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This is the second episode in a two part series. If you haven’t yet, start by listening to Part 1: How the Epstein conspiracy turned MAGA against Trump. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein have a well documented history together. What started off as a friendship eventually turned sour, with Trump claiming he never really liked him. But even though there is no evidence that Trump was involved in...

Australia is caught in a perilous balancing act.  This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Premier Xi Jinping to stabilise ties with China; as leaks from Washington revealed the steep demands of our AUKUS agreement with the United States.  In the shadow of rising tensions over Taiwan, the question of where Australia stands, and who we stand with, has never been more complicate...

The Federal Court has dismissed a landmark class action brought by Uncles Paul Kabai and Pabai Pabai – two Torres Strait Islander men who said Canberra owed them a duty of care to safeguard their homelands from rising seas. Justice Michael Wigney accepted the islands are being “ravaged by human-induced climate change,” yet ruled the law offers “no real or effective” p...

It’s been a year since the Albanese government appointed Jillian Segal to the role of Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia. Last week, alongside the Prime Minister, Ms Segal released her plan. It recommends media organisations should be monitored and funding should be withheld from universities and cultural institutions if they don’t stop antisemitism. But critics say what...

Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Xi Jinping this week is a crucial opportunity to strengthen relations with our biggest trading partner. But it comes at a time when Australia is trying to break China’s grip on the supply chain of critical minerals. China’s global domination has been in the works for decades – a grand plan that gives China ready access to materials essential...

The Liberal Party knows it needs to change. But the battle over how is already tearing the party apart. Sussan Ley has declared herself a “zealot” for getting more women into parliament.  But she faces stiff resistance from the conservative wing of the party, including from some of its older statesmen which see quotas as undemocratic and an attack on the idea of ‘merit&rsquo...

Spotify has transformed how the world listens to music. But as it’s grown, the company behind it, and its founder Daniel Ek, have been reshaping more than just the music industry. Ek has become a key figure in the global defence industry, investing more than a billion dollars into military technology based on artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Spotify itself has embraced AI in ways that man...

When journalist Antoinette Lattouf picked up a casual contract with ABC Radio Sydney, she didn’t expect it to end in court. But after she reshared a Human Rights Watch post about Gaza, the ABC pulled her off-air on day three and ended her employment. Last month the Federal Court ruled that decision unlawful, finding senior executives acted after “an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel...

In the Central Australian community of Yuendumu, Kumanjayi Walker’s family gathered this week to hear coroner Elizabeth Armitage share her findings into his death. Walker was a 19 year old Warlpiri-Luritja teenager who was shot and killed by former constable Zachary Rolfe in 2019. Today, investigative journalist Kate Wild on what the inquest revealed about the racist culture of the Northern...

Erin Patterson has been found guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, after serving her estranged ex-husband’s family beef wellington, which contained death cap mushrooms. Erin Patterson said the addition of death cap mushrooms to the dish was a tragic accident, and maintained her innocence throughout the trial. But after deliberating for a week, the 12 person jur...

A child care worker in Victoria has been charged with more than 70 offences relating to the sexual abuse of children. Following the arrest, the state health authorities recommended 1200 children, some as young as five months old, get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.  The government is scrambling to figure out how this happened, and how to stop it happening again. But for ABC investig...

Australia is positioning itself as a critical supplier of the minerals the world needs to build clean technology. But for now, China dominates the market, and its grip on supply chains gives it enormous leverage.  At the same time, the Albanese government is racing China to shore up its influence in the Pacific; a region already feeling the sharpest impacts of climate change. Today, contribut...

AI chatbots have crept into our lives – and some abusers are weaponising them. By feeding intimate details about their partners into tools like ChatGPT, they’re producing “performance reviews” that shame, degrade and control. Today, writer Madison Griffiths on this new form of tech-enabled coercive control – and why ChatGPT always sides with the abuser. If you enjoy 7...

For generations, First Nations people have called for a truth telling process so their stories can be heard. In Victoria, for the first time in Australia’s history, that has finally happened. For the past four years, the Yoorrook Justice Commission has been gathering the testimony of thousands of Victorians to put on record the truth about the state’s history. The culmination of that w...

This is the second installment of a two part series about the history and impact of the Yoorrook Justice Commission. In this episode, we hear the stories of First Nations elders whose loved ones were stolen, and who lived through the racist policies whose legacies are still felt in society today. We also hear what happened when the Victorian Premier became the first sitting leader to testify.&nbsp...

Last week, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published testimony from Israeli soldiers who admitted to deliberately shooting unarmed Palestinian civilians while they waited for humanitarian aid – claims the Israeli government denies.  According to authorities in Gaza, at least 583 people have been killed in the past month at aid distribution centres in Gaza, and many more people have been i...

Two years ago, some of our colleagues had the idea to start a show about books. The result was Read This – a weekly podcast about the books we love and the stories behind them. In each episode, host Michael Williams speaks to an author about their work and their life.  It’s a favourite show of everyone on the 7am team and as it finishes up as a Schwartz Media podcast, we wanted to...

A sleek Chinese-made ute is suddenly one of the most popular vehicles on Australian roads. It’s cheap, fast and packed with tech. But behind its rise are questions security agencies are struggling to grapple with.  Because the cars we drive today are no longer just cars; they’re also data collection tools. And in a tense geopolitical climate – the lines between convenience a...

In this inaugural episode of Read This , host Michael Williams and founding editor Sarah McVeigh head to Helen Garner’s house for cake and conversation. Helen shares what she’s writing about, how she problem solves, and the inspiration she gets from watching her grandson’s footy training. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When US President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, the world watched for a response. But in Australia, there was silence. It took a day before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong addressed the media. When they did, they backed the US, tentatively, while calling for calm. For Albanese, a leader who once opposed the Iraq war, it’s a mome...

Cyclone Alfred should not have tracked as far south as it did. But in March it tore through Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Northern Rivers, affecting about four million people. One of them was climate scientist and IPCC lead author, Joëlle Gergis. She says the storm’s freak southward drift, driven by record-warm ocean temperatures, shows the climate crisis is outrunning politics. Toda...

A mistake at an IVF clinic has led to a woman giving birth to a stranger’s baby. It’s a catastrophic error and not the first one that’s recently come to light. Such risks are not covered in the marketing material of Australia’s major fertility clinics. But this mistake – at one of the oldest and most reputable clinics in the country – has had devastating consequ...

America’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend mark a terrifying turning point. Donald Trump has taken the US into direct conflict with Iran – and risked what the UN secretary-general is calling a “rathole of retaliation”. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth claims that Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been obliterated, but questions remain about the e...

Having fought his way to the top of the South Australian Liberal ticket, Alex Antic is working to reshape the party as a radical outfit more interested in ideology than governing. The Liberal senator calls himself an irrelevant backbencher, but he’s installed allies, toppled moderates and is pushing the party’s politics to the edge. His playbook mirrors Donald Trump’s: dominate t...

Ian Rankin introduced Detective John Rebus in his 1987 novel  Knots and Crosses . Since then, Rankin has published another two dozen books in the series and has sold almost 40 million books to date. Unsurprisingly, he’s now Sir Ian Rankin. This week, Michael sits down with Ian at Sydney Writers’ Festival for discussion about his latest Rebus book,  Midnight and Blue . See omn...