https://vjp.news/Journalism with its sources attached.en-auhttps://vjp.news/technology/brussels-has-child-safety-cases-open-against-snapchat-meta-and-tiktok-/https://vjp.news/technology/brussels-has-child-safety-cases-open-against-snapchat-meta-and-tiktok-/The European Commission opened formal proceedings against Snapchat in March and issued preliminary findings of breach against Meta in April and TikTok in July. None has reached a decision, and no public enforcement step has been taken against YouTube, the Apple App Store or Google Play.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/most-australian-under-16s-are-still-using-social-media-the-regulator-s/https://vjp.news/technology/most-australian-under-16s-are-still-using-social-media-the-regulator-s/eSafety's three month follow-up, published on 31 July 2026, found 81.5 per cent of children aged 10 to 15 were still using an age-restricted platform, down from 85.9 per cent before the ban began. Parliament is now weighing a bill to double the maximum fine to A$99 million.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/ai-designed-viruses-clear-peer-review-then-an-independent-check-finds-/https://vjp.news/science/ai-designed-viruses-clear-peer-review-then-an-independent-check-finds-/Science published the Stanford and Arc Institute bacteriophage work on 6 August 2026. Six days later an Oxford researcher reported that the 16 working viruses were on average about 97 per cent identical to the natural phage they were modelled on.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/mit-s-ai-supercomputer-has-fallen-36-places-in-the-world-rankings-with/https://vjp.news/technology/mit-s-ai-supercomputer-has-fallen-36-places-in-the-world-rankings-with/TX-GAIN's measured performance is exactly what it was when MIT unveiled the machine in October 2025. Its position on the TOP500 list has gone from 114th to 150th, which is a measure of how fast everyone else has been building.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/arizona-physicists-shift-the-quantum-noise-inside-a-light-pulse-and-wa/https://vjp.news/science/arizona-physicists-shift-the-quantum-noise-inside-a-light-pulse-and-wa/A University of Arizona group has produced squeezed light pulses lasting 5.3 femtoseconds, which its paper in Light: Science and Applications calls the shortest ultrafast synthesised quantum light pulses generated to date, and tracked quantum noise moving between two properties of the pulse as it passed. The same team has since posted a follow-up that pushes the technique down to individual half-cycles of the electric field.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/apple-has-handed-siri-to-google-and-amazon-s-alexa-has-reached-austral/https://vjp.news/technology/apple-has-handed-siri-to-google-and-amazon-s-alexa-has-reached-austral/Apple announced its rebuilt assistant, Siri AI, on 8 June 2026, and Bloomberg and CNBC report that the model behind it is a Gemini system licensed from Google. Amazon's Alexa+ opened to Australian users on 6 August 2026.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/meta-s-display-glasses-never-left-the-united-states-and-its-cheapest-a/https://vjp.news/technology/meta-s-display-glasses-never-left-the-united-states-and-its-cheapest-a/Meta paused the Ray-Ban Display's international launch in January and has not set new dates. The screenless own-brand frames it released instead reached the Australian store in June from A$469.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/google-s-gemini-camera-features-reached-australia-in-april-and-nearly-/https://vjp.news/technology/google-s-gemini-camera-features-reached-australia-in-april-and-nearly-/The 2K Nest cameras Google announced in October 2025 are now sold in Australia, but Google's own documentation shows that the AI descriptions, daily summaries and natural language video search all require the more expensive Google Home Premium Advanced plan.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/apple-tells-a-us-court-it-trained-a-research-model-on-a-books-dataset-/https://vjp.news/technology/apple-tells-a-us-court-it-trained-a-research-model-on-a-books-dataset-/In an answer filed on 30 March 2026, Apple admitted using a books subset of the RedPajama dataset to train its OpenELM models, while denying those models are part of Apple Intelligence. No trial date has been set.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/media/google-has-made-ai-mode-the-default-brussels-and-london-are-now-testin/https://vjp.news/media/google-has-made-ai-mode-the-default-brussels-and-london-are-now-testin/Chartbeat data published by the Reuters Institute put global Google search referrals to publishers down by about a third in the year to November 2025. The European Commission opened an antitrust investigation in December, and the UK regulator ordered Google in June to give publishers an opt out.MediaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/chatgpt-s-app-platform-is-sending-its-partners-little-traffic/https://vjp.news/technology/chatgpt-s-app-platform-is-sending-its-partners-little-traffic/Bloomberg reported in March that the roughly 300 apps built inside ChatGPT are hard to find and deliver little traffic to the companies that built them. OpenAI has since retired the agent builder it launched alongside them and moved checkout back to merchants' own websites.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/investigators-now-blame-russian-hackers-for-the-jaguar-land-rover-shut/https://vjp.news/technology/investigators-now-blame-russian-hackers-for-the-jaguar-land-rover-shut/The New York Times reported in June 2026 that the attack which halted Britain's largest carmaker for five weeks was carried out by Russian hackers who never asked for money. The Cyber Monitoring Centre puts the cost to the United Kingdom economy at 1.9 billion pounds, the most damaging cyber incident in British history.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/companies-are-still-discovering-they-were-caught-in-the-2025-oracle-an/https://vjp.news/technology/companies-are-still-discovering-they-were-caught-in-the-2025-oracle-an/Estee Lauder told regulators in July 2026 that intruders reached its Oracle E-Business Suite in August 2025, a breach it says it only identified in May this year. It is one of more than a hundred organisations swept up in two vendor compromises whose consequences are still arriving.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/the-argument-has-moved-from-ai-writing-the-phishing-email-to-ai-runnin/https://vjp.news/technology/the-argument-has-moved-from-ai-writing-the-phishing-email-to-ai-runnin/Anthropic said in November 2025 that it had disrupted an espionage campaign in which its own models performed most of the attack work. Security researchers disputed the claim within days, and that dispute is now the live question for defenders.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/the-banks-g7-stablecoin-still-does-not-exist-a-37-bank-euro-project-ha/https://vjp.news/business/the-banks-g7-stablecoin-still-does-not-exist-a-37-bank-euro-project-ha/Qivalis, a euro stablecoin venture owned by 37 banks across 15 countries, is targeting a launch in the second half of 2026. The ten bank consortium that said in October 2025 it was exploring a G7 currency stablecoin has produced no token, no shared platform and no launch date.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/samsung-s-445m-patent-loss-stands-the-fight-now-is-whether-its-phones-/https://vjp.news/business/samsung-s-445m-patent-loss-stands-the-fight-now-is-whether-its-phones-/Collision Communications has asked the Federal Circuit to give it the one thing the trial judge refused: an order stopping Samsung selling the devices a Texas jury found it had wilfully infringed. The $445.5 million award itself survived final judgment in November 2025.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/samsung-s-micro-rgb-went-from-one-30-000-television-to-a-range-startin/https://vjp.news/technology/samsung-s-micro-rgb-went-from-one-30-000-television-to-a-range-startin/A seven model Micro RGB line-up went on sale in the United States in April 2026, opening at $1,599.99, with the 115 inch flagship carried over above it at $29,999.99. The certification that made that flagship notable does not extend to the cheaper sets.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/google-announces-the-pixel-11-pro-fold-as-its-predecessor-s-ip68-claim/https://vjp.news/technology/google-announces-the-pixel-11-pro-fold-as-its-predecessor-s-ip68-claim/Google unveiled the Pixel 11 Pro Fold on 12 August 2026 at a reported US$1,899. The phone it replaces was sold on being the first dust-proof and water-proof foldable, a claim independent testing contradicted at the hinge within days of it going on sale.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/amd-s-data-centre-revenue-has-doubled-but-the-openai-gigawatt-it-promi/https://vjp.news/business/amd-s-data-centre-revenue-has-doubled-but-the-openai-gigawatt-it-promi/AMD reported record quarterly revenue of $11.5 billion on 4 August 2026, with data centre sales up 107 per cent. The first gigawatt of the OpenAI agreement announced in October 2025 is still scheduled, still unshipped, and still the trigger for OpenAI's first tranche of AMD stock.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/bytedance-s-brazil-data-centre-will-be-its-largest-outside-china-and-i/https://vjp.news/business/bytedance-s-brazil-data-centre-will-be-its-largest-outside-china-and-i/Bloomberg reported on 1 July 2026 that ByteDance's campus at the Port of Pecem will be its biggest anywhere outside China, at about 200 billion reais, four times the investment Brazil's mines and energy minister described in October 2025. In June the Anace people occupied the construction site over a licence granted without consulting them.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/australia/labor-abandoned-its-foi-overhaul-in-march-and-an-audit-has-since-found/https://vjp.news/australia/labor-abandoned-its-foi-overhaul-in-march-and-an-audit-has-since-found/The Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 was pulled from the Senate on 5 March 2026 rather than face defeat. An Auditor-General's performance audit released on 20 May found agency administration of the FOI Act only partly effective, and no replacement bill has been introduced.AustraliaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/swift-s-showgirl-was-the-world-s-biggest-selling-album-of-2025-and-won/https://vjp.news/entertainment/swift-s-showgirl-was-the-world-s-biggest-selling-album-of-2025-and-won/The Life of a Showgirl recorded the largest album sales week in modern American history and was named the biggest selling album of 2025 by the global recording industry body IFPI. It drew no Grammy nominations in 2026 because it was released five weeks after the eligibility window closed.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/swift-s-cinema-release-party-closed-at-us-50-1-million-and-ten-months-/https://vjp.news/entertainment/swift-s-cinema-release-party-closed-at-us-50-1-million-and-ten-months-/The three day theatrical event tied to The Life of a Showgirl finished on US$34.1 million in North America and US$50.1 million worldwide, above the figures reported in its opening days. Because Swift distributed it herself rather than through a studio, no home or streaming release has followed.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/lopez-s-zemeckis-thriller-wrapped-nine-months-ago-and-netflix-still-ha/https://vjp.news/entertainment/lopez-s-zemeckis-thriller-wrapped-nine-months-ago-and-netflix-still-ha/The Last Mrs. Parrish, the New York shoot Jennifer Lopez was filming last October, finished principal photography in November 2025 and has no release date. In the meantime Netflix put out Office Romance, and her Kiss of the Spider Woman awards campaign ended without a single major nomination.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/after-the-hunt-lost-roughly-us-60-million-in-cinemas-then-went-to-numb/https://vjp.news/entertainment/after-the-hunt-lost-roughly-us-60-million-in-cinemas-then-went-to-numb/Luca Guadagnino's campus drama, which Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri premiered at the London Film Festival last October, took US$9.5 million in North America against a budget reported at US$70 million to US$80 million. Seven weeks later it topped Amazon's streaming chart in a dozen countries.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/deepika-padukone-s-fight-over-eight-hour-shifts-has-outlasted-the-sear/https://vjp.news/entertainment/deepika-padukone-s-fight-over-eight-hour-shifts-has-outlasted-the-sear/The IMDb list that crowned her India's most viewed star was published in May 2024 and stopped counting in April 2024. What has actually reshaped her career since is a dispute about how long a film day should be, and it has cost her two of the biggest productions in India.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/shah-rukh-khan-is-not-the-world-s-richest-actor-and-hurun-now-values-h/https://vjp.news/entertainment/shah-rukh-khan-is-not-the-world-s-richest-actor-and-hurun-now-values-h/The Hurun India Rich List valued Khan at Rs 12,490 crore (about US$1.4 billion) in October 2025, making him the first Indian actor in its billionaire category. Hurun's global list in March 2026 put him at US$1.3 billion, and Forbes ranks Taylor Swift at US$2 billion.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/chandni-bar-sequel-holds-its-december-2026-date-while-the-fight-over-t/https://vjp.news/entertainment/chandni-bar-sequel-holds-its-december-2026-date-while-the-fight-over-t/Legend Studios still intends to release a reimagined sequel on 3 December 2026, a quarter century after Madhur Bhandarkar's original. Bhandarkar has complained to the producers' association, which has reportedly told the makers to stop using the name.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/thamma-recovered-its-budget-and-little-more-and-the-maddock-horror-uni/https://vjp.news/entertainment/thamma-recovered-its-budget-and-little-more-and-the-maddock-horror-uni/Ayushmann Khurrana's Diwali vampire film took about Rs 170 crore worldwide against an Rs 145 crore budget and drew the weakest reviews in the series. The next film in the shared universe, Shakti Shalini, has moved to Christmas 2026.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/entertainment/kantara-chapter-1-closed-near-rs-850-crore-and-rishab-shetty-has-confi/https://vjp.news/entertainment/kantara-chapter-1-closed-near-rs-850-crore-and-rishab-shetty-has-confi/The prequel finished as the second highest grossing Kannada film and the second highest grossing Indian film of 2025. Shetty took a double award at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne this month, and the Kerala distribution row that dominated coverage had in fact been settled three weeks before the film opened.EntertainmentSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/opinion/being-right-is-worth-less-than-being-remembered-kindly/https://vjp.news/opinion/being-right-is-worth-less-than-being-remembered-kindly/We spend years building walls and minutes wishing we had not. A short case for forgiving quickly, believing slowly, and treating warmth as a decision rather than a temperament.OpinionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/opinion/paid-parental-leave-is-not-a-reason-to-have-a-child/https://vjp.news/opinion/paid-parental-leave-is-not-a-reason-to-have-a-child/The claim that women plan pregnancies around a period of paid leave does not survive contact with the arithmetic of raising a child. What it does do is keep attention away from the unpaid work the country runs on.OpinionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/opinion/the-decade-that-tests-you-is-usually-the-decade-that-changes-you/https://vjp.news/opinion/the-decade-that-tests-you-is-usually-the-decade-that-changes-you/Before anyone was paying attention I had already had a long run of small wins and a few failures that still sting. The years that redirected my working life were the ones I nearly said no to.OpinionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/notices/sukh-sandhu-announces-one-million-facebook-followers/https://vjp.news/notices/sukh-sandhu-announces-one-million-facebook-followers/Sukh Sandhu, who publishes The Verified Journalism Press, said his main Facebook account, facebook.com/sukhsandhu, had passed one million followers.NoticesSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/notices/burj-global-power-100-gala-held-in-shanghai-with-sukh-sandhu-among-tho/https://vjp.news/notices/burj-global-power-100-gala-held-in-shanghai-with-sukh-sandhu-among-tho/The gala and summit took place on 22 May 2026 at the JW Marriott Hotel Shanghai at Tomorrow Square, hosted by CEO Clubs Network, and honoured 25 chief executives and entrepreneurs.NoticesSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/notices/sukh-sandhu-appointed-to-the-forttuna-education-council-global-advisor/https://vjp.news/notices/sukh-sandhu-appointed-to-the-forttuna-education-council-global-advisor/The appointment was announced on 20 April 2026. Forttuna lists him on its own Global Advisory Board page, which is the primary confirmation; the newswire coverage that carried it was distributed rather than independently reported.NoticesSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/brussels-fined-google-twice-on-23-july-460-million-euros-over-search-a/https://vjp.news/technology/brussels-fined-google-twice-on-23-july-460-million-euros-over-search-a/The European Commission issued two separate non-compliance decisions under two different Digital Markets Act obligations, not the single billion dollar penalty most headlines reported. It is the first time Brussels has used the DMA against Google, and the company has 60 days to comply.