If the US navy needs the subs, they cannot be sold to Australia, regardless of how much the president might wish it
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Even by the standards of the Trumpian promise, the unvarnished commitment to Australia on US nuclear submarines – “they’re getting them” – is entirely unreliable.
They are not the US president’s boats to give.
Continue reading...Vipers target with precision, elapids bite repeatedly and colubrids saw their way in – and if they strike too fast, they might lose their teeth
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Venomous snakes must strike fast to sink their fangs in prey before they startle – as quickly as 60 milliseconds when hunting rodents.
New research has captured – in slow-motion footage – the differences in how venomous serpents bite their targets.
Continue reading...Girl’s family had told the man, known by pseudonym ‘Mercury’, to meet with them by Wednesday midnight or they would make his identity public
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A New South Wales MP has used parliamentary privilege to reveal the identity of a man who was previously charged by police over the alleged abduction and murder of a UK-born toddler, Cheryl Grimmer, 55 years ago.
Cheryl vanished from outside a shower block while with her mother and three older brothers at Fairy Meadow beach in the Illawarra region of NSW on 12 January 1970.
Continue reading...Seven out of 13 items at Aldi were priced higher on DoorDash than in store, while Milkrun charged more for 11 out of 13 items from Woolworths
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Convenience can come at a steep price, Choice has found, with Australian consumers paying up to 39% more for groceries ordered through rapid delivery apps.
Choice compared in-store prices of 13 common grocery items available at Coles, Woolworths and Aldi with their equivalents on third-party apps Uber Eats, DoorDash and Woolworths-owned Milkrun.
Continue reading...Sydney’s Observatory Hill peaks at 37C on Wednesday – below the 39C forecast – as the mercury in other parts of the city neared 40C
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Two men have died after being pulled from the water at a Victorian beach amid wild weather in the state.
On Wednesday evening, Victoria police confirmed two men were found unresponsive in the water at Frankston beach, on the Mornington Peninsula, just after 5pm. The men, who are yet to be identified, could not be revived.
Continue reading...Senior constable will now face two charges, including grievous bodily harm which carries maximum penalty of 14 years
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A New South Wales police officer will now face a second charge over the alleged assault of Hannah Thomas, who sustained a serious eye injury after she was arrested at a protest in June.
NSW police said the 33-year-old senior constable, who last month was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, was on Wednesday also charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm.
Continue reading...Liberal minister Jane Hume earlier described calls for the former prime minister to be removed as ambassador as a ‘little bit churlish’
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Sussan Ley has walked back her calls for Kevin Rudd to be sacked as Australia’s ambassador to the US, after earlier saying his position was “untenable” after comments from the US president.
The former Australian prime minister sat across from Donald Trump on Tuesday as he inked a deal on critical minerals with Anthony Albanese in a bid to break China’s stronghold on the market.
Continue reading...The warmness shown by the US president was held up as vindication of the PM’s foreign policy acumen, and the nerve he had shown in not begging for an earlier meeting
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Outside the White House cabinet room hangs a painting of Donald Trump flanked by Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, in front of a billowing American flag.
The fan-fiction rendition of three Republican leaders, proudly displayed on a main thoroughfare amid a gallery of other photographs and portraits of Trump, is far from the oddest thing in the home and office of the 47th president. The White House is a homage to gilding and gold, crown moulding daubed in glittering paint, with knick-knacks gaudy and glistening stuffed on to his shelves, a Diet Coke button on his desk, and a new ballroom requiring the partial tear-down of the historic East Wing.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Looming overhaul of protections should also include definition of ‘unacceptable impact’ on environment, Murray Watt says
The Albanese government wants the power to strip companies of any financial gains made from breaking environment laws, as part of a package of landmark reforms to be put before parliament in the next two weeks.
In an interview with Guardian Australia, the environment minister, Murray Watt, also revealed he wants a definition of “unacceptable impact” to be part of the nation’s new environment laws.
Continue reading...Patients who had more cells had better outcomes, particularly for aggressive types such as triple-negative breast cancer
In the 18th century, physicians noticed nuns had some of the highest rates of breast cancer. It was one of the earliest clues that led scientists to suspect that child-bearing and breastfeeding could protect against the disease.
Modern data has confirmed the centuries-old observation but the biological reasons behind it have remained unclear. Explanations have often focused on pregnancy-related hormonal changes, but research published Tuesday in Nature has found breastfeeding provides long-lasting immune protection.
Continue reading...High-profile lawyer Sue Chrysanthou SC representing Central Land Council boss in the case against NT senator
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The outspoken Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price pushed ahead with a media release that defamed an Aboriginal land council boss without checking the details were true, a court has heard.
Nampijinpa Price is fighting a claim by the Central Land Council chief executive, Lesley Turner, that she defamed him in the July 2024 press release.
