The UK Government will reveal the next "very cautious" phase of its plan to deal with the fallout from coronavirus, Brazil registers 10,222 new cases in one day, and Donald Trump says he isn't worried about a spread of the virus in the White House after a Mike Pence aide tests positive.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly says it is too far in the future to speculate on when life will get close to normal in Australia as the country looks to lift restrictions in stages.

As lockdown begins to ease the lesson is to take it gently and recognise we may have entered a new epoch of rolling pandemics, writes Virginia Trioli.

Theatres and art galleries around the country are on high alert after the NSW Government decision to withhold an annual grant from Australia's biggest multi-arts venue, Carriageworks, forcing it to appoint administrators.

Some aged care homes will allow staggered visits over the Mother's Day weekend to abide by social distancing requirements.

The Australian economy may be tanking due to the coronavirus pandemic, but for businesses promoting self-sufficiency, the sun is still shining.

Tasmania's spaghetti soup of road shoulders, painted green lanes, shared-use paths and recreational tracks frustrates cyclists on a daily basis, but with usage on the rise advocates are hoping change is on the way.

Darwin's famous Parap Markets reopen today and it is only six more sleeps until Territorians can order a pint at the pub.

Queen Elizabeth has led tributes to veterans of World War Two, recalling the "never give up, never despair" message of Victory in Europe Day 75 years ago, as coronavirus dampened VE Day commemorations.

A 92-year-old resident of Newmarch House aged care home in western Sydney dies after contracting coronavirus, as NSW reaches a record high in testing rates.

Roy Horn, one half of the longtime Las Vegas illusionist duo Siegfried & Roy, has died at the age of 75 after suffering complications from coronavirus.

No new COVID-19 cases were recorded as the State Government announced a multi-million-dollar medical research fund to tackle the disease.

With any overseas adventures off the table for a while, Australians will be dreaming of escaping the shutdown and heading out for a holiday. Here's how every state and territory plans to get people travelling again.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian will announce the plan to start relaxing lock down restrictions from Friday, but local and regional travel is not yet back on the menu.

A remote community in Western Australia equips students for the future through an independent teaching program at home, and by sending senior students to a boarding school 1,500km away for vocational training.

Katherine Comparti says "everything you could imagine" went through her mind when she became lost in thick jungle during a holiday to the remote island of Christmas Island off the West Australian coast.

A decision more than two decades ago to stop births at the hospital on Christmas Island has had significant financial and social effects on locals in the years since.

Environmental groups have called for greater transparency about the potential health impacts of Australia's largest onshore liquified natural gas plant as residents say their complaints are ignored.

It is a piece of Australian history never heard how a waitress, a TV repair man and a young Croatian migrant in a remote WA town helped the US win the space race by sending man to the Moon half a century ago.

While the cash economy is dwindling, small businesses still need somewhere to deposit their coins but where do you take them when your local bank branch closes?

Six Malaysian men visit Perth seeking $1.5 million they lost when an alleged Ponzi property scheme masterminded by WA businesswoman Veronica Macpherson collapsed three years ago.

Polluting heavy metals may be leaking into an outback river system in WA's Pilbara and the problem has been made worse by the massive deluge that accompanied Tropical Cyclone Veronica in March.

Scientist Richard Connor has discovered that Monkey Mia's dolphins have the most complex non-human society on the planet.

A tiny rainbow-hued lizard which all but disappeared from the wild 10 years ago has been given the run of a brand new home, its very own tropical island off the WA coast, to bring its population back from the brink.

Kimberly De Pledge is found guilty of dangerous driving after his loaded cattle truck slammed into a caravan, killing two people on a remote WA highway.

Cancer patients in the remote Pilbara will soon be trialling chemotherapy via video link, saving them a 1,500-kilometre trip for life-saving treatment.

Christmas Island tourists and locals can no longer call for a cab with its sole taxi operator, Chris Carr, saying he was forced to shut shop at the end of June because of a "logistical nightmare".

