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Morning, everyone. To cheers from a large crowd of supporters, Gisèle Pelicot emerged from seeing her husband found guilty of drugging her and inviting dozens of men to rape her to say she hoped the case could change society. After the verdict was handed down, with crowds of supporters in the French city of Avignon cheering her on, Pelicot said: “I now have confidence in our capacity to find a better future where everyone, women and men alike, can live in harmony with respect and mutual understanding.”
We have full reports and analysis of the extraordinary case, plus warnings in Australia about the dangers of bird flu for pregnant women, the hard road to withdrawing from antidepressants and reasons to be cheerful about 2025.
Newsroom Edition: why there’s still cause for hope in 2025
Bridie Jabour talks with Guardian Australia’s editor-in-chief, Lenore Taylor, head of newsroom, Mike Ticher, and national news editor, Jo Tovey, about the highs and lows of 2024 and what to expect next year.
Nesroom edition: why there’s still cause for hope in 2025
Cait Kelly has been talking to members of Australia’s LGBTQ+ community after data released yesterday revealed that almost one in 10 young people aged 16 to 24 are LGBTQ+ – while it’s more like one in 20 (4.5% of people) aged 16 and over. For some, like Shayne Wilde, 67, it’s proof of society’s wider acceptance compared with her youth, while for Damien Nguyen, 22, the figures provide a basis to keep pushing for more rights.
From the “unique claymation aesthetic” of Memoir of a Snail to Robbie Williams as a CGI chimp, and from the Brisbane-set horror of In the Room Where He Waits to Natalie Bailey’s bitterly funny comedy Audrey, Luke Buckmaster surveys the 10 best Australian films of 2024.
The Australian stock market suffered its worst day in three months and the Aussie dollar plunged in what the Adelaide Advertiser calls a $50bn hit for the economy. It spells a big political risk for Australia in 2025, an opinion piece in the Financial Review argues. Microplastics are linked to lung and colon cancer, according to a study cited in the Sydney Morning Herald. Plans to turn Melbourne’s Spencer Street into a pedestrian zone could be undermined by an off-ramp for the new West Gate tunnel, the Age reports.
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