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  • AFL 2026: Dean Solomon will sit down with Essendon next week to discuss his future

    AFL 2026: Dean Solomon will sit down with Essendon next week to discuss his future

    The race for Essendon Football Club’s vacant full-time senior coaching position has added a formal competitor, with interim head coach Dean Solomon confirming he will officially put his case forward for the permanent role in upcoming discussions with club leadership. Solomon steps into the contested process alongside other high-profile candidates including James Hird, Mark McVeigh, Jaymie Graham and Murray Davis, all vying for the top job at the AFL club. Solomon’s move to pursue the role comes after months of deliberate consideration, a delay he says was intentional to keep his focus where it matters most: guiding the team through a turbulent period following Brad Scott’s sudden sacking in May.

    In comments made to media on Thursday, the 46-year-old premiership-winning former Essendon player outlined that the timeline for formal discussions has arrived, after club president Tim Roberts told him four to five weeks prior to prioritize in-game coaching first. “It is a discussion I am going to have with the club in the next week and we’ve sort of had that contact now,” Solomon explained. “We will sit down and have a conversation over the next week or so, with all due respect, I will probably want to have that discussion with them first then work from there. I think I said many weeks ago that Tim (Roberts), sort of mentioned to me, four or five weeks ago, ‘take your time, concentrate on coaching (and) doing what you have to do for this group and this footy club’ … at some point in time he’ll give us a tap on the shoulder and have that discussion. So that time has sort of come and we’ll sit and have a good chat about all things and I’ll put forward my thoughts on the current situation and the future.”

    The former premiership Bomber also opened up about the multiple factors that extended his consideration process, most notably his family’s current residence outside of Victoria. “There’s multiple layers about where I’m currently at and the position I am in, my family, where they’re based,” he said. “That’s why it’s been a good thing to take the time to have a good think and respect the current position I am in, as well, as interim coach. My first priority always has been – and always will be – the players and making sure they get the best opportunity they can to be the best they can be.”

    Solomon’s tenure as caretaker has been marked by a slow start before a landmark breakthrough win: after nine straight winless matches across his two stints as interim coach (including three games at the helm back in 2017), Essendon snapped its long drought with a victory over Greater Western Sydney at Marvel Stadium a fortnight ago, which lifted the club off the bottom of the AFL ladder. Despite the challenging win-loss record for most of his time in charge, Solomon says he has deeply valued the opportunity to lead the side through transition. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity, massive challenge, obviously on the back of losing your coach, it’s always a challenge taking on the interim role and what flows on from that,” he said. “But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the challenge with this, binding a coaching group, a football department and a playing group. Really working hard between Monday and Friday to ensure we get good momentum finishing the year off and making decisions around the medium-to-long term for the club.”

    He added that while the team’s results have not met expectations, the side has shown clear improvement in patches, and the coaching group has worked to implement meaningful shifts in the team’s playing style. “In all honesty, I’m just happy to play the role I’ve had to play for the past 12-13 weeks for this football club and I hope it helps it in the medium-to-long term,” Solomon said. The club will hold formal interviews with all candidates in the coming days, with a final decision on the permanent senior coach expected in the near future.

  • Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ boosts sales of mythology tales in UK

    Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ boosts sales of mythology tales in UK

    When Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Homer’s *The Odyssey* hit theaters in mid-July, industry experts expected it to dominate global box offices—what no one predicted was the unprecedented ripple effect it would create across the UK’s publishing industry, reviving widespread public interest in ancient Greek and Roman mythology.

    The latest data from market research firm NielsenIQ tells a striking story: in the four weeks leading up to July 25, print sales of Homer’s original epic jumped 1,400% compared to the same period in 2025. It is not just the classic text that has flown off shelves, either. Emily Wilson’s widely praised 2017 translation of the millennia-old poem has seen an equally explosive surge, with Britain’s largest bookstore chain Waterstones reporting that sales of Wilson’s edition have risen more than 1,000% year-over-year, and growth continues to climb week over week alongside sales of every other available translation of the text.

    The boom has extended far beyond *The Odyssey* itself. NielsenIQ records show significant sales uplifts for a whole range of related mythology works, from Homer’s *The Iliad* to modern reimaginings such as Madeline Miller’s *Circe* and Margaret Atwood’s *The Penelopiad*. On Amazon UK’s bestseller list for history, Stephen Fry’s adaptation of *The Odyssey* currently holds the top spot, with Fry’s two other classics-focused books *Mythos* and *Troy* taking second and fifth place respectively. Even audiobook platforms are sharing in the success: Spotify reports that searches for *The Odyssey* translations have skyrocketed 310% in recent weeks.

