MELBOURNE, AU (August 19, 2025) — Today, Dominic Fike announces his largest-ever Australian run of headline shows and festival dates, returning to the country for the first time in nearly two years.
An Artist Presale commences Wednesday, August 20 at 9am, running until Friday, August 22 at 9am (local).
Mastercard cardholders have special access to presale tickets in Australia. Mastercard Presale starts Wednesday, August 20 at 9am (local), running until Friday, August 22 at 9am (local). Check out priceless.com/music for details.
The Live Nation Presale starts Thursday, August 21, 9am (local) until Friday, August 22, 9am (local) or until allocation is exhausted. To purchase presale tickets, sign up now at livenation.com.au/register
Spotify fans can access presale tickets beginning Thursday, August 21 at 12pm until Friday, August 22 at 9am (local).
Tickets go on sale on Friday, August 22 at 10am (local).
For more information and links to purchase tickets, visit https://www.dominicfike.com/tour and livenation.com.au
Presented by triple j – Fike kicks off the tour with a solo headline date in Sydney at The Horden Pavilion, and also headlines in Melbourne at Sidney Myer Music Bowl as well as Brisbane at Riverstage. In between these shows, he will perform sets at different iterations of the iconic Spilt Milk Festival across the country. See below for a full list of upcoming dates.
These shows follow on the heels of recent musical releases. Last Friday, Dominic announced his upcoming Rocket Mixtape and unveiled three singles: “All Hands On Deck”, “Aftermath” and “Smile.”
Fusing his signature sonic palette, these songs are warm and confessional, with lyrics that capture where he is right now. Watch the video for “All Hands On Deck,” which features footage from his Lollapalooza set (HERE).
Photo Credit – Clayborne Bujorian
DOMINIC FIKE AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2025 Presented by triple j
THE HORDERN PAVILION, SYDNEY *HEADLINE SHOW* WEDNESDAY 3 DECEMBER
SPILT MILK FESTIVAL, BALLARAT SATURDAY 6 DECEMBER
SPILT MILK FESTIVAL, PERTH SUNDAY 7 DECEMBER
SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL, MELBOURNE *HEADLINE SHOW* TUESDAY 9 DECEMBER
RIVERSTAGE, BRISBANE *HEADLINE SHOW* FRIDAY 12 DECEMBER
SPILT MILK FESTIVAL, CANBERRA SATURDAY 13 DECEMBER
SPILT MILK FESTIVAL, GOLD COAST SUNDAY 14 DECEMBER
The current phase of the war in Ukraine continues unabated into its fourth year, with grinding offences and strikes against civilian infrastructure increasingly the norm.
It is, for Ukraine, arguably the most vulnerable that it has been since 2022.
These developments have prompted calls among world leaders to end the conflict. On the surface, United States President Donald Trump’s meetings with both the Ukrainian and Russian leaders suggests a balanced approach. In reality, however, Trump’s actions primarily benefit Russia.
The Alaska summit
After the recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Trump declared that their summit had been “very useful.” When asked how he would rate the meeting on a scale of one to 10, the president declared the meeting “was a 10 in the sense we got along great.”
While Trump and Putin may have hit it off, the issue with such an assessment is that it failed to address the underlying reason for the meeting: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In this regard, the meeting was far more useful for Putin and Russia than Ukraine and its allies.
Putin managed to stoke tensions, and potentially divisions, among Ukraine’s principal supporters by not including Ukraine in the summit. No other countries participated in the summit.
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15, 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
This format caused considerable consternation in Ukraine, where it was feared that Trump would make an agreement without Ukrainian consent, as well as in Europe, where Russian aggression and revisionism is a more direct threat.
Prior to Trump assuming power for a second time in 2025, Ukraine benefited from a largely united front among NATO and the European Union. This unity has declined over the last several months, and the Alaska summit reinforced this decline to Russia’s benefit.
Ceasefire demand evaporated
Putin and his negotiators managed to obtain a major concession from Trump at the summit as Trump renounced his own recent calls for a ceasefire.
For Ukraine and its allies, achieving a ceasefire was a fundamental requirement for any peace negotiations in 2025. This precondition has become more significant as Russia ramps up its attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians.
Lastly, the very nature of the Alaska meeting itself helped legitimize Russia in international opinion.
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has courted international opinion. It’s been more successful than most people in Europe and North America realize as significant portions of Asia, Africa and Latin America remain ambivalent or even support Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Nonetheless, Russia was always restrained by the condemnation it’s received from multiple international organizations, most notably the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
Trump welcoming Putin on American soil, when the Russian leader is under what amounts to a de facto travel ban by the International Criminal Court, undermines these institutions’ condemnations.
Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington
The benefits that Putin obtained from Trump in Alaska demanded an immediate response by Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promptly arranged a White House meeting with Trump in the aftermath of the Alaskan summit. And he didn’t arrive alone: European leaders accompanied him to show solidarity with Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted the European leaders weren’t on hand to prevent Trump from bullying Zelenskyy, as occurred during their last Oval Office meeting.
Read more:
What the U.S. ceasefire proposal means for Ukraine, Russia, Europe – and Donald Trump
That’s probably only partly true. Several European leaders — ranging from the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to French President Emmanuel Macron — almost assuredly accompanied Zelenskyy to prevent Trump from forcing the Ukrainian leader into concessions that are detrimental to their interests as well.
Trump’s pre-meeting social media post undoubtedly heightened their concerns. In the post, he placed the burden of peace on Zelenskyy and argued that Ukraine must accept the loss of Crimea and never accede to NATO.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as France’s President Emmanuel Macron, left, and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, right, listen during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, foreground left, and European leaders in the East Room of the White House on Aug. 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Carefully orchestrated
Ukrainian officials sought to carefully orchestrate Zelenskyy’s one-on-one Oval Office meeting with Trump. Zelenskyy wore a suit and delivered a letter from the Ukrainian first lady to Melania Trump.
These and other efforts aimed to stroke Trump’s ego, and the president’s response — in particular agreeing with a reporter that Zelenskyy “look(ed) fabulous” in a suit — suggests it was a success. The same American reporter criticized Zelenskyy for failing to don a suit during his ill-fated February White House visit.
Notably, Trump did not rule out a role for American soldiers in helping to maintain peace in Ukraine during the meeting. Outside observers believe an American presence in Ukraine to maintain any eventual peace is a fundamental requirement for its success.
Unfortunately, while Trump did not immediately oppose the idea, he did not make any firm commitment either. Trump’s propensity to reverse course on statements that he makes in the moment, furthermore, undermines any firm takeaways from the meeting.
Hope versus reality
Any direct American involvement in Ukraine would also undermine his support among his political base. One of Trump’s key campaign promises was not to involve the U.S. in “endless foreign wars.”
A move by Trump to deploy American soldiers to Ukraine would be politically tenuous, as fractures are already emerging among his political base over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Read more:
Trump’s changing stance on Epstein files is testing the loyalty of his Maga base
Trump’s cordial meetings with Zelenskyy and European leaders may fuel hope among Ukraine’s supporters in the coming days. But any optimism should be tempered by the damage done by Trump’s meeting with Putin. Trump reportedly interrupted the meetings in Washington to call Putin.
Trump’s unwillingness to make firm commitments at the meetings with Zelenskyy and European leaders means that Russia, on the balance, has succeeded in advancing its interests to the detriment of Ukraine and the prospects for a long-term, sustainable peace.
The pundits were certainly split on the decision – and there was some confusion over the actual wording of the law, too.
Ex-Premier League forward Chris Sutton said on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club it was a “scandal” and “really, really harsh”.
“That’s not a penalty,” he said. “That’s absolutely not a penalty. Who knows what the directive is, but his arm is down by his side.
“We’ll hear David Moyes after – but that’s a scandal, I think. That’s never a penalty.”
Former Everton defender Conor Coady, now at Wrexham, added: “I don’t like it. I don’t like the rule – I don’t know what is and isn’t handball these days.”
But Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher were both in agreement on Sky Sports that the referee got it right.
“The guilt was written all over Tarkowski’s face. He knows it is a penalty,” said Neville.
“Tarkowski moved his arm towards the ball. He leans into it and he blocks it. It is a penalty, and he knows what he has done.
“He knows it is a penalty. He knows that he has made a mistake.”
Drake wraps one of his fastest climbs to No. 1 on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart as “What Did I Miss?” tops the ranking dated Aug. 23, its sixth week on the list. The single rises a spot after a 13% surge in plays on U.S. panel-contributing rhythmic radio stations in the tracking week of Aug. 8-14, according to Luminate.
Drake extends his record Rhythmic Airplay No. 1 count to 42. It’s his third of 2025, following two-week champ “Nokia” in May and the one-week leader “Somebody Loves Me,” with PARTYNEXTDOOR in July.
