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Being locked up as a 13-year-old for skipping school negatively altered the trajectory of her life, Debbie Kilroy believes. or signup to continue reading "After I was put in that children's prison and the harm it inflicted on me, it was a downward spiral," she tells AAP. "I was pipelined onto the street of homelessness and then I was committing offences because it was the only way to survive." Ms Kilroy was last sent away in 1989 for six years after selling cannabis to undercover police. A lack of support and education as a child led her down the wrong path, she says, because she "knew nothing else". Now the chief executive of support organisation Sisters Inside, she says incarcerating Queensland's most vulnerable children under new adult crime, adult time laws instead of investing in reform, will only pave the way for a life of crime. "It started because school wasn't engaging me and I was running away from it," she adds. "It doesn't make any sense to me that 50 years later we are talking about doing the same harm." The incoming Liberal National government urgently introduced its controversial Making Queensland Safer legislation to sentence youth criminals to adult punishment if they commit serious offences, dubbed "adult time, adult crime". Children face life for five offences including murder, manslaughter and grievous bodily harm under the centrepiece election commitment. Juveniles as young as 10 will be considered for the same maximum sentence as adults for 13 offences, including car theft doubling to 10 years. The legislation also removes detention as a last resort entirely, meaning magistrates will have more freedom to imprison children if they deem it necessary. For victim survivor Ben Cannon, the laws should have come sooner. "We've got a system that is not broken from a year-long problem," he says. "This is a decade-plus social issue that let down four-year-olds who are now violent 14-year-olds." Mr Cannon came to help his neighbour, rugby union great Toutai Kefu, during a violent home invasion by four teenagers in 2021 where the family was seriously injured. He managed to stop one of the intruders and held the child down until police arrived. "One of the hardest things for me as a victim was to see a young person the same age as my son being so horrifically violent and horrible to another human," he says. "I still question how is it the best choice that person has in life to be in my neighbour's house at 2am trying to stab half a dozen people? "That still haunts me." Mr Cannon says the new government was left with little choice but to introduce harsh laws preventing teenagers engaging in extreme violence or repeatedly stealing cars. "This draws the line in the sand and says, 'enough is enough'," Mr Cannon said. However, he emphasised that it must be balanced to prevent the four-year-olds of today from becoming violent teenagers. "Without balance and understanding that unless we get better at fixing young kids and the social systems that they unfortunately fall into, we're going to continue on this cycle," he says. "Then it doesn't matter how tough our laws are, we're just not going to have a better society." Mr Cannon says he wants the laws to be accompanied by significant investment in social services and education. The proposed laws have been criticised after a statement of compatibility by Attorney-General Deb Frecklington indicated the legislation doesn't stack up against human rights. "I acknowledge that the amendments in the bill ... are incompatible with human rights," she said. "However, I consider that the current situation with respect to youth crime in Queensland is exceptional." The government has conceded that the laws would increase the number of children in detention centres and watchhouses as well as disproportionately impact Aboriginal children. "This impact results in limitations to the protection from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," the statement said. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child slammed what it said was a violation of international convention. "We do not agree that the so-called 'exceptional circumstances' warrant what will be a flagrant disregard for children's rights," Chair Ann Skelton said. "We also don't agree that it will make Queensland safer." Ms Skelton urged the government to stand by the principle that children should be treated differently from adults. Ms Kilroy says the concession that human rights will be breached under the laws is a "disturbing departure" from the foundations of justice and equity. "It is a dangerous bill that represents a dangerous escalation in criminalising children and contravening human rights." During parliamentary scrutiny this week, stakeholders have also criticised the legislation as making children "sacrificial lambs" while knowingly violating freedoms. "In any other context that is called child abuse," Queensland Human Rights Commission Chair Scott McDougall told a public hearing. Not only were the laws criticised but the short consultation period, consisting of two public hearings and several days of private committee hearings, also came under fire. Ms Kilroy notes that the government holds a majority in the state's unicameral legislature and can pass laws as it wishes. "There are no checks and balances, no accountability," she says. But Mr Cannon insists they needed to be rushed. "When you've sat with someone that in the darkness of night had their loved one murdered by one of these repeat offenders then urgencies needed," he says. "Whether we get it right, time will tell. "But you can't continue to allow these behaviours to go on." Premier David Crisafulli argues that his government was following the democratic process by allowing submissions and committee scrutiny but must uphold its election promise to pass the