Talk Fuse

    Topic: Culture

    Sheffield's ex-partner killed in a knife and baseball bat attack, sparks fly over a controversial Israel-Gaza film, and a teacher at an elite boarding school loses her job over an undisclosed link to a convicted partner. Culture at the site stretches well beyond arts and entertainment, taking in the crimes, controversies and human stories that reveal something about how people live now, alongside the films, television and public figures that shape everyday conversation.

    Here you'll also find the lighter and more reflective side of the news cycle: verdicts on the latest streaming hits and box-office flops, profiles of tech figures pursuing unusual ventures, and the odd stroke of luck or fate that turns an ordinary person's story into something worth telling. It sits alongside coverage of institutions under strain, from schools and legal bodies to the people who move between government and industry.

    Taken together, this topic offers a broad, everyday view of society: what people are watching, what they're arguing about, and where individual choices collide with public consequences.

    • Ahmadinejad appears alive at Khamenei funeral months after reported death

      Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was reported dead by local media at the outbreak of the country’s war with Israel and the United States, has appeared in public alive at the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad, who led Iran from 2005 to 2013, had been believed killed by a missile strike…

    • Tess Rowlatt bailed to four-star Melbourne hotel after meth trafficking guilty plea

      Tess Rowlatt, a 36-year-old Melbourne woman dubbed a “party girl”, has been granted bail after pleading guilty to trafficking methamphetamine and dealing with the proceeds of crime. County Court judge Duncan Allen released the repeat drug offender to a “suitable bail address”, allowing her to move from a cell at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre…

    • Home-cooked prime rib can rival or beat steakhouse versions, experts say

      Food experts have told Fox News Digital that home cooks can produce prime rib that rivals or even surpasses the version served in restaurants, challenging the assumption that this pricey roast is best left to professionals. The reassurance matters as more Americans seek to boost their protein intake and consider buying the cut, which is…

    • A boozy road trip to Venice anchors Francesco Sossai’s ageing tragicomedy

      The Guardian has published a review of The Last One for the Road, a new tragicomedy by director Francesco Sossai. The film is presented as a road movie and buddy comedy following two amiable, perpetually drunk middle-aged men on a wandering journey towards Venice, and the review matters as a critical appraisal of a low-key…

    • Manual controls give way to automated machines, eroding human touch

      In an excerpt from his book *The Small Stuff*, writer Ian Bogost argues that people have gradually lost direct, physical control over the machines and objects in their lives. He contends that unseen choices in design, business and technology have automated away everyday tasks — replacing buttons, levers and manual effort with computers — so…

    • Pete Holmes keeps screen time low and ignores 55,000 unread emails

      Comedian Pete Holmes, star of HBO’s Crashing, spoke to WIRED for its “User Behavior” series about how he keeps his phone use unusually low and why he believes we are all on the verge of “slowly walking away” from our devices. He argues that much of modern digital life amounts to “manufactured urgency” that people…

    • Suno recruits Atlantic and YouTube executives to court music industry

      Suno, the artificial-intelligence music generation company, has hired two experienced music-industry executives into vice-president roles as it seeks to position itself as a partner to the sector rather than an adversary. Grace James, formerly of Atlantic Records, joins as vice-president and head of artist marketing and editorial, while Christian Bowne, previously YouTube’s head of major…

    • 777, a genre-fusing debut single from ONE OK ROCK supergroup YAO

      YAO, a new collaborative project uniting Japanese band ONE OK ROCK with artists Awich, Paledusk and Chico Carlito, has released its debut single, ‘777’. The venture matters as an experiment in fusing acts from different musical backgrounds into a single unit, with its name drawn from the Japanese concept of “Yaoyorozu no Kami”, meaning Eight…

    • Mass Balance sends autonomous chemistry lab into orbit to study disease proteins

      British startup Mass Balance has launched an autonomous, self-run chemical laboratory into orbit, aiming to gather data on hard-to-study, disease-causing proteins in the near-absence of gravity. The grapefruit-sized apparatus lifted off aboard a SpaceX transporter on Tuesday morning and matters because it represents an early step towards using space as a routine research environment for…

    • Norway hit by illness before World Cup quarter-final against England

      Norway’s national football team have reportedly been struck by a bout of sickness ahead of their World Cup quarter-final against England on Saturday. The illness is significant because it raises doubts over the fitness of key players, including striker Erling Haaland, just days before they face England in the last eight. Norway secured their place…