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When the AFL and Cricket Australia target India and the diaspora but only engage with convenient perspectives, trust begins to erode

For most of my life, being Indian, Muslim, Australian and devoted to sport has never felt like a contradiction. Until now.

When I saw AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon and Australian cricket legend Steve Waugh smiling alongside Indian prime minister Narendra Modi last week, I wasn’t simply watching a diplomatic engagement. I was watching two institutions I love celebrate a leader whose name carries deep pain for many people like me.

This tale of a 50-year-old assassin going rogue – and having to confess all to her best mate – is so much fun. The chemistry between its leads is a thing of beauty

The bone-deep magnificence of Hannah Waddingham is such that she could, I suspect, talk most of us into a burning car should she wish to. So selling viewers on the delightfully ludicrous premise of the comedy caper Ride Or Die is but the work of a moment. Waddingham plays Whiptail, a deadly assassin for the last 20-odd years whose work has recently become more attention-grabbing than her bosses like. Octavia Spencer (who occupies god-tier comedy status in my heart for her tiny part as Tracy Morgan’s nemesis in 30 Rock alone) is her best friend Debbie. Debbie knows Whiptail as Judith, a forensic accountant, and has no idea that behind the woman she depends on for laughs, emotional support and notes on the latest book club book she hasn’t read is a trained killer.

Debbie is married to David (Jamie Parker), a politician, and is the gentle power behind his throne. His personal and professional life have been shaped and smoothed by her for the past 25 years, and he is now on course to be the next prime minister.

Watchdog says about 1,700 people were affected during a price surge triggered by the Middle East crisis

Heating oil customers whose deliveries were cancelled when the war in the Middle East caused a price surge are to receive compensation of up to £350 each following an investigation by the UK competition watchdog.

As the crisis unfolded, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was investigating heating oil suppliers after complaints that existing orders were being scrapped, with customers offered new deliveries at a significantly higher price.

Exclusive: Lewisham council’s move marks first step in Greens’ plan to create a corridor of sanctuary boroughs across London

A Green-led London council is planning to ban its officials from working with the Home Office on immigration raids, after uncovering evidence suggesting government officials wanted to use environmental health data to target restaurant workers.

Councillors on the Lewisham borough council are due to vote next week on a motion that would review its systems with a view to ending any cooperation with the government’s attempts to deport people without the right to remain in the UK.

Exclusive: Work and pensions secretary signals possible reform to welfare as ministers await key reviews

Labour must stop “simply writing a cheque” for health and disability benefit claimants and will provide more job support instead, the work and pensions secretary has said.

Pat McFadden said the government was preparing to launch a renewed effort at welfare reform with a focus on encouraging more people with health conditions to get into work and off benefits.

City of Yarra councillors end trial, claiming the company has not done enough to stop dumping and misuse of share bikes

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Shared ebikes will disappear from some inner-city Melbourne streets after a council scrapped its agreement with Australia’s largest electric bike operator.

The City of Yarra on Tuesday voted to end its memorandum of understanding with Lime, terminating its almost six-year-long trial.

Officials set up traps and electric fences after 14 break-ins recored in one town in two weeks, amid fears of a repeat offender

Authorities are searching for a bear that sneaked into the home of an elderly couple and raided their fridge amid concerns it may be behind 14 break-ins across a Japanese town in the past fortnight.

On Monday evening, Mitsuo Matsubara, 87, was confronted by a large Asiatic black bear when he went to investigate a noise in his kitchen. His fridge was open, and food was strewn across the floor. His wife called the police.

Officials set up traps and electric fences after 14 break-ins recored in one town in two weeks, amid fears of a repeat offender

Authorities are searching for a bear that sneaked into the home of an elderly couple and raided their fridge amid concerns it may be behind 14 break-ins across a Japanese town in the past fortnight.

On Monday evening, Mitsuo Matsubara, 87, was confronted by a large Asiatic black bear when he went to investigate a noise in his kitchen. His fridge was open, and food was strewn across the floor. His wife called the police.

