Gillard reveals reading fiction is her most treasured pastime and looks forward to working with ‘a joyful panel of judges’ Australia’s first and, so far, only female prime minister, Julia Gillard, is set to chair the UK’s Women’s prize for fiction in 2026. The annual award is for the best full-length novel of the year written in English by a woman and published in the UK. The £30,000 prize, which has previously been known as the Orange prize and the Baileys prize, has run since 1996. Continue reading...

Public broadcaster failed to follow its own processes, boss says, and it was ‘not a good reflection on the organisation’ * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Antoinette Lattouf unlawful dismissal case had “many failings” and has cost the ABC more than $2.5m in external costs alone, ABC managing director Hugh Marks has told Senate estimates. In his first appearance before parliament in the role, Marks said the public broadcaster failed to follow its own processes, resulting in the ABC breaching the law and accruing substantial external and in-house legal costs. Continue reading...

* Updates from the ODI at R. Premadasa Stadium * Play starts in Colombo at 3pm local/8:30pm AEDT * Any thoughts? Get in touch with an email Hello and welcome to Match 9 of the Cricket World Cup! Today we’ve got Australia taking on Pakistan, which should be an interesting match up. Pakistan are yet to win a game, but they bowled admirably against India. Their batting hasn’t yet really fired at this tournament, which left them with a big defeat to India and unable to match it with Bangladesh. Against a very strong Australian bowling attack, they will need a hugely improved batting performance if they want to be in the game today. Continue reading...

Hacker collective Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters reportedly threatening to leak stolen personal data from dozens of firms in major extortion attempt * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Qantas is one of almost 40 global companies that have until Friday to begin ransom negotiations with hackers who are threatening to leak up to 1bn personal data records. The hacker collective Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters reportedly released the extortion note on a data leaks site on the dark web over the weekend, demanding payment in return for preventing the stolen data from being shared. Continue reading...

Michael Miller also says media must unite against second ‘big steal’ by tech companies seeking changes to copyright law to access content for free * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Social media is to blame for social cohesion issues across the globe, News Corp Australia’s executive chair, Michael Miller, has said, as he calls for media to present a united front against the platforms and AI companies seeking content for free. Miller told the Melbourne Press Club on Wednesday social media was rife with “misinformation, disinformation [and] the rabbit holes [that] they drag you down. Continue reading...

A deterrent is one thing but I want revenge! * Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published * Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...

The beloved host and comedian on blubbering fans, scary kangaroos, her favourite Irish person and the strangest job she has ever had * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Your show is called Common Knowledge. What do you think should be common knowledge but isn’t? That every life is equal value to each other. And I think people forget that, and that’s why atrocities like Gaza are allowed to happen. Continue reading...

Not speaking would go against everything I was taught to honour: the righteous among the nations – those who refused to be bystanders to injustice To those I have lost – the teachers, mentors, loved ones – who once taught me what it was to be Jewish. Those who once shared my table, yet now sit on the other side of a deep chasm. I write with hesitation. My words have been twisted before. But silence has become its own wound. Continue reading...

* Australia captain set to be ruled out of opener against England in Perth * Star quick yet to return to bowling as he recovers from back injury Australia captain Pat Cummins is expected to miss the Ashes opener in Perth as doubts grow around his availability for the entire Test series against England. Cummins has been sidelined with a back injury that the latest scan revealed has not yet healed. Continue reading...

* Joe Montemurro expects striker to end two-year international absence * Australia coach backs injured Mary Fowler to be playing by end of year Sam Kerr is set to play her first game for the Matildas in almost two years with coach Joe Montemurro all but confirming the superstar striker’s involvement in upcoming friendlies against Wales and England. In more good news ahead of next March’s Asian Cup, Montemurro also expects injured star Mary Fowler to be back playing with Manchester City by the end of the year. Continue reading...

Freida Parton says she has been ‘up all night praying’ as the singer continues to deal with unspecified ‘health challenges’ Dolly Parton’s sister says she has been “up all night praying” for the singer as she continues to deal with unspecified health problems. Freida Parton wrote that her 79-year-old sister “hasn’t been feeling her best lately”, two weeks after the singer postponed a Las Vegas residency scheduled for December, citing “health challenges”. Continue reading...

Fares waived for weekend trams, trains and buses for two months after years of Metro Tunnel-related disruptions * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Victorians will get free public transport on weekends for two months, in a move the premier has described as a “thank you” to passengers for putting up with years of travel disruptions due to Metro Tunnel works. Jacinta Allan on Wednesday announced from the moment the Metro Tunnel opens in early December until 1 February, weekend transport across the state’s trains, trams and buses will be free. Continue reading...

Our brains are wired to believe new information, especially if it aligns with our views. But mistruths can have serious consequences Ernest Hemingway famously said that every good writer needs a built-in BS detector. But in 2025 we all need one. High levels of scientific misinformation are threatening the wellbeing of families and our society, and the problem is worsening at an alarming rate. Artificial intelligence and social media are turbo-charging the spread of misinformation dressed as science. Lies that once travelled slowly, and stayed relatively local, now surge across the globe. Continue reading...

The city was brought to a standstill in May when an overhead wire snapped. Now inspection by binoculars is about to be replaced by a laser system as the government invests millions in maintenance * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Sydney Trains’ maintenance staff are used to dealing with unusual hazards. Crew members talk of relocating cockatoos who have nested in poles or having to get permission for a beekeeper to enter the track after an infestation (he kept the swarm). Continue reading...

