Michelle Jenneke has missed out on a bronze medal but just 0.09 seconds as she finished fifth in the final of the 100m hurdles at the Commonwealth Games.
The 29-year-old was just 0.02 seconds off her personal best with a negative wind blowing in her face and it still wasn’t enough for a medal as she fell away in the final 40m.
Defending champion, world champion and world record holder Tobi Amusan won the gold in a Games record time of 12.30 seconds.
Jenneke’s time — 12.68 seconds — was just 0.03 seconds off the previous Games record, but in a lightning race all three of the best runners smashed that previous record.
Aussie athletics great Tamsyn Manou said on Channel 7 after the race that Jenneke would be happy with the result and will be filled with confidence as she begins her preparation for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
It was another brutal end for Jenneke after she also missed out on a bronze medal at the 2018 Gold Coast Games by just 0.01 seconds.
The difference this time is that the field was red hot, with five of the runners also featuring in the World Championships final last month in Oregon.
“I would have liked another PB, but it wasn’t to be today,” Jenneke told Channel 7 after the race.
“To back up my run from worlds, go fast with a slight headwind there… so really happy with that performance. It’s just tough when you’re racing a field of that quality.
“That’s the fastest race there has ever been at the Commonwealth Games.”
She went on to say how happy she is that she has resurrected her career after so many injuries set backs in recent years.
“I had a pretty rough two years. There were times people in my inner circle were saying to me, ‘Are you sure you want to be doing this?’ And I was just saying back to them, ‘I’ve got more in me’. It shows that I have and I’m really glad I could show the world what I’m capable of,” she said.
Fellow Aussie Celeste Mucci also ran an impressive race to finish seventh.
Jenneke had run the fastest time of her life — 12.63 seconds — two days earlier to thunder into the final, but the time did not count as a new personal best because it was wind-assisted.
Jenneke also ranked a career-saving personal best time of 12.66 at the World Championships.
Jenneke’s time in Oregon made her the second-quickest women’s 100m hurdler Australia has ever produced, behind only Sally Pearson.
She said after the semi-final that she was in “the shape of my life”.
She said her peak physical condition is simply the result of finally being able to have a stretch without injuries where she could get in an extended training block.
“I haven’t really changed things. It’s just one of those things where I’ve been able to string together some training where I haven’t been injured,” she said.
“So I’ve actually been able to get every session done. When you do that things seem to come together. That’s really all it is. Nothing too special.”
Jenneke had finished fourth at the 2018 Games on the Gold Coast, but she did it in a time of 13.07 seconds.
“The globalists can all go to hell,” declared Viktor Orbán. “I have come to Texas!”
The crowd roared, whooped and gave a standing ovation as if at a campaign rally for former US president Donald Trump. It was evident they saw in Orbán a kindred spirit – a blunt weapon to wield against liberal foes.
The Hungarian prime minister was the opening speaker at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, and perhaps the most vivid demonstration yet of the mutual and rapidly growing affinity between the far right in America and Europe.
Orbán, who has been prime minister for 12 years, boasted about his hardline stance on illegal immigration, law and order and “gender ideology” in schools. I have touted a rise in marriages and fall in abortions. He was unapologetic in his defense of blood-and-soil nationalism and contempt for “leftist media.”
And extraordinarily for a foreign leader, he overtly sided with an opposition party – the Republicans – rather than the incumbent Democrats, paying homage to Trump at his golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey, while ignoring Joe Biden at the White House.
Calling for Christian nationalists to “unite forces”, Orbán told CPAC: “Victory will never be found by taking the path of least resistance. We must take back the institutions in Washington and in Brussels. We must find friends and allies in one another. We must coordinate the movements of our troops because we face the same challenge.”
He noted that US midterm elections will be later this year followed by the presidential contest and European parliamentary elections in 2024. “These two locations will define the two fronts in the battle being fought for western civilization. Today, we hold neither of them. Yet we need both.”
Rarely has the alliance between nationalist parties across the Atlantic been so bold, overt and unshackled. CPAC was once the domain of cold warrior Ronald Reagan. But in recent years guest speakers have included the Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of the far-right French politician Marine Le Pen.
