert “Woody” Mazza Jr., saying he was drunk and not looking where he was going when he lost control of his motorcycle and slid in front of Zhukovskyy’s truck.
“Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. Our trial team did an excellent job and we firmly believe that the State provided its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a statement.
Zhukovskyy’s family, some of whom attended the trial, said in a statement they were grateful to God, the court and the defense attorneys for an “honest and fair trial.”
“Our family expresses its deepest condolences to the family and friends affected by this tragedy,” the family said, describing him as a “very honest and kind man. He would never have done anything to hurt anyone.”
Zhukovskyy, who was born in Ukraine, remained jailed as of late Tuesday afternoon. It is unclear when he might be released. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an immigration detainer on him after the crash and that he was executed following the verdict, said Ben Champagne, the superintendent at the Coos County Department of Corrections.
ICE said in a statement that Zhukovskyy has been served a notice to appear before an immigration judge and will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of that appearance. It did not say where he is being held.
All seven motorcyclists killed were members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club. After the verdict, a member of the Marine group reached through Facebook declined to comment. Mazza’s father, also named Albert, said he was stunned.
“Killing seven people and he gets off. That is unbelievable,” said Mazza. He described his son of him as a “good man” who devoted much of his time to charity, and said it was wrong to pin blame on him.
“It doesn’t make much sense,” he said. “There are seven people dead. There are seven families affected. It’s strange that he didn’t get something.”
The motorcyclists who died were from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island and ranged in age from 42 to 62. They were part of a larger group that had just left a motel along US Route 2 in Randolph.
Killed were Mazza, of Lee, New Hampshire; Edward and Jo-Ann Corr, a couple from Lakeville, Massachusetts; Michael Ferazzi, of Contocook, New Hampshire; Desma Oakes, of Concord, New Hampshire; Daniel Pereira, of Riverside, Rhode Island; and Aaron Perry, of Farmington, New Hampshire.
In closing statements Tuesday morning, the two sides raised questions about who was more “all over the place”: the trucker accused of swerving back and forth across the road or the eyewitnesses accused of contradicting each other.
“Those witnesses were all over the place about what they recalled and what they claimed to have seen,” said defense attorney Jay Duguay.
Duguay also accused prosecutors of ignoring that their own accident reconstruction unit contradicted their theory that Zhukovskyy crossed into the oncoming lane. An expert hired by the defense, meanwhile, testified that the crash happened on the center line of the road and would have occurred even if the truck was in the middle of its lane because Mazza’s motorcycle was heading in that direction.
“From the beginning of this investigation, the state had made up their mind about what had happened, evidence was damned,” said Duguay, who also highlighted inconsistencies between witness accounts or when witnesses contradicted themselves.
In particular, Duguay suggested that the bikers “shaded” their accounts to protect Mazza and the club. Prosecutor Scott Chase acknowledged some inconsistencies, but asked jurors to remember the circumstances.
“People were covering the dead, trying to save the barely living, comforting the dying. This wasn’t story time,” he said. “They were up here talking about some of the most unimaginable chaos, trauma, death and carnage that we can even imagine three years later. They were talking about hell broke open.”
Witnesses were consistent, he argued, in describing the truck as weaving back and forth before the crash. That behavior continued “until he killed people,” Chase said.
“That’s what stopped him. It’s not that he made some responsible decision to start paying attention or do the right thing,” he said. “The only thing that stopped him was an embankment after he tore through a group of motorcycles.”
Chase called the attempt to blame Mazza a “fanciful story” and “frivolous distraction,” while reminding jurors that Zhukovskyy, who didn’t testify at trial, told investigators “Obviously, I caused the crash.”
“He was crystal clear from the very beginning that he caused this crash,” Chase said. “That is what he said, because that is what happened.”
Zhukovskyy’s commercial driving license should have been revoked in Massachusetts at the time of the crash because of a drunken driving arrest in Connecticut about two months earlier.
Connecticut officials alerted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, but Zhukovskyy’s license wasn’t suspended due to a backlog of out-of-state notifications about driving offenses. In a review, federal investigators found similar backlog problems in Rhode Island, New Hampshire and at least six other jurisdictions.
A Microsoft spokesperson said it took user safety seriously and had removed the PointsBet ad.
“Unfortunately, sometimes ads like this make it through our detection mechanisms,” they said. “When we become aware of these instances, we take action to remove them as soon as possible.”
However, while the PointsBet ads were gone by Wednesday and searches for “gambling treatment” no longer displayed ads, searches for “help” or a “helpline” instead returned ads for other online gambling services, including Neds, Ladbrokes and Palmerbet.
The Microsoft spokesperson said the company acted to remove inappropriate ads as soon as possible, and would then “apply the feedback into our detection mechanisms to improve our ability to detect and remove similar ads in the future”.
Liquor & Gaming NSW is reviewing the advertisement placement. A spokesperson said it would “be engaging with Microsoft directly to express these significant concerns”.
“The placement of this advertising is completely inappropriate and it is concerning that gambling advertisements are being promoted to potentially vulnerable persons who are seeking help,” they said.
Charles Livingstone, an associate professor at Monash University and head of its gambling and social determinants unit, said online gambling advertising was designed to present betting as a fun activity while enjoying sport and TV shows.
“It’s an appalling outcome for people to have to grin and bear that kind of interference with getting help,” he said. “It’s like having to pass through a gamut of heroin dealers while getting help for a drug addiction.”
According to Nielsen Research, the gambling industry spent $287.2 million on advertising in Australia in 2021, excluding stadium advertising and sponsorships. The figure was more than triple its 2011 spend.
