Queensland police have arrested a man accused of staging a brazen cat burglary of priceless Egyptian artefacts from a museum in Caboolture, north of Brisbane.
The man, 52, of no fixed address, was arrested on Russell Island in Moreton Bay on Saturday evening, after police allegedly found most of the stolen artefacts in a camper van parked at a ferry terminal.
The similarities between now and events preceding the shah’s exile are striking. The radical clerics benefited then, but who would prevail this time?
A critical moment looms for Iran, and so for the Middle East. The global consequences of any upheaval in Tehran have been made amply clear since the revolution in 1979 that ushered in the rule of radical Islamist clerics. In Oman, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and his team have begun indirect talks with a high-powered US delegation. Many analysts believe the gap between the two sides is too wide to be bridged, and that a conflict is inevitable. Just this weekend, having already threatened military action, Donald Trump said regime change is the “the best thing that could happen” in Iran. The tension, and risks grow higher.
The hold on Iran of those who came to power in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution is now at stake. The ultimate objective of the US appears to be regime change. This may, in fact, already be under way. In December 2025 and January 2026, the most extensive wave of protest since the early 1980s swept Iran, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets from Mashhad to Abadan.
Diplomats in Havana are preparing for an alternative Trump tactic: the country being starved until people take to the streets and the US can step in
Among the verdant gardens of Havana’s diplomatic quarter, Siboney, ambassadors from countries traditionally allied to the United States are expressing increasing frustration with Washington’s attempt to unseat Cuba’s government, while simultaneously drawing up plans to draw down their missions.
Cuba is in crisis. Already reeling from a four-year economic slump, worsened by hyper-inflation and the migration of nearly 20% of the population, the 67-year-old communist government is at its weakest. After Washington’s successful military operation against Cuba’s ally Venezuela at the beginning of January, the US administration is actively seeking regime change.
Exclusive: images and testimony from the January uprising, when Iranian security forces are believed to have killed thousands of men, women and children who had flocked on to the streets
After imposing a nationwide internet blackout, the Iranian regime appears to have largely obscured the mass killing of protesters. However, a photographer in Tehran has managed to share their documentation of what happened, along with the testimony of those who joined in and survived the protests.
Does it only affect weak people? Is work always the cause? Burnout myths, busted by the experts
Once, after surviving yet another round of redundancies in a former job, I did something very odd. I turned off the lights in my room and lay face-down on the bed, unable to move. Rather than feeling relief at having escaped the axe, I was exhausted and numb. I’m not the only one.Fatigue, apathy and hopelessness are all textbook signs of burnout, a bleak phenomenon that has come to define many of our working lives. In 2025, a report from Moodle found that 66% of US workers had experienced some kind of burnout, while a Mental Health UK survey found that one in three adults came under high levels of pressure or stress in the previous year. Despite the prevalence of burnout, plenty of misconceptions around it persist. “Everybody thinks it’s some sort of disease or medical condition,” says Christina Maslach, the psychology professor who was the first to study the syndrome in the 1970s. “But it’s actually a response to chronic job stressors – a stress response.” Here we separate the facts from the myths.
It’s possible this is a platonic relationship, but your concerns are valid and your husband isn’t providing any reassurance
My husband and I are in our 60s. We have been married for 40 years, some of it happily, some not so much. Our children are grown up and gone, and we have recently retired. Some of our tensions over the years have been around my husband’s tendency to be undermining and belittling. He claims not to understand why I might find certain things upsetting, yet refuses to engage with couples counselling (apparently I would tell lies). We have muddled through and mostly get on well now, thoughhe dislikes most of my friends and siblings, and won’t socialise with them. To be fair, he is self-contained and doesn’t seem to need friends in the way I do – he has one friend.
A few months ago, an ex-colleague got in touch with my husband and asked to meet for coffee. They met, had a long lunch, and my husband mentioned a few weeks later that they were arranging to meet again as he had enjoyed the catchup. I was a bit thrown. I found it odd that she couldn’t confide in her partner or friends, but my husband exploded and we had one of our worst, most vicious arguments in years. He accused me of not wanting him to have friends (the opposite is true) and threw up the fact that I have platonic male friends; true, but my male friends and I go back 30-plus years and we don’t meet one-to-one. This just feels a bit out of character and potentially inappropriate.
Opposition challenger Péter Magyar is ahead in the polls on a promise of hope. Orbán is betting on fear of war to stay in power
After 16 years of uninterrupted power, Viktor Orbán is facing his biggest electoral challenge. For years Hungary’s prime minister has spun weak policy performance as success. The rise of a rival, Péter Magyar, and the opposition Tisza party has exposed the limits of that strategy.
The economy is stagnating, despite repeated promises of a long-awaited takeoff. Over the past decade and a half, Hungary has slipped from being one of central and eastern Europe’s strongest performers to one of its weakest. Public services, from healthcare to transport, are widely seen as neglected, and Policy Solutions surveys show that voters have noticed. Hungary is not alone in facing a cost of living crisis, but comparisons offer little consolation to voters who were assured that Orbán’s model would deliver exceptional results.
