Cory Bernardi repays more than $40,000 for flying on Gina Rinehart’s plane during SA election campaign 25. April 2026 (09:01) Former Liberal party senator, who was elected to state upper house in March, says flights ‘worth every cent’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOne Nation’s South Australian leader has paid back Australia’s richest person for private flights he took while campaigning in the state’s recent election.Cory Bernardi confirmed on Saturday that he had reimbursed a “substantial” sum of money to Gina Rinehart’s company S Kidman & Co, to comply with new state laws that prohibit political parties and candidates from receiving electoral donations or gifts from individuals, businesses or unions. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
UK schoolboys’ fatal hike remembered in Black Forest 90 years on 25. April 2026 (08:00) Relatives of London pupils and German villagers mark anniversary of ‘English misfortune’ that Nazis turned into propaganda coupOn 17 April 1936, the bells of St Laurentius church in the Black Forest rang out to guide to safety a group of London schoolboys trapped in deep snow on a mountain hike gone very wrong. Ninety years on to the day, as the bells sounded again, there was hardly a dry eye in the congregation of British relatives and German villagers remembering the night that had brought together their parents and grandparents.The people of Hofsgrund risked their lives heading out with sledges and lanterns in the deadly weather to rescue the party of 27 and their teacher after two boys, fumbling though fog and frozen to the bone, had reached a farmhouse and told its startled inhabitants there were many more of them strewn over the Schauinsland mountain.The Daily Sketch from 20 and 29 April 1936 Continue reading...(The Guardian)
How the Walsall rapist John Ashby exposed his misogyny rapping online 25. April 2026 (08:00) The 32-year-old jailed for life for a racially motivated sex attack on a Sikh woman had a collection of hate-filled uploadsJohn Ashby is a man who did not hide his hatred of women.In fact, the rapist, who was sentenced this week to life in prison with a minimum of 14 years for a racially motivated sex attack on a Sikh woman, vented his misogyny online for all to see. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
‘Cries of delight’ as Sumatran orangutan filmed using canopy bridge to cross road for first time 25. April 2026 (07:00) After a two-year wait, video of a young male crossing above a road gives hope that critically endangered species can survive habitat fragmentationThe critically endangered Sumatran orangutan has been filmed for the first time using a canopy bridge to cross a road.In 2024, conservationists in the Pakpak Bharat district of North Sumatra in Indonesia built the bridge high over the Lagan-Pagindar road, which provides an essential route for local people but which became a barrier for animals. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Walking the dog and braving the paps: the art of the doorstep photo, from Keane to Mandelson 25. April 2026 (07:00) Former US ambassador and Labour peer joins a long line of people who have gone out to meet awaiting paparazzi head-onFor a man at the centre of a storm that has rocked the political establishment, Peter Mandelson has spent the week looking remarkably relaxed. Day after day, as MPs have grilled civil servants over who knew what when about the former US ambassador’s security vetting, and police continue to investigate serious allegations over his own conduct, Mandelson has stepped out of his Regent’s Park mansion and pottered across the road to take his dog for a walk.Smart-casually dressed in jeans and a jumper and holding in front of him a plastic ball-thrower, he has set off for the park like a weekending solicitor on his way to an egg and spoon race. There have been occasional small smiles for the photographers at his gate, but no comment. The message appears to be: I am insouciant, normal. Not in prison. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Inside Chornobyl: 40 years after disaster, nuclear site still at risk in Russia’s war 25. April 2026 (07:00) In February 2025, a cheap Russian drone tore through Chornobyl’s confinement shelter. Workers warn the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident is not safe yetThe dosimeter clipped to your chest ticks faster the moment you step off the designated path inside the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Step back, and it slows again – an invisible line between clean ground and contamination.Above rises the “new safe confinement” (NSC) – the largest, movable steel structure ever built, taller than the Statue of Liberty, wider than the Colosseum, its arch curving overhead like an aircraft hangar built for giant planes. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Hanged under the cover of war: letters and videos tell stories of Iran’s death row victims 25. April 2026 (07:00) Testimony emerges from Babak Alipour, who spent three years on death row before being taken to gallows in March Writing from his cell in the Rajai Shahr prison in the northern Iranian city of Karaj, Babak Alipour wanted to tell his friends about those who had already gone to their execution.There was Behrouz Ehsani, 69, the elder statesman of the group, who was “never angry” about their predicament. Then there was Mehdi Hassani, a 48-year-old father of three who he saw a couple of times in the prison hospital and who would ask him to pass on to the children the message that he was “fine”. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Altman apologizes after OpenAI failed to alert police before fatal Canada shooting 25. April 2026 (04:13) OpenAI said the company had identified an account using abuse detection efforts, but determined at the time it didn’t meet threshold for legal referralThe head of OpenAI has written a letter apologizing that his company didn’t alert law enforcement about the online behavior of a person who shot and killed eight people in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.In the letter posted Friday, Sam Altman expressed his deepest condolences to the entire community. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
US military kills two more people in strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific 25. April 2026 (04:03) Small boat destroyed in video posted on social media as US campaign has killed at least 178 people since SeptemberThe US military announced on Friday that it killed two people in an attack on a boat in the eastern Pacific, part of a series of deadly strikes on vessels in recent months which it claims are targeting “narco-trafficking” operations.The US Southern Command declared in a social media post on X that Gen Francis L Donovan directed Joint Task Force Southern Spear, the counter-narcotics unit that operates in the region, to carry out a lethal strike. The US military posted a video, which it labeled unclassified, showing a small boat being destroyed in an explosion. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Australian women and children leave Syrian detention camp for Damascus – and potentially home 25. April 2026 (03:02) Repatriation attempt comes after group was turned around when leaving camp in February. Albanese government says it’s not assisting cohortGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFour Australian women and nine of their children and grandchildren have left al-Roj camp in north-east Syria, seeking to return to Australia.The group is reportedly travelling across Syria by road to the capital Damascus, under the control of the Syrian government. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