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/google-s-search-remedies-have-bound-it-since-3-february-and-the-govern/https://vjp.news/technology/google-s-search-remedies-have-bound-it-since-3-february-and-the-govern/Judge Amit Mehta entered final judgment on 5 December 2025 and its contractual injunctions took effect on 3 February 2026. The cross-appeal brief filed on 28 July 2026 raises one issue, a ban on Google's search payments, and expressly disclaims divestiture.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/munich-court-found-six-songs-sit-inside-suno-s-model-then-applied-us-l/https://vjp.news/technology/munich-court-found-six-songs-sit-inside-suno-s-model-then-applied-us-l/The Landgericht Muenchen I ruled for GEMA on 31 July 2026 in case 42 O 763/25. Its jurisdiction over training done in the United States came from a venue rule for collecting societies, not from outputs reaching German users. The judgment is not final.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/anthropic-s-1-5-billion-dollar-settlement-covers-482-460-pirated-books/https://vjp.news/technology/anthropic-s-1-5-billion-dollar-settlement-covers-482-460-pirated-books/Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval on 20 July 2026 in the Northern District of California. Claims were filed for 440,490 of the 482,460 works, and the court cut the requested fee award from 187.5 million dollars to about 101.5 million.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/australia-s-own-regulator-found-more-than-81-per-cent-of-under-16s-sti/https://vjp.news/technology/australia-s-own-regulator-found-more-than-81-per-cent-of-under-16s-sti/eSafety's first before and after evaluation, published on 31 July 2026, found use of age restricted platforms fell from nearly 86 per cent to above 81 per cent, daily use from about 60 to about 58 per cent, and that around half of the children who kept accounts were never asked their age.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/the-h200-opening-to-china-carries-a-50-per-cent-compute-cap-and-lab-te/https://vjp.news/technology/the-h200-opening-to-china-carries-a-50-per-cent-compute-cap-and-lab-te/The Bureau of Industry and Security announced three conditions on 13 January 2026. The final rule published two days later lists nine, including a cap holding the compute sent to China or Macau to half of what goes to United States customers, and testing of each shipment rather than each product.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/eu-deferred-the-ai-act-s-high-risk-rules-to-2027-and-2028-but-left-the/https://vjp.news/technology/eu-deferred-the-ai-act-s-high-risk-rules-to-2027-and-2028-but-left-the/Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and in force from 27 July, moves standalone high-risk duties to 2 December 2027 and product-embedded ones to 2 August 2028. Article 50 transparency duties still began on 2 August 2026, and a new prohibition was added.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/the-cma-found-apple-s-webkit-rule-holds-back-rival-browsers-then-put-t/https://vjp.news/technology/the-cma-found-apple-s-webkit-rule-holds-back-rival-browsers-then-put-t/The regulator's final decision of 22 October 2025 records that the WebKit requirement restricts rivals' ability to innovate and raises their costs, and that Safari took 84 per cent of UK web traffic on Apple devices in June 2025. Ten months on, no browser consultation has opened.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/the-order-against-state-ai-laws-produced-a-first-intervention-arguing-/https://vjp.news/technology/the-order-against-state-ai-laws-produced-a-first-intervention-arguing-/Executive Order 14365 was signed on 11 December 2025 and gave the Attorney General 30 days to build a task force to attack state AI laws as preempted or as burdens on interstate commerce. The Justice Department's first move, on 24 April 2026, rested on the Fourteenth Amendment instead.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/the-ai-memory-squeeze-reached-official-price-statistics-in-july-2026-b/https://vjp.news/technology/the-ai-memory-squeeze-reached-official-price-statistics-in-july-2026-b/US prices for computer software and accessories rose 21.2 per cent in the year to July 2026, and computers and peripherals rose 3.5 per cent in that month alone. Information technology commodities as a whole were still 4.8 per cent cheaper than a year earlier.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/the-275-million-figure-in-the-canvas-breach-comes-from-the-attackers-a/https://vjp.news/technology/the-275-million-figure-in-the-canvas-breach-comes-from-the-attackers-a/Instructure has confirmed that names, email addresses, student ID numbers and user messages were taken from Canvas. It has not confirmed the attackers' totals. The House Homeland Security Committee chairman wrote that the company itself describes Canvas as serving more than 30 million active users worldwide.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/conduent-s-breach-count-went-from-4-3-million-to-62-2-million-in-eight/https://vjp.news/technology/conduent-s-breach-count-went-from-4-3-million-to-62-2-million-in-eight/Conduent Business Services filed a figure of 62,224,658 affected individuals with US health regulators on 4 June 2026, for an intrusion that ended on 13 January 2025. Public breach trackers still carry the 4.3 million figure it reported to California in October 2025.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/shinyhunters-is-named-in-canvas-carnival-medtronic-and-ringcentral-and/https://vjp.news/technology/shinyhunters-is-named-in-canvas-carnival-medtronic-and-ringcentral-and/Four breaches reported as separate corporate failures between April and August 2026 share an attributed crew. Google Threat Intelligence has said the activity is not the result of a vulnerability in vendors' products. Published victim counts for the same events differ by millions.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/brazil-switched-off-discord-s-livestreams-on-12-august-before-its-chil/https://vjp.news/technology/brazil-switched-off-discord-s-livestreams-on-12-august-before-its-chil/The ANPD ordered Discord to suspend Go Live in Brazil within three business days, citing Law 15,211/2025. The regulator found reports involving Discord rose 54 per cent, to 406 from 264, comparing January to July 2026 with 2025, and that the platform cannot analyse live video in real time.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/the-eu-ai-act-rules-that-started-on-2-august-are-the-labelling-ones-no/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/the-eu-ai-act-rules-that-started-on-2-august-are-the-labelling-ones-no/Article 50 transparency duties began applying on 2 August 2026, with fines up to 15 million euros or 3 per cent of worldwide turnover. The high risk obligations that were also due that day were deferred to 2 December 2027 by an omnibus that entered into force on 27 July 2026.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/brussels-switched-on-ai-labelling-in-august-and-pushed-the-high-risk-r/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/brussels-switched-on-ai-labelling-in-august-and-pushed-the-high-risk-r/The EU AI Act became applicable on 2 August 2026, but the European Commission now dates obligations on hiring, credit and biometric systems to 2 December 2027, and product embedded systems to 2 August 2028. Two widely used compliance trackers describe that change differently, and one cites a date that has not happened.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/the-1-5-billion-dollar-anthropic-settlement-is-final-but-the-per-book-/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/the-1-5-billion-dollar-anthropic-settlement-is-final-but-the-per-book-/The order granting final approval in Bartz v Anthropic is dated 20 July 2026 and Reuters reported it on 21 July. The often repeated maths of 3,109 dollars across 482,460 works does not match the settlement's own final count of 440,490 eligible works, and the fee award is about 101.5 million dollars, not 122 million.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/a-judge-made-openai-hand-over-20-million-chatgpt-conversations-then-or/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/a-judge-made-openai-hand-over-20-million-chatgpt-conversations-then-or/Judge Sidney Stein affirmed an order compelling OpenAI to produce a full 20 million log sample to the copyright plaintiffs on 5 January 2026. What OpenAI lost was not the sample size, which it proposed itself, but its attempt to limit production to conversations touching the plaintiffs' works.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/getty-won-permission-to-appeal-the-uk-ruling-that-stable-diffusion-is-/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/getty-won-permission-to-appeal-the-uk-ruling-that-stable-diffusion-is-/Mrs Justice Joanna Smith granted Getty Images permission to appeal on all grounds of its secondary copyright infringement claim, and refused Stability AI permission to appeal the trade mark findings against it. The ruling is [2025] EWHC 3343 (Ch), handed down on 16 December 2025.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/florida-s-ten-count-complaint-against-openai-names-sam-altman-personal/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/florida-s-ten-count-complaint-against-openai-names-sam-altman-personal/Attorney General James Uthmeier filed an 83 page civil complaint in Highlands County on 1 June 2026 against OpenAI and its chief executive. It pleads four counts under Florida's trade practices act, one of them premised on COPPA, plus negligence, strict product liability, fraud and public nuisance.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/washington-licensed-about-10-billion-dollars-of-h200-chips-for-china-a/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/washington-licensed-about-10-billion-dollars-of-h200-chips-for-china-a/The Bureau of Industry and Security opened case by case review of Nvidia H200 and AMD MI325X exports on 13 January 2026. On 14 July 2026 Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler told Congress that deliveries against those licences had begun but were, in his word, trivial.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/an-epri-paper-found-data-centres-cut-us-retail-power-prices-from-2015-/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/an-epri-paper-found-data-centres-cut-us-retail-power-prices-from-2015-/A working paper by Asa Watten, John Bistline and Geoffrey Blanford, posted 18 June 2026, uses an instrumental variables design and finds each doubling of data centre capacity cut retail electricity prices by about 3.5 per cent. Forecasts for 2026 to 2030 all run the other way.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-s-pledge-to-pay-for-the-grid-its-data-centres-need-names-no-/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-s-pledge-to-pay-for-the-grid-its-data-centres-need-names-no-/Anthropic's 11 February 2026 commitment covers grid upgrades, net new generation and demand driven price effects, against a stated sector need of at least 50 gigawatts. It carries no dollar figure, no named location, no audit, and no published method for estimating the price effects it promises to cover.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/stanford-puts-the-us-lead-over-chinese-models-at-2-7-per-cent-but-does/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/stanford-puts-the-us-lead-over-chinese-models-at-2-7-per-cent-but-does/The 2026 AI Index reports that the top US model led Chinese rivals by 2.7 per cent as of March 2026, a single date in a series the report says has changed hands repeatedly since early 2025. The technical performance chapter names neither the benchmarks behind the figure nor the Chinese model it is measured against.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/stanford-s-ai-index-reports-362-ai-incidents-in-2025-as-model-transpar/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/stanford-s-ai-index-reports-362-ai-incidents-in-2025-as-model-transpar/The 2026 AI Index records 362 documented AI incidents in 2025 against 233 in 2024, and an average Foundation Model Transparency Index score of 40 after 58 the year before. It also finds capability benchmarks reported far more often than safety ones.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/a-stockholm-court-put-google-s-shopping-bill-at-14-3-billion-kronor-an/https://vjp.news/world-news/a-stockholm-court-put-google-s-shopping-bill-at-14-3-billion-kronor-an/On 1 July 2026 the Patent and Market Court in Stockholm ordered Google to pay PriceRunner about 14.3 billion kronor in case PMT 1860-22, rejecting most of the claim but finding the self preferencing continued well beyond the September 2017 remedy Google says fixed it.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/sixty-six-jurisdictions-cleared-the-paramount-takeover-of-warner-bros-/https://vjp.news/world-news/sixty-six-jurisdictions-cleared-the-paramount-takeover-of-warner-bros-/Paramount Skydance said on 6 August 2026 that bodies representing 66 jurisdictions had cleared or declined to challenge its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, including the US Justice Department on 12 June with no conditions. A federal judge has it stopped until a March 2027 trial.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/the-general-assembly-backed-the-world-court-s-climate-opinion-141-to-8/https://vjp.news/world-news/the-general-assembly-backed-the-world-court-s-climate-opinion-141-to-8/UN News reports the 20 May 2026 vote as 141 to 8 with 28 abstentions. The opinion it recognises was unanimous, the fifth unanimous advisory opinion in the Court's history, and it conditions reparation on a "sufficiently direct and certain causal nexus".World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/world-court-ends-a-fourteen-year-ilo-deadlock-convention-87-protects-t/https://vjp.news/world-news/world-court-ends-a-fourteen-year-ilo-deadlock-convention-87-protects-t/On 21 May 2026 the International Court of Justice answered the International Labour Organization's question in the affirmative, then refused to define the right's content, scope or conditions. Four judges dissented, all of them on interpretive method rather than on strikes.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/lebanon-abolished-the-death-penalty-on-11-august-2026-the-second-arab-/https://vjp.news/world-news/lebanon-abolished-the-death-penalty-on-11-august-2026-the-second-arab-/Parliament replaced capital punishment with life imprisonment, ending a 22 year moratorium and stripping the penalty from 41 legal provisions. On the same day, a Damascus court sentenced nine men to death, including Bashar al-Assad.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/turkey-s-foreign-minister-says-the-mecca-pact-copies-nato-s-committees/https://vjp.news/world-news/turkey-s-foreign-minister-says-the-mecca-pact-copies-nato-s-committees/Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement on 7 August 2026, agreeing an armed attack on one is an attack on all. Hakan Fidan says it will run through NATO style committees and a secretariat in Saudi Arabia. No published text mentions nuclear weapons.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/the-hormuz-safe-route-is-an-iran-to-oman-arrangement-and-tankers-are-s/https://vjp.news/world-news/the-hormuz-safe-route-is-an-iran-to-oman-arrangement-and-tankers-are-s/Esmail Baghaei said on 15 August 2026 that Iran and Oman had agreed a safe route through the Strait of Hormuz, following a 5 August accord on coordinates. On 14 August an ADNOC vessel was attacked there, the third in a week, and US Central Command said it had redirected 55 Iran linked ships.