The World Today

The issue of how places like the Northern Territory can grow its population is deeply political. When the Federal Government released its 'White Paper on Developing Northern Australia' in 2015, population growth was identified as a key factor in transforming the Northern economy. This week, the ABC's new season episode of Utopia satirised the Government's Northern development plans, and the jokes are close to home.

In the remote outback town of Wilcannia, in New South Wales, the life expectancy for Indigenous men is only around 40 years. But the local land council wants that to change. So, it's teamed up with local rugby league teams in the town to encourage more blokes to get a health check. And you can hear more about that story by subscribing to the podcast 'The Real Thing'.

Despite decades of scanning the skies, radio astronomers trying to contact intelligent life forms have found nothing but static and false leads. A space sciences expert from Washington University in Seattle says humans may wipe themselves out before managing to make contact. So should countries like Australia continue the quest to make contact with the billions of planets capable of sustaining life?

There are fresh signs that Australia's economy is stabilising with the official jobless rate coming in unchanged at 5.6 per cent for June, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The good signs are fanning speculation that the Reserve Bank is poised to raise the cash rate from the current record low of 1.5 per cent.

Malcolm Turnbull and his Liberal predecessor Tony Abbott appear to be at odds about advice concerning the establishment of the Home Affairs Department as announced this week. Mr Abbott, who only a month ago expressed support for such a move, now says he was advised against it as Prime Minister. Meanwhile on the Labor side former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says asylum seekers detained on Manus Island under a deal he signed with Papua New Guinea should have come to Australia after a year.

An inquest into the death of six pedestrians in January has begun in the Coroner's Court in Melbourne. Dozens more were injured when 26 year old James Gargasoulas allegedly drove a car through lunchtime crowds in Bourke Street, just days after he had been released on bail over another matter. Judge Sara Hinchey is investigating several matters relating to the attack, including the earlier granting of bail to the accused.

Transcripts have been released of two calls Australian woman Justine Damond made to 911 before she was shot dead by police. They reveal she thought a woman was being raped in an alley behind her home in Minneapolis. It's still unclear exactly what led a police officer to shoot the 40 year old. The lawyer for one of the officers involved has told local media it's 'certainly reasonable' for the officers to fear they were the target of a possible ambush.

Many African-Americans living in Minneapolis are watching this case carefully. They include the family of Philando Castille, the young African American man who was shot dead last year by a Minneapolis policeman. That policeman was acquitted this month, despite live video of the shooting being streamed by Mr Castille's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds. The head of the parish attended by the Castille family is Pastor Celester Webb and he joined The World Today from Minneapolis.

Two out of three female murder victims are killed by a current or former partner, compared to only one in ten men. Griffith University is hoping to find out the reasons why by interviewing the families of women who were killed in domestic violence situations, to give the victims a voice as to the circumstances that led to their deaths. Previous studies have largely focussed on interviewing the perpetrators of violence or crunching crime statistics, rather than gaining the victim's story.

Twenty-five years after its introduction, women are on track to retire on roughly half the superannuation balance of men. A new study has found, on average, women will retire with a super balance that will support them for just three years - and it will only cover very basic needs. The authors are calling for a range of measures to curb what they call a 'structural bias' in the way super was designed. It includes women on maternity leave being paid superannuation by the Government and their employer.