Viktor Orbán basks in the applause at CPAC in Dallas. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters
On Friday the lineup included Steve Bannon, who has worked with openly racist far-right leaders across Europe and once leased a medieval monastery outside Rome to run a “populism bootcamp”.
Bannon is former executive chairman of Breitbart News, which he once described as “the platform of the ‘alt-right’”, a movement associated with efforts to preserve “white identity” and defend “western values”. He served as chief strategist in the Trump White House and is now facing prison after being convicted of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the January 6 committee.
CPAC Texas also heard from the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who railed against the media and told the audience: “When I said that I’m a Christian nationalist, I have nothing to be ashamed of because that’s what most Americans are.” The event will close on Saturday with Trump who, like Orbán, has faced scrutiny over his relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at the non-profit group Right Wing Watch, said: “Rightwing leaders, and especially the religious right leaders in the US, love Viktor Orbán for the same reasons they love Vladimir Putin. This overt embrace of Christian nationalism, willingness to use strongman tactics and the power of the government to enforce so-called traditional values about family and sexuality.”
Montgomery added: “We’ve actually seen some signs of that illiberalism and authoritarianism on the Trumpist right in their efforts to ban the teaching of racism in schools, in their aggressive attacks against LGBTQ materials and information in schools and libraries, and even their encouragement of harassment and violence that we’ve seen against election officials and school board members.
“All those signs are signs of a disturbing embrace of authoritarianism on the US right and Orbán is a model and a hero for that to them.”
Orbán has few bigger fans than Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host who interviewed him during a week-long broadcast from Hungary last year. Carlson has promoted “great replacement theory” – the baseless claim of a plot to turn white people into a minority through immigration – in 400 of his shows, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
The Fox News host Tucker Carlson delivers a speech via a videolink at a previous CPAC event held in Budapest, Hungary, on 19 May 2022. Photograph: Szilárd Koszticsák/EPA
Orbán’s visit to the US came amid backlash over anti-migrant remarks in which he warned that Europeans must not “become peoples of mixed race” and cited The Camp of the Saints, a 1973 French novel by Jean Raspail that portrays a dystopia in which a flotilla of south Asian people invades France. The novel has also been promoted by Trump allies such as Bannon and Stephen Miller.
Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “Orbán represents a quiet part out loud element of today’s Republican party. That quiet part out loud is the overt appeal to racial politics, the not-bothering-to-hide-it white supremacy element of the global alt-right and authoritarian movement. Donald Trump was the thing that let it loose in the US.
“Orbán has struck a set of blows against the media in Hungary, which is one of their main targets here. He has overtly embraced the sort of white replacement politics that are so popular with the Tucker Carlson set and a lot of the other folks that are members of the American Maga [Make America great again] movement.”
Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, added: “Those things have all added up to giving Orbán a kind of fanboy following in the US of people who were eleven conservative Republicans and who are now racially driven authoritarian wannabes. He’s the guy who’s pulling it off at a scale that Donald Trump didn’t achieve in the US.”
That appeal includes a stealth attack on democracy. Critics say that Hungary’s judiciary, media and other institutions are suffering death by a thousand cuts as Orbán slowly and surely consolidates power. His rightwing Fidesz party has drawn legislative districts in Hungary in a way that makes it very difficult for opposition parties to win seats – not dissimilar to partisan gerrymandering efforts for state legislative and congressional seats in America. The process currently favors Republicans because they control more of the state legislatures that create those boundaries.
And at CPAC, purveyors of Trump’s “big lie” – the false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him – held prominent slots. Mike Lindell, chief executive of MyPillow, pushed preposterous conspiracy theories about voting machines. Several speakers denounced the congressional investigation into the January 6 insurrection as a sham.
Trump merchandise for sale at CPAC. Photograph: Go Nakamura/Reuters
Kurt Bardella, an adviser to the Democratic National Committee, said of Orbán: “They see a blueprint for fascism. They see someone who embodies the Republican party’s values of obstructing free and fair elections, of undermining democratic institutions, of expanding government power and politicizing the judicial branch, marginalizing minority communities and corrupting the pillars of a free society.
