She was the most divisive figure in Australia’s anti-abortion battles. But even her adversaries acknowledged her stamina

📢 Margaret Tighe’s lifelong fight against abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research reshaped state and federal elections, hardened political debate and enraged her opponents.

‘I had Clive Palmer do the … ads’: Trump lieutenant’s Australian election claim revealed in Epstein files Trump ally Steve Bannon told paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 he had influenced an omnipresent election advertising campaign by the mining billionaire.

Steve Bannon boasted to Jeffrey Epstein about influencing Clive Palmer's election ad campaign
www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

From Traralgon to Covent Garden: How Victoria’s ‘Billy Elliot’ became a Royal Ballet star

📢 Now a principal with one of the world’s most prestigious ballet companies, Calvin Richardson has some advice for young dancers on how to stay true to themselves.

The Say Nothing author on what he looks for in a story and his intriguing Australian connection

📢 Patrick Radden Keefe shot into the literary stratosphere after his book about Northern Ireland, Say Nothing, was name-checked by Dua Lipa and Sarah Jessica Parker. His new book is one of the most hotly anticipated titles of 2026.

Thanks mate! You shouldn’t have

Meet the woman who owns Europe’s biggest collection of Aboriginal art

📢 When she walked into a Paris gallery 20 years ago, Bérengère Primat was instantly captivated by what she saw. It was the start of an obsession.

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Similar thing I think true of australian equivalent

Can the UN save itself from irrelevance? As the organisation turns 80, wars are raging in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, its core ideas are in tatters and the world no longer seems to be listening

on.ft.com/48rkQSH Can the UN save itself from irrelevance?

This is a rather amusing read

Does anyone else find it crazy that you can walk into a bookshop and be charged £9.99 for a paperback novel that took the author a year to complete, but £17.99 for a completely blank notebook?

Putin thought he could take this city in three days. Now they wait to toast his demise with champagne

📢 Kyiv stood when it wasn’t meant to. For three years it has held the line, not just for Europe, but for all of us who still believe democracy is worth the fight.

David Beckham’s knighthood: a symbol of reinvention and quiet service

📢 The British football icon’s public journey has always followed a particular arc: early acclaim, a fall from grace, and then redemption through endurance.

‘Gotcha moments’ and ‘digital lynch mobs’: Political mastermind issues warning for democracy

📢 He steered David Cameron and John Howard to victory, but Lynton Crosby wonders if even Winston Churchill would survive the age of online pile-ons.

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Trophy in hand, future in doubt: Ange’s joyful, uncertain triumph in London Flags whipped in the breeze, faces were painted in navy and white, as Tottenham’s High Road trembled with movement. And then, the man at the heart of it stepped up to the microphone.

Postecoglou has taken an unlikely path to this point. He now finds himself in the company of a long line of Australians who have crossed oceans to chase success in London. Some arrived with charm, others with bite, most with something to prove.

‘It’s just cold. I don’t like the cold’: The haunting plight of Oscar Jenkins The former cricket coach and teacher from Melbourne is the latest foreigner to vanish into Russia’s brutal penal system.

‘It’s just cold. I don’t like the cold’: The haunting plight of Oscar Jenkins www.theage.com.au/world/europe...

Oscar Jenkins sentenced to 13 years in Russian prison after fighting for Ukraine The Australian has been sentenced to more than a decade in a Russian maximum-security prison, sparking diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Canberra.

Oscar Jenkins sentenced to 13 years in Russian prison after fighting for Ukraine www.theage.com.au/world/europe...

Aussies putting heart back into English soccer

📢 Wrexham got Ryan Reynolds. Chelsea got Roman Abramovich. But London’s Sutton Football Club got a few mates from Melbourne.

As I cover the world’s biggest stories, my mind always returns to that Australian classroom

📢 So often during my time in Europe, I have been struck by deja vu – only to realise that Ms Needham had brought me here once before, through the pages of a history book.

As war again rages in Europe, VE Day reminds us all what’s at stake

📢 Eighty years on, the story of Australia’s Stanley Bruce, Winston Churchill and Victory in Europe Day remains strikingly relevant.

‘She knew the risks. She did it anyway’: The brutal detention and death of a young Ukrainian journalist The body of 27-year-old Viktoriia Roshchyna was returned to Ukraine in February, nearly five months after Russian authorities said she had died during a prison transfer

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: ‘She knew the risks. She did it anyway’: The brutal detention and death of a young Ukrainian journalist www.smh.com.au/world/europe... @sydmorningherald.bsky.social @rharris334.bsky.social #journalism #journalismisnotacrime

‘We’ve had Labour for lunch’: Farage’s Reform UK party delivers political earthquake Nigel Farage is no longer the clown lobbing bricks from outside the circus tent. He’s now got a foot inside — and he’s brought the cannon.

Nigel Farage is no longer the clown lobbing bricks from outside the circus tent. He now has a foot inside – and he’s brought the cannon.

They came to bury a pope, but ended up negotiating to end a war

📢 Fifteen minutes. No aides. No flags, no formalities – just two men locked in a contest over Ukraine’s future, in the most unlikely of arenas.

The year the Anzacs came: the little-known story one English village still tells its children

📢 Leighterton still relied on horse-drawn carts when a few hundred young Australians arrived in 1918, weaving their way through the skies above and into the hearts of villagers below.

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Ex-war reporter turned foreign minister leading the charge to keep Russia – and China – in check

📢 At a time when Europe’s leadership has been diffuse and distracted, Radek Sikorski has emerged as one of the West’s most forceful voices.

I’ve just eaten the culinary equivalent of a hug

📢 There are moments in life that stand as quintessentially British – a crisp autumn morning, a cuppa tea just the right shade of beige, and, of course, a trip to Greggs.

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Whitby, The Abbey of St Hilda, by Albert Goodwin (1845-1932). #NorthernArt

The recipient of Melbourne Press Club's Lifetime Achievement award is Peter Blunden. Peter Blunden has worn many hats ranging from humble beginnings as a copyboy at age 17 to managing director of The Herald and Weekly Times. Congratulations Peter!