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Categories
Technology

These apps are dangerous for Android phones! Delete it today, downloaded 10 million times

strong points

36 such apps were found on the Google Play Store, which contain malware.
Most of the applications containing viruses are part of the editing tools.
According to the report, 10 million people downloaded malicious apps.

There are many reports of fake apps or apps with viruses on Android, and in the meantime another such case has come to light. According to the information received, many such apps have been spotted on the Google Play Store, which have been described as a threat to Android users. Worryingly, millions of people have downloaded virus-laden apps from the Google Play Store. According to the report, 10 million people downloaded malicious apps.

A total of 36 apps have been spotted on the Google Play Store which pose a security threat to Android phones. According to report by Bleeping Commuter, these dangerous apps start showing ads to users under the guise of adding new features to phone and subscribe to premium service.

(Also Read – Airtel’s Good Plan! Get Free Calls for a Whole Year by Recharging Once, You’ll Get 2GB Data Every Day)

Not only that, it has also been reported that these apps access user information from social media.

Photo editor: beauty filter
Photo editor: retouch and crop
Photo editor: artistic filters
Photo Editor – Design Maker
Photo editor and background eraser
Photo and Exif editor
Photo Editor – Filter Effects
Photo filters and effects
Photo editor: blurry image
Photo editor: cut and paste
Emoji Keyboard: Stickers and GIFs
Neon Theme Keyboard
Cache Cleaner
FastCleaner: cache cleaner
Funny Wallpapers – Live Screen
Notes – reminders and lists
Caller Skins – Caller Themes
funny caller
CallMe Phone Themes
InCall: contact history
MyCall – Call personalization
caller-theme
Funny Wallpapers – Live Screen
Automatic 4K wallpaper changer
NewScreen: 4D Wallpapers
Wallpapers and backgrounds.

(Also read – A new group related feature is coming to WhatsApp, a new facility for users)

Many of these apps are part of photo editing tools, in which Joker malware has been found. Once these apps are installed, it asks for various permissions from the user and then they continue to run in the background. Information about this Dr. Found by Web Antivirus Team.

Let us tell you that Google removed it from the Play Store, but it may prove dangerous for phones that already have it. In this case, you can manually delete it from your phone.

tags: antivirus, apps, Google Play Store

Categories
Entertainment

Male stars throwing gender fashion rules out the window

This week, Hollywood heartthrob Brad Pitt showed it’s not just Millenials who can get away with challenging gender fashion roles when he wore a skirt to the Berlin premiere of his latest movie Bullet Train.

When asked on the red carpet why he chose to wear a skirt, the 58-year-old simply said: “The breeze. The breeze.”

Brad has hinted before at wanting men to feel more comfortable in skirts telling fashion in 2004: “Men will be wearing skirts by next summer. That’s my prediction and proclamation.”

  Brad Pitt makes a fashion statement by wearing a black skirt with black boots, coat and sunglasses on the red carpet, Bullet Train promo wall in background featuring cast

Brad Pitt making a fashion statement by wearing a skirt on the red carpet this week. Photo: Getty Images

Brad was promoting his film Troy at the time and wearing the garments of the period had obviously sparked something in him.

“The film answers to both genders. We were going for realism and Greeks wore skirts all the time then,” he said.

Brad is not the first man in Hollywood to wear a skirt though.

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In 1998, at the height of his footballing career and just after getting engaged to Posh Spice Victoria, David Beckham was mocked for wearing a sarong.

“Sarongs are great. That’s one thing I never regret because I thought it looked great and I would still wear it now,” he told ITV in 2014.

In fact, some of the most fashion-forward men have shown just how good a guy can look when they wear what they want instead of what they should!

Harry Styles

Former boy band member, singer, actor and model Harry Styles doesn’t have time for what people want him to be as he is too busy being himself.

“As a kid I definitely liked fancy dress,” he told Vogue.

In a school play, he was cast as a church mouse, “I was really young, and I wore tights for that,” he recalls, “I remember it was crazy to me that I was wearing a pair of tights. And that was maybe where it all kicked off!

