Featured Alerts

All News

Bruce Lehrmann wades into new Federal Court battle

Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has lodged legal action in the Federal Court against the Commissioner of the National Anti-Corruption Commission and a federal minister.

Breaking: At least 14 people killed in violent protests in Kathmandu

Police and protesters have clashed with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons deployed by officers as thousands of young people try to storm the parliament.

Chatbots expected to be banned from talking sex or suicide with Australian kids

Australian children will be prevented from having sexual, violent or harmful conversations with AI companions in a world-first move expected on Tuesday.

Man critically injured in Perth workplace incident

A man in his 40s has been critically injured in a workplace incident in Perth's north-east.

'Smoke in the cockpit': Plane's emergency landing after mayday call

The British Airways passenger flight BA16 was on its way to Singapore and made the emergency return to Sydney Airport about an hour after take-off this afternoon.

Bulldogs prop forced to move out of home on eve of NRL finals

Max King has been living with a mould infestation at home that he is glad to have finally escaped in the lead-up to Friday's qualification final at Melbourne.

Supertramp co-founder Rick Davies dies aged 81

Rick Davies, the co-founder and lead singer for British rock band Supertramp, has died aged 81 after a decade-long battle with cancer.

Hammer to miss Test rugby league after injury in final NRL round

Dolphins flyer Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow's knee injury will keep him out of the Pacific Championships, where he was preparing to reunite with Samoa.

Laws boosting deportation powers not sufficiently justified, committee warns

The report from a Senate committee tasked with scrutinising bills was tabled hours after the controversial changes passed parliament. 

ATV driver charged with manslaughter over death of toddler

The 34-year-old was allegedly towing farm equipment behind an all-terrain vehicle when the boy fell last year.

A stage adaptation of Craig Silvey's novel Runt will premiere next year

Runt earned a slew of awards for younger readers and was turned into a movie. Ahead of the release of the sequel, a theatre adaptation is in the works.

Six killed by gunmen at bus stop in Jerusalem, at least 15 wounded

Israeli authorities say six people have been killed and 15 wounded by gunmen at a junction on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Guard was watching TV in lead up to Indigenous inmate's death, inquest hears

A guard has admitted to watching a soccer game on TV in the moments leading up to the death of an Indigenous inmate, an inquest has heard in its first day.

Senator's Indian constituents call for apology over 'offensive' comments

An Indian society in Darwin has written to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, calling the NT senator's comments about Indian migration to Australia "racist" and "ill-founded".

Development framework overhaul sparks climate, accountability concerns

New legislation aimed at fast-tracking priority energy and defence projects in Western Australia could put the environment at risk and lead to less transparent government, experts say.

Twin brother pays tribute to surfer fatally mauled in Sydney shark attack

Mercury Psillakis's twin brother Mike paid tribute, saying his family's loss "is the hardest moment" of his life.

Financial fallout of Woolworths, Coles underpayments could climb past $1 billion

Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths expect to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to repay staff the companies underpaid, following a legal judgement experts say could have wide-reaching implications.

Red CentreNATS wraps up in Alice Springs as five-year deal confirmed

The 11th edition of the festival has come to an end, but not before injecting millions into the local economy and organisers say there is plenty more to come.

Inquest hears hospital could have prevented fatal assault on dementia patient

A coronial inquest into a fatal confrontation between two dementia patients at a Queensland hospital hears added security and anti-barricade doors could have stopped the attack.

Man charged with murder of Ipswich couple was 'hearing voices', court told

Lars Faleata has been charged with the murders of Christine and Joe Stephan, who were found dead after a fire at their home in Ipswich — south-west of Brisbane — in January, 2022.

Wallabies boosted after playmaker Lynagh cleared of concussion

The Wallabies have received a big boost ahead of their Rugby Championship rematch against Argentina in Sydney, with fly half Tom Lynagh cleared of concussion.

Labor divisions grow over Burswood racetrack, with two Federal MPs at odds

Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King backs the WA government's controversial Burswood racetrack plan, after her Labor colleague Patrick Gorman slammed the idea.

Pilot dies in light plane crash on SA's Eyre Peninsula

A Port Lincoln man has died in a light plane crash in fields at Yeelanna, north of Cummins, on the Eyre Peninsula.

Key moments from the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards

Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga took home the biggest awards at this year's MTV VMAs with several nineties stars honoured for their musical legacy. 

The uncomfortable legacy of Erin Patterson, Australia's antihero

The mushroom murder case brought frenzied public attention to deep and private pain. But do we allow Patterson's notoriety to overshadow the memory of those she killed, or can we resist and honour the victim's legacies instead?

644 days and counting: ‘Unbeatable’ Kangaroos continue their streak

Welcome to our weekly AFLW blog for round four. Throughout the season, follow along for updates from every game, as well as news and analysis across the round.

The commentator’s curse hits the playground

Postpartum parents are winging it.

Smith weighs in on ex-teammate's future

Storm legend Cameron Smith admits concern over the troubling run of suspensions for Nelson Asofa-Solomona.

'No idea': Gus shuts down Burton rumours

Phil Gould denies that Matt Burton will be leaving the Bulldogs after being linked with the Perth Bears.

Sharks villain's hilarious admission

Ronaldo Mulitalo explains why he is always riling up opposition players as he earns a nomination for the RLPA Players' Champion.

‘Wonderful’ best friends killed on freeway after stopping to help injured kangaroo

Sarala Khadka and Areeza Suwal who died after being hit by a car on the Hume Freeway last Thursday night had a special bond.

Paralympian refused multiple Ubers due to guide dog

A paralympian is fed up after being refused three Uber rides in one night because he was trying to travel with his guide dog.

Worker crushed at Perth factory

A worker has been crushed in a workplace accident in Perth.

Price doubles down on Liberal infighting by demanding Hawke apologise

Price’s fresh demand will set another test for the opposition leader, who must rein in the senator or risk losing authority over her party room.

Haas opens up on darkest days

Payne Haas speaks to Nine's Michael Chammas about the passing of his brother and dealing with adversity off the field.

How injury carnage unlocked Walsh, and the glaring numbers to prove it

Pat Carrigan offers a sheepish chuckle and shakes his head when asked how his close mate, Reece Walsh, handles the scrutiny which surrounds his every move.

Scoop in September LIVE: The secret weapon behind Bobby Hill’s preliminary final hope

Follow Scoop in September for news, fresh views and whispers during footy finals.

‘Australia belongs to all of us’: Community backs school after bomb threat

Anglican priests welcomed students to an Islamic school in Brisbane on Monday after a bomb threat forced an evacuation last week.

Crows semi-final tickets sell out after fans camp out overnight

Adelaide Oval is set to host a second consecutive sold-out crowd this Friday night.

Notorious cop killer back in jail after parole breach

A notorious Adelaide cop killer who was granted parole is now back behind bars.

Pilot dies in South Australia plane crash

A 36-year-old pilot has died in a plane crash on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

SA government issues level-crossing warning

Footage has been released of a string of near misses at train level crossings across South Australia.

Resident escapes destructive house fire

A home in Lewiston has been destroyed by a fire.

Aleer requests trade to Saints; Hawks forward out of semi; AFL hints at imminent rule changes

Leek Aleer becomes the fourth player this off-season to nominate St Kilda, behind Carlton free agents Tom De Koning and Jack Silvagni, plus contracted West Coast forward Liam Ryan. Meanwhile, there’s some tough news for an injured Hawks’ forward.

Smith, Gus call for MRC overhaul

Cameron Smith and Phil Gould urge the NRL to make changes after Nicho Hynes escaped suspension for a hip-drop

Giant cuttlefish! They are in danger and scientists are going to save them with … bubbles! | First Dog on the Moon

The only other option was to go back in time and do something about climate change but time travel hasn’t been invented yet

Continue reading...

MTV VMAs 2025 red carpet: Sabrina Carpenter, Ariana Grande, Katseye and more – in pictures

On this year’s Video Music awards red carpet, pop’s biggest stars opt for underwear as outerwear and a surprising amount of facial hair

Continue reading...

A better life is possible - but only if you dive deep into your unconscious

We are used to skimming the surface of our emotions, distracting ourselves with endless doing. To discover what we really need, we must move beyond the shallows

Ever since I discovered the mating dynamics of the deep-sea anglerfish, where the male fuses with the female, and how closely this mirrors some disturbing human relationship patterns, I have been chewing over the idea that everything that exists in our unconscious also exists in the ocean. From the methodical violence of sharks, to dolphins who mourn their dead and jellyfish whose pulsating contractions remind me of my labour, the only phenomenon on Earth that is as rich and colourful and dark and fascinating as the deep sea is the deep unconscious.

My problem, as I realised in a session not long ago with my psychoanalyst, is that I have been swimming in shallow waters. This is something I have seen many times in myself, and perhaps these moments of recognition help me to see it in my patients – the unconscious pull to stay in the emotional shallows, not to delve deeper into your own internal experience and understand the more profound wishes and hungers that drive us. Instead, we scroll away our difficult feelings, staring at whatever screen is in front of us rather than looking inwards. We cheapen our relationships with others, craving and offering a particular kind of emotional stroking that keeps things at surface level. We buy things, we watch things, we listen to things, we squeeze things, we try things on and send things back, and we do, do, do – we do to stay in the shallows, so we don’t have to be in the depths.

Continue reading...

And then there were eight: NRL set for most open finals series in years | Nick Tedeschi

The top four are fallible and with no clear favourite most teams have a chance of winning the 2025 premiership

After 27 rounds, the eight finalists have been locked in and there is nows what appears to be the most open premiership in years. Injuries, ladder position and some questionable form have ensured the playoffs begin without a clear favourite and with most teams given some hope of lifting the Provan-Summons Trophy on the first Sunday in October.

Continue reading...

Six people killed in Jerusalem shooting; Israel threatens Gaza City with ‘powerful hurricane’ – Middle East crisis live

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has warned that a ‘powerful hurricane’ will ‘strike the skies of Gaza City’ later today

Sam Jones is Madrid correspondent for the Guardian

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has stepped up his scathing criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, accusing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of “exterminating a defenceless people” by bombing hospitals and “killing innocent boys and girls with hunger”.

