The lucky Illinois ticket holder who won the $1.3 billion Mega Millions jackpot on Friday night remains a mystery as the fortune sits thus far uncollected.
Mega Millions allows winners to remain anonymous if they so choose — most often to afford negative attention or unwanted solicitations for money. However, the winning ticket for last week’s historic jackpot has not been claimed at all.
Lottery officials are encouraging regular players to double-check their numbers.
“Congratulations to the Illinois Lottery for selling the winning ticket for the $1.337 billion Mega Millions jackpot,” Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald said in a statement. “We are thrilled to have witnessed one of the biggest jackpot wins in Mega Millions history.”
MEGA MILLIONS JACKPOT: HOW MUCH WILL WINNER OWE IN TAXES?
A Mega Millions jackpot winning ticket was purchased at a Speedway location in Des Plaines, Illinois, Friday, July 29, 2022. (Google Street View / Google Maps)
The winning ticket was sold at the Speedy Cafe Speedway gas station on East Touhy Avenue in Des Plaines, Illinois. The winning numbers were listed as 13, 36, 45, 57, 67 and the gold Mega ball was 14. The Megaplier was 2X.
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Individual states can have public disclosure laws that require the identity of winners to be published, but Illinois does not.
A lottery ticket vending machine sits a convenience store, July 21, 2022, in Northbrook, Ill. The next Mega Millions drawing is Tuesday, July 25, 2022 with a jackpot at $790 million. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, file/AP Newsroom)
MEGA MILLIONS DRAWING: ILLINOIS SPEEDWAY GAS STATION THAT SOLD WINNING TICKET IN LINE FOR BIG COMMISSION
“If your prize is $250,000 or greater, you may request to keep your name and municipality of residence confidential by indicating that choice on the Illinois Lottery Winner Claim Form,” according to Illinois Lottery rules.
The regulations continue, “You must make this request at the time of claiming the prize. If you do not, to assure the public that prizes are won and awarded, the Illinois Lottery will routinely publish winner information, including the winner’s name, home city , and the amount won.
The Mega Millions lottery game is played in 45 states as well as Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands. The game is coordinated by state lotteries.
Aussies are tightening their belts to save money. (Source: Getty)
Soaring and have many Aussies rethinking their spending habits, with “fun” expenses on the chopping block for many households.
Going to restaurants was the first thing Aussies had been cutting back on, according to a Finder survey of more than 2,000 people.
Almost a quarter (22 per cent) said they would forgo meals out to save money.
Online shopping was also a popular expense to bin, with 13 per cent putting it down as the first thing they would stop doing if their budget was under pressure.
TV subscriptions were also a popular sacrifice (10 per cent), followed by nights out at the pub (9 per cent).
Others were prepared to cut their gym memberships (6 per cent), takeaway coffees (6 per cent), car trips (5 per cent) and even heating and cooling in the home (5 per cent).
Only 2 per cent said they would stop their health insurance, and 1 per cent said they would ax their child’s music or sport lessons.
Around 15 per cent said they wouldn’t curb their spending at all, even if their expenses rose suddenly.
Young people were much more likely to cut back (94 per cent) than boomers (68 per cent) in the face of financial pressures.
“Australians are tightening their belts and making some tricky decisions about how they spend their cash,” Rebecca Pike, money expert at Finder, said.
“’Fun’ has been forced to take a backseat as households grapple with pressures to their budget, including rising interest rates and inflation.”
Pike recommended grouping expenses into essentials and non-essentials.
“Cut from the non-essentials column first and shop around – now is the time to really think about where and how you can save money,” she said.
If your expenses started to suddenly increase, what would be the first thing you would cut out to save money?
Going to restaurants
22%
I wouldn’t cut anything out
fifteen%
Online shopping
13%
TVsubscription
10%
Going to bars/pubs
9%
gym membership
6%
take away coffee
6%
driving my car
5%
Heating/cooling my home
5%
health insurance
two%
other
two%
My child’s sport/music lessons or extracurriculars
1%
life insurance
1%
Toys for my kids
1%
Kids school fees
1%
Data source from Finder.