“There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I’ve never thought too much about what it means—it just becomes this extended part of creating something”

Nico Tortorella

Nico Tortorella wearing a blue and white frock on the red carpet, pink and red promotional wall in background

Actor Nico Tortorella is best known for playing Josh in younger. Photo: Getty Images

The star was all tattoos and Gen Y sexuality as Josh in the TV series younger, but Nico is in an open polyamorous relationship with American lifestyle entrepreneur Bethany Meyers and they each consider themselves gender fluid.

“I never labeled myself as sexually fluid,” Nico told vulture magazine. “I like emotionally fluid more than sexually fluid.

“I am the Future Man.”

And maybe they are!

Vin Diesel

Vin Diesel showing off a black leather skirt or kilt on the red carpet with white and gray MTV promotional wall in background featuring monkey and MTV logo

Hollywood hard man Vin Diesel enjoyed wearing a leather skirt on the red carpet in Scotland. Photo: Getty Images

He plays tough guy Dominic in the Fast&Furious franchise but that doesn’t mean Vin is afraid of the breeze.

The action hero rocked a leather skirt at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2003.

This was probably him paying homage to Scotland’s national dress given the event was held in Edinburgh, but the leather twist on the kilt definitely blurred some lines.

Jaden Smith

Jaden Smith attends an intimate dinner ahead of the ABB FIA Formula E New York City E-Prix at Cecconi's Dumbo on July 16, 2022 in Brooklyn, New York.

Will and Jada Smith’s son Jaden has always enjoyed experimenting with fashion. Photo: Getty Images

The eldest child of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, Jaden, has been given more freedom than many children of his age.

And fashion is one area in which Jaden chooses to express himself.

In fact at just 18, Jaden was the first male model to model women’s wear for the French label Louis Vuitton.

“If I Wanna Wear A Dress, Then I Will, And That Will Set The New Wave.” I tweeted in 2018.

Peter Davidson

Pete Davidson giving the thumbs up on a flight of stairs while wearing a black tunic with white overcoat at the Met Gala, press in the background behind green hedge

Pete Davidson wore a tunic to the Met Gala last year. Photo: Getty Images

Actor and Saturday night Live alum Pete Davidson may be dating a Kardashian but he’s not afraid of pushing stereotypes when it comes to what he wears.

“I’m excited for how easy it is to pee. You can literally just lift it up,” he told GQ magazine about wearing a tunic to the 2021 Met Gala.

“If you’re gonna wear a dress, what better way or place to do it than the Met, do you know?” he added, “I’m really excited and really stoked that they thought I could pull this off, which is hilarious.”

Jared Leto

Jared Leto giving thumbs up on red carpet while wearing a skirt over black pants and sand shoes with blue overcoat over white shirt with black patterns, sunset pink/orange promotional wall in background featuring NBC logo

Actor Jared Leto has made some bold fashion choices on the red carpet over the years. Photo: Getty Images

He’s dated some of the hottest actresses in Hollywood including Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, Lupita Nyong’o, Katy Perry and even our very own Isabel Lucas, but actor Jared Leto has never been afraid of wearing a skirt.

“Real men wear skirts,” he tweeted back in 2010:

eddie izzard

British actor and comedian Eddie Izzard wearing an orange dress at a red carpet event and in black suit as Peter Solomon in The Lost Symbol

British actor and comedian Eddie Izzard identified as early as 1992 and more recently as gender fluid, but she still plays male roles on TV and film. Photo: Getty Images

British actor and comedian Eddie Izzard, known for playing Roman in Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen and Peter Solomon in Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol TV series but in his personal life, Eddie is comfortable with who she is.

“I wear whatever I want whenever I want. I don’t call it drag; I don’t even call it cross-dressing. It’s just wearing a dress,” Eddie declared to Interview magazine in 2014.

Eddie has since come out as gender fluid and says she’d prefer to be known by female pronouns.

billy porter

Pose actor Billy Porter in a variety of glamorous skirts, dresses and pantaloons at various red carpet events

Pose actor Billy Porter has been embracing fashion as a way of expressing himself for years. Photo: Getty Images

Pose actor Billy Porter has loved playing with fashion stereotypes over the years.

“I used to get frustrated that women could wear whatever they wanted and men had to show up in the same penguin suit,” he says.

“My goal is to be a walking piece of political art every time I show up. To challenge expectations. What is masculinity? What does that mean? Women show up every day in pants, but the minute a man wears a dress, the seas part,” he told fashion in 2019.

