Global Pulse

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  • Kennedy Center board votes to put Trump’s name back on building

    Kennedy Center board votes to put Trump’s name back on building

    A new time-lapse video captured construction crews assembling scaffolding this week at Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, as preparations get underway for a contentious move that directly challenges a recent federal court order: reinserting former President Donald Trump’s name onto the iconic performing arts venue’s facade. The unexpected reversal comes just two months after a federal judge mandated the permanent removal of Trump’s branding from the national cultural landmark, reigniting a bitter legal and political battle over the future of the institution.

    According to Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a sitting member of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, the panel voted along party lines Thursday to approve adding the phrase “Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump” to the center’s official public title. The current board is dominated by appointees loyal to Trump, who installed a slate of new trustees and appointed himself chairman of the institution in February 2025, shortly after he began his second presidential term.

    Beatty condemned the board’s decision in sharp remarks following the vote, calling the move a blatant attempt to bypass the court’s binding order. “This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” she said. “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument, which was created to honor the legacy of President John F. Kennedy, not advance the personal political brand of a sitting president.”

    The BBC reached out to Kennedy Center leadership for additional comment on the vote and upcoming work, but had not received a response as of press time. White House spokesperson Liz Huston defended the board’s action in an official statement Thursday, framing the addition of Trump’s name as a recognition of the administration’s investment in the historic venue. “Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” Huston said.

    Alongside voting to reintroduce Trump’s name, the board also approved moving forward with a planned two-year full closure of the center for a major renovation project — a proposal that the same federal judge had previously blocked earlier this year.

    The conflict traces back to a May ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, who found that Trump’s initial addition of his name to the Kennedy Center facade violated federal law. Cooper ruled that the venue, which is legally designated as a national memorial to John F. Kennedy, cannot be formally renamed without explicit approval from Congress. The judge ordered the immediate removal of Trump’s name, which was completed last month after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined to grant a last-minute emergency stay requested by the Trump administration to pause the work.

    Trump’s legal team had argued that removing the name before the appeals process concluded would create unnecessary and lasting confusion if the administration ultimately won its legal challenge. Prior to Thursday’s board vote, the removal had proceeded as ordered, with the court’s ruling set to receive further full argument in the coming months.

    The dispute is part of a broader set of rebranding measures rolled out by the Trump administration across Washington D.C. last year, which included adding Trump’s name to multiple public institutions and federal properties. Legal challenges have been mounted against several of those changes, arguing that they violate longstanding federal laws governing the naming of national memorials and public lands.

  • Nigeria to miss Women’s World Cup after South Africa and Ghana win play-offs

    Nigeria to miss Women’s World Cup after South Africa and Ghana win play-offs

    For more than three decades, Nigeria’s Super Falcons have been an unmissable staple of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, featuring in every edition of the tournament since its inaugural staging in 1991. But that historic unbroken streak has finally come to a shocking end, after a tense 2-1 knockout playoff defeat to South Africa’s Banyana Banyana at the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) in Casablanca.

  • Chile moves hundreds of inmates to a new prison as President Kast ramps up security push

    Chile moves hundreds of inmates to a new prison as President Kast ramps up security push

    In a high-profile step to advance his signature campaign promise of cracking down on organized crime, Chile’s hard-line President José Antonio Kast oversaw the transfer of 295 high-risk inmates to the newly built La Laguna Prison on Thursday, a move directly modeled on the hardline security strategy that has defined El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s tenure.

    Located roughly 155 miles south of Chile’s capital Santiago, La Laguna counts among the nation’s largest correctional facilities, with total capacity for 2,320 inmates across 13+ units, including dedicated maximum-security wings. The facility was purpose-built to address two longstanding crises in Chile’s correctional system: severe overcrowding in older facilities, and the ability for incarcerated gang leaders to continue directing criminal operations from behind bars. To block unauthorized communications, La Laguna is fitted with 1,500 high-resolution surveillance cameras, full-body scanners for visitors and staff, and cutting-edge technology that jams all cellular signals within facility boundaries. Of the inmates transferred Thursday, 37 are confirmed members of major transnational and domestic criminal organizations, with an additional 100 inmates scheduled to move to the facility over the coming week.

