🗞SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON 🗞
Today we’re starting with a BIG shout out to the 12 new ✨SYSCA SUPPORTERS✨ who’ve joined us in the last week!
Become a ✨SYSCA SUPPORTER✨ and get access to our special 📚bumper book list📚 and 🎶SYSCA playlists🎶 (or just support us coz u love us 🥺)
Holy shit a LOT happened in terms of ✨news✨in the whole two days I’ve been away!! We’ll get to all that soon - but first, my weekend (because this newsy is primarily about me, remember???)
Rubes and I are still in Sydney, and this weekend we finally got some SUN which has been an absolute blessing! On Friday night we went to a BYO (naturally) and then the AFL (not the same as Rugby I’ll have you all know) and just had the best time supporting the Sydney Geese (or are they called the Swans??) Hahaha I’m only kidding - I know they’re the Gulls.
On Saturday we went to the best bakery (Bourke St if you’re ever after a good sandwich or pie in Sydney) and sat in the sun. We had a lovely day seeing the sights of Sydney (and making most of the lack of rain) and honestly, it was the first day where I really got the ✨hype.✨ On Saturday night we had a wholesome evening of watching/ listening to spooky stories and giving ourselves the absolute shits before going to bed. It felt like we were kids at a sleepover again and I love nights like that 🥺🥺
Sunday we got a yum as brunch (Çılbır/Turkish eggs are my fave brunch of all time atm, in case you were wondering) and spent some time in Bondi!! We also watched Step Brothers, AKA one of my all-time favourite movies and went out for a REAL LIFE SEAFOOD BOIL (we'd all only ever seen it on TikTok and it did not disappoint.) We got to wear the bibs and the gloves, and it was served in a bag and just... poured on the table - a real experience!!
A lovely weekend spent with lovely people, and now I’m feeling ready to take on the week!! Hope you all had a cute weekend too 💘💘
PS, THERE IS SO MUCH NEWS TO CATCH YOU UP ON THAT YOU MIGHT NEED TO CLICK ‘VIEW ENTIRE MESSAGE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS EDISH TO READ THE WHOLE THING’ 🥺🥺🥺
Elon Musk has lots of kids and also isn’t buying Twitter
Shinzo Abe has been assassinated
Protestors stormed the president of Sri Lanka’s house and set it on fire. Now he’s resigning
Do you eat your food together on a plate or separately?
Elon Musk has lots of kids and also isn’t buying Twitter
A couple of Elon headlines to report on after this weekend. First, he’s not buying Twitter anymore (I knew I’d regret wasting so much time on this silly little story.) After months of drama about his upcoming purchase, he's decided that it was a bit of an ✨impulsive move✨ and is backing tf out.
Here’s what some of his lawyers had to say about why:
“Mr Musk is terminating the merger agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr Musk relied when entering into the merger agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect.”
And here’s what Casey Newton from Platformer reckons happened:
“And so Musk had a dilemma. He had signed a legally binding agreement to buy the company, but the purchase now looked worse with every passing day. Forget buyer’s remorse — this was buyer’s mortification. I’ve sometimes compared Twitter to the Bluth Company from Arrested Development, and Musk had awoken up as its GOB, quietly repeating to himself: I’ve made a huge mistake.”
But it’s also not going to be easy as just ripping up a piece of paper. Elon now has to prove that Twitter breached the original agreement or risk being sued for a $1bn breakup fee. And from Twitter’s side of things, they have said that they’re going to sue Elon if he fails to go through with the OG deal:
In other Elon news, he has lots of kids.
It came out over the weekend that Elon had quietly welcomed twins last year with Shivon Zilis - a top OpenAI exec, who’s also worked at Neuralink and Tesla.
Here’s what he had to say about it:
Anyway, we also recorded an episode of Culture Vulture about why one of Elon’s other kids (he has 9 that we know of) is removing Musk from their name - and with good reason. You should go and take a listen to that.
Shinzo Abe has been assassinated
You’ve probably heard this already, but Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, was assassinated over the weekend while speaking at a political rally.