“I’m not a drag queen, I’m a man in a dress,” he added.

Let’s hope one day people can just wear whatever they like and not have fashion labeled for one particular gender or the other.

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Categories
Sports

Ellesse Andrews denied silver medal after bizarre ruling, cycling news

Rather than receiving a silver medal for her efforts in the team pursuit, New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews was instead given an unusual prize — a AU$300 fine.

The Kiwi cyclist was a late addition to the New Zealand team who claimed silver in yesterday’s final at Lee Valley VeloPark, having ridden to the rescue following Ally Wollaston’s wrist injury, the NZ Herald reports.

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The highly fancied pursuit team needed four women on the start line to compete at these Commonwealth Games and, with no reserves in the squad, Andrews added to her busy schedule by filling the void.

With the team sprint her main focus on Saturday — an event in which she would later win gold — Andrews immediately dropped away from the quartet in both qualifying and the final against Australia, leaving her teammates to compete as a trio.

Michaela Drummond, Emily Shearman and Bryony Botha did a pretty good job of that, earning themselves and Andrews a silver medal that the sprint rider would have never expected before Birmingham.

And now it’s been revealed it’s one she will never get.

New Zealand's Ellesse Andrews.  Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS / AFP
New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews. Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS / AFPSource: AFP

With her sprint duties taking obvious precedence, Andrews didn’t attend the medal ceremony when the Kiwis received their silver, and fell afoul of a bizarre UCI ruling.

According to an official communication released by the Commonwealth Games, Andrews has been punished for her absence with a fine of 200 Swiss francs, a loss of her silver medal and docking of any UCI points.

While the result will remain on Andrews’ record and she will still be known as a silver medalist in the team pursuit, she won’t have the shiny piece of metal to show for her efforts.

The 22-year-old will instead have to content herself with the team sprint gold she won yesterday — and any further medals the talented rider claims in her three individual events.

This article originally appeared on the NZ Herald and was reproduced with permission

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Categories
Australia

Out-of-control car crashes into front yard of Flinders Park home, leaving path of destruction

South Australia Police are investigating an incident at Flinders Park last night where a car crashed into the front yard of a home, causing significant damage.

Sylvia and Giovanni — who did not want to provide their surname — said the car crashed into the yard of their Collingwood Avenue home about 7.15pm.

“I just heard this almighty bang, and it sounded almost like a bomb,” Giovanni said.

The car crashed into brick walls, a Stobie pole and two parked cars.

Giovanni said that, if the car had not hit the fence, it would have gone through their front windows.

“If you look at the marks on the road from the car, the trajectory, it would have been into our bedroom or lounge. [We’re] just lucky,” he said.

A woman in a dressing gown stands in front of her house with her arms folded
The crash caused significant damage to the front yard of Sylvia’s Flinders Park home. (abcnews)

Sylvia said the driver of the car was knocked unconscious.

“I rang up the police straight away … I saw the air bags and I saw two car seats at the back, children’s car seats, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I hope there’s no children in there’,” she said .

“I pushed the air bags away and no children but the driver was unconscious.”

A neighbor checked the man’s pulse while Sylvia was on the phone to the police.

“Then five minutes, he came to … and the next thing he pushed us and he just ran, he just bolted down the street, he was bleeding,” Sylvia said.

“There’s a young lad that chased after him around the corner. He should have gone in the Commonwealth Games, I said to him — and her ran in thongs — I don’t know how he did it.”

A damaged car sits in the front yard of a suburban house.
The driver was knocked unconscious but when he came to, he allegedly bolted down the street. (abcnews)

A 46-year-old man from Flinders Park was later taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital with minor injuries.

Two cars had to be towed away and SA Power Networks had to attend to fix the Stobie pole, which had been badly damaged.

“It was just scary, the noise. We didn’t know what it was. My heart went out and you just don’t know, split second somebody could have been killed,” Sylvia said.

Police investigations are ongoing.

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Categories
US

Lake Mead: shrinking waters uncover buried secrets and grisly finds | Snowfall

Drought has a way of revealing things. Receding waters can highlight the precarity of the crucial systems that keep functioning societies and expose hidden ancient cities.

