Australia news LIVE: Luxury brands flee David Jones after department store’s collapse; Russell Brand found guilty of rape, sexual assault

Good afternoon. Thanks for reading our national blog helmed by Ellie Busby. My name is Bridie Smith, and I’ll be leading our coverage for the rest of the day.

Here’s what you need to know this afternoon.

• Labor’s workplace reforms should be examined to assess their impact on Australia’s sluggish economy, according to the chair of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood.
• Football Australia is under mounting pressure to relocate the Socceroos’ match against Jordan later this month. Players are strongly opposed to travelling to the country over security fears.
• The police inquiry into the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father has been extended to include his son, Thomas Markle jnr, according to the Philippine authorities investigating the duchess’s father over alleged possession of child abuse images.
• British actor-comedian Russell Brand will be sentenced on Monday after being found guilty of rape and sexual assault charges involving four women on allegations dating back more than 20 years. Judge Joel Bennathan said Brand was facing a significant prison term.

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Jerusalem: Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rival secured nods from a majority of lawmakers to try to form a government, but Israel’s president said it was still unclear who could break the election deadlock as he pledged to nominate a candidate on Sunday.

Israel’s October 27 national ballot ended with no clear winner. Neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief, secured a clear path to a majority in parliament.

That has set up a tough task for President Isaac Herzog, whose mostly ceremonial role comes with the post-election responsibility of picking a candidate he believes has the best chance to form a coalition in a deeply divided country.

Herzog held marathon talks with elected factions this week, during which 67 of parliament’s 120 elected lawmakers endorsed Eisenkot, while 46 endorsed Netanyahu.

Good afternoon. Thanks for reading our national blog helmed by Ellie Busby. My name is Bridie Smith, and I’ll be leading our coverage for the rest of the day.

Here’s what you need to know this afternoon.

• Labor’s workplace reforms should be examined to assess their impact on Australia’s sluggish economy, according to the chair of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood.
• Football Australia is under mounting pressure to relocate the Socceroos’ match against Jordan later this month. Players are strongly opposed to travelling to the country over security fears.
• The police inquiry into the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father has been extended to include his son, Thomas Markle jnr, according to the Philippine authorities investigating the duchess’s father over alleged possession of child abuse images.
• British actor-comedian Russell Brand will be sentenced on Monday after being found guilty of rape and sexual assault charges involving four women on allegations dating back more than 20 years. Judge Joel Bennathan said Brand was facing a significant prison term.

The Victorian Liberal Party has had some early troubles on the first day aboard its campaign bus, which reversed into the awning of a small business and damaged the exterior.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson spent the morning at a cafe in Bentleigh, in Melbourne’s south-east, where the owner has been struggling with the cost of living and running his business.

But as the big, blue campaign bus – which has been dubbed the “Jess Express” – reversed into a park in the main shopping strip, it collided with the awning of a local jeweller, peeling metal off the exterior.

It was an awkward moment, and took media attention away from a planned photo op, but the Liberal Party quickly contacted the business, promising to pay for the repairs.

The planned release of Tony Popovic’s Socceroos squad for this month’s friendlies has been delayed amid mounting pressure on Football Australia to relocate their match against Jordan, with players strongly opposed to travelling to the country over security fears.

Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) has called for the November 17 (Jordan time) match in Amman to be moved to another venue or date, after Indonesia withdrew from its own scheduled friendly in the Jordanian capital, citing concerns for player safety.

The developments come amid heightened regional tensions and renewed violence within Jordan, where a security officer was stabbed to death in a suspected terrorist attack in Amman on Thursday, less than two weeks after nine people were killed when gunmen opened fire during a funeral at a church in the country’s south.

Football Australia was on Friday due to unveil Popovic’s squad for two games, against Qatar and Jordan. They were originally booked as warm-up fixtures ahead of the AFC Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia, which was set to take place in January but has been postponed until December 2027.

Washington: Salon, one of the early internet’s most influential websites that featured sharp voices and political and cultural journalism with a liberal sensibility, announced it would shut down after 31 years of publication. “It has been an extraordinary privilege,” the outlet said in a farewell note.