    For academics working in the field of Classics, this unexpected cultural wave brings cautious optimism. Many hope the blockbuster’s mainstream popularity will translate to higher student enrolment in ancient studies programs at the university level. Richard Kendall, a Classics lecturer at the University of Exeter and this year’s first expert-in-residence at the UK’s The Classical Association, called the sales spike “fantastic,” noting that ancient myths have retained their pull on audiences for millennia. “These are ripping good yarns,” Kendall told AFP. “It’s wonderful that this has created so much popularity. People are reading more, but this is just this iteration… People will always return to these stories.”

    At University College London, where Nolan himself studied Homer as an undergraduate English student, department leaders are already preparing for a long-term boost. “The buzz around the film has been tremendous, and we’re hoping to see a bounce in student numbers in the next few years,” said Phiroze Vasunia, head of UCL’s Greek and Latin Department. He added that the surge in interest sparked by the film aligns with a broader, steady rise in public enthusiasm for Classics and ancient studies that has been building in recent years.

    Since its release, Nolan’s film has been a commercial juggernaut. The director’s first feature since his 2023 Oscar-winning *Oppenheimer*, it has topped the North American box office for two consecutive weeks and has already grossed more than $640 million globally, earning widespread praise from audiences for its sweeping take on Odysseus’ 10-year journey home from the Trojan War. Starring Matt Damon as the legendary hero, Anne Hathaway as his loyal wife Penelope, and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus, the adaptation brings one of Western literature’s oldest stories to life for a new generation of moviegoers.

    Yet for all its commercial success, the film has not escaped sharp criticism from leading voices in the classics world. Emily Wilson, whose award-winning translation Nolan has publicly praised, published a blistering takedown of Nolan’s screenplay this week that made headlines across the globe. In an essay for the *London Review of Books*, Wilson argued the adaptation “lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth,” writing “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this” and adding that it strips out many of the core elements that make Homer’s original poem a masterpiece.

    Prominent British classicist and historian Mary Bead echoed Wilson’s critique, though she also welcomed the renewed public interest in Homer that the film has generated. Writing in *The Times*, Beard argued that the poem’s original “erotic puzzles, the teasing ironies, the intriguing questions about truth and falsehood” had been replaced in Nolan’s adaptation with “a rather ponderous Hollywood message about civilisational decline.”

    Regardless of the critical divide, one outcome is clear: *The Odyssey* has turned ancient mythology into one of the UK’s hottest literary trends of 2025, introducing thousands of new readers to stories that have shaped Western culture for nearly 3,000 years.

  • Surge in building approvals fails to close Australia’s growing housing shortage

    Surge in building approvals fails to close Australia’s growing housing shortage

    Australia’s latest housing construction data shows a welcome uptick in building approvals that has finally pulled the country ahead of annual population growth, but industry economists and housing analysts warn the nation remains far off the ambitious national target designed to fix decades of worsening affordability and chronic underbuilding.

    New data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that June saw a sharp jump in total building approvals, driven largely by a surprise surge in multi-unit apartment developments. The data shows that approvals for private sector non-house dwellings – a category that includes apartments and townhouses – jumped 17.8% in June, bouncing back strongly from an 11% decline recorded in the previous month. At the same time, approvals for standalone private houses edged up 0.4%, marking the sixth consecutive month that approvals for single-family homes have stayed above the 10,000 mark. When combined, total national building approvals reached their highest level since August 2021.

    AMP senior economist My Bui explained that the full-year totals for the 2025-26 financial year now put the country in a better position than it has been in years, with almost 205,000 new dwellings approved over the 12-month period. That marks a notable increase from the 189,000 approvals recorded in 2024-25, and exceeds the roughly 190,000 new dwellings that industry analysts estimate are needed each year to keep pace with current population growth. “Despite some softness in the first quarter of this year, the recent strength in approvals has gotten us to a point where new supply is matching demographic demand for the first time in several years,” Bui noted.

    Yet this progress is not enough to get Australia on track to meet the federal government’s landmark National Housing Accord target. Launched by the current Labor government as a core policy response to skyrocketing housing costs and rental shortages, the NHA brings together federal, state and local governments to deliver 1.2 million new homes over five years ending in June 2029, which works out to a required annual average of 240,000 new dwellings. While approvals have risen steadily since mid-2024, per capita approval rates remain far below historical averages. In the 2025-26 financial year, only nine new dwellings were approved for every 1,000 Australian residents. That is substantially lower than the 12 approvals per 1,000 people recorded in early 2015, and represents only a marginal improvement from the eight per 1,000 recorded in June of last year.

