Midday News Bulletin 17 April 2025

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Source: SBS News

Police arrest a 15-year-old suspected of hiring hitmen for a transnational crime syndicate; Extensive coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef and Newcastle trimph over Crystal Palace to take third place in the English Premier League.


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TRANSCRIPT
  • Police arrest a 15-year-old suspected of hiring hitmen for a transnational crime syndicate
  • Extensive coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef
  • Newcastle trimph over Crystal Palace to take third place in the English Premier League
Australian Federal Police have arrested a 15-year-old teen suspected of hiring hitmen overseas on behalf of a transnational criminal syndicate.

The AFP says the boy was taken into custody in Western Sydney after a tip-off from Danish Police as part of Operation Dedric.

Police will allege the Australian-based foreign national is accused of attempting to recruit people to commit contract killings in Denmark and Sweden as part of gang conflicts in the Nordic region.

The 15-year-old has been refused bail and will appear before a Children's Court on June 11.
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About 70 pro-Palestinian protesters have rallied outside the A-B-C's Parramatta studios during the second leaders' debate.

Labor is facing backlash from voters in some of its electorates in NSW and Victoria from large Muslim communities angry over the government's position on the Israel-Gaza war.

Sydney-based Palestinian man Ahmad Qasem says not enough has been done to support the community.

"We need to stand up with the Palestinians right now and what's happening to them and also we need to demonstrate against the Australian policy of helping the Israelis."
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Extensive coral bleaching has been confirmed at Australia's Great Barrier Reef for the sixth time in less than a decade.

A joint study by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Australian Institute of Marine Science and CSIRO has found bleaching in the northern regions of the reef due to prolonged exposure to elevated temperatures.

Of the 162 inshore and mid-shelf reefs surveyed, 41 per cent recorded medium to high bleaching.

It marks a second consecutive year of mass bleaching at the World Heritage-listed site and world's largest coral reef system.
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Extensive coral bleaching has been confirmed at Australia's Great Barrier Reef for the sixth time in less than a decade.

A joint study by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Australian Institute of Marine Science and CSIRO has found bleaching in the northern regions of the reef due to prolonged exposure to elevated temperatures.

Of the 162 inshore and mid-shelf reefs surveyed, 41 per cent recorded medium to high bleaching.

It marks a second consecutive year of mass bleaching at the World Heritage-listed site and world's largest coral reef system.

California will file a lawsuit challenging sweeping new tariffs imposed by United States President Donald Trump.

The suit will argue that President Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose heavy tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, and a 10 per cent tariff on other countries, is unlawful.

The Act enables a president to freeze and block transactions in response to foreign threats.

But Attorney General Rob Bonta says that without any true foreign threats the President has no power to impose tariffs.

“The reality is the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse. It's Congress's responsibility to set and collect taxes, duties, and excises, including, yes, tariffs, not the president's. Congress hasn't authorized these tariffs, much less authorised imposing tariffs, only to increase them."
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A federal judge in the U-S says the Trump administration may have acted in bad faith by trying to rush Venezuelan migrants out of the country before a court could block their deportations to El Salvador.

Judge Jeb Boasberg says he could issue a ruling as soon as next week on whether there are grounds to find anyone in criminal contempt of court for defying the order.

American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelernt says the judge pressed the government hard on whether the court order had been wilfully ignored.

"The judge did not seem satisfied with the answers and said that he's going to consider whether there's probable cause to hold the government in contempt and what should happen then if he does. I suspect that he is going to ask the government for, at a minimum, sworn declarations, additional sworn declarations, because he was not satisfied with ones that were submitted. He also talked about the potential for having hearings where people would take the stand under oath and testify about what happened that night."
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To sport and in football news,

Newcastle has thrashed Crystal Palace 5-NIL for a second big win in four days that lifts them to third place in the English Premier League.

Newcastle has now won six games in a row.

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