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Good morning!
And happy last day of winter - spring is only a day away.
I can already hear us all complaining about the heat soon enough.
I’ve got 10 seconds
The quote: “While the risk to humans remains low, a significant mortality event during the upcoming seal breeding season could expose expeditioners to prolonged psychological stress and other workplace impacts.” A Government statement announcing researchers on Macquarie Island, near Antarctica, are being sent home due to the possible mental health impacts of seeing a mass animal death event due to the H5 bird flu. On Friday, a case was detected in a dolphin.
The stat: 2:04:42. The time it took Ethiopian athlete Addisu Gobena to win the 2026 Sydney Marathon on Sunday. It was a race record. Andy Buchanan was the fastest Australian, with a time of 2:10:14.
The big question:
Friday’s results: 68% of you always eat breakfast on weekdays, 16% sometimes do, 9% rarely do, and 7% never do. Thanks for voting - your responses inform TDA's journalism and research. [2,869 votes].
I’ve got 30 seconds
Some headlines from this morning:
Nepalese authorities have warned of more flooding after water levels rose in the Bhotekoshi River, and urged residents in affected districts to stay on high alert, as the combined death toll from Wednesday's Himalayan floods reached 750. Flood warnings were sent to residents' phones across flood-hit districts on Sunday morning, as rescue crews worked to clear a major highway linking Kathmandu to the worst-affected areas. More than 3,000 people remain missing across Nepal and Tibet, including at least 42 Australians. Nepal's Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle said rebuilding could cost between $US4b ($AU5.6b) and $US5b ($AU7b). Rescue and recovery efforts are continuing.
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America”, escalating a feud with Canada that has already resulted in billions of dollars in tariffs. One of the five Great Lakes of North America, Lake Ontario is partly in the U.S. and partly in Canada. The change would take effect immediately, said Trump, who also ordered the Gulf of Mexico renamed as the Gulf of America after assuming office last year. In a post to X, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the name Lake Ontario comes from a local Indigenous language, and predates both Canada and the U.S. Carney said: “We know that America is changing… Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario”.
Together with AAP.
Recommendation of the day
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Transparency: This is a sponsored part of the newsletter - the best way to keep the newsletter free for you.
I’ve got 1 minute
A woman in Queensland has given birth to a set of non-biological twins, according to court documents.
The woman was a surrogate for a couple. One twin is the biological child of the ‘intended’ parents, while the other is the biological child of the birth parents.
The court documents state it is the first known birth of its kind in Australia.
The families
Two couples entered a surrogacy agreement in September 2024.
BNJ and DRJ are what the court calls the ‘intended’ parents. BNJ was 25, and DRJ was 28 at the time of the agreement.
DZ was the surrogate (the woman carrying their baby). DZ and FZ were both 27 at the time of the agreement, and had five kids.
Timeline
On 11 April 2025, BNJ and DRJ’s embryo was transferred into DZ, the surrogate. Less than a week later, a pregnancy test returned positive.
On 12 May, an ultrasound showed there were two foetuses.
Further testing established that one baby (a girl) was the biological child of the ‘intended’ parents, while the other baby (a boy) is the biological child of the surrogate and her partner.
The birth
Both couples agreed the babies would stay with their respective biological parents. The babies were born in November 2025.
However, due to Queensland law, the surrogate couple were named as the parents of the girl on her birth certificate – even though she isn’t biologically theirs.
The couple sought to change the parents' names on the girl’s birth certificate.
This was complicated because they were twins. The parents asked an independent counsellor to assess the implications of separating them.
The counsellor told the court: “On the balance of probabilities and assuming that both infants are raised in stable and nurturing family systems, the available research does not support the conclusion that separation of the twins from birth is, in itself, likely to cause psychological harm.”
The court has now permitted the separation. The parents have said the children will grow up knowing each other.
Reporting by Billi FitzSimons.
Quick hits
🎧 On today’s TDA podcast, multimedia journo Elliot explains the Meta class action lawsuit settlement. Listen or watch on Apple here, Spotify here, or YouTube here.
🎾 The AFL and NRL seasons are almost over, while the U.S. Open is just beginning. Sign up to TDA Sport here for a full run-down in your inbox at 4.30pm.