    Most critically, the recent uptick is not large enough to offset the major underbuilding that occurred between 2022 and 2024, when new supply failed to keep up with rapid post-pandemic population growth. Bui added that because completed home construction lags approvals by months or even years – due to project delays, high cancellation rates and extended construction timelines – the accumulated national housing shortage is unlikely to shrink meaningfully any time soon. “Even with this improvement in approvals, we are not making much progress in closing the gap that has built up over the past three years,” she said.

    Looking ahead, economists warn that multiple headwinds will continue to pressure the housing construction sector over coming months. Commonwealth Bank associate economist Lucinda Jerogin noted that elevated interest rates remain a major constraint on new construction activity, while ongoing supply chain disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict and broad capacity constraints across the building industry are pushing construction costs higher. “Although cost pass-through to consumers and developers has been limited so far, the recent escalation of hostilities in the region increases the risk of renewed cost pressure that could derail new projects,” Jerogin explained.

    Housing Industry Association chief economist Tim Reardon added that shifts in market conditions typically take months to show up in official approval data, meaning the full impact of rising interest rates, global geopolitical instability and recent tax changes will not be visible in the numbers until late this year. “While leading indicators of industry confidence have deteriorated since the federal budget, and investors are already starting to pull back from the new home building market, these trends will not show up in approval figures for several months,” Reardon said.

    With Australian housing affordability currently at its worst level in more than 30 years, Reardon emphasized that policymakers need to take additional action to boost long-term housing supply. “It is more important than ever that policymakers support housing investment and development by reducing the costs of home building, not increasing them,” he said.

  • Neil the Seal forgiven $31,000 bill for ‘exceptional cuteness’ by council

    Neil the Seal forgiven $31,000 bill for ‘exceptional cuteness’ by council

    A 1,000-kilogram wild southern elephant seal named Neil has become an unlikely viral celebrity after a 34-day stay on the coast of south Tasmania left local authorities with a damage and management bill totaling more than AU$31,500 — but the animal will not be required to pay a single cent, all thanks to his overwhelming charm. Neil first came ashore in the Clarence region of Tasmania on June 24, and his unexpected visit quickly captured public attention, with hundreds of social media posts documenting the giant seal’s daily antics, turning him into a local sensation overnight.

    Local government body the City of Clarence recently published a full breakdown of the costs generated by Neil’s extended stay. The total invoice came to AU$31,540.53, with the vast majority of the expense tied to staffing. Over the 34-day period, council workers logged 131.5 standard work hours and an additional 144 overtime hours to manage crowds of tourists and local residents gathered to see the seal, as well as reroute vehicle traffic around his resting spots. That labour cost alone added up to AU$26,520.08. On top of staffing, equipment rental cost AU$3,600, plant hire came to AU$114.75, and material costs for repairing damaged public infrastructure hit AU$1,297.70. The damage Neil caused came from scratching his massive body against public property, which wore down one large sign, 10 roadside bollards and a section of perimeter fence enough to require full replacement.

    In a surprising decision that has delighted the public, the Clarence City Council announced it would waive the entire bill, crediting Neil for his unplanned service as a tourism ambassador, the widespread joy he brought to local communities, and what they called his “exceptional cuteness”. While the public is eagerly anticipating Neil’s next appearance on a Tasmanian shore, no one can predict where or when the five-year-old seal will choose to come ashore next. Despite the lighthearted reaction to the seal’s visit, Clarence Mayor Brendan Blomeley has issued a serious reminder to the public about the risks of interacting with wild elephant seals. Blomeley noted that while the final damage bill was relatively small, the constant close attention and overexposure Neil received from crowds could have resulted in a far more dangerous outcome for both the animal and members of the public. Southern elephant seals are large wild predators, and close contact can pose serious safety risks. “Wherever he decides to come ashore next, I hope he is given the space and time he needs,” Blomeley said, urging future visitors to the area to maintain a safe distance from the seal if he appears again.

  • Drones and blackouts inflict a tense summer on Russia-annexed Crimea

    Drones and blackouts inflict a tense summer on Russia-annexed Crimea

    The hum of generators has replaced the usual quiet hum of summer commerce across Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, where escalating Ukrainian drone strikes and persistent power outages have upended what has long been a popular warm-weather retreat. What was once a season of sun-seeking tourists and coastal relaxation has become a period of daily uncertainty, as Kyiv ramps up a targeted campaign against Russian-controlled energy, fuel and logistical infrastructure in the strategically critical territory.

