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AAP Rolling News Bulletin for June 12 at 1830

Mideast Aust (CANBERRA) The sanctioning of two Israeli ministers by Australia has been labelled a "slap on the wrist" by a prominent pro-Palestine advocate. The federal government has imposed sanctions on Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a co-ordinated move with Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom. The sanctions were applied for "extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights", with the pair barred from travelling to Australia and any assets in the country being frozen. The measures prompted condemnation from the US, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying it would do little to achieve a ceasefire in the conflict. Australian Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni welcomed the move but said it was too little, too late.

Sunscreen (SYDNEY) Slip, slop, slap is drilled into Australians as a motto to live by but testing shows four in five sunscreens are failing to provide protection, prompting the Cancer Council to vow to send its products to the lab again. Consumer advocacy group Choice tested 20 sunscreens with SPF 50 or 50 labels and found only four met the criteria. "Consumers expect sunscreen to protect them in line with the SPF rating on the product, but as our testing has shown, the SPF label doesn't always match what's in the bottle," Choice CEO Ashley de Silva said. Some of the Cancer Council's sunscreen products were egregiously falling behind. The Kids Clear Zinc 50 tested at 33, the Everyday Value Sunscreen 50 scored 27 and the Ultra Sunscreen 50 came in at just 24.

Legal: Dawson (SYDNEY) The case of Lynette Dawson's disappearance and murder has been closed after more than four decades as the High Court refuses to entertain her husband's challenge to his conviction. Chris Dawson, 76, killed his wife and disposed of her body in January 1982 because of his infatuation with a teenage female PE student. That young girl swiftly moved into Dawson's home after he murdered his wife, NSW Supreme Court Justice Ian Harrison found in August 2022. The former teacher was sentenced to a maximum of 24 years for the crime. The NSW Court of Appeal rejected his challenge to his murder conviction in June 2024, finding that there was no miscarriage of justice despite errors in Justice Harrison's decision. Dawson then took the matter to the High Court where a panel of six judges shot down his final bid on Thursday.

Legal: Bettles (SYDNEY) A police officer who bashed a woman and then used his position to make her afraid of filing a complaint has been spared further jail. Jonathan Charles Bettles, 37, physically abused his victim 10 times over two years at her southwest Sydney home, the cafe where she worked and in his car. While serving as a senior constable in the NSW Police Force, he punched the woman in the head and jaw, stomped on her left foot and slammed her into her bedroom wall by forcing open a door she was trying to hold shut. She felt too scared to call triple zero after being told "all police would be like him", an agreed statement of facts tendered in court revealed.

Legal: Patterson (MELBOURNE) Disagree. Disagree. Disagree. Those were Erin Patterson's responses to the prosecution's final three questions in her murder trial. Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC rounded out her marathon cross-examination on Thursday with three suggestions: that Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023, deliberately included them in the beef Wellington she served her former in-laws and did so intending to kill them. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the murders of her estranged husband Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, 66, and the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian. She denies deliberately poisoning her lunch guests on July 29, 2023 when she served them meals that included death cap mushrooms. Patterson was accused of more lies on her eighth and final day in the witness box at the Supreme Court in Morwell in regional Victoria.

US Protests (LOS ANGELES) US Marines will join National Guard troops on the streets of Los Angeles within two days, officials say, and will be authorised to detain anyone who interferes with immigration officers on raids or protesters who confront federal agents. US President Donald Trump ordered the deployments over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom, sparking a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and animating protests that have spread from Los Angeles to other major cities, including New York, Atlanta and Chicago. Los Angeles on Wednesday endured a sixth day of protests that have been largely peaceful but occasionally punctuated by violence, mostly contained to a few blocks of the city's downtown area. The protests broke out last Friday in response to a series of immigration raids.

Higgins (CANBERRA) The federal anti-corruption watchdog has found that a $2.4 million compensation payout made to former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins had "no corruption issue". Ms Higgins reached the compensation agreement with the Commonwealth in December 2022 after her alleged rape in Parliament House in 2019. The settlement was referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission by outgoing Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, who questioned then-attorney-general Mark Dreyfus's handling of the process. But the commission said it had found "no corruption issue" following an investigation. "No corruption issue arises, and so there is no basis for any further action by the commission," the watchdog said in a statement. "There was no inappropriate intervention in the process by or on behalf of any minister. "The then-attorney-general approved the settlement in accordance with the departmental advice.

IVF (MELBOURNE) The head of a leading fertility clinic has resigned after being caught up in a second embryo transfer blunder. Monash IVF CEO Michael Knapp made the decision to step down in a move supported by the board, the company said on Thursday. Mr Knaap, who was also a director, was appointed CEO in 2019 and led the company through a period of "significant growth and transformation". The company's chief financial officer, Malik Jainudeen, will step up as acting CEO in the short term. Monash IVF earlier this week revealed that staff at its Melbourne clinic had recently transferred the wrong embryo to a woman, giving her one of her own rather than one from her partner, as they had requested.

In finance ...

Markets Aust (SYDNEY) The Australian share market has shrugged off a weak Wall Street session to push higher, as escalating tensions in the Middle East light a match under energy stocks. By midday, the S&P/ASX200 gained 24.4 points, or 0.28 per cent, to 8,617.3 as the broader All Ordinaries rose 24.4 points, or 0.28 per cent, to 8,844.1. The tentative start came after the top-200 hit a fresh intraday peak of 8,639 on Wednesday. However, Iranian threats against US bases in the Middle East and disappointment over a US-China trade agreement "framework" weighed on sentiment. "US stock markets finished lower overnight following a sharp escalation in Middle Eastern geopolitical tensions and the realisation that yesterday's much-hyped US-China trade deal merely maintains the status quo of elevated tariffs agreed in Geneva and offered little new," IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore said.

Markets World (SINGAPORE) Global stocks and the dollar have slipped as investors size up a benign US inflation report and the fragile trade truce between Washington and Beijing, while rising tensions in the Middle East and lingering tariff anxiety dent risk sentiment. Attention in financial markets this week has been on the US-China trade talks that culminated in a framework agreement that would remove Chinese export restrictions on rare earth minerals and allo