In the case of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, diminishing waters have in recent months uncovered long buried secrets and other mysterious finds: at least three sets of human remains, including a body inside a barrel that could be linked to a mob killing, and a sunken boat dating back to the second world war.

A grueling drought in the American west has depleted the lake, a crucial water source for 25 million people, drying out tributaries, threatening hydropower production and closing boat ramps at the popular recreation site. It is now at its lowest level since the lake was being filled in 1937.

Officials expect more grim finds, and have already received calls from visitors about possible remains that turned out to be animal bones or prop skeletons left by local scuba divers years earlier.

A formerly sunken boat sits high and dry along the shoreline of Lake Mead in May.
A formerly sunken boat sits high and dry along the shoreline of Lake Mead in May. Photograph: John Locher/AP

“You will find things in the lake. It’s inevitable,” said Michael Green, an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It’s been sad to watch the lake drop, the islands appear, the bathtub ring, the marina being moved out further and further.”

The recent spate of discoveries began in May when boaters spotted a barrel. Inside were the remains of a man who officials say was shot between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. The killing has the signature of a “mob hit”, the local Mob Museum said, and coincided “with the most violent period in Las Vegas’s past – an era of unprecedented street crime and underworld killings”.

A week after that discovery, two sisters paddle-boarding on the lake came across what they thought were the bones of a bighorn sheep, but which turned out to be another set of human remains.

“I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains,” Ray Spencer, a lieutenant with the Las Vegas police, said in May.

Earlier this week, someone alerted park rangers to additional human remains, partially encased in mud, along a beach. The investigation is continuing, the park said in a statement.

But there aren’t just bodies in the water that comes in from the Colorado River, and experts say as the “bathtub ring” around the lake grows, more discoveries are waiting.

This summer a sunken second world war-era boat began to jut out from the water. The Higgins landing craft, models of which were deployed at Normandy, was once used to survey the Colorado River and then sold to the marina before it sank.

A sunken second world war-era Higgins landing craft that used to be nearly 200ft underwater rests on its side near the Lake Mead Marina on Thursday.
A sunken second world war-era Higgins landing craft that used to be nearly 200ft underwater rests on its side near the Lake Mead Marina on Thursday. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

A crashed B-29 plane has been in the water since 1948. It’s still far below the surface, but as the water levels fall light is reaching the plane for the first time in decades, 8NewsNow reported.

Lake Mead is not a natural body of water, Green points out. It was formed with the creation of the Hoover Dam, which submerged St Thomas, a Mormon settlement founded in 1865. One of the town’s final residents left in 1938 when waters reached his front door, according to the Deseret News. Declining lake levels, which have exposed St Thomas several times over the years, have kept the settlement visible for the last 10 years.

The lake also covered archaeological digs, said Green, who teaches about the history of Nevada and Las Vegas, meaning there could be historical items in the water.

“There might actually be some archaeological relics,” Green said, adding that a nearby museum has artifacts from the Puebloan people, who lived in the area about a thousand years earlier. “Archaeologists were working there until the lake was rising around them.”

The vast reservoir’s water level has dropped more than 170ft (52m) since 1983, the same year the Colorado River flooded the dam’s spillways. Over-extraction, extreme heat and decreased snowmelt have burdened the Colorado River Basin and nearly 40 years later, Lake Mead is down to about 27% of its capacity.

The forecast is grim – the Colorado River has endured a drought for two decades and project officials Lake Mead’s water levels will continue to fall, meaning that more discoveries will be unearthed.

“There tends to be plenty of stuff that goes to the bottom and you just wait around,” Green said. “Ideally we’ll get more water and we won’t find more.”

Categories
Business

Is Australia’s top performing fund smoke and mirrors? Hostplus, Canva and the year of super losses

Australians are getting a rude shock as they open their superannuation statements. For most, it was a rare year of losses. Only three funds ended in the black. Callum Foote and Michael West investigate super returns and the best performing fund of them all, Hostplus.

It’s an obvious thing, but one worth nothing nonetheless. When interest rates rise, share markets tend to fall. And that is precisely what happened to the savings of millions of Australians for the year to June. Opening our superannuation fund letters, we discovered we are worth less than we were the year before.