Inflation a bigger concern than mortgage debt
The cost of living was found to be the biggest financial concern for Aussies at the moment (61 per cent), according to a Money.com.au survey.
This was followed by having a financial buffer in case of an emergency (43 per cent) and having enough cash flow to pay bills (39 per cent).
The ability to meet mortgage repayments amid interest rate increases ranked sixth – chosen as one of the top concerns for 27 per cent of respondents.
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League of Legends has a repertoire of over 160 champions. Do other games have the same number of characters? Hardy. Dota 2, the biggest competitor, has recently released hero number 123. Sure, Super Smash Bros. has a large cast as well, but the 80 playable characters can’t reach League of Legends and their number of champions.
But that begs the question, when is it enough? Can Riot sustain constant creation of champions in the game, and when will they reach a limit? In a recent appearance on the Australian podcast Broken by Concept, head of the balance team Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison addressed this exact question. Will League of Legends stop making new champions?
Is There An End of New Champions in Sight?
According Phroxzon, the League of Legends team has already been considering an end for new champions. So, if you were wondering whether one day we won’t be getting any new champions in the biggest MOBA, then the simple answer is yes. But we don’t want to jump to conclusions right now because Phroxzon elaborated in the podcast.
It’s definitely been a discussion. I think we’ve still got a lot of flex to go.
So, while the team has discussed it and are thinking about capping out at a certain number of champions, the champion’s team won’t let this happen just yet. So, don’t worry guys, there will still be some more champions coming. We’ve still got a new top laner to look forward to and a bunch of other characters from Arcane or Legends of Runeterra we’d love as champions, right?
While you have an existential crisis about the potential lack of new champions, we give you some more food for thought:
When Will Riot Stop Making New Champions?
Phroxzon added in the podcast that he believes once champions are ‘unintuitive’, then they should stop making new champions. What does he mean by ‘unintuitive’, though? Basically, I have described it as champions creating situations that just won’t make sense in the eyes of a player. Sure, you could argue that a yone ult Shredding through five champions could be considered unintuitive, but we’re talking about completely bonkers scenarios here.
There are a few things that make a lot of champions unsustainable. One is if champions are unintuitive. Let’s say I run into Thresh, he throws a hook, and it looks like a hook, but it just goes over somebody. You’d be like ‘what the hell is that?
He explains that situations like this will make it harder for players to understand the game and properly play it as well. The learning curve would be too big for beginners and adding in such mechanics will just dishearten longtime players as well.
So, every player needs to consume and understand 160 champions to play the game effectively. That becomes a lot more difficult when every hook champion has its hook like function in a slightly different way.
So, while it could be daunting to have new abilities in the game, keeping champions fresh and unique without being too repetitive, the champions and balance team do not want to make things too unintuitive. So-while Gwen’s W – an example from the podcast – was mentioned in terms of new and unintuitive mechanics, there were also some specific design philosophies behind her W that still made sense to the champions team, which is why she was added to the champion pool.
All Star Guardian Skins in League of Legends
View gallery
When Will Riot Release Their Last Champion?
Right now, there are no plans to stop champion production. There are still many types of champions waiting to be made for League of Legends, so don’t expect the end to be too near. The champions team have stated before that they will slow down the creation of new champions, meaning we might not get five or six each year, but they will definitely still be working on new champions.
So, get ready for the new top lane champion, as well as the Udyr rework which is set to hit the rift sometime this August. Oh, and we cannot forget about the upcoming Comprehensive Gameplay Update for our boy Aurelion Sol.
Ariarne Titmus, Sam Short and the women’s 4x100m relay medley team picked up yet more gold for Australia as the Commonwealth Games swimming competition came to a close in Birmingham. A hugely successful campaign in the pool ended with the triple triumph on Thursday morning AEST to bring Australia’s golden tally to 25 by the final reckoning.
