AAP Rolling News Bulletin for June 19 at 1600
Surveillance (PERTH)
For the first time in Australia, police will roll out real-time facial recognition cameras in public areas to scan crowds for suspects and criminals.
The technology, which uses artificial intelligence to cross-reference faces with a database, will be deployed in Western Australia from Monday.
WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said the cameras will enable police to better protect the public by catching criminals more quickly.
"It is another tool to help police find the right people, at the right time, for the right reasons," he said on Friday.
The cameras will be mounted on or positioned in the vicinity of a marked police vehicle in designated public spaces.
It's hoped it will help identify reportable offenders, people with outstanding warrants, and suspects in serious offences.
Legal: Jones (SYDNEY)
Doubts are being raised about whether the hearing for former radio host Alan Jones' sexual abuse charges will begin on time, as a judge took aim at the "trench warfare" delaying the preparation.
The 85-year-old has pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges of indecent assault and sexual touching between 2003 and 2020.
He is set to defend the allegations against him at a four-month hearing beginning on August 3.
But Judge Glenn Walsh expressed concern at the slow nature of the legal wrangling jeopardising the start of the proceedings.
"The trench warfare is not getting us anywhere," he told Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Friday.
"This feels to me like everyone's going to try and vacate the hearing date when we get close to it, I get that distinct impression."
Legal: Rapisarda (BRISBANE)
A man who stormed a mosque claiming he had an AK-47 assault rifle has avoided jail after telling a court: "I'm not a racist, I was off my meds".
Louis Francesco Rapisarda, 33, on Friday pleaded guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court to disturbing the peace at a place of worship and creating a public nuisance over the incident on May 10.
The court was told Rapisarda first drove past the Mitchelton Presbyterian Church and shouted "Allahu Akbar" at people gathered outside.
He then drove to the Masjid Taqwa mosque at Bald Hills, north Brisbane, walked into the mosque and again shouted "Allahu Akbar".
He told worshippers: "I've got an AK-47 strapped to my back".
Worshippers called police and officers arrested him soon after.
Helicopter (CANBERRA)
Defence should face prosecution over a fatal army helicopter crash that killed all four soldiers on board, the nation's work health and safety regulator says.
Captain Danniel Lyon, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Class Two Joseph Laycock and Corporal Alexander Naggs were killed when their MRH-90 Taipan chopper crashed into waters off Queensland's Whitsunday Islands during Exercise Talisman Sabre on July 28, 2023.
Comcare has referred two briefs of evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions relating to fatigue management and the TopOwl helmet system worn by the pilots, chief executive Colin Radford told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday.
The regulator was informed by commonwealth prosecutors in July 2025 that they would not be prosecuting defence as they did not consider there reasonable prospects of obtaining a conviction.
Legal: Dade (MELBOURNE)
A retired AFL player's partner has accused Melbourne Football Club of three breaches as she mounts legal action over "a serious invasion of privacy".
Ex-Demons star Steven May's partner Sachi Dade is suing the club, senior coach Steven King and football boss Alan Richardson in the Federal Court.
She has alleged three privacy breaches were committed across two days on February 4 and 5, her barrister Nicholas Petrie told the court via video link on Friday.
The third breach involved a Teams meeting attended by 15 people, the court was told.
Mr Petrie said his client was seeking a claim for exemplary damages as part of the action.
It follows a SEN report in April that confidentiality obligations were breached regarding May and Ms Dade's personal situation during a Teams call with the partners of players.
UK Vote (LONDON)
Polls have closed in Makerfield, where voters have taken part in what could be one of the most consequential by-elections in British political history.
Andy Burnham, who is standing as Labour's candidate in the Greater Manchester constituency with the hope of returning to parliament to replace Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister, urged people to "vote to change politics".
Sir Keir on Wednesday said he was willing to offer the Mayor of Greater Manchester a "big" job in his government, should his rival win when Thursday's votes are counted.
But allies of the mayor said he was not interested, insisting "the benefit Andy has is the wind of change for not having been associated with the government's failings".
The prime minister has repeatedly insisted he has no intention of standing aside and is understood to have amassed a war chest to fund his campaign to fight any leadership challenge, as first reported by The Times.
Sudan (GENEVA)
The United Kingdom, Norway and a group of countries including Australia have raised the alarm at the United Nations Human Rights Council that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan could imminently escalate their assault on the central Sudanese city of al-Obeid, possibly resulting in large-scale atrocities.
"We are deeply concerned at the risk of imminent escalation on the ground, leaving approximately 500,000 civilians at risk of falling victim to large-scale atrocities, including more than 100,000 internally displaced persons," Tormod Endresen, the ambassador for Norway, told the council in Geneva.
Norway shared a joint statement calling on the RSF to immediately cease its assault on al-Obeid.
The statement was presented on behalf of the Coalition for Atrocity Prevention and Justice for Sudan, comprising the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone and Norway, which said they were also joined by 21 other countries.
Ukraine (KAZAN)
Russia will carry out "massive co-ordinated strikes on a regular basis" against Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says after a major Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow.