Continue reading...

Bruce Lehrmann launches legal challenge against national anti-corruption commission head and federal minister

Proceedings filed against the commissioner of the national anti-corruption commissioner, Paul Brereton, and federal special minister of state, Don Farrell

Despite being on the brink of bankruptcy as a result of court proceedings, embattled former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has lodged legal action against the head of a corruption watchdog and a federal minister.

The legal action was filed by Lehrmann personally at 9.30pm on Thursday under the classification of a “judicial review”, which asks the court to review the legality of a governmental decision.

Continue reading...

Minns backtracks on right to hunt over fears it could lead to US-style gun future

NSW premier initially supported the controversial bill which would have allowed recreational hunters to shoot feral animals on public lands

The New South Wales premier has backtracked on a central element of a Shooters and Fishers’ private member’s bill – enshrining a right to hunt – saying it could undermine gun control and send the state down the US path of a right to bear arms.

“We won’t be supporting any provision in [the bill] that will water down gun laws in NSW. They’ve been important pieces of keeping the community safe for a long period of time,” Chris Minns said.

Continue reading...

‘Only you know why’: how mushroom murderer Erin Patterson faced her sentencing

After Patterson was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 33 years, only the question of motive remained

Erin Patterson raised her chin almost defiantly, giving a sense this was all a grave mistake, that she was not supposed to be there. For lengthy periods during her sentencing she even closed her eyes, a woman seemingly at peace with her fate.

But her hands betrayed her: clasped tightly in her lap, though moving frequently, the thumbs rotating around each other or the fingers on her left hand opening and closing regularly as if to mimic her heartbeat.

Continue reading...

Tom Phillips, fugitive father on run with children for nearly four years, shot dead by NZ police in exchange of fire

Phillips, who has been on the run with his children for four years, was shot by police after officers came under fire while investigating burglary in Piopio, authorities said

A fugitive father who had been hiding in New Zealand’s rugged wilderness with his three children for nearly four years has been shot dead by police investigating an armed burglary, police said on Monday.

The whereabouts of Tom Phillips has attracted headlines around the world since just before Christmas 2021, when he fled into the Waikato wilderness with his children Ember, now 9, Maverick, 10, and Jayda, 12, following a custody dispute with their mother.

Continue reading...

Hawke urges Nampijinpa Price to say sorry for ‘real damage’ her migration comments caused Indian Australians

Sussan Ley under pressure to repair ties with diaspora group after NT senator claimed without evidence Labor was bringing in migrants to win votes

Liberal MP Alex Hawke has called on Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to apologise for the “real damage” her comments have caused the Indian community as the fallout continues internally and externally for the party.

The opposition has scrambled to repair ties with Indian Australians after Price’s remarks. On Monday, the Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, convened a roundtable with community leaders the day before she toured Sydney’s Harris Park – known as “Little India”.

Continue reading...

Families ‘shattered’ and community ‘terrified’ as police hunt alleged Melbourne machete murderers

Premier says government stands with South Sudanese community in ‘fight against the cancer of youth gang crime’ after Cobblebank killings

The families of two children allegedly murdered in Melbourne’s outer west on the weekend are “shattered” and the community “terrified” as police continue to hunt the perpetrators responsible for the machete killings.

It comes as the Victorian premier promised the government would stand with the South Sudanese community “in their fight against the cancer of youth gang crime that is breaking their community’s heart”, announcing she would convene an existing working group.

Continue reading...

Piastri and Norris say team is ‘priority No 1’ amid McLaren team orders controversy

  • Wolff warns that managing drivers may get trickier

  • Piastri: ‘Protecting the people around us is important’

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have both insisted that protecting their teammates was central to McLaren’s use of team orders at the Italian Grand Prix and that they were focused on long-term success that would be fostered by doing the right thing, despite criticism after they were instructed to switch places at Monza.

The Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, however, also noted McLaren’s adherence to such strongly held principles of fairness for their drivers may yet cause them serious headaches later in the season if Norris and Piastri end up toe-to-toe for the title.

Continue reading...

Volkswagen ‘nearing US trade deal’ as it says Trump tariffs have cost it billions

Carmaker’s CEO says Porsche is being squeezed by ‘sandwich’ of tariffs and weak Chinese market

Volkswagen is closing in on a tariff deal with the US, the boss of the German carmaker has said, as it eyes up the market for affordable electric cars in Europe.

Europe’s biggest car manufacturer, which also owns the Audi, Seat and Porsche brands, has been hit hard by Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, announced in April. The levies, combined with a turbulent market, have already cost “several billions”, the chief executive, Oliver Blume, said.

Continue reading...

Epstein estate records release could shine light on sex trafficker’s connections – or show nothing at all

A House committee will receive the late sex offender’s will and contacts from his ‘black book’, among other files

The release of records from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate to US lawmakers this week, as well as potentially suspicious transaction reports, could offer a roadmap to where the scandal swirling around the late convicted sex trafficker goes next.

Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed full transparency around Epstein and his links to a wide circle of powerful, rich and famous associates. But instead, the administration has been accused of foot-dragging and a cover-up, and has faced intense scrutiny over the extent of Trump’s own social contact with Epstein.

Continue reading...

Need I list all the reasons why Trump shouldn’t get a Nobel peace prize? | Sidney Blumenthal

Trump has been an enabler of war, famine, disease and death

Donald Trump’s thuggish campaign to bully his way to the Nobel peace prize should not be the cause for the committee to reject him. There are many more substantial grounds that render him patently unqualified to receive the award.

Among the numerous reasons that make him one of the least deserving people in the world who should be honored, he has single-handedly destroyed the United States Agency for International Development, which has saved hundreds of millions of people from hunger and disease, and promoted democracy and the rule of law around the world. In an executive order issued on his inauguration day, 20 January, Trump slandered USAID as “not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values” and claimed that its workers “serve to destabilize world peace”.

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist

Continue reading...

The US supreme court may address Trump’s tariffs. Does he want to win?

The president has claimed any decision against him would ‘destroy’ the ‘financial fabric of our country’

Donald Trump has upended the global economy, imposing steep tariffs on US allies and rivals, dismissing fears of higher prices, and promising his strategy will yield a new “golden age”. All the president needs to do now is prove he’s allowed to do it.

Legal experts say he may face an uphill battle.

Continue reading...

‘The energy is infectious’: why Bride and Prejudice is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers highlighting their go-to comfort films is an ode to Gurinder Chadha’s 2004 spin on the Austen classic

We’ve never been short of Jane Austen film adaptations. In fact, it seems a new one arrives every decade – two were announced recently, including Netflix’s spin on Pride & Prejudice. Yet, one adaptation has been shamefully overlooked: Gurinder Chadha’s Bride & Prejudice.

A cross-cultural, British-and-Bollywood-meets-Hollywood take on Austen’s most famous novel, the film is pure joy – a riot of original musical numbers, colourful costumes, chaos, culture clashes and, of course, romance.

Continue reading...

Justin Bieber: Swag II review – more filler with an occasional pop killer

(Def Jam)
Part two of Bieber’s seventh album adds very little: it’s largely bland pop with glimpses of quality thanks to a buzzy supporting cast including Dijon and Bakar

Justin Bieber’s Swag II adds 23 tracks to his already over-stuffed Swag project, and it’s not just the title that lacks imagination. Like its predecessor, released just two months ago, Swag II unites a buzzy team of producers and writers known for freshening up R’n’B and hands them a precisely curated Pinterest board: Dangerous-era Michael Jackson, D’Angelo’s lush arrangements, Jai Paul’s glitchy, retro-futurist sonics and the sun-bleached textures of current collaborators Mk.gee and Dijon. But with unadventurous songwriting, the result is (another) album that’s all vibe and voguish production, and very little substance.

Opener Speed Demon reheats Bieber’s “is it clocking to you” meme for the second time across both albums, albeit with a bright, funky bravado and a memorably bonkers chorus about “checking these chickens”, AKA leaving his critics in the dust. But for a song bragging about ambition, it lacks adrenaline – like many of Swag II’s safe, repetitive tracks.

Continue reading...

The one change that worked: I sobered up – and started to listen to what my body was telling me

After years of partying, I realised the exhaustion and anxiety weren’t worth it, and turned my back on Friday night Fomo. I still enjoy the dancefloor, but I always know when to leave

Most of my adult life has revolved around music: clubs, bars, festivals, house parties – anywhere I could dance to loud music. I loved how energising and cathartic it was to get immersed in it, to lose myself a little and move my body expressively without judgment. I’d get so absorbed that I would lose track of time; once, at Burning Man, I was awake for 36 hours exploring the festival, meeting new people and partying.

When I became a DJ, these kinds of events increased. Late nights out would last until the morning. Often, they became marathon weekend sessions, which ran from Friday night to Sunday lunchtime. It wasn’t all dancing and shenanigans – there would be moments to sit around and chat with people, too. I’d be out at least three times a week. Even though I’d get tired, I would always find some way to push through to the early hours because I was scared to miss out on things. Fomo (fear of missing out) drove many of my decisions.

Continue reading...

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle review – battle anime brings the visual flair

In the first of a film trilogy, teenage Tanjiro seeks vengeance for his murdered family in what is a great taste of things to come

The first part of a trilogy that will conclude the massively popular anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, this latest smash hit from Ufotable, directed by Haruo Sotozaki, is a spectacular treat. For those new to the franchise, the story is set during a mythical imagining of the Taisho era, where hordes of carnivorous demons descend on innocent civilians. Fighting in the name of his massacred family and a sister infected with demon blood, teenage protagonist Tanjiro Kamado joins the Demon Slayer Corps, determined to wipe these ruthless beasts off the Earth. The film picks up from a thrilling cliffhanger of the fourth season, where Tanjiro and his fellow comrades are thrust into the lair of the demon-in-chief, the cunning and all-powerful Muzan Kibutsuji.

