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Rory, Duplantis and India’s women cricketers: In 2025, it was a wide world of sports

Looking outside Australian sport puts us in position to pay respect to some outstanding achievements.

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Malcolm Knox

In praise of mediocrity – and having a go regardless

My teenage poetry was shudderingly bad. My swimming kick isn’t up to much. Do I let such limitations stop me?

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Julia Baird

Order an Uber: As Boxing Days go, this one was borderline ridiculous

With the urn’s fate already decided and 20 wickets falling in the space of 75.1 overs, it may be worth arranging transport home after day two.

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Daniel Brettig

Silicon Valley’s billionaire elite can’t engineer our consent

A decade after Peter Thiel backed Donald Trump, the ascent of the “tech right″⁣ has made billionaire founders “evil geniuses” in the eyes of many...

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Chris Zappone

It’s not too late to cash in on the new space race

Things are looking up for investors scouring the market for stratospheric valuations.

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David Stevenson

What’s in a name? Trump’s vainglorious branding stunts point to underlying phobia

The US president has always believed in the power of his brand. But as far as legacies go, sticking your name on everything is perilously impermanent.

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Michael Koziol

Can you make new friends in your 50s? I’ve found them in unexpected places

The best part about writing this column is what happens afterwards. The unexpected conversations that land in my inbox once the column stops being...

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Kate Halfpenny

This is no time for partisan rage

Unfortunately, politics has entered the shouting phase when it pays to be listening. 

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Nick Bryant

Why the AI boom Is unlike the dot-com boom

Silicon Valley is in the middle of an artificial intelligence boom with obvious resemblances to the 1990s dot-com era.

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David Streitfeld

Sorry, Elton, but ‘sorry’ seems to be the easiest word

Apologising for everything and nothing has crept into our vernacular like an audible placeholder, akin to ‘um’ and ‘like’.

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Jo Pybus

How sober curious and Ozempic gave Aussie wines a Christmas hangover

If you’re sober curious, California sober or taking weight-loss drugs, you’re giving Australia’s winemakers a headache.

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Colin Kruger

Why Albanese is plain wrong on a Bondi royal commission

Australians need many answers concerning this atrocity – and they need them with much less background noise.

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James Massola

The fight for the Ashes is over. But the Boxing Day Test is definitely not dead

The fight for the Ashes is over. But the Boxing Day Test is definitely not dead

Just because the last two Tests of the Ashes series are again dead does not mean that they are not brimming with life, gravitas and meaning. No...

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Greg Baum

How bureaucracy ruined WA’s attempts to host a Serie A match for points

When Perth’s push to host a landmark Serie A match first surfaced in June, it was clear the state government still had some hoops to jump through.

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Owen Leonard

Bondi shows us that politics is the very worst forum for us to try to stand together

Overcoming this horror, grief and division requires something far more radical than politics can offer.

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Waleed Aly

Looking for a Christmas Day movie? Try A Dingo Ate My Christmas Spirit

There are great Christmas movies to enjoy this time of year. And then there are the offerings from Hallmark – an industry unto itself.

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Shane Wright

Ben Stokes’ leadership is fracturing. Has it cracked or fully shattered?

Ben Stokes’ leadership is fracturing. Has it cracked or fully shattered?

Apparently Ben Stokes asked his teammates to run 12 kilometres with him in Noosa National Park, and apparently they decided to sit in a bar all day...

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Malcolm Knox

I’m not going to judge Ben Duckett for drinking. I did the same

I’m not going to judge Ben Duckett for drinking. I did the same

I am not going to criticise England for what they got up to in Noosa. I criticise what they do on the cricket field, the way they play and the way...

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WA Today

Michael Vaughan

Who suffers FOMO any more? I’m more likely to have ROMO

Ever found out that you had two things on at the same time, and secretly felt relief that the gods had given you an excuse to skip one?

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Claire Heaney

Sometimes, childlike wonder points to something adults don’t allow ourselves to see

Nearly 92 per cent of us believe that people have a soul or spirit or that there’s something beyond this world.

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Abby Mccloskey

Remember Elon Musk’s DOGE? Here’s how it caused so much chaos but saved so little money

The group’s biggest claims were largely incorrect, while its many smaller cuts added up to few savings.

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Emily Badger

The Doomsday Clock: Counting down to the next apocalypse

You can dismiss this timepiece trope as a gimmick, but you’d do so at your own intellectual risk.

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Andreas Kluth

There’s a place near you where problems are solved. You can even borrow a book

Modern libraries are community hubs where knowledge – and friendship – is free to all.

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Brodie Lancaster

America’s increasingly ‘K-shaped’ economy is difficult to reconcile

Donald Trump was excited by a sizzling estimate of US economic growth in the September quarter. He might be disappointed by the Federal Reserve...

