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Illustration: Simon Letch

The health insurance con job

There's a great con job targeting younger Australians, and the government and insurance industry are in cahoots.

Security agencies need to take stock after Nice

Police surround the truck that slammed into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice on Thursday.

Attacks by self-radicalised individuals using vehicles as weapons are a near-impossible threat for security agencies to identify beforehand – which means that we need to look at better defensive measures.

The American predicament on gun reform

Fixing America's gun crisis won't be easy.

Where old laws have created a society awash with guns, beyond any hope of confiscation, it is hard to dismiss the argument that reforms now would only disarm the law-abiding citizens – not the criminals and terrorists.

Prepare to live for 100 years

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A life well lived requires careful planning in order to balance the financial and the non-financial, the economic and the psychological, the rational and the emotional.

America the idea

Walt Whitman, the American poet.

America is an idea in a way that Australia never has been.

The Liberal Party has a woman problem

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says China faces 'strong reputational costs' if it refuses to abide by the ruling.

Well this is getting a bit embarrassing. While Hillary Clinton is making a serious and unprecedented bid for the White House, more and more Americans are asking questions about the experiences of Julia Gillard.

Five ways to fix homelessness

How does a city this wealthy and supposedly liveable produce such striking evidence of entrenched poverty?

For too many years we have provided temporary solutions to people's problems without adequately addressing the structural causes and investing in lasting solutions.

America - my pride and my burden

"I have watched, made helpless by distance, as America grapples with the inevitable consequences of its most abhorrent ...

If your parents are raging racists with guns and an inability to learn from their mistakes, at what point do you stop loving them?

Highlights

Blockbuster action: Past campaigns have been fast and furious, like the Michael Bay-directed Transformers.

Less Michael Bay, more Swedish arthouse

Federal election campaigns used to be like Hollywood blockbusters, moving at such a cracking pace, people missed on all the glaring inconsistencies, writes ADAM GARTRELL.

Tim Pallas,  on "a diamond day for Victoria".

The biggest issue

Population growth must be addressed to ensure future prosperity and health, writes FARRAH TOMAZIN.

Illustration Andrew Dyson

Death in black and white

Imagine if a royal commission was held into a matter of national shame, and it spent tens of millions of dollars, produced a vast report, but the headline indicators of that shame actually went backwards.