Much of the film is structured around various battles between the series regulars and their sworn enemies. The challenge of sustaining the narrative is tempered by the use of flashbacks, providing a backstory for each of the formidable foes. Though packed with emotional impact, such detours occasionally hamper the pacing of the combat sequences, which are the film’s visual highlights. Each demon slayer is armed with a specific breath and fighting technique, which manifests into flows of water, fire, and thunder imagery, providing a striking contrast to the cavernous design of Muzan’s Infinity Castle. The latter, evoking perhaps the endless staircases of MC Escher albeit with a Japanese flair, is a handsomely animated spectacle where corridors and hallways fold into one another like endless labyrinths, while fusuma and shoji screens function as trap doors used to throw the demon slayers into unimaginable dangers.

Continue reading...

How the hairdryer treatment from a science teacher over a flunked exam changed my life | Michael Akadiri

After my whole class flunked a mock GCSE, Miss T’s home truths helped instil a work ethic that has been crucial to my career

“Fix up. It’s not me who needs their GCSEs – it’s you!” These words were barked at my year 10 science class by our science teacher and form tutor, Miss T. And deservedly so, because we had just suffered the ignominy of collectively flunking a GCSE mock exam. All 30 of us.

Miss T was relatively young, but she was old-school in her approach – she had a low threshold for nonsense. While I considered this mock an inconsequential test – a pre-season friendly, if you will – she treated it like an FA Cup semi-final. To put it another way, it was half-time and we were losing badly, so she gave us the hairdryer treatment: a relentless, 15-minute tirade berating us for our lack of aptitude and our attitude.

Michael Akadiri is an award-winning standup comedian and junior doctor. His debut Edinburgh fringe show, No Scrubs, was nominated for the Biggest Award in Comedy and is available to watch on YouTube

Continue reading...

Israel used to lie about killing journalists; now it barely bothers to do so. What happened? | Meron Rapoport

The ‘most moral army in the world’ has killed at least 248 journalists in Gaza, seemingly without any shame

  • Meron Rapoport is an Israeli journalist for +972 magazine and Local Call

In September 2022, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published the results of an internal investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin four months earlier. “There is a high possibility that Ms Abu Akleh was accidentally hit by IDF gunfire that was fired toward suspects identified as armed Palestinian gunmen,” read the summary of the investigation. The IDF expressed “its deep condolences” over her death. “The freedom of the press and maintaining the safety of journalists are part of the primary components of Israeli democracy, which the IDF is committed to upholding,” it added.

This statement had little to do with the facts. Not only did numerous independent investigations indicate that Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli soldiers (a claim which the Israeli army initially denied, saying “there is a possibility, now being looked into, that reporters were hit – possibly by shots fired by Palestinian gunmen)”, but the New York Times also reported after reviewing the scene that “there were no armed Palestianians near her when she was shot”. A report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, published a year later, found that no Israeli soldier was charged in the killing of 20 journalists – 18 of them Palestinian – in the West Bank and Gaza between 2001 and 2023, making the IDF’s purported commitment to the freedom of the press look deprived of any real meaning.

Meron Rapoport is an Israeli journalist who writes for +972 magazine and is an editor at Local Call

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s ‘Department of War’ will just deliver bloodshed and destruction | Judith Levine

The agency celebrates the US and the president as aggressor, conqueror and unrestrained international lawbreaker

On Friday, Donald Trump signed an executive order restoring the Department of Defense to its original name, the Department of War.

That name “had a stronger sound”, Trump told reporters in August. “As Department of War we won everything,” he added, “and I think we’re going to have to go back to that.” In June, at the Nato summit, he called Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, his “secretary of war”.

Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books

Continue reading...

Across cultures and centuries, Aristotle and Confucius agree: virtue is good in moderation | Jackie Bailey

What would our philosophers and spiritual leaders have to say about ‘virtue signalling’? They might be in agreement

  • Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

Some commentators blame James Bartholomew for coining the term “virtue signalling”. But admonishments against blowing one’s own trumpet date back at least 2,000 years earlier.

In Christianity it’s taught that virtue should not be performative, but active. To be good, a person had to do good. Jesus was very vocal when it came to his criticism of the Pharisee sect and their showy, costly acts of piety, in the absence of what he considered to be genuine virtue.

Continue reading...

The USTA’s censorship of Trump dissent at the US Open is cowardly, hypocritical and un-American | Bryan Armen Graham

By asking broadcasters not to show any protest against Donald Trump at Sunday’s final, the governing body has caved to fear while contradicting its own history of spectacle

When the dust finally settles in the days after Sunday’s eagerly awaited US Open men’s final, the United States Tennis Association will issue its annual victory-lap press release. It will tout another record-setting Open: more than a million fans through the gates, unprecedented social-media engagement, double-digit growth in food and beverage sales, and hundreds of celebrities packed into suites from Rolex to Ralph Lauren. It will beam about growing the game, championing diversity and turning Flushing Meadows into a pop-culture destination.

But for all the milestones the USTA is teeing up to celebrate, this year’s tournament will be remembered for a different kind of first: the governing body’s lamentable decision to ask broadcasters not to show dissent against Donald Trump. In making that pre-emptive concession, the USTA has committed an unforced error that can’t be undone: sacrificing credibility in order to shield a politician – any politician, regardless of party, ideology or affiliation – from the sound of public disapproval.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump maelstrom likely to leave US economic model unrecognisable | Heather Stewart

President alters demands on a whim, and although investors are averting eyes for now, risks rise with each chaotic week

Donald Trump observed blithely last week that if his cherished tariff regime is struck down by the US supreme court, he may need to “unwind” some of the trade deals struck since he declared “liberation day” in April.

It was a reminder, as if it were needed, that nothing about Trump’s economic policy is set in stone. Not only does the ageing president alter his demands on a whim, but it is unclear to what extent he has the power to make them stick.

Continue reading...

Brendon McCullum labels upcoming Ashes as ‘biggest series of all of our lives’

  • England head coach hails ‘box office’ Jofra Archer

  • Stokes and Wood ‘progressing well’ after injuries

Brendon McCullum has ramped up the Ashes hype ahead of this winter’s trip to Australia, describing England’s pursuit of the urn they last won a decade ago – and have brought back from the Antipodes just once since 1986-87 – as “the biggest series of all of our lives”.

England returned to international action last week for the first time since a thrilling five-Test series against India concluded in early August, and though they lost to South Africa over three one-day internationals that run ended with a historic, one-sided victory in Southampton on Sunday. A spellbinding performance in that game from Jofra Archer, who took four wickets for 18 runs – “There was an ‘ooh’ or an ‘aah’ every single over,” he said afterwards – set imaginations racing with thoughts of what the injury-prone seamer might achieve in more high-profile assignments to come. The first Ashes Test starts in Perth on 21 November.

Continue reading...

Tony Popovic expects more confident Socceroos in second clash with New Zealand

  • Australia struggled to break down All Whites in first outing

  • Youngsters impressed off bench but no certainty to start in Auckland

Socceroos coach Tony Popovic has called for his side to play with more “confidence and belief” but is no certainty to back his most dynamic young talents from the start in their second friendly against New Zealand.

Australia had trouble breaking down New Zealand in the first match of the “Soccer Ashes” double-header until injecting the youthful energy of substitutes Nestory Irankunda, Mohamed Toure and Max Balard in Canberra on Friday night.

During finals sign up for our free weekly AFL newsletter

Continue reading...

Carlos Alcaraz savours ‘best tournament’ of his career after claiming second US Open title

  • New No 1 dropped just one set on way to his sixth grand slam title

  • ‘This tournament I saw that I can play really consistent,’ he says

Carlos Alcaraz described his US Open title run as the best tournament of his career after he defeated his rival Jannik Sinner 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in New York to win his sixth grand slam title.

Alcaraz’s victory caps off an incredible five-month run for the 22-year-old, who has reached the final of his last eight tournaments, winning six titles including the French Open and US Open. While many of Alcaraz’s previous triumphs included numerous five-set battles and dramatic comebacks – such as his recovery from triple match point down to defeat Sinner over five sets in Paris – this was by far the most efficient tournament of his career. Alcaraz dropped just one set in his seven matches and he lost his serve just three times in the entire tournament.

Continue reading...

Lando Norris defends team orders after McLaren hand him Oscar Piastri’s place

  • Australian told to let Norris pass after pit-stop error

  • Piastri has ‘no regrets’ after championship lead cut

Lando Norris bullishly dismissed criticism of McLaren for using team orders at the Italian Grand Prix, saying the team would continue to do what they felt was right “no matter what people say”. His teammate Oscar Piastri, who ceded his place to the British driver, also maintained he had no regrets in agreeing to do so.

The race was won by Max Verstappen for Red Bull, with the world champion enjoying enormous pace at Monza, while Norris and Piastri followed in second and third place. After Norris had held second almost the entire race, he dropped behind his teammate because of a slow pit stop caused by a wheel gun issue in the last laps and McLaren ordered the Australian to give the place back.

Continue reading...

Caitlin Clark’s season is over, but the mob’s anger isn’t about her health

The Indiana Fever have shut down their star for the rest of 2025. And the toxic elements of her fanbase have lost a culture-war totem

Caitlin Clark’s season is over. The Indiana Fever confirmed on Thursday night what many suspected, when the 2024 rookie of the year announced on social media that she would not be returning this year from the groin injury that has limited her to 13 games.

“I had hoped to share a better update, but I will not be returning to play this season,” she wrote. “Disappointed isn’t a big enough word … This has been incredibly frustrating, but even in the bad, there is good. The way the fans continued to show up … brought me so much joy and perspective.”

Continue reading...

Spurs say they have rejected two takeover approaches and club ‘not for sale’

  • Amanda Staveley’s PCP confirms it will not make offer

  • Enic says its almost 87% share in Spurs is not available

The Tottenham board says it has “unequivocally rejected” two expressions of interest in acquiring the club and that the Premier League club is “not for sale”.

Daniel Levy stepped down from his role as Spurs chair last Thursday, after being invited to leave the position he had held since 2001 by the majority owner, Enic, which is owned by the Lewis family trust.

Continue reading...

Gold Coast find a pulse as favourite son breaks Fremantle hearts | Jonathan Horn

Former Suns co-captain David Swallow played in some awful teams but they now have the firepower and coaching nous to make a deep AFL finals run

David Swallow is a Perth boy. He had just turned 17 when Gold Coast called his number. Of the players taken after him in the 2010 draft, there would be 27 premiership medallions, several of them around the necks of his former Suns teammates.