laws by Christmas. "Any good committee process can allow people to have a suggestion but just to be clear, we campaigned on adult crime, adult time," he said. "We will fulfil that." The steadfast campaign to pass the laws comes as the Department of Youth Justice reports there were 46,130 court-recorded convictions by young Queenslanders in 2023-24. Violent offending - murder, manslaughter, serious assault - has increased 8.3 per cent since 2019. Mr Cannon says the laws mark a moment for victims, who finally feel heard. "It has felt for a long time the justice system has had an imbalance where the rights of the criminal have been overseen or seen first before that of the victim," he says. But Ms Kilroy sees the laws as a "full frontal attack" on the most vulnerable children, especially Aboriginal kids. She says the children themselves are victims but the government has not included them in the rhetoric of "victim numbers" instead deciding to throw kids into prison without support. "Locking up children for longer is never going to work as it does not give any healing to the victims and children are the victims," she says. "This is just fuelling our love affair with caging children." She is instead calling for funding for services like Sisters Inside to re-engage kids with education, get them into jobs, reconnect with their families and communities or just give them food and water. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. WEEKLY The latest news, results & expert analysis. WEEKDAYS Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. 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Advertisement AdvertisementUS stocks rose to records after data suggested the job market remains solid enough to keep the economy going, but not so strong that it raises immediate worries about inflation. The S&P 500 climbed 0.2 per cent, just enough top the all-time high set on Wednesday, as it closed a third straight winning week in what looks to be one of its best years since the 2000 dot-com bust. The Dow Jones dipped 123.19 points, or 0.3 per cent, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.8 per cent to set its own record. Wall Street closed third-straight winning week with more gains. Credit: AP The Australian sharemarket is set to retreat, with futures pointing to a fall of 25 points, or 0.3 per cent, at the open. The quiet trading came after the latest jobs report came in mixed enough to strengthen traders’ expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again at its next meeting in two weeks. The report showed US employers hired more workers than expected last month, but it also said the unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked up to 4.2 per cent from 4.1 per cent. “This print doesn’t kill the holiday spirit and the Fed remains on track to deliver a cut in December,” according to Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector investing within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The Fed has been easing its main interest rate from a two-decade high since September to offer more help for the slowing job market, after bringing inflation nearly all the way down to its 2 per cent target. Lower interest rates can ease the brakes off the economy, but they can also offer more fuel for inflation. Expectations for a series of cuts from the Fed have been a major reason the S&P 500 has set an all-time high 57 times so far this year. And the Fed is part of a global surge: 62 central banks have lowered rates in the past three months, the most since 2020, according to Michael Hartnett and other strategists at Bank of America. Still, the jobs report may have included some notes of caution for Fed officials underneath the surface. Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, pointed to average wages for workers last month, which were a touch stronger than economists expected. While that’s good news for workers who would always like to make more, it could keep upward pressure on inflation. “This report tells the Fed that they still need to be careful as sticky housing/shelter/wage data shows that it won’t be easy to engineer meaningfully lower inflation from here in the nearer term,” Wren said. So, while traders are betting on an 85 per cent probability the Fed will ease its main rate in two weeks, they’re much less certain about how many more cuts it will deliver next year, according to data from CME Group. For now, the hope is that the job market can help US shoppers continue to spend and keep the US economy out of a recession that had earlier seemed inevitable after the Fed began hiking interest rates swiftly to crush inflation. Several retailers offered encouragement after delivering better-than-expected results for the latest quarter. Ulta Beauty rallied 9 per cent after topping expectations for both profit and revenue. The opening of new stores helped boost its revenue, and it raised the bottom end of its forecasted range for sales over this full year. Lululemon stretched 15.9 per cent higher following its own profit report. It said stronger sales outside the United States helped it in particular, and its earnings topped analysts’ expectations. Retailers overall have been offering mixed signals on how resilient US shoppers can remain amid the slowing job market and still-high prices. Target gave a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season, for example, while Walmart gave a much more encouraging outlook. A report on Friday suggested sentiment among US consumers may be improving more than economists expected. The preliminary reading from the University of Michigan’s survey hit its highest level in seven months. The survey found a surge in buying for some products as consumers tried to get ahead of possible increases in price due to higher tariffs that President-elect Donald Trump has threatened. In tech, Hewlett Packard Enterprise jumped 10.6 per cent for one of the S&P 500’s larger gains after reporting stronger profit and revenue than expected. Tech stocks were some of the market’s strongest this week, as Salesforce and other big companies talked up how much of a boost they’re getting from the artificial-intelligence boom. All told, the S&P 500 rose 15.16 points to 6,090.27. The Dow dipped 123.19 to 44,642.52, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 159.05 to 19,859.77. