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The Sydney Morning Herald

Breaking news from Sydney, Australia and the world. Features the latest business, sport, entertainment, travel, lifestyle, and technology news.

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Featured Writers

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Lee Tran Lam

Lee Tran Lam has written for The Guardian, Good Food, ABC, Gourmet Traveller, Eater, Rolling Stone, Art Guide Australia, BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, The Big Issue, Australian Financial Review, Good …

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Alan Hartstein

Hi there, my specialty is words that have an impact. I have over 20 years' experience as a content manager, writer and editor in the publishing and corporate writing sectors …

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Katharyn Heagney

Welcome to my desk! I am an Aussie newspaper editor and journalist. Here you will find a collection of my work, from photographs and videos, graphic design and of course, …

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Sarah McInerney

Journalist, editor, copywritersarahmariemcinerney@gmail.com

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Gina Rushton

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Katie Cincotta

Katie Cincotta began as the national writer for television game show Sale of the Century, and went on to be a magazine editor before starting her own freelance writing business. …

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Latest Articles

I bought my seven-year-old daughter a squishy toy. Now, she’s fluent in therapy-speak

Nothing says “modern parenting” like watching your seven-year-old’s heart break over an exploded squishy full of radioactive goo. I finally caved and bought my daughter a “dumpling squishy” from the $2 shop. You know, the viral fidget toys keeping Border Force busy. (Note: they’re not $2. Small ones are $8. …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Now that we’ve come to our census, let’s have a NAPLAN for grown-ups

Well done, Australia. We managed to pull together on a wintry Tuesday night to declare, in the national census, our sexual identities and whether we’re practising or nominal Jedis. Now that we’ve proven our ability to answer mildly invasive questions under bureaucratic pressure, it seems logical to expand the project …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Cory Doctorow’s ‘Reverse Centaur’ Book Review: Debunking AI Hype

Each day, a new outrageous claim of AI’s capabilities vaults into the headlines. Even by Silicon Valley standards, they’re becoming unhinged. I’m left asking, who is the audience here? Who shares these megalomaniacal fever dreams of unlimited power and absolute social disintegration?As a software engineer, I am comforted by how …
By Kurt Johnson
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Sydney Morning Herald: Growing up in a cult, this was the weekly ritual that terrified me more than anything

The pastor had always terrified me. He held himself in the highest regard, demanding to be addressed formally by his full title. It wasn’t just tradition; it was a sign of respect, and he made sure everyone understood that. One Sunday, when I was around six or seven years old, …
By BEK CONDELLO
• The Sydney Morning Herald

I may be a pesky Pisces but this gets my cosmic goat: I was diagnosed by astrology

I was recently venting a frustration to an acquaintance who abruptly said, “What’s your star sign?”“Pisces,” I replied, cautiously. She gave a knowing nod. “Ahh, yes. Typical water sign. You’re struggling to adapt because Neptune is doing doughnuts around Saturn right now.”According to her, I just needed the right energy …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

I’m not even 40 but love my 80-year-old selfie, so I’m with Bad Bunny

I’m turning 40 in 304 days (not that I’m counting), and while many women my age are quietly pricing Botox treatments, I’ve spent a genuinely alarming amount of time feeding selfies into AI to see what I’ll look like at 80. Just me, my laptop, and a face that’s seen …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

I didn’t mean to spook the north shore woman in activewear, but I did

The other day, on my morning walk, I smiled at a woman powering past in activewear. She looked confused, as if she was an alien learning to human via student exchange. “Morning!” I said, further raising the stakes. Her confusion turned to mild alarm, and she powered on. I imagined …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

My husband said he’d ‘build another bookshelf’. It was the sexiest thing he ever said

When I first arrived at the local Rotary Book Fair, I felt the giddy thrill usually reserved for Millennials going to a bespoke plant nursery on payday.Like houseplants, books are generally considered non-essential items, but no one would accuse someone of “hoarding plants”.I wandered down the long tables packed with …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Ozempic neck’ is the latest ‘side effect’ of GLP-1s. It’s a symptom of something uglier

The first time I read the words “Ozempic face” I clicked, genuinely alarmed by the implication that this class of drug might be disfiguring its users. I was relieved to find nothing pointing to actual harm, especially given how many people in my immediate circle had started taking it. But …
By Hannah Vanderheide
• The Sydney Morning Herald

These Holocaust survivors took refuge in Australia. This is their message for the nation

A profile of Sydney Holocaust survivors Dasia Black-Gutman, Mimi Wise, Ernie Friedlander, and Sabina Kleitman, daughter of Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman, killed in the Bondi terror attack, who shared some powerful reflections as Australia grapples with the rise of antisemitism.
By Daniel Lo Surdo
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Writer Julian Barnes bids a masterful farewell with his last novel

FICTIONDeparture(s)Julian BarnesJonathan Cape, $39.99A Belgian interviewer was blunt: “So, Mr Barnes, you are now 76 and you will never win a Nobel Prize because you are a white man — are you raging against the dying of the light?” – hinting not just at the end of the Booker Prize-winning …
By Kurt Johnson
• The Sydney Morning Herald

I was the mother of holiday invention ... until my kids went feral and I went to yoga

