Saturday Extra - Separate stories podcast

Bogong moths are swarming across south-eastern Australia, finding their way into homes and washing up on beaches, prompting reactions ranging from disgust to delight.

The tiny insects fly up to 1000km in an annual migration that was once commonplace but that is now extraordinary.

Classified as endangered in 2021, could the bogong moth be making a remarkable comeback?

It's been 50 years since the end of China's Cultural Revolution, a decade of chaos that saw mass violence and political upheaval. 

But, officially at least, China is not looking back and taking stock. 

A Melbourne-based innovator has won the 2026 Australian Good Design Awards for an invention that distributes solar power fairly throughout apartment buildings.

Known as SolShare, the Australian-made technology makes rooftop solar accessible to apartment dwellers, and is being exported globally. 

Astronomers have detected a mysterious flash of radio energy, called a fast radio burst or FRB, that's been travelling across space for 10 billion years.

These flashes only last a millisecond, but they may be vital in better understanding the story of the universe.

Plus, if you think dawn on Earth is impressive, a NASA rover has taken a stunning image of dawn up on Mars.

AI data centre operator Firmus has pulled out of what would have been one of Australia's largest public listings.

So how did the hype fall so flat?

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, is facing its greatest scandal since the Cold War.

Former spy chief August Hanning was arrested earlier this week on suspicion of espionage, treason and obtaining classified information for a foreign power.

He ran the spy agency from 1998 to 2005 and is now being held in detention ahead of an expected court appearance next week.

This year's NRL grand final will feature the Sydney Roosters and the Newcastle Knights.

And the story of the Knights is a fairytale in the making. The team finished last in the competition last year. Now they're just one win away from a premiership.

As a result, the city of Newcastle is going absolutely ballistic.

After a 31-year career as the ABC's finance guru, Alan Kohler announced this week that he's leaving the organisation.

He joins Saturday Extra to talk about the latest interest rate hike, the housing market, and how he became one of this country's great economic communicators.

Few writers in the world have written with more clarity or authority on the intersection of the modern-day media and modern-day politics than Gabriel Sherman. 

Gabriel Sherman is a special correspondent with Vanity Fair, author of the book Bonfire of the Murdochs, and the screenwriter of the movie, The Apprentice, which tells the story of Donald Trump's rise to fame as a property developer in New York City.

The first round of voting in Brazil's presidential and parliamentary election starts on Sunday.

The main contest is between the 80-year-old incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his rival Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former leader Jair Bolsonaro.