“When you talk about an autocratic regime, that’s what Prime Minister Orbán is in Hungary and it’s exactly the blueprint that Republicans are hoping to follow here in the United States of America. It’s not surprising in the least that, especially in a place like CPAC Texas, these rightwing white nationalists are embracing someone like Orbán.”
Earlier this year, when CPAC held an event in Europe, it naturally chose Hungary. Orbán remains an outlier on the continent – for now. Le Pen lost the French presidential election to Emmanuel Macron, though she gained the far right’s biggest share of the vote yet. In Italy Giorgia Meloni, leader of a party with neofascist origins, is strongly positioned to become prime minister after snap elections this autumn.
Robert P Jones, founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute thinktank in Washington and author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, said: “There is this identifiable movement. The difference in many of the European countries is it is represented in minority parties.
“In the US now, I think it’s safe to say that this ethno-religious vision of the country has taken over one of our two major political parties. Even demographically speaking, nearly seven in 10 Republicans are white and Christian today in a country that’s only 44% white and Christian. You can see that identity taking hold as the animating beating heart of the party. It’s a really dangerous situation.”
Google is officially kicking off the merger of its two video chat apps, Google Meet and Google Duo. Google announced the merger in June, with the plan to keep the Google Meet brand name while merging the best of both code bases into the Google Duo app. According to Google’s PR email (no links, sorry), people will begin seeing Duo’s app and website branding swap over to Google Meet this week. Google’s various rebrandings are all on a rollout, so they’ll arrive at different times for different people, but Google says the complete rebrand should finish for everyone by September.
So Google Duo is being rebranded to Google Meet, and the existing Google Meet app is sticking around for a bit. That means there are now two apps called “Google Meet.” Google has a help article detailing this extremely confusing situation, calling the two Meet apps “Google Meet (original): The updated Meet app” and “Google Meet: The updated Duo app.” The “Google Meet (original)” app will someday be put out to pasture; it’s just sticking around while Google rebuilds the meeting functionality on top of Google Duo. Did everyone follow that?
The Meet and Duo video services were both built as reactions to Google’s far more stable communication competition. Google Meet was technically created in 2017 as a group business video chat application called “Google Hangouts Meet,” but it really became a major project after Zoom’s growth exploded in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Google Meet was still locked behind a paywall during the initial months of the work-from-home era, and while it eventually became as easy to use as Zoom, it was after Zoom became a household name.
Google Duo came out in 2016 alongside the “companion app” Google Allo as a reaction to the growth of WhatsApp. Google and Facebook got into a $22 billion bidding war for WhatsApp two years earlier. Google lost and spent the next two years making a WhatsApp clone called Google Allo. Rather than integrate video chat into the app, Google split video functionality into a separate app called Google Duo. WhatsApp didn’t have video chat at the time, so you could use Google Duo video chat with Facebook’s WhatsApp or Google’s Allo, if you wanted.
Allo and Duo were originally focused on India, which led Duo to build a one-to-one video chat system that used little bandwidth and worked well on unstable connections. That efficient video chat system will be the basis for the new combined app, with Google building Meet’s meeting link functionality into Duo and rebranding it. The install base is probably also a factor here. As a default Android app, Google Duo has more than 5 billion downloads on the Play Store while Meet only has 100 million. Google’s path makes for a smoother transition for those 5 billion installs, while the 100 million will have to switch manually. Google says that it will hide the old, original Google Meet app from app store searches in September. Eventually, it will need to implement a pop-up message for existing users of the old Google Meet app that tells them to upgrade.
This move is happening because Google “unified” its messaging teams in 2020, with a single person, Google Workspace VP and GM Javier Soltero, taking the reins of “all of Google’s collective communication products.” That should mean Google Hangouts, Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Messages, Google Duo, and Google Voice, and Google even threw in the Android phone app for good measure. It was announced last month that Soltero is leaving Google, though, so that’s only two years on the messaging unification job. Nobody knows who, if anyone, is taking over as the new “head of messaging.” Single’s plan is still happening, though—besides this Meet and Duo merger, Hangouts will finally shut down in a few months. This new, more cohesive lineup will leave one Google video app and three Google chat apps.