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.15 per cent from 4.18 per cent late Thursday. In stock markets abroad, France’s CAC 40 rose 1.3 per cent after French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to stay in office until the end of his term and to name a new prime minister within days. Earlier this week, far-right and left-wing lawmakers approved a no-confidence motion due to budget disputes, forcing Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his cabinet to resign. In Asia, stock indexes were mixed. They rallied 1.6 per cent in Hong Kong and 1 per cent in Shanghai ahead of an annual economic policy meeting scheduled for next week. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.6 per cent as South Korea’s ruling party chief showed support for suspending the constitutional powers of President Yoon Suk Yeol after he declared martial law and then revoked that earlier this week. Yoon is facing calls to resign and may be impeached. Bitcoin was sitting near $US101,500 after briefly bursting above $US103,000 to a record the day before. AP The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each we e kday afternoon .

The fall of President Bashar Assad will not only affect the 24 million Syrians who lived – and – under his brutal rule. Over the border in Lebanon, the impact will be felt, too. The collapse of Assad’s government provides another blow to its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, which was already an Israel conflict that weakened its capabilities and decimated its leadership. But many others in Lebanon , not least the 1.5 million to escape Assad and a 13-year civil war. As an , I believe the ripple effects from Syria are to be expected. The two countries’ modern histories are intertwined, and throughout its 54-year rule, the Assad family has intervened in Lebanon many times – mostly to the detriment of its people, its economy and its stability. Hezbollah and Assad: A reciprocal relationship Since its formation in the early 1980s, Hezbollah has benefited from strong support from the Syrian regime. There between the two, for sure – notably in the midst of the Lebanese civil war. But overall, Hezbollah has been able to rely on Syria , training and easy land . And this arrangement was reciprocal. When Assad’s rule was challenged in 2011 and the country descended into civil war, Hezbollah fighters to bolster government troops. But having grown to become the most powerful paramilitary entity in Lebanon, Hezbollah has seen its fortunes suffer of late. The recent war with Israel severely weakened the group and forced it into that includes a pathway toward disarmament. Furthermore, Lebanese support for Hezbollah has shifted dramatically, with open calls for the group to cease its paramilitary activities. The group’s war with Israel cost the lives of about , and about – about one-fifth of the population – were internally displaced from their homes. Meanwhile, for Lebanon is estimated in the billions of dollars. The Iran, Assad and Hezbollah triangle It is no coincidence that the recent rebel advance that led to Assad’s ouster began . Hezbollah forces were depleted, and many of their fighters were pulled out of Syria to . Syrian rebels chose this moment to strike, knowing that Iran was also stretched too thin with the Israel-Hezbollah war to come to Assad’s aid. The domino effect has resulted in the unraveling of Iran’s “ .” Certainly, Tehran has lost its firm grip over Syria and Lebanon. The fact that the fall of Assad coincides with the potential end of both Syria’s civil war and the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance is fitting; it was the start of the civil war that helped anchor that three-way relationship in the first place. In 2011, the – a series of pro-democracy and human rights protests that started in Tunisia – reached Syria. Anti-Assad protests broke out in Daraa and soon spread to major cities such as Homs, Hama and the capital, Damascus. The Syrian government , ordering soldiers to fire at the protesters, while detaining and torturing thousands of men and boys. International . But the Syrian government remained in power with the support of Iran and Hezbollah. In fact, in addition to Hezbollah’s fighters, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was also advising Assad and fighting alongside his military against the Syrian people. For Tehran and its proxy Hezbollah, this helped further the “Iranization” of the region – that is, the spread of the ideology of the Iranian revolution and the into Shia states. Syria is predominantly Sunni Muslim. Under the Assad family, it was ruled by an – a group that practices a branch of Shia Islam. Hezbollah, as a Shia terrorist group, swore allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader in its . The Palestinian cause was another unifying factor between the three. The post-1979 revolutionary Iran credo of “death to Israel” is a sentiment shared by the Assad regime and Hezbollah fighters. However, Assad may have been less vocal about it – especially as he attempted to negotiate with Israel over the . Assad’s Syria, Iran and Hezbollah were not just unified by radicalism and their desire to govern the region. They also shared economic interests and have benefited from trafficking illegal drugs, , an amphetamine-type stimulant that is mass-produced in Syria under the patronage of Assad and