Defence department says another ADF soldier was injured on Monday evening, but didn’t require hospitalisation

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An army soldier has died during a parachuting training course at Jervis Bay airfield, Defence has announced.

The Special Air Service Regiment warrant officer Lachlan Muddle, 50, died following a mid-air collision with another paratrooper on Monday evening after their parachutes had deployed.

Australia’s most prominent portrait prize was announced on Friday at the Art Gallery of NSW, where the finalist exhibition will open on Saturday

• Archibald prize 2026 finalists: Virginia Trioli, Jan Fran, Ahmed al-Ahmed and more – in pictures

Richard Lewer has been awarded the 2026 Archibald prize for his portrait of Pitjantjatjara elder, traditional healer and senior artist Iluwanti Ken.

The New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist – a six-time Archibald finalist – was announced as the winner of the $100,000 prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Friday. The judging panel, comprised of the gallery’s trustees, selected the work unanimously from a field of 59 finalists whittled down from 1,034 entries.

Briefings obtained by freedom of information warned a ‘cascade of withdrawals’ could lead to collapse of 2026 South Australian festival

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Adelaide writers’ week was sacrificed to save the 2026 Adelaide festival, an event that ploughs more than $60m into South Australia’s economy each year, documents show.

After the 8 January announcement by the Adelaide festival board that controversial Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah had been dumped from the AWW program, it wasn’t just fellow Australian and international guest writers and academics who began pulling out in droves.

Former Liberal party senator, who was elected to state upper house in March, says flights ‘worth every cent’

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One Nation’s South Australian leader has paid back Australia’s richest person for private flights he took while campaigning in the state’s recent election.

Cory Bernardi confirmed on Saturday that he had reimbursed a “substantial” sum of money to Gina Rinehart’s company S Kidman & Co, to comply with new state laws that prohibit political parties and candidates from receiving electoral donations or gifts from individuals, businesses or unions.

One insider estimates Australians pay A$10 in fees per ticket, with fans bearing the burden of monopolised music tour schedules and inflated artist values

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Australia is being urged to improve ticketing transparency after a US federal court found Live Nation Entertainment had a harmful monopoly over big concert venues.

This week, a New York jury found the global entertainment giant and its subsidiary Ticketmaster liable for systematically stifling competition to extract excessive profits from concertgoers. The jury identified a baseline overcharge of US$1.72 for every ticket sold by Live Nation since 2010 – totalling an additional US$595m in 2025 alone.