Titmus claimed victory in the women’s 400m freestyle – the 21-year-old’s seventh Commonwealth gold, in addition to two Olympic golds and two world titles – after edging out emerging 15-year-old Canadian star Summer McIntosh, with Australia’s Kiah Melverton claiming bronze in a thrilling race.
McIntosh had announced herself a star of the future at the world championships in Budapest and won the 200m and 400m individual medleys at this meet. A night after winning the 800m freestyle, Titmus – who defeated American champion Katie Ledecky in the event at the Tokyo Olympics – recorded at a time of 3:58.06 to beat McIntosh by just over one second. She also won the 200m freestyle.
Her latest success followed Short’s sensational swim to claim the 1500m freestyle gold medal and continue Australia’s rich tradition in the endurance race. The 18-year-old won a thrilling contest at 14:48.54, just over three seconds in front of Daniel Wiffen from Northern Ireland, with England’s Luke Turley third.
In the final events of the swimming competition, the women’s 4x100m relay medley team beat Canada, with England claiming bronze, to give Emma McKeon her sixth gold medal of these Games, but there was disappointment for the men’s team, who were pipped by England as Kyle Chalmers touched for silver.
100m freestyle heroine Mollie O’Callaghan gave Canadian world champion Kylie Masse a scare in the 50m backstroke when beaten by just 0.16 seconds. Maase, a four-time Olympic medalist, rallied late to win in 27.31 seconds with Kaylee McKeown continuing her superb meet to claim the bronze.
In track and field, Brandon Starc narrowly failed to defend his Commonwealth high jump crown as he claimed silver behind New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr after both men cleared 2.25m. While in the men’s 100m final, sprinter Rohan Browning came in sixth.
Brandon Starc takes a moment with his baby after winning high jump silver. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images
Resilience has been a feature throughout Peter Bol’s extraordinary life and the Australian athlete was not going to let an injured ankle derail his Commonwealth Games dreams. The 28-year-old, whose family fled Sudan’s civil war when he was four, has coped with the stress that comes with competing against the best in a grievous event for the past decade.
There have been moments of brilliance, with his fourth-placed finish in the Tokyo Olympics last year an illustration. More recently, a seventh in the world championships was deflating. On Tuesday, when he rolled an ankle ahead of his appearance in a heat of the 800m in Birmingham, Bol would have been forgiven for fearing the worst.
Instead he focused. I iced the ankle. Put your feet up. He iced the joint again. And again. It was a professional approach to a scare. I have planned to fight on, no matter the pain. But it was not until Wednesday morning that he was convinced he would produce his best from him. Walking 800m on a dodgy ankle is painful, let alone running it. But Bol pulled it off with brilliance when clocking a time of 1:47.01 to qualify the fastest for Sunday’s final at Alexander Stadium.
“I rolled my ankle yesterday and I was limping on the way back and today I’m perfectly fine, so it’s a massive thanks to the medical team at Athletics Australia,” he said. “I wasn’t playing basketball, I promise. I just rolled it on the curb at the track. That’s the first time ever. It was getting better by the night and then in the morning, I was like, ‘Bam. I’m ready to go’.”
The ease with which he claimed the heat is testament to this. Bol trailed Kenyan Cornelius Tuwai, who has a faster personal best than the Western Australian, for the first 550m before dispatching with him to cruise to the line.
“To be honest, I did feel at ease and I enjoyed that a lot,” he said. “It was awesome to come back from the world’s, because it was a disappointing end, so to come back here and be in amazing shape and just switch off like that at the end is amazing.”
After being eliminated in the quarter-finals in Tokyo by India, Australia have a chance of redemption in a semi-final of the women’s hockey to be held in Birmingham on Friday. The Hockeyroos maintained a perfect record in their pool when defeating Scotland 2-0, while India claimed what was effectively a sudden-death clash against Canada 3-2 to progress.