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Stephen Bartholomeusz

From sinister to prime minister? The surprise candidate putting his hand up to lead Thailand

In this post-truth, Trumpian world, seemingly nothing can stop a political career. Certainly not a few years in a Sydney jail back in the 1990s for...

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Michael Ruffles

I’ve seen jihadist training camps on the island visited by the Bondi shooters. The memory will never leave me

“No filming!” shouted teenagers, their eyes shielded by sunglasses on a cloudy day, AK-47s slung over their shoulders. 

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Irris Makler

Holidays are cheaper, thanks to the RBA. Here’s why

One Australian dollar is worth about US66¢ this month - up from US62¢ earlier this year.

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Millie Muroi

Flawed strategy, ill-advised batting, bowling like millionaires: How England got it so wrong

Flawed strategy, ill-advised batting, bowling like millionaires: How England got it so wrong

Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in 1910 stands as a stark example of how overconfidence in a flawed strategy can lead...

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WA Today

Greg Chappell

Loss of Russian, Venezuelan oil a drop in ocean for world’s crude glut

Oil prices are at about $US60 a barrel, Russia’s crude is selling below $US35, and there’s a lot of oil floating around the world in tankers...

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Stephen Bartholomeusz

Australia were ripe for the picking. England failed to lay a glove on them

Australia were ripe for the picking. England failed to lay a glove on them

Let’s go back a couple of months and lay out some doomsday Ashes scenarios for the first three Tests. Let’s say that Australia’s two best...

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Greg Baum

‘Fundamental looseness’: Why England’s Noosa ‘stag do’ sums up their Ashes woe

‘Fundamental looseness’: Why England’s Noosa ‘stag do’ sums up their Ashes woe

On England’s penultimate day in the idyllic Queensland seaside resort of Noosa, their popular strength and conditioning coach Pete Sim put a...

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Will Macpherson

What to believe in this Christmas, even if you don’t believe in anything

However you plan to spend the next few days, it’s important we refocus our collective hopes.

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Michael Idato

Trump has set America up to be the biggest loser in the energy race

The prospect of cheap energy across the globe is big trouble for the US president, as his country is going to lose on two fronts.

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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

I went to Bondi and hugged people who’d never spoken to a Muslim before

We share with the Jewish community the burden of fear and exclusion, and we must work together to overcome it. 

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Ahmed Ouf

Myanmar’s elections will be neither free nor fair. But could they rattle the deadly status quo?

Min Aung Hlaing is desperate for his regime to be seen as legitimate, and he believes elections starting on December 28 are a means to that end.

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Zach Hope

Strategy, smarts and people skills: The man behind ‘Ronball’ and why he’d hate the attention

Strategy, smarts and people skills: The man behind ‘Ronball’ and why he’d hate the attention

Bazball: A style of Test cricket in which the batting side attempts to gain the initiative by playing in a highly aggressive manner. Origin:...

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Mike Hussey

I’m a former cop. The Bondi police actions were entirely correct

Allegations of police running away, hiding and not returning fire were social media clickbait – and completely wrong.

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Cameron Watts

‘Holy Grail’: Trump goes nuclear with a very peculiar deal

Donald Trump has never been afraid to make a deal. Some are more curious than others.

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Stephen Bartholomeusz

England called this Ashes ‘Everest’. Perhaps that’s why they never got out of base camp

England called this Ashes ‘Everest’. Perhaps that’s why they never got out of base camp

One of the many observations made amid the wreckage of England’s last tour of Australia in 2021-22 was that the tourists needed to consider getting...

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Daniel Brettig

Fat stepmothers and tacky gold-diggers – David Walliams’ books should have worried any parent

The best-selling children’s author and Little Britain star was dropped by his publisher for alleged inappropriate behaviour towards young women.

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WA Today

Lucy Denyer

Stokes and McCullum are digging a hole to nowhere. England need to change

Stokes and McCullum are digging a hole to nowhere. England need to change

A lot of credit should go to Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes for what they have done for our cricket, but it is obvious that Bazball has run its...

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Geoffrey Boycott

We can break the cycle by responding to hate with love

If Jewish people saw this message – Love from Australia – they’d know they were safe and supported.

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Mark Connelly

As recriminations in Canberra grow, Chris Minns has what Anthony Albanese wants

The NSW premier has come together with state opposition leader Kellie Sloane over the Bondi tragedy. Anthony Albanese and Sussan Ley could not seem...

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WA Today

Natassia Chrysanthos

Why Sabalenka and Kyrgios’ battle of the sexes is an insult to women’s sport

Why Sabalenka and Kyrgios’ battle of the sexes is an insult to women’s sport

Dust off the fondue set – the “battle of the sexes” is back. Women’s tennis world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka will take on Australian Nick Kyrgios,...

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Angela Pippos

Sex toys and shotguns: What happened when Andrew invited Epstein to Sandringham

Andrew claimed it was “just a straightforward shooting weekend”, but what staff found in the guest rooms of the Queen’s private estate left them...

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Robert Jobson