According to The New York Times:
“The police arrested a suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, on a charge of attempted murder. The police said the gunman used an improvised firearm, and admitted that he had intended to kill Abe because he believed the former prime minister had some association with a group against which the gunman held “a grudge.”
Abe had stepped down in 2020, but continued to be a highly respected and powerful figure - he was actually campaigning for a young politician from his party, the governing Liberal Democratic Party (which is actually a conservative party, confusingly) when he was shot.
His assassination has absolutely shaken Japan, as they’re known to be a peaceful and relatively non-violent country, where gun violence is practically ‘non-existent' (they reported only one shooting homicide last year.)
Protestors stormed the president of Sri Lanka’s house and set it on fire. Now he’s resigning
Protests (mostly peaceful) have been occurring in Sri Lanka for months (I’ve written about it in this newsy a few times), but they really came to a head over the weekend when ‘hundreds of thousands’ of people descended on its capital Colombo, calling for President Rajapaksa to resign. The protestors stormed his official residence and set his house on fire (he wasn't actually there at the time.)
To get you up to speed, here’s what I wrote about the situation back in April:
"Sri Lanka has ‘hit rock bottom’
Right now in Sri Lanka food and fuel are either unavailable or extremely expensive, and people are protesting.
“The central bank is printing rupees and hoarding dollars, sending inflation to a record high of 17.5% in February. The finance minister is begging neighbours for credit lines to buy diesel fuel and milk powder. In a barter arrangement, the central bank is paying for Iranian oil with tea leaves.”
Food, fuel, and medicine are all becoming impossible for citizens to access - most people can’t even access dollars to travel or try to buy things while their currency, the rupee, is rapidly losing value. For months, the government has been rationing electricity - sections of the country will go dark without warning - and schools have had to postpone exams due to a scarcity of paper. Two men died this week waiting in long lines for fuel on scorching hot days. It’s dire.
How did Sri Lanka get here?
Of course, the pandemic, disrupted supply chains, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been huge factors in the current sitch, but Sri Lanka has been headed here for a while. From 2005-2015 Sri Lanka took on a huge amount of debt, with the intention of becoming the ‘new Singapore’ but most of the huge infrastructure projects that they embarked on have stalled, and the country failed to find private investment to keep them going.
These supply shortages and random blackouts led to a series of candlelit vigils, led by protestors, but their grievances were met with the deployment of troops. Further protests have been met with curfews (people are banned from being on any public road, in a park, on trains or on the seashore unless they have written permission from the authorities) and social media has been banned."
Now, back to today:
Both the President and the Prime Minister have reportedly agreed to step down (but protesters have said they will continue to occupy the Sri Lankan presidential and prime ministerial residences until both leaders officially resign), and if I’m reading the ‘eruption of celebratory fireworks’ correctly, I’d say that the people are pretty in favour of the outcome.
Just a lil note from me!!
If you love what we do here at SYSCA, then please consider becoming a ✨SYSCA Supporter✨ It means so much to us when we see you supporting the media you love, and to be completely honest - it keeps us all employed!!
Not only that, but every ✨SYSCA Supporter✨ gets access to our bumper book list as soon as you sign up, and if youre a monthly or annual ✨SYSCA Supporter✨ then we are opening up our souls to you and gifting you some 🎶playlists🎶
We also have a new secret bonus that we're about to launch for our monthly and annual supporters, and trust me - you do not want to miss out on it 👀
Become a supporter to get access to all of these perks🥺
Do you eat your food together on a plate or separately?
DAMN!!! This was a close one!!!
49% eat everything seperately
51% eat everything together
Why women are whispering 'Therapy' into their boyfriend's phones (MEL)
The evolution of the film bro (The Face)
Khaby Lame is the king of TikTok (The Hustle)
R.Kelly's Crimes: Explained (Culture Vulture)
Our Love Island Debrief (Culture Vulture)
SYSCA playlist (✨Supporters only✨)
Our HUGE SYSCA reading list! (✨Supporters only✨)