    Walking the streets of Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest coastal city, a sudden loud explosion does not spark panic the way it once did. For Georgy, a local tourism worker who declined to share his full name with AFP, the blasts have become mundane background noise. “We’re already used to it, really … nothing scares us anymore,” he said, sipping coffee at an outdoor cafe. “Even if there are some sounds, it’s most likely just a drill.”

    Along the Sevastopol waterfront, daily life carries on with a faint undercurrent of unease: elderly women wade through gentle Black Sea waves, children splash in shallow coves, fitness enthusiasts work out along the promenade, and teenagers practice skateboarding tricks steps from a concrete bomb shelter. On this particular day, Sevastopol’s governor posted no air raid alert to his Telegram channel, but such warnings have grown far more common since Ukraine began its stepped-up offensive against Crimean targets in June.

    The violence has already claimed civilian lives. Crimea’s Russian-appointed governor Sergei Aksyonov confirmed two civilians were killed in overnight strikes between Tuesday and Wednesday this week, joining dozens of other injured and dead residents caught in the crossfire of the campaign. For the peninsula’s 2.4 million residents, rolling blackouts and crippling fuel shortages are no longer unusual emergencies — they are part of daily routine. State-owned energy distributor Crimenergo publishes scheduled power outage announcements on its website every day, and Russian-installed authorities have already declared a local state of emergency, suspending civilian petrol sales to reserve fuel for essential operations.

    For small business owners like Oksana, who runs a grocery store in the resort city of Yalta, the only way to keep perishable goods from spoiling is to invest in a personal generator. Speaking over the constant low hum of her backup power unit, she described the 2024 summer season as an unmitigated disaster. “I have no choice… otherwise the sorbets will melt. This year is just a catastrophe,” she said. Larger seaside resorts and hotels that can afford the cost of continuous generator power are the only businesses able to operate close to normal, while smaller operations struggle to stay afloat.

    Crimea has held unique symbolic and political weight for the Kremlin since Russian forces seized and annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, a move that triggered sweeping Western sanctions and has never been recognized by the vast majority of the international community. Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the annexation as a historic correction, promising Crimean residents a higher standard of living under Moscow’s rule than they ever had under Ukrainian governance. Today, the signs of conflict are impossible to miss across the peninsula: Russian air defense batteries line major highways, the blackened facades of damaged electric substations stand as visible evidence of drone strikes, and most gas stations are either closed entirely or restrict sales exclusively to military and emergency vehicles.

    Even when fuel is made available to civilian drivers, local operators intentionally hide price tags to avoid public anger. One local taxi driver explained that a liter of 95-octane unleaded gasoline now costs roughly 250 rubles, equal to around $3 — three to four times the pre-campaign price. Resupplying the peninsula from mainland Russia has become an increasingly dangerous proposition, too. Ukraine regularly targets cargo trucks and fuel tankers traveling along the northern overland route connecting Crimea to Russia’s Rostov-on-Don region through occupied southern Ukraine, a route that has earned the grim nickname the “road of death.”

    The other primary supply link is the Kerch Strait Bridge, a 19-kilometer, $5 billion combined road-and-rail crossing that has become the defining physical symbol of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the infrastructure, most notably in a 2022 truck bombing attack, and fuel tankers are now permanently banned from crossing the span to reduce the risk of catastrophic damage. Kyiv has been clear about its strategic goals for the Crimean campaign: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated last month that the strikes are meant to “create the conditions under which Russia will be forced to choose peace,” and frame the campaign as justified retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure.

    Maria Snegovaya, a researcher with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained that Crimea holds unique ideological importance for the Kremlin that makes it a prime target for Ukraine. “Crimea is the crown jewel of Russia’s territorial conquests since 2014 with an entire mythology built around it,” she told AFP. “While the occupation of the Donbas has been justified primarily by the narrative of ‘protecting Russian speakers,’ Crimea is framed as historically sacred Russian land.” Ukraine rejects that framing entirely, backed by the international community’s near-universal refusal to recognize Russian sovereignty over the peninsula.

    Russian-installed local authorities declined repeated requests for comment from AFP, and no public information has been released about contingency plans if the Kerch Bridge is disabled again by Ukrainian strikes. While official figures are not available, anecdotal reports confirm a steady stream of residents have left the peninsula since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. For two young Crimean women returning home for summer break from university studies in Moscow — where air raid sirens are unheard of — leaving the peninsula permanently is an increasingly attractive plan. “I want first to go to Asia,” said 18-year-old Ekaterina, who studies fashion. “But it’s difficult to get residency there … maybe somewhere like the Netherlands, or other European countries, there are more options there.”