Also maintaining a perfect record to reach the medal rounds was the Twenty20 women’s cricket team, who have performed brilliantly in their first Commonwealth Games. Excellent innings from the unbeaten Beth Mooney, who scored 70 off 49 balls, and Tahlia McGrath, who was 78 not out off 51 balls, helped Australia to a total 160-2 against Pakistan.
The Australians will learn their semi-final rival after the clash between England and New Zealand on Thursday.
In other action on Wednesday, Zoe Cuthbert became the first Australian to win a medal in mountain biking when finishing second at Cannock Chase Forest, north of Birmingham. The 21-year-old finished 47 seconds behind England’s Evie Campbell but demonstrated she is a star of the future with both her skill on the bike and race composure and awareness.
Australia’s oldest competitor Cheryl Lindfield, 63, has been a hit in the athletes’ village she is staying in, with the women’s rugby sevens team in particular taking a shine to her. Lindfield and her partner Ella Serena Bonnell enjoyed a successful venture to Leamington Spa when claiming the silver medal in the para women’s pairs (B6-B8) lawn bowls.
The Australian combination were eventually outclassed by Scotland when beaten 17-5, making it the nation’s second loss in a final at the venue to the Scots in as many days. “We were the underdogs,” she said. “We’re very happy with that. We’ll wake up tomorrow with a silver… so how good is that?”
Charisma Amoa Tarrant performed well at the weightlifting when claiming a bronze medal in the women’s 87kg class behind England’s Emily Campbell, who set a new Commonwealth mark.
It states that the project budgets for the three new metro rail lines “now range from $13 billion to $26 billion”. The $13 billion refers to the airport line, which in late 2020 the state and then federal Coalition governments estimated would cost “around $11 billion”.
A strategic assessment by Sydney Metro in September last year also rated as “high” the risk of the agency failing to deliver “projects within the approved budget envelope”.
Despite this, Transport Minister David Elliott said he had been advised by Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan that the airport rail line project was “tracking to time and budget”, adding that it would be the “spine for communities across western Sydney”.
However, Labor transport spokeswoman Jo Haylen said the public deserved to know why the airport line project had blown out by $2 billion before shovels were in the ground.
“This cost blowout exists in black and white in the government’s own internal documents. The Liberal government needs to be honest with the public about the cost of this project,” she said.
Minutes of meetings for Sydney Metro’s risk committee also show it had concerns two years ago about a budget hit from the COVID-19 pandemic spreading to the airport line and Metro West.
The meeting documents detail fears that other infrastructure projects, and the timing of building the rail lines concurrently, would result in “unintended competition” for construction industry resources.
Sydney Metro said in a statement that the airport line was “tracking to time and budget”, and that the earlier City and Southwest project was at peak construction when many market pressures such as an overheated construction market began to take shape, “meaning their impact was more acute”.
“It is no secret that construction projects across the world are managing supply chain disruption, COVID-19 impacts and an overheated construction market with significant material and labor cost increases,” it said.
The agency said it was working with delivery partners on the airport line and Metro West to “mitigate these impacts”.
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Unlike the other metro train lines, the 23-kilometre rail link from St Marys to the airport and Bringelly, where a new city center is planned, is jointly funded by the NSW and federal governments.
In a highly critical assessment last year, Infrastructure Australia warned that the cost of building the airport rail line outweighed its benefits by $1.8 billion, and found the project’s business case was based on several flawed assumptions.
However, federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the airport line would “benefit western Sydney communities for years to come”, noting that the state government’s advice was that the $11 billion project was “tracking to time and budget”.
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FIRST ON FOX: Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker is urging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia not to “be scared” and accept a debate that Walker has agreed to attend in the latest verbal fireworks between the two candidates over debates in their crucial battleground state showdown.
Walker Tuesday night announced in an interview on Fox News’ “Hannity” that he’s agreed to take part in an Oct. 14 debate in Savannah, Georgia, in front of a live audience. The debate, proposed by Nexstar Media Group, would be televised on Fox 5 Atlanta and other local TV stations across Georgia and in neighboring states.