The transformation of Shane Jacobson into Edna Turnblad, the housebound matriarch of the stage show hairspray, is meant to take about 25 minutes, but today runs closer to an hour. It’s the first dress rehearsal for the musical set in 1962 Baltimore, and Jacobson isn’t just going the full Edna, he’s also got to get rid of the full beard before the makeover can even begin.
“There’s a small team of panel beaters that come in and make this happen,” he says while meticulously running an electric shaver over his face to remove every last bit of stubble.
Shane Jacobson emerges as Edna Turnblad at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne, for Hairspray.Credit:Chris Hopkins
Jacobson, who is best known for his knockabout turns as dunny plumber Kenny and pie-munching cop Barry in Jack Irishas well as his love of muscle cars, will spend a good chunk of the next few months with make-up artists and costumiers in this poky sliver of a room backstage at the Regent Theatre, a building where all the grandness is definitely out front .
“I feel naked without a beard, I really do,” he says as the last of his shadow disappears, until 5 o’clock tomorrow anyway. “If I could grow hair over my eyes and nose, if I could be Teen Wolf, I would.”
Now make-up artist Beth Haywood can start work. First she makes her eyebrows disappear – not for good, just beneath a healthy daubing of wax. Then the foundation goes on, lots of it. Next are the false eyelashes, the eyeliner, the lipstick. Finally, it’s time for the wig – and today it’s Edna’s glamorous outdoor do, the one she dons when she finally manages to overcome her shame over her body size and leave the house.
But even for a natural showman like Jacobson, some things are off limits, and we’re ushered from the room at this stage; apparently being photographed while stripped naked so he can slip into a female bodysuit is where he draws the line. Funny that.
Edna has always been played by a man, from Divine in John Waters’ 1988 film to Harvey Fierstein in the original 2002 Broadway production, to John Travolta in the 2007 film based on the musical based on the film. But according to Matt Lenz, who was associate director on that first Broadway show and is in Australia to direct this revival, which opens on the 20th anniversary of its New York debut, it is not really a drag role.
“I think it’s an acting role. It just happens to be played by a man,” he says. “Over the years we’ve thought, ‘Well, why don’t we just cast a woman?’ But the John Waters aspect of it, that slightly warped perception of the world, would somehow be lost.”
The Daniel Ricciardo-Oscar Piastri saga is only getting more complicated by the day.
The F1 world erupted when it was revealed McLaren had told Ricciardo it plans to replace him with the young Australian driver next season despite Ricciardo being contracted for 2023.
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The decision sent fans into a spin, with many slamming McLaren for its treatment of Ricciardo.
The development means Ricciardo’s F1 career is in limbo, and his future could take a long time to settle because McLaren will likely face a challenge from Alpine over its poaching of Piastri.
Alpine’s handling of the saga has come under the microscope and Guanyu Zhou, Alfa Romeo’s rookie driver, says he’s “happy” to be free from the shackles of the team where he was part of the junior academy alongside Piastri.
“I’ve been completely released,” Zhou said when asked about how his career is going away from the French team.
Zhou, who effectively leapfrogged Piastri in the pecking order to snag the lone spare seat on this year’s grid, is glad he hasn’t found himself “stuck” at Alpine like Piastri.
“Everything worked out very nicely, because my contract was ending at the end of last year and it was up to both of us if we wanted to continue, but then there was an opportunity with Alfa,” he said.
“So the deal was definitely not to continue with Alpine, because I didn’t see anywhere I could have a seat for next year or for this year. And Alfa and Alpine are quite big competitor brands – not just in Formula 1 but in general.
“It was not easy to get out of Alpine but I’m very happy that everything worked out well because if I had another year I’d be kind of stuck, the same now with Oscar.
“So it’s not the best thing for me. I feel like there was an opportunity here so I went for it, and I think it was a very good decision.”
Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer has said he is open to Ricciardo to return to the team, formerly known as Renault, where he spent two underwhelming seasons in 2019 and 2020.
