Hi. It's Thursday, June 9 and you're reading The Loop, a quick wrap-up of today's news.
Let's start here
The United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack has been investigating the Capitol riots for almost a year.
Tomorrow — well, tomorrow for Australians — it will reveal its findings in a rare, live-streamed hearing.
Several members of the committee have already promised new and explosive information will come out, but exactly what that entails remains to be seen.
The hearings will be shown in the US on Thursday night — that's 10am Friday AEST. We'll be bringing you the findings live via a blog on the ABC News website.
What else is going on
- An 11-year-old girl who survived the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde has told US Congress how she covered herself with a dead classmate's blood to avoid being shot. Miah Carrillo said she watched a teacher get shot in the head before looking for a place to hide, and used the dead woman's phone to call 911 and beg for help
- Three men are at risk of facing the death penalty after they were captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine. Britain has condemned what it calls the exploitation of prisoners of war for political purposes
- Melbourne University provost Nicola Phillips has apologised for underpayment at the institution and announced the university would overhaul its employment model and "dramatically" reduce its reliance on casual staff in response to the scandal.
What Australia has been searching for online
- Nerang. Two men have been taken into custody after an 18-hour siege in the Gold Coast suburb. Police say both were on return-to-prison warrants and one allegedly has links to bikie gangs
- Arctic Monkeys. The UK outfit have just announced a trio of headline shows in Australia — their first since 2019 — while they're here for the summer festival circuit.
One more thing
The Australian Capital Territory is set to become the first jurisdiction in the country to decriminalise small amounts of commonly used illicit drugs, such as ice, heroin and cocaine.
No, that doesn't mean it's a free-for-all.
Under a proposed law that the government has now endorsed, police would continue to target dealers and try to disrupt Canberra's drug trade, but people found with amounts considered to be "personal possession" — smaller than trafficable quantities — would be subject to fines rather than criminal charges.
The ACT was also the first — and remains the only — state or territory to decriminalise the personal use of cannabis.
ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith says only about 10 people a year are prosecuted for possessing small drug quantities in Canberra and that, while the government continues to view illicit drugs as harmful, it "recognises that the harm associated with drugs use is a health issue".
You're up to date
Thanks for reading.
ABC/wires