Ukrainian forces struck a major Moscow oil refinery on Thursday for a second time in a week, sending huge plumes of black smoke over the capital and disrupting hundreds of flights at its airports in one of its biggest drone attacks, officials said.
The Ukrainian attacks left 17 people injured and damaged civilian infrastructure in the capital, local officials said.
The attack by dozens of drones came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had held "an important co-ordination call" with the presidents of the United States and France and had won key pledges of further support from this week's G7 summit.
In finance ...
KPMG (SYDNEY)
The leaders of a high-profile consultancy face a grilling from a powerful federal oversight committee after making an 11th-hour decision to withhold information from their interrogators.
KPMG, which has more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer-funded government contracts, is feeling the heat over an audit leak scandal and the treatment of a whistleblower, raising concerns about its governance and integrity frameworks.
Ahead of Friday's hearing, it told the committee it would not provide the requested documents linked to those matters because they were confidential, subject to professional privilege and could prejudice the "administration of justice".
"We appreciate that this is not the response the committee was seeking," chairman Martin Sheppard wrote in a letter tabled by Labor's Deborah O'Neill, the committee chair.
Markets Aust (SYDNEY)
Australia's share market is set to finish the week with little gains as a mining stock rout drags on.
The S&P/ASX200 fell 89.4 points by midday on Friday, down one per cent, to 8,821.7, as the broader All Ordinaries slipped 88.3 points, or 0.97 per cent, to 9,038.5.
The top-200 is up 0.14 per cent since Monday, after a US-Iran peace deal-fuelled rally buckled in the second half of the week.
BHP led the basic materials sector lower, falling 3.7 per cent after the mining giant flagged a $US2 billion ($A2.9 billion) cost blowout relating to its Canadian Jansen potash project.
"BHP continues to invest in its long-term growth strategy," the miner's Americas chief executive-elect Brandon Craig said.
"Jansen is an important pillar of BHP's strategy and will deliver exposure to a future facing commodity with strong demand fundamentals and portfolio diversification benefits."
In entertainment ...
Legal: Carpenter (LONDON)
Sabrina Carpenter has been granted a permanent restraining order against a man who was arrested at her Los Angeles home but continued to return.
The Please Please hitmaker had sought protection from William Applegate, who was apprehended by police on her property, and again the following day.
Now a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ordered the 31-year-old to stay 100m away from Carpenter, her sister Sarah, and Sarah's boyfriend George for the next five years.
Applegate testified at the hearing to oppose the request for the restraining order, but failed to persuade the judge, TMZ reports.
The 27-year-old singer was granted a temporary restraining order at the start of this month after her team filed for protection on May 19.
TaylorJoy (LONDON)
Anya Taylor-Joy was bullied at school over her looks.
Despite later becoming one of Hollywood's most sought-after stars and a favourite of the fashion world, the 30-year-old actress says she was repeatedly told by fellow pupils she was not beautiful after moving to Britain as a child.
Florida-born Taylor-Joy opened up about her early experiences in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, reflecting on the challenges she faced after relocating from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to London aged six.
Taylor-Joy said she found herself ostracised almost immediately after starting school in London.
The Hollywood Reporter reported that after kissing a classmate on the cheek, she was alienated by fellow pupils and repeatedly told she was not beautiful.
Taylor-Joy made the comments while posing for a fashion shoot accompanying the interview, wearing designs by Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Rabanne, Datt Official and Lanvin.
In sport ...
Box Tszyu (SYDNEY)
With an Australian boxing legend in his corner, fallen world champion boxer Tim Tszyu is aiming to go full circle in his career rebuild.
Tszyu (27-3, 18 KOs) will return to the same ring where he first became a world champion to take on former unified welterweight world champion Errol Spence Jr (28-1, 22 KOs).
The July 26 bout at Afterpay Arena in Sydney Olympic Park comes three years after Tszyu beat American fighter Tony Harrison to claim the interim WBO super-welterweight title.
The 31-year-old's career has since stalled, first losing his WBO title and the vacant WBC belt to Sebastian Fundora in 2024, before a brutal world-title loss to Bakhram Murtazaliev later that year.
Tszyu then lost a rematch against Fundora in 2025, a despairing seventh-round TKO defeat.
AFL Modra (ADELAIDE)
Tony Modra's wife has thanked the two first responders who rushed to the AFL great's aid after a truck accident.
Modra is in a critical condition in an Adelaide hospital with head injuries after an accident on his cattle property on Thursday afternoon.
The former Adelaide and Fremantle star was injured when a tree branch was believed to have broken through the windshield of a truck he was driving.
Modra's wife Erica has expressed her gratitude to the two responders who were first at the scene of the accident at Back Valley, about 90km south of Adelaide.
Former Crows captain Mark Ricciuto, who remains one of the injured footballer's best friends, relayed text messages from Erica Modra on his Triple M breakfast show on Friday morning.
Ends Bulletin
Rolling News Desk inquiries : 02 9322 8611