But such a return could be more complicated than it seems. RacingNews365 reported earlier this year AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly has a clause in his contract that would allow him to join a rival team.
The clause comes with one condition — that said team is placed higher than AlphaTauri in the standings.
Alpine is currently higher than AlphaTauri in the constructors’ championship, meaning Gasly, who is French, could choose to join Alpine.
Piastri’s agreement with McLaren has reportedly been validated by F1’s Contract Recognition Board, and Alpine’s botched handling of his contract is unlikely to fill Ricciardo with confidence.
There is still plenty to play out in F1’s silly season but Ricciardo’s future is becoming increasingly unclear.
The 33-year-old could return to Alpine to replace Fernando Alonso, or move to Alfa Romeo alongside Valtteri Bottas.
Ricciardo has made it clear he wants to stay in F1 so it’s unlikely he’ll be interested in a move to McLaren’s IndyCar team.
There remains the possibility Ricciardo could find himself out of the sport altogether and forced into an early retirement, which would be a shocking turn of events for one of the most marketable drivers in F1.
Regardless of where he ends up, Ricciardo can expect a whopping payout from McLaren if he is indeed given the flick with a year remaining on his deal.
Migrants aboard a bus from Texas arrive in New York City’s Manhattan borough, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (FoxNews)
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Lawrence Jones slammed NYC Mayor Eric Adams’s call for the Biden administration to use federal dollars to address the influx of migrants from the border only now that migrants are arriving in NYC. Former acting ICE director Tom Homan called for an end to sanctuary city policies on “Cross Country.”
LAWRENCE-JONES:It’s no secret the border crisis has fallen into the Democrats’ laps. There’s no ignoring it now. we saw secret migrant flights land in New York for months. We were there. We followed the bus full of illegal migrant passengers as they were dropped off and allowed to enter this country freely. But it was only when another busload arrived on Eric Adams’s doorstep that he called for the Biden administration to intervene. Friday morning, a group of migrant men, women and children arrived straight from Texas.
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Migrants aboard a bus from Texas arrive in New York City’s Manhattan borough, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (FoxNews)
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TOM HOMAN:Sanctuary cities are a magnet that causes people to come to this country. They can go to New York City. They can get a driver’s license. They can get a job. If they have an immigration proceeding, they use taxpayer money in New York City to help defend them in immigration proceedings. If they get arrested for a crime, they won’t be turned over to ICE, they’ll be released back into the community to re-offend. Who the hell wouldn’t want to go to New York City if you’re an illegal alien? So he didn’t say a word when the Biden administration is flying people into New York in the middle of the night. But the minute a Republican governor does it, he has an issue. If he wants to solve this crisis, number one, get rid of sanctuary city policy… [Eric Adams] used to be a cop—he needs to start acting like one.
In a few months, gamers will get to experience the next mainline entry in the Pokemon franchise, pokemon scarlet and violet. The latest trailer revealed more about the upcoming titles, letting players know they will be exploring the Paldea region as students attending one of two academies. Players even got a glimpse of a few characters including Penny, Arven, and Clavell.
Players also discovered they will be able to explore Paldea by riding the legendary Pokemon – Koraidon and Miraidon. The evolved forms of pokemon scarlet and violet‘s starter Pokemon have yet to be seen, but there have been several leaks that give fans a rough idea of what to expect.
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Introducing Quaxly, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Water-Type Starter
Pokemon has a history of featuring cute critters as Water-type starters, and pokemon scarlet and violet do not buck the trend. Quaxly is a duck Pokemon with webbed, blue feet and a blue tuft of hair that looks a bit like a sailor’s hat. Though the Pokemon appears unassuming, its evolutions could reveal hidden potential.
Fans got their first look at Quaxly during pokemon scarlet and violet‘s reveal trailer, which also showcased Fuecoco the Fire-type starter and Sprigatito the Grass-type starter. in most Pokemon games, a player’s rival will pick the starter Pokemon that is strong against theirs, so Quaxly fans should keep an eye on Sprigatito as that may be one of the first Pokemon that Quaxly goes up against often.
