The Briefing

News broke last week that a teenager is about to become the world’s first millennial saint.  Carlo Acutis passed away in 2006, but spent his life spreading his faith, coming to be known as the patron saint of the internet for his work creating websites about Catholicism and its saints.  So, how does the Catholic church decide on who gets to be a saint? What’s the criteria, who tests the miracles a...

Late last week, China launched a comprehensive two-day military drill around Taiwan, mimicking a full-scale attack. The drills included dozens of fighter jets carrying live missiles, alongside navy vessels stationed at strategic locations around the island. The military operations have been viewed as retaliation to Taiwan's newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, who in his recent inauguration spee...

It’s become one of the world’s biggest online shopping marketplaces, churning out more than a million parcels to be flown to customers around the globe every day. Here in Australia, more than 1.2 million of us shop on Temu every month – and it’s our most downloaded app. But how did the Chinese start-up skyrocket to global online megastore - selling everything from clothing and household items - le...

Amid a cost of living crisis, who can resist the invitation to “shop like a billionaire” at bargain-basement prices? Online juggernaut Temu is Australia’s most popular free app, offering a vast vortex of low-cost merchandise from fashion and homeware to toys and electronics. But amid the thrilling rush of retail therapy lie some serious questions: Where does this stuff come from? What are conditio...

Abbie Chatfield is an Australian media personality, television host, radio presenter and podcaster. She is best known for her appearances in reality television as both a contestant and host, she is also the host of Listnr podcast “its a lot.” In this episode of The Weekend Briefing Abbie tells Antoinette about the crime of bad change room lights, oversharing, unexpected fans and why she could neve...

Earlier this week, Sean “Diddy” Combs admitted to physically assaulting his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, back in 2016, after brutal footage of the attack started circulating online. After his fall from grace as one of the most successful and best-selling rap artists, will Diddy be cancelled? Or will we continue to hear his music online and on-air? Tim Burrowes is the founder of the media and...

There’s been a huge increase of Functional neurological disorder or FND in teenage girls since the pandemic and the rise of TikTok. FND occurs when there’s miscommunication between the body and brain and can often look a lot like tourettes, where people suffer from impulsive tics. Sacha Barbour Gatt is joined by Dr Amanda Maxwell, a clinical psychologist specialising in tics, to unpack why we are...

AstraZeneca has withdrawn their Covid 19 vaccination after admitting it can cause rare blood clots.   This month marks 50 years since the global rollout of the world’s first major vaccination program – with new research showing vaccines have saved over 154 million lives.   Professor Margie Danchin is a paediatrician at the The Royal Children's Hospital and joins Sacha Barbour Gatt to explain the b...

Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi and the foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahain have both died during a helicopter crash earlier this week. What do these untimely deaths mean for the power structure in Iran, and to relations in the middle east? And why are some people happy to see the end of President Ebrahim Raisi’s leadership. In this episode, Antoinette Lattouf speaks with Middle East politics...

Discourse around a portrait of Australia’s richest person has hit a fever pitch this week, after she made a private plea to have it removed from an exhibition.  The painting of Gina Rinehart, by artist Vincent Namatjira, is hanging in Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia, and it’s sparked a debate about how we look at and consider art.  Someone who can empathise with Rinehart in this instance...

Australians will be heading to the polls to vote in a federal election in 2025, and nuclear power is shaping up to be a key battleground. Labor is pushing ahead with renewables as the key source of green energy for Australia, but the Coalition thinks building reactors is the way to go. In fact, the Liberals and Nationals have already started polling community sentiment around nuclear energy in ele...

Trans men, women, and nonbinary young people are twice as likely to experience homelessness compared to cis-queer men and women.  Australian research found that one in five young trans people have experienced homelessness and data from the Trans Justice Project saw an increase in anti-trans hate in the year leading up to April 2023  Activists say we are not doing enough to support the transgender...

