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Opinion

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Married at First Sight

This time I absolutely won’t be watching MAFS ... I think, maybe

Married at First Sight’s gormlessness makes me want to throw the iron at the telly but I’ll no doubt be tuning in again with 2 million others for the ninth season.

  • by Kate Halfpenny

Latest

A spectator places a mask over the face of Novak Djokovic on a billboard at Melbourne Park.

Barty, Novak and Haneen Zreika bring us highs, lows and in-betweens

I’m not saying she’ll win (we all know why), but anyone not on the Barty Express needs to jump aboard - pronto.

  • by Peter FitzSimons
A flypast during the Australia Day flag raising and citizenship ceremony at Rond Terrace in Canberra on Wednesday 26 January 2022. fedpol Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Fly the Aboriginal flag on the Harbour Bridge every day

It is a powerful symbol that will inspire understanding and reconciliation.

  • The Herald's View
Illustration by Simon Letch.

Two minutes with Danny Katz: How do I say ciao to my chai barista?

Most chai lattes already have a dishwatery vibe, but if your regular barista isn’t making them to your liking, just be honest.

  • by Danny Katz
Ash Barty’s backhand slice is a weapon.

Slice and dice: Ash Barty’s not-so-secret weapon

The world No.1 has something other players don’t. And though the backhand slice is not Ash Barty’s only point of difference, it is her most significant point of advantage.

  • by Michael Gleeson
Please Explain co-host Nathanael Cooper.

The COVID-19 crisis in vulnerable Indigenous communities

Today on Please Explain, Indigenous affairs reporter Cameron Gooley joins Nathanael Cooper to look at the outbreak in central Australia.

  • by Nathanael Cooper
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The world is still waiting for long-promised innovations.
Opinion
Innovation

Silicon Valley’s never-ending search for the next big thing

The tech industry has grown ever more rich off big ideas that were developed more than a decade ago. The next big thing could be a while away.

  • by Cade Metz
Prime Minister Scott Morrison with 2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame this week.
Opinion
Grace Tame

At 50, I finally figured out what Grace Tame knows in her 20s

Men are not entitled to our smiling niceness simply because they are men.

  • by Kerri Sackville
Back in action: Anamoe, right, will contest the Expressway Stakes.
Analysis
Horse racing

Superb Anamoe may be the one to lift Sydney out of a quiet summer

Cox Plate winner Anamoe could use today’s Expressway Stakes to provide the Sydney racing scene with a much-needed boost.

  • by Max Presnell
RBA governor Philip Lowe has a lot to consider at the RBA’s first board meeting in February.

Why the RBA can still be patient on interest rates

Inflation is surging, but interest rates shouldn’t rise until wages are growing at a quicker pace.

  • by Clancy Yeates
NSW prodigy Tyler Wright.
Opinion
Surfing

‘Frankly, it’s dangerous’: Women finally given priority at surfing’s most treacherous break

Traditionally hogged by hordes of macho males, female surfers have struggled to get access to the famous Pipeline in Hawaii. That changes next week in a ‘monumental’ first, according to Tyler Wright.

  • by Malcolm Knox
Ash Barty’s serve is key to her control.

‘Let’s do it’: Final will pit ‘in control’ Barty against big-hitting Collins

What a summer Ash Barty has been having, undefeated in Adelaide and Melbourne. How will the match between two players of such contrasting styles play out?

  • by Paul McNamee
The twin scandals of Greensill Capital and Archegos Capital Management cost the bank more than $US5 billion.

Credit Suisse’s very bad year gets worse

It was already taken for granted that 2022 would be a year of fixing things at Credit Suisse. But the mountain might be steeper than first thought.

  • by Paul J. Davies
Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios celebrate victory on Tuesday.

Netflix doco to reveal what really happened in Kyrgios locker-room fight

Unseen footage of the locker-room fight involving Kyrgios and the trainer of Croatian doubles top seeds is expected to be revealed by the streaming giant later this year.

  • by Andrew Webster
Anthony Albanese is catching up in the polls as Scott Morrison pays a political price for the shock of the Omicron wave.

Leaders face the rapid voter test

Australia was slow off the mark with vaccines and rapid antigen tests. What the major parties do to fix that will be a big test at the federal election.

  • by David Crowe
Volunteers in Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces train in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine, this month,
Opinion
Ukraine

Why peace in Ukraine may hinge on yielding some reward to Putin for his aggression

In an ideal world, Russia would drop its support for the separatists and stop hassling Ukraine. But that is a fantasy.