Fan Theories Surrounding Quaxly
There have been many theories surrounding the themes that guide starter Pokemon designs. The most prevailing theory is that Fire-type starters are based on the Chinese Zodiac, Grass-type starters are based on prehistoric animals, and Water-type starters are based on weapons. On the surface, the Water-type theory makes sense, as past starters have had final evolutions like Blastoise with its massive cannons, or Greninja with its shuriken, Empoleon who looks like a triton and Swampert has a tail that looks like a Japanese war fan , to name a few. Should the fan theory hold, people could expect Quaxly’s final evolution to incorporate a weapon of some sort.
As Paldea is based on Spain, Quaxly could also be inspired by Spanish culture. One theory claims that the duck Pokemon draws inspiration from Don Quixote, a character in Miguel de Cervantes’ novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. In the novel, Don Quixote is a self-proclaimed knight who loses his mind and hallucinates monsters. Trailers have shown Paldea will feature windmills, which may allude to a scene in Cervantes’ novel where Don Quixote fights windmills believing them to be giants. Should the link between Quaxly and Don Quixote be present, the Pokemon may take on a knightly form in its evolutions.
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The Quaxly and Don Quixote theory has also fed into the idea that the Water-type starter’s final evolution will be a Water/Fighting-type. This would be a fresh take, as there has never been a Water/Fighting-type starter before – usually this is left to the Fire-type starter. The theory also appears to have some support from credible leakers.
Leaks and Rumors Surrounding Quaxly
One leak comes from the Twitter account PKMNleaks, which posted images of six Gym Leaders as well as some new Pokemon. Gamers theorized one of the Pokemon is a Quaxly evolution, though it was hard to be certain because the images are blurry. Still, it appears to be the back of a bipedal, blueish-purple Pokemon with blue tail feathers that fan out. Riddler Khu, another leaker with a good track record, vouched for these images, and posted about Quaxly’s evolutions too. Although the image is very blurry, it is possible to tell that the Pokemon is mostly blue with a vertical white stripe on its head. According to Khu, Quaxly’s final evolution will be a Water/Fighting-type, while Sprigatito’s will be Grass/Dark and Fuecoco’s will be Fire/Ghost.
Leaks have also come from an account called CentroLeaks, which provided accurate information surrounding pokemon sword and Shield and Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The leaker has discussed pokemon scarlet and violet‘s region name as well as the new gimmick before it was announced by The Pokemon Company, lending a lot of credibility to their leaks. They provided rough sketches of the final evolutions of the three starters, and it appears that Quaxly retains a bipedal stature with tail feathers that fan out, much like PKMNleaks’ image.
As is the case with all leaks, the information should be taken with a grain of salt because it has yet to be confirmed by The Pokemon Company or Game Freak. Fortunately, gamers will not have to wait much longer, as the game’s release is around the corner. Despite not showing evolutions of the starters in the latest trailer, players were shown the latest battle gimmick they can look forward to: Terastallization.
pokemon scarlet and violet are scheduled to release on November 18, 2022 for Nintendo Switch.
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The Seekers lead singer Judith Durham will be honored at a state funeral, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed.
Durham died on Friday, aged 79.
She has been remembered as an Australian treasure with the voice of an angel.
Her band mates, Athol Guy, Bruce Woodley and Keith Potger, said their lives had been changed forever by losing “our treasured lifelong friend and shining star.”
Premier Daniel Andrews announced on Twitter that after speaking with Ms Durham’s family, they accepted the offer of a state funeral to honor her life and contribution to music.
Mr Andrews described Ms Durham as a “true icon of Australian music”.
Judith Durham was a girl from Melbourne who became a superstar.(AAP: Julian Smith)
Durham was born Judith Mavis Cock in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon in 1943.
She changed her name to her mother’s maiden name at the age of 19.
The Seekers formed in 1962 and Durham joined them a year later.
Her voice and stage presence helped propel the band to superstardom and they moved to the UK in 1964.
With their first three releases going to the top of the British charts, the previously unknown group from Melbourne knocked The Beatles off the number one spot.
