Live news update from Australia: 56 deaths from Covid and 4,300 in hospital nationwide; NSW cases are expected to hit the “highlands” next week; Djokovic’s visa decision is approaching | Australia News

Ai-Media, a subtitling service provider for Seven Network, has released a statement on an investigation into who leaked images from two news outlets. The footage of Mike Love i Rebecca Maddern criticizing Novak Djokovic in fairly colorful terms it circulated widely earlier this week.

The subtitling company says it has identified an employee who worked remotely and was responsible for the leak and “appropriate action has been taken”.

Health services in rural NSW are struggling under Omicron outbreak, writes Natasha May.

Hillsong Church has made a statement about this camp that we mentioned earlier (which NSW police are still considering fining):

Here is an update on the news we brought you earlier about a police operation against so-called sovereign citizens in Canberra. AAP reports:

Police have launched an operation to clear a protest camp near the Old Parliament in Canberra.

The operation on Friday followed a request from the National Capital Authority to “remove structures and vehicles that are on Commonwealth land without permission.”

After a court hearing for two men accused of a December 30 protest that saw the doors of the now museum set on fire.

Police briefly attended the camp before agreeing to return later Friday, when camp leaders were available.

They have asked the public to avoid the area.

Protesters on Thursday tried to enter the nearby Parliament Palace, but were stopped by police, with a number of people detained in the courtyard.

The group of ‘sovereign citizens’ has been arguing against vaccines against VOCID-19 and calling for the federal government to be ‘evicted’, among other issues.

The Northern Territory has registered 546 new cases of Covid in the last reporting period.

The Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Michael Gunner, has just made a rather remarkable admission: that during the last week the territory has not come into contact with people visiting exhibition sites.

Gunner said:

Yesterday we requested an update on the exhibition site messaging and process. We were warned last week that these messages were not sent.

There is no excuse for that. There was a clear decision and clear direction from the safety and emergency management committee. This address was not implemented, which is unacceptable.

The person in charge of this decision has been dismissed from the emergency operations center and will return to his usual duties.

Gunner said the issue was resolved overnight and people would start receiving messages.

The director of health of SA, Nicola Spurrier, says the state maintains its own definition of close contacts, despite changes announced in some other states.

As an example, he mentions that there are only five people in the state who can do train signaling, so it would be dangerous for everyone to take Omicron.

The Prime Minister of South Australia, Steven Marshall, is still talking in Adelaide. He says he would like the state to have reached 90% of the double dose (they should get there in the next two days) and to climb to 95%.

This is a rather unusual story: Queensland police are looking for a missing police dog (the kind they would actually use to look for someone who had disappeared).

Here is the AAP report:

A missing Queensland police dog may have been taken in by a member of the public and is offered a reward for information leading to his or her safe return.

Police dog Quizz was helping locate a criminal who allegedly fled a stolen car in Redbank Plains, southwest Brisbane, in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

He was separated from his driver during the chase and is still missing, despite a thorough search that included all-terrain vehicles, trail bikes and drones.

PD Quizz is a three-year-old Sable German Shepherd with black and brown skin. He wore a black tracking harness with a long tracking cord.

Inspector Mick Thiesfield said there had been an unconfirmed sighting of the dog on Tuesday morning and that he could be trapped in a nearby bush.

“The police dog could get stuck in some kind of tree … while moving through the bush,” he said Friday.

But given that there have been minimal sightings for several days, Inspector Thiesfield said a member of the public is “likely” to have participated in the PD Quizz.

PD Quizz is not considered dangerous, but should not be approached. Anyone who sees him should contact the police.

The model suggests, among other things, that SA would have reached 30,000 cases a day if it had not delayed (and staggered) the resumption of the school year. Queensland has made a similar call.

“The information we’ve received is very compelling,” Marshall says.

Some models have also been published in SA: