Editor

The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow corridor between Iran and Oman through which roughly one-fifth of the world's seaborne oil trade ordinarily passes, has gone almost quiet.

Jared Kushner arrived in Israel this week carrying something concrete: confirmation from the Board of Peace that Hamas had agreed to the roadmap's next phases, following rare direct talks. The government he flew to meet had still not formally endorsed the plan he was there to advance.

Ukraine unleashed hundreds of drones across Russian territory in what Ukrainian military officials described as the largest coordinated drone strike of 2026, killing at least six people. By nightfall, the exchange had claimed four more lives, civilians at a Kyiv market, struck by a Russian missile.

Bangladesh needed 57 runs and got them in 14.2 overs. They chased down the target in 14.2 overs, winning by nine wickets at Marrara Oval in Darwin on 16 August.

Reddit's share price, down 11 per cent in a week, made the zero-click era impossible to ignore. Two in three Google searches now end without a visit to the open web.

CMY Cubes, a Sydney startup that makes translucent colour-mixing cubes, polyhedrons and optical puzzles grounded in real colour science, has been selected for the 2026 K-Startup Grand Challenge, South Korea's flagship government accelerator run by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

Every small business owner in Australia who has ever sent a Sunday-night text to a staff member now operates under a different legal reality.

The average interest rate on an outstanding variable-rate smaller loan to a small or medium business sits around 6.0 per cent, against roughly 5.0 per cent for larger business loans and 4.0 per cent for loans to large companies. Most of that gap is about security, not size.

Telstra set its full-year cash dividend at 21 cents per share, up 10.5 per cent on the prior year, with a final payment of 10.5 cents on 13 August. The company also announced a new on-market buyback of up to $1 billion, following the $1.25 billion programme it completed in June.

Bangladesh closed day two at 351 for 6 in Darwin, 153 ahead, after Tanzid Hasan became just the second Asian batter to score a century in a maiden Test innings in Australia.

The margin between a Federal Reserve rate hike and a hold just got a lot thinner. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in July after falling 0.4 percent in June, pulling the annual rate

Meta's average price per ad rose 12 per cent year on year while impressions grew 14 per cent. What that actually does to a small advertiser's budget is a different calculation.