Latest news with #Penfold
Sky News AU
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
ABC News ends horror month with humiliating correction over claims 14,000 babies in Gaza would starve to death in 48 hours
ABC News has issued an embarrassing correction after it repeated an 'absurd' claim that thousands of babies were at risk of dying of starvation in Gaza over a 48 hour period. The national newsroom headed by News Director Justin Stevens admitted it had reported an 'incorrect' claim made by a UN spokesperson in its 11th correction published this month. The UN's Tom Fletcher had claimed during an interview with the BBC last week that '14,000 babies would be at risk of dying in Gaza within a 48-hour period due to starvation', the claim was then picked up by multiple international media outlets and was repeated by ABC News Breakfast, ABC News Mornings and Afternoon Briefing. Just hours after the BBC published the claims online, it had added a clarification, quoting a UN figure who admitted the initial claim had overstated findings from an IPC report that was projecting there could be 14,100 cases of severe acute malnutrition in Gaza over the next year. Not only does the IPC report's projection cover an entire year – from April 2025 to March 2026 – rather than 48 hours, it also refers to severe acute malnutrition among children aged between six months and five years. In its own correction, published on Wednesday, May 28 – a full week after the BBC had added its own correction - the ABC admitted its reporting was wrong. 'The remarks were based on an IPC report that warned 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition were expected to occur between April 2025 and March 2026 among children aged between six months and five years,' the ABC's correction states. 'The relevant content has been removed from all on-demand platforms.' The correction, which fell short of an apology, was only made after Sky News Australia's Chris Kenny fact checked the programming, pointing out the errors. 'The 14,000 babies lie did not stand up to a moment's reflection let alone two minutes of fact-checking, yet journalists eagerly ran with it because it suited their anti-Israel narrative,' Kenny said about the correction on Thursday. 'Yet again lies were peddled about Israel and the corrections were too late and too little to repair the damage.' has contacted the ABC for comment. The correction of the Gaza comment comes just days after the ABC apologised for "hurtful" remarks made on its Insiders program about Nationals MPs Alison Penfold and Pat Conaghan. The ABC federal politics reporter Claudia Long had falsely claimed the two Nationals MPs had abandoned their electorates while they grappled with devastating floods in order to focus on the short-lived split between the Liberal and National parties. "The ABC wishes to clarify that both Penfold and Conaghan spent the week in their electorates and sincerely apologises for the error. The comment has been removed from the on-demand version of the program," the ABC said in it's correction. Ms Penfold told Sky News Australia she had been in Wingham, west of Taree, that morning talking to businesses and flood-affected residents and the ABC journalist had "not even bothered to call me before making these sorts of comments". 'This journalist, I've never met her, in fact, I'd never heard of her until yesterday," Ms Penfold said. ' I've been hard at work and as has Pat in the electorate. We live here, we know people affected.' The ABC's nine other corrections issued in May include topics ranging from significantly overstating the number of women killed by their partner each year to a woman leaving a Gold Coast conference being incorrectly referred to as former US vice president Kamala Harris. The Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory hit out at the ABC, telling the Gaza starvation claim was 'absurd' and should never have been published. 'The claim that 14,000 babies could starve to death within 48 hours was so absurd that no thinking person should have believed it, yet the ABC published it,' Mr Gregory said. "Unfortunately, such egregious errors happen far too often at the ABC, and they consistently fall in one direction." He said the claim was 'inflammatory' and the damage had 'already been done'. "This particular claim was not just false; it was inflammatory,' he said. "It echoed the kind of ancient slanders that have historically endangered Jewish communities. "While I welcome the ABC's belated acknowledgment of the mistake, the damage has already been done."
