Labor wins Australia election as ‘Trump factor’ swings voters

Australia’s centre-left Labor Party, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, is projected to win the federal election against the conservative opposition, according to early vote counting analysis by Sky News Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Both broadcasters indicated that the Liberal and National coalition was unlikely to secure enough seats to form government.

ABC election analyst Antony Green went further, declaring a Labor victory.

Key voter concerns during the campaign included cost-of-living pressures and anxieties surrounding former US President Donald Trump‘s policies.

While cautious about claiming outright victory, Defence Minister Richard Marles expressed optimism to broadcaster Seven, stating that early results were encouraging and that a Labor majority government “remains a possibility and it is what we are trying to achieve”.

Polls closed at 6pm (0800 GMT) in Australia’s most populous eastern time zone while voting in Western Australia, home to the city of Perth, ended at 1000 GMT.

Opinion polls had shown Labor ahead, after trailing in the polls as recently as February to Peter Dutton‘s conservative coalition.

As counting got under way, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the Labor government had been “in all sorts of trouble” at the end of 2024 but got back into the contest because of Mr Albanese’s strong campaign performance, policies that addressed concerns about the cost of living, and the Trump effect.

“The economy became a positive from a negative – the interest rate cut was part of the story,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The central bank cut rates in February, on the eve of the election being called, reversing course after 13 interest rate rises that had ratcheted up home mortgage repayments for households.

“The sense of the influence of American politics” had also helped, Mr Chalmers added.

Opposition Liberal Party spokesman, Senator James Paterson, defended the conservative campaign, which he also said was negatively affected by “the Trump factor”.

“It was devastating in Canada for the conservatives … I think it has been a factor here, just how big a factor will be determined in a few hours’ time,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The expected bounce in the centre-left Labor Party’s fortunes mirrors those of Canada’s Liberal Party, which returned to power this week in a come-from-behind victory after Mr Trump’s tariffs and remarks on Canadian sovereignty sparked a backlash from voters.

Preferences among supporters of Australia’s minor parties and independents could be crucial under the country’s ranked-choice voting system.

In the 2022 election, the primary vote split nearly equally among Labor, the Liberal-Nationals, and “others”. Analysts predicted a third of voters would again opt for independents and minor parties in Saturday’s election.

Trump shares AI image of himself as pope

President Donald Trump has posted an AI-generated image of himself in papal regalia – just 11 days after Pope Francis’ death.

The image, posted on Truth Social, shows President Trump dressed in white wearing a papal hat, known as a mitre, with a large crucifix hanging around his neck.

It comes after the president joked that he’d like to be the pontiff when asked who he would like to succeed Pope Francis. He said to reporters on the White House lawn: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”

Trump went on to say that he did not have a preference but said there was a cardinal in New York who was “very good”.

The conclave to select a new pontiff is now underway after the death of Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday at the age of 88 due to a stroke and heart failure.

The post has been met with bemusement and criticism, with many describing it as disrespectful.

“Please take this down,” pleaded one social media user. “Many Catholics, myself included, find this as a great disrespect to the past and future leader of our church.”

Another responded: “Trump, as someone outside the U.S., I find your post utterly disrespectful to the Catholic community worldwide. The papacy is a sacred institution for millions, and this mockery is an affront to their beliefs.”

“Completely disrespectful. The Catholic community is mourning and you post this?”

The president was criticised over his appearance at Pope Francis’ funeral last week, after he attended wearing a non-traditional blue suit and was seen chewing gum during the ceremony.

Some critics also suggested his meeting on the sidelines with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was inappropriate.

Trump and Williams battle for spot in World Snooker Championship final

Mark Williams and Judd Trump’s closely fought World Snooker Championship semi-final will reach its climax tonight as Zhao Xintong awaits to discover who he will face in the Crucible final.

Beginning all square at 8-8 this morning, Williams soon moved into the ascendency with some oustanding near-perfect snooker, punishing the slightest mistakes by world No 1 Trump with frame-winning breaks, and the Welshman earned a 13-11 lead in their race to 17 going into the evening session.

Williams will hope to carry his momentum into the finale as he looks to seal his place in Sunday’s showpiece against Chinese sensation Zhao, who will enjoy a well-earned day off after thrashing seven-time champion Ronnie O’Sullivan 17-7 with a session to spare on Friday evening.

Follow the score between Judd Trump and Mark Williams and all the key action from the World Snooker Championship below.

