Australians woke up on a Sunday morning in 2018 to extraordinary vision plastered across their television screens and mobile phones: Cameron Bancroft, the opening batsman on the Australian men’s cricket team, caught on camera using a piece of sandpaper to tamper with the ball during a Test match in Cape Town. It was one of the most brazen acts of cheating ever broadcast.

This week, the Australian team returns to South Africa for their first Test series in the country since that scandal, which remains one of Australian sport's darkest moments.

Today, senior sports reporter Chris Barrett and chief cricket writer Daniel Brettig, recording from South Africa, on the so-called “arms race” of ball tampering that proceeded the 2018 Test, and how South Africans might respond when the captain from the 2018 team walks out onto the ground on Friday.

The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify,

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Anthony Albanese is back from the United Nations in New York to a slump in his approval rating and more economic pain.

On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank raised interest rates to a 15-year-high due to continued inflation pressure. So what's driving inflation? How much is government spending contributing to this issue?

Also this week, the Greens elected a new leader. NSW senator David Shoebridge is far more confrontational than former leader Larissa Waters and comes from the party's hard-left faction.

His election may signal a shift in strategy from the party, which wants to replicate the success of left-wing figures such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal hosts today's conversation with senior economics correspondent Matt Wade and federal political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos.

Further reading

• To avoid another rate rise, things might have to get worse
• The Greens need to let the sunshine in or risk stagnation

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If you live in a certain part of Australia, you have probably noticed them – big moths flying around, clinging to glass doors and gathering around lights in massive numbers.

But for all the freak-outs across the east coast, naturalists are rejoicing.

Today, national environment and climate editor Nick O’Malley talks about the return of the bogong moth after a near-total population collapse, and why they’re so important for our landscape.

Background reading:

• After a catastrophic decline bogong moths are back, and naturalists are celebrating

The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your podcasts.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Interest rate hikes are stressing Australian mortgage holders across the country.

But are higher rates the only way to get inflation down? Or are there alternatives to the Reserve Bank’s go-to, blunt-force measure?

Today, senior economics writer Matt Wade, on the potential – and challenges – of four alternatives to help keep inflation in check, newly floated by an Australian think tank.

The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your podcasts.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the competing leaders of the world's two biggest economies gather for a summit, there's usually a lot to tussle over – military build-up, trade, critical minerals or AI. But that's not what happened when Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met last week.

Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher discusses the moments that could signal a startling break with decades of American policy.

Background reading:

• How Trump’s grovelling emboldens China and imperils the Asia Pacific

The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your podcasts.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

According to new analysis, screen time could damage children more than being born into poverty. The findings from the University of Calgary say higher doses of screen exposure are associated with lower overall academic achievement, poorer language development and emotional and peer problems.

So what’s it actually like to be a 17-year-old on social media? What material are you fed – and how quickly?

Crime and justice reporter Amber Schultz found out after she created new accounts posing first as a teenage boy, and then as a girl.

Today, Schultz talks about her descent into the algorithm and what surprised her.

Further reading:

• Posing as a 17-year-old girl online, I expected body image content. I got gender division
• I posed as a 17-year-old boy on social media. It took 13 minutes to be shown the manosphere

The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your podcasts.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s been big news from the UK overnight, with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, launching legal action against police over his arrest in relation to the Epstein files.

Not since the 1649 trial of King Charles I has a British royal mounted a legal challenge of this magnitude, according to the UK Telegraph, which broke the bombshell story.

Today’s guest is culture editor-at-large and our local royal expert, Michael Idato.

Further reading:

• Andrew takes police to court over Epstein files arrest
  
  
  

The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your podcasts.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While the rest of us have been dreaming of the promise of AI to cure diseases, and fretting about the threat of robots overtaking humanity, a growing number of people have started literally worshipping AI.
At online churches, and in front of an AI deity, people around the world are asking this technology for advice, seeking guidance to life’s most difficult problems.

Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher discusses what could happen if such worshipping becomes mainstream, and why the leaders of one of the world’s most powerful AI companies tried to enlist the Pope to take AI consciousness seriously.

Further reading:

• Plenty of people believe that AI can be God. Just not the Pope

The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify,

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.