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This is a Squiz Podcast. Wear

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your shortcut to being informed. Hi,

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it's Claire Kimball here, the founder of the

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Squiz. We're all about providing

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busy people with quick and easy ways

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Today. Now, you might have

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0:56

Good morning, I'm Alice Dempster. And I'm

0:59

Siobhan Moore in Macfarlane. It's Tuesday the

1:01

26th of March. In

1:04

your Squiz today, Trump's clashing

1:06

court dates, pushing to

1:08

raise the minimum wage, a plan

1:10

to protect the moon, and a

1:13

cat lover recruits some help. This

1:16

is your Squiz today. Former

1:20

US President Donald Trump's first criminal trial,

1:23

which is the so-called Hush Money

1:26

trial, where he's facing 34 felony

1:28

charges, was originally set

1:30

to begin in New York overnight.

1:32

But Siobhan, it's been delayed until

1:34

the 15th of April, and his

1:36

lawyers will be arguing then for

1:38

further delays. Yeah, so just

1:40

to give a bit of background, this case

1:42

was brought by the New York District Attorney's

1:44

Office. It accused Trump of,

1:46

and I quote, Now

2:00

this is all to do with alleged

2:02

payments made to adult film star Stormy

2:05

Daniels and the former Playboy

2:07

Bunny Karen McDougall. So what's happened

2:09

overnight is that Trump lawyers secured

2:11

a postponement to the trial's start

2:13

date. That's after they received 170,000

2:15

documents related to Michael Cohen. He's

2:20

Trump's former lawyer and he was

2:22

known as his fix-it man. Yes,

2:25

so Trump's lawyers say those documents

2:27

are exculpatory and favorable to their

2:29

client, but prosecutors say that

2:31

they're largely irrelevant to the case.

2:34

And Alice, as Trump's legal team worked

2:36

through that, the deadline for him and

2:38

his associates to pay the more than

2:40

$700 million bond

2:42

they've been ordered to cough up in

2:44

a New York civil case also came

2:47

up. Now we spoke about that

2:49

last week. It's to do with

2:51

a case which found that Trump, his

2:53

two eldest sons and other Trump organisation

2:56

executives were guilty of fraud after lying

2:58

about the value of the company's

3:00

property portfolio. But they

3:03

were having trouble finding the money and

3:05

on Sunday, Eric Trump, who's also the

3:07

vice president of the company, criticised the

3:09

amount they'd been ordered to pay. Yeah,

3:11

so they've been given a reprieve on

3:13

that. The bond has been reduced to

3:15

$268 million and they've also been given

3:17

another 10 days to

3:22

make the payment. Trump himself

3:25

says that won't be a problem. His quote

3:27

was, I don't need to borrow money. I

3:29

have a lot of money. It

3:31

also means the New York Attorney

3:33

General, Letitia James, won't begin freezing

3:36

Trump bank accounts and seizing assets

3:38

just yet. And just

3:40

a quick note, if you want to catch

3:42

up on more of the details behind Trump's

3:44

hush money trial, we have a shortcut explaining

3:46

all of it. So I'll pop a link

3:49

to that in the episode. No,

3:52

Siobhan, you and Claire spoke yesterday about

3:55

the attack at a concert in Moscow

3:57

and now four men have appeared in

3:59

court. over that deadly incident, they've

4:01

been charged with committing an act

4:03

of terrorism. That's exactly right.

4:06

So those men are all from

4:08

Tajikistan and reports say that they

4:10

were tortured during their interrogations,

4:13

which is backed up by court

4:15

footage that shows them in court

4:17

with numerous facial and bodily injuries.

4:20

Russian officials say two of the men

4:22

have already admitted their guilt. That

4:25

attempt has left at least 137 people dead and more than

4:27

100 others wounded and claims

4:32

that it was carried out by an

4:34

Afghan branch of Islamic State have also

4:36

been verified after the group

4:38

posted graphic footage of the attack. The

4:41

four suspects will be held in pretrial

4:43

detention until at least the 22nd of

4:45

May. Russian

4:47

officials have also continued to claim that

4:49

Ukraine helped those attackers, but

4:52

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called

4:54

that a surge. It'd

4:58

be a rare day when we don't mention

5:00

the words cost of living in front

5:02

of mind for a lot of people at the moment.

5:05

And yesterday, the Albanese government flagged a

5:07

couple of potential announcements aimed at giving

5:09

relief to Aussies who are struggling with

5:11

the rising expenses. Yes, the first

5:14

is that it wants to see an increase to

5:16

the minimum wage, which is currently $23.23 an hour.