  • by Geoff Winestock
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The pandemic has caused many workers to reassess priorities.
Opinion
Jobs

Let’s give the four-day working week a try in Victoria

COVID-19 has shown us that the four-day working week is a sensible, exciting and well-established idea whose time has finally come.

  • by Fiona Patten
Letters
Letters

Ball firmly in TA’s court on how to control the boorish

There is nothing wrong with being loud and boisterous and enthusiastic, as long as you are not also rude, insulting and, worst of all, unsportsmanlike.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson

Government must recognise overseas skills to combat worker shortage

We need more workers, but we don’t recognise overseas experience.

  • by Mahsood Shah
In the Herald

In the Herald: January 28, 1921

Infantile paralysis outbreak; neurotics, criminals and guns; and of pluck and courage

  • by Brian Yatman
Column 8 Granny dinkus with mask.
Opinion
Column 8

Vinnie’s got your card marked

While smart leeches treat us like suckers.

Back-to-school COVID-safety measures, including twice weekly RATs, offer an opportunity for childen to develop altruistic behaviour.

Return to school rules a chance to foster the altruism we all need

A pandemic needs people to be selfless and the return-to-school COVID safety measures provide a perfect opportunity for children to learn to be altruistic.

  • by Alexandra Martiniuk
Rachel Gershon, 83, receives a third Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from a Magen David Adom national emergency service volunteer, at a private nursing home in Netanya, Israel, Sunday, August 1, 2021.

Most vulnerable still left behind in the fight against COVID-19

The number of cases is plateauing, but we must do more to protect groups such as the aged, the disabled and Indigenous people.

  • The Herald's View
Wall Street recorded another losing week and Australia has caught the virus.
Opinion
Shares

Panic selling while markets are falling is a mug’s game

Massive fortunes have been made by astute investors that hold their nerve even when they see the whites in the eyes of share traders.

  • by Elizabeth Knight
 Another negative RAT test.

Waiting for COVID: One family’s symptomatic odyssey

Symptoms can be devilishly deceptive. A cold, it seems, can still be just a cold gifting you all the drama of illness, but none of those sweet, sweet antibodies.

  • by Rachael Mogan McIntosh
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Analysis
US politics

Biden poised to name first black woman to Supreme Court

One year into his first term, the groundbreaking pick may be exactly what the US president needs to reinvigorate his Democratic base after months of policy setbacks.

  • by Farrah Tomazin
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Please Explain co-host Nathanael Cooper.

Is war between Russia and Ukraine imminent?

Today on Please Explain, political and international editor Peter Hartcher joins Nathanael Cooper to discuss the looming crisis.

  • by Nathanael Cooper
Higher US rates could also have global repercussions, luring investment out of other countries, especially in the developing world, and destabilising the world’s financial markets.

The Fed’s fuzzy policies rattle reeling sharemarkets

There was little in the US Fed’s statement that should have surprised investors. But when Jerome Powell answered questions afterwards, there was another sell-off in financial markets anyway.

  • by Stephen Bartholomeusz
house prices

Time to get used to the idea that house prices could drop

Australian house prices have risen to extraordinary levels. No one is predicting they will suddenly become cheap, but once interest rates rise, that growth is tipped to end.

  • by Elizabeth Redman
Inaction on Russia: German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Germany’s appeasement of Putin risks disaster in Ukraine

The reluctance to issue clear warnings to the Kremlin is a fundamental failure of deterrence and increases the likelihood that Putin will try to overthrow the European strategic order, said one expert.

  • by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The RATs for children are critical to every family’s safety.

Please, parents, it’s time you gave a RATs

Children are about to head back to school and we need their parents to embrace one more annoying chore: the rapid antigen test.

  • by Meena Evers
Prime Minister Scott Morrison addresses the media at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday.

Australians will pay the price of politics for politics’ sake

The 2022 federal election campaign is already well under way and when we vote in May, one of the major parties will come out ahead but what will the nation get out of it?

  • by Shaun Carney
Many commentators have mentioned the different atmosphere when Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis play.

‘Yahoos’ have as much right to be at tennis as cucumber sandwich set

It took someone like Nick Kyrgios to blow up tennis and let the rowdy crowds in. And, regardless of how the older generation feels, it’s good for the sport.

  • by Osman Faruqi
As students return to the classroom, COVID-19 cases in schools will become frequent events.