  • ‘Starting to believe again’: Bulldogs in disarray until Storm win saved their season

    ‘Starting to believe again’: Bulldogs in disarray until Storm win saved their season

    Just 10 weeks ago, Canterbury Bulldogs supporters were bracing for another disappointing NRL season, their finals hopes all but written off. Today, the once-struggling blue-and-whites find themselves on the brink of a top-eight spot, riding a five-win-from-six-match hot streak that has breathed new life into their campaign and left fans daring to dream of a deep finals run.

    Heading into their must-win clash at Melbourne’s AAMI Park, the Bulldogs sit just two competition points adrift of sixth-placed South Sydney Rabbitohs, though they trail the Sydney side significantly on for-and-against differential. The venue carries bitter recent memories for Canterbury: they dropped two matches at AAMI Park late last season, including an early finals exit at the hands of the Storm. But that history has only added stakes to a match that will make or break their 2024 finals aspirations.

    It was a 30-20 upset victory over the Storm back in Round 12 that sparked the Bulldogs’ extraordinary resurgence. Before that win, head coach Cameron Ciraldo’s side sat at a grim 3-7 win-loss record, mired in a crippling five-match losing skid. Since that turning point, the team’s biggest strength has been its elite defensive structure, holding opposition sides to just one single try across their last two outings. It was star player Matt Burton’s dynamic running game that lit the fuse for that upset Round 12 win, and Ciraldo says the squad has evolved drastically in the 10 weeks since that encounter.

    “It’s been 10 weeks since we last played the Storm, and I think we’ve learnt plenty in that time,” Ciraldo told reporters ahead of Friday’s clash. “Our game has evolved a lot, and we’ll have to take all of those lessons into tomorrow. I’ve really liked our team performance over the past 10 weeks. We haven’t always got the result, but we’ve been building in a lot of areas, getting our process right, and starting to believe again in what we’re capable of. We know coming down to Melbourne is never easy, it’s always a tough battle and it’s an intense game, so we’re going to have to be at our best.”

    The most visible tactical shift that has turned Canterbury’s season around is Ciraldo’s decision to move captain Stephen Crichton into the five-eighth role, pairing him with young halfback Lachlan Galvin. The new halves combination faced widespread skepticism from critics when it was first announced, but the pair have consistently defied expectations, locking into their attacking roles and helping the entire side play with renewed freedom and confidence.

    Ciraldo heaped praise on both players for their adaptability and work ethic, singling out captain Crichton for his team-first leadership. “I’m really proud of those two guys with how they’ve handled themselves over that period,” Ciraldo said. “There has been a lot of talk about their positions and what they’re capable of, but I really like the way they’ve come together and formed a combination and also what they’ve been able to do with their individual games as well. It’s credit to both of them and how hard they work.”

    Speaking of 21-year-old Galvin, the coach noted the young playmaker has improved exponentially week over week, punching well above his experience level when given opportunities. “He is 21 years old now and he’s improving so much each week,” Ciraldo said. “Like any 21-year-old, they’re still learning their trade and chasing that improvement. When he sees opportunities, he plays well above his years and that’s what we appreciate about his game.”

    As the Bulldogs prepare to take on the NRL powerhouse that has long dominated their recent encounters at AAMI Park, a win would not only lock in a likely top-eight berth but also cement one of the most impressive season turnarounds in recent NRL history. If they can replicate their Round 12 upset performance, the Bulldogs are poised to become one of the most dangerous underdog sides in this year’s finals series.

  • NAB reveals huge plunge in mortgages as central bank rejects property rescue

    NAB reveals huge plunge in mortgages as central bank rejects property rescue

    Australia’s housing and mortgage lending sector is facing fresh headwinds, with one of the nation’s largest financial institutions revealing a sharp downturn in new home loan activity even as the country’s central bank confirms it will not introduce emergency policy adjustments to stabilize a cooling property market.

    In an early pre-report disclosure to investors, National Australia Bank (NAB) confirmed that total home loan applications dropped by 15% over the past three months. The steep decline is attributed to a confluence of economic pressures: three consecutive interest rate hikes that lifted the cash rate by 75 basis points to start 2026, recent changes to property taxation, and elevated global fuel prices that have combined to erode investor confidence in the housing market. The bank’s full quarterly financial results are scheduled for official release on August 17, with the early update focusing on preliminary trends across its business and private banking divisions.

    Speaking at the Barrenjoey Annual Australia Economics Forum, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Assistant Governor and Chief Economist Sarah Hunter made clear that the central bank has no plans to automatically adjust monetary policy to offset falling property values. While Hunter acknowledged that the housing market holds major economic and social importance, she emphasized that the RBA’s policy decisions are tied strictly to its statutory dual mandate: maintaining inflation between 2% and 3%, and supporting full employment.