Swallow played in some unspeakably awful teams. He was captain of a club with no pulse, no purpose, few fans and, for a long time, substandard facilities. The former No 1 pick, like his club, didn’t play in a final for a decade and a half. He played just seven home and away games this year, four of them as the sub. Then, in the dying moments of an intense game against Fremantle, it looked as though he’d cost his team its first finals win. His dinky little kick ricocheted straight up the other end for a Dockers goal.

During finals sign up for our free weekly AFL newsletter

Continue reading...

Women’s Rugby World Cup roundup: France blitz South Africa to set up Ireland quarter-final

  • Emilie Boulard and Joanna Grisez score two tries each

  • Italy score 12 tries in one-sided win over Brazil

France enjoyed a 57-10 victory over South Africa at Franklin’s Gardens to take top spot in Women’s Rugby World Cup Pool D, scoring nine tries with two each for Emilie Boulard and Joanna Grisez. They will take on Ireland at Sandy Park in Exeter next Sunday in the last eight.

The scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus earned a second straight player of the match award for orchestrating France’s highest score over the Springbok Women in front of a sellout crowd of 15,000.

Continue reading...

Rick Davies, Supertramp frontman and co-founder, dies aged 81

Death of British singer, who wrote and sang hits including Goodbye Stranger and Bloody Well Right, comes ‘after a long illness’, band says

Rick Davies, the co-founder, vocalist and songwriter for the British band Supertramp, has died aged 81.

The musician died at home on Long Island last week “after a long illness”, the band said in a statement released on Sunday.

Continue reading...

Trump tells foreign firms to ‘respect’ immigration laws after Hyundai raid – US politics live

President says he welcomes investments by overseas companies but adds they should ‘hire and train American workers’

Florida’s plan to drop school vaccine mandates likely won’t take effect for 90 days and would include only chickenpox and a few other illnesses unless lawmakers decide to extend it to other diseases, like polio and measles, the health department said on Sunday.

The department responded to a request for details, four days after Florida’s surgeon general, Dr Joseph Ladapo, said the state would become the first to make vaccinations voluntary and let families decide whether to inoculate their children.

Continue reading...

New home secretary Shabana Mahmood says she will not run for deputy leader after Labour accused of ‘stitch-up’ over contest – UK politics live

Former minister Louise Haigh pitches in with call for ‘economic reset’ as reports suggest candidates will have only four days to secure MP nominations

Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, used his speech to conference this morning to say that the TUC expected the government to deliver its workers’ rights bill “in full”. He said employment rights were “overwhelmingly popular with voters across the political spectrum”.

And he condemned Reform UK for its stance on employment rights. After saying that Nigel Farage claimed to represent working class people, he went on:

Here’s the truth – there is a world of difference between what Nigel says and what Nigel does.

Every single Reform MP, including Mr Farage, voted against outlawing fire and rehire, against banning zero hours contracts and against day one rights for millions of workers.

Ask yourself this fundamental question. Do you believe in your gut that that Nigel Farage really cares about the people of Clacton when he’s off collecting his speaker’s fees in the United States?

Do you believe that Richard Tice really worries about the people of Skegness while he’s living it up at home in Dubai, or are they just rightwing conmen lining their own pockets?

I just have to say this. No amount of TikToks, or ozempic, or expensive haircuts, will ever hide the eager inner ugliness of Robert Jenrick.

The man who ordered murals painted over in a reception centre for children seeking asylum is indeed a xenophobe, an opportunistic xenophobe hoping to create a political climate that ends up with far right folks laying siege to hotels and black and Asian people being threatened and harassed on our streets.

If we look at the powerful geopolitical push factors, they’re things like regime change. We think Afghanistan, war, civil conflict. And when we look at people crossing in small boats, where do they come from? Well, the top nationalities: Afghan, Eritrea, Iranian, Syrian, Sudanese – just those five nationalities account for almost two thirds of all small boat arrivals, and these individuals are from some of the most chaotic parts of the world.

But there are also some pull factors, and the question is, why not claim asylum in France, why come to the UK? A number of reasons recur there when we speak with asylum seekers. It’s the presence of family members, the English language.

In those circumstances, typically, flagged upon the system, the UK government would be able to issue a speedy refuse refusal and try and effect removal.

As it is, people arrive, we don’t have that record, so we don’t know who they are.

Continue reading...

Green light for job cuts at UTS after order to pause restructure lifted

Vice-chancellor tells Senate inquiry he recognises it is a ‘stressful time’ for staff and meetings will be arranged to consult on restructuring

The University of Technology Sydney will release its restructure proposal after SafeWork NSW lifted its order that the institution must pause job cuts over the risk of “serious and imminent risk of psychological harm” to staff.

Vice-chancellor Prof Andrew Parfitt, told a Senate inquiry into university governance the prohibition notice was removed on Friday afternoon after work with health and safety representatives.

Continue reading...

‘Tip of the methane iceberg’: 130,000 coal boreholes must be audited after toxic leaks in Queensland, experts say

Concerns abandoned coal boreholes in Queensland and NSW could be emitting ‘equivalent of 65m cars’ worth of methane

Conservationists have called for an audit of potentially thousands of methane-leaking coal boreholes in Queensland, as one expert says New South Wales also has an unknown number of potentially leaking holes.

Research revealed last week that two abandoned exploratory coal boreholes were leaking methane at a rate comparable to 10,000 vehicles.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

Continue reading...

Japan’s next PM will face a problem that won’t go away with Shigeru Ishiba’s resignation

The ruling Liberal Democratic party is still grappling with the fallout from a years-old funding scandal that may see it go into opposition for just the third time in its history

The precise timing of Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba’s resignation announcement – on a Sunday evening – took many by surprise; but the countdown to his departure arguably began just weeks after he took office.

Having won the presidency of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) – a formidable political force that has governed Japan for much of the past seven decades – Ishiba called a snap election in search of a public mandate after a major funding scandal, and to silence his opponents on the right of the party.

Continue reading...

Pacific Islands Forum: climate crisis tops agenda as China exclusion casts shadow over leaders meeting

Pacific Islands Forum 2025 faces bumpy start with China, the US and Taiwan uninvited from discussions, as Pacific leaders gather in Solomon Islands

Climate change, rising seas and China’s push for influence are set to dominate talks at the Pacific Islands Forum in Solomon Islands this week, in a meeting already marked by geopolitical tensions.

The lead up to the forum has already been fraught with tensions after Solomon Islands prime minister Jeremiah Manele excluded external partners – including China, the US and Taiwan – from discussions.

Continue reading...

Trump news at a glance: President tells foreign companies to ‘respect’ immigration law after Hyundai Ice raid

South Korea has said that 300 of its nationals detained during the immigration raid would be flown home. Key US politics stories from Sunday 7 September at a glance

Donald Trump has told foreign companies that they must hire and train American workers and respect immigration laws, after a raid at a Hyundai Motor manufacturing facility in Georgia saw about 300 South Koreans detained.

Nearly 500 workers in total were detained in the raid on Thursday, with US authorities releasing footage showing them restrained in handcuffs and ankle chains, loaded on to buses.

Continue reading...

Australia is about to get a centre for disease control. How will it tackle public health challenges? | Allen Cheng for the Conversation

Immediate issues for the agency will include bird flu, immunisation and misinformation, as well as the challenges of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. But there’s a lot we don’t know yet – and can we ensure it’s apolitical?

Australia is a step closer to having its own national agency to inform and coordinate public health responses – a permanent Australian Centre for Disease Control.

Long-awaited draft legislation was tabled in parliament last week to create this permanent CDC, which is to start from 1 January 2026.

1987

Epidemiologist Prof Bob Douglas asks in the Medical Journal of Australia Does Australia need a centre for disease control?

Continue reading...

Afternoon Update: mushroom murderer Erin Patterson sentenced; fugitive father shot dead by NZ police; and pictures of the blood moon

Want to get this in your inbox every weekday? Sign up for the Afternoon Update here, and start your day with our Morning Mail newsletter

Good afternoon, readers. In a first for the Victorian supreme court, cameras were allowed inside as justice Christopher Beale delivered the sentence for convicted murder Erin Patterson during a broadcast live – with a 10-second delay – on Monday morning.

Patterson has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years after murdering three people and attempting to murder a fourth with a lunch laced with death cap mushrooms.

Tom Phillips, fugitive father on run with children for nearly four years, shot dead by NZ police in exchange of fire

Hawke urges Nampijinpa Price to say sorry for ‘real damage’ her migration comments caused Indian community

Pacific Islands Forum: climate crisis tops agenda as China exclusion casts shadow over leaders meeting

Ukraine war briefing: Trump says ready for more Russia sanctions

Rick Davies, Supertramp frontman and co-founder, dies aged 81

MTV VMAs 2025 winners: Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter triumph at muted award ceremony

Continue reading...

Growing change: a different kind of school garden program is improving student outcomes in Tasmania

The 24 Carrots kitchen garden program founded by Tasmanian artist Kirsha Kaechele aims to integrate ‘art and lifestyle into every aspect of the project’

Undaunted by the chilly midwinter’s morning, groups of year six kids at Tasmania’s Moonah primary school are digging out last season’s sweetcorn plants, sieving compost, planting seedlings and harvesting vegetables for a shared lunch. Meanwhile in the warmth of the kitchen, aprons on, young minds are focused on preparing broccoli balls with zesty lemon dip, pea and leek tart and vegetarian dumplings. Guided by their kitchen and garden specialists, the students are engaged and confident, quietly chatting as they work on allotted tasks.

The group are among the 2,000 students in 24 primary and high schools across Tasmania who are part of 24 Carrot Gardens, a kitchen garden program for low socioeconomic schools founded in 2014 by Mona artist and philanthropist Kirsha Kaechele.

Continue reading...

Myki v Opal: could Melbourne’s public transport ticketing system soon give Sydney’s a run for its money?

As ageing technology in Australia’s capital cities is upgraded, big changes are coming down the tracks

Tap on and, mostly, tap off. It seems simple enough but transport authorities in Australia have struggled to get it right.

