Perth man charged with ‘being armed in a way that may cause fear’ – days after Helen Haines was allegedly attacked with 4WD outside her Victorian office

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A man has been charged after allegedly threatening staff and wielding nunchucks at the electoral office of the Western Australian local government minister, Hannah Beazley.

The Perth incident came days after the federal independent MP Helen Haines was hospitalised with severe injuries following an alleged attack outside her electorate office in Wangaratta in Victoria on Monday.

AFP commissioner says MPs are generally concerned about growing volume of abuse and intimidation

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The head of the Australian federal police has condemned a “febrile” political environment that has seen one person charged every week over the alleged threatening of MPs, as Victoria announces new steps to protect politicians.

But the AFP and Victoria police insist they had no intelligence to suggest 43-year-old Brendan Nugent would go on to allegedly drive a Toyota LandCruiser into the independent MP Helen Haines in a targeted attack.

In Narromine – redubbed ‘Dollymine’ for the weekend – the country music star’s face is everywhere and a warm spirit of inclusivity is all-embracing

On a sporting oval in a rural Australian town 15,000km from Knoxville, Tennessee, dozens of Dolly Partons saunter down the runway as a boisterous crowd cheers and swats away flies with their cowboy hats.

As the sun begins to set, Jim Beams are flowing and music is blaring. One lucky punter is about to be crowned this year’s best-dressed Dolly, complete with sash, trophy and bragging rights.

The Narromine Line Dancers chat before performing for the crowd

Thanks to a little-known feature in Instagram, I try to travel back to 2012 – before everything on the internet was an ad

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I have a confession. I love my social media algorithm. It is a perfectly curated window into my insane and inquiring mind. It knows precisely which videos will tickle me and which memes will gently distract me from the slow collapse of humankind.

On Tuesday the Australian government announced “world-leading” reforms that would force social media platforms to allow users to opt-out of algorithms, dubbed “my feed, my way”. On the same day, I was delighted to be confronted with a video on Instagram of a woman accidentally spilling a bucket of eels on a Chinese train. Dozens of eels slithered among the passengers, who appeared not as surprised as I would have expected.

A tournament with more teams and more games has been filled with euphoria, heartbreak, and these weird and wonderful viral moments

As a Japanese supporter exclaimed to a television camera, “Texas is good, everything is big”, we knew the World Cup had started. In those early euphoric moments, seeing the palpable joy when everything is still possible, it seemed Japan fans were the MVPs of memes.

They came in their thousands, dressed in sombreros and Mario outfits, tossed into the air like confetti and line dancing with the Dutch. Then the heartbreak arrived.

Global Sumud Flotilla organisers say 38 ships holding 319 activists were about 250 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza when they were intercepted

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Eleven Australians attempting to deliver aid to Gaza as part of a global flotilla have been detained by Israeli forces in international waters off the coast of Cyprus, with the government “urgently seeking” confirmation of their welfare.

On Monday local time, the Global Sumud Flotilla alleged the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) encircled 38 ships that were part of a fleet of 54 boats which left Turkey last week for the embattled strip, which remains under naval blockade by Israel.

There are many online techniques for self-cutting a fringe – but would I end up looking like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction or a low-budget Grimes?

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I have had a fringe since I was 15 years old. I will never forget this life-altering haircut. For years before it I had been suffering lingering effects from a bob cut I received unwillingly in primary school.

You were not a cool person if you had a bob as an adolescent in the early 2000s. But finally, my hair had grown sufficiently for styling, and I got it cut to sit neatly on my shoulders with front bangs.

The world’s economy is completely dependent on petrochemicals. Is there any way to avoid them?

The US-Israel war on Iran has brought into sharp focus our reliance on petroleum and natural gas. Petrochemicals are the cheap, ubiquitous feedstocks for so much we consume: the raw materials for our digital devices, cosmetics and detergents, plastic packaging, our medical supplies and fertilisers. There are greener alternatives, of course, but for now the world’s economy is hopelessly dependent.

Many of us have been avoiding filling up at the bowser to alleviate the oil and gas crunch, but the pressures are no longer just about transport costs. This left me wondering, in this global economy, could I last 24 hours avoiding petrochemicals altogether?

Denise Ann Williams, 62, was last heard from on 15 April, when she told her family she was travelling to the west coast of Cape Breton Island in Canada’s east

A search is underway in Canada for a 62-year-old Australian woman who was reported missing on Tuesday while hiking in a coastal national park in the country’s south-east.

Denise Ann Williams was last heard from on 15 April, when she told family she was travelling to Chéticamp, a fishing village on the west coast of Cape Breton Island in the province of Nova Scotia.

