Trump says he called off 'massive' strikes on Iran because 'there's a deal' — negotiations were meant to begin Monday and he claims reopening the Strait of Hormuz is part of the 'perimeters' already agreed, vowing no ships reach Iran 'unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished'. Tehran says it is only talking to Oman about a temporary shipping route through the strait and has no plans to negotiate with Washington — prompting Trump to brand its leadership 'unbelievably duplicitous' on Truth Social. Saudi Arabia's MBS, the UAE and Qatar urged him against strikes over the weekend. Analysts say the tanker threat in the Gulf is the worst since the war began.
A drone crashed into a crowded Black Sea beach at Arkhipo-Osipovka, killing seven people including three children and injuring 40, 17 of them hospitalised. The Krasnodar governor accused Ukraine of 'a deliberate strike on civilians'; Ukraine has not commented. Verified footage shows the drone hurtling into a fireball as tourists watched, and some Ukrainian Telegram channels claim electronic warfare jammed its signal rather than a deliberate target. The resort is a popular domestic holiday spot for Russians.
Washington and Tokyo confirmed they jointly intervened last week to halt the yen's slide after it hit a 40-year low — the first coordinated action since 2011. Bank of Japan data suggests Tokyo sold almost $59bn buying yen on Thursday alone, while a notepad photographed in front of Treasury Secretary Bessent read 'To Do: Buy Japanese Yen $5-10 bil'. Both say they will not hesitate to intervene again, and analysts expect intermittent coordinated action to deter speculators rather than a one-off fix.
Fast-moving wildfires in eastern Washington have now forced 60,000 people from their homes — a sharp escalation from yesterday's 5,000-home evacuation figure — with video from Spokane showing huge smoke plumes and flames close to houses. Washington state declared an emergency over the weekend and the region remains in the path of hot, dry winds. Thousands of fire crews are battling multiple fronts.
Myanmar's military government released rare photos of the ousted leader meeting an ICRC official — her first confirmed outside contact since her detention began in 2021. The images appear to show Suu Kyi in good health. The release comes amid renewed regional pressure on the junta, and follows rare images of the 81-year-old circulated on Monday. ABC News carried the same story for Australian audiences.
The 85-year-old broadcaster's trial opened in Sydney with the prosecution describing alleged offending against a teenage athlete he invited to his Fitzroy Falls property. Jones faces 22 charges — 20 counts of assault with act of indecency and two of sexual touching — relating to six male complainants between 2003 and 2020, at his Macquarie Street apartment, a public event and the Southern Highlands property. He denies all charges; the trial is expected to run several weeks with more than 70 witnesses. The Guardian reports fresh evidence of alleged cash and car gifts to a teenager he kissed.
Two people were seriously injured when a building collapsed in inner-Sydney. Emergency services responded overnight and the site was stabilised; the cause is under investigation. The incident has again put the spotlight on ageing building stock and structural safety checks in the city.
A coalition of insurance stakeholders is pushing NSW parliament to abolish the emergency services levy before the March 2027 election, with the Insurance Council of Australia saying it has jumped 54% in six years. A parliamentary inquiry into the funding model is underway and reports later this year. One pensioner's ESL rose from $273 to $362 in a year — taxes and levies now make up about $1,000 of his $3,590 premium.
Australia's first mass mortality event in wildlife from H5 bird flu has been confirmed, with seagulls now in the frame as a potential 'super-spreader' vector. Experts warn it is a matter of when, not if, the virus spreads further — Kangaroo Island's sea lion population is among those under threat, and poultry producers are on high alert.
The federal government is moving to force Google and other big platforms to pay more for Australian news under the news bargaining incentive, with stricter settings flagged if commercial deals are not struck. The announcement continues the long-running standoff over how much platforms contribute to the sustainability of Australian journalism.
The nightlife-focused Odd Culture Group plans to spend $5 million on the beloved Erskineville pub from 2027, creating a new 24-hour nightclub and a dramatically expanded beer garden. It's the latest big-bet hospitality conversion in Sydney's inner west — and a sign of confidence in late-night venues despite the broader cost squeeze.
The Mexican rooftop Lottie and its ground-floor sibling Bar Julius will shut after only 18 months, making way for two new venues from the Apollo Group, which owns the adjacent Olympus Dining. Another reminder of how quickly site turnover moves in Sydney hospitality — and how established groups are consolidating prime inner-city positions.