The new chart-topper pads Drake’s substantial lead over all other acts for the most No. 1s on Rhythmic Airplay since the chart launched in October 1992. Here’s the current leaderboard:
42, Drake 17, Rihanna 16, The Weeknd 14, Chris Brown 13, Bruno Mars 13, Lil Wayne 13, Usher
As “What Did I Miss?” arrives at the summit in its sixth chart week, it caps one of Drake’s nine quickest trips to No. 1 among those 42 champs. It matches five other songs that needed mere six-week runs to the penthouse: through his feature on Rihanna’s “Work” and his own “One Dance,” featuring WizKid and Kyla, “Nice for What,” “Way 2 Sexy,” featuring Young Thug and Future, and “Rich Baby Daddy,” featuring Sexyy Red and SZA. The superstar’s “God’s Plan” and “Toosie Slide,” meanwhile, took just five weeks each to the top. His best sprint came via “In My Feelings,” which reigned in its fourth week on the chart.
Elsewhere, “What Did I Miss?” rises 3-2 on the audience-based Rap Airplay chart, through a 10% jump in listenership, and 8-6 on the plays-based Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart (up 9%).
Meanwhile, Drake’s eyeing another hit on Rhythmic Airplay. His collaboration with Central Cee, “Which One,” advances 29-23 in its second week on the chart, courtesy of a 49% week-over-week increase in plays.
Exposure to pornography has increased since the introduction of UK rules to protect the public online, with children as young as six seeing it by accident, research by the children’s commissioner for England has found.
Dame Rachel de Souza said a survey found that more young people said they had been exposed to pornography before the age of 18 than in 2023, when the Online Safety Act became law.
More than a quarter (27%) now said they had seen porn online by 11, with some saying they were “aged six or younger” when asked about their first exposure.
The findings follow on from a similar survey carried out by the children’s commissioner in 2023, and de Souza said they showed that little had improved despite the new law and promises from ministers and tech firms.
She said: “Violent pornography is easily accessible to children, exposure is often accidental and often via the most common social media sites, and it is impacting children’s behaviours and beliefs in deeply concerning ways.
“This report must be a line in the sand. New protections introduced in July by Ofcom, part of the Online Safety Act, provide a real opportunity to make children’s safety online a non-negotiable priority for everyone: policymakers, big tech giants and smaller tech developers.”
The findings are from a nationally representative survey of 1,010 children and young people aged 16-21 carried out in May, shortly before the introduction of Ofcom’s children’s codes in July.
The rules introduced by Ofcom have introduced significant changes to make it tougher for under-18-year-olds to access porn websites. Using the same methodology and questions as the 2023 survey to ensure consistency, it found:
More young people said they had seen porn before the age of 18 in 2025 (70%) compared with 2023 (64%).
More than a quarter (27%) said they had seen porn online by 11. The average age a child first sees pornography remained 13.
More vulnerable children had seen pornography earlier. Children who received free school meals, those with a social worker, those with special educational needs and those with disabilities – both physical and mental – were more likely to have seen online porn by 11 than their peers.
Nearly half of respondents (44%) agreed with the statement “Girls may say no at first but then can be persuaded to have sex”. Further analysis showed that 54% of girls and 41% of boys who had seen porn online agreed with the statement, compared with 46% of girls and 30% of boys who had not seen porn – indicating a link between porn exposure and attitudes.
More respondents said they had seen pornography online by accident (59%) than said they had deliberately sought it out (35%). The proportion of children accidentally seeing porn was 21 points higher than in 2023 (59% v 38%).
Networking and social media sites accounted for 80% of the main sources by which children accessed porn. X was the most common source of pornography for children, outstripping dedicated porn sites.
The gap between the number of children seeing pornography on X and those seeing it on dedicated porn sites has widened (45% v 35% in 2025, compared with 41% v 37% in 2023).
Most respondents had seen depictions of acts that are illegal under existing pornography laws or will become illegal through the crime and policing bill.
More than half (58%) had seen porn depicting strangulation, 44% reported having seen depictions of sex while asleep, and 36% had seen someone not consenting to or refusing a sex act, before they turned 18.
Further analysis found low numbers of children sought out violent or extreme content, meaning it was being served up to children, not that they were actively seeking it out.
The report expresses concern that even under the new rules, children will be able to circumvent restrictions by downloading a virtual private network (VPN), which remains legal software in the UK.
The report recommends that online pornography should meet the same requirements as offline pornography; that the depiction of non-fatal strangulation should be outlawed; and that the Department for Education should provide schools with the support needed to implement the new relationships, health and sex education curriculum.
It emerged last week that the number of people in the UK visiting the most popular pornography sites had decreased sharply since enhanced age verification rules came into force. The data analytics firm Similarweb said the leading adult site Pornhub lost more than 1 million visitors in just two weeks.
