Please Explain The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

In a wide ranging report released on Wednesday night entitled Covid-19: Make it the Last Pandemic, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response made a number of recommendations to battle the current global health situation and ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Among the recommendations is giving the World Health Organisation more power to announce disease outbreaks without first getting permission from the host country and that wealthy nations should donate vaccinations to poorer countries to stop new variants of COVID-19 from developing.

Today on Please Explain health reporter Mary Ward joins Nathanael Cooper to bring us up to date on the current situation with the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has delivered his third federal budget - in which the government has run up eye watering amounts of debt while making serious investments in areas including aged care, child care and mental health.

Today on Please Explain, Tory Maguire is joined by chief political correspondent David Crowe and senior economics correspondent Shane Wright for their insight into the 2021 federal budget.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a two-and-a-half week retrial in the New South Wales District Court, footballer Jack de Belin and Callan Sinclair face the prospect of a third trial on charges of sexual assault after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

The pair are accused of raping a woman in the early hours of December 9, 2018, and first faced trial on five counts each of aggravated sexual assault at the end of 2020.

That trial also ended in a hung jury.

On Monday, the jury in the second trial found the pair not guilty of one charge each, relating to a sexual act allegedly performed by Mr de Belin, but were unable to reach a unanimous or majority verdict on the remaining charges.

Judge Nicole Noman stood the case over to May 28 for the prosecution to consider its position, and decide whether to bring about a third trial.

Today on Please Explain court reporter Georgina Mitchell joins Nathanael Cooper to tell us more about the case.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Star Entertainment group has proposed a $12 billion merger with James Packer’s Crown Resorts. Star thinks its track record of operating casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and The Gold Coast puts it in a great position to help Crown out of its regulatory woes.

In February, Crown was found unfit to operate its new casino at Sydney’s Barangaroo after evidence of money-laundering in its casinos and other probity failures emerged in the long-running Bergin inquiry.

Today on Please Explain, Tory Maguire speaks with business columnist Elizabeth Knight about what a Star-Crown merger could mean for James Packer’s beleaguered casino group.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on Please Explain, Tory Maguire speaks with The Age's state political editor, Annika Smethurst, who wrote that shock findings from a leaked report on the failures of the Victorian hotel quarantine system will only add to the breakdown of trust between Australians and the people we choose to lead us - trust that had actually grown in 2020 during the height of the pandemic crisis.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NSW Police arrested four men on Wednesday over the alleged kidnap and assault of former international cricketer Stuart MacGill.

It's alleged Mr MacGill was confronted in Cremorne by the brother of his partner on April 14 before being forced into a vehicle and driven more than 60 kilometres to a property, where three men allegedly assaulted him and threatened him with a firearm.

He was dumped by his alleged kidnappers later in Belmore. Six days later, the incident was reported to police, who have charged the men for their alleged crimes.

Today on Please Explain, Nathanael Cooper is joined by crime reporter Fergus Hunter to find out more about this bizarre series of events.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.