Watch Beyoncé Enlist Rumi, Blue Ivy for 'Protector' on 'Cowboy Carter' Tour
Beyoncé brought her daughters Rumi and Blue Ivy on stage for her 'Cowboy Carter' tour opener in Los Angeles.
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Au pairs are back, hustings havoc, and Nine (doesn't) look inward
Plus: a dearth of disclosures at papers of all stripes.
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Whatâs the go with the au pairs?: A decade on from Peter Duttonâs infamous au pair scandal, we discovered what appears to be another Australian politician with a high-profile au pair. American TikToker Grace Harris (not to be confused with the Queensland and Brisbane Heat cricketer) has been posting lately about her new job as an au pair in Mount Isa. Her TikTok of her plane taking off, as well as a later video mentioning seeing her new boss âon a billboardâ, makes it seem an awful lot like sheâs gone to work for one Robbie Katter, son of Bob, who is a member in the Queensland Legislative Assembly for the seat of Traeger, as a member of his old manâs political party.Â
The plane she flew in on sure looks remarkably familiar:
Harris aboard a plane to Mount Isa (left) that looks an awful lot like Robbie Katterâs (right) (Images: Supplied)Shithousery on the hustings: We have long held a view at Tips that a candidateâs comedy value often makes up for many a political shortcoming â and there are very few things as funny in the lead up to an election than polling booth shenanigans. Weâve certainly seen plenty of those from Liberal hopeful for Kooyong Amelia Hamer, whose antics have attracted the ire of opposition campaigners.Â
Rob Baillieu is a volunteer for incumbent Kooyong independent Monique Ryan (whose own advertising tactics have been featured in Crikeyâs campaign for Parliament, much to her chagrin), and heâs less than happy about Hamerâs corflute carpet-bombing at polling places across Melbourneâs affluent inner-east.
As a side note, Baillieu is also the son of former Victorian premier Ted. And Ryanâs aforementioned spam texts came to our attention via Robâs media personality sister Eleanor, who posted to her Instagram story about them.
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In any case, weâve got to say, the âtower defence funnel strategyâ, as it was billed by one social media user, is an extremely funny one â and as far as we can tell, completely okay as far as the rules are concerned. The solution seems to be to just get up before your opponents do in the morning. As the old football clichĂ© goes, youâve just got to want it more.
Introspection at Nine: This week, most of the country was outraged by the booing by neo-Nazis of a Welcome to Country ceremony at the Anzac Day dawn service at Melbourneâs Shrine of Remembrance. Except for Peter Dutton, who suggested that while they chose an inappropriate forum, the boo-ers might have had a point.
Both the Nine papers wrote in support of the ceremony. The Age in Melbourne called the booing âan affront to decency and values we hold dearâ, and its federal politics reporter Natassia Chrysanthos spoke on the companyâs Morning Edition podcast about how the likes of Sky News and conservative politicians have weaponised the ritual. But she conveniently left out her stablemates at the Nine-owned radio stations.
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In just the past year, 3AW in Melbourne and 2GB in Sydney have posted a combined 17 times on X about Welcome to Country ceremonies, as well as Acknowledgements of Country. And not a single one of those posts could reasonably have been seen as positive. We asked Nine whether it had any reflections on its role in all this, but the company declined to comment.
The price is right: Earlier this week, we revealed that Seven staffers had leaked Sundayâs leaders debate questions ahead of time, with Crikey getting Seven political editor Mark Rileyâs full script hours before the broadcaster went to air. We were fairly convinced that the leak didnât make it to the Liberal camp in time, given Peter Duttonâs much-mocked failure to name the price of a dozen free-range eggs.Â
However, it has since been pointed out on social media that Duttonâs oddly specific guess of $4.20 might in fact have been evidence he was briefed ahead of time. That is, after all, the price of a half-dozen free range eggs at Coles at the time of writing. While Rileyâs script might have been specific, for the rapid-fire round in which Dutton was asked to name the price of eggs, his script simply read âprice of eggsâ, leaving the number of eggs up to interpretation.
Disclosures please!: Last week, we noticed former Guardian Australia investigations editor Anne Davies had returned to work for the outlet, publishing a number of analysis articles on the federal election.Â
This prompted one of our colleagues to ask: âDidnât she go and work for a teal?âÂ
Indeed she did, dear reader. The 2002 Gold Walkley winner spent much of her sabbatical from journalism as a media adviser for Climate 200-backed independent member for Mackellar, Dr Sophie Scamps. Not that youâd know that from her recent stories in Guardian Australia, which didnât carry any disclosures of the sort.