They also had three top-20 singles and two top-20 albums in the US — a market notoriously difficult to crack for Australian artists.
On their return to Australia in 1967, The Seekers set an Australian record when a crowd of more than 200,000 watched their performance at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
The Seekers are loved around the world.(Supplied: Bruce Woodley)
Durham made her shock decision to leave The Seekers on a tour to New Zealand in 1968.
But the band reunited a number of times in the decades since for reunion shows.
Durham died in palliative care after a short stay at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital after complications from chronic lung disease.
Newcastle Knights trainer Hayden Knowles has broken his silence and cleared up one of the biggest misconceptions to come out of his argument with David Klemmer last week.
Klemmer was stood down after an expletive-ridden outburst aimed at Knowles in the final 10 minutes of Newcastle’s loss to the Bulldogs.
While initial reports suggested Knowles was the one to instigate a HR investigation into the incident, it was later confirmed that Newcastle management made that move.
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speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald for the first time since Sunday’s events, Knowles said he felt like his “reputation has taken a hit”.
“The swearing wasn’t the issue,” Knowles said, clearing up what he saw as a big misconception to come out of the dramatic week that was.
“That’s what everyone is losing sight of. For me it’s not personal with Klem. It wouldn’t matter if it was Kalyn Ponga, Nathan Cleary, Junior Paulo or Payne Haas. It wouldn’t matter who it is.
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“If someone puts themselves before the team, I would forever die by the fact that I won’t tolerate that behaviour.”
Knowles told Herald he has a “very, very close” relationship with Klemmer and that in the end, all he was trying to do was “uphold the set of standards this team needs”.
“That’s what leaders do,” Knowles said.
“Sometimes leadership is tough. Sometimes you have to put the value of the team before anything, no matter who the person is. If our club, our roster, our management want success, they should be thanking me for trying to uphold the set of standards this team needs.”
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Klemmer was hit with a suspended fine for his actions but will be available for selection in next week’s clash with Brisbane.
Knowles admitted that the situation could have “been handled” better after Newcastle management reported the incident to HR.
“The word HR has made it worse,” he said.
“Phil (CEO Phil Gardner) wanted a report and wanted to hear from everyone. The behavior was there for all to be seen. Ideally, it wouldn’t have been handled like this. But that’s not my problem.”
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The Knights claimed a much-needed 14-10 win on Sunday to move past Sunday’s drama, having come under intense scrutiny for their handling of the Klemmer incident.
Cameron Smith was particularly strong when speaking on SEN Radio earlier in the week, calling on the Knights to “be better.”
“Well it’s strange really. If words were spoken between a player and a trainer, that’s happened a thousand times before,” Smith said on ‘The Captain’s Run’ on SEN Radioon Thursday.
“I’ve seen it first hand, I think you have as well. It’s not a new thing. I’m really confused as to why this is such a huge problem.
“The way I’ve seen it dealt with and sorted out in the past is that if there’s an issue… it’s dealt with in-person after the match.
“It’s just unnecessary. Like seriously, how bad have the words been spoken between David Klemmer and this trainer, to have a formal complaint made. It’s just ridiculous. Deal with it man to man.”
The recent weather certainly matches the calendar, but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable. The heat and humidity continue, as does the daily chances for late-day storms. As with the past few days, any storms that do develop will be scattered in nature but are likely to feature heavy downpours and some localized flooding.
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Through tonight: Scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible late this afternoon and early evening. Any storms that do develop will be slow moving and will feature heavy downpours, which could result in some localized flooding. Storm chances will decrease after midnight, but it will remain uncomfortable overnight, with temperatures and dew points in the mid 70s.
View the current weather at The Washington Post.
Tomorrow (Sunday): More of the same on Sunday, with hot, humid conditions and the chance of afternoon storms. Temperatures will top out in the low 90s, and high humidity levels will push the heat index close to triple digits at times. Scattered storms with heavy downpours are likely to develop in the afternoon and evening hours. Showers and storm chances will decrease after dark, and it will be another warm and muggy overnight period with temperatures and dew points in the low to mid 70s.
See A. Camden Walker’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Gridlock.
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