The Informer: Another long day for politicians of all persuasions

Three frontbenchers have been forced out of the state cabinet over a branch-stacking and infighting scandal. Party stalwarts are swooping in to clean up the sordid mess.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews maintains he knew nothing of the allegations before they were aired on television on Sunday night.

A lock of hair was cut from the head of the third Claremont serial killings victim as the murderer slashed her neck, cutting the clump of more than 200 hairs at both ends, a WA court has heard.

Disgraced former NSW Labor minister Milton Orkopoulos paid a boy as young as 11 years old for sex, a court has heard. Court documents reveal the boy was aged between 11 and 12 when Orkopoulos allegedly had sex with him in December 1998.

Continuing the racial equality discourse, comedian Josh Thomas has started a call for Coon cheese to be renamed, after posting a Tweet saying the word caused pain to Aboriginal Australians and made Australians look silly to the rest of the world.

Along the same lines, the Black Lives Matter protests have prompted mosaic artist Tim Cole to propose a modified logo for Sutherland Shire Council logo. The new logo would add an image of a young Indigenous girl alongside Captain James Cook in a recognition of the Dharawal culture.

WORLD

German police have written to the parents of Madeleine McCann to confirm she is dead, according to newspaper reports, although they cannot yet say how they know Madeleine is deceased.

A bombshell report claims the Christchurch mosques terrorist was wrongly granted a firearms licence by New Zealand police, allowing him to compile the weapons used to murder 51 people.

Sticking with crime. In the US, the man accused of being the "Golden State Killer", the rapist and murderer who terrorised Californians in the 1970s and 1980s has agreed to plead guilty to dozens of crimes in return for being spared the death penalty, AAP reports.

Also in America, the US Supreme Court ruled anti-discrimination laws applied to gay and transgender individuals, in a major win for rights' activists.

A teenage Black Lives Matter activist has been found dead more than a week after she was reported missing and a man has been shot and wounded during a protest near a museum in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In the UK, Brexit is back in the news with British and EU leaders agreeing talks on their future relationship should be stepped up to clinch a deal in July.

In coronavirus news, Johns Hopkins University reports global deaths of 436,901 and confirmed cases at 8,034,461. The US death toll is 116,127. Brazil has reported 43,959 deaths and the UK 41,821.

Beijing authorities have imposed more restrictions to curb a fresh outbreak of COVID-19 in the Chinese capital getting to other provinces, banning outbound travel of high-risk people and suspending some transportation services out of the city.

A run of 23 straight days without new COVID-19 cases in New Zealand is over after two cases from international travel were unearthed on Tuesday.

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