    Government-released footage of the transfer showed inmates grouped in rows, feet shackled and heads bowed, a visual presentation that closely mirrors the public broadcasts Bukele has shared on social media throughout his multi-year nationwide security crackdown. Bukele’s aggressive mass incarceration campaign has driven a dramatic drop in violent crime across El Salvador, but it has also sparked widespread condemnation from global and regional human rights groups, which have documented consistent patterns of arbitrary detention, physical abuse of detainees, and widespread erosion of fundamental civil liberties in the country.

    Kast, a conservative ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, has openly framed Bukele as a policy model, joining a growing wave of right-wing leaders across Latin America—including recent candidates and officeholders in Colombia and Peru—that have adopted hardline security rhetoric to win over anxious voters. During his 2025 presidential campaign, Kast traveled to El Salvador to study Bukele’s security framework in person, and even toured the Central American nation’s infamous mega-prison, which operates with no allowed visitation, recreational activities, or inmate education programs.

    Speaking at a press conference following Thursday’s transfer, Kast emphasized the symbolic weight of the operation, saying: “It’s a way of sending criminals a clear message that things have changed: We are going to come after you, we are going to find you, you will be prosecuted and we are going to lock you up.”

    The high-profile public move comes as Kast works to rebuild momentum for his security agenda after a bumpy first seven months in office. The La Laguna facility itself was actually approved and opened by Kast’s left-wing predecessor Gabriel Boric, and began accepting inmates months before Kast took office following his December 2025 election victory.

    Since taking power, Kast has struggled to deliver on the aggressive security promises that propelled his win. He dismissed his first security minister just two and a half months into his term, and has failed to meet pledges for rapid deportations of undocumented immigrants: official data shows his administration has only deported roughly 878 of the estimated 300,000 undocumented immigrants residing in Chile, though an additional 7,501 people left the country voluntarily in the first seven months of 2026. Voters have increasingly voiced frustration that Kast’s security policies have so far delivered little tangible change from Boric’s approach, prompting Kast to unveil a sweeping new security package last week that is now under consideration by Chile’s Congress.

    The legislative proposal would expand the Chilean state’s authority to combat organized crime, including provisions for permanent police deployments in the country’s most violence-plagued neighborhoods, harsher mandatory sentencing for gang affiliation, and the creation of a new state agency tasked with seizing and liquidating assets tied to criminal networks. The package also includes measures to loosen legal restrictions on police use of force and a constitutional amendment that would lower barriers to declaring national states of emergency in response to major security threats.

    While Chile still ranks as one of the safest countries in Latin America, a recent surge in kidnappings, extortion, and drug trafficking—combined with the expanding presence of transnational criminal gangs like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua—has stoked widespread public anxiety over rising organized crime. That public unease was a key factor in Kast’s electoral victory last year, and the La Laguna inmate transfer marks his most visible effort yet to convince voters he will deliver on his campaign promises.

  • Palestinians reject Hamas disarmament before full Israeli withdrawal, poll finds

    Palestinians reject Hamas disarmament before full Israeli withdrawal, poll finds

    Against the backdrop of ongoing conflict and occupation in the Palestinian territories, a newly released public opinion survey from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research has painted a stark portrait of widespread Palestinian public sentiment on security, political leadership, and long-term national aspirations. The most striking finding from the poll, published Wednesday, is that more than seven out of 10 Palestinians reject any demand for Hamas to disarm before Israel completes a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. A full 72% of respondents hold the conviction that if Hamas were to surrender its weapons, Israel would refuse to follow through with a full withdrawal and would resume its large-scale military offensive in the enclave, which respondents and many global observers have characterized as genocide.

    The survey comes amid recent diplomatic maneuvering: Hamas has already accepted a ceasefire and governance proposal put forward by Nickolay Mladenov, head of the U.S.-backed Board of Peace. Even with this diplomatic development on the table, however, 40% of Palestinians surveyed expect the current cycle of violence and instability to persist, with ongoing civilian casualties continuing in the months ahead. Israel has already formally rejected the U.S.-backed proposal, dimming immediate hopes for a negotiated end to the conflict. Another 30% of respondents hold a more optimistic outlook, forecasting that a period of calm will take hold, a new interim Gaza administration led by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza will take power, and long-delayed reconstruction of war-ravaged Gaza can finally begin.