“Senator Warnock. Nexstar Media Group offered to host a debate for us in Savannah on Oct. 14 in front of the people. Don’t Be Scared!,” Walker says in his new video, which was shared first with Fox News on Wednesday .
Walker, in the video, charges that Warnock has “rejected previous offers I’ve made, but please consider this one. This debate is more than fair to you… and it’s for the people! It’s in your own backyard, Savannah! You will have hometown advantage. It’s being hosted by a respected third-party media group with multiple outlets in Georgia. It will be aired statewide on broadcast television. In primetime. So everybody will get a chance to watch it.”
FIRST ON FOX: WALKER SAYS HE CAN ‘TAKE THE HITS’ FROM WARNOCK AND DEMOCRATS
Warnock had previously committed to attending an Oct. 16 debate hosted by the Atlanta Press Club, as well as two others later in October that are scheduled to be held in Macon and Savannah.
And Warnock’s campaign last week launched an ad criticizing Walker for not agreeing to take part in those three debates.
WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLL IN GEORGIA SHOWS
“Herschel Walker likes to talk tough,” the narrator in the Warnock ad emphasized. The spot then uses a clip of Walker from May saying, “Sen. Warnock. When he’s ready to debate, he calls the time, he makes the place. I’m ready to go.”
The narrator then charged that Walker “still refuses to agree to any debates” and accused Walker of “dodging” debates.
Walker responded on Tuesday, saying in a video that “I am not going to obey the demands of the elite press and the liberal establishment to stand in an empty room for a debate that’s supposed to be about the people.”
Warnock campaign manager Quentin Fulks, in a statement to Fox News, emphasized that “two months ago, Reverend Warnock accepted invitations to three well-established Georgia debates in Atlanta, Savannah and Macon to be broadcast statewide, after Herschel Walker said he would debate Reverend Warnock anywhere, anytime. Nothing has changed. Reverend Warnock remains committed to debating Herschel Walker and giving Georgians three opportunities to see the clear choice about who is ready to represent Georgia.”
Walker, who won a Heisman Trophy and helped steer the University of Georgia to a college football national championship four decades ago, jumped into the GOP race to face off against Warnock last summer after months of support and encouragement to run for the Senate by former President Donald Trump, his longtime friend.
WARNOCK AIMS TO MAKE WALKER HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
Thanks to his legendary status among many in Georgia and his immense, favorable name recognition in the Peach State, Walker instantly became the overwhelming front-runner for the GOP Senate nomination and basically ignored the field of lesser-known primary rivals, declining to take part in debates as he focused his campaign on Warnock.
Walker ended up trouncing his rivals in the May primary. But Republican strategists remain concerned that Walker is unprepared for the incoming fire that he’s now receiving during the general election campaign.
Georgia GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, left, and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock (Republican National Convention/Handout via Reuters | Tom Williams/Pool via Reuters)
Walker has taken fire from the Warnock campaign and allied Democratic groups over what they call his“bizarre or false statements.” And he’s also been targeted over numerous reports that he overinflated the success of his businesses and academic record and has been playing defense regarding a number of personal controversies — from allegations of past abuse and threats against his first wife to acknowledging children he fathered out of wedlock that he hadn’t previously publicly mentioned, despite criticizing absent fathers for decades.
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Republicans see Warnock — the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. used to preach, and who defeated GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler by a razor-thin margin to capture the seat a year and a half ago — as very vulnerable as he runs for re-election to a full six-year term.
But Warnock has dramatically outraised Walker to date and holds a mid-single digit edge over his GOP challenger in the latest public opinion surveys, including a four-point advantage in a Fox News poll released last week. The showdown is one of a handful of races in battleground states that will determine if the GOP wins back the majority in the chamber in November’s midterms.
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter based in New Hampshire.
The last remaining commercial guava farmer in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales is preparing to rip out two-thirds of the orchard’s 3,000 trees.