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/colombia-s-deadliest-earthquake-since-1999-was-110-kilometres-deep-and/https://vjp.news/world-news/colombia-s-deadliest-earthquake-since-1999-was-110-kilometres-deep-and/USGS data put the magnitude 7.4 quake under San Jose del Palmar on 10 August 2026 at 110.3 kilometres depth, inside the subducting Nazca plate. Deaths clustered in Pereira, Cali and Manizales, hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre, with 10.5 million people feeling strong shaking.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/venezuela-s-official-quake-toll-is-6-301-and-its-official-missing-coun/https://vjp.news/world-news/venezuela-s-official-quake-toll-is-6-301-and-its-official-missing-coun/Jorge Rodriguez put the toll from the 24 June 2026 doublet at 6,301 dead and 73,356 hospitalised on 10 August. The official missing count was last updated at 157 on 25 June, and 315 bodies remain unidentified, while volunteer registers and UN agencies have been cited at 18,100 to 50,000.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/ceuta-arrival-counts-range-from-40-000-to-75-000-and-reported-deaths-f/https://vjp.news/world-news/ceuta-arrival-counts-range-from-40-000-to-75-000-and-reported-deaths-f/Spain, Morocco and the EU never agreed how many people crossed into Ceuta on 30 and 31 July 2026, how many returned, or how many died. The one document all sides point at, a Spanish Supreme Court ruling of 8 July, says nothing about letting anyone stay.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/a-rival-party-sued-and-russia-s-supreme-court-struck-yabloko-s-list-no/https://vjp.news/world-news/a-rival-party-sued-and-russia-s-supreme-court-struck-yabloko-s-list-no/On 10 August 2026 Russia's Supreme Court cancelled the federal list of Yabloko, the only party on the ballot campaigning to end the war, on a lawsuit by the nationalist party Rodina. Yabloko nominated 275 list candidates and 137 in single member districts. The district registrations were not cancelled.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/spain-s-longest-totality-on-12-august-was-about-1-minute-50-seconds-no/https://vjp.news/world-news/spain-s-longest-totality-on-12-august-was-about-1-minute-50-seconds-no/NASA puts greatest eclipse at 17:45:53.8 UT with 2 minutes 18.2 seconds of totality and a path 294.0 kilometres wide, at a point in the Atlantic west of Iceland. On land the numbers were smaller: about 2 minutes 13 seconds in the Westfjords, about 1 minute 48 at Oviedo, and about 29 seconds in Bilbao.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/the-nature-black-hole-star-paper-was-posted-as-a-preprint-17-months-ea/https://vjp.news/world-news/the-nature-black-hole-star-paper-was-posted-as-a-preprint-17-months-ea/Naidu and colleagues published "A gas-enshrouded and gas-reddened black hole at cosmic dawn" in Nature 656, pages 329 to 333. The same work appeared on arXiv on 20 March 2025. Its actual claim is that black hole masses in little red dots may be overestimated by orders of magnitude.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/world-news/romania-lost-all-its-nuclear-power-on-13-august-after-the-danube-fell-/https://vjp.news/world-news/romania-lost-all-its-nuclear-power-on-13-august-after-the-danube-fell-/Cernavoda Unit 1 shut on 28 July and Unit 2 on 13 August, taking about a fifth of Romania's generation offline. Explosives, dredging and rock laden barges bought nine days by lifting the river four centimetres. It still fell to 182cm against a 185cm minimum.World NewsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/trump-says-he-will-declare-the-strait-of-hormuz-us-territory-but-no-le/https://vjp.news/politics/trump-says-he-will-declare-the-strait-of-hormuz-us-territory-but-no-le/At a police training centre in Garden City, New York on 14 August 2026 Donald Trump said he would soon declare the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States, citing the naval blockade. Iran rejected it, no order accompanies it, and three ships transited that day against a pre war 130.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/israel-s-defence-minister-ordered-law-enforcement-over-west-bank-settl/https://vjp.news/politics/israel-s-defence-minister-ordered-law-enforcement-over-west-bank-settl/Israel Katz said on 14 August 2026 he had told the military to draft a plan moving civilian law enforcement over Israelis in the occupied West Bank to the Israel Police. He said it while settlers besieged the village of Qusra for a week. An Israeli legal official called it a populist sham.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/nsw-s-biggest-gun-buyback-in-three-decades-starts-on-2-november-and-th/https://vjp.news/politics/nsw-s-biggest-gun-buyback-in-three-decades-starts-on-2-november-and-th/A prime minister's office release on 16 August 2026 sets the New South Wales buyback start at 2 November, paying 1,000 dollars for revolvers and centrefire rifles, 850 for semi automatic handguns and double barrel shotguns, 650 for single barrel shotguns, 600 for rimfire rifles and 450 for air rifles.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/france-s-constitutional-council-voided-the-under-15-social-media-ban-o/https://vjp.news/politics/france-s-constitutional-council-voided-the-under-15-social-media-ban-o/Decision 2026-911 DC, issued on 14 August 2026, censured Article 1 of the law adopted on 21 July 2026, calling the ban neither adapted, necessary nor proportionate, and separately faulting the age verification it implied for lacking legal guarantees on privacy. The ban was due to start on 1 September.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/two-federal-courts-found-the-white-house-ballroom-unauthorised-by-cong/https://vjp.news/politics/two-federal-courts-found-the-white-house-ballroom-unauthorised-by-cong/On 7 August 2026 the DC Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that above ground work must stop because Congress has not authorised the ballroom. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application on 14 August, docket 26A203, and the appeal court's stay of its own order runs out on 21 August.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/filed-27-july-briefed-since-3-august-the-supreme-court-has-not-ruled-o/https://vjp.news/politics/filed-27-july-briefed-since-3-august-the-supreme-court-has-not-ruled-o/Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed a supplemental brief on 12 August 2026 urging the justices to act on an application lodged on 27 July and briefed since 3 August. At issue is Section 3 of Executive Order 14399, signed 31 March, which the Postal Service has already drafted a rule to implement.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/a-senator-has-put-the-uss-abraham-lincoln-allegations-in-writing-and-t/https://vjp.news/politics/a-senator-has-put-the-uss-abraham-lincoln-allegations-in-writing-and-t/Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote to Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao on 12 August 2026 demanding dates, authorisations and incident data for a carrier deployment that has run 266 days. The Navy says it has found no rise in suicide attempts. Families say sailors tried to go overboard.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/dnc-s-2028-calendar-opens-in-south-carolina-and-puts-new-hampshire-thi/https://vjp.news/politics/dnc-s-2028-calendar-opens-in-south-carolina-and-puts-new-hampshire-thi/The Democratic National Committee voted in Austin on 15 August 2026 for a 2028 early window running South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia. Federal filings to 30 June 2026 show the DNC with $16.3 million in cash and $18.5 million in debt, against $128.5 million at the RNC.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/abdul-el-sayed-won-michigan-for-the-democratic-left-and-in-the-same-ni/https://vjp.news/politics/abdul-el-sayed-won-michigan-for-the-democratic-left-and-in-the-same-ni/El-Sayed's narrow Senate primary win over Haley Stevens, reported on 5 August 2026, was billed as the left's breakthrough. Within a week David Crowley had beaten Francesca Hong for the Wisconsin governor nomination after re-entering a race he had quit, and Wesley Bell had already beaten Cori Bush again in Missouri.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/politics/south-korea-s-president-has-offered-to-negotiate-an-end-to-the-korean-/https://vjp.news/politics/south-korea-s-president-has-offered-to-negotiate-an-end-to-the-korean-/In his Liberation Day address on 15 August 2026, President Lee Jae Myung proposed talks to end the war the 1953 armistice only paused and to discuss halting the North's nuclear advance. By 16 August Pyongyang's state media had covered only its own celebrations.PoliticsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/us-customs-has-refunded-about-100bn-of-struck-down-tariffs-while-repla/https://vjp.news/business/us-customs-has-refunded-about-100bn-of-struck-down-tariffs-while-repla/US Customs says $166 billion was collected under the tariffs the Supreme Court struck down, and about $100 billion has gone back to importers. But the same day the court ruled, the President signed a replacement surcharge, and a second replacement regime began the hour the first expired.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/spacex-beat-revenue-forecasts-in-its-first-public-quarter-then-fell-13/https://vjp.news/business/spacex-beat-revenue-forecasts-in-its-first-public-quarter-then-fell-13/Revenue was $7.8 billion against forecasts near $6.9 billion, and the net loss of $541 million was about half what analysts expected. Capital expenditure was $18.37 billion, a sixfold rise, of which $15.8 billion went to AI infrastructure. The shares fell 13.6 per cent to $108.10 on 5 August 2026.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/trump-media-lost-238m-on-1-7m-of-revenue-and-its-paid-feed-of-the-pres/https://vjp.news/business/trump-media-lost-238m-on-1-7m-of-revenue-and-its-paid-feed-of-the-pres/Second quarter revenue was $1.7 million against a net loss of $238 million, most of it an unrealised writedown on digital assets and equity securities. Two news organisations sued the President on 12 August 2026 over the paid feed that delivers his posts to trading firms first.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/tomago-s-2-5bn-power-underwrite-is-split-evenly-with-nsw-and-does-not-/https://vjp.news/business/tomago-s-2-5bn-power-underwrite-is-split-evenly-with-nsw-and-does-not-/The $2.5 billion is split evenly between Canberra and Sydney, the payments start in 2028 when the current supply contract ends, and Snowy Hydro and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are to bring three gigawatts of wind and solar to cover Australia's largest electricity user.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/asic-reviewed-eight-car-insurance-brands-with-72-per-cent-of-the-marke/https://vjp.news/business/asic-reviewed-eight-car-insurance-brands-with-72-per-cent-of-the-marke/ASIC report 838, released on 11 August 2026, found no insurer explains how a premium is calculated in quote or renewal documents. Premiums rose 8 per cent in the year to July 2025 and 42 per cent from 2019 to 2024. Of consumers who ask for a better price, 31 per cent get one.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/the-rba-board-weighed-only-a-hold-or-a-hike-on-11-august-and-left-the-/https://vjp.news/business/the-rba-board-weighed-only-a-hold-or-a-hike-on-11-august-and-left-the-/The Reserve Bank held at 4.35 per cent unanimously on 11 August 2026, its second consecutive pause after three increases this year. Governor Michele Bullock said the board considered only hiking or holding, and the statement kept a further rise explicitly open.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/business/two-ships-crossed-the-strait-of-hormuz-on-14-august-and-no-crude-at-al/https://vjp.news/business/two-ships-crossed-the-strait-of-hormuz-on-14-august-and-no-crude-at-al/Kpler tracking data cited by Reuters put Hormuz transits at two vessels on Friday 14 August 2026, nine on the Thursday and five on the Wednesday, with no crude oil shipments visible on the Friday. The strait normally carries about a fifth of the world's oil and LNG.BusinessSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/india-s-18-per-cent-tariff-deal-lasted-a-fortnight-and-the-rate-it-pay/https://vjp.news/india/india-s-18-per-cent-tariff-deal-lasted-a-fortnight-and-the-rate-it-pay/The United States and India announced an 18 per cent interim tariff on 6 February 2026. The Supreme Court struck down its legal basis on 21 February, a replacement 10 per cent global tariff was enjoined on 7 May, and since 23 July India has paid 10 per cent under a forced labour action.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/india-s-census-2027-gazette-makes-caste-item-10-of-40-and-is-silent-on/https://vjp.news/india/india-s-census-2027-gazette-makes-caste-item-10-of-40-and-is-silent-on/Notification S.O. 4505(E) of 14 August 2026 lists the 40 items census officers may ask in the second phase. Item 10 reads "Scheduled Caste (SC)/ Scheduled Tribe (ST)/Caste". The gazette carries no response categories, no code list and no tick boxes, because a section 8 notification names subjects, not formats.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/india-s-new-rural-jobs-act-raises-the-guarantee-to-125-days-and-caps-w/https://vjp.news/india/india-s-new-rural-jobs-act-raises-the-guarantee-to-125-days-and-caps-w/Act No. 36 of 2025 records presidential assent on 20 December 2025, a day before the date in general circulation. It repeals MGNREGA, lifts the guarantee from 100 to 125 days, and shifts wages to a 60:40 centre to state split with the centre setting a normative allocation each state must exceed at its own cost.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/the-ai171-preliminary-report-never-says-which-pilot-spoke-and-aaib-has/https://vjp.news/india/the-ai171-preliminary-report-never-says-which-pilot-spoke-and-aaib-has/The AAIB report on the 12 June 2025 Ahmedabad crash that killed 260 records both fuel cutoff switches moving to CUTOFF one second apart, and one pilot asking the other why he cut off. It names neither pilot. The Bureau's anniversary statement sets no timeline, and its documents cite the 2017 rules, not the 2025 rules.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/health/white-house-counts-ten-years-of-savings-from-drug-pricing-deals-that-f/https://vjp.news/health/white-house-counts-ten-years-of-savings-from-drug-pricing-deals-that-f/The administration says 17 manufacturers covering 86 per cent of the branded market have signed most favoured nation agreements, and on 5 May 2026 projected 529 billion US dollars of savings over a decade. STAT reported on 27 February 2026 that SEC filings show at least some of the deals run three years.HealthSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/health/medicaid-work-rules-took-effect-on-31-july-2026-with-nine-exempt-group/https://vjp.news/health/medicaid-work-rules-took-effect-on-31-july-2026-with-nine-exempt-group/The CMS interim final rule published on 3 June 2026 took effect on 31 July 2026 and states must implement by 1 January 2027. Adults must show 80 hours a month of activity or about 580 US dollars of income. CBO counts 4.8 million more uninsured in 2034; the Urban Institute 4.9 to 10.1 million in 2028.HealthSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/health/england-s-resident-doctors-accepted-the-pay-and-jobs-deal-by-52-9-to-4/https://vjp.news/health/england-s-resident-doctors-accepted-the-pay-and-jobs-deal-by-52-9-to-4/The BMA cancelled the strike set for 15 to 19 June 2026 and put the government offer to a referendum that closed on 26 June. Members accepted an average 6.6 per cent, made up of the 3.5 per cent DDRB award backdated to April 2026 plus about 3.1 per cent over ten months, with up to 4,500 training posts.HealthSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/health/six-days-after-an-executive-order-on-mental-illness-the-fda-gave-psilo/https://vjp.news/health/six-days-after-an-executive-order-on-mental-illness-the-fda-gave-psilo/Executive Order 14401, signed on 18 April 2026, directs at least 50 million US dollars to state research and a review of Schedule I drugs that finish Phase 3. On 24 April 2026 the FDA issued national priority vouchers covering psilocybin and methylone. A voucher is not a finding of safety or effectiveness.HealthSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/artemis-ii-flew-four-people-252-756-miles-from-earth-in-april-but-the-/https://vjp.news/science/artemis-ii-flew-four-people-252-756-miles-from-earth-in-april-but-the-/NASA launched Artemis II on 1 April 2026 and splashed down on 10 April after a flight that reached 252,756 miles from Earth. NASA's own mission page now describes Artemis III in 2027 as a low Earth orbit docking demonstration, and lists Artemis IV in 2028 as the landing.