    “We don’t mechanically respond to falling house prices, but the housing market is really important. It is clearly very emotive as well. Everyone needs to live somewhere …. but no, we don’t just mechanically respond to what happens in the housing market. We think about its impact on the economy and think about it from a monetary policy lens,” Hunter explained.

    The 75 basis point rate hikes implemented in early 2026 reversed the three consecutive rate cuts that the RBA rolled out in 2025, a shift designed to curb persistent inflation that has remained above the central bank’s target band. New inflation data released Wednesday put headline annual inflation at 3.8% through June, while the trimmed mean inflation measure — a key metric that strips out the most volatile price movements to track underlying inflation — came in at 3.6% for the 12-month period.

    Hunter added that the RBA is closely monitoring the spillover effects of cooling housing prices on broader economic activity, employment, and inflation. While the central bank has flagged ongoing concern about household financial stability amid rising mortgage costs, Hunter stressed that there are currently no signs of systemic stress in the lending market. She acknowledged that for a small subset of borrowers, higher interest rates have made monthly mortgage repayments significantly harder to manage, but said struggling individual borrowers will not drive targeted policy action.

    Hunter’s remarks align with recent comments from RBA Governor Michele Bullock, who recently acknowledged that property prices have fallen faster than the central bank projected in its May forecasts. Bullock noted that the faster-than-expected cooling stems from a mix of shifting monetary policy outlooks, recent policy changes impacting housing, and a broad softening in consumer and investor sentiment toward the market.

    Even with the recent declines, Bullock pointed out that national property prices remain largely aligned with levels seen before the RBA began its current cycle of rate hikes in February 2026, and the downturn has so far been concentrated in Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne. First-home buyers, she added, are less exposed to the current price correction, as the largest drops have occurred in previously high-value markets, while historically affordable regions have seen more modest changes.

    On the question of financial risk, Bullock confirmed that negative equity — a scenario where a borrower owes more on their mortgage than their home is worth — remains extremely rare, affecting less than 1% of all Australian mortgage holders. The vast majority of households have also retained the substantial savings buffers they built up in recent years, meaning severe repayment distress is limited to a very small share of borrowers. While Bullock said the hardship facing this small group should not be minimized, she confirmed that overall financial stability risks remain contained.

  • New Victorian Premier Ben Carroll hints at changes to state’s WFH laws in potential upset to new reforms

    New Victorian Premier Ben Carroll hints at changes to state’s WFH laws in potential upset to new reforms

    Just 72 hours after being sworn in as Victoria’s newest Premier, Ben Carroll has already opened the door to potential adjustments to a landmark work-from-home law that has divided workers’ advocates and business groups across the Australian state. The controversial legislation, which was originally brought forward by former Premier Jacinta Allan just weeks before her unexpected resignation from the top job, is now up for review as the new leadership weighs competing demands from labor and industry.

    Carroll confirmed this week that the core provision of the bill — a legal guarantee allowing eligible workers to work from home for up to two days per week when the arrangement is reasonable — will remain in the draft text. However, he has signaled a willingness to consider sensible amendments during the upcoming parliamentary debate, responding to weeks of fierce pushback from Victorian business associations.

    “Work from home does work for families, and now it will go through that parliamentary process, and we will consider anything that is sensible,” Carroll told reporters on Thursday. “Sensible changes will always come up in any debate, and like any other debate, they will be considered.” “That’s the plan,” he added, confirming the two-day right remains on the table.

    Under the original framework outlined by Allan, the right to two days of remote work per week would apply to full-time employees, with pro rata entitlements extended to part-time and regular casual workers. Exclusions are already built in for workers on probation, apprentices, trainees, interns, and participants in entry-level graduate programs. When Allan first introduced the bill in June, she framed it as a pro-worker reform that would save the average employee more than AUD 5,000 annually in commuting costs, cut urban road congestion, and cut down on daily travel time for thousands of workers across the state.

    “We know that working from home works, it works for families, it works for parents,” Allan said at the time, framing the policy as a key priority for the state Labor government ahead of the upcoming election.

    But the proposal quickly drew sharp criticism from peak business groups across Victoria, who argue the new rules would impose unmanageable burdens on small and medium-sized businesses already struggling with economic headwinds. The Victorian Congress of Employer Associations has repeatedly called for a full overhaul of the legislation, warning the original timeline to bring the law into effect by September — which would require rapid processing through the state parliament after the bill passed the lower house earlier this week — is far too compressed.

    “The proposed commencement timetable is also dangerously compressed,” a congress spokesperson said earlier this month. “This would leave employers scrambling to rewrite policies, establish new processes, assess safety obligations, understand cost liabilities, train managers and respond to employee notices under an entirely new legal regime.”

