🗞️ Pineapple-gate

Good morning. If you're fed up with dating apps and have realised that your run club is actually full of runners and not single people, then here’s another potential unlikely avenue.

If you walk down the supermarket aisle between 7pm and 8pm with a pineapple upside down then you'll be sending an invitation for someone to bump trolleys with you and you'll have yourself a real life swipe right.

Unfortunately, this trend is only in Spain (dubbed pineapple-gate) and we already have an Australian male single indicator with the Coles chicken.

The pineapple and Coles chicken combo could become a thing though. 🤷‍♂️

All the headlines and more below...

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Sydney’s notoriously expensive housing market takes a chill pill

• Sydney's property market is shifting in favour of buyers for the first time in years. LINK

• Australian Q2 household spending saw the steepest decline since the GFC. LINK

• The Climate Change Authority suggests that changing dietary habits, such as eating more chicken, pork and kangaroo, could be necessary to reduce agricultural emissions and achieve net zero by 2050. LINK

• Australia’s ETF sector has grown by 37.3% over the past year to $206.2B in AUM across 380 products driven by AI, regional investment and fixed income products. LINK

• Cost-of-living pressures are preventing young Australians from attending live music events, with 1 in 3 citing cost as the biggest barrier. LINK

• Bill Shorten has announced his departure from politics to become a university vice-chancellor. LINK

• QLD’s 50-cent fare trial has led to a surge in public transport use, surpassing pre-COVID levels, with over 15 million trips taken in the first month. LINK

• AI is driving down the costs of soil carbon capture, potentially making it a more viable solution for reducing agricultural emission. LINK

• QLD's gambling regulator is facing criticism for granting a casino licence to The Star Brisbane just days before the company was ruled unsuitable to run a casino in NSW. LINK

• Darwin is expected to produce 2.4 million trays during mango season this year, slightly up from last year. LINK

GLOBAL NEWS

US, Britain and Brussels set to sign agreement on AI standards

• The US, Britain and Brussels are set to sign the first legally binding international treaty on human rights and democracy in AI. LINK

• Australia has backed Japan's concerns over a Chinese spy plane flying over Japanese waters. LINK

• The US Department of Justice has cracked down on a Russian-backed plot to disrupt the 2024 US presidential election. LINK

• Germany is facing a jobs crisis as the decline in highly paid manufacturing work continues to impact the eurozone's largest economy. LINK

• Britain's competition regulator cleared Microsoft's partnership with Inflection AI. LINK

• China urged the US to immediately lift all tariffs on Chinese goods, as the Biden administration prepares to announce expected hikes in levies on items including electric vehicles. LINK

COMPANY NEWS

TPG Telecom-Optus network sharing deal gets the green light

• TPG Telecom has received approval from the ACCC for a $1.59B infrastructure and network-sharing deal with Optus. LINK

• Blackstone will acquire Australian data centre group AirTrunk for over $24B. LINK

• Country Road Group has lowered its earnings targets due to new costs from separating from David Jones and challenging retail conditions in Australia. LINK

• Unilever has received approval from the Russian government to sell its assets in Russia, amid criticism over its continued presence in the country since the Ukraine conflict began. LINK

• Volvo has abandoned its goal of going fully electric by 2030, now expecting to continue offering hybrid models due to slowing demand for EVs, a lack of affordable options and the slow roll-out of charging infrastructure. LINK

• Atlas Arteria's hopes of raising tolls on one of its US highways by up to 40% were overruled by US regulators. LINK

THE ODD PICK

Italians revolt as Heinz unveils spaghetti carbonara in a can

CHART OF THE DAY

London lags behind other Major Cities on the Return to Office

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