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/nature-names-mom-bh-1-but-the-black-hole-star-idea-dates-to-march-2025/https://vjp.news/science/nature-names-mom-bh-1-but-the-black-hole-star-idea-dates-to-march-2025/A team led by Rohan Naidu published MoM-BH*-1 in Nature on 12 August 2026, a black hole wrapped in a gas envelope about 1,000 astronomical units across, 660 million years after the Big Bang. The same object was posted as a preprint on 20 March 2025, and rival papers this year dispute the model.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/star-sees-twice-the-baryons-the-quark-picture-predicts-in-a-paper-firs/https://vjp.news/science/star-sees-twice-the-baryons-the-quark-picture-predicts-in-a-paper-firs/The STAR collaboration reports in Science on 16 August 2026, DOI 10.1126/science.ads5962, that nuclear collisions produce roughly twice as many baryons as models assuming three valence quarks carry baryon number. The preprint has been public since 27 August 2024, and RHIC stopped running in early 2026.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/a-false-claims-act-case-against-elsevier-springer-nature-wiley-and-inf/https://vjp.news/science/a-false-claims-act-case-against-elsevier-springer-nature-wiley-and-inf/An amended qui tam complaint in United States ex rel Alperin v Elsevier, case 1:24-cv-10603-ADB in the District of Massachusetts, was filed on 23 July 2026 and unsealed on 30 July. It alleges article processing charges up to ten times cost. The GAO warned in May that the fees could reach US$1 billion a year.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/bollywood/dhurandhar-s-record-totals-come-from-private-trackers-and-the-referenc/https://vjp.news/bollywood/dhurandhar-s-record-totals-come-from-private-trackers-and-the-referenc/Dhurandhar: The Revenge is credited with a worldwide gross of 1,852.44 crore rupees and the two film series with 3,203.27 crore. No Indian body audits any of it. Wikipedia's own franchise table still ranks the YRF Spy Universe higher, and Bollywood Hungama puts the India net at 1,108.09 crore.BollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/bollywood/delhi-high-court-keeps-granting-celebrity-takedown-orders-and-keeps-re/https://vjp.news/bollywood/delhi-high-court-keeps-granting-celebrity-takedown-orders-and-keeps-re/Between April and August 2026 the court passed interim personality rights orders for Varun Dhawan, Arjun Kapoor, Naga Chaitanya, Janhvi Kapoor and Khushi Kapoor. The signed orders are URL by URL, not name bans: one judge held that not all content about a public figure can be removed, another spared fan and meme accounts.BollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/bollywood/delhi-high-court-has-ordered-the-kala-hiran-teaser-taken-down-but-it-h/https://vjp.news/bollywood/delhi-high-court-has-ordered-the-kala-hiran-teaser-taken-down-but-it-h/Salman Khan's suit over Kala Hiran: The Battle for Legacy pleads defamation as well as personality rights, alleging the film links him to the underworld. On 27 July 2026 Justice Jyoti Singh required the teaser off social media within 24 hours. The theatrical release itself was not prohibited.BollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/bollywood/courts-have-refused-every-attempt-to-stop-dhurandhar-2-including-a-wri/https://vjp.news/bollywood/courts-have-refused-every-attempt-to-stop-dhurandhar-2-including-a-wri/Four separate 2026 suits attach to India's biggest hit. A Mumbai court refused to stay the OTT release on 4 June, the Delhi High Court refused Trimurti Films an injunction over the song Rang De Lal on 14 May, and the Bombay High Court restrained the writer from repeating his own allegations on 8 April.BollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/hollywood/disney-sued-midjourney-and-licensed-200-characters-to-sora-and-the-sor/https://vjp.news/hollywood/disney-sued-midjourney-and-licensed-200-characters-to-sora-and-the-sor/Disney announced a three-year Sora licensing agreement with OpenAI on 11 December 2025, covering more than 200 characters and a US$1 billion equity investment. OpenAI shut Sora down on 24 March 2026 and the agreement ended with it. The copyright suit Disney filed against Midjourney in June 2025 is still running.HollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/hollywood/netflix-s-price-for-ben-affleck-s-16-person-ai-startup-was-587-million/https://vjp.news/hollywood/netflix-s-price-for-ben-affleck-s-16-person-ai-startup-was-587-million/Netflix bought InterPositive in March 2026 without disclosing terms. A securities filing on 17 July 2026 put the price at about US$587 million in cash. A week before that acquisition was announced, Netflix had refused to raise its bid for Warner Bros., saying the price required was no longer financially attractive.HollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/hollywood/the-academy-s-ai-rules-test-human-authorship-the-golden-globes-demand-/https://vjp.news/hollywood/the-academy-s-ai-rules-test-human-authorship-the-golden-globes-demand-/The Academy's rules for the 99th Oscars, announced 1 May 2026, require screenplays to be human-authored, require acting nominees to be demonstrably performed by humans with consent, and reserve a right to ask how AI was used. Six days later the Golden Globes required every submission to disclose it.HollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/education/australia-s-tertiary-commission-ran-for-seven-weeks-with-its-first-nat/https://vjp.news/education/australia-s-tertiary-commission-ran-for-seven-weeks-with-its-first-nat/Professor Mark Rose AM starts as ATEC First Nations Commissioner on 17 August 2026, announced 6 August. The other statutory commissioners began on 1 July, and the interim officeholder left on 30 June. The Act gives the seat consultation, promotion, research and advice functions, and one vote.EducationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/education/ibac-found-no-corrupt-conduct-in-victoria-s-firefighters-deal-but-name/https://vjp.news/education/ibac-found-no-corrupt-conduct-in-victoria-s-firefighters-deal-but-name/IBAC published Operation Richmond on 5 August 2026, finding serious and concerning conduct by Andrews government ministers and officials between 2016 and 2019 but no corrupt conduct. Education Secretary Tony Bates appears in it 196 times. The Mandarin reported him standing aside on 7 August.EducationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/education/the-us-education-department-deleted-disparate-impact-from-its-title-vi/https://vjp.news/education/the-us-education-department-deleted-disparate-impact-from-its-title-vi/The final rule at 91 FR 46733 was published on 24 July 2026 and took effect that day, removing 34 CFR 100.3(b)(2) and four other provisions. The department invoked the Administrative Procedure Act's exemption for rules about grants and benefits, which is the most likely ground of challenge.EducationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/education/two-federal-judges-vacated-the-same-student-loan-forgiveness-rule-on-t/https://vjp.news/education/two-federal-judges-vacated-the-same-student-loan-forgiveness-rule-on-t/On 30 June 2026 Judge Myong Joun in Boston and Judge Amir Ali in Washington each set aside the Education Department's rule disqualifying employers with a "substantial illegal purpose" from Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Joun found it unconstitutional as well. Ali decided on the statute alone.EducationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/research/elsevier-has-retracted-120-papers-from-a-biology-journal-whose-output-/https://vjp.news/research/elsevier-has-retracted-120-papers-from-a-biology-journal-whose-output-/The International Journal of Biological Macromolecules has pulled 120 articles since June 2026, almost all from guest edited special issues published in 2024 and 2025. Crossref records show the journal published 4,974 papers in 2023, 9,700 in 2024 and 10,367 in 2025.ResearchSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/research/bundibugyo-ebola-passed-2-000-deaths-in-86-days-and-the-one-licensed-v/https://vjp.news/research/bundibugyo-ebola-passed-2-000-deaths-in-86-days-and-the-one-licensed-v/WHO's situation report for 9 August 2026 counts 4,381 confirmed cases and 2,011 confirmed deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a case fatality ratio of 45.9 per cent, with Ituri accounting for 85.8 per cent of cases. WHO has ruled out routine use of Merck's Ervebo against this species.ResearchSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/research/ai-agents-re-ran-the-168-top-papers-at-a-machine-learning-conference-e/https://vjp.news/research/ai-agents-re-ran-the-168-top-papers-at-a-machine-learning-conference-e/SAI Labs reported on 22 July 2026 that its agents attempted to replicate every oral paper at ICML 2026, completing 105 full reruns. Of the 92 papers with at least five checkable claims, 34 reproduced more than 40 per cent of attempted claims and eight reproduced more than 80 per cent.ResearchSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/research/reviewers-now-finish-1-7-times-faster-than-in-2007-but-it-takes-eight-/https://vjp.news/research/reviewers-now-finish-1-7-times-faster-than-in-2007-but-it-takes-eight-/Paul Montagna's analysis of 18 years of Estuaries and Coasts editorial records, published on 15 July 2026, found reviews completed in an average of 32 days in 2025 against 54 in 2007. The bottleneck is recruitment: four invitations secured two reviews in 2007, eight by 2025.ResearchSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/media/the-fcc-waived-the-39-per-cent-tv-ownership-cap-for-nexstar-and-a-cour/https://vjp.news/media/the-fcc-waived-the-39-per-cent-tv-ownership-cap-for-nexstar-and-a-cour/The Media Bureau's order of 19 March 2026 granted Nexstar a waiver rather than changing the rule, on a post-discount national reach of 54.5 per cent, not the 80 per cent widely quoted. Thirteen states sued, and on 17 April a federal judge ordered Nexstar to hold Tegna separate.MediaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/media/the-order-freezing-paramount-s-warner-bros-deal-expires-today-and-no-i/https://vjp.news/media/the-order-freezing-paramount-s-warner-bros-deal-expires-today-and-no-i/Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin's restraining order, issued on 20 July 2026 and extended on 23 July, runs out on 17 August. Rule 65 caps it at 28 days, and the court said so. What actually keeps Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery apart is the companies' own agreement not to close.MediaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/media/australia-s-news-levy-reached-parliament-with-a-smaller-base-a-higher-/https://vjp.news/media/australia-s-news-levy-reached-parliament-with-a-smaller-base-a-higher-/The News Bargaining Incentive was introduced on 13 August 2026 charging 2.5 per cent of Australian digital advertising revenue, not the 2.25 per cent of all Australian revenue proposed on 28 April. LinkedIn is in, standalone AI chatbots are out, and the minimum number of publisher deals went from four to eight.MediaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/media/ten-per-cent-now-use-ai-chatbots-for-news-each-week-and-4-per-cent-of-/https://vjp.news/media/ten-per-cent-now-use-ai-chatbots-for-news-each-week-and-4-per-cent-of-/The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, published on 16 June 2026 across 48 markets, records weekly chatbot news use rising from 7 per cent to 10 per cent, 17 per cent among 18 to 24 year olds, and trust in chatbot news at 20 per cent against 37 per cent for news generally.MediaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/media/cpj-counted-129-press-deaths-in-2025-47-of-them-classed-as-murder-and-/https://vjp.news/media/cpj-counted-129-press-deaths-in-2025-47-of-them-classed-as-murder-and-/The Committee to Protect Journalists published its 2025 count on 25 February 2026: 129 journalists and media workers killed, 86 attributed to Israel, 39 deaths involving drones against 2 in 2023, and no prosecutions arising. Israel disputes the count.MediaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/media/the-eu-s-first-digital-services-act-fine-against-x-was-about-blue-tick/https://vjp.news/media/the-eu-s-first-digital-services-act-fine-against-x-was-about-blue-tick/The European Commission fined X 120 million euros on 5 December 2025 over three things: a paid badge reviewed in 53 to 79 seconds on average, an ad database holding 58 per cent of the ads shown in France, and a researcher process that rejected 95.8 per cent of applicants. The recommender system was not in the decision.MediaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/the-supreme-court-left-section-2-standing-in-callais-and-changed-what-/https://vjp.news/democracy/the-supreme-court-left-section-2-standing-in-callais-and-changed-what-/Louisiana v. Callais, decided 6 to 3 on 29 April 2026, struck down the SB8 map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Justice Alito's majority declined to hold Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, and instead added three evidentiary requirements to the 1986 Gingles framework.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/mississippi-can-still-count-mail-ballots-that-arrive-five-days-late-wi/https://vjp.news/democracy/mississippi-can-still-count-mail-ballots-that-arrive-five-days-late-wi/In Watson v. Republican National Committee, decided 5 to 4 on 29 June 2026, the Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and held that the federal election day statutes set no deadline for ballot receipt. Justice Barrett wrote for the majority joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, with Alito dissenting.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/party-committees-can-now-spend-without-limit-alongside-their-own-candi/https://vjp.news/democracy/party-committees-can-now-spend-without-limit-alongside-their-own-candi/On 30 June 2026 the Supreme Court held 6 to 3 in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC that the coordinated party expenditure limits at 52 U.S.C. section 30116(d) violate the First Amendment, overruling Colorado II. The caps ran from 65,300 US dollars to 32,392,200 US dollars.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/the-supreme-court-buried-humphrey-s-executor-on-29-june-2026-and-exemp/https://vjp.news/democracy/the-supreme-court-buried-humphrey-s-executor-on-29-june-2026-and-exemp/Trump v. Slaughter, No. 25-332, overruled the 1935 precedent by 6 to 3. Hours later, in Trump v. Cook, No. 25A312, the same Court refused by 5 to 4 to let the president remove a Federal Reserve governor, resting the carve out on the First and Second Banks of the United States.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/prop-50-s-map-beat-a-republican-and-a-justice-department-challenge-the/https://vjp.news/democracy/prop-50-s-map-beat-a-republican-and-a-justice-department-challenge-the/A three judge panel denied preliminary injunctions on 14 January 2026 by 2 to 1, finding the evidence of partisan motive overwhelming and the evidence of racial motive exceptionally weak. On 4 February 2026 the Supreme Court denied an injunction in a single sentence, with no noted dissents.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/australia-s-biggest-electoral-funding-overhaul-in-40-years-slipped-to-/https://vjp.news/democracy/australia-s-biggest-electoral-funding-overhaul-in-40-years-slipped-to-/The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2025 got Royal Assent on 20 February 2025, and its funding and disclosure reforms were to start on 1 July 2026. On 31 March 2026 Special Minister of State Don Farrell moved them to 1 January 2027, on the AEC's advice.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/the-eu-s-first-digital-services-act-fine-was-about-a-blue-tick-an-ad-a/https://vjp.news/democracy/the-eu-s-first-digital-services-act-fine-was-about-a-blue-tick-an-ad-a/On 5 December 2025 the European Commission fined X 120 million euros in the first non compliance decision under the Digital Services Act, citing Articles 25(1), 39 and 40(12). The separate investigation into illegal content and information manipulation, opened on 18 December 2023, is still running.