Tag Archives: oceania

Baby clothing sold at Target recalled over ‘severe injury’ fears

A line of baby clothes sold at Target has been recalled over safety fears.

Design International has recalled its pink Peter Rabbit unisex faux fur bunnysuit in various sizes.

The recall affects the sizes newborn, three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months, and 24 months.

READ MORE: Donald Trump guilty in hush money trial

Product Safety Australia said in the recall notice that the garments had long, loose threads inside that could entangle arms and legs.

"Entanglement may cause a loss of circulation leading to severe injury," the notice read.

People are urged to stop using the garments and to return them to Target for a full refund.

Consumers can contact Designworks International on (03) 8823 8221 from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday or by email at FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, celebrity and sport via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.

Millions to be hit with second-highest loan increase tomorrow

Millions of Australians with higher education loans will be hit with the second-highest indexation increase tomorrow.

Those with HECS-HELP debt, and other higher education training loans, will have a 4.7 per cent indexation applied on June 1 but a credit will be applied back to loans once legislation passes later this year.

It means someone with the average Australian student debt of $26,494 will owe an extra $1245 or more on June 1.

ANALYSIS: Will Donald Trump go to jail?

university students

As for the roughly 1 per cent of student debtors who still have $100,000 or more to pay back, they'll see their debt increase by at least $4700.

After an indexation of 7.1 per cent was applied last year, $3 million was allocated in the federal budget to cut student debt.

It means legislation will change the way loans are indexed in the future so Australians are not hit with huge increases.

Those hit with high indexation tomorrow, and in 2023, will receive a credit when it comes into effect later this year.

WHAT'S NEXT: Can Trump still run for president?

Australians with the national average of $26,494 will receive a credit of $1190. 

Someone with debt of more than $100,000 would get $4485 put back on the loan.

The indexation percentage moves in line with the cost of living, which is measured by the consumer price index (CPI).

Just under three million Australians have student loans.

As of the 2022-23 financial year, Australians owed a combined $78.2 billion in HELP debt.

A Finder survey from last month found that more than 60 per cent of students were concerned about paying off their debt and 12 per cent did not think they ever would pay it off.

How verdict impacts presidential run

Now that a New York jury has convicted former President Donald Trump of all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, the next obvious question is: Can a convicted felon run for president?

Definitely.

A further question is more complicated: Could Trump, as a felon, vote for himself? Probably.

Starting with the easy question …

BREAKING: Donald Trump found guilty in historic trial

Can a convict run for president?

The US Constitution lays out just three requirements for presidential candidates. They must:

  • Be a natural born citizen.
  • Be at least 35 years old.
  • Have been a US resident for at least 14 years.

Trump meets all three requirements. There is, arguably, another criterion laid out in the 14th Amendment, where it states that no one who has previously taken an oath of office who engages in insurrection can be an officer of the US. But the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition. That's not happening any time soon.

There is also precedent for presidential campaigns, albeit unsuccessful ones, being mounted from prison cells.

Eugene Debs, the Socialist leader, conducted his 1920 presidential campaign from federal prison in Atlanta, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for sedition. He had encouraged Americans to oppose the draft in World War I.

READ MORE: Will Donald Trump go to jail after being found guilty on all counts in historic trial?

The Supreme Court, in that case, had affirmed his conviction, arguing he was convicted not for opposing the draft but for encouraging people not to comply with it. The decision keeping Debs in jail was written by then-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes just a few months before Holmes did a famous about-face on free speech that put the US on course for the way we view the First Amendment today.

Thomas Doherty, an American studies professor at Brandeis University, wrote last year about Debs, noting that he remained in prison as votes were cast and counted – he got nearly a million, more than 3 per cent of the vote. Even after the Sedition Act was repealed, Debs was kept in prison. Then-President Woodrow Wilson refused to issue a pardon. Wilson's successor and Debs' rival in 1920, Warren G. Harding, later commuted Debs' sentence in 1921.

And now to the more difficult question …

READ MORE: Donald Trump claims guilty verdict 'rigged' in post-trial outburst

Can a convicted felon vote?

It depends.

Trump's right to vote in Florida in November's election will depend on whether he is sentenced to a term in prison and if he has finished serving that prison sentence by the time of the election.

