Lula wins fourth term as Brazil president after historic upset over far-right Flávio Bolsonaro
Leftist incumbent Lula says unprecedented comeback was a ‘defeat for denialism’ as Bolsonaro refuses to accept election result * Lula wins election in stunning comeback – live updates Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, has staged a dramatic election fightback, defeating his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, to claim a historic fourth term in power. With 100% of votes counted the 80-year-old leftist received 4.4m votes more than Bolsonaro, with a 51.79% share to his 45-year-old rival’s 48.21%. However, soon after Brazil’s electoral authority confirmed Lula’s victory, Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat and asked for the results to be annulled. Continue reading...
Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić concedes defeat in fiercely contested parliamentary election
Vučić’s 12-year reign looks to have been ended by record turnout of voters in election provoked by student-led protests Serbia’s veteran leader Aleksandar Vučić has conceded defeat to the student movement, ushering in a seismic political shift after two years of student-led protests gave rise to a fiercely contested parliamentary election. Speaking on Sunday, Vučić cited preliminary results that showed the student-backed protest movement surging ahead. “Based on a stratified sample, it is clear that we lost these elections,” Vučić told supporters at his party headquarters in Belgrade. Continue reading...
I used to think I had impeccable taste in music. My kids taught me to stop being a snob | Myke Bartlett
Music may not define them in the way it defined many of my generation, but my children still know a good tune when they hear one There was a moment, some years ago in a St Kilda summer, when our family was driving along a busy street, the car windows down, belting out Eric Carmen’s Make Me Lose Control. I had one of those out-of-body experiences parents sometimes get, where you get a clear view of your younger, cooler self looking on in a state of acute embarrassment and despair. How the hell had this happened? Continue reading...
‘Cocaine is the Gollum of drugs’ – and other things we learned from Anthony LaPaglia’s surprisingly juicy memoir
The actor opens up about almost playing Tony Soprano, why Quentin Tarantino ‘flipped out’ at him and how he’s ‘pretty much broke’ now Maybe once a year we get a celebrity memoir that is as good on the juicy stuff – the Hollywood gossip – as the interior excavation; and boy does Anthony LaPaglia deliver both in his new memoir, The Life We Choose. “They say acting is the cheapest form of therapy,” writes the actor, best known for his roles in Without a Trace, Empire Records, Lantana and Frasier. “And that was lucky for me, because, coming up in the way I did, Christ knows I needed it.” The memoir reveals a lot about his abusive childhood in Adelaide, at the hands of his father, Egidio; and how he went from working as a shoe salesman to moving to the US, to work on Broadway and in Hollywood. Continue reading...
Endangered turtles and ‘exceptional’ coral at risk from Woodside’s gas drilling in WA, watchdog says
Exclusive: EPA flags oil spill risk from proposed gasfield and threat to pygmy blue whales * Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here Woodside Energy’s plan to drill for gas off Western Australia’s north-west coast could significantly damage “exceptional” coral reefs and it may be impossible to reduce the risk of an oil spill to an acceptable level, according to advice from the state’s independent environmental watchdog. A draft letter from WA’s Environmental Protection Authority written in 2023, seen by the Guardian, sharply criticised Woodside’s proposal to develop the Browse gasfield, saying its plans to protect endangered turtles and blue whales near Scott Reef would be ineffective. Continue reading...
Children’s legal centre that criticised Queensland government has funding slashed
Youth Advocacy Centre loses 19 staff in move Labor and the Greens say is designed to silence government critics The Queensland government has been accused of using public money in a “vindictive” attack on one of its chief critics after it stripped funding from a 45-year-old community legal centre for children. The Youth Advocacy Centre (YAC) was founded in 1981 to provide support for children in legal trouble at a time when two thirds of children facing court did not have a lawyer. It also supported social workers to help divert children away from jail. Continue reading...
The chaos in France is a ‘warning signal’ for Australia’s public spending and rising costs
Australia’s public debt may be well below that of France but there are lessons to be taken from its economic woes * Get our daily political email, free app or daily news podcast The explosion of discontent that led to major protests and violence in France and across Europe is a “warning signal” that Australia could follow the same path without an “honest conversation” about the budget, economists say. Hundreds of thousands marched in cities across France on Saturday to protest underfunded schools, as complaints of insufficient teacher numbers and dilapidated infrastructure mingled with broader discontent about cost-of-living pressures. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s Politics, really newsletter here Continue reading...
A job that changed me: I was a rookie tour guide for art lovers – no one goes harder than active seniors in search of cultural enrichment
I spent time in some of the greatest art institutions with groups of self-funded retirees. But a vacation it was not * Read more in the a job that changed me series In 2012 I was living in Sydney, halfway through the shelf life of our annual theatric political satire The Wharf Revue, although I didn’t know that at the time. I was also doing some work for the Art Gallery of New South Wales, hosting panel discussions and interviews, when a colleague asked if I would be interested in co-leading a guided tour to New York, focusing on art and theatre. Of course I said yes. Handling the art side of things was my gallery colleague Brian Ladd and together we landed in a wintery Manhattan in January with about 25 guests largely, shall we say, a certain demographic who were keen to sample the cultural delights of the great metropolis. Continue reading...
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