The drop on sharemarkets had been compounded by an unusual phenomenon; bonds had failed too. Bonds are a key part of any “balanced” super portfolio, and when bond yields (interest rates on debt) rise, bond prices fall. The good news is the markets have sparked up since, so positive returns for the past seven weeks will have put most of us back in the black.

Drilling down in the league tables, historical trends prevailed, even in this volatile year to June 2022. Industry funds tend to perform better than retail funds. Their lower fees are reflected – better on a five year basis or longer – in higher returns. Ironically, not-for-profits do better than for-profits.

That said, the boast of industry funds that takeovers work – that is, taking over other funds so you can manage more money on the same cost base means greater efficiencies, ergo better returns – still remains a mirage. Industry juggernaut Australian Super is no more efficient despite its enormity, indeed it recently hiked its admin fees.

SuperRatings found industry superfund Hostplus came out on top as the best performing balanced superfund of the year, with Qantas and Christian Super options coming in next as the only three funds with positive results for the year to June. Were their results bolstered by valuation chicanery? We will get to that shortly.

Balanced superfunds are those with a third to three-quarters exposure to what are known as growth assets. Growth assets are those with more volatile returns – not as safe – such as shares; and these are favored by those looking to take a higher risk approach, mostly younger people.

So it was that safer options did better and those weighted with shares did worse. The bright spots were gold, infrastructure and cash – the safest options, ‘defensive’ investments. And here was the big reason why industry funds did better last year, they hold long term, large positions in infrastructure: airports, ports, current property.

Hostplus and the super fund lurk

Is all as it seems though in the land of industry superannuation? While we have long applauded industry funds for their lower fees and higher returns, chastened retail funds – such as the shockers managed by ANZ and AMP where fees were ridiculously high and performance laughably low – have lifted their game. The banks which control them have been pressured into closing some and curtailing fees across the board.

This began around the time Chris Brycki, founder of Australia’s first digital investment provider which operates ETFs (exchange traded funds) began publishing his annual Fat Cats report which identified the worst performing super funds (and yours truly duly began to expose them).

ANZ chief, Shayne Elliott is said to have remarked to colleagues that he didn’t want to see his bank turning up on that Fat Cats survey any more so the super poor performers were closed to new investors and then flogged to IOOF.

Search for the biggest fat cat of the Australian super fund industry

Where retail funds, those operated by banks, invest in publicly listed markets such as the ASX, industry funds are less transparent, making huge bets in unlisted investments such as infrastructure like airports and ports, even teaming up with foreign vulture funds (vid Hesta and KKR taking hospital group Ramsay private, and offshore). Yet the rules around disclosure and valuation are fluid; or perhaps suspect is a better word.

And this is where the performance of Australia’s top-performing fund Hostplus is deserving of scrutiny. Hostplus says it is happy with its valuations of unlisted assets. They trust their own valuations more than “the market” they say.

But as Chris Brycki puts it, “It’s like marking your own homework and bragging you came top of the class”. “There is a paucity of symmetric information out there.”

Hostplus has $12bn of unlisted assets, assets for which it can make its own valuations, and Brycki reckons the fund would have been down 2.8% for the year to June had it not been for the *amazing* performance of these assets. “To get from a return of negative 2.8% to positive 1.6%, they would have needed a return of 22% on the private assets on which there is no visibility.”

Listed markets were down, shares and bonds thumped, yet here was a balanced fund which produced a positive return amid all the volatility.

The Canva caper

“It seems not very feasible.” A prime example of the valuation issue is Canva, one of the hottest investments around last year, feted in the financial press with glossy pictures of its Young Rich List founders, breathless coverage of the Aussie success story. Indeed it is an incredible achievement – ​​at $40bn it became on of the most valuable private companies in the world – but like every hot market play, there are characteristics of the bubble and therefore extreme changes in value.

When Canva’s value was knocked off its perch – a great software product but it ran too high on all the hype – some of its investors began marking down the value of their holdings. Investor Blackbird for instance marked its holding down by 36%. Hostplus has $2.5bn in Canva alone. at 40bn it was the most valuable private company in the world.

A generational challenge for younger Australians?

There is not enough visibility of super fund valuations, certainly for a market of this sheer size an importance. Here is a market where there is little price competition. People’s superannuation drops routinely into super funds, we are forced to have super and most people don’t think much about it, switch funds or demand to know from their fund manager what is going on with their investments.

