What obligation does the Australian government have to help retrieve its citizens from debilitating circumstances, overseas?

This question will be at the heart of a High Court case on Monday, which will help decide the fate of 12 Australian women, and their 22 children, who’ve been languishing in refugee camps in Northern Syria for five years.

To those who have opposed bringing them home, the women are a threat - the family members of slain or defeated Islamic State fighters who may believe in dangerous ideologies.

But to those who say they should be repatriated, they are victims of war.

Today, associate editor and special writer Deborah Snow on what distinguishes these women from those before them, who were successfully brought home to Australia.

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Over the next week, while you and I are sleeping, members of the Murdoch family will be duking it out in an American courtroom over control of one of the most powerful media empires on the planet.

It’s the latest escalation in a civil war that has been building within the family for years.

Today, media writer Calum Jaspan, on why Rupert Murdoch has pitted one of his children, Lachlan, against three of his other kids. And how the outcome of this case will impact all of us.

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Nine weeks after Republican candidate Donald J Trump was almost killed at a rally in Pennsylvania, the FBI is investigating another attempt on his life.

Trump was on his golf course in Florida on Sunday afternoon when Secret Service officers spotted a man with an AK-47 hiding in the bushes a few hundred metres away.

In the aftermath, Vice President Kamala Harris said: “Violence has no place in America”. Her running mate, Tim Walz, declared: “It’s not who we are as a nation”.

But, isn’t it?

Today, North America correspondent Farrah Tomazin on how, when shocking forms of violence are so commonplace, another attempted assassination almost feels normal. And why that't not OK.

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