András Bíró-Nagy is a senior research fellow at the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest and director of Policy Solutions. He is the author of The Path of Hungary’s EU Membership
Self-reliance is often encouraged over asking others for help in the modern world. But doing everything yourself can be a sign that you are scared of intimacy
When a relative was seriously ill and in intensive care for more than a month, Cianne Jones stepped in. “I took it upon myself to be that person in the hospital every single day – chasing doctors, taking notes, making sure I understood why they were doing things.” It was so stressful, she says, that at one point her hair started falling out, but she ploughed on.
It was Jones’s therapist who gently questioned whether she was going to ask for help. Jones laughs. “The hair falling out didn’t suggest to me that I needed help, it was somebody else looking in and saying that.” She has a large, close family who would have helped immediately – and did, once Jones asked – it’s just that it didn’t occur to her to ask. “I had taken that role on: ‘I’m just going to get everything done.’ I just took off, and that was it.”
Australian hits out at online trolls who have targeted her appearance
Former prodigy to call time on professional career at end of 2026
Australia’s Destanee Aiava has announced her plans to retire from professional tennis in a scathing and expletive-laden statement on social media.
The 25-year-old hit out at a tennis culture she said was “racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to anyone who doesn’t fit the mould”, as she revealed plans to call time on her playing career at the end of 2026.
World No 1 is Australia’s first two-time Winter Games gold medallist
Skiing great wins first dual moguls Olympic event after singles defeat
Jakara Anthony has rediscovered her Midas touch, after the world No 1 moguls skier dusted off brutal “heartbreak” at Milano Cortina to climb back to the top dais at the Winter Games.
The Australian has known little but success since claiming an Olympic gold medal four years ago, setting a national record for World Cup skiing victories as she twisted and turned to the top of the sport. But the team’s co-flag bearer had to learn a crushing lesson in overcoming adversity after an uncharacteristic slide off course cost her a medal in the single moguls event.
Magistrates will analyse evidence that could implicate French nationals and re-examine case of Jean-Luc Brunel
The Paris prosecutor’s office on Saturday announced it was setting up a special team of magistrates to analyse evidence that could implicate French nationals in the crimes of the convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
With Epstein’s known circle extending to prominent French figures after the release of documents by the US authorities, the prosecutor’s office said it would also thoroughly re-examine the case of former French modelling agency executive Jean-Luc Brunel, a close associate of the US financier, who died in custody in 2022.
There was rancour and recrimination when Mohamed Salah last faced Brighton, at Anfield in December, along with doubt over whether he would be seen in a Liverpool shirt again. Fast forward two months and the Egyptian great is starting, scoring and shaping games for Arne Slot again. Appeasement between the pair is for the greater good.
Salah produced a sublime assist, his fourth since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, and scored from the penalty spot as Liverpool moved into round five with a commanding victory over Fabian Hürzeler’s struggling team. There was no evidence of Brighton not performing for their under-pressure manager but their lack of cutting edge was glaring, as was the case when visiting here in the Premier League.
At 66, I don’t feel old but, according to my grandsons, I’m ancient. While I’m reasonably active and walk most days, articles about ageing well hit home. Walking isn’t sufficient. I should be doing something about my strength, balance and core. Five-minutes-a-day routines may work for some but I know that I’ll start with good intentions and soon give up. I’m not one for going to the gym and yoga has never been my thing.
The answer is in my boat shed. It’s a paddleboard I bought for fun a few years ago. I was a total beginner; a friend gave me a few lessons. Then several floods turned the Hawkesbury River, where I live, a foul brown and my board has been sitting in the boat shed, unused. Then winter got in the way.
US speed skating star’s four-gold pursuit continues
500m considered toughest of Stolz’s individual events
Entire podium finishes below previous Olympic record
The men’s 500m is speed skating distilled to its most unforgiving form: one and a quarter laps of the oval, no pacing, no recovery window, no margin for technical compromise. On Saturday afternoon in Milan’s western suburbs, Jordan Stolz mastered the sport’s fastest and most unpredictable race and pushed his Olympic campaign toward historic territory.
The 21-year-old American won the 500m in an Olympic-record 33.77 seconds, securing his second gold medal of the Milano Cortina Olympics and adding pace behind what is rapidly becoming one of the defining individual campaigns of these Winter Games.
Police enter court amid fracas sparked by hard foul
Coach Rick Pitino holds back players as tempers flare
Six players were ejected from Saturday’s college basketball game between No. 17 St John’s and Providence after a fracas resulting from a hard foul by Friars forward Duncan Powell on Bryce Hopkins sent the Red Storm star crashing to the ground.
St John’s coach Rick Pitino, who led Providence to the 1987 Final Four, was in the middle of it, trying to hold back his players. But several entered the fray as it drifted toward the Red Storm’s visitors’ bench.
The game was delayed by nearly 20 minutes while the referees sorted out the punishments: four St John’s players were booted and two from Providence, and by the time the Friars got the ball back they had watched a one-point lead turn into a four-point deficit.
