Daily News Roundup

October 29, 2019

Tuesday, Oct 29

Gold Coast Schoolies organisers have been blasted for partnering with dating app Tinder and encouraging teenagers to use it to date total strangers.

The Courier Mail reported today that the mother of a Year 12 girl at prestigious All Hallows’ Catholic School had called out Schoolies organisers after they sent out an email spruiking the new partnership with Tinder.

Libby Marshall said she was appalled and flabbergasted that Schoolies organisers were encouraging “impressionable and vulnerable” teens to hook up on  tinder.

“I am just appalled. Tinder is one of the most appalling apps around – it ruins mature aged people, let alone impressionable and vulnerable teenagers. It’s planting the seed that spontaneous, casual sex with anyone is OK and I think it is the completely wrong message to be sending to our kids”, the Courier quoted Ms Marshall as saying.

“GET ON THIS” the email states. 

“Tinder is coming to Schoolies in 2019 to make every SINGLE moment count. Because we know single never has to go home early, knows all the best places and goes home with the wildest stories. Download the app to unlock amazing Schoolies experiences”.

The Courier said that in a statement Schoolies.com chief executive Matt Llopyd said the Tinder partnership was among “new and exciting” experiences offered this year.

Tinder is a location-based social search mobile app and Web application most often used as a dating service, that allows users to use a swiping motion to like (swipe right) or dislike (swipe left) other users, and allows users to chat if both parties like each other (a “match”). Information available to users is based on pictures, a short biography, and, optionally, a linked Instagram, Facebook or Spotify account.

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Kate McBride, a 21-year-old farmer from the NSW town of Menindee, last night stole the show at the ABC’s Q&A debate, winning applause from the studio audience and on social media from across the east coast after ripping into a Federal Minister as she detailed the enormity of the problems caused by the drought.

It was an emotional episode of the ABC showcase program as struggling farmers and country locals fighting through drought explained how years of no rain had broken their rural towns and hearts.

But Kate McBride was a standout and made the strongest impact, unafraid of going head-to-head with the panel’s politicians and calling for a royal commission into the handling of the Murray Darling Basin. 

Despite being seated next to David Littleproud, the federal minister for water resources and drought, 21-year-old Kate McBride wasn’t fazed.

Throughout the hour-long show, Ms McBride shot a handful of furious looks at Mr Littleproud as he repeatedly defended claims the government mismanaged water and was not supporting farmers.

Ms McBride next to Mr Littleproud. Picture: Q & ASource:ABC

At one point, as Mr Littleproud and Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon argued across the panel, Ms McBride was asked what she thought of the two politicians’ behaviour.

“As a young farmer, I’m 21 years old, where is my future in all this? I spoke to people this week saying there were people in their communities taking kids out of boarding school because they can’t afford it anymore,” she said.

“That’s destroying their future. But they get dragged back to a property where they can’t see a future themselves. What are we doing for these kids? They come home and there’s nothing for them there.

“What are we doing and how are we helping these kids?”

Ms McBride’s comment was in response to a heartbreaking question asked by the principal of a school in Trundle, a rural town in western NSW, who spoke of the impact it had had on kids in his region.

“My kids are living a crisis the situation every day,” John Southern, the principal of Trundle Central School, said.

“I’ve got kids that are going out to their farms and they don’t know what Dad will do tomorrow. Whether they’ll be there next week or somebody will foreclose on their farm. 

“They’re saying it’s too tough. I don’t want to go on this farm anymore. And I’ve got people telling me they’re doing all this stuff to help my community and my kids out here and I’ve got to say, mate, I haven’t seen what you’re telling me that’s happening out there.

“I haven’t seen the grassroots stuff to come and grab my kids and pull them up and say, ‘It’s OK. We’re going to get through this.’ Who is saying that to us?”

In another fiery exchange between Mr Littleproud and Ms McBride, the 21-year-old farmer told the minister he was telling her community in Menindee to “sit at the end of the river and die”.

“You look at the people in the Lower Darling but we have a 1,400km stretch that is bone dry,” Ms McBride said.

“The lowest ever inflows into Menindee Lakes and that’s not just because of drought. Point the finger at mismanagement and over-extraction. How can you say to those people, and myself included that live along there, ‘we’re not going to put any more water back in the river from buybacks. You guys have to sit at the end of the river and die’. That’s what you’re telling us right now.”

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The remains of Islamic State (IS) group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed by US special services troops in a weekend raid, has been buried at sea with the US affording him religious rites according to Islamic custom, Reuters reports.

Baghdadi, an Iraqi jihadist who rose from obscurity to declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims, was killed when he detonated a suicide vest after being chased into a tunnel with three of his children by the elite troops who attacked his “secret” compound in Syria.

US officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, did not disclose where the ritual was performed or how long it lasted.

Two officials said they believed his remains were dropped into the sea from an aircraft.

US Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news briefing on Monday that the US military disposed of Baghdadi’s remains “appropriately, in accordance with our [standard operating procedures] and in accordance with the law of armed conflict”.

During the briefing, General Milley said two adult males were captured during the raid and were now in US custody.

Asked about President Donald Trump’s comments that Baghdadi was “whimpering” and crying just before he blew himself up, General Milley said he did not “know what the source of that was”, but added that Mr Trump had likely spoken directly to the unit.

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