    The group has also warned that the new regulations would add unnecessary complexity, extra operational costs, and economic uncertainty at a time when the state is already seeing a decline in the number of small employing businesses. Business leaders have called for a clearer hard limit on remote work entitlements and a six-month delay to the implementation timeline to give businesses enough time to adjust.

    The sudden review of the work-from-home law follows a rapid leadership shakeup in Victoria’s state Labor government that saw Allan step down from the premiership earlier this week. The leadership contest began after Carroll, who had previously served as Allan’s deputy and had publicly pledged not to challenge her leadership, confirmed he would run for the top job. Allan announced her resignation on Tuesday, arguing that a prolonged internal leadership contest so close to the upcoming state election would waste critical time and government resources.

    “I was prepared to put my record and my plan to a ballot of members as our rules allow,” Allan said in her resignation statement. “I believe I would have won but doing so this close to an election takes up valuable resources including the most important one: time.”

    Now, just days after taking office, Carroll’s decision to open the bill to amendment has signaled a potential shift in the government’s approach to the contentious policy, as the new premier works to balance the expectations of working Victorians and the business community ahead of the upcoming election.

  • Meet the astronomer digging into the Milky Way’s ‘fossils’

    Meet the astronomer digging into the Milky Way’s ‘fossils’

    For decades, Argentine-born astronomer Amina Helmi has dedicated her career to unearthing the hidden origins of the Milky Way, treating ancient stars as cosmic time capsules that hold the keys to our galaxy’s chaotic birth. Now, her groundbreaking work rewriting long-held theories of galactic formation has earned her one of the highest honors in the field: the prestigious Kavli Prize, often referred to as the Nobel Prize of astrophysics.

    At 55, Helmi is a professor at the University of Groningen in the northern Netherlands, where her passion for the Milky Way is impossible to miss in her compact office. Family snapshots and towering stacks of dense, jargon-heavy academic dissertations share space with a bowl overflowing with Milky Way chocolate bars – a playful, sweet nod to the star system that has consumed her professional life.

    Helmi is a pioneer in galactic archaeology, a specialized subfield that treats stars as “cosmic fossils” to reconstruct the Milky Way’s ancient history and project its long-term trajectory. Unlike the popular image of astronomers hunched over telescopes scanning the night sky, Helmi’s work centers on parsing enormous astronomical datasets, some of which contain more than two billion lines of stellar data.

    “Stars carry chemical fingerprints that act just like DNA,” Helmi explained in an exclusive interview with AFP. “These chemical compositions preserve irreplaceable information about where a star formed and what environment it originated in, letting us trace billions of years of galactic history.”

    A transformative turning point for Helmi’s research came from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, an ambitious project to map the Milky Way in three dimensions, to which Helmi herself contributed. “Gaia measured the motion of nearly 1.5 billion stars across a far larger volume of space than any previous mission,” she noted. “It wasn’t just the sheer number of stars we were able to track – it was the unprecedented accuracy of those motion measurements that changed everything for our field.”

    Armed with Gaia’s unprecedented dataset, Helmi and her collaborators pieced together a cataclysmic event that reshaped the Milky Way forever some 10 billion years ago – hundreds of millions of years before our own Sun formed. At that time, a small dwarf galaxy named Gaia-Enceladus collided and merged with the young proto-Milky Way. The leftover stars from the crashed dwarf now form the diffuse halo that wraps around our galaxy, and the collision triggered a wave of new star formation that created the Milky Way’s signature “puffed up” galactic disk.

    This discovery upended the long-standing scientific consensus that the Milky Way formed through slow, steady, continuous growth. Instead, Helmi’s work confirmed that our galaxy assembled itself incrementally through a series of violent collisions and mergers with smaller cosmic bodies, a process called hierarchical accretion.

    Helmi shares the 2024 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics with two fellow researchers: Vasily Belokurov of the University of Cambridge and Rodrigo Ibata of the University of Strasbourg. The three scientists will split the $1 million prize fund, receive a gold medal, and be honored at a formal ceremony hosted by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo this coming September. The award committee recognized the trio for “uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion.”

    Helmi told AFP she was completely stunned when she received the news of the award. “I was totally speechless. To me, this is the biggest honor there is in our field – it’s just absolutely unbelievable,” she said. “This is also wonderful recognition for galactic archaeology as a whole. It’s a relatively young field, but it’s exploded in growth over the last decade, and this award puts that work on the map.”

