PM

A community radio station in Adelaide believes it has a strong legal case against the ABC, over claims the public broadcaster is planning to use its name. Radio Adelaide is outraged over the ABC's plans to rebrand in Adelaide as ABC Radio Adelaide, part of a national rollout across all ABC capital city stations. Radio Adelaide's chairman has labelled the move 'breathtakingly arrogant', and says the station is preparing for a battle.

The US President-elect Donald Trump says he'll nominate retired general James Mattis to be his defence secretary. General Mattis only retired from his post as commander of the US Central Command in 2013, which means that Congress will have to act to bypass a law that bars retired military officers from becoming defence secretary within seven years of leaving active duty. In a new Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House, Professor of History at Sydney University, James Curran, has been trying to get the measure of the US-Australian relationship in the Trump era.

Scientists have joined forces with Sydney's Taronga Zoo and the tech giant Google, to build an app that allows Australians to gather information about one of our most unique and elusive animals, the platypus. It's not clear how many platypuses are living in the wild, but conservationists say the star of the 20 cent coin is facing an uncertain future due to urban sprawl and river pollution.

After surviving cyclones, floods and two world wars, Broome's outdoor cinema Sun Pictures is about to turn 100.

Landowners at Papua New Guinea's biggest resources project are threatening to create 'chaos' if the Papua New Guinea Government doesn't honour a deal to give them equity. The PNG Government has withdrawn an offer to help finance the purchase of four per cent of the PNG LNG project. Landowners complained it was unfair. The Government now says landowners need to find more than a billion US dollars before the equity option expires at the end of this month.

How much longer will the humble magazine be lining the shelves of Australian newsagencies? After 48 years in print, Dolly is ceasing its print edition and will become a solely online publication. Australian Property Investor magazine is also winding up after 20 years - the current issue is its final edition.

The Government is celebrating securing support to pass one of the bills that triggered the double dissolution election. The restoration of the construction watchdog, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, has passed the necessary stages in both houses and will now become law. Despite being significantly altered from the original, it's arguably the Prime Minister's most significant victory since coming to office. But a dramatic and unprecedented protest in Question Time cast a shadow over the Coalition's celebrations, with protesters interrupting proceedings and supergluing themselves to the public gallery in the House of Representatives.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been told that many survivors still feel like Australia's criminal justice system is failing them. But at a public hearing in Sydney, senior government representatives, lawyers and the police have assured the commissioners that work is being done to ensure that every perpetrator is put before the courts.

A long list of Australia's best-known musicians have signed a letter to the ABC board protesting against the axing of music programs on Radio National. They're asking for assurances about the diversity and amount of new Australian music. They're worried about the effect of the RN cuts on access to Australian music in rural and regional areas. And they're questioning how the cuts fit with the ABC's charter responsibilities. Signatories include Archie Roach, Bernard Fanning, Deborah Conway, Eddie Perfect, Gurrumul Yunupingu, Paul Grabowsky and Sarah Blasko.

The mining industry is refusing to comment on a landmark decision by the industrial umpire allowing striking workers to be made redundant. The Fair Work Commission has upheld Anglo American's argument that a strike forced it to change work practices and inadvertently find up to $40 million in efficiencies. It has now started laying off 82 workers at its German Creek mine in central Queensland. But, unions are gearing up to fight the decision, which they describe as a precedent for casualising workforces.