Continue reading...The prime minister says it is ‘wonderful to be here’ ahead of long-awaited meeting with the president in the Oval Office at the White House
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Anthony Albanese has arrived in the US for a long-awaited meeting with President Donald Trump, where they are expected to discuss the Aukus pact – an agreement a respected Republican has called a “crucial deterrent” in the Indo-Pacific that “keeps [the Chinese president, Xi Jinping] up at night”.
Albanese arrived in Washington DC late on Sunday night local time (Monday afternoon AEDT) ahead of his meeting with Trump at the White House on Monday morning local time (Tuesday morning AEDT). The two men will meet in the Oval Office, followed by a scheduled lunch afterward, according to the White House.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Mandatory company disclosures show one bonus amounted to $2.5m, more than double their annual salary
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More than $14m in bonuses was awarded to senior Australian health insurance staff at Bupa little more than a year before the company admitted to unconscionably causing customers to cancel or delay medical procedures.
The bonuses, for more than 20 staff in 2023-24, came after the insurer had engaged in “misleading and deceptive conduct” between May 2018 and August 2023. This affected more than 7,500 customers, leaving many out of pocket for procedures they were entitled to claim.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Documents reveal state environment department had ‘reckless indifference’ to fate of individual koalas, Greens spokesperson Sue Higginson says
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The New South Wales government rejected advice from an expert scientific panel before it attempted a failed reintroduction of koalas to a forest in the state’s south that resulted in the death of more than half the animals.
Internal documents show most members of a panel advising the state environment department on plans to relocate endangered koalas as part of a conservation strategy recommended against moving marsupials from forest near Wollongong to the South East Forest national park near Bega, a five-hour drive away.
Continue reading...Reptile was removed after guests filmed it lying at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas on Saturday
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A crocodile discovered lying in a luxury Queensland resort’s pool has been removed by wildlife rangers, with the state’s environment regulator issuing new warnings about the reptiles.
Two TikTok users posted footage of what appears to be a juvenile crocodile in the lagoon-style pool at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas, in far north Queensland, on Saturday afternoon.
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Crocodile discovered in luxury Queensland resort pool sparks new warnings
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Asked about the hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza approved for visas in Australia and whether the ceasefire changes anything, Tony Burke said he’s not sure all of those approved for visas are still alive.
He says some will choose to stay in Australia, and others may end up with other options they might take up.
And there will be some people who we don’t hear from again. And there’s some on that case list that we haven’t heard from for a very long time. A significant number of them are part of split family groups, where some of the family is, in fact, here in Australia and they’re wanting to join.
You need to remember, our humanitarian program that we run around the world isn’t limited to places where there’s an active war. There is decency that Australia shows to people from around the world … there are Israelis who have been approved for humanitarian visas as well. I’ve got no intention of cancelling those either. We’re a decent country. We are talking about people where all the checks have been made. And some of them won’t choose to come here, some of them won’t be alive any more …
Probably the most significant change in response these days is the majority of people now get sent straight back to their country of origin. So, you used to really only see people going back to Indonesia or off to Nauru for processing. But the majority of cases now are going straight back to country of origin.
We had one very recently where, within 72 hours, we had everybody back to their country of origin. There was one in May, for example, where it was a mixed boatload of people from different countries and we had to, you know, from three different sorts of citizenships that people had come from. It was more complex but we still made sure we returned people directly straight back to the countries of origin.
Continue reading...Nationals leader says maverick MP still ‘has a contribution to make between now and when he retires’
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The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has urged Barnaby Joyce stay in the party after the maverick MP announced his intention to quit and consider “all options” – prompting speculation of a possible defection to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
The former deputy prime minister announced on Saturday he would not stand for his New South Wales seat of New England at the next election. He cited an irreparably broken relationship with the Nationals’ leadership, but would see out the rest of the parliamentary term.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s Queensland correspondent and three SBS journalists win top award for investigation into children locked up in police watch houses
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Guardian Australia’s Ben Smee and a team from SBS have been named joint winners of the coveted journalist of the year award at Queensland’s annual media awards – the Clarions.
Smee, the Guardian Australia’s Queensland state correspondent, and SBS journalists Jennifer Luu, Jodie Noyce and Chloe Angelo, won the top award for their exclusive investigation, In the Box: Inside the Isolation Cells where Australian Kids are Imprisoned. Smee also picked up two other awards at a ceremony on Saturday night.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Automated systems have generated ‘cookie cutter’ responses that fail to account for individual circumstances, financial watchdog says
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Banks are outright ignoring or offering “cookie cutter” responses to a rising number of hardship requests from struggling customers, despite repeated regulatory crackdowns.
Nearly 2,900 customers complained their bank had failed to respond to pleas for assistance in 2024-25, new data from the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (Afca) showed.
Continue reading...Jason Clare says artificial intelligence is ‘supercharging bullying’ to a ‘terrifying’ extent
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A disturbing new trend of AI chatbots bullying children and even encouraging them to take their own lives has the Australian government very concerned.
Speaking to media on Saturday, the federal education minister, Jason Clare, said artificial intelligence was “supercharging” bullying.
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