Iran. The drug provided an alternative and substantial source of revenue at a time when international sanctions were biting. With the help of Hezbollah and its control of Lebanon’s airport and seaports, the drug has become widely available in the Gulf states. Its highly addictive nature posed a real threat in the Arab world, and Assad used it to pressure Saudi Arabia into advocating for in 2023. In return, the Syrian regime agreed to redirect its drug trafficking elsewhere. Assad’s legacy With Hezbollah’s defeat in Lebanon and the fall of the Syrian regime, the “Iranization” of the region is, at the very least, stalled. Nevertheless, 54 years of Assad family rule in Syria has left a long trail of destruction in neighboring Lebanon. In over the border to put an end to the Lebanese civil war. Its presence was supposed to be temporary, but it was extended for over four decades. By the time the Lebanese civil war ended in 1991, Syria was exercising total control over Lebanon’s . Serious human rights violations were reported, including disappearances, illegal detentions, torture and the . In February 2005, Lebanese – who publicly opposed the Syrian hegemony in Lebanon – was assassinated in an attack in which have been heavily implicated. The killing sparked the , when hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens took to the streets demanding the immediate departure of the Syrian forces. Although Syrian forces left Lebanon, the Syrian regime continued to interfere in the country’s politics through Hezbollah, which evolved into a political-military organization and entered the government in 2008. From that point onward, Hezbollah would block any decision that did not serve Syria’s and Iran’s interests. For instance, Hezbollah and its allies vetoed any presidential candidate who was not supportive of the Syrian regime – a policy that plunged Lebanon into a prolonged . An uncertain future While Hezbollah may continue to operate within Lebanon and under Iran’s umbrella, Assad’s fall means it is deprived of its supply route. Without Syria, Hezbollah has no quick access to Iran’s fighters and weapons – and the newly signed ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel reaffirms Lebanon’s commitment to a calling for Hezbollah’s disarmament. And while it is unclear what the new Syria will look like, for this moment at least, Lebanon’s and Syria’s populations – both of whom have suffered under decades of brutal rule and Hezbollah’s abuse – are able to rejoice at the departure of the man responsible for inflicting so much of the pain. To remove this article -We will soon put 2024 in the history books, and what a year it was for the stock market. So far, the S&P 500 index has reached a new all-time high a whopping 50 times. There are multiple reasons for the rise, like a resilient economy and expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep lowering interest rates. However, perhaps the largest reason is artificial intelligence (AI) enthusiasm. Some believe that the stock market is in a bubble, or at least overextended, and there are definitely stocks that appear overvalued. However, the AI market is massive and expanding quickly, as shown below. The AI market could more than quadruple 2024 revenues by 2030, so companies (and investors) are scrambling for a piece of it. AI covers a lot of different applications, one of which is voice recognition technology. This tech communicates with people conversationally and has many applications. One of the leading companies in the field is SoundHound AI ( SOUN 12.60% ) , whose stock has rocketed 578% in 2024 as of this writing. Will this continue in 2025? SoundHound's market opportunity The financial implications of conversational speech recognition are gigantic. Order-taking at drive-thru restaurants and automated customer service will save companies vast sums of money on employee costs. Well-known companies like White Castle, Papa John's , Applebee's, and many more are testing or deploying SoundHound's tech. SoundHound just reported that Torchy's Tacos rolled out the tech at their locations. Automotive is another massive market using SoundHound. The tech accesses a vast database to answer questions like "What's the most scenic route?" "What will the weather be like in Detroit this weekend?" or "Where is a nearby Italian restaurant, and what is the fastest way to get there?" This is a significant advancement from the days of "call so and so" and "play music." I believe that voice recognition tech like this will soon be the standard at drive-thrus and automobiles. Statista predicts the market will more than double by 2030, as you can see below. Revenue is growing faster than the market for SoundHound. Is SoundHound stock a buy now? SoundHound reported an 89% year-over-year increase in revenue to $25 million in the third quarter. It also expanded its customer base significantly in 2024. The company expects sales of $82 million to $85 million for 2024, potentially doubling sales with $165 million as the guidance midpoint of 2025. The revenue growth is incredible; however, investors should note that the company is not profitable and does not produce positive cash flow from operations. This makes the stock riskier than profitable companies. SoundHound's valuation is in question after its recent epic run that saw the stock soar 171% over the past 30 days. The company trades for 33 times its potential $165 million in sales for 2025 based on its $5.5 billion market cap at the time of this writing. That is quite high for any company, let alone one that isn't profitable. Analysts put an average price target on SoundHound of $8.07, well below the current price of $14.62. I am enthusiastic about SoundHound's future and was recently high on the stock; however, investors should consider waiting for a pullback after this run.Bieber re-signs with Guardians