There are eight public transport cards across Australia’s capital cities, including Brisbane’s Go Card, Perth’s SmartRider and Canberra’s MyWay.

Continue reading...

Two boys, 12 and 15, killed in Melbourne attacked by eight knife and machete wielding suspects

Fatal stabbing attack on two boys in Cobblebank had ‘the hallmarks of a youth gang crime’, Victoria police say

A fatal stabbing attack on two boys in Melbourne by eight masked attackers armed with machetes and long edged weapons had “the hallmarks of a youth gang crime”, Victoria police say.

A 12-year-old and 15-year-old Dau Akueng were found fatally stabbed on separate streets in Cobblebank, in the city’s west, on Saturday night.

Continue reading...

French PM François Bayrou expected to be ousted in confidence vote

Opposition parties planning to remove centrist and bring down minority government after just nine months

The French prime minister, François Bayrou, is expected to be ousted in a confidence vote on Monday afternoon, plunging the eurozone’s second biggest economy into political crisis.

Opposition parties from the left to the far right have made clear they will vote against the 74-year-old centrist, meaning he and his minority government would fall after only nine months in office.

Continue reading...

‘He’s always on the attack’: the Brazilian judge prosecuting Bolsonaro inspires both love and hate

Alexandre de Moraes is leading the criminal trial against the former president for allegedly engineering a coup

Tattoo artist Bruno Ferreira has inked countless superheroes and superstars on to Brazilian bodies during his 25-year career: Wonder Woman, Batman, Ayrton Senna and Pelé.

But when Adauto Gomes Nascimento marched into his studio earlier this year, he had a different personality in mind: a muscular, shaven-headed supreme court judge called Alexandre de Moraes, who is now one of Brazil’s biggest and most controversial celebrities.

Continue reading...

Norway heads to the polls in highly polarised ‘Maga-fication’ election

Centre-left has rallied but uproar over cost of living and oil fund investment in Israel means outcome is hard to predict

Norway goes to the polls on Monday after an unusually close-fought and polarised election dominated by the cost of living, wealth taxes, oil fund investment in Israel and relations with Donald Trump.

There has been a surge in support for the populist rightwing Progress party led by Sylvi Listhaug, in what has been described by some as “the Maga-fication” of Norwegian politics. In the event of a rightwing victory, Listhaug could become prime minister.

Continue reading...

US treasury secretary denies Trump tariffs are tax on Americans

Billionaire Scott Bessent dismisses concerns about president’s levies and predicts ‘acceleration’ in US economy

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has refused to acknowledge that the sweeping trade tariffs imposed by Donald Trump around the world are taxes on Americans.

In a new interview on Sunday with NBC host Kristen Welker, Bessent, a former billionaire hedge fund manager, dismissed concerns from major American companies including John Deere, Nike and Black and Decker who have all said that Trump’s tariffs policy will cost them billions of dollars annually.

Continue reading...

Belvoir St theatre’s 2026 season to be headlined by 24-year-old debut playwright

The Coconut Children by Vivian Pham is one of six literary adaptations to be staged at the Sydney theatre next year, alongside The Birds, A Room With a View and the Craig Silvey bestseller Runt

Vivian Pham hadn’t seen even a single contemporary Australian play before her own was commissioned by Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre. Now the 24-year-old’s debut play, The Coconut Children, based on her novel of the same name, is not only set to premiere on one of Australia’s most prestigious main stages but, with a cast of 12 (including Boy Swallows Universe’s HaiHa Le and Heartbreak High’s Gemma Chua-Tran), it’s the largest production of Belvoir’s 2026 season.

“In some ways, it’s the major work,” says Belvoir artistic director Eamon Flack. Pham, who has concurrently been working on a film adaptation of her novel, says she has relished discovering “the particular magic that can only happen in theatre”.

Continue reading...

MTV VMAs 2025 winners: Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter triumph at muted award ceremony

Singers took home two trophies each as Mariah Carey won a lifetime achievement award, in a night that largely celebrated female artists

Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter triumphed at the MTV Video Music awards, taking home two moonman trophies each in a relatively muted show that once again largely celebrated female pop artists and legacy acts.

Gaga, the most nominated artist of the evening with 12 nods, took home the first award at Long Island’s UBS arena, for artist of the year, winning over fellow superstars Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Beyoncé, all of whom were not in attendance.

Continue reading...

Back to Bilo review – the remarkable story of the Nadesalingams and Biloela makes for compelling theatre

Bille Brown theatre, Brisbane festival
The refugee family’s fight against deportation to Sri Lanka and the successful grassroots campaign to bring them home made headlines for years – but this play widens a story often focused on trauma

Even if you don’t know their name, you’ve probably heard of the Nadesalingams: the family of Tamil refugees living in the small Queensland town of Biloela, whose dramatic seizure by border police in 2018, incarceration on Christmas Island and fight against deportation to Sri Lanka made national headlines.

Back to Bilo, premiering as part of Brisbane festival, dramatises this story and the successful grassroots campaign by members of the Biloela community to bring the family home, using the words of the people involved as well as news and documentary footage.

Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning

Continue reading...

‘The Mother Teresa of Aussie supermarkets’: meet the woman cataloguing grocery deals on TikTok

In the combat zone of the supermarket duopoly, Tennilles_deals is our protector, guiding us through each aisle with her weekly videos of sale products

Maya Angelou once said “a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people” and when she said that, I can only assume she had Australian TikToker and micro-influencer Tennilles_deals in mind.

Who exactly is Tennilles_deals? Firstly, she’s the Mother Teresa of Aussie supermarkets. Secondly, I don’t know anything about her personally because this savvy queen doesn’t market herself like your average influencer. She lets her work speak for itself.

Continue reading...

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review – whodunnit threequel is murderously good fun

Toronto film festival: after Glass Onion underwhelmed, Rian Johnson’s self-aware, star-packed Benoit Blanc series makes a barnstorming return to form

If Glass Onion wasn’t quite the deserving follow-up to Knives Out that many of us had hoped it would be (it was more focused on the bigger rather than better), it was at the very least a deserved victory lap. Writer-director Rian Johnson’s 2019 whodunnit brought us back to the starry, slippery fun of the 70s and 80s, when films like this would be a dime a dozen and it was a surprise hit, making almost eight times its budget at the global box office. While Kenneth Branagh had seen commercial success already with his Poirot revival two years prior, his retreads felt too musty, and the actor-director too miscast, for the genre to truly feel like it was entering an exciting new period.

Johnson’s threequel, Wake Up Dead Man, is the second as part of his Netflix deal (one that cost an estimated $450m) and arrives as the whodunnit genre has found itself close to over-saturation on both big but mostly small screen. Yet as many murders as there might have now been in buildings or residences involving couples and strangers of questionable perfection, nothing has quite captured that same sense of kicky, sharp-witted fun that Johnson had shared with us way back when. His first Knives Out film premiered at the Toronto film festival to one of the most buzzed audience reactions I can remember, a thrill I was able to feel once again as he returned to unveil his latest chapter, a rip-roaring return to form that shows the series to be confidently back on track and heading somewhere with plenty more places to go on the way.

Continue reading...

The Girlfriend: Warning! This sexy oedipal thriller may be too shocking for vanilla viewers

Robin Wright has a steamy relationship with her son as he embarks on a new romance with Olivia Cooke. This drama is the perfect show – and I say this with love – for perverts

The thriller genre is amazingly malleable. You can start with an escaped monkey, a mystery corpse in frozen tundra, or just two women who can’t bear to be in a room together. You can make your own rules, as long as you do it with style, and take us somewhere surprising. Like using a tricycle to break into the Met Gala.

The Girlfriend (Prime Video, from Wednesday 10 September), is a great example. It takes a relatable premise – what if your mother and your partner don’t get on? – and pushes it to extremity. When privileged surgeon Daniel takes new girlfriend Cherry, played by Olivia Cooke, to meet his family, things are tense from the outset. Daniel’s mother, Laura, is extremely protective, and senses Cherry is hiding something. The women strain to remain outwardly polite while their real relationship grows into one of covert threats, secrets and lies, outmanoeuvring and betrayal. There are chills. But it’s also hot.

Continue reading...

Kate Moss takes on David Bowie in her first ever podcast: best listens of the week

The global fashion star chats to famous musicians about her friend – the man behind Ziggy Stardust. Plus, a comedian borrows a Hollywood celeb’s car for off-the-wall interviews

Kate Moss has transformed into Ziggy Stardust for the cover of Vogue, but her connection to David Bowie isn’t just sartorial. They were also friends. The supermodel hosts her first podcast about Bowie’s chameleonic period from 1970 to 1975, when he morphed into an androgynous alien, a glam rock god, a purveyor of blue-eyed soul and everything in between. Elton John, Iggy Pop and Twiggy are among the starry interviewees. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, all episodes out on Wednesday 10 September

Continue reading...

Jade: That’s Showbiz Baby! review – former Little Mix star thrives in chaos on an idiosyncratic debut

(Sony)
Jade Thirlwall offers a wild ride through electroclash, Eurovision drama and emotive synth-pop – albeit one she can’t quite maintain for a whole album

Last month, the indefatigable Vice magazine published a piece on the “summer of British chaos”, documenting a scene of deranged social media provocateurs existing at the crispiest fringes of our nation’s cooked identity. Writer Clive Martin defined these graven images of the algorithm as being regionally specific, lurid, rowdy, funny and hedonistic. As a former member of Little Mix, a girl band popularised by public vote on The X Factor, Jade Thirlwall might not seem like the likeliest bedfellow of this unhinged movement. But the South Shields pop star’s debut solo single, last year’s Angel of My Dreams, dodged focus-grouped smoothness to present a sublimely whacked-out, thoroughly British pop vision that felt like spinning through someone else’s for you page and realising they exist in a markedly different universe from your own.