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/uk-supreme-court-overturns-cheshire-west-and-narrows-who-counts-as-dep/https://vjp.news/human-rights/uk-supreme-court-overturns-cheshire-west-and-narrows-who-counts-as-dep/On 2 June 2026 seven justices unanimously scrapped the 2014 acid test for deprivation of liberty under Article 5. The safeguards system it reshapes took 364,900 applications in England in 2024 to 2025 and still held a backlog of 118,850 cases.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/australia-s-rights-commission-found-five-breaches-over-a-detained-fami/https://vjp.news/human-rights/australia-s-rights-commission-found-five-breaches-over-a-detained-fami/Report [2026] AusHRC 190, sent to the Attorney General in January 2026, found five Commonwealth acts breached the ICCPR and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, among them detaining two Australian born girls on Christmas Island from 30 August 2019 to 15 June 2021. Home Affairs said it did not agree.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/un-anti-racism-committee-invokes-urgent-action-procedure-over-indigeno/https://vjp.news/human-rights/un-anti-racism-committee-invokes-urgent-action-procedure-over-indigeno/The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination adopted Statement 1 (2026) on 29 April and published it on 5 May, finding that Indigenous children, 6.5 per cent of Australians aged 10 to 17, were about 65 per cent of children in detention in 2023-24.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/post-bondi-protest-ban-was-unconstitutional-nsw-court-of-appeal-rules-/https://vjp.news/human-rights/post-bondi-protest-ban-was-unconstitutional-nsw-court-of-appeal-rules-/Three judges declared the public assembly restriction declaration scheme invalid on 16 April 2026, four months after it passed in a Christmas Eve sitting. The declaration ran from 24 December 2025 to 17 February 2026, and 27 people were arrested at a single Sydney protest while it was in force.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/muckamore-inquiry-finds-restraint-replaced-care-at-a-learning-disabili/https://vjp.news/human-rights/muckamore-inquiry-finds-restraint-replaced-care-at-a-learning-disabili/The Muckamore Abbey Hospital Inquiry reported on 18 June 2026 on care between December 1999 and June 2021. It made 106 recommendations, heard 181 witnesses and more than 300 written statements, and sits alongside a police review of roughly 300,000 hours of CCTV.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/federal-court-orders-fortescue-to-pay-yindjibarndi-150-3-million-for-m/https://vjp.news/human-rights/federal-court-orders-fortescue-to-pay-yindjibarndi-150-3-million-for-m/Orders issued on 1 July 2026 require Fortescue to pay $150,354,009 to Yindjibarndi native title holders: $150 million of it for cultural loss, against $136,757 for economic loss. The claim sought about $1.8 billion. On 30 July the corporation voted to appeal.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/reddit-fined-14-47m-as-uk-and-australian-regulators-reject-self-declar/https://vjp.news/human-rights/reddit-fined-14-47m-as-uk-and-australian-regulators-reject-self-declar/The Information Commissioner's Office fined Reddit £14.47 million on 24 February 2026 and Imgur's owner £247,590 on 5 February, both for failing to check children's ages. On 31 March Australia's eSafety Commissioner reported 4.7 million under 16 accounts removed, and four compliance gaps.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/a-us-judge-struck-down-trump-s-npr-and-pbs-defunding-order-as-viewpoin/https://vjp.news/human-rights/a-us-judge-struck-down-trump-s-npr-and-pbs-defunding-order-as-viewpoin/On 31 March 2026 Judge Randolph Moss permanently enjoined the operative provision of Executive Order 14290, the May 2025 direction that every federal agency cut off NPR and PBS. The 62 page ruling landed a month before Reporters Without Borders placed the United States 64th of 180 countries, its lowest ever rank.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/high-court-upholds-met-facial-recognition-policy-as-london-face-scans-/https://vjp.news/human-rights/high-court-upholds-met-facial-recognition-policy-as-london-face-scans-/A Divisional Court dismissed the challenge on 21 April 2026, holding the Metropolitan Police policy of 11 September 2024 lawful under Articles 8, 10 and 11. Police figures put London at 1.7 million scans and 44 arrests in four months. The claimants are appealing.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/australia-is-one-of-two-non-european-states-in-the-new-ukraine-aggress/https://vjp.news/human-rights/australia-is-one-of-two-non-european-states-in-the-new-ukraine-aggress/On 15 May 2026 in Chisinau, 36 states and the European Union adopted the agreement governing the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. The EU has put 10 million euros into an advance team working since February 2026. Australia and Costa Rica are the only signatories from outside Europe.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/paris-court-makes-yves-rocher-s-parent-pay-for-union-sackings-at-a-tur/https://vjp.news/human-rights/paris-court-makes-yves-rocher-s-parent-pay-for-union-sackings-at-a-tur/On 12 March 2026 the tribunal judiciaire de Paris found Laboratoires de Biologie Vegetale Yves Rocher breached France's duty of vigilance law, awarding 40,000 euros to the Petrol-Is union, 8,000 euros to former workers and one euro each to two NGOs. Only nine of 81 claimants had standing.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/canberra-court-voids-forced-relocation-of-three-tenants-who-held-their/https://vjp.news/human-rights/canberra-court-voids-forced-relocation-of-three-tenants-who-held-their/The ACT Supreme Court set aside relocation decisions against three public housing tenants who had held the same homes for between 27 and 42 years, declaring on 30 January 2026 that the housing commissioner never considered their right to a home, nor one tenant's cultural rights.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/grain-trader-scoular-pays-10-2m-over-bribes-at-the-mexican-border-some/https://vjp.news/corruption/grain-trader-scoular-pays-10-2m-over-bribes-at-the-mexican-border-some/The Scoular Company will pay a criminal penalty of $9,769,521 and forfeit $414,351 under a three year deferred prosecution agreement announced on 17 July 2026, over more than $400,000 in bribes paid at the Mexican border between 2013 and 2019 to avoid more than $6.5 million in fees.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/icac-finds-nsw-schools-building-chief-corrupt-after-344m-went-to-contr/https://vjp.news/corruption/icac-finds-nsw-schools-building-chief-corrupt-after-344m-went-to-contr/The NSW corruption commission's Operation Landan report, made public on 22 April 2026, finds three people engaged in corrupt conduct at School Infrastructure NSW, which paid $344,674,226.93 to 1,448 contractors between April 2017 and February 2024.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/a-5-million-airport-tender-was-offered-for-a-5-per-cent-kickback-and-n/https://vjp.news/corruption/a-5-million-airport-tender-was-offered-for-a-5-per-cent-kickback-and-n/The National Anti-Corruption Commission published its Operation Pelican report on 8 April 2026: a $5 million airport car park tender, a kickback of 5 per cent worth about $250,000, $20,000 handed over in a Sydney park, and a two-year sentence served in the community, under a state law.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/nigeria-s-former-attorney-general-lost-48-properties-to-an-order-needi/https://vjp.news/corruption/nigeria-s-former-attorney-general-lost-48-properties-to-an-order-needi/On 15 July 2026 the Federal High Court in Abuja forfeited 48 properties to the state under a 2006 statute that forbids basing the order on a conviction. The court weighed a public salary of 89,664,000 naira against assets reported at 180.4 billion naira or more.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/paris-appeal-court-convicts-12-over-national-rally-staffing-and-cuts-l/https://vjp.news/corruption/paris-appeal-court-convicts-12-over-national-rally-staffing-and-cuts-l/On 7 July 2026 the Paris Court of Appeal convicted all 12 appellants in the Front National assistants case, put the loss to the European Parliament at 2.8 million euros across 28 contracts over more than 11 years, and reduced Marine Le Pen's ineligibility from five years to 45 months, 30 of them suspended.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/peru-s-constitutional-court-voided-ollanta-humala-s-15-year-conviction/https://vjp.news/corruption/peru-s-constitutional-court-voided-ollanta-humala-s-15-year-conviction/Sentencia 169/2026, dated 15 July and published on 30 July, annulled the whole money laundering case against Peru's former president. The vote was five to two. The trigger was a 2016 statute applied to campaign money received in 2006 and 2011.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/fincen-fines-ubs-financial-services-125m-for-repeating-the-failure-it-/https://vjp.news/corruption/fincen-fines-ubs-financial-services-125m-for-repeating-the-failure-it-/On 3 August 2026 the US Treasury's financial crimes unit assessed a $125,000,000 penalty against UBS Financial Services, the largest ever against a broker-dealer under the Bank Secrecy Act. The firm had paid $14.5 million in December 2018 for the same monitoring failure.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/australia-scored-76-on-an-index-that-counts-perceptions-of-corruption-/https://vjp.news/corruption/australia-scored-76-on-an-index-that-counts-perceptions-of-corruption-/Transparency International published its 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index on 10 February 2026. Australia fell one point to 76 out of 100 and from equal 10th to equal 12th. The global average dropped to 42. The index rests on 13 data sources, none of which count a single corrupt act.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/treasury-s-whistleblower-review-closes-as-asic-finds-only-39-per-cent-/https://vjp.news/corruption/treasury-s-whistleblower-review-closes-as-asic-finds-only-39-per-cent-/The statutory review of Australia's tax and corporate whistleblowing laws, required by section 1317AK of the Corporations Act 2001, closed to submissions on 29 July 2026. ASIC's report of 4 December 2025 found 134 companies logged 8,095 disclosures, and that only 39 per cent were assessed as in scope.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/federal-court-leaves-intact-a-corruption-finding-built-on-leaked-paper/https://vjp.news/corruption/federal-court-leaves-intact-a-corruption-finding-built-on-leaked-paper/The ACT Integrity Commission found on 18 March 2025 that a former appeal judge engaged in serious corrupt conduct by leaking his own inquiry's confidential papers. He took no money. On 11 December 2025 the Federal Court dismissed his twelve grounds of review and the finding stands.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/us-supreme-court-upholds-state-bans-on-trans-girls-in-school-sport-six/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/us-supreme-court-upholds-state-bans-on-trans-girls-in-school-sport-six/The Supreme Court of the United States decided Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. on 30 June 2026, six to three on the Constitution and nine to nothing on Title IX, reversing two appeals courts. Seven weeks earlier Australia's Full Federal Court went the other way and doubled damages to $20,000.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/slovakia-put-a-two-sex-rule-in-its-constitution-by-90-votes-and-brusse/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/slovakia-put-a-two-sex-rule-in-its-constitution-by-90-votes-and-brusse/On 26 September 2025 Slovakia's National Council passed a constitutional amendment by 90 votes, the exact three fifths minimum in a 150 seat chamber. It took effect on 1 November. The Venice Commission warned against the wording two days before the vote, and Brussels opened an infringement case on 21 November.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/three-randomised-trials-found-no-gonorrhoea-protection-from-the-vaccin/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/three-randomised-trials-found-no-gonorrhoea-protection-from-the-vaccin/The GoGoVax trial, published on 8 July 2026, put 4CMenB vaccine efficacy at minus 0.5 per cent, with 48.1 gonorrhoea infections per 100 person-years in the vaccine arm against 47.8 in the placebo arm. England's programme, live since 1 August 2025, still cites 30 to 40 per cent protection.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/eu-top-court-rules-bulgaria-s-refusal-to-amend-gender-records-breaches/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/eu-top-court-rules-bulgaria-s-refusal-to-amend-gender-records-breaches/On 12 March 2026 the Court of Justice of the European Union held in Case C-43/24, Shipova, that a member state offering its nationals no route to amend gender data in civil status registers breaches Article 21 TFEU. Three EU states, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia, offer no such route.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/australia-s-employer-pay-gap-fell-to-11-2-per-cent-and-its-new-targets/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/australia-s-employer-pay-gap-fell-to-11-2-per-cent-and-its-new-targets/Equal Pay Day fell on 17 August 2026, 48 days into the new financial year. Employer data published on 3 March covering 10,500 employers and 5.9 million workers put the median gap at 11.2 per cent, down 0.9 points. The sanction for missing a target is publication.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/england-scraps-standalone-school-gender-guidance-and-puts-the-rules-in/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/england-scraps-standalone-school-gender-guidance-and-puts-the-rules-in/Two rewritten instruments bind schools in England from 1 September 2026: RSHE guidance telling teachers not to present gender identity as fact, and Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026, published on 7 July after 2,122 consultation responses. The promised standalone gender document was dropped.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/ioc-restores-sex-testing-for-the-2028-female-category-as-the-evidence-/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/ioc-restores-sex-testing-for-the-2028-female-category-as-the-evidence-/On 27 March 2026 the International Olympic Committee limited female Olympic events to athletes without the SRY gene, effective from Los Angeles 2028. A meta-analysis of 52 studies covering 6,485 people, published on 11 February 2026, graded most of its own findings low certainty.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/us-supreme-court-stays-fifth-circuit-order-that-would-have-ended-abort/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/us-supreme-court-stays-fifth-circuit-order-that-would-have-ended-abort/On 14 May 2026 the Supreme Court stayed a Fifth Circuit ruling of 1 May that suspended the FDA's 2023 mifepristone rules nationwide. Thomas and Alito dissented. Medication accounted for 65 per cent of US abortions in 2023, and telehealth for 29 per cent by December 2025.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/two-statistical-agencies-counted-same-sex-couples-in-april-and-warned-/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/two-statistical-agencies-counted-same-sex-couples-in-april-and-warned-/The Office for National Statistics counted about 216,000 civil partner couples in the UK in 2025, against about 48,000 in 2015. Sixteen days earlier the US Census Bureau put same-sex couple households at 1.4 million, up from 777,000 in 2005. Both agencies warned about their own numbers.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/four-countries-on-the-eu-s-new-safe-list-still-jail-people-over-same-s/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/four-countries-on-the-eu-s-new-safe-list-still-jail-people-over-same-s/On 10 February 2026 the European Parliament voted 408 to 184 to create an EU wide safe country of origin list. Four of the seven countries named, Bangladesh, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, imprison people over same-sex conduct, with maximum penalties running from three years to life.