The pioneering female rapper Lil’ Kim, the vomit-inducing performance artist Florentina Holzinger, and the first ever Australian Dance Biennale are among the lineup for the 2026 Rising festival, which is staged around Melbourne each winter.
Lil’ Kim, who last played in Australia in 2011, will perform at Melbourne’s Festival Hall to celebrate her landmark multiplatinum records Hard Core – which turns 30 this year – and The Notorious KIM.
The US-Israeli bombardment has once again underlined Donald Trump’s indifference to international law. A stronger EU can be a vital counterweight
When European leaders were blindsided in January by Donald Trump’s unilateral abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, their immediate response was to hedge their bets. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, affirmed that the principles of international law must always be respected, but also asserted that Mr Maduro lacked legitimacy. As a new Trump-compliant leadership emerged in Caracas, Europe’s attention drifted to crises closer to home.
The dilemmas and dangers posed by Mr Trump’s war of choice in Iran – again initiated with no attempt to consult allies or gain US congressional approval – are not so easily swerved. The US president has berated and mocked Sir Keir Starmer over a lack of full-throated support for his latest military adventure. He has threatened Spain with a trade embargo, after its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described the joint US-Israeli assault on Tehran as “unjustified and dangerous”, and refused to sanction the use of military bases. Even Mr Trump’s close ideological ally, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is under pressure from an electorate deeply hostile to involvement in another open-ended Middle East conflict with unpredictable consequences.
Bad actors have treated equality as a zero sum game, with women falsely portrayed as ‘winning’. Feeling they have to compete, young men are lashing out
Last week, results from a global survey signalled a rise in worrying attitudes towards women among young men. A team from the pollsters Ipsos and King’s College London found that nearly a third (31%) of gen Z men believe that a woman should always obey her husband, a fifth (21%) believe that she should never initiate sex, and 33% believe that women should let their husbands have the final word on important decisions.
There’s a limit to how much can be drawn from a worldwide survey that draws averages from vastly different cultures and economies. We cannot ask respondents what they meant by their answers, nor how they reconcile apparently contradictory views: younger men are more likely than older generations to call themselves feminists and to find successful women attractive, yet some also say women should be subordinate. Nor does the data tell us whether the same men hold these views.
Former Sinn Féin leader being sued by three men injured in IRA bombings in 1976 and 1996
A convicted IRA bomber has told a court that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the organisation despite the former Sinn Féin leader’s claims to the contrary.
Widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk replaces husband on 16-member panel of military training facility
Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk, the widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, to a key advisory board of the US Air Force Academy.
The 37-year-old joins a number of other loyalists to the president on the 16-member panel of the academy’s board of visitors, which according to its website “inquires into the morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters” of the Colorado Springs military training facility.
Exclusive: Report suggests only 1% of annual spend on food and drink adverts will be affected after industry lobbying
The junk food ad ban intended to curb childhood obesity will affect only 1% of the £2.4bn spent annually on advertising food and drink, and may prove a “paper tiger”, ministers have been told.
The government has hailed the ban on advertising foods high in fat, salt and sugar before 9pm on TV and completely online, which came into force on 5 January, as a decisive and world-leading move that will remove 7.2bn calories from UK children’s diets every year.
Emanuel Shaleta, bishop of a Chaldean Catholic parish in the San Diego area, pleaded not guilty to 17 felony charges
The bishop of a small Chaldean Catholic community in the San Diego area has resigned amid charges that he embezzled $270,000 from his parish, Pope Leo XIV announced Tuesday.
Bishop Emanuel Shaleta pleaded not guilty to 17 felony charges, including money laundering, during a hearing attended by many of his supporters.
The New York police department (NYPD) responded to a reported suspicious device near Gracie Mansion on Tuesday afternoon, days after two men threw homemade explosives during protests outside mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home in what authorities have called an act of “ISIS-inspired terrorism”.
The NYPD posted an advisory on X, which said: “Due to a suspicious device, East End Avenue between East 85th and East 87th Street, as well as East 86th Street between York Avenue and East End Avenue are closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
Former New York Jets linebacker Darron Lee appeared in a Tennessee courtroom on Tuesday as prosecutors outlined evidence they say ties him to the killing of his girlfriend, including messages where he asked ChatGPT questions about injuries and how to handle an unresponsive person, according to Chattanooga’s CBS affiliate WDEF.
Lee, 30, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Gabriella Perpétuo at the couple’s home in Ooltewah, about 20 miles northeast of Chattanooga. Deputies were called to the residence last month for a reported medical emergency and found Perpétuo unconscious on the living room floor. The medics were unable to save her and WTVC NewsChannel 9 reported she had suffered a suspected stab wound in addition to other injuries.
Lee: “don’t know what to do right now, Fiancée did her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up, I wake up and she has two swollen eyes (I didn’t do anything, self inflicted) she stabbed herself, silt her eye? Idk but she isn’t waking up or responding, what do I do?”
Lee: “Allie what should I tell my friend to handle someone non responsive but wants to call the police”
Tehran residents say the Iranian capital has endured what they described as its worst night of aerial bombardment, as the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, followed Donald Trump’s suggestion on Monday the war could soon be over with a warning of more strikes to come.
“We are under heavy bombardment and I can hear back-to-back explosions. The place they hit has caught fire. It’s not clear where it exploded, but the buildings are shaking,” Niloufar, who lives in east Tehran said early on Tuesday, speaking under a pseudonym for security reasons. “They are destroying Iran,” they added, saying there were low-flying jets above.