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Following questions from Crikey, Daviesâ author page was updated to reflect her stint with Scamps. Editor Lenore Taylor told us in a matter-of-fact statement that âAnne has returned to work for Guardian Australia. We have updated her biography on our site.â
Weâve had less success over at the Nine papers, where it was brought to our attention that regular columnist Parnell Palme McGuinness, who makes no secret of her often-conservative views, sits on the advisory board for the coal industry-backed lobby group Australians for Prosperity. While McGuinnessâ author page (as well as most of her columns) discloses that she is the managing director at communications consultancy Agenda C and has worked for the Liberal Party, thereâs no disclosure about this new venture. We asked Nine why that was the case, but it declined to say.Â
Incidentally, also on the Australians for Prosperity board is cringe conservative TikToker Jack Tossol, who proselytises about lefty elites on social media while being a Melbourne Uni and Caulfield Grammar graduate working full-time in finance. According to his board bio, heâs âfamous for his fearless ocker takedowns of people who take themselves too seriouslyâ. Sure.
 â Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed Pete Rose with President Donald Trump at a meeting two weeks ago and he plans to rule on a request to end the sport's permanent ban of the career hits leader, who died in September.
Speaking Monday at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Manfred said he and Trump have discussed several issues, including Manfred's concerns over how Trump's immigration policies could impact players from Cuba, Venezuela and other foreign countries.
Manfred is considering a petition to have Rose posthumously removed from MLB's permanently ineligible list. The petition was filed in January by Jeffrey Lenkov, a Southern California lawyer who represented Rose prior to the 17-time All-Star's death at age 83.
âI met with President Trump two weeks ago, I guess now, and one of the topics was Pete Rose, but Iâm not going beyond that, Manfred said. Heâs said what he said publicly, Iâm not going beyond that in terms of what the back and forth was.â
Trump posted on social media Feb. 28 that he plans to issue âa complete PARDON of Pete Rose.â Trump posted on Truth Social that Rose âshouldnât have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.â It's unclear what a presidential pardon might include â Trump did not specifically mention a tax case in which Rose pleaded guilty in 1990 to two counts of filing false tax returns and served a five-month prison sentence.
The president said he would sign a pardon for Rose âover the next few weeks but has not addressed the matter since.
Rose had 4,256 hits and also holds records for games (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the 1973 National League MVP and played on three World Series winners.
An investigation for MLB by lawyer John M. Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team. Rose agreed with MLB on a permanent ban in 1989.
Lenkov is seeking Rose's reinstatement so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame. Under a rule adopted by the Hallâs board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list canât be considered for election to the Hall. Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with Commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Roseâs request. Manfred in 2015 denied Roseâs application for reinstatement.
Manfred said reinstating Rose now was âa little more complicated than it might appear on the outside and did not commit to a timeline except that âI want to get it done promptly as soon as we get the work done.â
âIâm not going to give this the pocket veto, he said. I will in fact issue a ruling.â
Rose's reinstatement doesn't mean he would automatically appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. He would first have to be nominated by the Hall's Historical Overview Committee, which is picked by the Baseball Writersâ Association of America and approved by the Hall's board. Manfred is an ex-officio member of that board and says he has been in regular contact with chairman Jane Forbes Clark.
âI mean, believe me, a lot of Hall of Fame dialogue on this one, Manfred said.
If reinstated, Rose potentially would be eligible for consideration to be placed on a ballot to be considered by the 16-member Classic Baseball Era committee in December 2027.
Manfred added he doesn't think baseball's current ties to legal sports betting should color views on Rose's case.
âThere is and always has been a clear demarcation between what Rob Manfred, ordinary citizen, can do on the one hand, and what someone who has the privilege to play or work in Major League Baseball can do on the other in respect to gambling, he said. The fact that the law changed, and we sell data and/or sponsorships, which is essentially all we do, to sports betting enterprises, I donât think changes that. Itâs a privilege to play Major League Baseball. As with every privilege, there comes responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is that they not bet on the game.â
Manfred did not go into details on his discussion with Trump over foreign-born players other than to say he expressed worry.
Given the number of foreign-born players we have, we're always concerned about ingress and egress, Manfred said. We have had dialogue with the administration about this topic. And, you know, they're very interested in sports. They understand the unique need to be able to go back and forth, and I'm going to leave it at that.â
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 BeyoncĂ© kicked off her 'Cowboy Carter' tour at Los Angeles' SoFi Stadium on Apr. 28. %23cowboycarter)
