Pit-stops included visits to a cattle station, the outback city of Broken Hill, the iconic Sea Cliff Bridge and one of Australia’s most famous circuits, Mount Panorama – all combining for a dream homecoming trip.

To help Ricciardo along the way, Red Bull also called on some local racing experts in Supercars champion Shane Van Gisbergen, enduro motorsports legends Toby Price and Daniel Sanders, and aerobatic pilot Matt Hall.

“After my first Red Bull Racing Road Trip in San Francisco, I’ve always wanted the opportunity to do this in Australia,” said Ricciardo.

“There’s nothing that compares to the Aussie conditions; we had a lot of fun ripping through the outback and tearing across the Sea Cliff Bridge.

For over 50 years, the United States has maintained a one-China policy, which asserts there is one China of which Taiwan is part. Successive administrations from both parties maintained a “strategic ambiguity” when asked whether the United States would fight to defend Taiwan. This approach has kept the peace in the Taiwan Strait because China could never be sure if it would have to contend with America’s military might.

But casual discussions on Sunday talk shows about our ability to repel the People’s Liberation Army aside, a war in the Taiwan Strait would be catastrophic.

Despite Carl von Clausewitz’s warning that “war is the realm of uncertainty,” we can be sure such a war would, at a minimum, disrupt the global economy, cost billions of dollars, and take an untold amount of lives.

Some of the world’s largest economies would clash on a global battleground. China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and all those doing business with those countries operate within the potential battle zone.

More than 80 percent of the world’s largest container ships connect the global economy through the Taiwan Strait. For perspective, imagine the disruption of the Covid lockdowns and multiply it by 10.

Specific sectors of the global economy would be devastated. Taiwan is a major player in the global technology business. Taiwan’s semiconductor sector industry accounts for U.S. $115 billion, and Taiwanese companies account for 60 percent of the world’s semiconductor market. A disruption to Taiwan’s economy would hamper the production of these vital products and services.

And if you think the over $113 billion in aid the United States provided to Ukraine in the last year is high, the price tag for a war over Taiwan would easily surpass that amount.

Taiwan is an island nation with limited resources and would need everything from the materials to wage war to food. This cost will primarily fall on American taxpayers, regardless of whether their opinions are considered about the wisdom of intervention.

Unlike the artillery-dominated war in Ukraine, a war in the Taiwan Strait would be conducted by waves of aircraft, fleets of ships at sea, and high-tech missiles.

With that kind of warfare comes a hideous cost of life. Taiwan is home to nearly 24 million people. Every bomb, bullet, or missile that hits Taiwan will do damage and cause casualties. To put it in perspective with current events, Taiwan is less than one-tenth the size of Ukraine with half as many people. There is nowhere to run on the island. The casualties both in and out of uniform would be horrendous.

Fortunately, the one-China policy has avoided this kind of war. But hawks in Congress and the administration are pushing for a more aggressive stance against China, at times even expressing support for a break from the one-China policy and at least tacitly pushing for Taiwanese independence. While one can understand the desire to support the self-determination of the Taiwanese people, the bellicose tone taken by some risks talking the United States into a war with a China that has a growing military and alliances with other American adversaries.

Some would suggest that unambiguously aggressive support for Taiwan against the PRC is the best way to support self-determination and avoid war. But we must remember that taking a jingoistic adversarial position could elicit a stronger reaction than anticipated. Pushing for Taiwan’s independence is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that is more likely to cause the very war we are trying to prevent. In any naval war with China, we stand the chance of losing more Americans in a day than we did in the 20 years of our wars in the Middle East. The loss of one aircraft carrier alone could mean 5,000 casualties. China isn’t Iraq, and it isn’t Russia.

While we seek those solutions, let’s not continue to toss matches at a pool of gasoline.

Certainly, we can take the steps that are prudent to ensure our military can handle any scenario, but these must be done without fanfare.

Cristian Montenegro, from Colombia, has previously described his fiancé Natalia as the ‘love of his life’.

The couple – who already share a son and a daughter together – revealed that they have called their newborn Sammy.

Photos from the ‘birth’ show Natalia dressed in a hospital gown while lying down on a bed.

As her fiancé stands by her side, a rag doll doctor – dressed in a white lab coat, hair net and face mask – is seen attending to the expectant mother.

During the labour, Cristian is pictured covering his face with his hands as his fights back tears.

Moments after Sammy’s arrival, the proud father posed for a selfie with his new son laying on his mother’s stomach in the background.

Earlier this week, Cristian shared the happy news with his TikTok followers in a now-deleted video.

He captioned the clip: ‘Welcome Sammy Montenegro.’

Viewers rushed to congratulate the proud parents in the comments.

One replied: ‘Congratulations to you and your family.’

‘He is so beautiful,’ another added. ‘He looks like a little baby doll.’

Democracy involves the rule of law anchored in the consent of the people, expressed through electing the politicians who make those laws. This is safeguarded by independent judges, police and prosecutors and a free press.

In Israel, however, ever since the 1990s when Supreme Court President Aharon Barak began to blur the boundary between law and political activism, the court has increasingly undermined democracy through behaviour that owes more to the judges’ political and ideological views than to law.

It allows anyone to petition the court even if they have no legal standing. It justifies its rulings on a vague and subjective term of “reasonableness” which has no basis in law.