And the funds get to decide their own valuations on the unlisted assets, the infrastructure assets. Whether and when they are marked up or down in value is up to the manager, not based on movements in say the ASX or bond markets. The temptation to ‘mark up’ is therefore strong, as it goes to performance and therefore the bonuses of the fund managers themselves.

As far as Hostplus is concerned a fund can get an external “independent valuation” on an asset but the Hostplus trustee allows the fund to override the valuer and put its own value on the investment.

So it was that last year the REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts listed on the ASX) were down by 11% for the year yet Hostplus marked up the value of its property assets by 17%. Did they just happen to own better buildings?

What i think will happen now, says Brycki, is that over the next ten years there will be an intergenerational problem where people will exit their super now at higher valuations leaving younger super holders vulnerable to lagged valuations (falling valuations) of the unlisted assets.

“They are clearly not marking them to market.”

The wash-up

SuperRatings is a website devoted to comparisons. Its executive director Kirby Rappell says: “Since the bottom of the GFC we haven’t seen huge amounts of volatility coming through, there have been a few moments, but we have seen extreme levels of volatility since COVID-19 hit and in terms of the menu for the year ahead, we expect to see more volatility.

“While the 2022 financial year has seen super funds record a modest fall, the benefits of diversification have shone through. When we compare returns for equity, bond and listed property markets to balanced style portfolios among super funds, these results should be reassuring to members.”

However, many Australians have chosen high growth options, which means more exposure to the stock market, have suffered worse.

According to super research company Chant West’s senior investment research manager, Mano Mohankumar: “Over FY22, Australian shares retreated 6.8%, while international shares were down 12.4% in hedged terms. It was the same story for listed property, with Australian and global REITs falling 11.2% and 10.5% respectively. That was bad enough, but what made the year even more challenging was that bonds didn’t play their usual cushioning role, with Australian bonds and international bonds falling 10.5% and 9.3%, respectively.”

Statistics from the Australian Association of Superannuation Funds Superannuation assets totaled $3.4 trillion at the end of the March 2022 quarter. Over the 12 months from March 2021 there was a 9.7 per cent increase in total superannuation assets.

As at the end of the March 2022 quarter, 56 per cent of the $2.2 trillion investments were invested in equities; with 24 per cent in Australian listed equities, 27 per cent in international listed equities and 5 per cent in unlisted equities.

However, Mohankumar says that diversification largely stemmed the losses to Australian superfunds: “Despite all this, the median growth fund was only down 3.3%. That’s mainly because most major super funds now invest far beyond these traditional asset sectors.”

Industry research shows that funds that have the highest exposure to the stock market have suffered the most in the financial year to date. Over the past 10 years, those with near total exposure to growth assets are roughly 20% higher than more conservative balanced funds.

Rising interest rates

The Reserve Bank has signaled that interest rates will continue to rise to curb growing inflation which means that the stock market will take further hits.

According to Brycki, “Unfortunately rising interest rates are something that doesn’t work too well for the sharemarket, so people are yanking their money out”. If investors can get higher rates of return on safer investment due to higher interest rates, the sharemarket looks less desirable as a result.

To end with our first market proposition – when interest rates go up, share markets to go down – a lot depends on rates. The outlook for the year ahead is not too flash, unless you take the view that central banks will quickly crush inflation and contain interest rates.


Callum Foote

Callum Foote is a journalist and Revolving Doors editor for Michael West Media. He has studied the impact of undue corporate influence on Australian policy decisions and the impact this has on popular interests.

michael west headshot

Michael West established michaelwest.com.au to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. Formerly a journalist and editor at Fairfax newspapers and a columnist at News Corp, West was appointed Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney’s School of Social and Political Sciences.

Categories
Technology

The Lich King returns to the World of Warcraft Classic

September 26, 2022, will be an exciting day for fans of World of Warcraft. The Lich King, who made his debut in the second expansion of World of Warcraft, will once again return to this world.

Players will explore Northrend’s Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord and witness epic spectacles and beloved storytelling from the Warcraft franchise, culminating in the overthrow of the Lich King at Icecrown Citadel domination.