Each state makes its own rules. Vermont and Maine allow felons to vote from prison. There has been movement in multiple states toward allowing felons on parole to cast ballots.

Trump is now a Florida resident – and Florida voters, in 2018, overwhelmingly backed a referendum to reenfranchise convicted felons. But Republican lawmakers who control the state's government first delayed and then qualified the reenfranchisement by requiring that felons must pay all fines and fees associated with their sentence.

I talked to Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, an organization that works to help reenfranchise formerly incarcerated people. He predicted Trump will have little problem voting since Florida actually defers to the jurisdiction of a felony conviction as to whether a felon can vote. In New York, after a law passed in 2021, any convicted felon who is not incarcerated is eligible to register to vote.

US election protests

Read more from the Campaign Legal Center.

Even if the judge ultimately tried to give Trump prison time, it is highly unlikely that Trump's right to appeal his conviction would be exhausted before Election Day. If, somehow, Trump was convicted in one of the two federal criminal cases against him before Election Day, that might be another story.

The are other problems for many post-incarceration felons in Florida, as CNN has reported previously, although they would not apply to Trump. For starters, there is no clearinghouse of data about what fees are required. It has led to confusion and kept many people from voting.

"There are still a lot of people who are confused about their eligibility, and that's why we continue to work with the state and the election professionals to fix the system," Volz told me. "Because people need to know whether they're eligible or not on the front end of the process."

Volz said his group is making progress with the state to make it much easier for people to confirm their eligibility.

Will Donald Trump go to jail after historic court verdict?

Donald Trump is the first former United States president to be convicted of felony crimes but it remains unclear if he will go to jail.

A New York jury has found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the presidential campaign trail as a convicted felon.

READ MORE: Donald Trump guilty in hush money trial

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked.

READ MORE: Donald Trump claims guilty verdict 'rigged' in post-trial outburst

The judge set a July 11 date for sentencing following the jury's verdict.

Dan Horwitz, a defence lawyer who formerly prosecuted white-collar cases for the Manhattan District Attorney's office, told CBS Trump could be sentenced to a period of home detention.

The former president could carry out the sentence outside of New York, for instance, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where New York state would coordinate with Florida's probation department, which would monitor Trump's confinement, Horwitz said.

In the event that Trump is sentenced to jail time, the location would depend on the duration of his sentence.

The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Can a convict run for president?

The US Constitution lays out just three requirements for presidential candidates. They must:

  • Be a natural born citizen.
  • Be at least 35 years old.
  • Have been a US resident for at least 14 years.

Trump meets all three requirements. There is, arguably, another criterion laid out in the 14th Amendment, where it states that no one who has previously taken an oath of office who engages in insurrection can be an officer of the US.

But the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition. That's not happening any time soon.

There is also precedent for presidential campaigns, albeit unsuccessful ones, being mounted from prison cells.

– With Associated Press, CNN

Donald Trump found guilty in historic trial

Former US President Donald Trump has been found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush money trial in New York.

The verdict makes Trump the first former US president to be convicted of a felony.

Judge Juan Merchan has set the sentencing date for July 11.

READ MORE: Dangerous weather warning for entire state

Outside court, a furious Trump continued his claims that the trial had been "rigged" and accused Merchan of being "conflicted" and "corrupt".

"This was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case," Trump said.

He said "the real verdict" would come in on November 5 – the date of the upcoming US presidential election for which Trump is the presumed Republican nominee.

"This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent," Trump said.

READ MORE: Will Donald Trump go to jail after being found guilty on all counts in historic trial?

Donald Trump speaking outside court after the verdict.

Jurors had been on the verge of being sent home for the day when they sent word they had reached a verdict.

Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 presidential election campaign.

The charge, a felony, rose from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $US130,000 ($195,000) hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims that she and Trump had sex in 2006.

Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.

READ MORE: Donald Trump is now a convicted felon. Can he still run for president?

Trump pleaded not guilty and contended the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services.

He has also denied the alleged extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.

Trump's lawyers previously indicated he would appeal the verdict if convicted.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked.

The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the political significance of the outcome.

How the trial unfolded

The trial featured more than four weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter from Trump's past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the disclosure of an "Access Hollywood" recording that captured him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that would be harmful to his candidacy.