Schools must be last to close and first to open. Science confirms they’re the safest place for children

Children are far more likely to be hospitalised for the endemic respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), for which there is no vaccine and which kills 60,000 kids globally each year. We have never closed schools for viruses such as RSV.

  • by Archana Koirala and Phoebe Williams
Now that children can get vaccinated, we came across an unexpected hurdle.

An unexpected hurdle in the path to getting my child vaccinated

When my 10-year-old decided he was an anti-vaxxer, I realised that I would have to tread a fine line between persuasion and coercion.

  • by Ian Rose
Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin threatens to light fuse on overvalued sharemarkets

Most sharemarket crashes and bear markets require some kind of trigger to set them off. The stand-off over Ukraine looks uncomfortably like it could be that moment.

  • by Jeremy Warner
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Letters
Letters

For too long women were told to smile and keep quiet

Grace Tame is what women need to be: loud, angry and rude as hell.

In the Herald

In the Herald: January 27, 1971

Charles Manson convicted, the era of the punched card, a Paddle Pop and a shandy

  • by Brian Yatman
Column 8 Granny dinkus with mask.
Opinion
Column 8

Scanning or shedding?

When A4 is not to scale.

Inflation has been dormant for a long time, but is now haunting markets and consumers again.
Editorial
Inflation

Rising inflation is about to change the economic debate

Cost of living pressures will force the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates for the first time in a decade.

  • The Herald's View
Chanel Contos, who - like Grace Tame - won’t be told to smile.

Thank you, Grace Tame. Smiling doesn’t start national conversations

The student who has risen to global prominence with her campaign for mandatory sexual consent education defends Grace Tame’s encounter with the PM.

  • by Chanel Contos
Please Explain with Jess Irvine

Freeing the Aboriginal flag

Today on Please Explain, national affairs editor Rob Harris joins Jess Irvine to discuss a landmark $20 million agreement to purchase the copyright of the Aboriginal flag.

  • by Jessica Irvine
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and 2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame during the Australian of the Year awards morning tea at the Lodge.
Opinion
Grace Tame

Why young women aren’t smiling for you any more

Grace Tame’s appearance with the Prime Minister ought to remind us that polite formalities are no longer the concern of women.

  • by Yasmin Poole
Libby Birch and Daisy Pearce after Darebin’s premiership win in 2017.

Footy factory: How a VFLW super team shaped the national competition

The 2017 Darebin Falcons premiership team produced 18 AFLW-listed players who are playing across eight AFL clubs. The club has produced five AFLW premiership players and 11 All-Australians.

  • by Libby Birch
This year it has become clearer why the authorities were so focused on deleveraging as the dire financial condition of some of China’s biggest enterprises has been revealed.
Opinion
China

China ignited a property implosion. Now it is trying to engineer a soft landing

Having completely destabilised its property sector last year, China’s authorities now appear to be doing anything and everything they can to put a floor under it.

  • by Stephen Bartholomeusz
Tent Embassy founders Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey in January 1972.

Fifty years on from the Tent Embassy, the unfinished business of land rights in NSW

A staggering 72 per cent of claims are outstanding in NSW, some dating back to 1989.

  • by Danny Chapman
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Pricey exercise bike maker Peloton was one of the sharemarket darlings during the pandemic lockdowns.
Analysis
Wall Street

Finding a buyer for Peloton will not be an easy ride

An activist investor is urging struggling fitness brand Peloton to fire its chief executive officer and find a buyer. Its gyrating share price makes it a difficult deal.

  • by Andrea Felsted
Damon Albarn, left, and Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift is the woman the music industry needs

When Damon Albarn said the US singer “didn’t write her own songs”, it unleashed a furious backlash in her defence - and rightly so.

  • by James Hall
Justin McInerney, Isaac Quaynor, Sam Draper.
Analysis
AFL 2022

The twenty-somethings primed to have an impact in season 2022

As the AFL pre-season heats up, there’s talent aplenty to keep an eye out for, whether that be stars already on the rise or those hoping to make a statement in what shapes as an intriguing year.

  • by Jon Pierik
There are plenty of investors, analysts and strategists staking their reputations on a 2022 rally in Chinese markets.

China’s wild markets are a battle between fear and greed

While China’s sharemarkets are rallying in 2022, investors need to be prepared for violent swings.

  • by Sofia Horta e Costa and Rebecca Choong Wilkins