Good afternoon. More details have emerged on the shocking police Tasering of a frail 95-year-old woman with dementia. Clare Nowland, who weighs 43kg and moves with the assistance of a walking frame, had left her room at an aged care facility in the early hours of the morning and gone to the kitchen. There, she found the steak knife police allege she was wielding at the time off-duty officers arrived. That led to her being Tasered by a senior constable.
Nowland remains in a critical decision and the homicide squad is now investigating the incident. The police officer responsible is having their duties reviewed and currently not working.
Top news
Aged care Taser outrage | Calls are mounting for an independent investigation into the incident. “Police should never investigate police,” the NSW Council for Civil Liberties president, Josh Pallas, said. The state’s Law Enforcement Conduct Commission said it was “independently monitoring” the internal police investigation. The NSW assistant police commissioner, Peter Cotter, said that “no officer, not one of us, is above the law and all our actions will be scrutinised robustly”.
‘Horrific’ allegations from WA youth detention facility | A child allegedly being hit in the head with chairs by two officers is one of the allegations contained in 58 letters of complaint tabled in the WA parliament about the Banksia Hill facility and Casuarina prison’s Unit 18.
Stan Grant stands down from Q+A | The host is stepping aside from the show after receiving racist abuse which has increased since he spoke on the ABC panel show about the coronation. The ABC has lodged an official complaint with Twitter about the “relentless racial filth” Grant is subjected to after every episode.
Earthquake near New Caledonia | A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck south-east of Loyalty Islands in New Caledonia, triggering a tsunami warning for nearby Pacific nations.
Albanese at G7 | The prime minister is being urged to take a stand against nuclear weapons at this weekend’s summit in Hiroshima. And not to be missed, our political editor, Katharine Murphy, has penned a lengthy essay marking Albanese’s first year in office.
AMP penalised for charging dead customers | AMP has been issued a $24m court-imposed penalty after it continued to charge the accounts of more than 2,000 deceased customers after being notified of their deaths.
Australian captive released by al-Qaida | Dr Ken Elliott, an 88-year-old Perth man who was kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked group in Africa in 2016, has been released. Elliott and his wife, Jocelyn, were in their 80s when they were kidnapped by extremists in Burkina Faso. The couple had lived in the country since 1972 and had built a medical clinic in the northern town of Djibo.
Disney v DeSantis | The Walt Disney Company is scrapping plans to build a nearly US$1bn corporate campus in Florida that would have housed 2,000 employees amid its ongoing legal battle with Florida’s ultra-conservative governor, Ron DeSantis.
Israeli nationalists chant racist slogans | Thousands of Israeli nationalists, some of them chanting “Death to Arabs” and “We will burn your village”, have paraded through Jerusalem’s Old City in an annual celebratory day for Israelis that became one of humiliation for Palestinians living under occupation.
Tupac Shakur Way | A northern California street may soon bear the name of late rapper Tupac Shakur. This week, Oakland’s city council unanimously agreed to name a part of a city street after the rapper, who called the city home in the early 1990s.
In video
Hidden in disused sections of Wynyard station in Sydney, underground tunnels have been transformed into a psychedelic labyrinth and are being opened up to the public for the first time for Vivid Sydney 2023. Watch the two-minute video.
What they said …
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“At the time she was tasered she was approaching police, it is fair to say at a slow pace. She had a walking frame. But she had a knife.” – Peter Cotter, NSW assistant police commissioner
In numbers
And 56% of the decline was driven by global heating and human consumption, with warming “the larger share of that”, according to a new study.
Before bed read
The advice columns from Eleanor Gordon-Smith never disappoint – and this week is no different. A reader who is falling for a sex worker wrote seeking guidance, to which Gordon-Smith offered a thoughtful response:
“Professional relationships are just that – professional – but that doesn’t stop them from being genuine sources of care. She provides intimacy in exchange for money; you’re allowed to feel that intimacy.”
Read the full question and answer.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: HAD. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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