Five killed and 61 injured after Putin launches overnight drone strike

Five people have been killed and 61 injured after Russia launched a mass drone and missile strike overnight, Ukrainian officials have said.

In the region that suffered the worst casualties, two children were among the 51 wounded in Kharkiv late on Friday, the regional prosecutor’s office said, while one person was killed, according to the regional state administration head.

Then four people were killed and eight others were injured in Donetsk Oblast, the regional governor said on Saturday.

And two more people were also injured in Sumy Oblast, according to the regional military administration.

Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with 183 drones and two ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian air force said early on Saturday, with 77 shot down and another 73 falling without causing any damage.

The attack comes as US officials finalised new economic sanctions against Russia to intensify pressure on Moscow to embrace president Donald Trump’s efforts to end its war, sources say.

The targets include state-owned energy giant Gazprom and major organisations in the natural resources and banking sectors, an administration official said. Mr Trump would need to approve the package.

The US has also pulled out of mediating in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, with State Department official Tammy Bruce saying envoys would no longer “fly around the world at the drop of a hat” to mediate.

Cats and dogs are evolving to look alike, and it’s all humans’ fault

Domestication has made cats and dogs more diverse, but also curiously alike – with serious implications for their health and welfare, new research shows.

At first glance, Persian cats and pugs don’t seem like they’d have much in common. One’s a cat, the other’s a dog, separated by 50 million years of evolution.

But when evolutionary biologist Abby Grace Drake and her colleagues scanned 1,810 skulls of cats, dogs and their wild relatives, they found something strange. Despite their distant histories, many breeds of cats and dogs show striking similarity in skull shape.

In evolutionary biology, divergence is a common process. In simple terms, divergence is where two organisms that share a common ancestry become increasingly different over time, while convergence means becoming more similar. As populations of animals split and adapt to different environments, they gradually develop new traits, a process known as divergent evolution.

This is one of the main ways new species form different traits, causing populations to evolve along separate paths. But sometimes, evolution can take a different direction. Convergence happens when unrelated species, shaped by similar pressures, independently evolve similar features.

In the case of domestic cats, dogs and many other domesticated species, intentional and unintentional selection by humans seems to have created convergence, accidentally steering different species toward similar traits.

Despite a long history of evolutionary separation, flat-faced breeds like the Persian cat and pugs share similar skull structures.

To investigate how far domestication has reshaped skull structure, Drake and her colleagues analysed 3D scans of skulls from museum specimens, veterinary schools and digital archives. Their dataset included domestic cats such as Siamese, Maine coon and Persian breeds, as well as over 100 dog breeds from short-muzzled dogs like pugs, to long-muzzled breeds like collies.

Their findings showed that domestication has not only increased skull shape diversity beyond that of wolves and wildcats, but also led some cat and dog breeds to resemble one another, with convergence towards either long or flat faces. Wild canids (the group of animals that includes dogs, wolves, foxes and jackals) tend to share a similar elongated skull, while wild felids (the group of animals that includes domestic cats, lions, tigers and jaguars) show more natural variation.

Yet domestic breeds of both species now span a more extreme range at both ends of the scale. This trend can be seen in the emergence of cats bred to resemble XL bully dogs.

Domestication has long shown that when humans intervene, even distantly related species can end up looking, and sometimes suffering, in similar ways.

Selective breeding has exaggerated traits across species. Many other human-made changes can push animals beyond what their bodies can naturally support. For instance, some chickens bred for their meat carry 30 per cent of their body weight in breast muscle, which often results in heart and lung problems.

The human preference for flat-faced pets taps into some of our most fundamental instincts. Humans are hard-wired to respond to infant features like rounded heads, small noses and large, low set eyes. These traits, which are exaggerated in many flat-faced cat and dog breeds, mimic the appearance of human babies.

Of all species, humans are among the most altricial, meaning that we are born helpless and dependent on caregivers for survival, a trait we share with puppies and kittens. In contrast, precocial animals are able to see, hear, stand and move shortly after birth. Because human infants rely so heavily upon adult care, evolution has shaped us to be sensitive to signals of vulnerability and need.

These signals like the rounded cheeks and wide eyes of babies, are known as social releasers. They trigger caregiving behaviour in adults, from speaking in higher-pitched tones to offering parental care.