The fearsome death knight is World of Warcraft’s first hero, starting at level 55 and can join any faction. They will harness the forces of darkness against the evil that threatens Azeroth. At the time, players could only create one Death Knight character per server and required a level 55 character on that server, but in Wrath of the Lich King, players will no longer have to think about creating their first Death Knight character under these requirements.

In World of Warcraft®: Wrath of the Lich King Classic™, the introduction of the inscription profession allows players to scribe mysterious glyphs, change spell skills and attributes such as cooldowns and damage etc, as well as craft powerful accessories.

The achievement system will be returned to the World of Warcraft Classic™, and the players will receive rewards for their great deeds and heroic feats.

Players will have access to a 50% bonus XP event during the pre-launch, which will last running until the launch day. In addition, all subscribers of WoW will be granted to create the opportunity to create up to one Death Knight per Classic realm. Don’t forget to make use of the Burning Crusade Classic™ as free content from the WoW subscription to bring the new character to level 70 if you would like. Other optional upgrades such as new cosmetic items and a level-70 character boost can also be purchased and to be used in the new release.

Categories
Entertainment

Margot Robbie says she’s ‘eternally grateful’ to Neighbors for helping her break into Hollywood

Margot Robbie says she’s ‘eternally grateful’ to Neighbors for helping her break into Hollywood – and admits she only realized how popular the show was until she moved to London

She’s arguably one of the biggest stars to come out of Australian soap Neighbours.

And Margot Robbie, who played Donna Freedman between 2008 and 2011, is under no illusion that the beloved show was integral in helping her break into Hollywood.

‘There are so many of us that owe them for giving us a big break,’ Robbie, 32, told The Sun on Saturday.

Margot Robbie, 32, (pictured) told The Sun on Saturday she's 'eternally grateful' to Neighbors for helping her break into Hollywood

Margot Robbie, 32, (pictured) told The Sun on Saturday she’s ‘eternally grateful’ to Neighbors for helping her break into Hollywood

‘It wasn’t just about giving me a break either — it gave me a real chance to work on my craft. It was the perfect training for Hollywood, and I will always be eternally grateful.’

Robbie, who moved to London in 2013 after leaving Neighbours, said she only realized how popular the show was until she lived in the UK.

‘When I lived in London, I understood at its peak how big it was. People would come up to me and tell me how they watched it every day after school.’

Robbie played Donna Freedman between 2008 and 2011. She is pictured in character on the show in 2009

Robbie played Donna Freedman between 2008 and 2011. She is pictured in character on the show in 2009

'It wasn't just about giving me a break either — it gave me a real chance to work on my craft.  It was the perfect training for Hollywood, and I will always be eternally grateful.'  Margot is pictured in character with co-star Jackie Woodburne, who played Susan Kennedy, in 2009

‘It wasn’t just about giving me a break either — it gave me a real chance to work on my craft. It was the perfect training for Hollywood, and I will always be eternally grateful.’ Margot is pictured in character with co-star Jackie Woodburne, who played Susan Kennedy, in 2009

During the Neighbors finale, Robbie made a floating appearance in a 14-second pre-recorded video message.

Robbie was unable to travel to Australia to film scenes as she’s currently busy filming the Barbie movie in America.

However, she did show her gratitude by sending the entire cast a bottle of pricey Champagne.

During the Neighbors finale, Robbie made a floating appearance in a 14-second pre-recorded video message.  She is pictured in her final episode cameo

During the Neighbors finale, Robbie made a floating appearance in a 14-second pre-recorded video message. She is pictured in her final episode cameo

Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan, Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance are among the other celebrities who returned to Neighbors to appear in the send-off of the Melbourne-based drama that helped launch their careers in acting and music.

Natalie and Holly filmed a scene together from the UK, which saw them bump into each other at a park before discovering they both once lived on Ramsay Street.

Neighbors was once a major hit in Australia and a bigger success in Britain, but has fallen victim to waning ratings in recent years.