“You’re not supposed to come off the bench, but you can’t let your players get beat up,” Pitino said after the 79-69 victory gave the Red Storm its 11th straight win. “You can’t fight. Back when I was the Kentucky coach we fought almost every SEC game, and it was not a big deal. But you can’t fight any more, so toughness has to come between the lines.”
ISS now fully crewed after a medical issue forced the evacuation of four astronauts in January
The International Space Station (ISS) returned to full strength with Saturday’s arrival of four new astronauts to replace colleagues who bailed early because of health concerns.
SpaceX delivered the US, French and Russian astronauts a day after launching them from Cape Canaveral.
Concern grows over Narges Mohammadi’s health, family says, after reports of ‘life-threatening mistreatment’
Iranian authorities have without prior warning transferred Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to a prison in the north of the country as concern grows over her health, her family said on Saturday.
Mohammadi, who won the peace prize in 2023 in recognition for more than two decades of campaigning, was arrested on 12 December in the eastern city of Mashhad after speaking out against Iran’s clerical authorities at a funeral ceremony.
Their best players and managers may move on, but this thoroughly modern club keep punching above their weight
When the news cycle spins so fast, it’s worth remembering where Brentford were in the summer. They had lost their popular manager of seven years, Thomas Frank. They had lost their two best forwards, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. They had lost their goalkeeper Mark Flekken. And they had lost two stalwarts in Christian Nørgaard and Ben Mee (even if the latter’s involvement the previous season had been limited as he turned 35). Departure and replacement is an unavoidable part of life for a club such as Brentford, but this seemed a like a lot to deal with.
Their summer signings were hard to judge. As a rule of thumb, if Brentford are signing someone about whom you already have considered opinions, it’s likely something has gone awry. That said, Caoimhín Kelleher’s gifts are clear, and a fee of just under £13m seemed good value for a goalkeeper with Premier League experience, while Dango Ouattara had demonstrated at Bournemouth how effective he could be either through the middle or out wide. But Antoni Milambo, Michael Kayode and Kaye Furo were unknown quantities.
Football’s interminable video assistant refereeing debate has its latest chapter after a bizarre evening and officiating performance at Villa Park. With the FA Cup not allowing the video protocol until the fifth round, this was an occasion to make the abolitionists think twice. Is elite football already too far gone to officiate without a bank of screens in a faraway business park? Or were Chris Kavanagh, a referee promoted to the Uefa elite list in December, and his assistants just having a nightmare day at the office?
Sandro Tonali’s two goals and Nick Woltemade’s clincher booked Newcastle’s fifth-round place, completing a comeback in the face of officiating mistakes weighing against Eddie Howe’s team. It was Aston Villa who lost their discipline. They should have been down to 10 men earlier than they eventually were.
Jones (2), Ritchie and White with tries; Arundell sees red
Certain wins feel bigger than others and, for Scotland, this result will reverberate for ages. Reclaiming the Calcutta Cup is always sweet but convincingly ending England’s 12-Test unbeaten record was a glorious bonus. For Gregor Townsend and his side, under pressure after their opening round defeat in Rome, this was some riposte to their critics
Ultimately, it was not even close. Two tries by Huw Jones, a hard-nosed collective effort from the Scottish pack and a typically artful display from Finn Russell were simply too much for an England team who had dared to believe this week that their previous tartan traumas were behind them. Instead, they were outplayed and tactically out-thought by Townsend and his coaching staff. England have now won just two of the past nine meetings between the nations.
Speaking in Munich, Volodymyr Zelenskyy also called for a clear date for his country to be allowed to join the EU
Ukraine wants security guarantees for a minimum of 20 years from the US before it can sign a peace deal with dignity, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of talks with Russia and the US scheduled for next week.
Speaking in Munich on Saturday, he also called for a clear date for Ukraine to be allowed to join the EU. Some EU officials have put the date as early as 2027.
Love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young, but this narrative lags behind reality
As Valentine’s Day approached we were once again flooded with the usual suspects: roses, chocolates, sophisticated dinners and glossy ads featuring young heterosexual couples staring earnestly into each other’s eyes. The problem isn’t just that this version of romance is exclusionary – though it is. It’s that it’s profoundly out of step with how love is actuallybeinglived, negotiated and reimagined in contemporary Australia.
Culturally, love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young. From Romeo and Juliet to Normal People, from Bridget Jones to When Harry Met Sally, romantic fulfilment is depicted as something you secure early; ideally before your knees give out or your mortgage locks in. The message is consistent: find love in your 20s or 30s, settle down, and then coast (emotionally paired and narratively complete) until death do you part.
Lisa Portolan is an academic. Her latest book is 10 Ways to Find Love … and How to Keep it. She will appear in ‘Heterofatalism’ at the All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House on 8 March
In my early 20s I quit my job in New Zealand and moved to Sydney to study martial arts. In 1982, after competing in the World Pugilist championships in Hong Kong, I hitchhiked around Japan for a month or so, then headed for Korea via ferry in January 1983. I’d heard air fares were cheap from Korea. No internet back then!
While boarding, I was approached by a very attractive Japanese woman, with limited English, who told me that if I bought one box of bananas and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label, I could pay for most of my trip in Korea. These items were very much in demand back then.
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