Afternoon Update: Telstra CEO ‘deeply sorry’; Derryn Hinch dies; and sailing a 10th-century Viking boat

Good afternoon.

Telstra’s CEO, Vicki Brady, has fronted the media after cutting short an overseas trip to apologise for Wednesday’s national outage that disrupted trains, transactions and some triple zero calls.

The outage was caused by a software fault with Telstra’s time-telling systems, which then told the rest of its network that it was November 2006.

Brady admitted Telstra knew of the risks posed by a failure of its time systems and is now investigating why backup measures failed to prevent this week’s outage, saying she is “deeply sorry” about its impacts.

South Australian police have ruled out a link between a death and the outage, while the communications minister said it was “time for Telstra to face the music”.

Top news

Derryn Hinch, broadcaster once known as ‘the human headline’, dies aged 82

Anthony Albanese will not attend Garma festival, despite vowing to attend every year as prime minister

Police discover body of teenage girl in Victorian bushland after 13-year-old vanished on weekend

NT children’s commissioner resigns over child protection changes that remove Indigenous placement principle

Pianist Jayson Gillham loses discrimination case against Melbourne Symphony Orchestra over Gaza comments

Deadly H5 bird flu found in local Australian seabird for first time

World Cup 2026

In the World Cup, France has secured a spot in the semi-finals after defeating Morocco 2-1.

France’s Kylian Mbappé was the key figure, scoring a stunning opener and then teeing up Ousmane Dembélé for the second.

The team’s coach Didier Deschamps praised his players as the win marks “three semi-finals in a row”.

“This is a human venture we are sharing,” he said. “It’s never the same situation or conditions. The most important thing in my life has always been the jersey and it’s good to see this group feel the same way.”

In the next fixture, Spain and Belgium will go head to head on Saturday morning in a fight for a semi-final spot.

In pictures

A remote arts centre in Ramingining in Arnhem Land has staged its inaugural fashion week, providing an opportunity to celebrate local Aboriginal artists, models and community.

What they said …

“I am gutted to medically withdraw”- Kaylee McKeown, Australian swimmer

Swim champion Kaylee McKeown has expressed disappointment at being forced to pull out of the Commonwealth Games due to a bout of glandular fever. It’s a major blow to Australia’s team, preventing the 24-year-old from defending four titles in Glasgow.

Australian Politics

Meet Darcy Byrne, the Labor mayor taking on pokies reform

Darcy Byrne is the Labor mayor of Sydney’s Inner West council and he’s helping to lead a grassroots movement on curbing gambling harm in the community – including pushing for a reduction in the number of poker machines in licensed clubs in New South Wales. This momentum comes while the federal Labor party continues to face criticism about the scale of its commitment to online gambling reform.

The rising Labor star speaks to political editor Tom McIlroy about why he compares the poker machine lobby to the National Rifle Association of America, and his successful motion at this month’s NSW Labor conference on gambling policy at the next state election.

Listen to the episode here

Before bed read

Lars Bill shares his experience of sailing around the world in a replica 10th-century Viking longboat. The captain of Saga Farmann recounts tales from aboard the 20-metre replica of the Klåstad Viking ship, which was excavated in 1970 from a farmer’s field in Norway.

Daily word game

Today’s starter word is: BOY. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.

Sign up

If you would like to receive this Afternoon Update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here, or start your day with a curated breakdown of the key stories you need to know with our Morning Mail newsletter. You can follow the latest in US politics by signing up for This Week in Trumpland.