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May 12, 2026 - World

One image showed a US warship blasting an aircraft marked with the Iranian flag using what appeared to be a high-powered laser weapon.

May 12, 2026 - World

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson says his objective is to ‘defeat’ changes to capital gains and negative gearing. Follow today’s news liveSee all our Australia budget 2026 coverageGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast‘These changes are contentious’ Chalmers admitsYou might say Bill Shorten walked so Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese could run. The pair unveiled major changes last night to negative gearing and capital gains tax, a feat that lost Shorten the 2016 and 2019 budget (the latter that everyone expected him to win).These changes are contentious. There’s no use pretending otherwise, but it’s the right thing to do. The easiest thing that we could have done from a political point of view would be to see these challenges in the housing market, particularly for young people, and to see the issues in the tax system and to leave everything exactly as it was. And we didn’t think that was an acceptable outcome.One of the issues in the tax system is that it’s become out of whack. And so that new Working Australians tax offset … It’s effectively lifted the tax-free threshold for workers, but not for others. And that does give us the architecture, I think. In the future, when successive governments can afford to return more bracket creep, it’s another way that we can do that. Continue reading...

May 12, 2026 - World

Pete Hegseth and other officials appear before House to face grilling on Iran war expenditure and military operationsIran has expanded its definition of the strait of Hormuz into a “vast operational area” far wider than before the war, according to a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy in comments likely to anger the US.The strait is no longer viewed as a narrow stretch around a handful of islands but instead has been greatly enlarged in scope and military significance, according to Mohammad Akbarzadeh, deputy political director of the IRGC Navy, the state-affiliated Fars news agency reported this morning. Continue reading...

May 12, 2026 - World

Patel and Chris Van Hollen, ranking member of the Senate appropriations subcommittee, trade accusations in heated budget hearingSign up for the Breaking News US emailThe Pentagon revealed on 29 April that the US war on Iran had cost about $25bn for roughly two months of spending. Today, when asked if there are any updated costs associated with the war, Jules Hurst III, chief financial official for the Pentagon, said:“At the time of testimony … it was $25bn dollars. But the joint staff team and the comptroller are constantly looking at estimates and now we think it is closer to 29.” Continue reading...

May 12, 2026 - World

Real estate executive got an unexpected earful when she spoke of ‘living in a time of profound change’Though college graduations usually consist of a speaker giving advice to students, one recent ceremony featured students giving the speaker their opinions – loudly.The University of Central Florida’s 2026 graduating class booed as a real estate development executive spoke about how “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution” and about “living in a time of profound change”. Continue reading...