The announcement, seen as a surprise, cited the fact that “the business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly over the years”. It did not immediately indicate what would become of its employees, though some reported they had lost their jobs. A spokesperson for the outlet said 19 full-time employees had been affected, as well as a handful of private contractors.

“Over three decades, Salon has brought together politics, culture, criticism and ideas in a way that was distinctly our own,” the unsigned farewell note said. “Our journalism examined power and politics, questioned assumptions, surfaced stories that deserved attention and made room for perspectives that were too often overlooked. Our writers and editors helped shape conversations about the forces changing our lives.”

Salon began its life in the mid-1990s, barely three years after the internet itself went mainstream, and a time when the “World Wide Web” was still written out in that fashion. It launched a decade before the newspaper and print magazine markets imploded — and a decade, too, before the rise of social media fragmented the journalism world.

London: The police inquiry into Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father has been extended to include his son, Thomas Markle Jr.

The development, announced by Philippines Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla, means the duchess’ half-brother, 60, is a “person of interest” in the ongoing investigation.

Speaking at a press conference in Manila, Remulla said: “There are signs that point that the son is involved in the crime as well. But only as a person of interest so far – he is not yet treated as a suspect.”

Remulla suggested that the police had received information about underage girls being taken to Markle Jr’s home at Cordova, in the Philippines, and said: “We had witnesses who testified that underage girls were being brought to his house, with ring lights, through the windows.”

Florida: The state has carried out a record-tying 19th execution of the year in an unusual instance of three states administering the death penalty on the same day.

Jesse Guardado was pronounced dead at 6.13pm, following a three-drug injection at a state prison in Starke. Guardado had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewellery box, $80 and other valuables to buy drugs. The woman had helped him get a job and housing.

Hours earlier a man was executed in Indiana for killing two children in a house fire in 2010, and in Alabama a man was scheduled to die by injection later Thursday evening for his conviction in a fatal home robbery.

The executions were taking place the same day California governor Gavin Newsom announced he will commute all 548 death sentences in his state, saying he believes “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values”.

Cameron Smith’s future is unclear, with LIV Golf revealing it is preparing to go into liquidation.

Five years after it fractured the sport’s landscape, LIV announced in bankruptcy court it plans to wind down operations, instead of launching a new version, because it didn’t have enough support.

“In light of the current circumstances, we believe shifting toward an orderly wind-down is the most responsible path forward for the League at this time,” Gene Davis and Jon Zinman of LIV Golf board’s special committee said in a press release released in the early hours of Friday morning (AEST).

Throughout the wind-down process LIV Golf said it would remain open to, and continue to consider, any offers from third parties that ‌could get more value from its assets.

Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood has warned that Labor’s workplace reforms should be examined to assess their role in Australia’s economic malaise after the Albanese government shielded Labor’s union-friendly laws from the commission’s inquiry into “corporate dynamism”.

Federal public service wages rose 7 per cent last financial year, according to ABS data, adding pressure on the cabinet to rein in spending as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delayed his travel to the COP climate summit next week to chair back-to-back budget meetings.

Elevated spending on the bureaucracy was revealed hours before a Productivity Commission report was published, blaming more than a decade of excessive government regulation for dulling the economy’s “animal spirits”.

Days after Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock warned of a “new normal” of subpar growth, Wood said that even small improvements in productivity over the next decade would improve a worker’s income by $14,000.

Paris: Nationwide demonstrations unfolded largely peacefully in France, despite some clashes with police in Paris and Lyon, during a one-day strike by some public sector workers, in a renewed challenge to President Emmanuel Macron.

Several high-profile politicians attended the protests, including presidential candidates Jean-Luc Melenchon and Raphael Glucksmann. The protests follow demonstrations over living costs, public services and education that have triggered the worst civil unrest in France in years.

The unrest comes five months before a presidential election that Macron cannot run in. It could pit far-right candidate Marine Le Pen against hard-left rival Melenchon in a second-round run-off.

The Interior Ministry said 575,000 people had participated in protests around the country, while the CGT union, one of the organisers, said 1.6 million people had taken part.