AAP Rolling News Bulletin for May 20 at 1700
Iran (SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON)
Two Chinese tankers laden with oil have left the Strait of Hormuz, brightening hopes that the US-Israeli conflict with Iran may soon be resolved after positive comments from the US president and his deputy.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the war would be over "very quickly" while Vice President JD Vance talked up progress in talks with Tehran about an agreement to end hostilities.
"We're in a pretty good spot here," Vance told a White House press briefing.
Trump made his comments a day after saying he had paused a planned resumption of hostilities following a new proposal by Tehran to end the conflict.
"I was an hour away from making the decision to go today," Trump told reporters at the White House.
Legal: Killer (SYDNEY)
Australia's youngest murderer has lost a bid to overturn a conviction as his brags about hiding disturbing material on his phone are revealed.
The man, known for legal reasons as SLD, has spent almost two-thirds of his life in jail after the then-13-year-old abducted and fatally stabbed his three-year-old neighbour Courtney Morley-Clarke on the NSW Central Coast in 2001.
Upon his release in April 2023, he was subject to a slew of strict conditions enforced by community corrections officers tasked with supervising the institutionalised man and protecting the community.
He was jailed again for 18 months in October that year after approaching a mother and her partially undressed 10-month old son at a beach in Wollongong.
The now 39-year-old failed to overturn his conviction for that breach on Wednesday.
Housing (CANBERRA)
Changing car parking requirements could shave about $70,000 off the cost of building a typical two-bedroom apartment in Sydney.
A report from the Grattan Institute revealed more than $1 billion is wasted on building off-street car parks that go unused.
Despite rules requiring new housing developments to include off-street parking, about 40 per cent of households in studio or one-bedroom apartments and 19 per cent of households in two-bedroom apartments don't own a car.
"Many people who live in apartments don't want or need car parking, but they are forced to pay for it anyway," Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally said.
Developers would still build parking spaces demanded by the market if parking minimums were removed.
But it would prevent the need to build more than $1 billion in unwanted off-street parking per year, lowering the cost of construction and making an additional 140,000 dwellings feasible in Sydney and Melbourne, the report said.
Legal: Plane Boy (MELBOURNE)
Prosecutors have claimed a teen accused of trying to hijack a commercial plane was politically motivated as they pushed for his case to be heard in a higher court.
The now-19-year-old is accused of bringing a firearm and fake bomb onto an aircraft at Avalon Airport, southwest of Melbourne, in March 2025.
About 160 passengers were on board the Jetstar plane, which was due to fly to Sydney.
The teen, who was 17 at the time, appeared in a children's court via video link on Wednesday as prosecutors applied for his case to be heard in either the county or supreme courts.
The prosecutor argued the penalties available in the children's court - a maximum sentence of a two-year supervision order - were inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the alleged crime.
Legal: Latham (SYDNEY)
Firebrand MP Mark Latham has avoided airing dirty laundry in court after his ex-partner abandoned her bid for an apprehended violence order over abuse claims.
Nathalie Matthews, 38, had alleged Mr Latham had subjected her to sustained emotional and physical abuse, but the court application for the order was withdrawn by consent on Wednesday.
Mr Latham's lawyer told reporters outside Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court it was a good result for her client, who was excused from attending.
"The (apprehended violence order) application has been withdrawn and dismissed," Zali Burrows said.
Mr Latham - who is an independent in the NSW upper house - had repeatedly denied the allegations and has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing.
The dismissal of the application means a three-day hearing scheduled to begin on Wednesday has been vacated.
Budget (CANBERRA)
Most small businesses won't be affected by changes to capital gains tax, government ministers insist, despite criticism from the sector on the budget measures.
As the coalition prepares to unveil its support measures for small businesses on Wednesday, ministers brushed off concerns entrepreneurs could take their investments overseas due to the changes.
The federal budget outlined changes to the capital gains tax, which would replace a 50 per cent discount for assets held for more than a year to a rate based on inflation.
Federal minister Sam Rae said most businesses won't be subject to the capital gains measures.
"Ninety per cent of small businesses will have their quite generous capital gains arrangements preserved, there's no change to that," he told Nine's Today program on Wednesday.
Ebola (BUNIA)
The head of the World Health Organisation has expressed concern over the "scale and speed" of an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola known as Bundibugyo in eastern Congo, where authorities report 134 deaths and more than 500 suspected cases.
The virus spread undetected for weeks after the first known death as authorities tested for a more common type of Ebola and came up negative, health experts and aid workers said on Tuesday. The Bundibugyo virus has no approved medicines or vaccines.
Congo was expecting shipments from the United States and Britain of an experimental vaccine for different types of Ebola, developed by researchers at Oxford, said Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a virus expert at the National Institute of Biomedical Research.
Booker (LONDON)
Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King have won the International Booker Prize for Taiwan Travelogue, a historical romance set in Japan-occupied Taiwan in the 1930s.
