Hey everyone, welcome back to Flashback Friday. There’s been a few interesting things that have occurred this week. So let’s get straight into it.

First, we’ll start with some World Cup news. The World Cup continued this week with the Final Round of the Group Stage being played out, concluding early this morning, with a lot happening in just the one round. Reigning Champions Germany were eliminated from the tournament in the Group Stage for the first time in World Cup History, Australia were once again knocked out in The Group Stage after losing to Peru, and Group H was decided by the Fair Play rule of which team has less cards for the first time in World Cup History. The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) has also been causing more controversy, and Japan made a controversial move when they ran down the clock, changing their tactics to prevent themselves from conceding a second goal to Poland, after learning that Senegal had gone down 1-0 to Colombia. The head coach of the team spoke out himself, making this known. And it has really brought into question why the matches for each group are played at the same time if it’s not going to prevent this sort of play from occurring. It’s really poor. Senegal however should be congratulated and commended on their efforts at this year’s World Cup, and hopefully they will return in 2022 and go further. The Round of 16 begins tomorrow night (Saturday 30th June).

In world news now, and there has been yet another shooting in the US. This time, the shooting has occurred in Annapolis, Maryland, inside the newsroom at the Capital Gazette newspaper office. There have been 5 confirmed deaths so far as a result of the shooting. The shooter is in custody, and was reported to have shot through the glass door to enter the newsroom. The shooter also had a connection to the newspaper, having filed a defamation claim against it back in 2012, which was dismissed. The shooting is being classified as a targeted attack. This really is a terrible thing, and our thoughts and prayers are with all those who were in the newsroom and their families and friends, particularly the families and friends of those who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy. This also just goes to show how guns need to be eradicated in the US, something I will be following up with a feature article coming soon.

Meanwhile, also in the US, Joe Jackson, father of the late king of pop Michael Jackson, passed away yesterday morning at the age of 89. The Jackson family patriarch was battling pancreatic cancer, and sadly lost his battle with the disease. Joe Jackson was the one responsible for launching the Jackson family musical dynasty, which saw the rise of the Jackson 5, Janet Jackson, La Toya Jackson and Rennie Jackson, and gave rise to the most famous Jackson of them all, the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson. His family paid tribute to him on social media following his death. He will be remembered for all the work he put into making the Jackson name famous. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.

And in a bit of entertainment news now, and the Logies are fast approaching, with the awards ceremony taking place this Sunday at 7:30pm on the Gold Coast. Now usually the Logies are just another of those award ceremonies that no one really pays attention to. They happen, people might hear about them in the next few days afterwards, and they go away. But this year something has sort of changed the scenario. Comedian Tom Gleeson, known for his Hard Chat segment on The Weekly With Charlie Pickering, and his spinoff quiz show, Hard Quiz, sat down to Hard Chat much loved Family Feud host Grant Denyer this week on his segment on The Weekly. And after a few jabs, including pointing out the fact that it was ridiculous that Grant was up for the Gold Logie this year after his show had been axed from the third highest rating television network, Gleeson decided to turn the tables and told Grant that he would campaign for him to win the award because the Logies were a joke. Gleeson has said that he would drive his famed Big Brass Mug up the red carpet, campaigning for Denyer to win the Gold Logie. He has now started the Denyer4Gold campaign, which has been trending in Australia, and has since appeared on 2DayFM Breakfast Radio, ABC News Breakfast, and The Project to discuss the campaign, all the while wearing his Denyer4Gold tanker and giving his tv audiences flags with the campaign logo on them. Denyer is up against A Current Affair presenter Tracy Grimshaw, actress Jessica Marais, Selling Houses Australia presenter Andrew Winter, actor Rodger Corser, and The Living Room presenter Amanda Keller for the Gold Logie. It would be brilliant to see him win the award come Sunday night. Make sure to vote Denyer4Gold at the following link: https://www.nowtolove.com.au/logies-vote

And you can check out the Hard Chat segment here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uKqNrcBTsi8

And that’s it for this week. I’ll be back with more Flashback Friday next week, and be sure to look out for another edition of World Cup Wednesday and Mystery Monday out soon. Have a good one!

JJ