In 2018, Australia introduced a ban on advertising betting products during live sport broadcasts on TV and online between 5am and 8.30pm.
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Livingstone said more regulation of gambling advertising in the online space was a “no-brainer”.
“If you want to stop new recruits being drummed up by these operators, we need to think about where they are coming from, and how they are being kept there,” he said.
Hamilton agreed advertising regulation needed to be part of the strategy used to address online betting in the community, noting it was a rapidly growing form of gambling but “significantly underrepresented” in treatment presentations and research.
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Motorola’s Galaxy Z Flip 4 rival, the Moto RAZR 2022, will launch a day after the Galaxy Unpacked 2022 event. Now, it seems like the Galaxy Z Fold 4 will get a rival in the form of the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2, and it will also launch on August 11.
Xiaomi confirmed on Weibo that it would launch the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 alongside the Buds 4 Pro wireless earphones and the Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro 12.4-inch tablet at the same event. However, do note that the devices will be exclusive to China, and there is no clarity if these devices will make their way to other regions or not.
Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 appears to be a lot thinner than Galaxy Z Fold 4
Xiaomi MIX Fold2, the video is here, it’s time to surprise you, the thinnest folding phone ever, please pay attention to Type C, it is only a little thicker than Type C, it can’t be thinner. Only 5.x mm thick.😍😍😍 pic.twitter.com/FkX62zpVv3
The Xiaomi MIX Fold 2 looks strikingly similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 4. A promo video also shows the device to be much thinner than the Samsung phone. Each half of the MIX Fold 2 appears to be only slightly thicker than the USB Type-C port.
It sports a centered punch-hole screen on the cover display and does not offer a punch-hole or notch on the inner screen. The 120Hz cover display is tipped to come with a 21:9 aspect ratio, compared to the 27:9 aspect ratio on the previous MIX Fold. The Xiaomi foldable will be powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, 12GB RAM, and 512GB/1TB storage.
Just like the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2, the Motorola RAZR 2022 will be launched in China initially. Also, there is no word on the global availability, just like the Xiaomi MIX Fold 2.
Nick Kyrgios and Daniil Medvedev put on one heck of a show during their second round clash at the Canadian Open on Thursday morning (AEST) as the Australian continued his brilliant run of form ahead of this year’s US Open.
Fresh from winning the Citi Open title in Washington, Kyrgios’ class on hard courts was on show once again as he came back from a set down to topple world No. 1 Medvedev 6-7 6-4 6-2.
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Kyrgios has won 14 of his past 15 singles matches, stretching back to his run into the Wimbledon final, which he lost to Novak Djokovic. It’s the second time in his career that he’s beaten a world No. 1 and he now boasts a 3-1 head-to-head record against Medvedev, the 2021 US Open champion.
Since landing in the States for the American hard court swing a couple of weeks ago, Kyrgios is 15-0 across singles and doubles.
American tennis icon Andy Roddick believes Kyrgios is now the favorite for the US Open, which kicks off in a couple of weeks, while Aussie tennis great Rennae Stubbs was in awe of what the Canberran is producing.
“@NickKyrgios I mean when he plays tennis and keeps his s**t together, he is seriously close to the best tennis player in the world,” Stubbs tweeted.
“His serve is untouchable at the moment. Fitness level is HIGH and his tennis acumen is unreal. That effort after losing the 1st set was impressive.”
Eric Hubbs of Barstool Sports tweeted: “Kyrgios domination continues. Finally playing to his potential and it’s awesome.”
But there is more than just tennis on Kyrgios’ mind. His mother Norlaila is in hospital back home in Australia, and he wrote “be strong, ma” on her camera after his victory.
“It’s hard because even traveling now, my mum is in hospital at the moment, my dad hasn’t been very well, my brother just had a baby and I don’t get to be there with my family when normal people would like to be with them,” Kyrgios said.
“It’s hard being from Australia because we can’t travel back and forth. There’s a lot of things people don’t see. They only see me winning, losing, throwing a racquet, doing those things. They don’t really understand the challenges that I face or what people on tour face, what’s going on in their personal lives.”
Kyrgios was the only player to have break points in the first set, but he failed to convert either of his opportunities at 5-4 and then was all over the shop during the tiebreak.
The 27-year-old smashed a ball out of the stadium in anger after dropping the opener, but was back at his mercurial best in the second set. Kyrgios broke Medvedev early on and maintained the rage to close out the set 6-4.
There were the usual antics from Kyrgios, who once again hit out at those in his player’s box.
Writer Allesandro Nivola tweeted: “Nick Kyrgios’s relationship with his box is so disturbing. He it’s like a deranged psychopathic dictator and his ‘advisors’ of him. They look terrified of saying the wrong thing or of standing up when they should sit down or of sitting down when they should stand up.”
However, Kyrgios composed himself for the decider to shut out Medvedev and progress to the third round in Montreal as his red-hot run continues.
He and Thanasi Kokkinakis won the doubles title in Atlanta then Kyrgios teamed up with Jack Sock in Washington to take out the Citi Open trophy.
That same day he also cleaned up in the singles draw, defeating Yoshihito Nishioka to win his first title in three years — a feat he last achieved at the same tournament in Washington back in 2019.
Speaking after his win over Nishioka earlier this week, Kyrgios opened up on his “transformation” after coming through some tough times emotionally.
“It was emotional for me to see where I was last year to now, it’s an incredible transformation,” Kyrgios said. “I just came out with great energy because I knew I had the experience on my side today.
“I’ve been in some really dark places and just to be able to turn it around…
“There’s so many people who have helped me get there but myself, I’ve shown some serious strength to just continue and just persevere and get through those really tough times and still be able to perform in tournaments like this one.”