Pornhub and other major adult websites introduced advanced age checks on 25 July after the Online Safety Act said sites must make it harder for under-18s to see explicit material.
Similarweb compared the daily average user figures of popular pornography sites from 1 to 9 August with the daily average figures for July. Pornhub is the UK’s most visited website for adult content and it had a 47% decrease in traffic in the country between 24 July, one day before the new rules came into place, and 8 August, according to Similarweb’s data.
A government spokesperson said: “Children have been left to grow up in a lawless online world for too long, bombarded with pornography and harmful content that can scar them for life. The Online Safety Act is changing that.
“Let’s be clear: VPNs are legal tools for adults and there are no plans to ban them. But if platforms deliberately push workarounds like VPNs to children, they face tough enforcement and heavy fines. We will not allow corporate interests to come before child safety. This is about drawing a line – no more excuses, no more loopholes. Protecting children online must come first.”
Apple launched the iPhone 16e in February, as the successor to the entire iPhone SE line. Since it’s got the same number in its name as the mainstream high-end iPhones, you might have been expecting the ‘e’ series to also get an annual release, and based on a recent rumor, that’s exactly what will happen, with the iPhone 17e expected to arrive next spring.
Today in China the upcoming device’s main specs have been leaked, so let’s dig through them. The iPhone 17e is said to have a 6.1-inch OLED screen with 60 Hz refresh rate, the same Dynamic Island design as its predecessor, a 12 MP front-facing camera with Face ID, and a 48 MP rear camera. The handset is apparently going to get a new design too.
iPhone 16e
It will be powered by the upcoming A19 chip, also expected to be inside the iPhone 17. From this we gather that the only upgrade in the iPhone 17e compared to the 16e will be the chipset and the new design, but of course Apple could tweak some other specs that haven’t been mentioned today – the battery capacity, for example. We’ll let you know when we find out more.
“It Ends With Us” star Isabela Ferrer is speaking out against Justin Baldoni amid his legal battle with Blake Lively.
In court documents filed Aug. 17 and obtained by E! News, the 24-year-old — who played a younger version of Lively’s character Lily Bloom in the 2024 Colleen Hoover adaptation — accused the director and his associates of acting “inappropriately” towards her after she received a subpoena from Lively’s counsel as part of the legal dispute.
According to Ferrer’s attorneys, the actress reached out to Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios production company to have her legal fees covered in accordance with her movie contract. However, they said Ferrer soon received a response from the company asking her to “relinquish control of her response to the Lively subpoena to Wayfarer” before being granted compensation.
“From that point forward, Baldoni has tried to manipulate, threaten, control and otherwise act inappropriately towards Ms. Ferrer,” her lawyers alleged in court documents, accusing Baldoni of filing a recent motion against Ferrer to “harass” her after she refused to agree with his team’s terms.
READ Blake Lively’s Lawyers Break Silence on Her Alleged “Face-to-Face Showdown” With Justin Baldoni
Ferrer’s lawyers alleged in their filing that Baldoni’s motion is “yet another attempt to manipulate the press, to create havoc on a young, up-and-coming and talented actress and to violate this Court’s policies on the publishing of non-party personally identifying information.”
“Ms. Ferrer has already had to resist Baldoni’s inappropriate conduct in connection with her response to the Lively Subpoena,” her attorneys stated in their filing, adding that Ferrer has received “personal threats and hateful statements” from social media users since the filing of Baldoni’s motion against her.
“Unfortunately, the Motion is just the latest in a broader pattern of conduct by Baldoni to bully Ms. Ferrer,” her attorneys argued. “While Ms. Ferrer will faithfully comply with her legal obligations under any subpoena, summons or court order, she obviously will not be intimidated or extorted by any party to otherwise participate in the proceedings.”
E! News has reached out to Baldoni and Lively’s legal teams but hasn’t received comment.
Lively is suing Baldoni for sexual harassment, accusing him of creating a hostile work environment on the set of “It Ends With Us.” While Baldoni has denied the allegations, his countersuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds was dismissed in early June after a judge determined that the filmmaker failed to prove the couple had defamed him.
Robert Meldrum stalks the stage of the Explosives Factory in St Kilda in a long coat and hat, bewildered and buffeted by a lifetime of memories, grappling with grief and attrition in a dimming and desolate landscape. He’s not suffering from any loss of faculties; he’s simply an actor inhabiting the world of Samuel Beckett.