    Notably, widespread opposition to early disarmament does not equate to broad satisfaction with existing Palestinian political institutions. The poll documents deep and persistent public anger at the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its long-serving leader, President Mahmoud Abbas. Nearly 79% of all respondents believe Abbas should step down from his position, a figure that has held between 79% and 89% over the past three years, showing consistent public dissatisfaction with his leadership. Corruption is also a top concern: 83% of Palestinians agree that corrupt practices are widespread within PA institutions, and 65% view the authority itself as more of a burden on the Palestinian people than a historic national achievement.

    When it comes to picking Abbas’ successor, the clear favorite among the public is Marwan Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian political leader who has been imprisoned by Israeli authorities for more than 20 years. Barghouti earned the support of 39% of respondents as the preferred next leader, outpacing all other potential candidates. Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya came in second with 16% support, followed by former PA official Mohammed Dahlan at 15%, and independent politician Mustafa Barghouti at 6%. In a hypothetical head-to-head presidential election, the gap grows even wider: Barghouti would secure 54% of the vote, compared to 26% for al-Hayya and just 14% for the incumbent Abbas.

    The survey results also underscore the pervasive sense of insecurity that shapes daily life for Palestinians across both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Three-quarters of respondents – 76% – reported that they and their immediate family members do not feel safe in their current homes, with only 23% saying they feel secure. Public trust in international diplomatic bodies involved in Middle East peace efforts remains extremely low: only 24% of Palestinians express trust in the Board of Peace, which oversees the Trump administration’s Gaza peace plan, while 66% say they distrust the body entirely.

    In the West Bank, fears of Israeli settlement expansion are near-universal: 87% of respondents there worry that growing Israeli settlements and outposts will eventually force them off their land or out of their homes. Palestinians also remain deeply skeptical that any change in Israel’s leadership will bring meaningful improvement to their conditions. Thirty-four percent believe Israeli policy toward Palestinians would remain unchanged even if the opposition took power, 33% expect policy to worsen under a new Israeli government, and just 28% hold out hope that policy would improve if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were removed from office.

    Even amid the catastrophic destruction of Gaza and accelerating Israeli annexation of West Bank land, the core national aspiration of the Palestinian people remains clear: 43% of respondents identified achieving a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 armistice lines and establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital as the highest priority for the Palestinian people moving forward.

  • ‘I lost $14,000 in a month’: Investors hit by Korean stock market’s wild swings

    ‘I lost $14,000 in a month’: Investors hit by Korean stock market’s wild swings

    South Korea’s tech-heavy Kospi stock index, long known as the world’s most volatile major benchmark, is reeling from one of the sharpest downward corrections in its history, triggered by a sudden pullback in AI-fueled tech stock gains that has left millions of retail investors facing devastating losses on life-changing savings. The rout, which unfolded between June and August, has drawn comparisons to the catastrophic market drops seen during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, shining a bright spotlight on the risks of overconcentrated bets on high-growth artificial intelligence assets among amateur traders.

    The scale of the swing has been staggering: after more than doubling in value in the first half of the year to push past the 9,000-point threshold in mid-June, the index plummeted to 5,500 points in just a matter of weeks. It has since clawed back some losses to stabilize around 6,800 points, but the damage to individual investors’ portfolios has already been done. The root cause of the sell-off, according to Wee Khoon Chong, a strategist at global financial services firm BNY, is growing investor anxiety over the massive amounts of capital being poured into AI development, with many market participants questioning whether the current valuations of leading chipmakers and AI firms are sustainable.

    For many ordinary South Korean savers, the downturn has turned anticipated life milestones into financial uncertainty. Take Yongjoon Kim, a bank worker who had earmarked his investment gains for a down payment on a new home ahead of his wedding later this year. Kim lost roughly 20 million Korean won (equivalent to $14,000 USD) after his concentrated tech portfolio dropped by 25% in July alone. “This loss is going to hurt, and I’ll have to put in extra work for years to make up the gap,” Kim said in an interview. “But I’m luckier than many of my friends who went all in with their entire life savings – they’re in desperate situations right now.”

