Other price changes will apply to ordinary large letters up to 125g, increasing from $3.00 to $3.40, and ordinary large letters between 125 and 250 grams will rise from $4.50 to $5.10.

Communications minister Anika Wells still has an opportunity to reject the change, which was unopposed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
 
Unless rejected, the increased prices will start from 17 July.

ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey said the decision was based on evidence Australia Post’s letter operations were bringing in less revenue than the money it was costing to run it.

“Our final decision recommends Australia Post examine ways to alleviate affordability issues for businesses, including those subject to requirements to send physical mail,” Brakey said.

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Story 1: Nearly one in five young adults believe tracking a partner's location is to be expected in a relationship, new research has found.

The eSafety Commission study has linked location-sharing apps with an increased risk of coercive control.

Tech-based coercive control is defined as a behaviour pattern that uses digital technology to control, manipulate and create fear in a current or former relationship.

Story 2: R&B singer Casandra Ventura, known by the stage name Cassie, has spent a second day testifying about the abuse and violence she said she suffered at the hands of her long-term partner.

She told a New York court how he would allegedly threaten to release sex tapes to humiliate her and ruin her career.

She also gave more evidence about the days-long, drug-fuelled orgies known as "freak-offs" that she said she felt pressured to partake in.

Story 3: US President Donald Trump has met face-to-face with Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

It's the first meeting between US and Syrian leaders in 25 years.

The meeting followed a surprise announcement by Mr Trump that the US would lift sanctions on Syria.

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On a pristine Australian island, the seabirds have become so full of plastic they crackle and crunch.

For about 18 years, Dr Jen Lavers has been travelling to Lord Howe Island to study the mutton birds, and every time finds more and more plastic inside them.

She says what is happening to the mutton birds is happening everywhere. Plastics and microplastics are being found in everything, including humans, but the migratory shearwater is a ‘sentinel species’ for a bigger problem.

“These birds have a very important story to tell, and what they are telling us is that their populations are in decline, that the amount of plastic they’re consuming is going up and up,” she said.

“The birds are telling us we need to do more.”

Dr Lavers has been seeking to raise the plight of the mutton bird, saying it is a canary in the coal mine for the world’s larger plastic problem.

And so, as Australian politicians campaigned in a federal election, she enlisted the help of long-time friend and Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, asking him to join her and see for himself the state of the mutton birds on Lord Howe Island.

Arriving to the island for the first time, Whish-Wilson said the mountainous landscape rising out of the fog was like something from Gilligan’s Island.

“It’s not really the kind of place you come to be shocked, and walk away feeling a little bit traumatised.”

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Russia has been launching near-daily drone and missile attacks against Ukraine in recent months, but their intensity has increased in recent weeks as talks to end the war yielded few results.

US President Donald Trump has been attempting to broker a peace between the two sides, but negotiations have so far yielded little progress, though prisoner exchanges have been agreed.

Strikes in Kyiv overnight on Monday lit up the night sky with fires in residential areas and damaged the entrance to a metro station bomb shelter.

At least 34 people including four children were wounded in the attacks on Kyiv, the emergencies service said.

From midnight until almost dawn, the city shook with explosions and rattling machine gun fire from anti-aircraft units aiming at the drones.

Ukraine's air force said it had downed 339 of 352 drones and 15 of 16 missiles launched by Russia in the attack on four Ukrainian regions.

Rescue workers pulled bodies from the rubble of an apartment block in Kyiv's busy Shevchenkivskyi district, less than a kilometre from the US embassy.

At least nine people died in the district, the interior ministry said.

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