Good Finds
🍕 Clear your Saturday - Pizza Hut's hosting 2026's best parties. When? 5 September. Where? Sydney & Melbourne. Free pizza and bevs? YES. But hear us out - Hayden James and Young Franco are playing - and it's first in, best dressed. Seriously, check out the details.
Transparency: This is a sponsored part of the newsletter - the best way to keep the newsletter free for you.
I’ve got 2 minutes
The Northern Territory Government has passed a bill to legalise voluntary-assisted dying (VAD).
It comes three decades after the Federal Government overturned the territory’s first bill legalising VAD.
The change means that VAD is now legal Australia-wide.
Background
VAD lets a terminally ill person access medical assistance to end their life, under strict eligibility rules.
The NT was actually the first place in the world to legalise VAD, back in 1995.
Then-Chief Minister Marshall Perron introduced the NT’s original bill in 1995, telling Parliament in his closing speech: “They are not just ’patients’; they are people.”
He resigned as Chief Minister the same day, before the vote, so his position wouldn’t be perceived as influencing how his party members voted.
In 1997, the Federal Parliament passed a law stripping the territories (not the states) of the power to legislate on VAD at all, after the NT’s original 1995 law caused political controversy.
Victoria then became the first Australian state to legalise VAD in 2019.
Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales followed.
The federal ban on the territories wasn’t lifted until 2022. The ACT legalised VAD in 2025 once its powers were restored.
Opposition
The new bill went to a parliamentary inquiry as part of the process to pass it.
During the inquiry, the Catholic Diocese of Darwin said it opposed VAD entirely, arguing it “undermines” the role of medicine and human dignity.
Aboriginal health group the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress took no formal position, but warned some communities feared health services could unfairly face “blame” for deaths linked to VAD, and erode the trust of local communities in the territory’s healthcare systems.
New law
On Thursday night, NT Parliament passed the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill in a conscience vote (when members can vote based on their own opinion, not as a party).
To access VAD under the bill, patients need to have been diagnosed with a medical condition that will lead to their death in 12 months or less, and which causes “suffering that the person considers to be intolerable”.
Patients must bring up VAD with their doctor first, not the other way around.
A person seeking VAD must be medically assessed as having the capacity to make that decision, and to be doing so without being coerced.
The bill includes a clause that a person can agree to VAD, but if they lose “decision-making capacity” permanently after that, their access is revoked.
What’s next?
The territory has an 18-month rollout period to build the medical and administrative systems needed to run VAD safely, so access likely won’t start for a while.
Currently, a federal law bans the use of telehealth to discuss VAD.
The law could limit access in the NT in particular, where a large percentage of the population lives in rural or remote areas.
Reporting by Elliot Lawry.
A message from Specsavers
By 3pm, your eyes have done a full day's work, and you can probably tell.
Headaches, blurry vision and that dry, tired feeling are all common signs of computer eye strain. The good news, according to Specsavers, is that it's usually not serious, although persistent symptoms warrant assessment - adopting simple habits can make a real difference.
Try the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, for 20 seconds, look at something 20 feet away to reduce your eyes' focusing effort. And if symptoms persist, book an eye test with your Optometrist at Specsavers to rule out underlying vision or eye health issues.
Give me some good news
Uganda has successfully stopped its Ebola outbreak.
The World Health Organisation reports it has been 42 consecutive days since the last patient was safely discharged from hospital mid-last month, during which time no new cases have been detected. WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghrebreyesus said the country had “demonstrated that with decisive action, Ebola outbreaks can be brought under control quickly.”
Reporting by Lucy Tassell.
TDA titbit
Well, it turns out it’s an us problem, not a Kylie problem: we really can’t get her out of our heads.
Kylie Minogue has taken to Instagram to celebrate after her 2001 hit Can't Get You Out of My Head passed one billion streams on Spotify. The Australian singer, 58, hit the milestone with the lead single from her eighth studio album, Fever, whose video - featuring Minogue in a white hooded jumpsuit with bright red lipstick - became one of her most recognisable looks. It comes weeks after her duet with Madonna on Love Sensation debuted at number eight on the UK's Official Singles Chart, Madonna's highest-charting UK song in 17 years and Minogue's 37th UK top 10. Minogue is set to play at the AFL Grand Final at the MCG in late September.
TDA asks
