Features, explainers and long-form stories from across Australia.
Lisa Vanderpump walks into most conversations about reality TV holding a business card that says restaurateur before it says star. The London-born owner of SUR, Tom Tom and a hospitality group built over decades has appeared on screens since 2010, when she joined The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (Women’s Health cast retrospective); her estimated … Read more
Anyone who has typed a question into a chat box and received a genuinely useful answer in seconds already knows why Chat AI is everywhere, as the same large language models behind ChatGPT now power Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and a wave of free third-party apps that promise to replace search, note-taking, and a chunk … Read more
Few songs from the early 1980s still carry a summer-night rush the way “Gloria” does, and that voice belonged to Laura Branigan. When she died at 47 in August 2004, the official cause — a brain aneurysm — was reported by outlets including Wikipedia (community encyclopedia), even as smaller details of her life kept getting … Read more
Choosing an AI app used to mean picking a chatbot; now it means deciding how much of your life you are willing to feed into one. The most useful free options — ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Grok — keep showing up in comparisons, yet their free tiers differ, and an August 2026 comparison … Read more
Few artists have made being unclassifiable look this effortless. Grace Jones arrived in 1970s New York with a Jamaican accent, a model’s cheekbones, and a voice that refused to stay inside one genre — in 1977 she signed with Island Records and released her debut album, Portfolio, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia). Born: May … Read more
Getting fired by Marvel turned out to be the best career move James Gunn ever made: Disney rehired him a year later, and he now runs DC Studios. The path from Troma screenwriter to Superman (2025) also explains the questions fans keep asking about his friendships, Marvel cast exits, and what’s next. Born: August 5, … Read more
Most Australians have a Megan Gale story — a magazine cover, a runway moment, a film role — but few could piece together how she got from a Perth modelling contest to Mad Max: Fury Road and a family with a former AFL player. She won that competition at 18 in 1994, according to the … Read more
There’s a reason the Belchers have anchored Fox’s Sunday night animation block for over a decade. Bob’s Burgers premiered on January 9, 2011, and has grown from a cult curiosity into a steady ratings performer, built on a family that fights but clearly enjoys each other’s company. Premiered: January 9, 2011 · Original network: Fox … Read more
Few pop moments sting as sharply as losing a member mid-stride. When Stephen Gately, co-lead singer of Boyzone, died suddenly in 2009 at just 33, it sent shockwaves through the boyband world — and raised complicated questions about inheritance, band dynamics, and what happens when a star dies without a will. This article examines the … Read more
Few actors have inspired as many persistent rumors as Ryan Gosling — some harmless, some downright bizarre. From his relationship with Eva Mendes to his supposed connection to Justin Bieber, separating fact from fiction means sifting the verified milestones of his career and personal life from the hoaxes. Age: 45 · Oscar nominations: 2 · … Read more