Global Sumud Flotilla describes interception as ‘violent raid’ while Turkey condemns it as ‘act of piracy’

Israeli forces have intercepted and detained the crews of at least 22 boats near the Greek island of Crete from a flotilla that is attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, consisting of about 58 vessels carrying people from across 70 countries, departed from Italy on Sunday.

The woman, who was visiting the Henbury meteorite crater near Alice Springs, was left feeling shaken by the ordeal

What started as a routine trip to the bathroom ended in horror after a long-drop toilet collapsed in the Northern Territory, stranding a tourist waist-deep in excrement for several hours before she was rescued by a tradesman.

The woman, who was visiting the Henbury meteorite crater about 120km south of Alice Springs with her partner and two children from Canberra, entered the long-drop toilet on Sunday afternoon and didn’t emerge for three hours.

Cohabiting with my partner meant addressing my addiction to the lives of extremely rich women I have never met

When you move in with a partner, you can no longer hide the embarrassing or unattractive parts of yourself. Your dirty laundry is metaphorically and literally aired – and so are your bad habits.

Six months ago, cohabiting with my partner for the first time meant coming face to face with my addiction: I cannot stop watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

How much is Meghan making from this? Why is she appearing as a guest judge on MasterChef? Why has she joined an AI fashion discovery platform? Maybe a better question is, why the hell not?

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I am standing across the street from a five-star hotel in Sydney’s eastern suburbs wearing sunglasses and a large hat like a low-budget private detective.

My noble aim is to spot Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, or at the very least scope out the exclusive women’s wellness retreat – shrouded in mystery – where she is slated to appear on the final day of her and Harry’s whirlwind four-day trip down under.

The shock of the oil crisis is playing out on Australian streets, where bike sales are up and cycle lanes are busier

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Before the 1970s global oil crisis, city planners in Copenhagen were considering removing bike lanes. Bicycles were considered outdated now car was king, and just 10% of locals were cycling regularly.

But as economic shock waves reverberated around the world, Denmark, which almost entirely relied on imported oil, took a dramatic U-turn, with citizens staging mass protests in the middle of highways demanding better cycling infrastructure.

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Mario and Leonardo reflect on travelling with ‘no plan’, unexpected joys and challenges ahead on their 10-month coming-of-age pilgrimage

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Riding pillion on a vintage Vespa from Sydney to Italy was never going to be easy.

But doing so amid a war in the Middle East, global oil shocks and shuttered borders? That was something Mario Gabrieli, 54, and his 11-year-old son, Leonardo, never planned for.

Goran Radic was winched to safety by a rescue helicopter and found to be ‘in good health’ despite the ordeal

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A 73-year-old kayaker who spent the night lost at sea north of Adelaide without his phone says his wife is “happy I’m alive” after he was helicoptered to safety by emergency services.

Goran Radic said he had taken his one-person kayak off Middle Beach, a small coastal suburb about 40km north-west of the Adelaide city centre, “about a thousand times before”.

Cause of death of 19-year-old in January was drowning ‘in the setting of multiple injuries, due to, or as a consequence of a dingo attack’

Canadian backpacker Piper James died “as a result of drowning” following a dingo attack at K’gari, the Queensland coroners court says.

The court on Friday said Piper’s cause of death had been determined by a forensic pathologist and accepted by the investigating coroner.

Punch may look sweet with his plushie – but anthropomorphism can’t tell us what a wild animal is truly experiencing

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Standing in line at Ikea’s click and collect service to pick up a large plush orangutan, a wave of fatigue washes over me.

Not only because I have been in transit for almost 24 hours after a series of flight delays, and this is my last stop before collapsing in a heap on my living room floor, but also for the reason I, and so many others, have made this journey.

Survey by Australian Human Rights Commission found universities failed to meet duty of care, while complaints processes were ‘Kafkaesque’

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Racism is “systemic” at Australia’s universities, according to a landmark report found students have mocked their Palestinian peers with shouts of “terrorism”, some students have been followed by campus security and First Nations students have been compared to “petrol sniffers” in lecture halls.

The report also found Jewish students were fearful to attend classes, with one harassed for wearing their kippa walking to class and another who described people screaming “send them to the camps” at a group of Jews on campus.

‘Everyone wants to know,’ Melania says at the beginning of the two-hour extravaganza – but do we?

It’s Friday afternoon at Hoyts on Sydney’s northern beaches, and the atmosphere is horrific. I am here to see Amazon’s $75m “documentary” on Melania Trump, which has already been condemned as a flop ahead of its release.

When I arrive, I panic for a second that I have the time wrong. There are no Melania posters anywhere and the screening is tucked into the back bottom corner of the large movie theatre, like the weird leftover table at a wedding.