It controls legal advisers who instruct every minister on what to do even if this runs contrary to government policy. The attorney-general may argue against the government in court, while banning it from seeking independent counsel to defend its policies.

The court routinely employs double standards by favouring left-wing over right-wing projects or the rights of Arabs over Israeli Jews. People say there’s no longer any point in voting since the judges run the country.

Under the reforms, the courts will still be able to hold ministers to account. They will be unable, however, to overturn laws passed by the Knesset unless they “clearly” violate an order “entrenched” in a Basic Law.

And politicians rather than judges will dominate the committee appointing new justices.

“We are concerned because we see our future growth is challenged by the storage of cat videos,” Nammo chief executive Morten Brandtzæg told the newspaper.

Local energy provider Elvia confirmed to the Financial Times that the network has no electricity to spare, and that the energy is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Should Nammo require more energy, it will take time to make this available to the ammunition manufacturer. (read more)

Liberal candidate Roshena Campbell has paid for advertising on Chinese social media platform WeChat, but Labor candidate Mary Doyle says voters remember the former Morrison government’s anti-China rhetoric.

The top 10 electorates in NSW by Chinese ancestry all swung away from the Liberals at the state election on Saturday, mirroring a trend at last year’s federal election.

Labor gained Parramatta, home to 21,033 people with Chinese ancestry, after recording a 15.2 per cent swing. The Chris Minns-led party might also take Ryde, where it used Chinese-language attack advertisements that said a vote for Liberal candidate Jordan Lane meant a vote for Peter Dutton, alongside an ominous image of the federal opposition leader.

NSW Labor MP Jason Yat-Sen Li, the son of migrant parents from Hong Kong, believes the Liberal party will also face backlash from Chinese-Australian voters at the Aston byelection on Saturday.

“People are still angry about the fearmongering around China that was used as a political weapon. Chinese Australians became collateral damage,” Mr Li told The Australian Financial Review.

“Imagine if the country you are from and identified with is portrayed as an enemy, aggressor or threat to Australia and how difficult it makes thing like applying for a job or just going about your life. It goes to whether you feel like you can belong in a place. That’s why these emotions run deep, and I think it will play a role in Aston.”

Deakin University researcher Fan Yang, who has been examining the use of WeChat in both the NSW state election and Aston byelection, said users on the Chinese social media platform had described Mr Dutton as a “monster”.

“Dutton isn’t supported by Chinese communities, largely because of his ‘war with China’ speech,” Dr Yang told the Financial Review.

“On WeChat, there was an expectation [former treasurer] Josh Frydenberg would return to lead the LNP. That would change how Chinese communities see the Liberal Party drastically.”

Ms Campbell fired up a WeChat presence two weeks ago in a bid to tap into the Chinese-Australian voters’ base in Aston, with an article on an official account, Melbourne Wei Life, which has about 280,000 followers, according to Dr Yang.

In the article, Ms Campbell touted her advocacy skills based on her professional experience as a former barrister and local councillor. It also mentions that her parents migrated to Australia in 1970 and were hard-working small business owners.

Electorates with large numbers of voters of Chinese heritage turned against the Coalition at last year’s federal election, in a sign the Liberal Party’s hawkish anti-China rhetoric cost it dearly at the ballot box.

The Liberals suffered an 8.7 per cent decline in their primary vote in the Victorian seat of Chisholm, which has more Mandarin speakers than any other electorate in Australia, compared with the party’s statewide negative swing of 5.6 per cent.

Former deputy state director of the Victorian party, Tony Barry, said the fact the NSW Liberals suffered a “blood nose” in electorates with high Chinese populations including Ryde, Parramatta, Oatley, Drummoyne and Willoughby, showed there was a “legacy effect” in the Chinese vote.

– The good news is that NYC isn’t wasting $100 billion like CA is on its train to nowhere. In Dem political circles, the waste of a mere $5 million is chump change.

– They always forget how much is kickbacks to Demonrats who approve this.

That includes new evidence that the Internal Revenue Service may be targeting a journalist who testified before the weaponization committee.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter Monday to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking an explanation for why journalist Matt Taibbi received an unannounced home visit from an IRS agent. We’ve seen the letter, and both the circumstances and timing of the IRS focus on this journalist raise serious questions.

Mr. Taibbi has provoked the ire of Democrats and other journalists for his role in researching Twitter records and then releasing internal communications from the social-media giant that expose its censorship and its contacts with government officials. This effort has already inspired government bullying, with Chair Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission targeting new Twitter owner Elon Musk and demanding the company “identify all journalists” granted access to the Twitter files.

Now Mr. Taibbi has told Mr. Jordan’s committee that an IRS agent showed up at his personal residence in New Jersey on March 9. That happens to be the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter.

The taxman left a note instructing Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. Mr. Taibbi was told in a call with the agent that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected owing to concerns over identity theft.

Mr. Taibbi has provided the committee with documentation showing his 2018 return had been electronically accepted, and he says the IRS never notified him or his accountants of a problem after he filed that 2018 return more than four-and-a-half years ago.

Or it might seek more information from the taxpayer or tax preparer. If the IRS wants to audit a return, it schedules a meeting at the agent’s office. It doesn’t drop by unannounced.