Key points:
The Schmidts sell guavas from 1,000 trees to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne markets for a premium price
Wet weather made it difficult for the Newrybar couple to get in the orchard to harvest
A Bangalow craft beer brewery has used excess guava fruit to produce a seasonal sour beer
It follows one of Australia’s largest growers bulldozing his orchard on the Alstonville plateau earlier this year to convert to macadamias.
Now Phillip and Janice Schmidt at nearby Newrybar are also considering the popular native nut as a replacement tree crop.
“Avocados? Macadamias? We’re yet to make our mind up, but obviously, the land should be kept productive for the sake of the country and everyone,” Mr Schmidt said.
Guava trees bulldozed and pushed into piles on the Alstonville Plateau.(Rural ABC: Kim Honan)
The Schmidts sell guavas from 1,000 trees to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne markets for a premium price.
But the fruit from the remaining 2,000 trees, previously sold for juicing, is being left to rot on the ground or gobbled up by cattle on agistment.
The former CSIRO geologist, who “accidentally” fell into guava farming when he bought the coastal property on retirement, said they were not dependent on the juicing income, but for others in the industry, it had been devastating.
“It’s been a declining part of our industry for over 10 years, and it’s finally reached the stage where I don’t think any guavas from northern NSW are used for juicing,” he said.
“We don’t really know what the cause of it is, but I suspect that imports from overseas could be a factor.”
But Queensland-based processor Tropico Fruits has confirmed it does not import any guava product for its juices.
Mr Schmidt says the cattle love the guavas.(Rural ABC: Kim Honan)
The company has in previous years bought guavas from the Northern Rivers but said it never had juicing contracts with growers.
Tropico Fruits chief executive Dave Alderton said it had individual standalone seasonal arrangements based on each year’s supply and demand.
He said that despite offering such an arrangement this year for guavas, neither grower in the Northern Rivers was able to supply the fruit.
Newrybar Guavas mostly grow Hawaiian pink guavas and some whites.(Rural ABC: Kim Honan)
Constant rain hurts guava harvest
In addition to the unsold juice fruit, the weeks of rain during this year’s harvest resulted in an excess of table fruit on the farm.
Mr Schmidt said that initially, it was looking like a bumper guava season.
“But then we kept on having rain, more rain, more rain until we reached the point where we were unable to actually pick the fruit because we had no means of accessing or at least getting a vehicle down to take the fruit out,” he said.
“We lost two weeks when we just simply couldn’t get down here, and those two weeks are probably our most productive actually.”
These guavas will be sold to Melbourne, Brisbane or Sydney markets for a premium price.(Rural ABC: Kim Honan)
The result was a lot of fruit too ripe for the market that ended up being shared with friends or given to the cattle.
“The cattle love it,” he said.
“They actually follow us down to the packing shed, and they turn up at the packing shed and wait outside.”
The upside to the constant rain was much larger guavas, with the skin able to keep up with the growth of the fruit without splitting.
Guavas saved for sour beer
While the 40-year-old guava industry in the Northern Rivers has declined dramatically, the craft brewery sector in the region is booming.
The newest brewery, Common People Brewing Co at nearby Bangalow, is working with local producers on special batch brews.
Common People Brewing Co produced a seasonal beer using excess fruit from Newrybar Guavas.(Rural ABC: Kim Honan)
General manager Jay Kempnich said they sourced some of the Schmidts’ excess fruit to make a limited edition seasonal beer for the weekend’s self-drive Harvest Food Trail.
“We infused guava and some of our fresh lilly pillies from our own trees from out the front of the brewery here into a sour beer and made a delicious, refreshing guava beer,” he said.
The brewery, which opened in January, brews 600 liters at a time with eight beers, three of those its flagship beers.
Brewery founders and co-owners Drew Tourle (left) and Jay Kempnich.(Rural ABC: Kim Honan)
“Then we’ve got the other five taps that are dedicated to doing seasonal and special batch brews, using local ingredients from the area and collaborations with local businesses where we can,” he said.
Another of those collaborations is with Barefoot Farm Byron, a pecan grower and processor in the nearby Eltham Valley.
