"...Australia's businesses have...used the collapse of union power to suppress wages, while using their own oligopoly power to increase prices...The result is declining productivity, rising inequality, generational anger, and political polarisation. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08...

As rising inequality demands reform, business is 'circling the wagons'

Business used the collapse of unions to suppress wages and oligopoly power to increase prices. Expecting it now — using AI — to fix declining productivity, rising inequality, generational anger and po...

abc.net.au

"Australia is the last continent to be affected by H5N1 bird flu – we've had years to prepare. Despite this, an official risk assessment pinpointing which birds and mammals are most susceptible was only released...on August 4...." theconversation.com/australias-b...

Australia’s bird flu response: too little, but it’s not too late

Australia’s response to this deadly bird flu outbreak has been insufficient and too reactive.

theconversation.com

“Mass mortality events are inherently difficult to study….By the time an event is detected, it may already be well underway, while events in remote areas may go unnoticed altogether.” www.abc.net.au/news/science...

When hundreds of animals die from bird flu, what happens next?

Despite their scale, we know surprisingly little about mass mortality events — from bird flu and other triggers — and their longer-term ecological consequences.

abc.net.au

“…we’re witnessing the growth of a massive public-private bureaucracy that’s metastasizing in unnerving new directions. It now appears to entail extensive domestic surveillance operations as well. We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of it all.” newrepublic.com/article/2144...

Trump’s Secret Police Spying on Americans? It’s Darker than We Knew.

Court papers reveal that the Department of Homeland Security’s covert surveillance of anti-ICE groups is much darker than it first appeared. Welcome to Donald Trump’s America.

newrepublic.com

MPs are elected to serve Australians, not the vested interests that profit from gambling harm: gambling companies, media companies & major sporting codes. These corporations are directly responsible for this harm & this Gov is complicit in allowing it to continue. #auspol #politas

"Yet many deaths linked to the funding cuts will remain invisible, in part because the cuts themselves left scores of mortality data collectors jobless. In some places, there is simply no one left to count those who died." www.nbcnews.com/world/asia/u...

USAID fallout: In Nepal, when the aid workers stopped coming, the women and babies started dying

The U.S. government has repeatedly insisted that no one — and, particularly, no children — has died because of its funding cuts. But the AP has documented the deaths of women and children from Myanmar...

nbcnews.com

‘Trump first deployed the National Guard to D.C. in August of 2025…after declaring a "crime emergency" and launching the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, despite violent crime being at a 30-year low.’ www.npr.org/2026/08/11/n...

Armed troops have patrolled D.C. for 1 year now. It's challenging democratic norms

The deployment is expected to cost in the billions after it was quietly extended until Inauguration Day of 2029.

npr.org

"[Govts] will provide $250 million a year over 10 years in a time-limited arrangement, with the prospect of recouping their investment through a combination of aluminium revenues and the contribution of Tomago to stabilising the grid. There is every chance this will be cost-neutral over the decade."

The Conversation AUNZ@aunz.theconversation.com · last mo.

The government’s approach to saving Tomago offers a blueprint for other interventions to future-proof industry, such as at Whyalla.

“It took years of dedicated, bipartisan, cross-sector partnership to build the security infrastructure we’ve had, and dismantling CISA leaves a gaping hole. We are making the job of securing our democracy exponentially harder.” www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections

When Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, the institutional guardrails of American democracy held. But if faced with the same tests today, those barriers — and people who held the line — would l...

propublica.org

“All we’ve done is more effectively recruit, train and support staff. I think it’s quite hard for people to believe it’s that simple. The real thing it’s proving is that a prison can’t outperform the quality of its staff.” observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

London is quickly becoming a cycling city. Trips have soared to 1.5m a day. Our network of cycleways is now over 400km - and is expanding fast. We're currently extending Cycleway 4 in Greenwich - making the streets safer & enabling more people to switch their trips.

"Anyone who rents knows that when interest rates go up, they are likely to receive a message from their landlord telling them that, alas, their rent is also about to rise."

Greg Jericho@grogsgamut.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sorry RBA, but mortgages going up DOES affect the cost of living. My column www.theguardian.com/business/gro...

"The owners were acquitted of manslaughter. They received $400 for each victim through their insurance policy and paid $75 to the families of the victims."

David Dayen@ddayen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Today's Prospect Patriot is Frances Perkins. She saw the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory go ablaze in 1911 and her life changed. "The New Deal was born that day," she said. 22 years later she'd be America's first female cabinet member. prospect.org/2026/08/04/a...

“The virus’ genome found in their bones represents the first molecular evidence of the disease in the colonial Americas, confirming historical accounts of the disease arriving with European contact and eventually killing millions of Indigenous inhabitants.” www.science.org/content/arti...

Ancient DNA confirms historical accounts of how smallpox got to the Americas

“Landmark” paper finds disease originated with European contact

science.org

“Pharmaceutical commentator Paul Cross said the nature of pricing negotiations meant it was likely more financially advantageous for AstraZeneca to supply Zoladex in Australia for free than create a low pricing precedent for other countries.” www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07...

