Australian arts in focusAustralian booksAn inquiry found the murder was ‘merely a high-spirited frolic which went wrong’. Fifty years later, in Watershed, Christos Tsiolkas retells it in the sacred form of oratorio Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email and listen to our podcast “There was no struggle, nothing. And then he just slipped away ... the river swallowed him.” This is how a witness described the final seconds of Dr George Duncan’s life, as told to the ABC in 2005, 33 years after the 41-year-old University of Adelaide academic drowned in the River Torrens and posthumously set in motion the zeitgeist of gay law reform in Australia.

JapanAs rising temperatures make traditionally hot and sticky Japanese summer months more severe, those toiling outside are turning to the fan-jakketo The de rigueur jacket in Japan for this year’s summer season is a functional little number with twin electric fans installed around the lower back. As rising temperatures have made the traditionally hot and sticky Japanese summer months more severe, those toiling outside in particular are turning to the fan-jakketo to make their workdays cooler and safer.

Montana This article is more than 1 year oldThirteen bison killed after road crash near Yellowstone national parkThis article is more than 1 year oldHerd struck by semi-truck on Montana highway, with some of the bison needing to be euthanized ‘due to severe injuries’ Thirteen bison have died as a result of a road crash in the dark on a Montana highway near Yellowstone national park, authorities have announced. In astatement released on Facebook, the West Yellowstone police department announced that around 6.

United Nations This article is more than 2 months oldTop UN official in New York steps down citing ‘genocide’ of Palestinian civiliansThis article is more than 2 months oldCraig Mokhiber, director of human rights body, accuses the US, UK and much of Europe as ‘wholly complicit in the horrific assault’ Israel and Hamas at war – live updates The director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has left his post, protesting that the UN is “failing” in its duty to prevent what he categorizes as genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza under Israeli bombardment and citing the US, UK and much of Europe as “wholly complicit in the horrific assault”.

Health & wellbeingCoastal environments have been shown to improve our health, body and mind. So should doctors start issuing nature-based prescriptions? After her mother’s sudden death, Catherine Kelly felt the call of the sea. She was in her 20s and had been working as a geographer in London away from her native Ireland. She spent a year in Dublin with her family, then accepted an academic position on the west coast, near Westport in County Mayo.