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Two recent stories in Australian media shocked me to my core. Two 12-year-olds in different states took their own lives after being bullied at school. 

Many news programmes, speeches, or press articles refer to at least one poll. When designed and conducted well, polls are an excellent means of measuring public opinion on a particular topic. Unfortunately, not all surveys are well compiled, relevant, representative, or honest.

I am standing outside a cavernous hall, holding a clear plastic bag that contains several pens and pencils. My head is pounding; I’m wide-eyed with fear; my heart is about to burst out of my chest; and I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The reason? I’ve forgotten to study for an exam that’s about to begin!

Most of us want to trust. We assume that others possess our own level of honesty and goodwill. Sadly, this is neither a sensible nor a safe attitude anymore.

He was born in 1935 in Narvik, Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle, at a time when the clouds of war were gathering. In 1940, in the space of a few months, Narvik was controlled by Germany, conquered by the Allies, and then left to the Germans.

Digital detox has become a real need for those who’ve realized that while the hyperconnectivity of the digital age promised unlimited access to information and entertainment—without sacrificing efficiency—many are now discovering that constant connectivity comes at the cost of inner peace. But is it still possible to reclaim simplicity in a world that seems unable to breathe without the internet?

The moment we distort a person’s intention, statement, gesture or action for our own personal gain we are using, consciously or unconsciously, the straw man argument − a frequent fallacy.

To nothing else is the name of God so often linked in our human discourse as to suffering and deliverance. This locus is a huge and complicated intersection of our existence.

God uses the traits we dislike as well as our weaknesses to create something great, beyond our abilities and imagination. This is the message that pervades the pages of "The Woman with the Book", the biography of the missionary Gladys Aylward.

Close your eyes, cover your ears, and imagine that all your life you will need to get by without being able to see or hear much. Perhaps merely imagining this makes you shiver, and in no way can you associate such a life with joy, independence, or travel. Tony Giles is one of those people who has managed to successfully remove all these...

One of the reasons quoted most often by those who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is the hypothesis that vaccines cause infertility.

John the Baptist's call—"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near"—succeeded in bringing Jews "from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan" to the desert where the prophet preached, to confess their sins and be baptised. Two thousand years later, the exhortation to "repent" is buried under a mountain of pejorative associations.

Dr Denise Dunzweiller, of Walla Walla University in the north-west of the United States, has emerged as a passionate advocate of inclusive education, a technical term for education systems in which children with disabilities are educated alongside other children in mainstream schools, rather than in special classes.

Our planet may be fittingly compared to the 1994 film, Speed: A bomb is planted on a bus and rigged to explode when the bus slows to less than 80 kilometres per hour. The bus barrels through Los Angeles, hitting obstacles and endangering the lives of passengers and pedestrians until a solution is found.

The mortality rate of COVID-19 remains high, but not as high as its transmission rate, and this good news needs nuances and explanations.