    Looking ahead, Helmi plans to continue diving into new data releases from the Gaia mission, while developing more robust statistical models to process the field’s increasingly massive datasets. When asked what the Milky Way’s violent youth means for its future, she offered a reassuring take: “Nothing major has happened to our galaxy since that early collision. You could say it had a wild, turbulent youth, and now it’s enjoying a quiet, restful adulthood.”

  • South Korea’s women web sleuths fight AI deepfake porn

    South Korea’s women web sleuths fight AI deepfake porn

    As a global leader in advanced technology manufacturing, South Korea has built its international reputation on cutting-edge innovation in smartphones and semiconductor production. But behind this widely celebrated tech success story lies a devastating underbelly: a growing epidemic of digital sexual violence against women, with AI-generated deepfake pornography emerging as the newest and fastest-spreading threat. Today, a team of dedicated women digital investigators are on the front lines of this fight, working tirelessly to remove illegal non-consensual content from the internet and support survivors of this abuse.

    Based in a sunlit Seoul office, the National Center for Digital Sexual Crime Response employs 23 trained specialists who scour the web to identify exploitative deepfake content, spycam footage, and non-consensually shared intimate imagery, then file formal removal requests backed by the threat of legal prosecution. Founded in 2018 in response to mass anti-spycam protests that drew tens of thousands of women demanding government action, the center expanded to 17 regional branches, offering additional support including legal guidance, emotional counseling, and evidence collection for criminal prosecutions.

    In 2023 alone, the organization removed more than 318,000 pieces of illegal exploitative content on behalf of 10,600 survivors, 75% of whom are women and girls. Center director Kim Mi-soon told AFP that South Korea’s faster policy response compared to other nations stems from two key factors: digital sex crimes became widespread earlier here, and South Korean women mobilized quickly and forcefully to demand change.

    For survivors, the center’s support has been life-changing. A 33-year-old military service member, who requested to be identified only by her surname Kim, said deepfakes of her were shared on encrypted messaging apps that were initially outside the center’s reach. Even so, she said the center’s help made an enormous difference for someone navigating abuse alone. The organization provided financial assistance to obtain a formal trauma diagnosis for court proceedings, a support that left her feeling validated and relieved. “Navigating the whole legal procedure alone while suffering trauma would have been impossible,” she explained.

    The threat of digital sexual violence has evolved rapidly over the past five years. The 2020 “Nth Room” scandal shocked the nation when it was revealed that hundreds of men were exploiting dozens of women and girls in paid “sextortion” chatrooms, where victims were coerced into producing extreme explicit content. After that crackdown, sexual deepfakes emerged as the dominant new threat. Global data from web safety firm Security Hero shows that circulation of deepfake content surged 550% between 2019 and 2023, with nearly 98% of all deepfake content being non-consensual pornography of women, and more than half of all global victims located in South Korea.

    While high-profile K-pop idols have been among the most high-profile targets, police data shows digital sex crimes now account for 40% of all sexual offenses in the country, and ordinary women are increasingly targeted. Deletion specialist Kim Yun-hee noted that the trend has shifted sharply: “Since last year, we’ve seen more and more deepfakes of ordinary women and girls — with the images becoming way more sophisticated than before and victims getting younger and younger.” To keep pace, the center has developed its own AI tools, including a continuous monitoring system that can detect exploitative material and grooming messages targeting children.

    For the specialists who do this emotionally heavy work, the impact makes the effort worthwhile. “This job is not easy,” 31-year-old Kim Yun-hee said. “But it feels really rewarding whenever our clients say our service is a true life-saver.”

    South Korea has implemented strict legal penalties to curb the crisis: deepfake pornography is explicitly illegal, with creators facing up to seven years in prison and even possessors can be sentenced to up to three years behind bars. Penalties were strengthened in 2024, after a major scandal uncovered a network of Telegram chatrooms where users shared deepfakes of female classmates, colleagues, acquaintances, and relatives, often made by stealing photos from victims’ public social media profiles.

    International experts say South Korea’s holistic response has positioned it as a global leader in addressing this emerging harm. Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University in the UK and a leading expert on image-based sexual abuse, called South Korea’s approach a model for the rest of the world, noting that it “is leading the way on providing holistic support services and investing in the latest technology to try to reduce the harm.”

    Even with these advances, campaigners warn that technical and legal responses alone cannot solve the crisis. Activists point to patriarchal cultural norms that frame women as sexual objects without inherent dignity as the root cause of the epidemic. Kim Yeo-jin, head of the nonprofit Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center, argues that online harm requires offline change. “Unless we tackle this fundamental cause by fostering more gender equality in wider society and strengthening gender equality education at school, no amount of removal efforts will be enough,” she said.