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Garry Linnell goes on a trip into the future. It’s 2024 and a lot has changed

What does the future hold? Garry Linnell has some ideas.

What does the future hold? Garry Linnell has some ideas. Photo: TND

Greetings from the year 2024.

That’s right. Like the rest of you I have given up on 2020.

But instead of going stir crazy while cooped up at home, I found a way to sneak into the future to see how things worked out.

Can’t tell you how I did it. But let’s just say a complicated algorithm and a handful of weird, colourful mushrooms I found growing in the neighbour’s backyard that I enjoyed on toast for breakfast all combined to catapult me four years forward.

Anyway, relax. Despite the bleak outlook in August 2020, the world has not only survived – but thrived.

To prove it, here’s a selection of the big news stories currently appearing in The New Daily on this day in August 2024.

Washington, Wednesday. Updated: 7am

The President of the United States, Kanye West, has announced he will not stand for re-election in November and will instead support the candidacy of his wife, Kim Kardashian.

kanye west president greatest

US President Kanye West will not stand for re-election. Photo: AAP

President West, who stormed to an unexpected victory in the 2020 campaign over rivals Donald Trump and the late Joe Biden, cited an “overwhelming desire” to return to rap music and to complete his doctoral thesis on “Communicating with Dolphins using Crystals and Taylor Swift Song Lyrics”.

While courting some controversy early on, opinion polls rose sharply when his free trade agreement with China – dubbed “West meets East” – granted the global shoe and clothing company Nike “exclusive and unlimited sweatshop access in order to make more sneakers and stuff”.

President West received the Nobel peace prize in 2022 when his ‘Congressional Commission of Inquiry into That Nasty Coronavirus S–t’ concluded that tech billionaire Bill Gates had used the pandemic to secretly implant microchips in people’s heads in an attempt to boost Microsoft’s flagging sales of Windows 10 software.

Moscow, Wednesday. Updated: 6.30am

The former US president Donald Trump has denounced as “fake news” reports that he and his live-in partner, Vladimir Putin, have split.

Mr Trump, who sought political asylum in Moscow after his defeat in 2020 and moved in with Mr Putin six months later, tweeted last night that “Vlad and I remain very much IN LOVE! We have TREMENDOUS respect for one another. More FAKE NEWS from loony leftists and anti-gay thugs! UNFAIR!”

Melbourne, Australia. Breaking news

Melbourne under lockdown.

Melbourne’s four-year lockdown will continue for another six weeks, according to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

Mr Andrews said the lockdown – originally imposed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – would need to be extended despite the state recording no new coronavirus infections in more than three years.

“I know it’s tough,” he said. “But spring is just around the corner.

“It would be irresponsible of me to lift restrictions and allow five million people to suddenly venture outside given the enormous risks posed by high pollen levels and moderate sunburn.”

London, England. Updated: Four minutes ago

King Charles III has declined to invite Prince Harry to his official coronation next week after his youngest son signed up for another season of his and wife Meghan’s smash hit reality show, Gone With The Windsors.

The Times quotes senior Buckingham Palace sources claiming the snub follows a decision by Harry to air secretly filmed footage in last year’s debut season of the show.

The clips depicted Charles talking lovingly to his tomato plants and discussing a joint UK-US scientific mission with President West to prove the Earth is flat.

Charles will officially be crowned King in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey next Thursday.

His coronation follows the shock decision last month by his 98-year-old mother, Elizabeth, to relinquish the throne “to pursue further business opportunities”.

According to a report in The Sun, she plans to launch a range of high-end gin and tonic mixers and has already attracted investors for a personal coaching start-up that will instruct celebrities how to wave stiffly to large crowds while not saying anything much at all.

Cape Canaveral, Florida. Updated: 11pm

The new chief administrator of NASA, former Australian celebrity chef Pete Evans, last night announced the agency will halt all future expeditions to Mars and instead fund a $US50 billion search for the lost city of Atlantis.

Pete Evans donald trump

Pete Evans is continually in controversy. Photo: Instagram

Mr Evans, a close confidant and adviser to President West, said the impending launch of the agency’s latest Mars rover Peeping Tom had been cancelled and it will instead be redesigned to carry out deep-sea exploration.

“There is strong evidence that much of Atlantis remains intact somewhere deep in the Pacific,” Mr Evans told reporters.

“Given that its inhabitants practised a strict paleo diet – which you all know contributes to increased lung capacity – it’s entirely possible they have been holding their breath for the past few thousand years just waiting to be rescued.”

Beijing, China. Updated: Whenever

China’s official news agency Xinhua has dismissed rumours of a new virus infecting customers at several markets in Beijing.

It said senior party officials were monitoring the situation but “a few tens of thousands of people sniffing and coughing and suffering slight bleeding from all orifices does not constitute a widespread health threat and our borders will remain open”.

Garry Linnell was director of News and Current Affairs for the Nine network in the mid-2000s. He has also been editorial director for Fairfax and is a former editor of The Daily Telegraph and The Bulletin magazine

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