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May 4, 2026 - World

Owner-occupier mortgage growth slowed under growing costs while investor loans grew by $42bn in the year to March, a 9.6% increaseFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastProperty investor borrowing rose at its fastest rate in a decade in March, according to the Reserve Bank, despite higher interest rates and speculation about property tax changes.Owner-occupier loan growth slowed under the weight of growing mortgage costs but investor lending is continuing its record surge. Continue reading...

May 4, 2026 - World

Job-ready graduates program will also leave almost two-thirds of humanities and creative arts students with debts exceeding $50,000Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOne in four humanities students will take more than 25 years to fully repay their student loans because of Morrison government changes to university fees, newly public Treasury modelling reveals.The job-ready graduates program, introduced in 2021 under the former prime minister Scott Morrison, will also leave almost two-thirds of humanities and creative arts students saddled with debts exceeding $50,000. Continue reading...

May 4, 2026 - World

Before plunging into the danger zone, he pulled out his phone and dialled his mother to tell her that he might not survive.

May 4, 2026 - World

Austrian foreign minister says Russian diplomatic mission in Vienna was being used for illicit collection of dataAustria has expelled three Russian embassy staff on suspicion of spying after determining that a “forest of antennae” on the diplomatic mission in Vienna, Europe’s espionage capital since the cold war, was being be used for illicit data collection.“It is unacceptable that diplomatic immunity be used to commit espionage,” Austria’s foreign minister, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, said on Monday. She added that the three embassy staff – whose expulsions bring the number of Russian diplomats sent home by Vienna to 14 since 2020 – had already left the country. Continue reading...

May 4, 2026 - World

Mali’s junta leader and the country's president has assumed the duties of defense minister after the incumbent was killed in sweeping, coordinated attacks by separatist and jihadi forces that stunned the country