Paid-for political access and threadbare regulations have helped to embed the US tech firm in the NHS – and beyond. But there is a way to free ourselves

Andy Burnham faces a lot of big decisions. But one of the incoming prime minister’s biggest early tests is what he does about the world’s “scariest company” – Palantir. The US defence and surveillance tech behemoth has a swathe of British public contracts, including, most controversially, a £330m deal with the NHS. It’s pretty clear what many of Burnham’s new parliamentary colleagues want him to do: the science, innovation and technology committee says the government should ditch Palantir and its “clear mismatch with UK values”.

Peter Thiel and Alex Karp’s company is not without British backers. The Times and the Telegraph have been enthusiastic supporters. In the Financial Times last month former Conservative party adviser Camilla Cavendish accused Palantir’s critics of putting politics over progress: “To me, what matters is what works.”

Peter Geoghegan runs the investigative website Democracy for Sale

Decades after the Falklands war and Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal, the fixture is once again being discussed as far more than a game

When Argentina’s national football team burst into the dressing room after beating Switzerland 3-1, they celebrated by singing The Fourth Star, the country’s unofficial World Cup anthem.

“For Malvinas, for Diego,” Lionel Messi and his teammates chanted, invoking both the Falkland Islands – known as Islas Malvinas in Argentina – and their football legend Diego Maradona.

Afghanistan is seeing a resurgence in underage brides and mothers as desperate families sell their children in order to eat

Sima* is 18, but has already given birth four times. Her youngest is a newborn, the eldest is four. Sitting with her children in their mud-brick room in Badghis province, Sima says: “After the Taliban entered the country, I had just finished the sixth grade and was supposed to start the seventh. But two months later, my father pressured me immensely to marry my cousin. After being beaten by my father several times, I was forced to accept.”

At 13, Sima became a bride inside the compound where she still lives, and where she has given birth to her children. One child died of pneumonia aged one. She does all the housework: fetching water, tending the cows, baking naan in a tandoor. All the while, her children cling to her legs, crying.

Catholic Schools NSW’s alleged donations to Liberal party show the need to ensure public money is spent for approved purposes, expert says

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An education funding expert says alleged illegal donations by Catholic Schools NSW to Liberal party operatives, under investigation by the state corruption watchdog, show governments need to check taxpayer funding was “being spent according to its purposes” and not funnelled into political donations.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) is investigating allegations that political donations were made by Catholic Schools NSW “in amounts that were not declared and exceeded applicable donation caps”.

City of Yarra councillors end trial, claiming the company has not done enough to stop dumping and misuse of share bikes

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Shared ebikes will disappear from some inner-city Melbourne streets after a council scrapped its agreement with Australia’s largest electric bike operator.

The City of Yarra on Tuesday voted to end its memorandum of understanding with Lime, terminating its almost six-year-long trial.

Beijing may be using Youlin Chen’s knowledge to devise ways of staging nuclear tests without detection, advocates for his release from spying charges suggest

An American seismologist has been detained in China on espionage charges since 2024, his family has revealed, saying Donald Trump’s direct appeal for the scientist’s release to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, went unanswered.

Youlin Chen – who has researched how to detect underground nuclear tests using seismological data – was detained on 5 November 2024, according to a statement from the NGO Global Reach, which is working with his family to secure his freedom.

One Nation MP refines party’s view on national identity as he accepts award for ‘political courage’ at anti-abortion gala organised by Joanna Howe

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One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has claimed First Nations people would agree with him that Australia is a “Christian nation”.

The New England MP made the comments at an anti-abortion gala – where he accepted a prize for “political courage” – in Sydney over the weekend.

Melissa Horne describes allegations of improper government interference on a hospital project as ‘alarming’, after Jacinta Allan said report was wrong

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A Victorian minister has broken ranks with Jacinta Allan over allegations involving the CFMEU, describing a report about alleged improper government interference on a hospital project as “alarming” and asking a senior official for assurances that no wrongdoing occurred.

The Facebook post by the health infrastructure minister, Melissa Horne, is a public signal of fractures within the government over how to handle corruption allegations on infrastructure projects, less than five months before the state election in November.