It started with a wound-up sample of Puppet on a String, exploded into a falsetto-spiked power ballad, then grinding electroclash paired with a withering rap, then sped through each mode again, variously at double and half speed. Its wild energy was fuelled by contradiction: Gucci glamour paired with lines such as “If I don’t win, I’m in the bin”. And while Jade dissed Syco and X Factor boss Simon Cowell (“selling my soul to a psycho”), the song’s vaulting soundclashes defying his bland vision of pop, Angel was also her love letter to the toxic paramour of fame: a status that might be easier to sustain with more conventional fare than whiplashing Sandie Shaw into growling synths. It was crackers and brilliant: no former boy- or girl-bander has come close to making such an arresting reintroduction since – and I mean this as the highest possible praise – Geri Halliwell burned bright through a short-lived fit of dadaist genius.

Continue reading...

Suede: Antidepressants review – edgy post-punk proves reunited Britpoppers remain on the up

(BMG)
Great 10th albums are rare – but that is exactly what the band’s killer riffs, eerie atmosphere and midlife reflections achieve

Suede’s fifth album since their 2013 reformation continues their creative resurgence. Singer Brett Anderson suggests that if 2022’s Autofiction – their best post-reunion album until now – was their punk album, Antidepressants is its post-punk sibling. Influences such as Magazine, Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees feed into edgier but otherwise trademark Suede guitar anthems. Helmed again by longtime producer Ed Buller, Richard Oakes’s killer riffs maraud and jostle, Anderson’s moods run the gamut from impassioned to reflective and the rhythm section brew up a right old stomp.

The 57-year-old singer has spoken about his keenness to not be seen as a heritage act and to attract younger audiences. Antidepressants is no throwback. It’s thoroughly postmodern. The eerie background noises and sonic atmospheres chime perfectly with Anderson’s lyrics about what he calls “tensions of modern life, the paranoia, the anxiety, the neurosis” as the band extol the virtues of connection in a dislocated world.

Continue reading...

Folk Bitch Trio: ‘Being pathetic and lonely is great for songwriting’

On the heels of their debut album Now Would Be A Good Time, the Melbourne indie band open up about life on the road, their global aspirations and ‘the pathetic little tragedies’ that occur in your 20s

As Folk Bitch Trio tell it, the music industry is a sadly predictable place.

“It’s exactly what everyone says it is, and exactly what everybody warns you about when you’re 18 and want to start working in music,” says vocalist and guitarist Jeanie Pilkington. “No one makes much money. The artist often ends up getting the shitty end of the stick. You have to work really, really, really hard, and sometimes it feels impossible.”

Continue reading...

‘He fondly called me his hash baby’: Mandy Sayer on her larger-than-life father – a lawbreaking jazz musician who couldn’t read or write

Gerry Sayer was a warm, funny yet absent father, so consumed with music that he sacrificed family – but his ‘flair for improvisation’ inspired his writer daughter

After her wedding service in 2003, Mandy Sayer stopped traffic. Or at least the musicians leading her and her new husband, Louis Nowra, through the streets of Kings Cross did. “Saxophones wailing, tambourines jingling, drums booming, even managing to pick up one or two rough sleepers along the way,” she writes in her latest memoir, No Dancing In The Lift.

Three years earlier, in 2000, the same scenario had played out at the funeral of her jazz musician father, Gerry. The congregation followed the hearse down Darlinghurst Road, “all playing percussion instruments to the saxophonist’s fast blues,” she tells Guardian Australia.

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning

Continue reading...

Five Great Reads: the ‘trad family’ movement, revenge quitters and how Blue Murder transfixed Australia

Guardian Australia’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Kris Swales

Dear readers, I return to the Five Great Reads fold fresh from three weeks’ leave, during which I tore through six books from the pile on my nightstand (with one standout). This week’s offerings are (mostly) equally meaty. Please tuck in.

Continue reading...

The best recent poetry – review roundup

48Kg by Batool Abu Akleen; Paper Crown by Heather Christle; New Cemetery by Simon Armitage; Red Carpet by Steve Malmude, edited by Miles Champion

48Kg by Batool Abu Akleen, translated by the poet, with Graham Liddel, Wiam El-Tamami, Cristina Viti and Yasmin Zaher (Tenement, £17.50)

This remarkable debut by a 20-year-old Palestinian, born and raised in Gaza, stands out among poetry of witness on the genocide there. It contains 48 poems, each representing a kilogram of bodyweight, with the book literally thinning as the pages turn. The final poem declares: “I die without a voice. / He skins me, flesh from bones. / Cuts me into forty-eight pieces. Distributes the parts in blue plastic bags / & throws them to the four corners.” Unlike the Muses who buried Orpheus’s dismembered limbs, the poem ends with the paramedic guessing “which of these bags / contain my flesh”. Written in Gaza between 2023 and 2025, Abu Akleen’s poems disassemble and painstakingly reassemble the body to interrogate injustice, death and grief. She creates a world where absurdity and reality, irony and humanity coexist – from the ice-cream man crying out “corpses for sale” while noting that “no grave buys them”, to death wanting to have a birthday party and picking “an arm the missile hadn’t shattered”. Abu Akleen self-translated 38 of the 48 poems, describing the process of translation as making “peace with death”, while writing in Arabic meant being “torn apart without … anyone there to recollect it”. The book articulates the vital linguistic bridge she establishes in the present between Arabic and English, and includes historical photographs of Gaza from 1863 and 1908 and the 2022 discovery of a fifth-century Byzantine mosaic, highlighting the city’s rich cultural history. Throughout 48Kg Abu Akleen transforms witnessed details into fragile interpretations: the “broken plates they make homes for their younger siblings”, the “moment War became a school”, and the “Ring Finger I lend to the woman who lost / her hand and her husband”. She notes that poetry gives “a form to feelings in order to understand them”, and these heartbreaking and risk-taking poems protest with uncompromising clarity and tenderness against continuing atrocities.

Continue reading...

From a new Thomas Pynchon novel to a memoir by Margaret Atwood: the biggest books of the autumn

Essays from Zadie Smith; Wiki founder Jimmy Wales on how to save the internet; a future-set novel by Ian McEwan; a new case for the Slow Horses - plus memoirs from Kamala Harris and Paul McCartney… all among this season’s highlights

Helm by Sarah Hall
Faber, out now
Hall is best known for her glittering short stories: this is the novel she’s been working on for two decades. Set in Cumbria’s Eden valley, it tells the story of the Helm – the only wind in the UK to be given a name – from its creation at the dawn of time up to the current degradation of the climate. It’s a huge, millennia-spanning achievement, spotlighting characters from neolithic shamans to Victorian meteorologists to present-day pilots.

Continue reading...

Hollow Knight: Silksong launch crashes online gaming stores

Steam, the Nintendo eShop and Playstation Store among those that crashed on Friday, unable to cope with demand for the Australian-made game

An enigmatic three-member game developing team from Adelaide has created chaos on global online gaming platforms.

Steam and other major storefronts including Nintendo’s eShop, PlayStation Store and Microsoft Store crashed on Friday, unable to cope with the demand for Hollow Knight: Silksong, the long-awaited sequel to the critically acclaimed 2017 indie hit Hollow Knight.

Continue reading...

Forget Tomb Raider and Uncharted, there’s a new generation of games about archaeology – sort of

In this week’s newsletter: an archaeologist and gamer on why we love to walk around finding objects in-game and in real life

The game I’m most looking forward to right now is Big Walk, the latest title from House House, creators of the brilliant Untitled Goose Game. A cooperative multiplayer adventure where players are let loose to explore an open world, I’m interested to see what emergent gameplay comes out of it. Could Big Walk allow for a kind of community archaeology with friends? I certainly hope so.

When games use environmental storytelling in their design – from the positioning of objects to audio recordings or graffiti – they invite players to role play as archaeologists. Game designer Ben Esposito infamously joked back in 2016 that environmental storytelling is the “art of placing skulls near a toilet” which might have been a jab at the tropes of games like the Fallout series, but his quip demonstrates how archaeological gaming narratives can be. After all, the incongruity of skulls and toilets is likely to lead to many questions and interpretations about the past in that game world, however ridiculous.

Continue reading...

Ghost of Yōtei: a determined outsider seeks revenge in feudal Japan

The makers of the forthcoming open-world adventure explain how new gameplay features and an extra-resourceful sword-wielding protagonist set it apart from 2020 predecessor Ghost of Tsushima

Atsu is no samurai. The lead character in Ghost of Yōtei is a wandering sellsword from a lowly family. Her sex and lack of status mean that, following the murders of her family, she has no fixed place in 17th-century Japanese society, and there is no permitted path for her to tread if she is to get revenge on the Yōtei Six, the men who killed her loved ones. As the game’s co-director Nate Fox puts it, “Atsu is not somebody who walks in to a room and people pay respect to.”

Yōtei’s predecessor, Sucker Punch Productions’ 2020 sprawling open-world game Ghost of Tsushima, is the story of a samurai, Jin Sakai, who shreds his honour to defend his homeland. Jin can’t repel the Mongols attacking Tsushima as a noble warrior, but as “the Ghost”, a fear-inspiring legend willing to use any dirty tactic to gain the upper hand, he can. If Ghost of Tsushima is about a man grappling with the trade of one kind of power for another, Yōtei sees Atsu seize the only power she can with both hands.

Continue reading...

Little Problems – a cute detective game with no violence or victims

Shanghai-based developer Posh Cat Studio focused on the satisfying thrill of solving life’s small mysteries in this cosy crime caper

As the latest generation of 18-year-olds is about to find out, starting university is an experience fraught with minor as well as major problems. Oversleeping and missing lectures, forgetting where your study group is meeting, mislaying your books – a lot of your time is spent looking for things.

It is these small mysteries that concern Little Problems, a cute detective game, in which the protagonist, Mary, must use her sleuthing abilities to make it through each day as a new student . Created by Indonesian designer Melisa, who has chosen to go by her first name only, the idea comes from her love of detective stories, but also her wish to take violence out of the genre.

Continue reading...

‘It will be frightening but you have to do it’: Andrew Lincoln and Alicia Vikander’s nerve-shredding stage return

Can two world-famous actors and auteur Simon Stone bring 19th-century Norway screaming into the modern world? They talk mean directors, bathtub revelations and reinventing Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea

Entering the almost silent rehearsal room, I fear I’ve blundered into a private moment. The Lady from the Sea cast are seated in a tight circle and at least two of them have tears in their eyes. The quiet murmur of conversation suggests something heavy has just gone down. So I’m relieved when I realise they’re reading a scene – and stunned to discover the scene was written only yesterday.

