ABC News Daily

The RBA’s interest rate cut has been largely welcomed but it won’t make much difference to the family budget. 

So, why is there speculation that the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese might call an early election because of it?

Today, we speak to someone whose life was upended by the 13 interest rate rises and to a pollster about why Labor’s finding it hard to convince voters it’s not to blame for the financial pain.  

Featured: 

‘Jane’, former home owner

Kos Samaras, former Labor strategist and director of the RedBridge Group

It’s almost three years since the Reserve Bank began the most aggressive cash rate hiking cycle in its history to combat surging inflation.

Now, Australia’s central bank has delivered a slight reprieve to borrowers, taking 25 basis points off the interest rate for mortgages, once the banks pass it on. 

Today, the ABC’s finance expert Alan Kohler on what it means for households and when the next cut might be. 

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Alan Kohler, ABC finance expert

Within hours of its release, the Chinese-owned AI chatbot called DeepSeek became one of the most downloaded apps in the world.

Most commentators say it performs just as well as the market-leader ChatGPT, but should we be wary of it? 

Each time users open it up and type something into that box, the app is gathering information and sending it back to servers in China. 

Today, ABC technology reporter Ange Lavoipierre on why the Australian government has banned it on its devices and whether the rest of us should avoid using it. 

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Ange Lavoipierre, ABC national technology reporter

Emily’s son loved sport, animals, reading and music, but when he turned 16, everything changed. 

He started to get obsessed by politics and thought the country was headed in the wrong direction. 

It wasn’t until his mother saw a photo of her son on the news that she realised he’d joined a neo-Nazi group. 

Emily hopes a deradicalisation program will keep her son safe from extremists, but there’s concern about the availability and quality of the services. 

Today, Four Corners reporter Avani Dias on Emily’s case and a rise in extremism among young Australians.   

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Avani Dias, Four Corners reporter

Donald Trump says negotiations to end the war in Ukraine have begun and both Russia and Ukraine want peace. 

The US president chose to call the instigator of the war Vladimir Putin first to discuss a potential deal, raising fears he’ll push Ukraine to the sidelines. 

The US is already insisting that Ukraine can’t restore its territory to what it had in 2014 and it says Ukraine won’t join the NATO military alliance. 

Today, international relations expert Rajan Menon on what peace might really look like under Trump. 

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Rajan Menon, professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and senior research scholar at Columbia University

Two nurses from a Sydney hospital have been stood down while police and the health department investigate them for making threatening comments about Israelis. 

One says they’ll refuse to treat Israeli patients and the other even claims he’s killed Israeli patients.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the comments made by the pair were "vile, dehumanising and unacceptable".

Today, Deborah Stone from The Jewish Independent news website on the footage and the response to it. 

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Deborah Stone, editor-in-chief of The Jewish Independent

Donald Trump says no nation will be exempt, although there’s a prospect of Australia winning a rare reprieve from hefty tariffs being imposed on all steel and aluminium imports to the United States. 

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been on a phone call with the US president, urging him to exempt Australia from the 25 per cent import tax. 

The key argument is that Australia imports a lot more from the US than it sells there. 

Today, economist Susan Stone on the latest front in the trade wars and what it means for us. 

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Dr Susan Stone, Credit Union SA Chair of Economics at the University of South Australia

Elon Musk thinks the peak US foreign aid agency is ‘evil’ and so in his powerful position as Donald Trump’s cost cutter he’s getting rid of it.

USAID was set up by President John F. Kennedy and supports humanitarian projects across the globe. 

Already there are reports of people dying on the Thai-Myanmar border when a US supported hospital in a refugee camp was abruptly shut down. 

So, what’s Mr Musk up to and why?

Featured: 

Matthew Maury, interim CEO of The Australian Council for International Development

Alan Yu, senior vice president for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress

BMI, or body mass index, has long been used as a simple calculation to determine if someone is underweight, a ‘healthy’ weight or obese.

But when it was devised by a Belgian mathematician almost 200 years ago, it was never supposed to be a tool to measure health.

Now, researchers are challenging the way obesity is defined and diagnosed. Today, a look at the new approach and why there’s a global push away from BMI.

Featured: Willow Moscarda, Perth studentDr Louise Bauer, Professor of child and adolescent health, University of Sydney

The police bodycam vision has been beamed around the world after being played in a London court. 

It shows Sam Kerr calling a police constable ‘f***ing stupid and white.’ 

Now the Matildas captain is on trial over allegations she racially harassed him.

Today, host of The Sports Ambassador podcast Tracey Holmes walks us through the case. 

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Tracey Holmes, The Sports Ambassador podcast host