Hey everyone, welcome back to Flashback Friday. This week we’ve had a fair amount of news around the world, so, as always, let’s get right into it.

We’ll start with some World Cup news. Round 1 of the Group Stage is over, and around 2 is well underway, with an upset or two already occurring. And I’ll be wrapping Round 2 in an article on Sunday. However, just a bit of news that you may or may not have heard, Croatian player Nikola Kalinic was sent home by head coach Zlatko Dalic after he refused to come on as a substitution towards the end of Croatia’s match against Nigeria. The player claimed to have a back injury and told the head coach he was unable to play, and was subsequently sent home. And in some more recent news from the Australia v Denmark game last night, Australian striker Andrew Nabbout will likely be unable to play in future World Cup matches this tournament after dislocating his shoulder after falling and landing on it badly last night. Meanwhile, Tim Cahill and the Australian supporters are questioning why he wasn’t brought on, however it may be due to the better striking options in terms of pace. It’ll be an interesting equation for Group C as well next week, but more to come on that later in articles to be published early next week.

To some world news now, and there’s been tensions in the US this week, with the US Government, particularly President Trump’s Administration, being slammed for separating immigrant children from their parents/families who are crossing the Mexican border illegally. The children are taken away and fostered out, while their parents are sent to prison for crossing the border, being labelled as criminals. Between the beginning of October 2017 and the end of May 2018, approximately 2700 children were separated from their parents and families, with around 1995 of those occurring in the last six weeks of that period alone. According to some mothers and families, they were told by Border Patrol agents that took their children that their children were being taken for a bath, but hours later they were still gone, and also that ‘their families would not exist anymore’ and that they would ‘never see their children again’ which is absolutely appalling. After days of protest, of people taking swipes at the Trump Administration and the rest of the US Government for allowing this to happen, US President Donald Trump finally signed an executive order to keep families together while they are detained. However it is still unclear as to what will happen to the children already separated from their families. This comes just days after the US also pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, criticising them for a ‘cesspool of political bias’ against Israel.

In more local news, and the Australian Parliament is still a chaotic mess. This week has seen Pauline Hanson support the company tax cuts that she practically forced former One Nation Senator Brian Burston to resign for supporting. Hanson has flipped on these tax cuts so many times, and she finally conceded to supporting them yesterday when the Senate passed the tax cuts in a vote of 37-34. They will now have to be passed by the House of Representatives, who will most likely pass them with ease as the Liberal National Government have the majority. The other big news this week in Parliament is that Clive Palmer has relaunched his old Palmer United Party as the United Australia Party, claiming in a media conference on Monday that the Party has already gained the support of 20000 people over the weekend. And former One Nation Senator Brian Burston, who formally announced his quitting One Nation and his intentions to be an independent in the Senate only shortly before joining Clive Palmer in his media conference to announce he was joining the United Australia Party, and that together they would ‘Unite Australia’. This had people questioning if he had practically just lied to the Senate, with 2GB radio host Ray Hadley raising the question on his radio show on Monday morning. Clive Palmer has also suggested that he is considering coming back into the Parliamentary fold and running for a seat in the House of Representatives in the next federal election, claiming his ‘assets have not been frozen’. This should get interesting.

A bit of breaking news now, and former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer has once again been jailed, after being in and out of jail for a year or so. However, this time he has been found guilty of rigging a council election after being convicted of over 100 counts of electoral fraud back in April this year, and has subsequently been sentenced to 21 months in prison, with a non parole period of 11 months, meaning that will be the minimum time he will spend in prison.

And now to a bit of entertainment news, and this week saw the annual MTV Movie and TV Awards in the US. The big winner was Black Panther and it’s incredible cast, with Chadwick Boseman taking out the award for Best Hero and Best Actor In A Movie, Michael B. Jordan taking out Best Villain, and the film itself taking out the coveted Best Movie Award. One of the best moments however was when Chadwick Boseman invited hero cop James Shaw Jr., the beyond brave police officer who disarmed a gunman at a Waffle House without being armed himself, saving many lives in the process, up to the stage to thank him, and gave him the Best Hero Award to keep for himself, saying that ‘this is gonna live at your house.’ And another highlight, something a little more humorous, was when Michael B. Jordan gave his acceptance speech, and said at the end of it that ‘Chadwick Boseman personally asked me to ask y’all to stop asking him to say Wakanda Forever out on the streets, y’all taking the forever thing a little too seriously.’ Something the Black Panther fans should understand there.

And that’s a wrap for the week. There has been a lot more news, but I can’t really cover everything, and I have a lot of articles and a short story to work on for release in the coming days. So thanks for reading again, enjoy the week ahead, and I’ll be back next week to wrap the news of the week.

JJ