The Morning Edition

This week – again – is all about the economy, which includes a visit from a ghost of the past in the form of former treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

But the big topic for today is current treasurerJim Chalmers and a speech he gave this week, in which he warned progressives not to mock One Nation voters.

The far-right strategy to divide people was working, he said, and although facts could push back on sensationalism and misin...

The Pentagon’s plans to livestream the execution of a former US army psychiatrist who murdered 13 soldiers at an army base has been met with disbelief in many quarters.

Even so, the plan, which would mark the first US military execution by firing squad since the end of WWII, was overshadowed by even more destabilising announcements by President Donald Trump over the last week.

Today, international and political editor Peter H...

A senior Australian partner at global consultancy firm McKinsey made global headlines this week when he was stripped of a key leadership position after deriding the so-called “glass cliff” for women at work.

Chris Bradley, who remains a senior partner at the firm, was dumped from a leadership role after he said on LinkedIn that the glass cliff was a “very convenient way to always be a victim in the rain&rdquo...

Dementia is the No.1 cause of death here. And it’s a uniquely terrifying one, given it can often lead to an eroded sense of self, and lost memory of loved ones.

The number of cases are set to double by 2061, when it’s expected 1 million Australians will suffer from dementia.

But now, some Australians are accessing new therapies, which can, in the case of Alzheimer’s disease - the most common form of ...

Lucia Chicaiza lives in northern Ecuador, in a sleepy farming town of just over 2000 people, at the foot of the Andes.
She also happens to live near a lucrative gold and copper deposit that has caught the eye of Australia’s richest person: Gina Rinehart.
Investigative reporter Marta Pascual Juanola spent a month in Ecuador investigating a mining industry that operates in shades of g...

It’s been a year since Liberal MP Andrew Hastie quit Sussan Ley’s frontbench to speak his mind on migration.

His decision fractured the Coalition and Ley’s ambition to woo back multicultural communities with a more moderate stance. How things change in a year.

But through it all, migration has become a more heated political issue. On Tuesday, Angus Taylor announced the Coalition’s long-awaited policy, promis...

While the rest of us have been dreaming of the promise of AI to cure diseases, and fretting about the threat of robots overtaking humanity, a growing number of people have started literally worshippingAI.
At online churches, and in front of an AI deity, people around the world are asking this technology for advice, seeking guidance to life’s most difficult problems.

Today, international and political edi...

Australians woke up on a Sunday morning in 2018 to extraordinary vision plastered across their television screens and mobile phones: Cameron Bancroft, the opening batsman on the Australian men’s cricket team, caught on camera using a piece of sandpaper to tamper with the ball during a Test match in Cape Town. It was one of the most brazen acts of cheating ever broadcast.

This week, the Australian team returns to South ...

There’s been big news from the UK overnight, with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, launching legal action against police over his arrest in relation to the Epstein files.

Not since the 1649 trial of King Charles I has a British royal mounted a legal challenge of this magnitude, according to the UK Telegraph, which broke the bombshell story.

Today’s guest is culture editor-at-large and ou...

According to new analysis, screen time could damage children more than being born into poverty. The findings from the University of Calgary say higher doses of screen exposure are associated with lower overall academic achievement, poorer language development and emotional and peer problems.

So what’s it actually like to be a 17-year-old on social media? What material are you fed – and how quickly?

Crime and justice rep...

Anthony Albanese is back from the United Nations in New York to a slump in his approval rating and more economic pain.

On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank raised interest rates to a 15-year-high due to continued inflation pressure. So what's driving inflation? How much is government spending contributing to this issue?

Also this week, the Greens elected a new leader. NSW senator David Shoebridge is far more confrontational than former lea...

When the competing leaders of the world's two biggest economies gather for a summit, there's usually a lot to tussle over – military build-up, trade, critical minerals or AI. But that's not what happened when Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met last week.

Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher discusses the moments that could signal a startling break with decades of American policy.

Background reading: 

If you live in a certain part of Australia, you have probably noticed them – big moths flying around, clinging to glass doors and gathering around lights in massive numbers.

But for all the freak-outs across the east coast, naturalists are rejoicing.

Today, national environment and climate editor Nick O’Malley talks about the return of the bogong moth after a near-total population collapse, and why they’re so impo...

Interest rate hikes are stressing Australian mortgage holders across the country.

But are higher rates the only way to get inflation down? Or are there alternatives to the Reserve Bank’s go-to, blunt-force measure?

Today, senior economics writer Matt Wade, on the potential – and challenges – of four alternatives to help keep inflation in check, newly floated by an Australian think tank.

The Mo...

The past five decades have witnessed immigration on a scale the globe has never seen before, and countries around the world are convulsing with anti-immigration sentiment. Australia might be an island, but it's no different.

This is a dangerous moment, investigative journalist Eryk Bagshaw argues. Immigration has become a scapegoat because successive governments have lost control of policy levers, and infrastructure has failed to k...

Today we’re going international to talk about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s trip to New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

It’s been an eventful few days for the PM who has, among other things, spoken about Australia’s attempts to crack down on social media, met with US President Donald Trump and given a speech in which he declared the world orde...

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has launched a taskforce to investigate how AI apparently went rogue hacked into a portal belongingto one of Australia’s major healthcare systems.

Albanese revealed on Thursday that an OpenAI agent infiltrated Medicare.

It is believed to be the first known case of AI hacking into a government system.

Today, technology editor David Swan explains how this breach occurred and how worried we should...

You might remember this case from Sydney in the summer of 2024 – the alleged double murder of TV presenter Jesse Baird and his boyfriend Luke Davies. Baird was a television presenter, appearing on shows such as Totally Wild and Studio 10, while Davies was a Qantas flight attendant.

A jury trial in the NSW Supreme Court began this week and we're finding out a lot more about the allegations agains...

The Republican Party is under enormous pressure, six weeks out from the midterm elections, with a new poll finding that most voters believe US President Donald Trump has hurt the economy.

It comes as Trump faces another test of his power this week: a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in a bid to negotiate peace between Ukraine and Russia.

International and political editor Peter Hart...