A woman is suing Newcrest Mining after she was attacked by dingoes and suffered "horrific" scarring and nightmares while at work at a remote WA mine site.

A well-known WA pastoralist is jailed for almost four years for causing a crash on a remote Pilbara highway that claimed the lives of a couple and left their two children orphaned.

Are entrepreneurs the great innovators we’re told they are? What if the ideal of the lone genius is simply a myth? Innovation is a buzz term that’s become so over-used as to be almost meaningless. It’s time to be more innovative in our understanding of innovation.

Many Western governments continue to struggle with free speech. It’s not that they’re necessarily against it, it’s just that they don’t know how to effectively regulate out the offensive stuff.

The dystopian best-seller 1984 was published exactly seventy years ago. Its influence has been profound. But does it really speak to today’s politico-cultural environment?

When the hype around 3D printing was at its peak, it was confidently predicted that every household would soon have a personal printer. That’s not the way it turned out. But 3D printing is coming back and it’s slowly making its way toward the verdant “plateau of productivity”.

To understand new technology we need to comprehend the social, cultural and economic influences of the developers. Also, making direct comparisons between the human mind and Artificial Intelligence is counterproductive.

Future Tense a look at how we might be revealing more private details online than we think and the value in the information that’s being mined - and you’ll hear how you could protect your data by actually revealing more than you already are.

Controlled Environmental Agriculture promises to be cleaner and greener. It’s focussed on technology and it’s essentially about bringing food production closer to the point of consumption. We examine the potential and the pitfalls.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, has seen better days. Historian and military analyst, Andrew Bacevich, once described it as an organisation that privileges “nostalgia over self-awareness”. But most critics, Bacevich included, want NATO refocused and retooled. So what needs to change in order to restore the alliance as an effective military force? What role should the United States play in such a reshaping? And how can NATO be strengthened without increasing tensions with Russia?

In this episode, we look ahead to the news and broader media environment in 2020 and pressing issues for local content in a globalised world. We also hear about the need to “decomputerise” in order to decarbonise. 

The dystopian best-seller 1984 was published exactly seventy years ago. Its influence has been profound. But does it really speak to today’s politico-cultural environment?

It’s a scarce resource and likely to get even more so. But is it causing an increase in political friction? The answer is yes… and no.

Political campaigning is fast changing in the digital era.  Elections are now being contested with data and algorithms.  Parties see it as a great opportunity. Others see it as a threat to democracy.  And the changes are now playing out in real time in the United States. Barack Obama was often referred to as the first Internet president, but Donald Trump is fast becoming the king of social media. 

Blockchain is a much-hyped technology that underpins the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.  Enthusiasts believe its potential to transform other areas of business is huge. But what if Blockchain is really just a solution in search of a problem? Also in this episode: are businesses becoming political advocates? And why are we seeing a return from algorithmic to human curation?

There’s arguably never been a more important time for public broadcasting. Amid the rise of disinformation, low public trust and diminishing newsrooms, independent journalism has a vital role to play in informing democracy and providing a check on power. But right across the world, public broadcasting is under attack as budgets are being stripped back. In this episode, we question why?

MIT research scientist, Andrew McAfee, argues we need to rethink our assumptions about capitalism and the environment.   Economic growth, he says, has been gradually decoupling from resource consumption. So, if capitalism survives this current crisis, we may need to adapt our understanding of the way it all works.  We also hear from Annmaree O’Keeffe, from the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program, about the value of Australia’s international public broadcasting effort now that the Pacific is once again an Australian geopolitical focus.

The Himalayas are sometime called the earth’s “third pole”. They’re a vital source of water for a large chunk of the world’s population. But the local, national and international systems put in place to protect and manage human development in this vital ecosystem are failing. In this episode, Matt Smith travels to the Himalayas for Future Tense to gauge the size of the problem and possible solutions for safeguarding its future.