    Kim’s experience is far from unique. Woongsa Kim, another retail investor, bought shares of leading memory chipmaker SK Hynix at the start of the year using half of his annual work bonus. The stock surged to four times its original value at the index’s peak, only to wipe out almost all those gains in the subsequent correction, cutting the investment’s value to half its peak high. “Just thinking about what I lost brings me to tears,” he told the BBC.

    The crisis has been amplified by the explosive growth of leveraged trading among South Korea’s retail investors, a trend that has also picked up steam in markets including Taiwan and the United States, according to Frank Benzimra, head of Asia equity strategy at Societe Generale. Leverage allows investors to borrow money to control a larger block of shares than their own capital can afford, magnifying gains when prices rise but triggering forced liquidations – called margin calls – when prices fall below a pre-agreed threshold. By the end of July, an estimated 1.2 million South Korean retail investor accounts had received margin calls, a figure equal to roughly one out of every 30 working-age adults in the country.

    Many of the traders caught up in the rout were first-time investors lured into the market by the global AI boom and widespread fear of missing out on fast gains. Marketing professional Chanyong Park saw his holdings in US-based AI chip giant Nvidia surge by more than 1,000%, then reinvested almost all of those profits into SK Hynix – only to see the bet go sour, erasing roughly $10,000 in value. The losses have thrown his plans to quit his job in October and launch his own business into doubt. “I’m now seriously questioning whether I’ll have enough capital to move forward with that plan,” Park said. Like many other affected investors, he is holding onto his shares in hopes of a rebound, but recent wild swings have made him hesitant to add more capital to his position. “It often doesn’t feel like price movements are driven by rational fundamentals – it feels a lot like gambling,” he added.

    Another investor, Youngji Park, went all in on Samsung shares, which peaked at a total value of 45 million Korean won before suffering what he describes as a gut-wrenching downturn. “I feel like a fool for trusting the Korean market,” he said, adding that he has no choice but to hold his position and wait for a recovery over the long term. Even college students have been caught up in the damage: Soomin Yi pooled her money with a friend to buy SK Hynix shares after feeling FOMO (fear of missing out) on the AI boom, but neither had any formal investing experience or access to experienced guidance. They held onto their shares even after they peaked in June, clinging to speculation that prices would rise even higher to five million won per position, and are now sitting on heavy losses.

    The extreme volatility of the Kospi has raised ripple effect concerns for other global markets, with Benzimra noting that other tech-heavy benchmarks like Japan’s Nikkei 225 have moved in lockstep with South Korea’s wild swings. However, he added that most large, diversified global markets are unlikely to see the same level of extreme volatility, as their indexes include a far broader mix of sectors that can cushion against sector-specific sell-offs. “You won’t see this kind of extreme movement in large diversified markets like the Tokyo Stock Price Index or US equity markets,” he explained.

    Investors who followed traditional diversification advice have fared far better in the downturn, with diversified portfolios softening the blow of the tech rout. Yongjoon Kim, who also holds positions in overseas markets, says the entire episode is a critical warning for young and new investors, especially in South Korea. “This is a wake-up call not to put all your eggs in one basket and hope for the best,” he said, adding that he regrets not taking a more cautious approach to his tech stock bets. His fiancée, Gaeon Lee, remains optimistic that the market will eventually recover, but she says the constant stress of monitoring plummeting investments has taken a clear toll on her partner. “Seeing our home savings take a hit was definitely a wake-up call for all of us,” she said.

  • Engine parts smashed Ryanair window that man’s head was sucked out of, report says

    Engine parts smashed Ryanair window that man’s head was sucked out of, report says

    A mid-flight engine failure on a Ryanair-operated flight last July left one passenger seriously injured after broken engine fragments shattered a cabin window, pulling his head and shoulder partially out of the aircraft, US transportation investigators have confirmed in a newly released preliminary assessment.