Simon Stone’s modern take on Ibsen’s play is still under construction, and he has had his actors together for less than a fortnight. “Most people really take six weeks to connect to scenes,” the Australian writer-director says during the lunch break. “Often an entire rehearsal process can be the slow marking out of stuff, and it takes until your first run-through to feel anything at all. We are connecting faster, because we’ve been talking about it so much.”

Continue reading...

Newspaper picture editors’ picks for Visa pour l’Image – in pictures

Images chosen by 24 international newspaper picture editors will compete at this year’s Visa pour l’Image, the festival of photojournalism in Perpignan, France, for the Gökşin Sipahioğlu by Sipa Press Daily Press Visa d’or award. The festival is on until 14 September

Continue reading...

Tate Modern to host Tracey Emin’s biggest ever exhibition next spring

Exclusive: A Second Life will feature My Bed and never seen before pieces that reflect on artist’s experience of cancer

Tracey Emin will open her biggest ever exhibition at the Tate Modern next spring, showcasing her best artworks from a 40-year career.

A Second Life will include some of Emin’s most famous works, including the headline-grabbing and Turner prize-nominated My Bed, from 1998, alongside never-before-seen pieces.

Continue reading...

The Voice of Hind Rajab was better than the film which won Venice. But that result wasn’t a cop-out

Many felt Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza docufiction was robbed when Jim Jarmusch’s latest took the top prize. Yet accusations of moral cowardice on the part of the jury are naive and unfair

There are standing ovations and there are jury decisions.

Jim Jarmusch’s droll, quirky, very charming film Father Mother Sister Brother got a mere six minutes for its standing ovation at Venice – though one day we’re going to have to introduce some Olympic-style standardisation to these timings. But it got the top prize, the Golden Lion, from Alexander Payne’s jury.

Continue reading...

The kindness of strangers: a nurse saw me crying and asked if I wanted a hug

I had cancer and I was alone in hospital when it all suddenly hit me. I have never needed a hug more in my life

In 2024, I was unexpectedly diagnosed with leukaemia. I was 34. I had no symptoms (none!) and it came at the worst possible time, although there is never a good time.

I am a musician and was one week away from flying to New Zealand to be in a show. I was extremely excited about the show and, to be organised, I thought I’d get a blood test to check my iron levels before I left the country for five weeks.

Continue reading...

I was a chess prodigy trapped in a religious cult. It left me with years of fear and self-loathing

Growing up dirt poor in Arizona’s Church of Immortal Consciousness, I showed an early talent for the game. Soon the cult’s leader began grooming me to become a grandmaster – even if it meant separating me from my mother …

When I first discovered chess, after watching the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer on HBO, I was a nine-year-old kid living in a tiny village in the mountains of Arizona. Because of its title, many people think the film is about Bobby Fischer, the reclusive chess genius who bested the Soviet Union in 1972, defeating Boris Spassky to become the first US-born world chess champion in history. Really, it’s about how the American chess world was desperate to find the next Bobby Fischer after the first one disappeared. The story follows Josh Waitzkin, a kid from Greenwich Village in New York, who sits down at a chess board with a bunch of homeless dudes in the park one day and miraculously discovers that he’s a child prodigy – at least that is the Hollywood version of the story.

Searching for Bobby Fischer was to me what Star Wars was for kids a few years older. I didn’t simply love the movie. I was obsessed with it. Any kid who’s ever felt lost or misunderstood or stuck in the middle of nowhere has dreamed of picking up a lightsaber and discovering the Jedi master within. That was me in the summer of 1995, only with chess.

Continue reading...

How to make perfect nanaimo bars – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

This Canadian staple has long been interpreted differently, with various nuts and biscuit bases, but which version nails it?

Canadians are famously nice – think laid-back Keanu Reeves, sunny Pamela Anderson, the charmingly incompetent Inspector Gadget – except when it comes to their beloved nanaimo bars. Get the ratio of this three-tier national treasure wrong, as the New York Times stood accused of doing in 2021, when its Instagram account posted a picture of squares that one user described as “an insult to Canadians everywhere”, and you’ll discover you can push them only so far.

The Times is not alone in attracting ire. So popular are nanaimo (pronounced nuh-NYE-mo) bars, named after the British Columbian town where they are said to have originated, that Canada Post put them on a stamp in 2019 … only to face similar howls of outrage, albeit in Canadian: “One hesitates to be critical,” Nanaimo’s mayor explained carefully, “but it’s not a very accurate depiction.”

Continue reading...

‘Food is political’: the TikTok star shining a light on South African cuisine’s hidden gems

Nick Hamman wants to help the local economy by enticing people to seek out township barbecues and family-run sandwich shops

Solly’s Corner, a fast food restaurant in downtown Johannesburg, was bustling. Slabs of hake and golden chips sizzled, green chillies were being chopped and homemade sauces distributed liberally into packed sandwiches.

Food influencer and radio DJ Nick Hamman stepped behind the counter and was greeted as an old friend by Yoonas and Mohammed Akhalwaya, the father-son duo behind the family business in Fordsburg, a historical south Asian and Middle Eastern area.

Continue reading...

Meera Sodha’s recipe for kidney bean and sweetcorn curry

Pleasingly simple as curries go, this seasonal dish can be vegan if you choose dairy-free yoghurt and gluten-free if served with rice in place of chapatis

My grandmother, Narmada Lakhani, passed away earlier this year aged 92. Well, we think she was 92, but no one recorded her birth date, so we can only estimate. What we do know about her, though, is that she had a very cheeky laugh, and that she loved lager tops, penny slot machines and tucking £10 notes down her bra, ready to hand out to an unsuspecting grandchild as a gift. She never asked if I was happy, only if I’d eaten well, which I assume to her were the same thing. At this time of year, eating well for her meant tucking into sweetcorn, so, in her memory, I’m going to do the same.

Continue reading...

Food waste is a daunting problem – but we each hold a key to the solution in our own home

Over a decade Koren Helbig has come up with some simple habits to reduce food waste at her place. Here are some ideas that may work at yours, too

We’ve all been there – reaching into the fridge to find a forgotten cucumber shrivelled beyond recognition, or a half-eaten bag of baby spinach quietly collapsing into sludge.

Australian households throw out almost 2.5m tonnes of food every year – or the equivalent of 7.7m meals a day.

Continue reading...

Venus Williams, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo – elite athletes are extending their careers into their 40s. How?

Athletes are commonly thought to peak in their 20s. But some top sports stars are extending their careers across decades

At this year’s US Open, when 45-year-old tennis great Venus Williams stepped on to the court to play in doubles, it was alongside a teammate who wasn’t even born when Williams won gold in the singles at the Sydney Olympics.

Given that the peak performance age for a tennis player has traditionally been considered to be around the mid-20s, it was an extraordinary feat to be competing at a major, but Williams’ exceptional extension of her athletic career is increasingly common.

Continue reading...

‘It’s my second home!’ Gen Z and the sudden, surprising boom of luxury gyms

Expensive fitness facilities might seem a tough sell in a cost of living crisis. But for young people in crowded or dilapidated house shares, the high price for a haven can be worth paying

The best part of Owen Willis’s day is his morning shower. Notes of lavender and eucalyptus waft through his private, stone-tiled shower room as he uses a £32 bottle of Cowshed bodywash. He dries off with a fluffy white towel before slathering on Cowshed body lotion (£24).

This isn’t Willis’s home, however. It’s his gym. He belongs to Third Space in London, which calls itself a “luxury health club”. Memberships start at £230 a month for an individual site and go as high as £305 for access to all of its branches, including the Mayfair club, where gym-goers can expect “UV-treated fresh air” and “a Himalayan sea-salt walled sauna and steam room”.

Continue reading...

Ingredient red flags: how to spot the chemicals to avoid in food, kitchenware and cosmetics

Should your makeup be fragrance-free? Is it time to purge your kitchen of plastic? Are all food dyes dangerous? These are the everyday ingredients that could be harming your health

‘Far from being a rock or island … it turns out that the best metaphor to describe the human body is ‘sponge’. We’re permeable,” write Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie in their book Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things. While the permeability of our cells is key to being alive, it also means we absorb more potentially harmful substances than we realise.

Studies have found a number of chemical residues in human breast milk, urine and water systems. Many of them are endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s natural hormones. “They can mimic, block or otherwise disrupt normal hormone function, leading to adverse health effects,” says Dr Shanna Swan, professor of environmental medicine and reproductive health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. We (often unknowingly) ingest, inhale or otherwise absorb them, and while toxicity depends on dosage, the reality is that a lot of us are exposed to them daily.

Continue reading...

Drugs, diet and AI: the ‘gamechanger’ new findings on tackling heart conditions

Five areas of focus at world’s largest heart conference said to mark ‘turning point’ in cardiology and patient care

Doctors, scientists and researchers have shared new findings on ways to tackle heart conditions at the 2025 European Society of Cardiology annual meeting, the world’s largest heart conference.

The event in Madrid was attended by 33,000 health professionals from 169 countries. More than 1,100 sessions featured “gamechanger” research, new guidelines and groundbreaking trials.

Continue reading...

Our daughter is being controlled by a school friend. What can we do?

This is a horrible situation. It would be difficult even for an adult, so your daughter definitely needs action

Our 11-year-old daughter is in a “friendship” with a classmate, which we have come to realise is unhealthy and controlling. She was very shy and self-conscious through the early years of school and struggled to make friends, so we were initially delighted that she had found a close friend. However, we’ve become aware that there is a consistent pattern of control from this girl: demands about when and where they meet, or what our daughter can and can’t wear. If our daughter goes against her, she risks being shunned and ignored or spoken to aggressively.

This girl does not let our daughter interact with others without her. There is a barrage of demanding messages and calls at home about arrangements, and we see our daughter being vigilant and tense, having to respond immediately. Sometimes there is unkindness, for example saying our daughter’s clothes are babyish. Around the controlling behaviour, they seem to interact more normally, having fun, playing and chatting – it is this Jekyll and Hyde pattern that makes it so difficult to know how to support our daughter.

Continue reading...

