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The Victorian health department has acknowledged the distress of a family forced to have their children tested twice for sexually transmitted infections after they attended a childcare centre where alleged paedophile Joshua Dale Brown had worked.
Messages, first reported by the Age, show the department initially advised a parent on Tuesday to test their children for gonorrhoea and chlamydia. Two days later, another message added syphilis to the list.
The department said different screening tests were recommended for children based on their potential risk exposure, which depended on the time and location of potential exposures to different infections.
This comes after the federal education minister, Jason Clare, confirmed the federal government would fast-track legislation in the next sitting week to cut funding to childcare centres that fail to meet safety standards.
Top news
Trump accused of using antisemitic slur at Iowa rally in reference to bankers
Victoria will legislate for permanent First Peoples’ Assembly later this year
Stateless Palestinian woman detained after honeymoon released from Ice jail
Pedro Neto may miss Chelsea’s Club World Cup quarter-final after friend Jota’s death
In pictures
A team of researchers took to the sea for a 225km trip from Taiwan to Japan’s Yonaguni island in a canoe made of bamboo and reed. For 45 hours they paddled, suffering muscle aches, fatigue, cramps and even hallucinations in an effort to better understand early human migration in the region.
What they said …
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“We would never do that.” – Ringo Starr
Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr said that he personally intervened in the script of the forthcoming four-film Beatles biopic directed by Sam Mendes to clarify the depiction of himself and his then wife Maureen. Starr said that Mendes “had a writer [involved] – very good writer, great reputation, and he wrote it great, but it had nothing to do with Maureen and I”.
In numbers
The “one big, beautiful bill”, as Trump calls it, won final approval by the House of Representatives on Thursday, in time for his signature on 4 July. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill’s Medicaid changes could cost millions of people their healthcare, and the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities forecasts about 8 million people, or one in five recipients, may lose their “food stamps” benefits.
Before bed read
The Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and Donnie Brasco actor had a rare, sometimes scary power, as well as a winning self-awareness and levity. Tarantino unlocked one very powerful side to Michael Madsen, such brooding charisma – but he had more.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: URB. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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