It is the first novel written in Mandarin Chinese to win the prestigious prize for fiction translated into English.
The book follows a Japanese novelist with a "monstrous appetite" as she goes on a culinary tour through 1930s Japan-occupied Taiwan, with the help from a local interpreter.
The "captivating" novel, which was originally published in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 before being published in English in March, explores themes of colonialism, power, class and love.
British novelist Natasha Brown, who chaired the judging panel, called it a "captivating, wryly sophisticated" book that plays with themes of language and power and offers the reader surprises along the way.
In finance ...
Fuel (CANBERRA)
Australia's mining industry is using a quarter more diesel than it did four years ago just to achieve the same output, despite fuel shortages crippling the nation.
Every major Australian coal mining company is using more fuel now than in 2021/22, modelling from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis shows.
But even as the price of diesel skyrockets due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, fuel intensity rates are locked in, due to Australia's mining sector not yet having the ability to move to alternatives.
Workers also have to dig deeper in open-cut mines to reach coal seams than they did in previous years.
With large volumes of dirt and rock having to be removed, more fuel is burned as a result
Budget Housing (CANBERRA)
Holly Nebauer is waiting for a call from a real estate agent as her daughter, three-year-old Indy, plays at her ankles.
The 31-year-old and her fiance are hoping to secure their forever home in Bungendore, about 40 kilometres out of Canberra.
It will be the third property the couple has bought since 2020, having sold their first one. They expect to list their current house on the market soon.
Their first home, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouse in Canberra's north, cost $466,000 at the start of the pandemic and sold for almost $200,000 more a year-and-a-half later.
Ms Nebauer says she invested in the share market as a way to buy property and is now coaching her younger sister to do the same, despite federal budget changes to the capital gains tax and negative gearing.
In entertainment ...
Arts Opera (MELBOURNE)
Opera Australia's latest performance is less Verdi's La Traviata, and more AC/DC's Back in Black.
The national company has posted a major turnaround in its finances, balancing the books in 2025 following 2024's big losses of more than $10 million.
"It's very close to break even, which is fantastic ... the return to good times is not an anomaly," said chief executive Alex Budd, who began his role in November and is part of an overhauled senior management structure.
He said the improvements under acting chief executive Simon Militano had been driven by more disciplined cost controls, a carefully balanced repertoire, and a focus on rebuilding the company's finances.
While total revenue reached $122.8 million in 2025, Opera Australia posted a small deficit of $36,051 prior to the inclusion of the company's capital fund, which took the final result to a profit of $3.6 million, according to its annual results released on Wednesday.
Arts Franklin (MELBOURNE)
The longlist for Australia's most prestigious book prize includes a novel by a Palestinian-Australian author who's been caught up in cancellation controversies.
Randa Abdel-Fattah's book Discipline, published by the University of Queensland Press, is one of 10 books up for the $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award, with the longlist released Wednesday.
In January, the author was controversially disinvited to one of Australia's biggest literary events, Adelaide Writers' Week, sparking a mass boycott by speakers that led to the cancellation for Writers' Week for 2026.
The book itself covers debates about personal responsibility and free speech, as it follows two Palestinian-Australians navigating academia and the mainstream media.
Abdel-Fattah was also among a number of authors to publicly ditch the University of Queensland Press in April, over the publisher's decision not to publish Indigenous children's book Bila: A River Cycle.
In sport ...
Cri Pakistan (SYLHET)
Taijul Islam finished with six wickets as Bangladesh dismissed Pakistan for 358 to complete a 78-run win in the second Test and a 2-0 sweep of the series.
The left-arm spinner took two of the three wickets to fall on the final day and returned figures of 6-120 from 34.2 overs to help clinch the series.
The tourists were 7-316 on day four and added 42 runs on the fifth morning before losing the remaining wickets as Bangladesh rushed to victory.
Bangladesh won the first Test by 104 runs.
The victory marked Bangladesh's second successive series sweep against Pakistan, having previously completed a 2-0 victory in 2024.
The end of Mohammad Rizwan's defiant, 166-ball innings signalled the end of Pakistan's hopes of chasing down an improbable victory target of 437.
RL Souths (SYDNEY)
South Sydney and former Queensland State of Origin enforcer Jai Arrow will retire from the NRL immediately after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
Souths chief executive Blake Solly revealed the devastating diagnosis on Wednesday.
Only 30 years old, Arrow has played 98 games for the Rabbitohs since Wayne Bennett lured the classy forward to the club in 2021 after handing the then-20-year-old his first-grade debut at Brisbane a decade ago.
Arrow also had four seasons at Gold Coast following his two-season stint at the Broncos and played 12 games for Queensland between 2018 and 2023.
He helped the Maroons win series in 2020, 2022 and 2023 while also playing in the Rabbitohs' 2021 grand final loss to Penrith.
Arrow's diagnosis comes two and a half years after former Maroons hardman Carl Webb died of MND aged 42.
Ends Bulletin
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