“We put 10 kilos of their pecan nuts into one of our 600-liter batches and have done a full batch of a pecan-infused brown ale,” he said.
The Bangalow brewery has used local pecans to make brown ale.(Rural ABC: Kim Honan)
Google is moving forward with its merger of Duo and Meet, if not quite as elegantly as some might like. TechCrunch reports Google is rebranding Duo for Android and iOS as the Meet app, complete with the video calling-centric logo. The company had already migrated many of Meet’s features. However, the old Meet app isn’t going away for now — instead, it will be rebranded as “Google Meet (original).”
All Duo users should see the rebrand by September. You’ll have to use your Google account for any meeting features, but familiar elements (like effects and contacts) will remain intact. The original Meet app will continue to work, but won’t get ad hoc calling and will eventually disappear.
As a spokesperson explained in June, the merger is meant to adapt to the “evolving needs” of video calling, including meetings, by providing a unified experience. To some extent, it’s also further acknowledgment that Google’s communication app mix had grown too complex. The tech firm plans to shut down Hangouts this fall to focus on Chat, for instance, and it dropped Allo in early 2019. While the old Meet’s existence could still prove confusing, it should soon be clearer as to just which Google apps you should use for work meetings or keeping up with friends.
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When Jasmin Witham started renting in Adelaide, she was forced to make a heartbreaking decision.
Key points:
In South Australia, landlords can deny pets in their rental properties.
The SA government is looking at strengthening laws to allow tenants to have pets
Victoria, Queensland and ACT have strong renter rights regarding pets
In order to move into her new home in Clovelly Park, the 27-year-old would have to give up her kitten, Nina.
Even though more than 60 per cent of South Australian households own a dog or cat, the decision to allow pets in rental properties lies with the landlord.
Property owners can currently refuse tenants’ requests to own a pet and do not have to provide a reason for doing so.
As a result, Ms Witham, who has struggled with rental affordability over the years as a part-time student who lives with bipolar disorder and is on the Disability Support Pension, said she was faced with a difficult choice.
“We approached the landlord and asked to bring the pet with us and they said no, so I wasn’t able to bring my kitten with me to the new house,” Ms Witham said.
“It is still very upsetting, and I don’t see how having a pet or a smaller animal like a cat is detrimental in any way to a property, like if there is any damage there is a bond.”
Nina the cat went to live with Jasmin’s parents instead.(ABC News: Che Chorley)
The South Australian government is currently looking at modernizing the state’s residential tenancies laws which could see tenants allowed to rent with pets.
In 2020, new laws came into effect in Victoria which made it much easier for renters to own a pet.
Now landlords are only allowed to deny a tenant’s request for a pet if they receive approval from the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal.
Queensland followed in 2021 by updating its legislation and stripping landlords of the right to refuse pets in rental properties without a reason deemed valid by the state government.
In the ACT, tenants still require consent of the landlord to keep a pet on the property but tenancy agreements can no longer prohibit pets completely.
If the landlord wants to refuse a pet, they have to take it to the Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Shelter SA executive director Alice Clark said the current legislation in place in South Australia is outdated.
“The number of pet rentals that is listed is very low in South Australia so yes I think we should catch up,” Dr Clark said.
“What we don’t want is tenants hiding their pets which we know happens frequently so it would be great to have that all done transparently and responsibly by both sides.”
Jasmin Witham is currently renting in Unley.(ABC News: Che Chorley)
Considering what she could afford, Ms Witham said finding a rental by herself was difficult and even finding a share house was hard.
“It’s difficult to be put onto a lease where a lot of landlords and agencies feel uncomfortable taking people getting social security benefits and will prioritize people in employment,” she said.
As Australia’s housing crisis worsens, Ms Witham hopes South Australia updates its laws to better protect both tenants and landlords.
The legal team representing Infowars founder Alex Jones inadvertently sent the contents of his cellphone to a lawyer representing the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting, the parents’ lawyer said in court Wednesday.