5:22

Major Jim Chalmers says the government doesn't

5:24

want to see low-income earners go backwards

5:26

and raising the minimum wage would help

5:29

it keep up with inflation. But

5:31

any change would need to be independently

5:34

reviewed by the Fair Work Commission before

5:36

it could come into play. Chalmers

5:38

also hinted that there could be a round

5:41

of power bill relief in the 2024-25 budget

5:45

in May. Yes, that's after Labour's

5:47

promises to cut Aussies' electricity bills by

5:49

$275 haven't panned

5:52

out. Coalition leader Peter Dutton

5:55

yesterday called for PM Anthony Albanese

5:57

to apologise for that. and

6:00

easy pushed back, he said former

6:02

coalition governments didn't land a number

6:04

of policies that could have improved

6:07

prices. A

6:10

message now from our podcast partner, Hubble.

6:13

You know what it's like trying to find

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that thing you wanted to watch, trawling through

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But with Hubble, spelt H-U-B-B-L,

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it's TV and streaming made easy.

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To find out more, go to

6:46

hubble.com.au. Siobhan,

6:51

I don't know if you saw last night's

6:53

lunar eclipse, but if you did, spare a

6:55

thought for moon researchers who say global

6:57

consensus is needed in the next few

7:00

years to prevent what they say could

7:02

be irreversible damage to the lunar surface.

7:05

I actually didn't see it, Alice. I completely

7:07

forgot like an idiot. That's

7:09

what I was talking about yesterday. But never

7:11

mind, I'm sure lots of people did.

7:14

And researchers say with numerous

7:16

space agencies and private companies

7:19

rushing to build bases on

7:21

the moon for research and mining, there

7:24

are concerns several prime sites

7:26

could basically get trashed. Now,

7:29

this comes after a new report

7:31

called for the safeguarding of sites

7:33

of extraordinary scientific importance. The

7:36

report's authors say that many

7:38

sites are under threat and

7:40

deserving of protection. And

7:42

they're calling for countries that have moon

7:44

missions planned to draw up space policies

7:46

to regulate activities and enforce

7:49

best practice. And

7:51

just while we're talking space, heads up,

7:53

the aurora Australis could be visible along

7:55

Victoria's coast as well as Tassie and

7:58

the southern parts of the world. of

8:00

this week after a severe geomagnetic

8:02

storm erupted on the sun's surface.

8:04

So that's another good reason to

8:07

check out the night sky. I

8:11

know you're a self-confessed cat lady,

8:13

she won, but I'm guessing just

8:15

like me, you'd probably draw the line at 300

8:17

cats, which is

8:19

how many cats a Canadian man

8:21

ended up with after rescuing just

8:24

a few during the covid pandemic.

8:27

He said they apparently bred like rabbits. Yes, I

8:29

think even I would have to draw the line

8:31

at 300 cats. But

8:34

as you say, that's how many

8:36

a British Colombian man called Bruce

8:38

Robertson ended up with when he

8:40

finally admitted that he was overwhelmed,

8:43

don't say. So

8:45

he called a local shelter for help

8:48

and he says he was struggling to

8:50

cope financially and often had to skip

8:52

meals himself to pay thousands of dollars

8:54

for their get this 28 kilos

8:57

of food a day and provide

8:59

clean litter for their 10 trays,

9:02

10 trays between 300 cats. Anyway,

9:07

despite the huge number, he says they

9:09

all had names and he loved every

9:11

one of them. I mean, can you

9:13

imagine Alice? How big was his house?

9:15

I know I'm imagining him as the Pied

9:17

Piper of cats. Shelter staff

9:20

say that they're working hard to rehome the

9:22

animals and they say the cats are

9:24

in perfect health, which they say is

9:26

quite shocking, actually. I think that's

9:28

his good deeds done for a few hundred years

9:30

or so. I reckon, Siobhan. Yeah, I think so.

9:34

Squizzer day, is there anything important to

9:37

note? Mary Waldridge, who's

9:39

the CEO of the workplace gender

9:41

equality agency, will address

9:43

the National Press Club today about

9:45

accelerating gender equality in workplaces. Now,

9:48

that could be very interesting given

9:50

the agency's recent report on the

9:52

gender pay gap, which got a

9:54

lot of people fired up.

9:56

So that's definitely one to watch and it's

9:58

on at 12. Yeah,

10:02

good call. And that wraps us up

10:04

today. Thank you for listening. We'll be

10:06

back with you tomorrow.