The film will cover the early years of the 1980s rock band and their breakout with hits like Livin’ On a Prayer and You Give Love a Bad Name
A Bon Jovi biopic is in the works from Universal Pictures, Deadline has confirmed.
The feature film will focus on the early years of the rock band, tracing their rise from modest beginnings in New Jersey to selling out stadiums as one of the 1980s’ most defining rock bands.
Co-founders of Moltbook, a platform for artificial intelligence agents, will join tech giant’s AI research unit
Facebook parent Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it had acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform built for artificial intelligence agents, bringing the company’s founders into its AI research division.
The deal will bring Moltbook co-founders Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr into Meta Superintelligence Labs, the unit led by Alexandr Wang, former Scale AI CEO, which Meta purchased for $14.8bn. Meta did not disclose financial terms of the deal. Schlicht and Parr are expected to begin at Meta Superintelligence Labs on 16 March.
Hawaii is preparing for a powerful storm this week that is expected to cause intense winds, thunderstorms and possibly significant flooding across multiple islands.
Josh Green, the governor, said on Monday he had issued an emergency proclamation in response to the weather expected to hit his state in the coming days, in order to bring additional resources into affected areas.
Donald Trump has held an astonishing press conference in which he said the war in Iran was 'very complete' and could end 'very soon', but also claimed that the US had not 'won enough'. The US president is under growing pressure over the economic toll from the conflict, but his words were met with defiance from Tehran. So is the war any closer to ending and has Trump underestimated the resilience of the Iranian regime? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik
Masters powers past Kim for sprint gold redemption
American claims 11th Paralympic gold medal at age 36
Chernobyl-born star extends remarkable medal haul
Oksana Masters’ 11th Paralympic gold medal was “redemption” for the most decorated American Winter Paralympian.
And it was clear just how much it meant to her. Masters screamed loudly several times in delight after winning the women’s sprint sitting discipline in Para cross-country skiing on Tuesday at Milan Cortina.
The Iran war has thrown global oil and gas flows into chaos and the prospect of Donald Trump easing US sanctions on Russian oil to fill the gap is causing a nightmare for the EU.
The European Council president, António Costa, who represents the EU’s leaders, said on Tuesday the only winner from the ongoing conflict would be Vladimir Putin, who could step into the gap created by the throttling of Gulf supplies.
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to someone you think would as well.
Monitors admit they are struggling to keep track of the environmental disasters arising from widening war
Israel’s bombing of Iran’s oil infrastructure will have major long-term environmental repercussions, experts have warned, as monitors admitted they were struggling to keep track of the environmental disasters arising from the widening war.
Even as Iranians filled the streets to mark the appointment of a new supreme leader, the Shahran oil depot north-east of Tehran and the Shahr-e fuel depot to its south continued to burn on Monday, two days after they were bombed by Israeli warplanes.
Galatasaray get the ball rolling. Liverpool desperately hoping to improve on the events of last September.
The teams are out! And there’s some BREAKING NEWS: the atmosphere is hella hot at the Ali Sami Yen†. Cim Bom Bom! Galatasaray wear their classic red and yellow halves, Liverpool are in third-choice bottle green, a colour that may send shivers down the spine of the Candy generation. We’ll be off in a couple of Zadok-the-Priest-soundtracked minutes.
The prime minister has approached a complex geopolitical conflict with a level head – and most importantly, the support of the public
Matt Western is the Labour MP for Warwick and Leamington, and chairs the joint committee on national security strategy. He is writing in a personal capacity
Donald Trump’s demands for Keir Starmer’s unwavering support in the Iran strikes last week has echoes of earlier episodes in the US-UK “special relationship”.
The prime minister’s response has been striking. There were no Bush-style flying jackets or aviators. He resisted calls to wade blindly into another US war in the Middle East. Instead, he has supported the US where possible within the confines of international law, allowing the use of bases in defensive strikes, while protecting lives and prioritising British interests.
Matt Western is the Labour MP for Warwick and Leamington, and chairs the joint committee on national security strategy. He is writing in a personal capacity
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Scot second in men’s visually impaired alpine combined
ParalympicsGB mixed curlers lose to Italy in fifth defeat
Great Britain won their first medal of the Winter Paralympics on Tuesday as Neil Simpson imposed himself on a stacked field to claim silver in the men’s visually impaired alpine combined.
Finishing second behind the home favourite Giacomo Bertagnolli, but ahead of Austria’s Johannes Aigner, who has won two gold medals at these Games, Simpson found the form the British team had been hoping for as he recorded a leading time in the final slalom race to pull himself up from fourth place in the standings.
A billionaire is funding a sustainable development project on the west African island that makes the local population stewards of its future
At the crumbling colonial farm buildings in Porto Real, agricultural worker Kimilson Lima, 43, has signed the agreement and he’s happy. “With this money we can have a proper floor in the house,” he said. “And an inside toilet.”
Lima is part of a ground-breaking experiment on the West African island of Príncipe, where villagers who agree to follow an environmental protection code will reap a quarterly dividend. To date nearly 3,000 have joined the Faya Foundation’s project, more than 60% of the adult population. The first payment of €816 (£708) has just been delivered, a large amount of money on the island. “This will be truly transformative, both for nature and for the people,” said the president of the self-governing region, Felipe Nascimento.
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