Herring gulls (a type of seagull) are an example of this in non-human animals. Their chicks instinctively peck at a red spot on the parent’s beak, which triggers the adult to regurgitate food. This red spot acts as a social releaser, ensuring the chick’s needs are met at the right time. In a similar way, domesticated animals have effectively hijacked ancient caregiving mechanisms evolved for our own offspring.

These traits may give pets an advantage in soliciting human care and attention, but they come at a cost.

The UK government commissions its Animal Welfare Committee to provide independent expert advice on emerging animal welfare concerns. In reports they produced in 2024, the committee raised serious concerns about the effect of selective breeding in both cats and dogs.

The reports highlighted that breeding for extreme physical traits, like flat faces and exaggerated skull shapes, has led to widespread health problems, including breathing difficulties, neurological conditions and birth complications.

The committee argues that animals with severe hereditary health issues should no longer be used for breeding, and calls for tougher regulation of breeders. Without these reforms, many popular breeds will continue to suffer from preventable, life-limiting conditions.

Selective breeding has shown how easily humans can bend nature to their preferences, and how quickly millions of years of evolutionary separation can be overridden by a few decades of artificial selection.

In choosing pets that mimic the faces of our own infants, we have, often unwittingly, selected for traits that harm the animals. Understanding the forces that drive convergence between species is a reminder that we play a powerful and sometimes dangerous role in shaping it.

Grace Carroll is a Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast

This article was originally published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article

Why this Mediterranean region is perfect for a Summer escape

Summertime in Dalmatia: lazy days swimming in sparkling waters and feeling the salt dry on your skin, feasting on freshly grilled fish in a rustic beach bar while watching the sun set over the Adriatic, losing yourself in centuries of history surrounded by intense beauty – it’s the stuff of dreams. But oh so easy to turn into reality. Between Dalmatia’s stretch of the Croatian coast and the enchanting islands just a ferry ride away, you have everything you need for a relaxing and rejuvenating summer break. Choose between laid-back islands with quiet coves to lively beach resorts offering watersports and entertainment – all of which you can fit into the same trip. To get you inspired, here are some of the highlights of a Dalmatian holiday.

Croatia’s sunniest island is also the country’s most visited, which isn’t surprising when you first set eyes on Hvar Town. Step into St Stephen’s Square, the largest in Dalmatia, and take in the baroque beauty of its cathedral. Follow the path uphill to the 16th-century Spanish Fortress for fantastic views before checking out Hvar Town’s chic beach clubs. Away from the island capital, Stari Grad offers a slower pace of life, despite being on a major ferry route from Split. Once you’ve explored its colourful port, take a hike in neighbouring Stari Grad Plain, a UNESCO-listed site, where you can still see the vineyards and olive groves planted by the ancient Greeks nearly 2,400 years ago.

Surrounded by mesmerising blue-green waters, the smooth white pebbles of V-shaped Zlatni Rat on Brač’s southern coast create Croatia’s most famous beach. Its unique geography draws windsurfing fans from around the world to the pretty nearby village of Bol as they zoom across these waters. Bol is also a handy base for hikes up to Vidova Gora, the highest point in Dalmatia and worth the visit for far-reaching views. Head to the northern coast for picturesque villages such as Pučišća, whose stonemasonry school is the oldest in Europe and continues a centuries-old tradition. When you explore the hinterland, you’ll be tempted to stop by rural restaurants that serve authentic Dalmatian cuisine featuring produce from their own farms and olive groves.

Off limits to tourists until 1989 while it served as an army base, the far-flung island of Vis has been slow to catch up on Croatia’s tourism boom – which suits everyone just fine. The long Venetian-style waterfront of Vis Town will look familiar to fans of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which was filmed here. The island’s other main village, Komiža, is a delightfully laid-back spot from where you can join boat trips to the jaw-dropping natural phenomenon that is the Blue Cave on the tiny neighbouring island of Biševo. There’s more awe in store when you make the rocky trek down to Stiniva Bay on the southern coast, where the pebbly beach is almost entirely encircled by towering cliffs.

Just across the sea from Split but curiously off most tourists’ radar, Šolta is one of Dalmatia’s lesser-known jewels. Sailors will have moored in its deeply sheltered coves such as Šešula Bay, as well as its attractive villages Maslinica and Stomorska, which bookend the island and give an enticing slice of Dalmatian life. In between you’ll see acres and acres of olive groves that produce award-winning liquid gold – a delicious companion for Šolta’s indigenous robust red wine. Explore Šolta’s heavily indented southern coast if you want true serenity while swimming in secluded pebbly coves backed by fragrant pine-covered hills.