Sky News AU
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Nationals MP Alison Penfold responds to ‘hurtful' false claim made by ABC reporter as national broadcaster apologises
Nationals MP Alison Penfold has responded after an ABC reporter made a 'hurtful' mischaracterisation of her response to the disastrous floods in her electorate of Lyne on the Mid North Coast. During the ABC's Insiders discussion on Sunday, federal politics reporter Claudia Long heavily suggested Nationals MPs, including Ms Penfold, had abandoned their electorates grappling with devastating floods to turn their attention to Canberra during their party's dispute with the Liberals. The ABC segment focused on the standoff between the Liberals and the Nationals, during which Ms Long said, 'I think the other thing that's probably really important to regional communities is that they have a local member who's there when their electorate is, for example, flooding and people are dying.' Speaking to Sky News host Peta Credlin on Monday evening, Ms Penfold said she was 'pleased' the ABC apologised, however, Ms Long has yet to clarify her remarks. The ABC journalist said two of the deaths, a 63-year-old man and a 30-year-old man, had both occurred on Wednesday and Thursday in Ms Penfold's seat before suggesting the Nationals MP's attention was elsewhere. 'On Thursday afternoon, that's when we had the press conference from the Nationals in the hall, just to go over that timeline,' she said. Ms Long then took aim at Nationals MP Pat Conaghan, adding that a 60-year-old woman had died in her car in his seat of Cowper, near Coffs Harbour. 'I think the important thing is that when you're in opposition it's also still your job to be a local member and represent your communities and to be there for them,' she said. Ms Penfold told Credlin she had been in Wingham, west of Taree, that morning talking to businesses and flood affected residents. 'This journalist, I've never met her, in fact, I'd never heard of her until yesterday, had not even bothered to call me before making these sorts of comments,' Ms Penfold told Sky News. ' I've been hard at work and as has Pat in the electorate. We live here, we know people affected.' On the morning of the 63-year-old man's death, Ms Penfold said she had been in a community in Coopernook, 24 kilometres north of Taree, but couldn't go any further south because highway had been cut off. Ms Penfold said the next morning she wanted to meet with the man's daughter. 'I'd gone in the morning after the gentleman had passed away. I'd been asked to bring down some milk and bread and I'd being told about this incident and I wanted to go and see the daughter of the gentleman who passed away, but the community said, 'look, she's so raw, you can't go,'' she said. 'I felt the pain of the families that have been affected by this flood and to be somehow then shamed, my reputation tarnished for doing something that I hadn't done.' Ms Penfold said she was a member-elect and had not yet been declared as the elected MP, and therefore had no government resources to assist in her response and community work. 'Look, I am pleased the ABC took steps to apologise. I noticed [the apology was] from the ABC and not the journalist in question, but it's an apology all the less,' she said. 'I just want to get on with the job and be out there supporting people who need me.' The ABC issued an apology on Sunday and said Ms Lon had made 'comments inferring' the National MPs were not in their electorates during the recent NSW floods. 'The ABC wishes to clarify that both Penfold and Conaghan spent the week in their electorates and sincerely apologises for the error. The comment has been removed from the on-demand version of the program,' the ABC apology read. has contacted Claudia Long for comment. She did not respond before publication. Speaking of her flood response, Ms Penfold said she had been at a dairy property outside of Taree where the debris had been pushed through from the force of the floodwater until it was 'up to the level of the roof of a house'. 'Today, I was in another community called Croki, which is right on the Manning River ... my boots sunk into mud to ankle depth. They need the sort of equipment that can move lots of big logs and trees … so people can get on with their lives,' she said. 'We have a long way to go and this government better dig deep because this community had a major flood only just under five years ago. A lot of people still haven't recovered. There's a lot of pain and a lot of need here and we need the government to step up, governments to step-up and really help these communities.'
Finextra
22-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Digital pensions fintech Penfold raises £3.9 million
Digital pension provider Penfold has raised £3.9 million in a funding round led by Gresham House Ventures. 0 Penfold offers a digital workplace pension via a proprietary platform, which enables businesses to sign up or switch their pension in minutes. The number of employers using Penfold's workplace pension have tripled since the start of 2024 - from 1,200 to over 4,000, Assets under administration have grown by 91% to nearly £700 million by the end of Q1 2025. The company last raised £7 million in Series A funding in 2022 and in February it drummed up just over £1 million via an over-subscribed crowdfund campaign. Rohit Mathur, investment partner at Gresham House Ventures, says: 'We have been impressed with Penfold's commercial traction as it leads the charge in disrupting the pensions industry. With significant potential to further boost its customer base and bolster its digital offering over the coming years, we are excited to support Penfold's continued progress as it enters the next phase of its growth.' Penfold says the fresh funds will boost its drive to reach profitability, by growing its presence across the UK SME and accountancy markets and accelerating the development of its pension app with new features for savers and businesses.
Metro
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Games Inbox: Is it weird to not like GTA games?
The Tuesday letters page is surprised to learn that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been a hit, as one reader worries about the negative effects of GTA 6. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@ Minority opinion With all this discussion of GTA 6 I really feel like the odd one out, because I've never really liked any of them. I recognised GTA 3 as an important breakthrough for open world games, and I liked the soundtrack of Vice City, but I soon got bored of their repetitive missions and terrible controls and action. GTA 4 didn't seem to be much better and by the time of GTA 5 I was not only bored of the concept, but I'd begun to find its smug worship of violence and cruelty to be really off-putting. Maybe that's just me being a parent now but I certainly won't want my kid playing the games. I realise I'm in the minority on this, and I'm definitely not telling anyone else not to enjoy it, but to me GTA celebrates the worse in humanity in general and America specifically, and that's not really the kind of kick I need right. Call me weird but I'd rather play something a bit more optimistic. Penfold There are dozens of us I have tried on many occasions to play and enjoy GTA over the decades but failed every time. The games get great reviews but just leave me cold. I just don't get it. I won't be getting GTA 6 even if it gets scored 11 out of 10 when reviewed. I suspect it continues to sell for years after initial release due to parents relenting when they feel their child is old enough to play it. However, I wonder if the game is played just superficially in most of these cases. Ed Multiplayer from From I can't tell you how disappointed I was to find out that The Duskbloods was a multiplayer game. I only found out a few days later, because they never said in the trailer, and it was such a downer. What worries me is that From's next game, Elden Ring Nightreign, is also a multiplayer game. Maybe it's just a coincidence, and I think Nightreign is a much smaller and cheaper game, but that is going to make the gap between Elden Ring and whatever's next even bigger. Elden Ring was over three years ago now and I am really beginning to miss a big chunky FromSoftware single-player game. But I don't know when that will happen or what it will be. Cuit Email your comments to: gamecentral@ The future is now As bad as it is to hear about these Switch 2 Game-Key cards and Doom: The Dark Ages not having anything on the disc I do think it's far too late to start complaining about these things now. If only 10% of people are buying physical now then the battle has already been lost, a long time ago. I realise a lot of people reading this are probably in that 10% but it's time for us to face facts and admit the war is lost. People want to buy digitally, even though that's worse in about a dozen different ways, and publishers are very glad to encourage it, because it means more profit for them and no second-hand market. This has been obvious for a long time, but it's happened slowly enough that I think physical fans haven't realised just how lopsided it's got. But unfortunately this new generation is going to be the first where physical sales are almost irrelevant. You can quote the £75 price tag all you like but most people are going to be buying Mario Kart World for £67 on digital, not paying extra for the cartridge. Personally, I think it's madness that people preferred not having to get up to change discs above owning their games and being able to sell them on, but here we are. The genie is out of the bottle now and there's no putting it back in. Silvo Oblivion on the regular I definitely agree with the performance issues of the Oblivion remaster. After 40 hours of play I'm getting frequent crashes that shut the game down and go back to the Xbox home screen. This wasn't a problem before but it's happening pretty regularly now. It hasn't hurt things that much, it auto saves for me each and every time I go into a new area, but something is clearly wrong with it. It's not going to stop me playing but they really need to fix it. Nick The Greek Old and improved A remaster of GTA 4 as a stopgap for GTA 6 sounds like a pretty good idea but can we please manage something better than the terrible GTA Trilogy collection? That was the laziest, low quality thing I've ever seen Rockstar put their name to and it makes me worried about any other remaster they release. One reader said that GTA 4 had the best story of any of the games and I'd say that's probably true. It definitely was better than GTA 5, which had a lot of cool moments and characters but no real plot. The problem with GTA 4 though is that the action was really bad. The fighting, the shooting, and the driving would not have been tolerated in other game, if it were not GTA. If there is a remaster then all three of these things need to be changed, but I'm not sure Rockstar would be willing to admit there was that much of a problem. Recently, we've seen a lot of remasters and remakes that have really changed and improved the original games and GTA 4 needs to be one of them, because as it stands, I just don't think it's aged well. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd really change anything about Max Payne 3. That game was sorely underrated and all it needs is a light dusting, in terms of frame rate and resolution. Although I'll never understand why they didn't use the combat from Max Payne 3 in GTA 4. They were both Rockstar games. Paulie Success Expedition I just want to say that in a world of delayed games, rushed games with bugs, and prices going through the roof, that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the greatest games I've played in a very long time. I hope it is successful in sales, although I doubt it will be. Dazj1985 (PSN ID) GC: Surprising as it might seem, the game has been an instant hit and sold 2 million copies in 12 days. A high tide beaches all boats I'm no industry expert but I'm not sure I understand these arguments about GTA 5 saving the games industry when it comes out. I get the high tide raising all boats argument but that's just an old truism, and it isn't always accurate. I think it's far more likely to have an overall negative effect. I'm sure the game will be great, and make billions for Take-Two, but everyone else is going to be scrabbling for peanuts in comparison. Everything coming out next spring is going to be horribly rushed and full of bugs, just to get it out of the door before GTA 6, and then when is anyone going to risk releasing something big? June? July? August? September? The only positive is that not much is usually released in the summer months anyway, so this isn't going to create a massive crater during Christmas, or is it? If the game is as good as people hope is there any reason to think it won't still be selling by the end of the year too? Will people really stop playing GTA 6 to buy yet another Call Of Duty? I wouldn't bet on it, and even when things do slow down the new GTA Online will be taking a huge chunk out of everyone's time and money. It's not Rockstar's fault, they're not doing anything wrong from their point of view, but I think GTA 6 is only going to reinforce the massive gap between the half dozen live service games that people play constantly and everything else. Cubby Inbox also-ransFor fans of video game anniversaries it was the 20th anniversary of the reveal of the Xbox 360 on Monday. As I remember it was some kind of weird pre-recorded thing with Elijah Woods. Time flies, huh? Focus I'm surprised to hear talk of a Devil May Cry remake. I'm not against it but I thought Devil May Cry 5 did well? I don't understand why we still haven't heard about a new game. Robin GC: It sold 10 million copies, so it did very well for what it is. We imagine there's problems behind the scenes, not least the fact that director Hideaki Itsuno left Capcom last year. More Trending Email your comments to: gamecentral@ The small print New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers' letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content. You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader's Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot. You can also leave your comments below and don't forget to follow us on Twitter. MORE: Games Inbox: How extreme will GTA 6 in-game sex and violence be? MORE: Games Inbox: Is the Nintendo Switch 2 sold out in the UK? MORE: Games Inbox: Was GTA 6 Trailer 2 a disappointment?