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/uk-ad-regulator-bans-an-ai-girlfriend-advert-for-selling-female-compli/https://vjp.news/gender-and-sexuality/uk-ad-regulator-bans-an-ai-girlfriend-advert-for-selling-female-compli/The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a single complaint on 12 August 2026 against EverAI Ltd over a Candy AI advert seen on 13 May, finding breaches of CAP Code rules 1.3, 4.1 and 4.9. It is the third generative AI case under the stereotype rule this year.Gender and SexualitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/paris-court-finds-totalenergies-misled-consumers-on-carbon-neutrality-/https://vjp.news/climate/paris-court-finds-totalenergies-misled-consumers-on-carbon-neutrality-/On 23 October 2025 the tribunal judiciaire de Paris held two TotalEnergies companies liable for misleading commercial practices, ordering 8,000 euros to each of three associations, 15,000 euros in costs and a homepage notice for 180 days. Only three of the disputed communications were condemned.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/copernicus-called-2025-the-third-warmest-year-at-1-47c-nasa-called-it-/https://vjp.news/climate/copernicus-called-2025-the-third-warmest-year-at-1-47c-nasa-called-it-/The Copernicus Climate Change Service published its 2025 figures on 14 January 2026: 14.97C globally, 1.47C above 1850 to 1900, third warmest in ERA5. NASA's release the same day put 2025 effectively level with 2023. The two agencies read the same year differently.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/australia-s-emissions-regulator-recorded-13-4-million-offset-units-sur/https://vjp.news/climate/australia-s-emissions-regulator-recorded-13-4-million-offset-units-sur/The Clean Energy Regulator's 15 April 2026 data put covered emissions at 132.8 million tonnes against baselines of 126.2 million tonnes, with 13.4 million units surrendered to close the gap. Two reports published on 12 August 2026 argue that is compliance without abatement.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/canberra-set-a-62-to-70-per-cent-2035-climate-target-then-projected-a-/https://vjp.news/climate/canberra-set-a-62-to-70-per-cent-2035-climate-target-then-projected-a-/Australia adopted a 2035 target of 62 to 70 per cent below 2005 levels in September 2025. On 27 November 2025 the government tabled projections showing 48 per cent, with emissions over 2031 to 2035 running 20 to 34 per cent above the 1,248 to 1,395 Mt budget the target sets.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/attribution-study-finds-canada-s-peak-fire-week-is-now-five-times-like/https://vjp.news/climate/attribution-study-finds-canada-s-peak-fire-week-is-now-five-times-like/A World Weather Attribution report dated 6 August 2026 finds the worst week of fire weather in the Northwest Territories is now about five times likelier than in a climate 1.4 degrees cooler, its return period falling from 50 years to two. Over 3 million hectares burned, 94 per cent of it in five weeks.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/integrity-council-rules-58-4-million-forest-carbon-credits-cannot-carr/https://vjp.news/climate/integrity-council-rules-58-4-million-forest-carbon-credits-cannot-carr/The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market decided on 30 April 2026, publishing on 11 May, that ART's TREES 2.0 high forest crediting level needs remedial action. The 58.4 million credits already issued under it, about 75 per cent of current CORSIA supply, get no Core Carbon Principles tag.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/nsw-audit-finds-980m-flood-adaptation-programs-began-with-no-business-/https://vjp.news/climate/nsw-audit-finds-980m-flood-adaptation-programs-began-with-no-business-/The NSW Auditor-General's report of 20 May 2026 found the $880 million Resilient Homes Program and the $100 million Resilient Lands Program were not effectively planned. As at 31 March 2026: 793 buybacks settled, 54 resilience works completed, and zero housing lots delivered against 4,382 anticipated.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/australia-s-biggest-gas-plant-was-approved-to-2070-with-48-conditions-/https://vjp.news/climate/australia-s-biggest-gas-plant-was-approved-to-2070-with-48-conditions-/Environment Minister Murray Watt approved Woodside's North West Shelf extension on 12 September 2025 with 48 conditions, among them a 60 per cent cut to nitrous oxide and volatile organic compound emissions by 2030. Four days of Federal Court hearing ended in July 2026 with judgment reserved.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/the-iea-s-113-million-barrels-a-day-figure-is-one-scenario-of-four-not/https://vjp.news/climate/the-iea-s-113-million-barrels-a-day-figure-is-one-scenario-of-four-not/World Energy Outlook 2025, published 12 November 2025, put oil demand at 113 million barrels a day in 2050 under its Current Policies Scenario. Its other exploratory scenario has demand peaking at 102 mb/d around 2030. The IEA says none of the four is a forecast.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/high-court-upholds-uk-student-visa-ban-on-afghan-cameroonian-burmese-a/https://vjp.news/migration/high-court-upholds-uk-student-visa-ban-on-afghan-cameroonian-burmese-a/Mrs Justice Steyn dismissed both challenges to the Student Visa Brake on 12 August 2026. The rule, in force since 26 March 2026, is expected to block about 4,300 student visas over 18 months and cut roughly 1,300 asylum claims.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/abs-puts-australia-s-2025-net-overseas-migration-at-301-000-above-the-/https://vjp.news/migration/abs-puts-australia-s-2025-net-overseas-migration-at-301-000-above-the-/The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded net overseas migration of 301,000 for calendar 2025 on 18 June 2026, with the population at 27,801,023 and annual growth of 412,500. The 2026-27 budget assumes 295,000 this year, falling to 225,000 by 2027-28.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/ombudsman-finds-australia-s-detention-handover-to-a-us-prison-operator/https://vjp.news/migration/ombudsman-finds-australia-s-detention-handover-to-a-us-prison-operator/The Commonwealth Ombudsman's 52 page report of 10 March 2026 found the switch from Serco to Secure Journeys was handled poorly, with no formal policies in place on day one, missed medication rounds, twelve escapes and five failed attempts logged, and four recommendations to Home Affairs.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/uk-migration-advisers-cut-the-shortage-visa-list-to-28-jobs-all-for-18/https://vjp.news/migration/uk-migration-advisers-cut-the-shortage-visa-list-to-28-jobs-all-for-18/The Migration Advisory Committee's Stage 2 report of 23 July 2026 recommends 28 occupations for the Temporary Shortage List, out of 82 it considered, and gives every one of them just 18 months rather than the three years the scheme allows. Fifteen are construction roles, worth about 4,000 visas a year.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/us-supreme-court-affirmed-birthright-citizenship-on-30-june-and-a-new-/https://vjp.news/migration/us-supreme-court-affirmed-birthright-citizenship-on-30-june-and-a-new-/In Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365, decided 30 June 2026, the Supreme Court struck down Executive Order 14160 of 20 January 2025. Five weeks later, on 6 August, a second order carved out four new categories. The dissents ran to 39,891 words, about 70 per cent of the text filed.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/salerno-court-annuls-geo-barents-detention-and-rejects-libyan-orders-a/https://vjp.news/migration/salerno-court-annuls-geo-barents-detention-and-rejects-libyan-orders-a/Judgment 1818/2026, from a hearing on 20 March 2026, quashes a 60 day detention imposed on 26 August 2024 under Italy's decree law 1 of 2023, holding that a Libyan order to leave a distress scene cannot bind a ship's master.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/uk-to-france-returns-treaty-extended-to-october-and-widened-to-cover-p/https://vjp.news/migration/uk-to-france-returns-treaty-extended-to-october-and-widened-to-cover-p/An exchange of letters signed in London on 2 June 2026 and Paris on 8 June 2026 extended the UK to France readmission agreement to 1 October 2026 and created a new class of "Returnee Case". Official data show 1,087 people returned to France and 1,117 admitted to the UK between 6 August 2025 and 30 June 2026.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/migration/audit-finds-us-refugee-agency-missed-80-of-198-required-visits-to-chil/https://vjp.news/migration/audit-finds-us-refugee-agency-missed-80-of-198-required-visits-to-chil/A US inspector general audit issued on 5 June 2026 found the Office of Refugee Resettlement completed 176 of 256 required monitoring visits to 58 unlicensed shelters for unaccompanied children, and that one provider ran state screening instead of FBI fingerprint checks on staff.MigrationSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/justice/louisiana-s-highest-court-frees-a-man-after-27-years-on-death-row-over/https://vjp.news/justice/louisiana-s-highest-court-frees-a-man-after-27-years-on-death-row-over/On 29 June 2026 the Supreme Court of Louisiana affirmed the vacating of Jimmie Duncan's 1998 murder conviction, docket 2025-KP-01014. He spent 27 years on death row on bite mark and autopsy evidence the courts now call indefensible. The district attorney still wants a retrial.JusticeSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/justice/nsw-police-watchdog-found-conflict-of-interest-forms-in-32-per-cent-of/https://vjp.news/justice/nsw-police-watchdog-found-conflict-of-interest-forms-in-32-per-cent-of/The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission's 22 April 2026 review of 67 complaint investigations involving 56 officers found the mandatory conflict of interest form in 21 of 66 applicable matters, and firearms risk assessments in 16 of 40.JusticeSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/justice/crown-court-backlog-holds-at-80-061-as-cases-open-a-year-or-more-hit-2/https://vjp.news/justice/crown-court-backlog-holds-at-80-061-as-cases-open-a-year-or-more-hit-2/Ministry of Justice figures published on 25 June 2026 show 80,061 open Crown Court cases in England and Wales at the end of March, up 5 per cent on the year, with 22,124 open for 12 months or longer, a series peak. Magistrates' courts reached 370,722.JusticeSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/justice/queensland-forensic-lab-audits-more-than-900-dna-statements-after-a-co/https://vjp.news/justice/queensland-forensic-lab-audits-more-than-900-dna-statements-after-a-co/Forensic Science Queensland is checking over 900 statements given to police since 2023. About a third have been reviewed and 10 to 15 per cent carried errors. The director says he cannot rule out an effect on prosecutions. The Attorney-General says outcomes are unaffected.JusticeSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/justice/victorian-inquiry-finds-12-of-26-children-were-remanded-before-turning/https://vjp.news/justice/victorian-inquiry-finds-12-of-26-children-were-remanded-before-turning/A report tabled in the Victorian Parliament on 30 July 2026 reviewed the files of 26 children under youth justice supervision for conduct before age 14. All 26 were known to Child Protection, which received 250 reports about them. Twelve spent an average of 61 days in custody. None was sentenced to custody.JusticeSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/justice/federal-court-approves-548-5m-robodebt-settlement-and-halves-the-litig/https://vjp.news/justice/federal-court-approves-548-5m-robodebt-settlement-and-halves-the-litig/Justice Jonathan Beach approved the settlement on 23 June 2026, set aside the 2021 approval orders, and cut Omni Bridgeway's commission from the proposed $71.25 million to $35 million, leaving about $439.7 million to be assessed and paid to roughly 125,000 registered claimants.JusticeSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/justice/india-s-supreme-court-grew-from-34-judges-to-38-by-ordinance-and-parli/https://vjp.news/justice/india-s-supreme-court-grew-from-34-judges-to-38-by-ordinance-and-parli/The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2026 received assent on 12 August, 88 days after an ordinance made the same change and 71 days after three judges took seats only the ordinance created. The Lok Sabha spent four minutes on the Bill; the Rajya Sabha two hours.JusticeSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/peabody-repaid-4-98m-to-197-coal-workers-then-signed-a-fair-work-under/https://vjp.news/labour/peabody-repaid-4-98m-to-197-coal-workers-then-signed-a-fair-work-under/The Fair Work Ombudsman announced on 6 August 2026 that Peabody Energy Australia Coal rectified $4,982,070, including $988,568 in interest, to 197 former workers at 14 mine sites underpaid between January 2016 and April 2023. No penalty was imposed.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/us-regulator-proposes-794-456-penalty-over-hydrogen-sulfide-deaths-at-/https://vjp.news/labour/us-regulator-proposes-794-456-penalty-over-hydrogen-sulfide-deaths-at-/On 30 July 2026 OSHA issued Woodland Pulp LLC with four wilful and eight serious citations totalling $794,456 after two workers died following a 27 January 2026 hydrogen sulfide release at Baileyville, Maine. Federal investigators say the mill had no fixed gas detectors in the building.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/victorian-teachers-call-off-a-third-strike-after-79-per-cent-back-a-fo/https://vjp.news/labour/victorian-teachers-call-off-a-third-strike-after-79-per-cent-back-a-fo/The Australian Education Union's Victorian branch said on 17 August 2026 that 79 per cent of voting members, on an 83 per cent turnout, accepted rises of 28.3 to 32.4 per cent over four years plus a $2,000 lump sum, ending a dispute that produced stoppages on 24 March and 23 July.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/australia-s-food-delivery-riders-get-an-hourly-floor-today-but-not-emp/https://vjp.news/labour/australia-s-food-delivery-riders-get-an-hourly-floor-today-but-not-emp/An Expert Panel of the Fair Work Commission made the Interim On-Demand Delivery Employee-like Worker Minimum Standards Order on 11 August 2026. From today it sets engaged time floors of $31.30 an hour for bicycles, $31.80 for motorcycles and $32.00 for cars, while leaving every rider a contractor.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/us-court-strikes-down-the-nlrb-successor-bar-that-compelled-new-owners/https://vjp.news/labour/us-court-strikes-down-the-nlrb-successor-bar-that-compelled-new-owners/On 21 July 2026 the D.C. Circuit held 2 to 1 in Hospital Menonita de Guayama v NLRB, No. 22-1163, that the labour board had no statutory power to create the successor bar, a rule adopted in 2011 that blocked any challenge to an incumbent union for up to 12 months after a business changed hands.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/australia-s-wage-umpire-lifted-award-rates-4-75-per-cent-and-rebuilt-t/https://vjp.news/labour/australia-s-wage-umpire-lifted-award-rates-4-75-per-cent-and-rebuilt-t/The Fair Work Commission's decision of 2 June 2026 raised modern award minimums by 4.75 per cent from 1 July, but lifted the lowest ongoing rate and the national minimum wage from $948.00 to $1,004.90 a week, close to 6 per cent, for about 100,000 workers.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/no-policy-no-training-perth-employer-ordered-to-pay-125-238-for-harass/https://vjp.news/labour/no-policy-no-training-perth-employer-ordered-to-pay-125-238-for-harass/On 21 May 2026 the Federal Circuit and Family Court ordered a Perth heating and cooling business and its sole director to pay $125,238.43 to a 20-year-old worker: $100,000 in general damages, $15,000 aggravated, $10,238.43 for economic loss. The company had no sexual harassment policy and no training.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/tribunal-orders-90-day-protective-awards-for-1-687-workers-dismissed-a/https://vjp.news/labour/tribunal-orders-90-day-protective-awards-for-1-687-workers-dismissed-a/A London employment tribunal ruled on 13 March 2026 that four ISG companies broke the collective consultation duty in section 188 and ordered 90-day protective awards for 1,687 people dismissed from 20 September 2024. The state pays only eight weeks of it, capped, and the rest ranks as an unsecured claim.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/australia-added-76-300-jobs-in-june-yet-underemployment-rose-to-6-5-pe/https://vjp.news/labour/australia-added-76-300-jobs-in-june-yet-underemployment-rose-to-6-5-pe/The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded a 76,300 person rise in employment for June 2026 when it reported on 23 July, but 47,000 of those jobs were part time and underemployment climbed 0.2 points to 6.5 per cent. On 11 August the Reserve Bank held the cash rate at 4.35 per cent.