Trump himself did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a US$150,000 ($226,147) hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump: "What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?" Trump was heard saying on the recording made by Cohen.

Daniels herself testified, offering at times a graphic recounting of the sexual encounter she says they had in a hotel suite during a Lake Tahoe golf tournament.

The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by having his company buy McDougal's story.

Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal.

He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced an aggressive round of questioning from a Trump attorney who noted that Davidson had helped broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.

But the most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who spent days on the stand and gave jurors an insider's view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump's detailed knowledge of it.

"Just take care of it," he quoted Trump as saying at one point.

He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the charges, recounting a meeting in which they and the then-chief financial officer of Trump Organisation described a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in monthly installments for legal services.

And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president's personal fixer.

"To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family," Cohen told the jury.

With CNN, AP.

More to come.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, celebrity and sport via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.

Think you’ve been hacked on Ticketmaster? Here’s what an expert thinks you should do

Ticketmaster became the latest major company to fall victim to a data breach, following the likes of MediSecure, ClubsNSW, Optus and Medibank, and it won't be the last.

Cybercrime is the fastest-growing crime with hundreds of millions of dollars lost each year to it, according to the Australian Federal Police.

With that, there is an increasing chance of being caught up in a data breach. Here is how to navigate one, according to a cybersecurity expert.

READ MORE: Chinese national arrested over 'world's largest' cybercrime botnet

How do I know if my information was leaked?

Companies have a mandatory disclosure requirement to inform their customers of a data breach and how they are affected once it has been confirmed, UNSW Institute for Cybersecurity deputy director Sanjay Jha said.

There may be some time, however, until a customer will notice their data has been used as it has to go through a supply chain from distributor to identity thief.

"If it got stolen last night, it's not like everyone this morning will get spam emails," Jha said.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre has listed other warning signs to look out for like:

  • a cybercriminal has tried to use your information, for example, to access your accounts, steal your money or extort you
  • you start to get more spam calls, emails or messages
  • you notice increased communication with companies you have not done business with before

News of Ticketmaster's breach came from a dark web post, in which notorious hacker ShinyHunters claimed he stole 1.3 terabytes of data from 560 million global customers.

The Department of Home Affairs has confirmed it is aware of the cyber incident and is engaging with Ticketmaster.

9news.com.au has contacted Ticketmaster for comment. 

READ MORE: Jetstar cabin crew taken to hospital after 'unusual smell' in plane

What should I do if my data has been hacked?

Jha said the first step is to contact your bank for advice if your credit card has been compromised.

Next, change your passwords. 

Australia's eSafety Commissioner said the strongest passwords are at least 12 to 15 characters long, include symbols and numbers and are unrelated to the person.

Passwords should also be different for each account and portal.

Users are warned not to allow browsers to save their passwords and to log out each time.

"Strong passwords are hard to remember but are hard to be compromised," Jha said.

Australians can also use a questionnaire by the federal government's cyber department to learn what to do if they fear they have been compromised.

Make sure you report the hack online here.

READ MORE: BoM reveals Australia's official winter weather forecast

How do I protect my information from hackers?

Home Affairs advises users to set up multi-factor authentication, install software updates regularly and to create strong passwords.

Jha added tokenisation as a payment method could also help.

Unfortunately, according to the expert, there is "nothing that is entirely safe".

And with technology rapidly evolving, it has become a cat-and-mouse game to keep up with cybercriminals.

"Cyber criminals are becoming smart. They are becoming more and more sophisticated," Jha said.

"Catching one doesn't catch the whole network.

"It's very hard to have a bulletproof system. It's not a simple system anymore, it's a system of systems."

READ MORE: Two more players caught up in alleged A-League bet fix

Photo of the software code showing the user authentification part. The photo has various uses representing the cyber crime and other security related stuff and hacking the computer systems.

Jha stressed that organisations have a responsibility to protect their customers' data and should engage in regular and thorough compliance checks. 

Cyber Wardens estimates almost half of all cyberattacks in Australia target small to medium businesses, with the average attack costing the business $46,000.

"If you haven't fortified your digital doors with strong cybersecurity practices, you put yourself at a higher risk for an online attack," the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chief Luke Achterstraat said.