For nearly 40 miles, the Makarska Riviera south of Split offers one alluring beach resort after another – Brela, Tučepi, Baška Voda, Podgora, Drvenik, Gradac and Makarska itself – all in the shadow of the impressive Biokovo Mountains. The sheer variety of beaches and resorts is extraordinary, including the beautiful Punta Rata Beach in Brela and peaceful Nugal Beach just south of Makarska. Follow the long seafront promenade to Baška Voda’s family-friendly beaches including the outstanding Nikolina Beach. And above it all are the hiking trails in Biokovo Nature Park, including the hair-raising Biokovo Skywalk, whose D-shaped glass floor hovers over the cliff and gives you an unforgettable thrill – rather like summer in Dalmatia itself.

For more travel inspiration, information and to plan your trip visit Central Dalmatia

Man bitten by snakes hundreds of times could be key to an antivenom

Tim Friede, a Wisconsin resident with a long-standing fascination for venomous creatures, has endured hundreds of snake bites, many self-inflicted, in a quest to build immunity.

Now, scientists are studying his blood, hoping to unlock the secrets to a more effective snake bite treatment.

Friede’s unusual journey began with a hobby of extracting venom from scorpions and spiders. He kept numerous snakes at his home, and driven by “simple curiosity” and a desire for self-protection, he started injecting himself with diluted snake venom. Gradually increasing the dosage, he allowed snakes to bite him, pushing the boundaries of his self-imposed experiment. This unorthodox approach has piqued the interest of researchers, who are now analyzing his blood in the hopes of developing improved antivenom therapies.

“At first, it was very scary,” Friede said. “But the more you do it, the better you get at it, the more calm you become with it.”

While no doctor or emergency medical technician — or anyone, really — would ever suggest this is a remotely good idea, experts say his method tracks how the body works. When the immune system is exposed to the toxins in snake venom, it develops antibodies that can neutralize the poison. If it’s a small amount of venom the body can react before it’s overwhelmed. And if it’s venom the body has seen before, it can react more quickly and handle larger exposures.

Friede has withstood snakebites and injections for nearly two decades and still has a refrigerator full of venom. In videos posted to his YouTube channel, he shows off swollen fang marks on his arms from black mamba, taipan and water cobra bites.

“I wanted to push the limits as close to death as possible to where I’m just basically teetering right there and then back off of it,” he said.

But Friede also wanted to help. He emailed every scientist he could find, asking them to study the tolerance he’d built up.

And there is a need: Around 110,000 people die from snakebite every year, according to the World Health Organization. And making antivenom is expensive and difficult. It is often created by injecting large mammals like horses with venom and collecting the antibodies they produce. These antivenoms are usually only effective against specific snake species, and can sometimes produce bad reactions due to their nonhuman origins.

When Columbia University‘s Peter Kwong heard of Friede, he said, “Oh, wow, this is very unusual. We had a very special individual with amazing antibodies that he created over 18 years.”

In a study published Friday in the journal Cell, Kwong and collaborators shared what they were able to do with Friede’s unique blood: They identified two antibodies that neutralize venom from many different snake species with the aim of someday producing a treatment that could offer broad protection.

It’s very early research — the antivenom was only tested in mice, and researchers are still years away from human trials. And while their experimental treatment shows promise against the group of snakes that include mambas and cobras, it’s not effective against vipers, which include snakes like rattlers.

“Despite the promise, there is much work to do,” said Nicholas Casewell, a snakebite researcher at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in an email. Casewell was not involved with the new study.

Friede’s journey has not been without its missteps. Among them: He said after one bad snake bite he had to cut off part of his finger. And some particularly nasty cobra bites sent him to the hospital.

Friede is now employed by Centivax, which is trying to develop the treatment, and he’s excited that his 18-year odyssey could one day save lives from snakebite. But his message to those inspired to follow in his footsteps is quite simple: “Don’t do it,” he said.

Trump is desperate to host the Open – but faces one big handicap

There are some entertaining tales of Donald Trump’s cheating on the golf course. Samuel L Jackson tells a story of playing with the US president at Trump National in New Jersey and watching Trump’s ball hook into a lake with a splash, only for his caddie to mysteriously discover it safely on dry land. The American sportswriter Rick Reilly published a book on the subject – Commander in Cheat – in which he wrote: “At Winged Foot, where Trump is a member, the caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back onto the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: Pele.”

