Microsoft sued over ‘misleading’ emails; power outages after storms; and could the internet go offline?

Good afternoon. Australia’s consumer watchdog has taken Microsoft to federal court alleging the company misled approximately 2.7 million Australian personal and family plan customers. When the tech company told customers it was increasing the price of its office suite by 45%, it gave them two options: accept the price for the product – and its Copilot AI add-ons – or cancel. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleged two emails and a blog post were “false or misleading” as there was an undisclosed third option allowing subscribers to retain the features of existing plans without Copilot at the previous lower price. Top news Thousands without power in Queensland as Victoria experiences ‘terrifying’ winds after year’s wettest day Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer claims ‘key words missing’ from alleged rape victim’s phone data Australia ‘increasingly alone’ in countering China’s influence in Pacific, aid report shows Javier Milei hails ‘tipping point’ as his far-right party wins Argentina’s midterm elections Radiohead’s Thom Yorke says he would ‘absolutely not’ play in Israel now Pat Cummins ruled out of first Ashes Test, with Steve Smith to captain Australia In pictures When Beck Smith needs something done on her 53,000-hectare Queensland cattle station, all she has to say is “righto”. It’s the magic word for three-year-old border collie, Duke, who has taken out a national working dog challenge by covering 556km during three weeks’ work. What they said … *** “There’s a lot of intelligent people here …” – Milton Dick The speaker provided the standout moment of the first question time of the sitting fortnight, letting that remark hang in the air for a moment until most of the house chamber dissolved into laughter. Dick had earlier ejected Labor MP Rob Mitchell before Sussan Ley had finished asking her first question. Full Story How Centrelink illegally cancelled jobseeker payments Analysis released earlier this year suggests that hundreds of thousands of Centrelink payments have been illegally cancelled since 2020, with many more suspended. Inequality reporter Cait Kelly speaks to Nour Haydar about the automated system linked to the cancellations, and the human toll of a broken system. Listen to the episode here. Before bed read Behind every meme and message is creaking, decades-old infrastructure. Internet experts can think of scenarios that could bring it all crashing down, writes Aisha Down. They could be as simple as some acute bad luck, or a few targeted attacks … or there could be a real doomsday event. “We’ll call it ‘the big one’ and if it were to happen then at the very least, you would need your chequebook.” Daily word game Today’s starter word is: TOW. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply. Sign up If you would like to receive this Afternoon Update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here, or start your day with a curated breakdown of the key stories you need to know with our Morning Mail newsletter. You can follow the latest in US politics by signing up for This Week in Trumpland.