Sexsomnia is a sleep disorder that causes people to engage in sexual behaviors in their sleep, such as dirty talk, masturbating and even intercourse. The disorder occurs in the deepest stages of sleep and unsurprisingly it raises many questions around consent. How can consent be maintained when a partner is unconscious? And can sexsomnia be used as a defence in cases of sexual assault? Aleks Trkul...

A new drug has been detected in Australia that can be up to 25 times stronger than fentanyl – which is already stronger than heroin. Introducing nitazene, an incredibly dangerous synthetic opioid that was linked to over 20 overdoses in western Sydney and was found in Canberra’s pill testing service for the first time over the weekend. Professor Suzanne Nielsen, the Deputy Director of the Monash Ad...

The search for a missing person can capture the attention of the entire nation.  Currently, we’re waiting to hear the outcome of an appeal of Chris Dawson, who was convicted of killing his wife Lynette Joy Simms in December of 1982, despite her body never being found. So what happens behind the scenes of one of these investigations? And how is someone charged with murder when a body is never locat...

Scott Morrison is the 30th Prime Minister of Australia, lover of chicken curries and author of his new book - Plans For Your Good: A Prime Minister's Testimony of God's Faithfulness Morrison has had his fair share of controversies over the years - Hawaii, his response to COVID and his many ministries. In this chat with Antoinette Lattouf, Morrison opens up about his time as PM, repenting his sins...

Social media has gone into meltdown after a video from a US college commencement speech went viral. The footage shows NFL player and Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker addressing the female graduates in the crowd, telling them that ultimately, their main and most valuable vocation in life is being a wife and mother. Butker has sparked a storm of criticism, the NFL even coming out to distanc...

This week Chat GPT revealed the next steps in the way their AI interacts with humans. Now the interface can recognise emotions and have more nuanced conversations with the user. Meanwhile Google has revealed its new AI assistant “Astra” and their plans to scrabble back searches previously lost to Chat GPT by integrating more AI into Google search. But what is the cost of greater humanising of AI?...

Australia is in the grip of a teacher shortage that is a decade in the making.   New research by McCrindle has revealed more than half of educators are considering leaving the profession. On top of that, teaching is increasingly becoming an aging profession, with 20% of the workforce to reach retirement age over the next decade. On today’s briefing, we speak with social researcher and demographer,...

For over half a century, the US and Australia have operated Pine Gap - a joint top-secret spy base at Alice Springs in the heart of outback Australia Today, concern is mounting that spies at Pine Gap may be eavesdropping on the Middle East and passing critical information on to the Israeli Defence Force. This would mean Australia is playing a role in the conflict, raising serious questions about t...

When you take a gulp of bottled Mt Franklin spring water, you might imagine it comes from a pristine and abundant water source in an exotic wilderness location.  But In reality, Coca-Cola has been legally pumping groundwater for free out of a bore on the outskirts of Perth in WA to sell as bottled water for 32 years.  And now residents have had enough. They’re worried about the amount of water bei...

Last night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down the Budget, aka the economic plan for the next four years and beyond.  On the positive side, he delivered his second consecutive surplus and a bunch of cost of living sweeteners – including a new $300 payment in energy bill relief for every Australian household, which he reckons will help put downward pressure on inflation.  We saw more detail on Trea...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening nuclear war as his invasion of the Ukraine continues. Putin last week ordered Russian troops to perform military exercises to prepare for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.  Tactical nukes are generally smaller and less powerful than traditional nuclear weapons, but use of such weapons would be catastrophic.  It’s now been more than 800 days since...

It’s been a month since the horrific attack at Bondi Junction Westfield, during which a man stabbed 18 people, killing six. Most of his victims were women. The event was heavily reported on by the media, and in the wake of the tragedy we’ve seen dozens more instances of violent knife crime right around Australia. It may feel like we’re seeing an increase in these sort of attacks, but is that true?...

Childhood and dementia aren’t two words you’d expect to hear together, but children are dying from this disease at the same rate as they are dying from cancer.  One in every 2,900 children are born with childhood dementia, a progressive disease that is caused by rare neurodegenerative genetic disorders   It’s a heart-breaking condition that has historically received little attention and research h...