At the start of school holidays, like a good disciple of modern mindfulness, I set my intention: the summer holidays will be fun and relaxing – a chance to reconnect with my kids. After all, I’d be off work as well. I would be the ringleader of fun.By day three, …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Am I a Miss, Ms or Mrs? This teacher’s had some near Misses

One of the lesser-known perils of becoming a school teacher is not breathing second-hand vape mist (mango tango!), or working out why your students keep chanting “6-7” like small communists. It’s working out how you’ll be addressed.It began casually. After starting work at my school, another teacher was writing the …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

If Musk was broke, he’d just be another asshole with bad ideas: Cory Doctorow

He swivels his camera to show me a mundane grey box beneath his desk that looks like last century’s e-waste. “That’s a computer from 1993 called ‘Deep Crack’ that was built by my friend John Gilmore, and it could break the NSA cypher in two-and-a-half hours.”
By Kurt Johnson
• The Sydney Morning Herald

My child’s Halloween horror story – at Bunnings

The other day, I was ducking into Bunnings with my four-year-old to grab some potting mix when we saw her: dark empty eyes, skeletal arms and wispy grey hair. It wasn’t another mum of small children, though that’s usually an apt description – speaking for myself at least.It was a …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Chilling stories from inside South-East Asia’s ‘scam factories’

In 2022, living in Laos and searching for an apartment to rent, I came across a Facebook post from a desperate parent trying to locate her daughter. All she knew was that the daughter had arrived from Vietnam with a promise of lucrative but vaguely defined work. Upon landing, she …
By Kurt Johnson
• The Sydney Morning Herald

The suburbs where police are using new powers to fight knife crime

Exclusive: The Herald can reveal that fewer than 1 per cent of searches conducted under police powers granted after the Bondi Junction attack in April 2024 have resulted in a punishment, as more charges are laid for non-weapons charges than weapons charges following the knife wanding operations.
By Daniel Lo Surdo
• The Sydney Morning Herald

The suburbs where police are using new powers to fight knife crime

Exclusive: The Herald can reveal that fewer than 1 per cent of searches conducted under police powers granted after the Bondi Junction attack in April 2024 have resulted in a punishment, as more charges are laid for non-weapons charges than weapons charges following the knife wanding operations.
By Daniel Lo Surdo
• The Sydney Morning Herald

You’re paid to cycle to work in France and the Netherlands. Sydney could be next

Exclusive: Sydney commuters would be paid to ride an e-bike or e-scooter to work under a European-inspired financial incentive scheme being assessed by the NSW government, in a bid to promote the uptake of electric-powered devices on streets across the state.Financial incentives for e-micromobility devices were proposed in a secret …
By Daniel Lo Surdo
• The Sydney Morning Herald

You’re paid to cycle to work in France and the Netherlands. Sydney could be next

Exclusive: Sydney commuters would be paid to ride an e-bike or e-scooter to work under a European-inspired financial incentive scheme being assessed by the NSW government, in a bid to promote the uptake of electric-powered devices on streets across the state.Financial incentives for e-micromobility devices were proposed in a secret …
By Daniel Lo Surdo
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Put down the AI toy: kids need you, not a robot

There comes a time in every parent’s life when you realise you need the mental grit of a hostage negotiator to withstand the rapid-fire questions from your small child. My six-year-old daughter is in her “spelling” era. “Mum, how do you spell ‘elephant’? How do you spell ‘vacuum’? How do …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

It’s hardly breaking news, people: Sex sells and Sabrina’s a savvy vendor

In case you’ve been living under a rock while the world quite literally blows up around us, for reasons unbeknownst we are still talking about Sabrina Carpenter, the “woman who ruled most of 2025”.If you need me to fill in the gaps, she’s that pint-sized ex-Disney princess producing earworms and …
By Cherie Gilmour
• The Sydney Morning Herald

The transport minister made a safety promise. Four days later, it was torn apart

Exclusive: Transport bureaucrats circulated secret plans to slash improved safety measures at a major Sydney intersection four days after the then-minister gave public assurances that no such cuts would be made, casting aside expansive upgrades promised as a condition of WestConnex four years ago...
By Daniel Lo Surdo
• The Sydney Morning Herald

Another day, another TikTok video pointing out more ways in which us Millennials are cringe

What started out with shots about our skinny jeans, side-parts and use of laugh-cry emojis has snowballed into a laundry list of jibes from Gen Z. Another day, another TikTok video pointing out more ways in which us Millennials are cringe.
By Emily McGrorey
• The Sydney Morning Herald

The untold story of the Australians who helped fight Franco

HISTORY Anti-Fascists: Jim McNeill and his mates in the Spanish Civil WarMichael SamarasConnor Court Publishing, $39.95Doubtless European leaders today use the Spanish Civil War as a lesson to harden resolve against Vladimir Putin and Russia. Like Ukraine, the Spanish War came to represent a global struggle against authoritarianism. The Western …
By Kurt Johnson
• The Sydney Morning Herald

The alarming letter that made the premier change his mind

Exclusive: An urgent document exposing the presence of a deadly synthetic drug 100 times more powerful than heroin in NSW pushed Chris Minns to launch the state’s landmark pill testing trial months after he ruled out the move.In a letter delivered to Minns and Health Minister Ryan Park, co-chairs of …
By Daniel Lo Surdo
• The Sydney Morning Herald