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Donald Trump says Cuba's next. For decades, the United States has tried to isolate the country, but now the language is getting stronger, and a tightening of the oil blockade has brought the island to its knees. President Trump has said taking the country would be an "honour", and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, says Cuba cannot fix its economy without changing its government. In Havana, offi...

Jeffrey Hoffman grew up on Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. He was still a boy when the space age began – Sputnik, the first American astronauts, then Apollo. From early on, he knew he wanted to be part of it. He was. Hoffman went on to fly five Space Shuttle missions, logging more than 1,200 hours in space. And today, he’ll be watching as NASA sends astronauts back around the moon for th...

It’s now one month since the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran – and it looks like it may be entering a more dangerous phase. Washington is sending thousands more troops into the Middle East – with President Trump saying he wants Iran’s oil and may seize the country’s Kharg island, adding he could take it “easily”. Meanwhile, the diplomacy is conf...

Louis Theroux has spent years making television out of the people polite society prefers not to think about. In his new documentary on the Manosphere, he turns that gaze on a world of male grievance, online swagger and old misogyny dressed up in the language of self-help. In Australia, researchers and educators say that boys, women and girls are bearing the consequences of actions and attitudes tu...

In late 2023, Australia signed a landmark treaty with Tuvalu – a low-lying Pacific nation threatened by climate change – promising a special visa pathway, disaster support and closer security ties. The deal is now in force. The first climate refugees have begun arriving in Australia, and this year, Tuvalu will help host key Pacific climate talks ahead of COP. But the questions at the h...

Last weekend’s South Australian election wasn’t just a wipeout for the Liberals and triumph for Labor, it was a sign that political discontent is beginning to find a new home in an old brand: One Nation. Pauline Hanson’s party showed just how much room there is for anger on the right in a traditionally progressive state. But the rise in One Nation’s popularity isn’t j...

When Pete Hegseth faced the Senate to become Donald Trump’s defense secretary, he was grilled on everything from his lack of experience and his drinking to past controversial remarks – including that women should not serve in combat roles. But the hearing also made something else clear: Hegseth wasn’t just being chosen to run the Pentagon in the ordinary sense. He was being chose...

It’s been a rollercoaster ride on the global oil market, with wild swings in petrol prices at the bowser. The war against Iran has caused panic buying in Australia and around the world. Meanwhile, our government has been criticised for not having greater reserves of petrol, diesel and jet fuel. And for  not imposing higher taxes on giant gas companies, which are now raking in  a fo...

Australia’s tobacco wars are fuelling violence, with fire bombings and arson attacks spanning across the east coast. Now the federal government wants to treat these organised crime syndicates like ‘drug lords’ by going after them with wire tapping and seizing their assets. And the tobacconists are in trouble too, with calls to ban tobacco stores and only sell cigarettes in superm...

John Blackburn spent four decades in the Air Force, rising to Deputy Chief. For more than decade he’s been warning that Australia is too reliant on imported fuel, too light on reserves, and too exposed if a global crisis – just like this one – disrupts supply. Now, as more than hundred servos around the country run dry and a Trump ultimatum looms, threatening to make the fuel cri...

Like so many stories about misinformation, this one starts with a social media post.  “Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed. Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM.” Not long after that, Donald Trump backtracked and set the record stra...

It’s been one year since dead fish began washing up on South Australian beaches, as the largest algal bloom in Australia’s history spread along the coast. Marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennett was part of the team that first surveyed the bloom – coming face to face with the algae’s devastating impact. Twelve months on, the bloom is still there, the damage has spread, and many o...

South Australia does not usually wake up on election day at the centre of the national mood. But this morning, a contest that looks settled on paper is carrying a much stranger energy. Peter Malinauskas is expected to win comfortably. The real movement is happening elsewhere; in the noise around One Nation, the protest vote in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis gathering around the once margina...

While the world focuses on the war underway in Iran, Israel and the Gulf, there is another war front developing – Lebanon. Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Shia group, Hezbollah dragged the country into the war, attacking Israel after a joint US-Israeli airstrike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel then hit back, bombing Beirut and amassing tens of thousands of t...

Brett Hosking is a fifth-generation grain and livestock farmer, and has seen his fair share of heartache and hard times. But this time, it’s not a natural disaster or a foreign war that’s threatening to tip farmers over the edge, but a decision from the Victorian government. The state has passed new compulsory acquisition laws which make it easier for energy companies to acquire farmer...

Australians are in for a world of pain, with mortgages and rents set to rise after our second interest rate hike in as many months. It was a line-ball decision from the Reserve Bank – with five members voting for a quarter of a percent jump and four against – putting our official cash rate at 4.1 per cent. RBA Governor Michelle Bullock says high inflation left them with no choice, but...

The war in the Middle East has sent Australia’s fuel prices soaring. And people are worried that if the battle between the US-Israel and Iran continues for another month – Australia may have to begin rationing fuel. Already, drivers are panic buying, stockpiling and some country petrol stations are running dry. Global oil supplies are under threat as Iran attacks tankers in the Strait...

This month, one of the biggest shows in Australian radio was suddenly pulled off air. For years, Kyle and Jackie O have been treated as untouchable – a breakfast radio juggernaut that could pull huge audiences, generate endless headlines, and weather scandal after scandal. So much so that the Australian Radio Network handed the pair a $200 million deal – one of the biggest contracts Au...

For some time now, an alarming number of Australian boys have been engaging with, and looking up to, the misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate. This week, the conversation about misogyny and the “manosphere” has resurfaced. Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek has accused  Married At First Sight of platforming coercive control and misogyny, Netflix has released Louis Theroux&rsq...

In Canberra, accountability is often promised in moments of crisis. Much harder is what comes after. Matt Canavan has taken over the Nationals leadership, sharpening his party’s ability to confront One Nation. Former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson has walked away from the government’s antisemitism royal commission, raising fresh questions about a process already under pressure. And years...

John Bolton has spent years arguing that bombing Iran isn’t just justified but necessary.  For decades he has argued that American military force can solve the problem of hostile regimes in the Middle East. He backed the Invasion of Iraq, championed some of the most disastrous American interventions of the modern era, and despite that, he is still arguing more force, more intervention a...

This week Iran announced a new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba Khamenei is the son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But who’s  really running the country now? We look into the heavily armed elite forces pulling the strings – the Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Today, Iranian journalist and author Arash Azizi on what direction Iran’s elite armed forces could take the c...

On Sunday night, after Iran’s final game of the Women’s Asian Cup on the Gold Coast, protesters surrounded the team bus, banging on the windows and shouting “let them go”. Later, five members of the Iranian squad broke away from their minders. By Tuesday, the federal government had confirmed they had been granted humanitarian visas. The move followed days of concern about w...

Independent MP Monique Ryan can remember a time in Australian politics when small breaches could cost a career.  Now she says we’ve been gradually conditioned to tolerate corruption and the loss of transparency in parliament. Over recent years, there has been a marked increase in the number of lobbyists with access to Parliament House. Literally thousands move through the building, meet...

Who should hold the power to decide how AI is used on our battlefields? That’s the question being debated after a face-off between the Pentagon and one of the world’s biggest AI companies. Anthropic ultimately lost its contract with the US military after refusing to let its Claude program be used for mass surveillance of American citizens, or for fully automated weapons capable of kill...