    The event unfolded on 10 July, when the flight — traveling from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, and operated by Ryanair’s subsidiary Malta Air — suffered a catastrophic fan blade break in its right-side engine just moments after departing Thessaloniki International Airport. As the broken fan blade fragmented, pieces of the engine structure collided with the plane’s cabin, dislodging one window entirely.

    National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators, who took over full probe responsibilities at the request of Greek civil aviation authorities, confirmed that 62-year-old Serbian national Ljubisa Karović was seated adjacent to the broken window. The sudden change in cabin pressure pulled Karović’s head and right shoulder through the opening, leaving him with serious injuries and in acute shock following the incident.

    In accounts collected after the emergency landing, Karović’s wife Svetlana Grković Maksimović recalled that she and two other traveling passengers grabbed onto her husband’s legs and held him firmly for several minutes, preventing him from being pulled completely out of the aircraft as the crew worked to stabilize the plane.

    The NTSB’s timeline of the incident matches the chaotic sequence reported by crew members. Shortly after takeoff, as the plane climbed to cruising altitude, the flight crew received an alert indicating high engine vibration. Following standard protocol, they reduced power to the affected engine and ran a series of system checks. When vibrations temporarily subsided, the crew resumed the climb on autopilot.

    Minutes later, however, vibrations spiked dramatically, followed by a loud bang that alerted the entire cabin to the seriousness of the failure. The crew immediately declared an in-flight emergency and initiated an immediate descent back to Thessaloniki, the departure airport.

    Cabin crew members told investigators they felt the growing vibrations, spotted a small amount of smoke in the cabin, and deployed emergency oxygen masks before passengers began calling for help over the partially ejected passenger. The crew ultimately made a safe, uneventful landing back at Thessaloniki, with emergency crews waiting on the tarmac to treat the injured passenger.

    Preliminary inspection records show the affected engine underwent routine ultrasonic testing for structural faults in May of this year, and no anomalies or damage were detected during that check. Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary has previously hypothesized that the failure stemmed from foreign object damage — debris from the airfield or environment striking the engine fan blade during or before takeoff. The NTSB has not yet issued a final determination on the root cause of the incident, with the full investigation ongoing.

  • Fireworks light skies over Pakistan’s capital as crowds celebrate Independence Day

    Fireworks light skies over Pakistan’s capital as crowds celebrate Independence Day

    ISLAMABAD – Jubilant crowds across Pakistan flooded city streets and public plazas at midnight on August 14, launching nationwide celebrations for the country’s 79th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule. As fireworks exploded in vivid arcs over the capital Islamabad, participants from all age groups, including women and children, joined the festivities, dressed in Pakistan’s national green and white, waving hand-held flags and rallying with the resounding chant “Long Live Pakistan.” Major thoroughfares in the capital were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with celebrants, who watched as pyrotechnics lit up the dark night sky.

    Pakistan gained sovereign statehood on August 14, 1947, following the end of British colonial governance and the partition of the Indian subcontinent into two separate independent nations. Official commemorative events were scheduled to continue through Friday, kicking off with formal flag-raising ceremonies hosted at government institutions, public parks, and educational facilities across the country.

    What sets this year’s independence celebrations apart from previous years is the inauguration of a new landmark in Islamabad: the Yadgar-e-Fatah, or Monument of Victory. The memorial was built to honor what Pakistani officials refer to as the “Battle of Truth,” a four-day armed conflict between Pakistan and neighboring India that took place in May 2025.

    In a nationally televised address to the Pakistani people marking the holiday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stressed that Pakistan seeks peaceful diplomatic relations with India, rather than open conflict. However, he issued a clear warning that the country’s desire for peace should not be misinterpreted as a sign of vulnerability. Any act that threatens Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty, he emphasized, will be met with a forceful, decisive response.

    The 2025 cross-border conflict was triggered by a deadly attack that left 26 people dead in Indian-administered Kashmir. Indian authorities quickly placed blame on militants backed by Pakistan, an accusation that the Pakistani government in Islamabad has repeatedly and categorically denied. As two nuclear-armed rival powers, the nations exchanged missile and drone strikes across the de facto border in Kashmir for four days before a ceasefire agreement halted active hostilities.