Whether or not Trump lies about his score and falsely claims to have won tournaments he didn’t win – he vehemently denies all – what cannot be in doubt is his passion for the game. He played an estimated 261 rounds of golf during his first presidency, according to The Washington Post, spending the equivalent of nearly nine months of his four-year term on the course.

The sport has become entwined in his political life. Finnish president Alexander Stubb spent several hours playing with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and came away with a bumper economic deal, including the lucrative sale of icebreaker ships to the US. Golf might be the diplomatic channel through which Trump is most susceptible to persuasion.

So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised by reports this week that Keir Starmer is trying to leverage the game for British gain. Ever since buying Turnberry in 2014, Trump has been desperate for The Open Championship to return to the Scottish course, where it has been staged four times over the past 50 years but not since 2009. Such is the US president’s love of golf that the UK government believes holding the prestigious tournament on Trump property could help smooth any wrinkles in talks over an economic deal in the coming months.

Turnberry sits on a stunning slice of rugged Ayrshire coastline, with a championship course which dates back more than a century wrapping around the imposing white-walled hotel which looks out over the Firth of Clyde. The views from the elevated sixth tee are breathtaking and it has laid the stage for some golfing history, most famously when Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson battled for the Claret Jug in 1977, which later became the subject of a documentary titled Duel in the Sun.

When Trump bought the course he was not yet president, still just an eccentric real estate mogul, egotistical and brash but perceived as relatively harmless. The greatest concern was that he might do something vulgar like replacing Turnberry’s famous lighthouse with a statue of himself.

Instead Trump vowed to respect the history of the course and heaped praise on the R&A, which organises The Open. In response, the R&A sounded positive noises about Trump’s $200m investment in the historic site and hinted that Turnberry was overdue the right to host.

Sport has long been wielded as a tool of soft power in politics, stretching back to the dawn of the Olympic Games when Greece showed off its sporting prowess in the face of neighbouring countries. Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympics to promote Germany’s image and hide Nazi horrors, while Vladimir Putin used the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi as cover to invade Crimea during his own Games.

Trump has already been gifted two of sport’s greatest jewels to buff his fragile ego during his second term. The 2026 World Cup will be shared with old friends Mexico and Canada, although the majority of matches – including the final – will be played in the United States. The 2028 LA Olympics follows two years later, and Trump will no doubt hijack both events for his own ends.

But The Open offers something different, something more subtle than a grand show of global power. Golf’s long history and tradition gives Trump a veneer of respectability that can’t be found in the casinos of Atlantic City, and there is no greater tradition than The Open, first played in 1860. The clue is in the name R&A – Royal and Ancient – and it is much the same reason Trump likes rubbing shoulders with the Royal Family.

Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr run the money-losing SLC Turnberry which manages the course, and in return for being gifted the right to host, they have promised “the greatest Open of all time”. But the reality of staging it at Turnberry is more complicated.

The tournament is a vital money-spinner for the R&A and in recent years it has sold a quarter of a million tickets over The Open week. That number of spectators would make Turnberry creak, not just in its on-course infrastructure but due to the lack of suitable transport links and accommodation in the local area. The last time The Open was held there it received less than half the fans the R&A would expect now.

The other problem is Trump himself. Last month red paint was daubed across the Turnberry Hotel’s white walls by pro-Palestinian protesters, one of many protests to have taken place on the property during his presidency. Trump’s presence would loom large over the event and golf would no doubt be lost in the shadows.

The previous R&A chief executive, Martin Slumbers, said in the wake of the 2021 attack on the US Capitol that The Open would not return to Turnberry “until we are convinced the focus will be on the Championship, the players and the course itself, and we do not believe that is achievable in the current circumstances”. But his successor Mark Darbon has sounded more positive notes, saying he “would love” to see The Open back there one day. After enquiries from the UK government, the R&A is now conducting a feasibility study into whether Turnberry could play host to The Open in 2028.

Ultimately it is the R&A’s decision, and money may talk louder than politics. The government insists it is not trying to twist arms here, but in its efforts to woo Trump it has a genuine ace card in The Open, a prize that touches the president personally, and few leaders around the world can say that. Meanwhile Trump will continue to drop not-so-subtle hints, pulling at the willing lever that is the UK prime minister. This is one round of golf he would dearly love to fix.