Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast

The White House is publishing AI slop images; ICE conducts raids and turns the video into film-style trailers; right-wing influencers are sitting in the White House press briefings, in chairs that used to hold journalists. Social media has become the new location of politics in the US, which substantive policy changes beginning as memes. Where does it end? Guest: Charlie Warzel is a technology and...

Gaza is today in ruins, with over seventy thousand dead and buildings everywhere rendered rubble by the onslaught from Israel since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. Many argue the war on Gaza began at this point, but historian Julie Norman has traced the history of both the land, its people and the terrible wars that have plagued what was once a beautiful and prosperous place for a century and...

When librarians from the University of Sydney found a sketch and an inscription in the back of a 1497 copy of Dante's Divine Comedy, they called in Renaissance expert Professor Jaynie Anderson. Soon the discovery was confirmed: the sketch was by the hand of master painter Giorgione, and the inscription solved the mystery of Giorgione's life and death. A book of scholarship on that remarkable disco...

The Epstein files are so immense that if printed out they would equal two Eiffel towers of paper. So how, exactly, are journalists making sense of the 3 million Epstein documents that were recently published by the US Department of Justice? And what are they really telling us about the scale of abuse of power by those in Epstein's orbit?  Guest: Stephen Fowler, data journalist and political report...

The actions of NSW police are being questioned after videos emerge showing violent scenes at the Sydney protest against Israel's President, Isaac Herzog. Video footage depicts police beating protesters and forcibly removing Muslims praying at the event. Crikey's reporter Daanyal Saeed was there, and describes being hemmed in by police at both ends of the protest. He tells David Marr, "It feels lik...

Cane toads (Rhinella marina) are an invasive species introduced to Australia in 1935 to control agricultural pests. The species spread rapidly and now poses a significant ecological threat due to its toxic defences, which harm native predators. Their presence has led to widespread disruption of ecosystems across northern Australia. Guest: Professor Rick Shine, School of Natural Sciences at Macquar...

We're now even closer with Indonesia. On 6 February Anthony Albanese signed a security pact with Indonesia's president, Prabowo Subianto, agreeing to consider joint responses to any threats. Albanese called the agreement a "watershed moment" that created a "new era" with Indonesia. The new pact is Albanese's latest move to build friends in the Indo-Pacific... is the strategy working? Guest: Susann...

Parliament returns for the second half of the sitting fortnight, with the Liberal Party and The Nationals reunited, again. But all is not calm. Liberal senator Jane Hume warned that her party risked "non-existence" if it doesn't adjust. And: what exactly is social cohesion? Guest: Bernard Keane, politics editor of Crikey

Winnie-the-Pooh, the Bear of Very Little Brain, has been entertaining children for a century this year, but for Pooh's creator, A. A. Milne, the character brought a complicated joy. Milne's real-life son, Christopher Robin, became estranged from his father partly because of the burden of Pooh's fame, and Milne also came to resent how his children's literature obscured the rest of his professional...

The US commentator Tucker Carlson began his working life as a respected and brilliant writer on a small conservative magazine. He moved to television commentary, then cable television, and now spreads his controversial views far and wide on streaming services. Biographer Jason Zengerle says one of Carlson's great skills is taking the messaging of far right extremists and making it seem more palata...

Australian filmmaker Abraham Joffe pulls back the curtain on a reality most people don’t realise: Polar Bears are still legally hunted and sold around the world. The documentary "Trade Secret" goes undercover to show chilling scenes of warehouses and showrooms filled to the brim with polar bear skins. Guest: Abraham Joffe, Director, Producer, Trade Secret at the Antenna Documentary Film Festival P...

After twenty years of negotiations, the European Union has suddenly managed to cut a trade deal with India. Not to be out-done, US President Donald Trump quickly followed suit, with he and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi having seemingly patched up their differences and declared their deeply held friendship for each other. “Prime Minister Modi and I are two people that GET THINGS DONE, someth...