    Beyond addressing security tensions, Sharif also criticized New Delhi’s decision to suspend the long-standing Indus Waters Treaty following the 2025 conflict. The agreement, brokered decades ago by the World Bank, governs how the two nations share water from the critical Indus River system, a key source of freshwater for millions of people on both sides of the border. “Every drop of water is our red line,” Sharif stated, adding that Pakistan will not hesitate to respond to any Indian action that endangers the country’s access to its allocated water supplies.

  • BBC Verify speaks to woman who filmed ICE agent pointing gun at her

    BBC Verify speaks to woman who filmed ICE agent pointing gun at her

    A troubling encounter between a Virginia resident and a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent has come under public scrutiny after the woman captured video showing the agent pointing a loaded firearm directly at her. BBC Verify, the British public broadcaster’s independent fact-checking and investigative verification team, has launched a review of the circulating footage and conducted a firsthand interview with the woman who recorded the incident to confirm its authenticity and gather details of what led to the confrontation.

    The raw footage, which was voluntarily shared with the BBC team by the woman, has already sparked growing discussion over law enforcement tactics and use of force during civil interactions. While full context of the encounter, including the ICE agent’s justification for drawing the weapon and the sequence of events preceding the moment captured on camera, has not yet been fully released, the verification process conducted by BBC Verify has confirmed the footage is unaltered and was recorded by the woman in Virginia as she claimed. No additional details about the location of the incident within the state, the date it occurred, or whether any formal complaint has been filed against the agent have been disclosed as of the latest reporting.

  • Big W launches same-day delivery in team-up with DoorDash ahead of Book Week panic

    Big W launches same-day delivery in team-up with DoorDash ahead of Book Week panic

    For Australian parents juggling work, school runs, children’s sports commitments and endless household tasks, the annual school Book Week costume parade has long been a source of last-minute stress. Countless moms and dads have felt the panic of discovering a crumpled permission slip tucked in a child’s backpack just 24 hours before the event, left scrambling to sew, cut, or cobble together a costume fitting their kid’s favorite character from the latest book trend. Now, one major Australian department chain is stepping in to eliminate that annual chaos with a new logistics solution timed perfectly for this year’s Book Week.

    Big W, one of the country’s leading mass merchandisers, has announced a new partnership with delivery platform DoorDash to roll out same-day delivery for thousands of its products, just in time to serve time-strapped families preparing for Book Week events. The new service follows internal company research that found nearly half of all Australian parents – 49 percent, to be exact – are forced to hunt for a Book Week costume at the eleventh hour, after putting the task off amid competing life demands.

    “Every year we see Book Week become a race against the clock for many families,” said Ryan Gracie, Big W’s Chief Customer Officer. “Between school, work, sport and everything else, it’s easy for costume planning to slip down the list until suddenly the parade is just around the corner. Same-day delivery with DoorDash is a lifeline for busy families, particularly for unexpected and last minute needs. Whether it’s a Book Week costume pivot, a rainy-day craft kit, or emergency household supplies, families can now have those items delivered directly to their doors within hours.”

    The service is built around a simple, accessible structure: customers who place their order before 12pm local time can get their purchase – whether that’s a classic Harry Potter robe, a Little Red Riding Hood cloak, or any other popular children’s costume – delivered straight to their doorstep before the end of the same day. For parents familiar with the annual last-minute rush, the announcement has been met with widespread relief.

    Nat Alise, a Big W spokesperson and Queensland-based mother of two children aged 10 and 12, says she has first-hand experience with the last-minute Book Week scramble, having had her own kids pull forgotten notices out of their backpacks the day before a parade. She described her reaction to the new same-day delivery offering as a mix of excitement and relief.

    “The fact that you can order it and get it delivered by the afternoon is incredible … especially when so much is going on in life,” Alise said. “I don’t know what parents are going to look at that and go ‘that’s not needed.’” Alise added that the service will put an end to the frantic ritual of rummaging through household closets for random bits and pieces to cobble together a homemade costume. While she enjoys adding small personal touches to pre-made costumes to make them special for her kids, she emphasized that the convenience of same-day delivery removes unnecessary stress for parents, noting that the magic of Book Week comes from kids getting to dress as their favorite character, regardless of whether the costume is homemade or pre-purchased. “If you’re making life easier for yourself and making your child happy … that’s a win,” she said.