Robbie was unable to travel to Australia to film scenes as she's currently busy filming the Barbie movie in America.  However, she did show her gratitude by sending the entire cast a bottle of pricey Champagne

Robbie was unable to travel to Australia to film scenes as she’s currently busy filming the Barbie movie in America. However, she did show her gratitude by sending the entire cast a bottle of pricey Champagne

Kylie Minogue (pictured), Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan, Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance are among the other celebrities who returned to Neighbors to appear in the send-off of the Melbourne-based drama that helped launch their careers in acting and music

Kylie Minogue (pictured), Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan, Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance are among the other celebrities who returned to Neighbors to appear in the send-off of the Melbourne-based drama that helped launch their careers in acting and music

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Sports

Commonwealth Games 2022: Ellesse Andrews denied silver medal after bizarre ruling, cycling news

Rather than receiving a silver medal for her efforts in the team pursuit, New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews was instead given an unusual prize — a AU$300 fine.

The Kiwi cyclist was a late addition to the New Zealand team who claimed silver in yesterday’s final at Lee Valley VeloPark, having ridden to the rescue following Ally Wollaston’s wrist injury, the NZ Herald reports.

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The highly fancied pursuit team needed four women on the start line to compete at these Commonwealth Games and, with no reserves in the squad, Andrews added to her busy schedule by filling the void.

With the team sprint her main focus on Saturday — an event in which she would later win gold — Andrews immediately dropped away from the quartet in both qualifying and the final against Australia, leaving her teammates to compete as a trio.

Michaela Drummond, Emily Shearman and Bryony Botha did a pretty good job of that, earning themselves and Andrews a silver medal that the sprint rider would have never expected before Birmingham.

And now it’s been revealed it’s one she will never get.

With her sprint duties taking obvious precedence, Andrews was missing from the medal ceremony when the Kiwis received their silver, and fell afoul of a bizarre UCI ruling.

According to an official communication released by the Commonwealth Games, Andrews has been punished for her absence with a fine of 200 Swiss francs, a loss of her silver medal and docking of any UCI points.

While the result will remain on Andrews’ record and she will still be known as a silver medalist in the team pursuit, she won’t have the shiny piece of metal to show for her efforts.

The 22-year-old will instead have to content herself with the team sprint gold she won yesterday — and any further medals the talented rider claims in her three individual events.

She told TVNZ she was not fussed about missing out.

“I’m really glad I could help them continue their race,” she said.

“I’m really really glad that they were able to get off the line.

“The three girls are the ones that did the work so I’m really proud they were able to get up there and get their silver medal.”

This article originally appeared on the NZ Herald and was reproduced with permission

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Categories
Australia

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan announces more pay for 150,000 public sector workers

Teachers, nurses, police officers, cleaners and public servants in Western Australia have been offered a six per cent pay rise as a buffer to rising inflation.

The WA government has increased its wage offer for 150,000 public sector workers to three per cent annually over the next two years, up from 2.75 per cent, along with an additional $2500 sign-on bonus.

Premier Mark McGowan said the move was in response to cost-of-living pressures and would cost the state budget an extra $634 million over the next four years.

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“This is designed to ensure that there is fairness across the board and the public sector … is properly rewarded in the environment that we are in,” he told reporters on Sunday.

The changes will immediately flow through to workforces that have already accepted the state government’s previous offer, including teachers and public hospital doctors.

Lower paid workers will get a bigger proportional pay increase through the sign-on bonus, with a patient care assistant who earns just over $55,000 a year set to effectively get a 7.5 per cent wage rise over the first year.

Perth’s consumer price index jumped 1.7 per cent in the June quarter, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released last week, pushing its annual inflation rate well above the national average to 7.4 per cent.

The McGowan government banked a $5.7 billion surplus in this year’s state budget, which included a one-off $400 electricity credit for every household.

But the premier said the new policy was his final offer, stressing the government cannot afford to match wage increases in the cashed-up private sector.

“We’re never going to be able to compete with the mining industry, no industry can,” he said.

“But a public sector job is a secure job. It’s a good job. It’s one that we want to properly reward and properly ensure that everyone gets a decent pay increase.”

Health workers and other WA public servants were lobbying for a pay rise above 2.75 per cent, with some holding stop-work meetings outside Perth hospitals in recent weeks.

Mr McGowan is hopeful the improved offer will be enough to stop any strike action, saying it’s more generous than those put forward to public sector workers in NSW and Victoria.

“We have provided something that no other state has, which is the across the board sign-on bonus,” he said.

“Other states have done it for certain parts of the workforce but not the entire workforce. We want to make sure the entire workforce is recognised, particularly because over COVID everyone put their shoulder to the wheel.”

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