The $1 Trillion Black Box
The U.S. military budget is vast and opaque. Projects touted as engineering marvels end up facing years of delays and ballooning costs. ProPublica has launched a series to report on the Pentagon’s spe...
Eva Marie Saint, star of North by Northwest and On the Waterfront, dies aged 102
Landmark roles were in 50s classics directed by Elia Kazan and Alfred Hitchcock, before going on to play Superman’s adoptive mother in later life Eva Marie Saint, one of the last survivors of Hollywood’s golden age of the 1940s and 50s, has died aged 102. Her screen work spanned six decades: Saint made her screen debut opposite Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s celebrated thriller North by Northwest, and in one of her last screen appearances played Superman’s adoptive mother Martha Kent in the 2006 superhero film Superman Returns. A family spokesman said on Tuesday that Saint had died of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles. Continue reading...
Israeli settlers beat AFP photographer in occupied West Bank
Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a 58-year-old Palestinian photographer, suffered injuries to his head and torso and was taken to the hospital by ambulance, according to the international news agency. The agency's news director, Phil Chetwynd, condemned the incident as a 'serious' and 'unacceptable' attack.
Israeli settlers beat press photographer as soldiers watch in West Bank
Jaafar Ashtiyeh was covering violence against olive farmers when settlers set upon him with the butts of their guns Armed Israeli settlers beat a photographer in the presence of Israeli soldiers, hospitalising him, as he covered worsening settler violence against olive farmers in the occupied West Bank. Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a 58-year-old veteran photographer for Agence France-Presse in Palestine, was assaulted by a group of settlers, who beat him with the butts of their guns, despite him being marked as press. He was assaulted in view of about a dozen armed Israeli soldiers. Continue reading...
Back to School, in Gaza
My nephews study in a big tent surrounded by bombed-out houses. They have no access to chairs or desks, so they sit on the dirt.
Australia is building a lot of new homes. But is the datacentre boom holding us back? | Greg Jericho
Housing construction is at its strongest level since 2016, but it’s AI that is sucking up resources for builders The latest series of data on housing and building activity has been released, showing residential building is growing strongly but also that the datacentre boom is massive and ongoing. As political parties look to keep housing on the agenda, the massive resources devoted to building datacentres is going to hit anyone wishing to increase housing supply. Continue reading...
I want to block gambling ads from my phone. What can I do?
It should be easier to opt out of online gambling ads next year, writes policy professional Kat George. For now, there are still steps that can help * Read more Australian customer service columns I tried to block Crown gambling spam on my phone. It kept coming. I said that if I were a recovering gambling addict, the ads could be extremely harmful. After that the ads came much more frequently. Google sent a response that they could not remove the ads from the internet because they are not dangerous. I replied that I simply wanted to block them from my phone. Google sent the same irrelevant response. Google and Crown are making money out of problem gamblers’ misery. What can be done? – Michael, NSW Kat says: Gambling ads are highly controversial in Australia. They seem to saturate our media, and while governments are taking steps to limit them, they still feel pervasive. Continue reading...
‘You think you’re invincible, and you’re not’: Gretta Ray on sickness, surviving and finding her new sound
After a life-threatening infection, the Australian singer-songwriter has rebuilt her relationship with music – and her third album ‘sounds nothing like the last’ The illness that almost killed Gretta Ray announced itself slowly. First there were chills that had her inexplicably shivering under the doona. Then came gastrointestinal symptoms; next a splitting headache. Fatigue flattened her, keeping her in bed for days. But it was when the singer-songwriter woke up one morning with double vision that she knew something was really wrong. Ray went straight to hospital – and stayed there for six weeks. After a long and agonising slew of tests, she was diagnosed with infective endocarditis, a life-threatening infection of the heart that can cause a strange, gradual march of symptoms. Ray was put on an antibiotic drip “pretty much 24 hours a day”, which saved her life. But at just 26 years old, her age made her an outlier on the cardiology ward – and forced some big psychological reckonings. Continue reading...
Gnomes review – Asa Butterfield takes on murderous garden ornaments in pulpy horror-comedy
Rightly described as ‘Gremlins meets Hot Fuzz’, this fun series has the high-spirit and gusto one hopes for in a show about evil killer gnomes One can never trust marketing materials to accurately describe a movie or TV series, but I’m pleased to report that Gnomes’ official synopsis gets its tone right: “Gremlins meets Hot Fuzz.” This six-part horror-comedy series indeed feels like the kind of rambunctious, high-spirited production that’d be right up the alley of Joe Dante and Edgar Wright, directors of the aforementioned films. Particularly in its air of barely controlled chaos, staged with a slight wink to the audience but never too self-consciously. It’s also – without a doubt – the greatest television series ever made about murderous garden gnomes awakened by an ancient evil. Continue reading...
Overseas, Albanese sees ‘the very definition of climate injustice’ – but at home, he still wants coal
It isn’t hard to see a contradiction between the PM’s message in Fiji and his opposition to legal action to stop a NSW coalmine * Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast There are unlikely to be many bigger moments in Australian action on the climate crisis this year than a judgment by the high court on Wednesday. In what is likely to prove a historic victory, the court sided with community members in the Hunter Valley to strike down a state regulator’s approval of a massive coalmine expansion that could have kept it operating until 2048. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s Politics, really newsletter here Continue reading...
Log in or sign up to comment.