Meldrum and his director and longtime collaborator, Richard Murphet (both in their mid-70s), are preparing to open Still, a compendium of six monologues cobbled from the Irish writer’s later works. While it speaks to universal themes of resilience and despair, it also captures the experience of any ageing actor who puts their body through the nightly rigours of stage work. As Beckett says in his 1953 novel The Unnamable, “ … you must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
“I don’t think I could in any way have done this in my 20s,” says Meldrum. “My ability to be completely still and present enables me to go into this work in a way I couldn’t before.” Murphet agrees, adding that Beckett’s “understanding of age and of maturity, the wealth of experience laid on top of you, is really deep. I sense it would be very difficult for a young person to do this.”
As a culture we tend to talk about ageing as a series of losses, a whittling away of vigour and ability, but talking to actors in the latter part of their career reveals something more complex and moving. Apart from obvious issues with mobility and strength (Meldrum jokingly mentions “walking around and going up and down stairs” as areas of difficulty), these performers feel freer and more focused than ever.
“I feel I’m performing the best I’ve ever performed,” Meldrum says. “As far as the idea of age slowing you down, it’s been a positive for me because I’ve always been a bit speedy.” Working with young actors as a lecturer at Victorian College of the Arts and now at the National Theatre, he notes the biggest challenge “is getting them to be still, not to constantly think ahead. It’s huge. Maybe it takes a lifetime?”
Evelyn Krape in Yentl, the 2024 production at Malthouse, Melbourne. Photograph: Jeff Busby
Evelyn Krape has experienced something of a career renaissance lately, wowing audiences in Kadimah Yiddish Theatre’s production of Yentl, playing an ancient mischievous spirit – an irrepressible agent of chaos scampering up ladders and jumping on beds. She also recently finished a run in Tom Gleisner and Katie Weston’s musical Bloom, carrying the emotional stakes of the show as a vibrant, colourful woman coming to the end of her life in a soulless nursing home.
The latter is a rare naturalistic, age-appropriate role for 76-year-old Krape, who has specialised in a more freewheeling and vaudevillian performance style, notably in the plays of her late husband Jack Hibberd.
“I’ve never really played my age. In Dimboola I played a nine-year-old girl. At 21, I played Granny Hills in the Hills Family Show, where I had thick knitting yarn sewn in between two stockings to give me varicose veins.”
Le Gateau Chocolat and Paul Capsis in Black Rider at the Malthouse in 2017. Photograph: Pia Johnson
At 61, actor and cabaret legend Paul Capsis is younger than Krape and Meldrum, but after the recent death of his mother he’s found himself thinking about second acts and what his might look like.
“If anything, I’m planning on being crazier and more debauched,” he jokes over the phone from Lisbon, where he’s having a break before starting rehearsals for Sydney Theatre Company’s upcoming production of The Shiralee. “Because I don’t feel any different, you know? I still think I’m 35 – and then my body goes ‘Oh hell no, bitch!’”
Capsis doesn’t necessarily place restrictions on himself as a performer these days, but he does want more agency over certain conditions. “I’ve turned down gigs because they were asking me to sing in that countertenor range, and I just don’t want to do that to my voice any more. I’m also much more interested in a director’s process. I want to know as much as I can before going in.”
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While fear – of forgetting lines or blocking, or folding under the pressures of a long run – can increase with age, so too does confidence in one’s skills. “I feel more certain about myself as a performer,” Krape says. “I’m not afraid to really go for things and if they work, they work. If they don’t, you try something else.”
All the actors Guardian spoke with mentioned wanting more time in the rehearsal room. Most commercial theatre productions have a three-week rehearsal period, “which is not enough”, says Capsis. “Not nearly enough.”
“A gift for an actor is a second or third season,” says Krape. “Because you can’t help but scratch the surface the first time. If you don’t get that time to really play, things are more token and superficial.”
Meldrum and Murphet extended their rehearsal process over an entire year. It’s a method drawn from famed European theatre companies such as Berlin’s Schaubühne or Peter Brook’s Bouffes du Nord, where rehearsal periods are ongoing and open-ended. “There was no time frame [for Still],” says Meldrum. “We just worked until it was ready.”
Of course, financial constraints mean this type of deep exploration is rare. Most actors in Australia, even at the pointy ends of their careers, work hand to mouth and can’t afford to luxuriate over roles. Retirement seems almost unthinkable. “There’s still so much I want to do. I hope not to have to retire,” says Krape. Meldrum is blunter: “I can’t afford to retire.”
Why even countenance the idea when the work is so rewarding and the contributions these actors make are so vitalising for an industry often transfixed by youth? Murphet says the work “keeps me alive, it keeps me energised. And if I wasn’t doing it, then I would slip into senility. So I can’t say that there’s anything about it that makes me feel old, because there isn’t.”