I don’t want children. Is it hypocritical to not be forthright about this soon after meeting someone? | Leading questions

Not wanting kids isn’t especially unusual, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. It might help to frame the conversation as what you’re saying yes to rather than what you’re refusing

I know that I don’t want to have any children, and that to not offer this up early in any relationship would make me a hypocrite. But I have become convinced that the reason I never meet anyone is because I am forthright about my opinion about children. How can I meet someone without having to be a liar or a hypocrite?

Eleanor says: If it’s your job to figure out when to share this, it’s also a partner’s job to figure out when to ask. Wanting kids isn’t like monogamy or working for a living, where until instructed otherwise people can basically assume that’s your plan. More people than ever are deciding they don’t want kids. The fact that you’re one of them is not shocking, confronting or even especially unusual. If that’s a dealbreaker for a partner, they need to share their preference as much as you need to share yours.

Continue reading...

I stopped telling ‘little white lies’ for two weeks. This is what I learned

Leaning on lies is feels easy to get out of sticky social situations, but it can quickly become a nasty habit

I never lie. Except when declining an invitation – then I always lie.

Once, my fiance, Jared, and I were invited to a dinner we didn’t want to attend. We were worn out from traveling, and some of the other guests required a lot of energy to be around. I replied in the group text that we already had plans – but we were “so sorry to miss!” Jared, sitting next to me on the couch, gawped.

Continue reading...

Dear gen Z, take a lesson from this zillennial: to be cringe is to be free | Eleanor Burnard

As the internet’s apex predator, zoomers are terrified of being seen as anything but a specific type of curated cool. It’s time they learned to live, laugh, love

Millennials are a generation infamous for their love of avocado toast, craft beer, Harry Potter, inventing the idea of a Disney adult and girlboss feminism. For that they’ve been subject to the brunt of our zeitgeist’s wrath in the years since.

Resentful boomers began the anti-millennial crusade. That’s to be expected; older people griping about the kids is nothing new, but rather a rite of passage that signifies a healthy ecosystem within the age groups. Hell, even gen X occasionally joins in on the action.

Continue reading...

Move over fashion week: Chanel and Dior soft launch creations at Venice film festival

Big brands use red carpets and gondolas in Italian city to show looks from newly installed designers

After a year of musical chairs in the fashion industry, September is poised to be one of its biggest show months ever, with debut collections from 15 creative directors.

Rather than waiting for the catwalk, over the past 10 days brands including Chanel and Dior have given themselves a head start at the Venice film festival, using its starry red carpets and even gondolas to soft launch looks from their newly installed designers.

Continue reading...

‘A void that is impossible to fill’: tributes paid to fashion designer Giorgio Armani

Donatella Versace says ‘the world lost a giant today’ while Victoria Beckham called him ‘a visionary designer whose legacy will live on forever’

Pioneering fashion designer Giorgio Armani has been remembered as a “true friend”, “an immense talent” and “a visionary” following his death at the age of 91.

Designers, celebrities, politicians and artists were among those paying tribute after the Armani Group announced his death on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Elegant, determined, a little unknowable: Giorgio Armani is gone but will never be forgotten

The designer reinvented power dressing, redefined what it meant to look modern and was the architect of how we dress now

Giorgio Armani dressed all of us. Whether or not you ever had the money for a jacket with an Armani label, you wore a jacket that he invented. He was the mastermind of contemporary style, the architect of how we dress now. If you have worn an unstructured suit with a T-shirt to a wedding; if you have worn muted neutrals to work; if you have thought it might be chic to paint your living room grey: that was Armani.

Armani was working until his final days. Invitations had already been sent out for his next show, to be held on 28 September in the 14th-century courtyard of Milan’s Palazzo Brera. A spectacular party to accompany the show was planned as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the brand, which he founded in the summer of 1975.

Continue reading...

Giorgio Armani – a life in pictures

The fashion designer, who crafted modern Italian style and elegance, has died at the age of 91

Continue reading...

‘Cycling tourism is the next big thing’: the long journey to restore a central Queensland rail trail

As retrofitted sections of the Boyne Burnett Inland Rail Trail begin to open, cyclists are flocking to what one day promises to be Australia’s longest rail trail – and a 271km opportunity for dwindling townships

The ghost station of Many Peaks is enclosed in a jumble of rocky and timbered hills. There is not much else to Littlemore now than a farmhouse and a sign.

These sleepy and forgotten places in the Boyne Valley of central Queensland were once linked by hundreds of kilometres of train lines that swept an inland arc between the ports of Maryborough and Gladstone. Now, sections of those tracks are being gradually retrofitted for slower forms of transport: the foot, the horse and the bicycle.

Continue reading...

Six of the best farm stays in Europe for delicious local food in glorious countryside

Tuck into great food and drink at hotels, farms and B&Bs in France, Ireland, Portugal and beyond

A hamlet of restored rural buildings in the Ortolo valley in Corsica reopened in June as A Mandria di Murtoli. Guests can stay in a former sheepfold, stable or barn, or one of five rooms in the main house. Three of the smaller properties have private pools, all rooms have terraces and there is a big shared pool. The buildings have been refurbished by Corsican craftspeople in a minimalist Mediterranean style, using local materials.

Continue reading...

A new dream man has dropped – the laid-back, confident beefcake | Emma Beddington

The archetype of this ideal man is Mr Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce. Maybe Swift is on to something

How do you like your men? Yes, obviously, we shouldn’t be dismissively taxonomising a whole gender like boxed Barbies. But in the era of tradwives and nu-gen gold diggers, in which the manosphere remains alive and kick(box)ing, telling teenage boys lies about women, I reckon there’s a way to go before we reach reductive objectification parity. Does that make it OK? No. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes, a bit.

So, returning to the question, my answer is “like my coffee”: small, strong, dark and highly over-stimulating, brewed by my sister’s boyfriend in Scarborough … No, hang on, this is falling apart. Regardless, my ideal man is wildly at odds with the zeitgeist and my husband needs to punch up his protein intake and stop having opinions, because the New York Times claims a new dream man has dropped and he’s “beefy, placid and … politically ambiguous”.

Continue reading...

Dining across the divide: ‘The one thing we bonded over was despising Reform’

A medical charity worker and an oncologist delved into the NHS, obesity and assisted dying. But could they agree on hiring doctors from abroad?

Thakshayini, 40, Birmingham

Occupation Oncologist

Continue reading...

This is how we do it: ‘A three-month break from sex gave us the reset we needed’

Having been ill for a long time, Scott’s life turned around when he met Maria. But as a single working mum, she needed to set the pace

How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I put off meeting Maria because of my insecurities about how I looked, after my illness. But once we met, I wanted to spend all my time with her

Continue reading...

The moment I knew: they decorated a carrot cake to celebrate with me

When Nikki Justine met Mill, she knew they were safe, kind and thoughtful. Later, a perfectly timed gesture showed how much they cared

As I approached my mid 30s, a relationship I’d been in since I was 21 reached its natural conclusion. Becoming single was a revelation; it gave me such a sense of empowerment as I was undergoing a big career change from teaching to social work.

It was during my final placement in 2024 that I met Mill and was immediately curious about them. The working environment they created was really beautiful and safe, and they had this unusual balance of reserve and openness.

Continue reading...

Revealed: the huge growth of Myanmar scam centres that may hold 100,000 trafficked people

Operated by crime syndicates and fostered by the country’s military junta, the number of vast complexes such as KK Park on the Thai-Myanmar border has doubled since 2021

Five years ago, the land now home to KK Park – a vast, heavily guarded complex stretching for 210 hectares (520 acres) along the churning Moei River that forms Myanmar’s border with Thailand – was little more than empty fields.

Set against rugged mountains south of the town of Myawaddy, KK Park, with its on-site hospital, restaurants, bank and neat lines of villas with manicured lawns, looks more like the campus of a Silicon Valley tech company than what is really is: the frontline of a multibillion-dollar criminal fraud industry fuelled by human trafficking and brutal violence.

Continue reading...

Crowd greets Donald Trump with boos and cheers at US Open men’s final

Donald Trump was booed and cheered at the US Open during the national anthem before Sunday’s men’s final. When stadium monitors showed him saluting as a member of West Point performed The Star-Spangled Banner, a burst of cheers sprang up and was quickly drowned out by boos, at which point the president offered a brief smirk. After the first changeover, he reappeared on the big screen and stayed up there for a while – causing fans to boo even longer until the camera cut away.

Trump’s return to the US Open marked his first time at the tournament since 2015, when he was booed after leaving a match between Serena and Venus Williams. Invited to this year’s tournament by Rolex, he sat in a suite next to a winner’s trophy among a welter of cabinet and family members. He arrived more than an hour before the scheduled start of the match and raised a triumphant fist for the cameras.

Continue reading...

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email to get newsletter alerts direct to your inbox

Get the most important news as it breaks

Continue reading...

Sign up for From the Pocket, our free weekly AFL email newsletter

Jonathan Horn brings expert AFL analysis and the best footy stories from around the grounds, to your inbox every Wednesday.

Each week Jonathan Horn will deliver a roundup of the footy news from the weekend, with expert analysis on AFL, the best Aussie rules stories from around the grounds and the weekly footy quiz. All free and direct to your email inbox. Sign up for the newsletter now.

Try our other sports emails: there’s Guardian Australia’s daily sports newsletter, weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day round-up of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.

Continue reading...

Sign up for the Morning Mail newsletter, a free daily news email from Guardian Australia

Start your day with this curated news roundup, straight to your email inbox.

Sign up now to get the Morning Mail newsletter straight to your email inbox before 7am every weekday. See the latest Morning Mail here.

And finish your day with the Afternoon Update newsletter – sign up here for a curated PM news roundup.

Find all our Guardian Australia emails here

Continue reading...

Sign up for the Afternoon Update newsletter, a free daily news email from Guardian Australia

Finish your day with this three-minute snapshot of the day’s main news, straight to your inbox.

.

No sign-up button for the Afternoon Update email? Users viewing this page via Google Amp may experience a technical fault. Please click here to reload the page on theguardian.com which should correct the problem.

Continue reading...

Saint Carlo, film festivals and a colourful giant: photos of the weekend

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Continue reading...