Former transport bureaucrat Ibrahim Helmy appeared at an ICAC hearing after allegedly forming corrupt relationships with contractors and colleagues * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Ibrahim Helmy was hiding in a cupboard for the moment he had been warned about. Police had arrived at the share house where the former transport bureaucrat was laying low, living discreetly with strangers after failing to appear before a major corruption probe. Continue reading...

There’s a global network dedicated to recovering lost jewellery. They say ‘if it’s there, we will find it’ – even under 50cm of sand in waist-deep water * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Tanya Pelly thought her wedding ring had vanished forever when it flew off her finger while she was swimming at Sydney’s Freshwater beach, far out in the surf. The gold band, originally exchanged by Tanya’s grandparents in 1930s Germany, flicked through the sky in “a perfect parabolic arch” before disappearing into the waves. Continue reading...

Spotting tawnies is a bit like completing a crossword: it’s easier once you are familiar with the patterns, but you can always get stumped * Vote here for the 2025 Australian bird of the year * See more Australian bird of the year content The most popular family in my neighbourhood is also one of its shyest. The adults, bedecked in a mottled silvery-grey, tend to fade into their surroundings. Their children are strange goggly creatures with saucer-like eyes, and usually well-hidden from passersby. The whole family keeps nocturnal hours. For those who know them, however, visiting at any hour becomes a kind of compulsion. So it was for my partner and I when we moved to a new house and found tawny frogmouths in a nearby park. Continue reading...

Prof Christian Downie points to the Business Council of Australia and News Corp newspapers as examples of deliberate obstruction * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Political and media attacks on renewable energy and climate action in Australia in recent months have come “out of the climate obstruction playbook” that has been honed over decades around the world by fossil fuel interests. Prof Christian Downie, an Australian researcher, says he has studied techniques used by business groups and lobbyists all over the world which are now being seen in Australia. Continue reading...

Researchers in Australia find 16 genetic variants linked to depression in women but only eight in men Women carry a higher genetic risk of depression, a new study has found. Claiming to be the largest genetic study to date on sex differences in major depression, the research published Wednesday in Nature Communications has found 16 genetic variants linked to depression in women and eight in men. Continue reading...

Three years ago, the western Sydney singer staged a farewell tour that lured hundreds of fans to watch him perform in carparks. Now he’s releasing his debut album, a story of healing and hope * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Three years ago, Cap Carter thought his music career was over. The Manila-born, western Sydney-raised R&B artist had released an EP through a major label, but was told he wasn’t recouping profits fast enough. His label gave him two options: another EP on a shoestring budget, or to part ways. Carter chose the latter, splitting with his manager at the same time. “That was scary,” he recalls. “After that major label, big-budget life, you’re literally left thinking, that’s probably the end of my music career now. It just feels like this big X on your name.” Continue reading...

A floppy-haired Brendan Fraser, a smokey-eyed Rachel Weisz, some grisly scarabs and biblical plagues? Hail to a lost era of multiplex entertainment At the threshold between life and death sits the ancient Egyptian city of Hamunaptra … and at the threshold of many a millennial adolescence (including mine) sits 1999’s The Mummy, a story about a hot lunk (Brendan Fraser) and a sexy nerd (Rachel Weisz) learning first-hand the consequences of expatriating cultural artefacts. A turn-of-the-millennium Spielbergian blockbuster with shades of the superhero craze to come, Stephen Sommers’ desert romp remains dizzyingly fun to this day. Both masterfully well-made and refreshingly horny, it is one of the last great examples of a specific mode of multiplex entertainment now all but lost to the sands of time: the mid-budget action-adventure movie. Continue reading...

Chugging through 26 offerings, Nicholas Jordan and co find one described as ‘infused with the essence of grass’ and another that’s ‘like rocks’ * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email I live in a house of voracious milk consumers – tea drinkers, coffee addicts, milk chuggers and cereal eaters. Between the four of us, I’d guess we down around a litre a day. No one in the house is more opinionated on the subject than my partner, an enthusiastic and compulsive tea drinker. Her take is that Farmhouse Gold is the best milk, while other brands, which will remain unnamed, are completely inappropriate for a household with such colossal demand. Her opinion has received a mixed reception. So, it didn’t matter that she’d been unofficially banned from taste tests due to accusations, exclusively from me, of giving up halfway through every taste test. She had to attend – it’s the only way she could transform her opinion into fact. Was she Aristotle preaching a round earth to fourth-century flat earthers, or a modern flat earther preaching rubbish? We would find out. Continue reading...

As its support doubles, One Nation is targeting conservative voters disillusioned with the Liberals and Nationals on immigration and net zero * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Warren Pickering was in an bullish mood when he addressed a room of One Nation supporters at the Mentone RSL in Melbourne’s south-east. The local wing of Pauline Hanson’s far-right party secured its first upper-house seat at the 2022 Victorian election but has never won a lower-house race in the state, attracting just 0.2% of the primary vote at the last poll. Continue reading...

Misfortunes shouldn’t have to compete to be meaningful but a combination that fills me with dread is cancer and mental illness “So, what do I say when they call me for surgery?” “Well, that shouldn’t happen because I will talk to them.” Continue reading...

The group of seven held since Friday are released following Australian government representations * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A group of Australians who were detained in an Israeli prison after being arrested as part of the pro-Palestinian flotilla carrying aid to Gaza have been deported to Jordan. Confirmation the seven Australian citizens had been released by Israeli authorities was received on Tuesday night, following Australian government representations to authorities on the ground. Continue reading...