At the start of this year, we said we would bring you the best commentators, the biggest brains, and people with lived experience on the ground. We promised to help make sense of the world and abide by one of the first rules in journalism — never be boring.

So how did we do?

18-year-old Tommy Lamb has been on the road for over 100 days, making his way from Manchester in England through Europe and Asia in the hope of making the start of the third test in Adelaide.

He's travelled 16,000 kilometres without taking a plane, relying on trains, buses, boats, motorbikes and hitch-hiking. Along the way he lost and found his passport, had a serious motorcycle accident and he's now stuck in Singapore looking for a boat ride.

He has just one rule — to play cricket in every place he stops.

Next week, Australia will become the first country in the world to ban social media accounts for users under 16, a rare bipartisan move, with both sides of government backing the legislation in an effort to curb the harmful impacts of social media on young people.

Under the new rules, children under 16 will be barred from creating or maintaining accounts on platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch, Threads, X, Kick and YouTube.

How will it work, what parents, teens, and platforms need to know ahead of the ban.

Sam Mostyn took up the role of being the Governor-General in Australia in July last year, and she’s only the second woman to perform the role. 

Nick Bryant caught up with the Governor-General at her official Sydney residence, Admiralty House, to discuss her role at a time of polarisation, the importance of service, accusations that she is "woke" and how care has a deep and resonant place in our Australian identity.

Myanmar's late-December elections are unfolding in what UN rights officials describe as an atmosphere of fear, violence.

Ahead of that poll, which has been widely dismissed as an attempt by the military junta to obtain legitimacy, the country has released and dropped charges against more than 8-thousand people, many of them political detainees.

But there's no sign of freedom for any of the country's top democratic leadership, including the former leader Aung San Suu Chee. 

The Trump administration has released an updated National Security Strategy, which warned, among other things, that Europe faced what it called "the stark prospect of civilisational erasure." 

The new strategy document also pledged to use "lethal force to defeat drugs cartels" which it said would replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades.

It is the use of lethal force against alleged drug boats from Venezuela in the Caribbean that has dominated US politics this week.

Meanwhile, the US military build-up off the coast of Venezuela continues, with more ships stationed there since the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s. 

What does all of this mean for the people of Venezuela?

It’s a chart topping podcast with millions of downloads around the world. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland are distinguished historians — Oxford and Cambridge scholars, and bestselling authors. But their global fame comes from hosting the smash-hit podcast The Rest Is History which brings the past to life with gripping storytelling and expert analysis.

They caught up with our own historian, Nick Bryant, while in Sydney for their national tour.

This week saw the eagerly anticipated release of the Australian Election Study (AES), compiled by academics at the Australian National University and Griffith University. The survey offers one of the most comprehensive snapshots of voter attitudes in the country.

It digs into what drives Australians to vote the way they do — across parties, demographics and key policy areas — and helps explain both the mood of the electorate now and what future election outcomes might look like.

At least 128 people have died and 200 people are still missing. It's the city's deadliest fire in 70 years, and it ripped through a housing complex with 8 tower blocks and about 2000 apartments. An early theory is that construction materials used for a renovation fuelled the blaze.

To discuss the Washington attack and the broader trajectory of the Trump presidency we’re joined by one of the most influential observers of American politics.