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/us-adds-43-chinese-companies-to-forced-labour-import-ban-taking-the-li/https://vjp.news/labour/us-adds-43-chinese-companies-to-forced-labour-import-ban-taking-the-li/A Federal Register notice dated 3 August 2026 adds 43 entities to the UFLPA Entity List, a rise of about 30 per cent and the largest single expansion since 2022. Nine days earlier Australia was hit with a 12.5 per cent US tariff for having no forced labour import ban of its own.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/south-korea-s-chip-law-took-effect-on-11-august-without-the-52-hour-ex/https://vjp.news/labour/south-korea-s-chip-law-took-effect-on-11-august-without-the-52-hour-ex/The Semiconductor Special Act commenced on 11 August 2026 with the working hours carve out stripped out. The fight has moved to a separate zone bill, while OECD figures put Korean hours at 1,833 in 2025, 97 above the 1,736 average.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/federal-court-fines-mercer-super-10-3m-over-three-years-of-unreported-/https://vjp.news/labour/federal-court-fines-mercer-super-10-3m-over-three-years-of-unreported-/Justice Button ordered Mercer Superannuation (Australia) Limited on 26 June 2026 to pay $10.3 million plus $1.2 million in costs for 15 breach reporting failures and three false reports to ASIC, across a fund holding $79.8 billion for 1,062,008 members.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/australia-s-official-income-and-wealth-survey-has-been-dark-since-2019/https://vjp.news/inequality/australia-s-official-income-and-wealth-survey-has-been-dark-since-2019/The last published Australian survey of income and wealth covers 2019-20. The 2023-24 collection, taken from about 30,000 households, was scrapped on 17 July 2025, and replacement results are not due until mid 2027. Quarterly aggregates still put household net worth at $19,211.9 billion.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/pakistan-s-first-household-survey-since-2019-pushed-a-regional-poverty/https://vjp.news/inequality/pakistan-s-first-household-survey-since-2019-pushed-a-regional-poverty/The World Bank's 26 March 2026 data update raised its 2024 extreme poverty estimate from 839 million to 847 million people. Most of the movement sits in one region, where the rate went from 11.8 to 14.4 per cent after Pakistan's first household survey since 2018-19 entered the database.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/australia-s-housing-council-reports-record-rent-burden-of-33-1-per-cen/https://vjp.news/inequality/australia-s-housing-council-reports-record-rent-burden-of-33-1-per-cen/The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council's State of the Housing System 2026, released 30 April 2026, puts a new lease at 33.1 per cent of median household income and a 20 per cent deposit at 11.2 years to save, both records, even as supply improves.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/treasury-delays-action-on-wealthy-tax-audit-as-rich-share-of-uk-tax-ga/https://vjp.news/inequality/treasury-delays-action-on-wealthy-tax-audit-as-rich-share-of-uk-tax-ga/The Public Accounts Committee reported on 16 July 2025 that HMRC recovered £5.2 billion from wealthy taxpayers, up from £2.2 billion in 2019-20. On 4 June 2026 the Treasury pushed nearly every follow-up to autumn 2026, and on 23 June HMRC put the wealthy share of a £59.2 billion tax gap at 6%, up from 4%.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/indigenous-suicide-rate-rose-to-33-9-per-100-000-in-2024-closing-the-g/https://vjp.news/inequality/indigenous-suicide-rate-rose-to-33-9-per-100-000-in-2024-closing-the-g/The Productivity Commission's 29 July 2026 data compilation finds four of 19 targets worsening, including suicide, up from 23.6 per 100,000 in 2018. The life expectancy gap of 8.8 years for males is still scored on figures that stop in 2022.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/analysis-of-australia-s-2026-naplan-data-puts-the-year-9-numeracy-gap-/https://vjp.news/inequality/analysis-of-australia-s-2026-naplan-data-puts-the-year-9-numeracy-gap-/ACARA's 2026 NAPLAN results, released on 5 August, put 66.3 per cent of students at Strong or Exceeding in reading, down from 68.2 per cent in 2025. In very remote schools the figure is 23.1 per cent, against 70.0 per cent in major cities.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/victoria-accepts-28-of-34-regional-housing-recommendations-and-puts-th/https://vjp.news/inequality/victoria-accepts-28-of-34-regional-housing-recommendations-and-puts-th/The Victorian Government's response to the regional housing inquiry, dated May 2026, supports six recommendations in full, seven in part and 15 in principle, leaves four under review and rejects one. At March 2025, 48,443 social housing applications preferenced regional areas.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/britain-scrapped-the-two-child-limit-on-6-april-and-the-benefit-cap-ke/https://vjp.news/inequality/britain-scrapped-the-two-child-limit-on-6-april-and-the-benefit-cap-ke/The rule fell after nine years. Figures published on 8 July show 495,990 households and 1,752,200 children were still caught by it in April 2026. Of 478,120 losing child money, 436,780 will gain. The rest hit a cap that held 115,000 households in February.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/first-nations-adults-jailed-at-16-8-times-the-non-indigenous-rate-prod/https://vjp.news/inequality/first-nations-adults-jailed-at-16-8-times-the-non-indigenous-rate-prod/The sixth Closing the Gap data report, released 29 July 2026, puts the age-standardised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate at 2,500.2 per 100,000 adults at 30 June 2025, up from 1,925.4 in 2019, and 16.8 times the non-Indigenous rate against 11.2 times six years earlier.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/women-reach-67-with-105-000-in-pension-savings-men-with-232-000-uk-fig/https://vjp.news/inequality/women-reach-67-with-105-000-in-pension-savings-men-with-232-000-uk-fig/Mercer, now:pensions and the Pensions Policy Institute put a woman's savings at 67 at £105,000 against a man's £232,000, a gap of £127,000. Official DWP statistics measure the gap at 48 per cent among 55 to 59 year olds. Participation is equal. The money is not.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/ombudsman-logs-27-882-country-telco-complaints-and-asks-for-a-root-and/https://vjp.news/inequality/ombudsman-logs-27-882-country-telco-complaints-and-asks-for-a-root-and/The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman's report of 13 August 2026 draws on 27,882 complaints from outside the major cities over two financial years, 25.3 per cent of its caseload, and makes twelve recommendations while the ACCC weighs mandatory roaming.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/inequality/australia-swapped-its-inflation-benchmark-for-one-with-18-months-of-hi/https://vjp.news/inequality/australia-swapped-its-inflation-benchmark-for-one-with-18-months-of-hi/On 26 November 2025 the complete monthly CPI replaced the quarterly series as Australia's headline inflation measure and the Reserve Bank's target variable. The Reserve Bank had warned three weeks earlier that 46 per cent of the basket by weight lacked the three years of data standard seasonal adjustment requires.InequalitySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/arizona-s-top-court-says-churches-not-judges-decide-what-clergy-must-r/https://vjp.news/religion/arizona-s-top-court-says-churches-not-judges-decide-what-clergy-must-r/The Supreme Court of Arizona ruled unanimously on 30 July 2026 that the First Amendment bars courts from asking whether clergy read their own doctrine correctly when they withhold a confession of child abuse. Twelve days later it narrowed the privilege in a second case.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/us-supreme-court-rules-rastafarian-prisoner-cannot-sue-guards-who-shav/https://vjp.news/religion/us-supreme-court-rules-rastafarian-prisoner-cannot-sue-guards-who-shav/The United States Supreme Court held on 23 June 2026, by 6 votes to 3, that Damon Landor cannot sue the Louisiana prison officers who handcuffed him to a chair and shaved off hair he had vowed not to cut for close to twenty years. The statute at issue dates from 2000.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/two-rival-polls-put-australia-s-no-religion-count-28-points-apart-befo/https://vjp.news/religion/two-rival-polls-put-australia-s-no-religion-count-28-points-apart-befo/The 2021 census recorded 38.9 per cent with no religion. Weeks before the 11 August 2026 count, one commissioned poll of about 2,000 people put the true figure at 54 per cent, and another of 5,012 people modelled it at 26 per cent. Same question, opposite verdicts.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/charity-regulator-removes-church-s-sole-trustee-after-652-030-of-gift-/https://vjp.news/religion/charity-regulator-removes-church-s-sole-trustee-after-652-030-of-gift-/The Charity Commission's inquiry report of 29 June 2026 into Jesus Power House Ministries Ltd found £652,030.18 in Gift Aid claimed without supporting records, £33,999.78 moved to personal accounts and £135,997.80 of equipment unaccounted for. The trustee was removed on 19 May 2025.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/texas-classrooms-must-post-the-ten-commandments-after-a-nine-to-eight-/https://vjp.news/religion/texas-classrooms-must-post-the-ten-commandments-after-a-nine-to-eight-/The Fifth Circuit split 9 to 8 on 21 April 2026 to uphold Senate Bill 10, which orders a 16 by 20 inch Ten Commandments poster in every Texas public school classroom. The majority says Stone v. Graham (1980) is a dead letter. Eight judges say only the Supreme Court can kill it.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/lakemba-mosque-returns-to-sydney-planning-panel-after-2025-refusal-of-/https://vjp.news/religion/lakemba-mosque-returns-to-sydney-planning-panel-after-2025-refusal-of-/Canterbury-Bankstown's independent planning panel considered four minaret loudspeakers in August 2025 after 328 submissions and modelling predicting 92 decibels. A revised application, DA-518/2026, was exhibited from 20 May to 9 June 2026 and remains undetermined.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/northern-ireland-mlas-vote-57-to-24-to-abolish-the-uk-s-last-blasphemy/https://vjp.news/religion/northern-ireland-mlas-vote-57-to-24-to-abolish-the-uk-s-last-blasphemy/On 9 June 2026 the Northern Ireland Assembly voted 57 to 24 for amendment No 73 to the Justice Bill, abolishing the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. There has never been a prosecution for blasphemy in Northern Ireland, and the last such trial in Ireland was in 1855.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/nigerian-appeal-court-upholds-a-school-hijab-ban-because-the-school-ta/https://vjp.news/religion/nigerian-appeal-court-upholds-a-school-hijab-ban-because-the-school-ta/On 3 July 2026 the Court of Appeal in Ibadan ruled two to one that 11 Muslim girls at the International School, University of Ibadan may not wear the hijab, holding the school private and outside the Supreme Court's 2022 precedent. Five days later the same court froze its own judgment until 7 October.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/australia-logs-steepest-antisemitism-rise-in-j7-report-built-from-seve/https://vjp.news/religion/australia-logs-steepest-antisemitism-rise-in-j7-report-built-from-seve/The J7 task force's second annual report, published 5 August 2026, records 1,654 antisemitic incidents in Australia for 2025 and a 270 per cent rise since 2021, the largest of seven countries. Its own tables draw on a community register here and on police data in Canada.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/us-supreme-court-leaves-standing-the-rule-that-state-law-can-defeat-a-/https://vjp.news/religion/us-supreme-court-leaves-standing-the-rule-that-state-law-can-defeat-a-/On 29 June 2026 the Supreme Court refused to hear Doe v. Hochul, docket 24-1015, over the dissent of three justices, leaving intact a Second Circuit rule that breaching a state vaccine regulation is automatically an undue hardship under Title VII. A second ruling followed on 15 July.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/religion/clergy-conduct-measure-gains-royal-assent-repealing-the-church-of-engl/https://vjp.news/religion/clergy-conduct-measure-gains-royal-assent-repealing-the-church-of-engl/The Clergy Conduct Measure 2026 became law on 8 July 2026 after Parliament's Ecclesiastical Committee blocked an earlier draft over private hearings. General Synod approved the amended text on 10 February 2026 by 21 to nil, 142 to nil with three abstentions, and 149 to nil.ReligionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/australians-seeing-friends-weekly-fell-from-68-to-53-per-cent-abs-2025/https://vjp.news/society/australians-seeing-friends-weekly-fell-from-68-to-53-per-cent-abs-2025/The Australian Bureau of Statistics released the 2025 General Social Survey on 6 May 2026: weekly in person contact with family and friends outside the household sat at 53 per cent, against 67.8 per cent in 2019. Trust fell to 50 per cent from 61 per cent. Measured loneliness, on other data, has not moved.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/casey-social-care-commission-told-to-report-in-2027-a-year-earlier-tha/https://vjp.news/society/casey-social-care-commission-told-to-report-in-2027-a-year-earlier-tha/England's independent commission into adult social care, set up in 2025 to report by 2028, was told on 29 July 2026 to deliver by summer 2027. A&E attendances by over-65s rose from 3.3 million in 2011/12 to 5.8 million in 2024/25. The Nuffield Trust puts the bill for a largely free system at 18 billion pounds.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/nsw-police-recorded-473-coercive-control-incidents-in-18-months-and-la/https://vjp.news/society/nsw-police-recorded-473-coercive-control-incidents-in-18-months-and-la/The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research published its coercive control monitoring report on 18 March 2026. Police recorded 473 incidents in the offence's first 18 months and 22 charges were laid. Five had been finalised: one proven, four withdrawn. Seventeen remained before the courts.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/regulators-fined-evolution-4-75m-pounds-and-keno-victoria-75-000-eight/https://vjp.news/society/regulators-fined-evolution-4-75m-pounds-and-keno-victoria-75-000-eight/On 15 July 2026 Victoria's gambling regulator fined Keno (VIC) $75,000 after a self-excluded customer opened a second account and gambled. Eight days later Britain's Gambling Commission said Evolution Malta would pay 4,750,000 pounds over games on six unlicensed sites.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/ofcom-tells-social-media-firms-to-abandon-age-inference-as-australia-s/https://vjp.news/society/ofcom-tells-social-media-firms-to-abandon-age-inference-as-australia-s/Ofcom's age assurance report of 15 July 2026 found the share of children meeting highly effective age checks rose from 25% to 43% in six months, but rejected the age inference models big platforms rely on. Two weeks later Australia's eSafety Commissioner reported 81.5% of 10 to 15 year olds still using social media.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/australia-s-formal-volunteering-rate-holds-at-22-6-per-cent-while-volu/https://vjp.news/society/australia-s-formal-volunteering-rate-holds-at-22-6-per-cent-while-volu/The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its General Social Survey on 6 May 2026: 22.6 per cent of people aged 15 and over, about 5,007,000 people, volunteered through an organisation. Total hours rose to 618 million from 490 million in 2020. Two state surveys put participation near 60 to 70 per cent.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/canberra-put-3-8b-more-into-melbourne-s-rail-loop-on-evidence-the-publ/https://vjp.news/society/canberra-put-3-8b-more-into-melbourne-s-rail-loop-on-evidence-the-publ/On 8 May 2026 the Commonwealth added $3.8 billion to Suburban Rail Loop East, lifting its stake to $6 billion in a $34.5 billion project. Infrastructure Australia's own evaluation, dated 31 January 2025, said the case was overstated and set three conditions that remain unpublished.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/un-puts-world-hunger-at-645-million-as-a-healthy-diet-climbs-to-4-28-d/https://vjp.news/society/un-puts-world-hunger-at-645-million-as-a-healthy-diet-climbs-to-4-28-d/The five agency State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, released on 21 July 2026, found 7.8 per cent of people hungry in 2025, a third straight annual fall, while 2.69 billion still could not afford a healthy diet and Africa's hungry rose to 309 million.