The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order that blocks the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from executing the president’s March executive order attacking mail voting. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Trump’s anti-mail voting order gets blocked again, this time by federal appeals court

Trump's sweeping assault on mail voting won’t be carried out in 23 states and D.C. ahead of November's midterms.

democracydocket.com

Marles says he’s “disappointed and it’s unfair” that his US buddies are screwing Australia by increasing tariffs. Such an underwhelming but predictable response from Marles who seems to care more about US submarine jobs than jobs in Australia. When will the ALP wake up to the US?

"Australia's system of privatised employment services is structurally broken and its prized federal contracts are being used to enrich millionaires and private equity firms, a new report argues."

ABC News Australia@news.abc.net.au · 2mo ago

Australia's jobseeker system fails workers and enriches millionaires, report says

And here's the second story, about an important--but underreported--ruling by a federal judge knocking out the notorious clause the Trump administration has used to terminate grants that, after the fact, don't "effectuate agency priorities." www.science.org/content/arti...

U.S. judge rejects Trump’s justification for terminating thousands of grants

States hail decision, but White House may try other ways to end funding

science.org

"The Christ of the Beatitudes would be deeply unwelcome at a MAGA rally and would probably be carried out on a stretcher. But Vance found a God who endorses the rally. That requires work." www.commonwealmagazine.org/brock-vance-...

Hillbilly Eulogy

Ohio has known hucksters like J. D. Vance before. The state has a long memory for men who climb the ladder and then kick it down after them.

commonwealmagazine.org

"It’s almost as though The Advertiser sees its role, rather than to report news, to promote the policies and performance of the Malinauskas Government, funded by big corporations." michaelwest.com.au/back-scratch...

Back-Scratching. Premier Malinauskus’ love-in with Newscorp exposed - Michael West

Rex Patrick FOIs expose the cosy relationship between SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, and its large advertisers

michaelwest.com.au

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07...

'People want community': Hobby-based clubs tackling loneliness

Hobby-based pop-up clubs are attracting people from university students and office workers to new migrants and academics.

abc.net.au

A series of greenways crisscrossing Sydney's west presents an opportunity to grow the city's canopy and make more public space, a Committee for Sydney report suggests.

Expanding Sydney's tree canopy could save $1b a year in health costs

A series of greenways crisscrossing Sydney's west presents an opportunity to grow the city's canopy and make more public space, a Committee for Sydney report suggests.

abc.net.au

South Australia's Coorong is a sanctuary for birds and marine life but it is increasingly under threat with the arrival of bird flu in Australia the latest in a rolling barrage of crises.

H5 bird flu poses risk to wildlife haven behind tale of 'Storm Boy'

South Australia's Coorong is a sanctuary for birds and marine life but it is increasingly under threat with the arrival of bird flu in Australia the latest in a rolling barrage of crises.

abc.net.au

So, there is a precedent for vetoing an MP's resignation Viscount Chelsea (Henry Cadogan) applied for the Chiltern Hundreds in 1842 The Chancellor (Goulburn) refused because, get this, Cadogan wanted to resign to obstruct an investigation for bribery h/t @fascinatorfun.bsky.social and @gazhay.com

"ACOSS said people under 35 hold just 7 per cent of the country's wealth. But the wealthiest 10 per cent of households own 25 times as much as the lowest 60 per cent on average."

ABC News Bot (unofficial)@abcnewsbot.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The federal government must look at age and wealth together to meaningfully deal with the growing wealth divide between generations, according to The Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS).

EXC - The £5m gift to Nigel Farage by a cryptocurrency billionaire was reported to the National Crime Agency by bankers who were concerned it may have been laundered money, the Guardian can reveal. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Revealed: Farage’s £5m gift reported to UK crime agency over money laundering concerns

Exclusive: Latest Guardian revelation about gift from cryptocurrency tycoon comes as Reform UK leader forces byelection

theguardian.com

Investment accounts owned by President Trump engaged in more than 300 previously undisclosed stock purchases on April 8, 2025, one day before his surprise announcement that he would pause a number of his “Liberation Day” tariffs, his financial disclosure report says.

Trump discloses 327 unreported stock trades made a day before his first tariff pause

Their disclosure, more than 14 months after they occurred, is the latest revelation to fuel calls for greater scrutiny of the president’s financial assets.

nbcnews.to

NYT reported Trump made $636 million on his meme coin alone while American investors lost $3.8B The American people are paying the price for his bizarre self-dealing & that should alarm every single one of us A timeline of Trump’s crypto corruption👇 www.democracydefendersfund.org/crypto -TN

1/ I looked at 20 years of Supreme Court decisions and found that for the first time, all nine justices decided more cases by secret ballot — aka the “shadow docket” — than it did for cases argued in open court last term. 🧵: