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Restaurant owner divides Aussies after publicly shaming birthday girl with blunt message about unpaid $33 fee: ‘Ridiculous’
A restaurant owner on the New South Wales Central Coast has sparked heated debate after publicly posting the letter she sent to a customer who refused to pay a $33 “cakeage” fee for bringing an outside birthday cake into her venue. Hayley Hardcastle, co-owner of Tutti by Chilli’s in Ettalong Beach, shared the message on…
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Tell us: do you think AI has made Google search better or worse?
The Guardian is inviting readers to share their views on whether Google’s growing use of artificial intelligence has improved or worsened its search engine. Google now places AI-generated “AI Overviews” at the top of search results, summarising answers before users reach the traditional list of links, a shift the company describes as its most significant…
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Zip Wire review – cancer-curing scientist is on the hook for cable-dangle thriller
The Guardian’s review of Zip Wire, a new thriller released on digital platforms from 31 August, dismisses the film as a “silly, low-adrenaline” effort that fails to generate any real tension. It centres on Amy, a British research scientist who has discovered a lung cancer cure, and follows her as she becomes the target of…
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The Great Dictator by Matthew Sweet review – the life of Barbara Cartland
Matthew Sweet’s new biography, The Great Dictator, offers a serious and compassionate portrait of Barbara Cartland, the phenomenally prolific romantic novelist who dictated her books aloud to secretaries while reclining with a pekingese on her lap. Rather than mocking Cartland as a lazy joke or camp figure, as some previous accounts have done, Sweet treats…
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Police respond after aircraft crashes near Groote Eylandt
A small plane has crashed into remote waters off the coast of Australia, near Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory, prompting a police response. Details of the incident, including the aircraft type, number of occupants and any casualties, have not been confirmed in the available reporting. The crash occurred in a sparsely populated coastal area,…
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TV tonight: this heartwrenching drama about Indigenous child welfare will make you seethe with anger
Tonight’s TV listings feature a range of programmes, headlined by a heartrending double bill of a drama depicting the Sixties Scoop, the historical period when Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families in Canada. The episode follows Patti Bird’s fight to reclaim her children, alongside a flash-forward showing the grown Esther confronting her adoptive…
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Songs created by AI banned from Australia’s music charts
Australia’s music industry body ARIA has confirmed new rules banning songs that are largely or wholly created by AI from the country’s music charts, requiring all eligible releases to be “substantially human made” from this week. The change follows controversy over Australian DJ Josh Fawaz’s AI-assisted cover of Madonna’s “Like A Prayer”, which topped the…
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The ear witness: Turner-winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan and his ‘sound evidence’ exposés of human rights abuses
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, the Lebanese-British artist who jointly won the Turner prize in 2019, leads a dual career as founder and director of Earshot, a human rights NGO he set up in 2023 that investigates abuses using sound evidence. The organisation examines cases ranging from Israeli soldiers’ shootings of emergency workers in Gaza to the…
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Major Aussie builder collapses with more than $3billion debt: Bathla Group goes into voluntary administration
Sydney-based property developer Bathla Group has collapsed into voluntary administration, owing more than $3 billion, in one of Australia’s largest recent builder failures. Administrators from Teneo were appointed on Tuesday to assess the company’s finances and try to keep construction and property settlements running, a move that threatens jobs, ongoing projects and buyers who had…