Breaking news, politics, business, economy, and current events from Australia.
The crackly distress call from a clearly panicked captain was picked up across the Gulf in the early hours of Tuesday morning. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is vessel Al Rekayyat, LNG vessel Al Rekayyat. “We are being hit by drone on port side, top of engine room. “Status: engine room fire and full of smoke….
Forget Euro summer, for the holders of high public office even an Australian winter holiday can become perilous terrain in the court of community expectation. For Australian politicians, Scott Morrison’s ill-fated Hawaii vacation in December 2019 remains a potent reminder of what not to do in a national crisis. Holidays can come with high stakes…
After they made the atomic bomb, scientists came up with the Doomsday Clock. The symbolic clock, launched by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, warned how close humanity might be to destroying itself in the form of “minutes to midnight”. Since 1947, its hands have been moved closer and further away from midnight in response to…
The first seven years of Free Sobolewski’s life were contained within the walls of a one-room besser-block home in rural New South Wales. A makeshift curtain, strung across part of the room, was all that separated the bunk bed she shared with her sister from the rest of the home. The bathroom, set in a…
Hidden for more than a century, a remarkable collection of Australian and Antarctic history has been revealed to the public for the first time. The Royal Society in London has launched a digital archive of more than 50,000 meteorological images spanning three centuries. It includes weather observations by Louis “Bunny” Bernacchi, the only Australian on…
When she was 17, Grace Woodroofe uploaded her first three songs to triple j Unearthed. They made their way to Heath Ledger via the late cinema legend’s sister, Woodroofe’s high school friend. Woodroofe was plucked from Perth, signed to Ledger’s label, The Masses, and thrust into the Los Angeles music scene. “Heath really nurtured the…
No-one knows for sure exactly how many bears there are in Japan, but they’re on the move — and they’re not afraid of humans. When Araki Osamu first heard reports a bear had been seen in the streets of his home town, a 1-hour bullet train ride north of Tokyo, he dismissed it as “fake…
A Trumpian clash between the Netanyahu government and Israel’s most senior court is rapidly building into a major constitutional crisis. The issue ultimately at stake is control of a television station that is critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and follows other moves designed to clamp down on domestic and international media criticism of the government….
Melbourne is the only Australian capital that allows medium density housing to be built on most of its residential land, according to a new study of zoning restrictions from a pro-housing collective. The Victorian capital, where housing is also more affordable than in the other five major capitals, is the clear outlier nearly four years…
What do you call that most basic of luncheon meats at the deli? You might have had it paired with tomato sauce on a white bread sandwich growing up, or maybe wrapped around a slice of cheese. The ubiquitous deli meat has been a staple of school lunches for decades, and the name you use…