The apparent blunder, revealed by attorney Mark Bankston as Jones was on the stand in the damages phase of his defamation trial, unearthed previously undisclosed texts about the massacre and financial information about Infowars. Bankston, who represents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, told the far-right conspiracy theorist that his attorneys had “messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone.”
“And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook,” Bankston said.
“This is your ‘Perry Mason’ moment,” Jones responded, a reference to the fictional lawyer famed for his stunning 11th-hour courtroom reveals. “I gave them my phone.”
Bankston noted Jones had testified under oath that he personally searched his cellphone for Sandy Hook text messages and was unable to find any. Bankston asked, “You know what perjury is, right? I just want to make sure you know before we go any further.”
Jones denied lying, saying, “I’m not a tech guy.”
The dramatic moment came as Bankston cross-examined Jones, shortly before closing arguments in the damages phase of the defamation trial that began last week in an Austin courtroom. Heslin and Lewis sued in 2018 over the far-right media personality’s relentless false claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a “giant hoax.”
Sandy Hook parents confront Alex Jones, say hoax claims created ‘living hell’
After Jones’s years-long refusal to comply with court orders and hand over documents and evidence in lawsuits, District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County, Tex., in September found Jones responsible for all damages. She issued a default judgment against Jones, blasting him and his website’s parent company, Free Speech Systems, for having “intentionally disobeyed” the court’s requests by refusing to turn over documents related to the various lawsuits against him.
While confronting Jones about the newly discovered text messages in court Wednesday, Bankston displayed one of them, in which an editor who worked for Jones sent him a screenshot of an Infowars article claiming a hospital was using dummies in a coronavirus ward. The editor, Paul Watson, wrote that it “makes us look ridiculous” and added, “Sandy Hook all over again.” Jones texted back, “I get it.”
Bankston also asked about his emails. I have noted that Jones had testified he did not have any about Sandy Hook because he doesn’t use email. Jones said in court, “Yes. I personally do not get on the internet and sit there and use email. I’ve never sent emails myself. Because I don’t like it. I can’t stand it. There’s too many of them.”
The attorney then displayed emails he said Jones had sent to lawyers, staff and others about business operations.
Alex Jones, seconds after being told that his lawyer mistakenly send a huge cache of texts to Sandy Hook families’ attorney:
He zeroed-in on messages about Infowars financial information, which he said contradicted Jones’s previous statements about the amount of money he made. Bankston pointed out that Jones had claimed he had lost millions because of deplatforming and made up to $200,000 a day. But, he said, messages on Jones’s phone suggested Infowars brought in as much as $800,000 on some days. If he kept up that pace, he said, it would add up to about $300 million a year.
Jones claimed the numbers were cherry-picked. At one point, as Bankston went over the contents of the phone, he scoffed, “This is ridiculous.”
Gamble told jurors that what the lawyers say is not evidence, adding that without evidence, it is not yet known whether the contents of the phone were given to the Sandy Hook parents’ attorney by accident.
“But what we do know,” the judge said, “is that it wasn’t properly turned over when it should have been.”
Despite conceding in testimony Wednesday that the 2012 shooting was not a hoax but “100 percent real,” Jones throughout the trial has continued to defend himself from critics of his broadcast program while seeking to protect his financial assets from potentially devastating damages that could be awarded to the plaintiffs.
Jones last week made an emergency bankruptcy filing for Free Speech Systems, just months after filing for bankruptcy protection for Infowars and two other business ventures.
Alex Jones’s media company files for bankruptcy during Sandy Hook trial
The families have said admissions and apologies from Jones are not enough; they are seeking at least $150 million in damages.
A pricey damages payout would add to the string of legal losses for Jones and Infowars since parents of Sandy Hook victims began to file defamation suits in 2018, after Jones made repeated claims on his show that the shooting was a hoax and the victims were “crisis actors.” Judges in Connecticut and Texas have issued default judgments against Jones in multiple suits.
Jones has been sued by at least nine Sandy Hook families.