The legendary Florentine schiacciata sandwich chain — world-famous for its queues near the Uffizi — has landed in Sydney, with its cult 1kg-style stuffed sandwiches now available in Pitt Street. Expect the same build-your-own model that made it a global phenomenon.
Broadsheet's August roundup spans a Michelin-cred husband-and-wife spot in Surry Hills, 'omakase-grade' sushi in Bronte and a Bondi venue dry-ageing fish in house — plus onigiri and more. Useful intel for anyone tracking the city's strongest cuisine wave of the moment.
A Japanese whisky-singalong series launches at the basement izakaya Sakura House — Suntory Kakubin highballs and karaoke every Wednesday. A drinks-culture event worth knowing for anyone in the spirits trade; it follows the venue's two-month Tokyo cocktail residency.
More than 250 people rallied in red in Gordon on Sunday to force Ku-ring-gai Council to preserve the approved redevelopment of Killara's Marian St Theatre — closed since 2013 — before its DA expires on 19 August. The council voted on 16 June to let the plans lapse; the group's $100,000 GoFundMe (deadline Thursday 6 August) would fund an Extraordinary General Meeting to reverse that decision. At stake: $1.7 million of public investment in design by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, and the only approved pathway to reopening the theatre as a contemporary arts centre. Miriam Margolyes, Hugo Weaving and John Frost are among backers; David Williamson accuses the council of 'putting sports ovals ahead of the city's cultural life' — Ku-ring-gai has 44 sports fields, 67 tennis courts and no public performing arts venue.
ArtsHub's weekly appointments roundup confirms Singaporean curator Low Kee Hong as Artistic Director of the Biennale of Sydney's 2028 edition — currently Creative Director of Factory International in Manchester and a former Singapore Biennale lead. His appointment follows a 2026 edition weighed down by political, community and commercial pressures, and signals a reset for one of Australia's flagship visual arts institutions.
With backing from Creative Australia, the Second Cities Producing Consortium — Merrigong Theatre Company, Canberra Theatre Centre and peers — aims to fix Australia's broken touring model by co-investing in commissioning, development and presentation of new work beyond the capital cities. A practical answer to the recurring complaint that new Australian theatre dies between Sydney and Melbourne.
ArtsHub's weekly listings for 3–9 August pull together open fellowships, prizes and exhibition slots across art forms — a handy one-stop check for anyone (artists, curators, funders) tracking what's currently open in the Australian sector. Note: Creative Australia's Revive Live Round 3 (live music venues/festivals) also remains open following Monday's launch.
Nous Research shipped Hermes v0.20.0 (2026.8.3) yesterday — the biggest release since Quicksilver. Hermes now speaks: streaming conversational voice with barge-in, on-device open-vocabulary wake words, and hands-free control across CLI, desktop and gateway platforms. It also carries word to other agents (A2A v1.0 plugin), pushes signed outbound webhooks to your systems, and cites its sources via a new grounded-citations skill with fact-checking mode. The desktop app becomes a platform (artifacts with sandboxed live preview, plugin SDK, quick-entry window, multiple windows) and the CLI gains power commands (! shell mode, /init, /diff, /context, /focus). ~3,650 commits, ~1,400 merged PRs, ~1,200 issues closed, 650+ contributors since v0.19.0. Yesterday's briefing flagged v0.20.0 as pending — it's here.
Three competing letters in two weeks. Microsoft-shepherded 'Open Weights and American AI Leadership' (24 July) drew 235 signatories including NVIDIA, Amazon, Y Combinator and the Linux Foundation — OpenAI added its name later; Anthropic notably absent, with Dario Amodei publishing his own position against 'industrial-scale distillation'. Then 'Pacing the Frontier' (28 July) gathered 1,324 employees of frontier labs — Jakub Pachocki, Ilya Sutskever, Dario Amodei, Jack Clark among them — calling for international governance tools to deliberately pace automated AI development. Worth watching: this debate feeds directly into US policy on open-weight models.
David Crawshaw's post, amplified by Simon Willison, argues LLMs have finally made the freedom to modify software real for ordinary developers: cloning, building and hacking on a tool now takes minutes, not a weekend. Willison says he now routinely asks Claude to 'clone x/y and tell me how it works'. A useful framing for anyone deciding what to keep open-source — relevant to how the thest.art and internal tooling decisions get made.