    Currently, the same-day delivery service is available to customers in select eligible postcodes across Australia, with thousands of Big W products available to order via the partnership. The company says it plans to expand access to additional areas over the coming weeks. For DoorDash, the partnership marks a major expansion of the platform’s offerings beyond its core food delivery service, aligning with its long-term mission to serve Australian households across all areas of daily life.

    “We’re thrilled to help families tick off their to-do list without having to drop everything for a trip to the shops,” said Katy Roger, Head of Sales and Partnerships for DoorDash ANZ. “This partnership supports our mission to help Aussie households in all aspects of daily life, beyond food delivery.”

  • Australian tenants forced to swallow relentless rent increases as housing crisis deepens, finance expert warns

    Australian tenants forced to swallow relentless rent increases as housing crisis deepens, finance expert warns

    Australia’s rental market is facing escalating pressure, with finance experts warning that landlords are legally boosting rental prices exactly once every year, passing on the costs of rising interest rates and recent tax reforms to already vulnerable tenants. In Sydney, the country’s most expensive rental market, the median weekly rent has climbed to $824, leaving low-income and fixed-income households grappling with unbearable housing costs.

    Taylor Blackburn, a money expert at comparison platform Finder, explained that a combination of three consecutive Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cash rate hikes in early 2026 and federal government changes to negative gearing rules have pushed property owners to maximize returns on their rental investments as soon as legally allowed. In New South Wales, state legislation only permits landlords to increase rent once every 12 months, and Blackburn says many property owners are already issuing new rent increase notices exactly 365 days after their last hike, taking full advantage of the legal window to pass on higher ownership costs.

    “Property owners are looking to get the best possible return from their investment, and a severe shortage of quality rental stock in major capital cities gives them the leverage to do that,” Blackburn said. “When property owners face higher mortgage costs on their own homes, they offset that pressure by raising rents on their investment properties. That dynamic has been amplified by recent negative gearing changes, which push landlords to collect more rental income to keep their investment cash flow positive.”

    Australia’s negative gearing policy previously allowed residential property investors to deduct rental losses from their personal taxable income, reducing their overall annual tax bill. Changes passed in May restricted this tax concession exclusively to newly built residential properties, while also adjusting the 50% Capital Gains Tax discount that applies to profits from asset sales. Blackburn noted the reforms have had a clear, direct impact on landlords’ decisions to increase rental prices more consistently.

    The broader economic context has worsened the crisis for tenants. The RBA raised the cash rate three times between February and May 2026 for a total increase of 75 basis points, bringing the cash rate to 4.35%, where it has been held for three consecutive months. Following the rate hikes, financial conditions across the country have tightened, and economic growth has slowed, though RBA policymakers have emphasized that inflation remains well above target. Recent housing market downturn has been widely linked to these tax and interest rate changes by industry analysts.

    Latest data from property analytics firm Cotality shows national median rents rose 2.1% in the March 2026 quarter, pushing the combined capital city median to $724 per week. Darwin recorded the largest annual surge, with rents jumping 9.2% in the 12 months to March, while Sydney remained the nation’s priciest market at $824 weekly.

    Gareth Spence, senior economist at the National Australia Bank (NAB), explained that higher cash rates filter through to rental costs just as they do to home loan mortgage rates. He added that broader structural pressures have compounded the issue, with rental vacancy rates sitting at near-record lows across the country and property investors pulling back from new purchases.

    “The biggest challenge for renters right now is just how tight the market is,” Spence said. “We have extremely low vacancy rates, less investor activity, and that creates supply constraints that don’t just affect home purchase affordability – they make renting incredibly difficult for millions of households.”

    For tenants already living on tight budgets, the consistent annual rent hikes are pushing many to the brink. Finder’s research finds that more than 40% of Australian renters live paycheck to paycheck, with less than $1,000 in total cash savings to cover unexpected costs. For those living on fixed incomes, such as pensioners or low-wage workers, rental price growth is far outpacing any increases in income, leaving many at risk of housing instability.