Former UK Labour powerbroker Peter Mandelson is retiring from the House of Lords amid intense scrutiny over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The move follows the release of documents suggesting Mandelson exchanged emails with Epstein and, at times, shared sensitive political information with him. British police have launched a criminal investigation into whether Mandelson may h...

Peter Drew's 'Aussie' posters, seen around our cities, have now been copied in Melbourne by someone using a picture of the younger of the two Bondi shooters. Meanwhile Peter has issued a social media callout for young right wingers, and those who fear immigration, to engage with him. Guest: Peter Drew, Adelaide-based artist. Producer: Ann Arnold

Iran’s president has signalled a potential diplomatic shift, saying he has directed diplomats to seek negotiations with the United States as fears of a military confrontation appear to subside. President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on social media on Tuesday that he had instructed the foreign minister to pursue “fair and equitable negotiations” with Washington. What does this mean for the future of th...

The US Dept. of Justice published over three million additional pages from the Epstein files containing over a thousand references to Donald Trump, as well as photos and references to other high profile people such as Elon Musk and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, but Bruce Shapiro thinks the Trump information is a distraction from the backlash against ICE's killing of nurse Alex Pretti. Meanwhile jour...

When the Colleano circus family came to town, it was a big deal. Their acrobatic skills took them from Lightning Ridge, to New York and London in the 1920s and 30s. Circus life, kept the Colleano’s relatively safe. The family outmanoeuvred punitive and racist Australian laws to travel the world, concealing their Indigenous heritage. Part creativity, part survival. Pauline Clague calls herself the...

Israel reopens the Gaza-Egypt crossing at Rafah, under strict conditions. Plus: on February 8 the Israeli president Isaac Herzog will be arriving in Australia, beginning a five-day trip to honour the victims of the Bondi terror attack. But Herzog's visit has become a focal point for those protesting Israel's war in Gaza. Guest: Irris Makler, veteran Jerusalem correspondent for ABC, SBS Producer: C...

What is going on with the conservative side of politics? A motion to spill the leadership of the Nationals failed on Monday afternoon, and by the end of the day David Littleproud had met with Sussan Ley to discuss a possible reunification of the Coalition. The infighting comes as a Redbridge poll puts One Nation's primary vote at a whopping 26 per cent.

"Our politics is dumb and completely short-sighted and personally obsessed." At 93 Barry Jones, former ALP National President, writer and public intellectual, has a thing or two to say about politics and society. He sits down with David Marr for a long discussion on the nature of parliament, his frustrations about climate inaction, his relationship with Bob Hawke, his view on AUKUS and the numinou...

Thomas Willing was a merchant trader, America’s first bank president, and its first central banker. Willing bankrolled – and in the process helped save – the American Revolution and then fundamentally shaped the financial architecture of the young Republic. Yet at a decisive moment in Willing's life he voted against independence, as a clash between Pennsylvania's moneyed elite and the emergent low...

With the National Party leaving the Coalition, and a Nats leadership spill pending, we look at the disproportionate power the Nats have wielded in the Coalition. 

Springtails are pretty much everywhere, and all over the world. They are important nutrient recyclers, but not many people know about them. Guest: Mark Stevens, Senior research scientist at the South Australian Museum. Affiliate associate professor at Adelaide University’s School of Biological Sciences. Co-author, with Cyrille D’Haese of Sorbonne University, of an article on springtails for The Co...

When Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney stepped onto the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos , no-one expected him to set the world on fire. His speech went viral, as he talked of the rupture to the rules-based order and called on middle powers to step up. “If we’re not at the table, we're on the menu,” he said. He never mentioned Donald Trump’s name, but his message was clear. He was ther...

On January 24, nurse Alex Pretti was protesting the presence of immigration officers in Minnesota when he was detained and surrounded by Border Patrol guards. Two guards shot Pretti in the back, killing him on the street. Pretti was 37, and Trump officials initially blamed him for his own death. Bystander video contradicted the official accounts, and now Trump has begun to distance himself from th...