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/england-s-rough-sleeping-snapshot-found-4-793-on-one-night-its-own-mon/https://vjp.news/society/england-s-rough-sleeping-snapshot-found-4-793-on-one-night-its-own-mon/The autumn 2025 snapshot, published 26 February 2026, recorded 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night, a record. The same department's monthly series counted 8,010 over December 2025. Only 51 of 296 councils ran an actual street count.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/australia-rebuilt-childcare-regulation-in-a-year-but-cannot-yet-measur/https://vjp.news/society/australia-rebuilt-childcare-regulation-in-a-year-but-cannot-yet-measur/Victoria's Rapid Child Safety Review reported on 15 August 2025 with 22 recommendations, accepted in full five days later with $42 million attached. Two new state regulators now operate. The latest national figures, updated 3 June 2026, still cover 2024-25, when serious incidents hit 159.8 per 100 approved services.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/society/uk-spending-watchdog-finds-national-museums-stable-as-524-local-museum/https://vjp.news/society/uk-spending-watchdog-finds-national-museums-stable-as-524-local-museum/The National Audit Office reported on 9 March 2026 that England's 15 nationally sponsored museums took £484 million in grant in aid and drew 42 million visits. A separate count found 524 UK museums closed between 2000 and 2025, more than half of them council run.SocietySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/democracy/two-years-after-snyder-federal-corruption-law-covers-bribes-but-not-re/https://vjp.news/democracy/two-years-after-snyder-federal-corruption-law-covers-bribes-but-not-re/The Supreme Court held in June 2024 that the statute barring state and local officials from accepting anything of value reaches bribes but not gratuities, overturning the conviction of an Indiana mayor who took $13,000 from a firm he had steered $1 million in contracts to. Prosecutors have been adjusting ever since.DemocracySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/corruption/a-brooklyn-jury-convicted-a-former-goldman-sachs-banker-of-paying-more/https://vjp.news/corruption/a-brooklyn-jury-convicted-a-former-goldman-sachs-banker-of-paying-more/Asante Kwako Berko, 52, was found guilty on 6 August 2026 of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, violating it, and money laundering conspiracy. Prosecutors said he bribed officials across several levels of the Ghanaian government so a Turkish client of his bank would win the contract.CorruptionSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/money/hsbc-australia-s-35-million-scam-penalty-covers-five-separate-failures/https://vjp.news/money/hsbc-australia-s-35-million-scam-penalty-covers-five-separate-failures/The notice the Federal Court ordered HSBC to publish on 7 July 2026 sets out five distinct contraventions running from January 2020 to November 2024. ASIC records an average of 144 days to investigate a scam report, $21.5 million paid in compensation and $6.5 million recovered.MoneySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/money/record-300-2-million-in-cfd-penalties-and-the-two-firms-profited-when-/https://vjp.news/money/record-300-2-million-in-cfd-penalties-and-the-two-firms-profited-when-/Justice Wigney ordered $156.7 million against Union Standard, $114.1 million against EuropeFX and $29.4 million against TradeFred on 12 June 2026. Customer losses exceeded $83 million, and the two authorised representatives profited from client losses in 95 to 99 per cent of cases.MoneySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/money/snaffle-charged-interest-on-the-full-contract-price-not-the-balance-ac/https://vjp.news/money/snaffle-charged-interest-on-the-full-contract-price-not-the-balance-ac/Justice Beach ordered a $33.5 million penalty against Walker Stores, trading as Snaffle, on 18 May 2026. Interest was applied to the total contract amount rather than the declining unpaid balance, producing almost $20 million in excess interest across contracts written from September 2021.MoneySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/money/westpac-penalised-26-million-after-1-013-online-hardship-applications-/https://vjp.news/money/westpac-penalised-26-million-after-1-013-online-hardship-applications-/Justice McEvoy imposed the penalty on 26 May 2026 for 277 hardship notices that never received a written decision. The wider finding is larger: at least 1,013 online applications from 1,003 customers were not properly transferred or processed between October 2015 and June 2023.MoneySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/money/mercer-super-fined-10-3-million-for-eight-investigations-it-reported-l/https://vjp.news/money/mercer-super-fined-10-3-million-for-eight-investigations-it-reported-l/Justice Button's judgment of 26 June 2026 splits the penalty three ways and records what the unreported investigations were about: insurance premiums charged after a member's death, accounts never updated, and death and disability cover not provided.MoneySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/money/about-11-000-people-put-1-1-billion-into-first-guardian-and-shield-and/https://vjp.news/money/about-11-000-people-put-1-1-billion-into-first-guardian-and-shield-and/ASIC recorded fewer than 2,000 complaints lodged with AFCA as at February 2026, against roughly 11,000 investors. By then about 4,000 consumers had received around $421 million through court enforceable undertakings, and Netwealth had paid about $101 million.MoneySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/money/court-finds-13-of-14-coles-down-down-tickets-misled-and-points-to-12-w/https://vjp.news/money/court-finds-13-of-14-coles-down-down-tickets-misled-and-points-to-12-w/Justice O'Bryan's judgment of 14 May 2026 found the sample tickets misleading because the higher price had not applied for a reasonable period. He referred to Coles' own policy, which until early 2022 required 12 weeks at the higher price before a promotion.MoneySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/hollywood/hollywood-s-site-blocking-bill-builds-a-court-process-most-blocked-sit/https://vjp.news/hollywood/hollywood-s-site-blocking-bill-builds-a-court-process-most-blocked-sit/The Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act, introduced on 29 January 2025 as H.R. 791, gives a foreign website 30 days to contest a blocking petition. Supporters and critics agree most of those sites will not appear, which is what the argument is really about.HollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/hollywood/a-vacated-new-york-conviction-is-why-a-california-court-has-ordered-we/https://vjp.news/hollywood/a-vacated-new-york-conviction-is-why-a-california-court-has-ordered-we/On 26 June 2026 California's Second District Court of Appeal upheld Harvey Weinstein's Los Angeles conviction but set aside the 16 year sentence, because the trial judge had treated his New York convictions as an aggravating factor and those convictions no longer exist.HollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/hollywood/the-it-ends-with-us-case-ended-on-privilege-and-employment-status-not-/https://vjp.news/hollywood/the-it-ends-with-us-case-ended-on-privilege-and-employment-status-not-/Both sides claimed vindication. Judge Lewis J. Liman decided narrower things: that allegations in a lawsuit cannot be defamation, and that a performer engaged as an independent contractor could not bring a federal harassment claim. The case settled on 4 May 2026 with no payment.HollywoodSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/fourteen-months-after-the-ahmedabad-crash-india-s-accident-bureau-stil/https://vjp.news/india/fourteen-months-after-the-ahmedabad-crash-india-s-accident-bureau-stil/The AAIB told the Supreme Court on 14 June 2026 that a draft final report on the Air India 787 crash, which killed 260 people on 12 June 2025, would come in October 2026. Its preliminary report found no mechanical fault and issued no safety recommendations.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/jane-street-paid-4-843-crore-rupees-into-escrow-and-resumed-trading-an/https://vjp.news/india/jane-street-paid-4-843-crore-rupees-into-escrow-and-resumed-trading-an/SEBI impounded Rs 4,843.57 crore from four Jane Street entities on an interim order in July 2025 and barred them from Indian markets. The firm deposited the money, the ban was lifted within weeks, and thirteen months later there is no final order and no tribunal ruling.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/the-supreme-court-upheld-bihar-s-roll-revision-and-sent-deleted-voters/https://vjp.news/india/the-supreme-court-upheld-bihar-s-roll-revision-and-sent-deleted-voters/On 27 May 2026 a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi upheld the Special Intensive Revision of Bihar's electoral rolls. The directions attached to that ruling require every citizenship ground deletion to be referred to a Competent Authority within four weeks.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/coldrif-tests-reported-up-to-48-6-per-cent-diethylene-glycol-and-the-p/https://vjp.news/india/coldrif-tests-reported-up-to-48-6-per-cent-diethylene-glycol-and-the-p/WHO issued Medical Product Alert No 5/2025 on 13 October 2025 naming three Indian oral liquid medicines. Reported contamination runs from about 45 to 48.6 per cent diethylene glycol, against a permissible limit given variously as 0.1 and 0.01 per cent.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/india-shut-a-23-billion-dollar-online-gaming-industry-by-statute-befor/https://vjp.news/india/india-shut-a-23-billion-dollar-online-gaming-industry-by-statute-befor/The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 received assent on 22 August 2025 and its prohibition took effect on 1 May 2026. The consolidated constitutional challenge was listed for 5 August 2026, by which time the industry had already been closed for three months.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/india-has-notified-40-census-questions-including-caste-the-first-such-/https://vjp.news/india/india-has-notified-40-census-questions-including-caste-the-first-such-/The Registrar General has notified a 40 question population schedule carrying a caste column, alongside a houselisting phase running 1 April to 30 September 2026 and enumeration in February 2027. The instrument is digital, and about 30 lakh field staff will carry it.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/india/india-s-25-per-cent-oil-penalty-ended-by-executive-order-but-the-18-pe/https://vjp.news/india/india-s-25-per-cent-oil-penalty-ended-by-executive-order-but-the-18-pe/Executive Order 14384 took effect at 12:01am on 7 February 2026, deleting the Russian oil tariff on Indian goods. Customs guidance issued on 9 February confirms the separate reciprocal tariff still stands. The 18 per cent figure appears only in a joint statement.IndiaSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/health/the-americas-lost-measles-elimination-in-november-2025-and-the-united-/https://vjp.news/health/the-americas-lost-measles-elimination-in-november-2025-and-the-united-/PAHO's commission met in Mexico City from 4 to 7 November 2025, found Canada had re-established endemic transmission, and the region lost verification on 10 November. The United States is reviewed in November 2026 against an analysis period starting 20 January 2025.HealthSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/health/us-vaccine-advisers-voted-8-to-3-to-end-the-universal-hepatitis-b-birt/https://vjp.news/health/us-vaccine-advisers-voted-8-to-3-to-end-the-universal-hepatitis-b-birt/ACIP voted on 5 December 2025 to move hepatitis B vaccination of infants born to mothers testing negative from universal recommendation to individual based decision making. The birth dose stays where the mother tests positive or has not been tested.HealthSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/health/australia-doubled-its-draft-pfos-drinking-water-limit-to-8-nanograms-p/https://vjp.news/health/australia-doubled-its-draft-pfos-drinking-water-limit-to-8-nanograms-p/The NHMRC published updated PFAS values for the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines on 30 June 2025: PFOS 8 ng/L, PFOA 200 ng/L, PFHxS 30 ng/L, PFBS 1000 ng/L. Three were unchanged from the October 2024 draft. PFOS was revised upward by a factor of two.HealthSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/about-half-the-money-in-the-terminated-nih-grants-had-already-been-spe/https://vjp.news/science/about-half-the-money-in-the-terminated-nih-grants-had-already-been-spe/A PNAS analysis published on 23 March 2026 finds 2,291 active NIH grants terminated between 28 February and 22 August 2025, drawn from $5.08 billion committed, of which $2.45 billion was withdrawn and roughly 52 per cent had already been spent.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/science/isotopes-in-comet-3i-atlas-point-to-an-old-metal-poor-star-with-very-w/https://vjp.news/science/isotopes-in-comet-3i-atlas-point-to-an-old-metal-poor-star-with-very-w/ESO announced on 6 July 2026 the first isotopic fingerprint of a comet formed outside the Solar System. The VLT measured a carbon ratio of 147 and a nitrogen ratio of 343 in cyanide. The nitrogen figure carries an uncertainty of plus 454 and minus 124.ScienceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/iea-puts-data-centres-at-485-twh-in-2025-and-950-twh-by-2030-while-rev/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/iea-puts-data-centres-at-485-twh-in-2025-and-950-twh-by-2030-while-rev/The International Energy Agency's 16 April 2026 update has data centres using 485 TWh in 2025, rising to about 950 TWh by 2030, with demand up 17 per cent against global electricity growth of 3 per cent. A 2025 review of more than 100 studies found 2030 projections ranging from just over 200 TWh to nearly 8,000 TWh.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/a-us-court-has-ruled-workday-s-ai-bias-testing-privileged-because-its-/https://vjp.news/artificial-intelligence/a-us-court-has-ruled-workday-s-ai-bias-testing-privileged-because-its-/In a discovery order filed on 29 May 2026 in Mobley v Workday, the Northern District of California refused to compel Workday's bias-testing data, holding it covered by attorney-client privilege. It also refused the applicant data of Workday's customers, while ordering EEO-1 and OFCCP filings produced.Artificial IntelligenceSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/technology/esafety-s-own-report-shows-five-million-accounts-gone-and-most-under-1/https://vjp.news/technology/esafety-s-own-report-shows-five-million-accounts-gone-and-most-under-1/eSafety's March 2026 compliance update records 4.7 million age-restricted accounts removed or restricted by mid-December 2025 and 300,000 more by early March 2026, while five platforms are under investigation. A separate evaluation put under-16 use at above 81 per cent, down from about 86.TechnologySun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/human-rights/eu-top-court-finds-hungary-s-2021-anti-lgbti-law-breaches-the-union-s-/https://vjp.news/human-rights/eu-top-court-finds-hungary-s-2021-anti-lgbti-law-breaches-the-union-s-/In Case C-769/22 on 21 April 2026, all 27 judges of the Court of Justice held that Hungary's “child protection” Act LXXIX of 2021 stigmatises LGBTI people and breaches Article 2 of the EU Treaty on its own. Repeal has still not been recorded.Human RightsSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/labour/unsw-to-repay-32-7-million-to-33-069-staff-under-fair-work-undertaking/https://vjp.news/labour/unsw-to-repay-32-7-million-to-33-069-staff-under-fair-work-undertaking/The University of New South Wales signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman on 3 July 2026 covering underpayments from 2014 to 2023. A court had already fined it $213,120 for record keeping so poor the regulator could not verify what casual academics were owed.LabourSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000https://vjp.news/climate/paris-court-orders-totalenergies-to-put-customer-emissions-in-its-vigi/https://vjp.news/climate/paris-court-orders-totalenergies-to-put-customer-emissions-in-its-vigi/The Paris Judicial Court ruled on 25 June 2026 that France's 2017 duty of vigilance law covers climate risk, and that emissions from burning TotalEnergies products, close to 90 per cent of its footprint, must be mapped. The company appealed on 27 July 2026.ClimateSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1000