If you were expecting Emma to be back by now, I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve got the News Editor instead.

I’m Adella, and I usually live over on the news side of TDA, so it’s been a treat spending some time on what you might call the lighter stories 🫣

Think of me as the relief teacher: the rules are the same, but the vibes are looser.

I’ve also enlisted some help from around the newsroom, including our production Queen (with incredible hair), Orla, so keep an eye out for her recommendation at the bottom!

Anyway, let’s get right into it!

“You guys cannot sit in the front row. I do not care... It’s so distracting.”
Actor Gillian Anderson said this to fans who kept turning up to her production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And while the women apologised, Anderson later clarified that they are people she has known for more than 20 years and asked the internet not to “say anything negative about them”.

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That is where Miley Cyrus' new album Bass Persuades landed on the Billboard 200 in its second week, despite debuting at No. 1. It's the biggest second-week from the top spot by a female artist in Billboard history, beating Celine Dion's Courage (No. 111) and Madonna's Madame X (No. 77).

Actress McKenna Grace has paid homage to Jennifer Lawrence while promoting the latest installment of The Hunger Games franchise. Grace, who is set to play Maysilee Donner in Sunrise on the Reaping later this year, donned the iconic “wedding dress” worn by Lawrence when she played Katniss Everdeen in Catching Fire. For those who didn’t catch it the first time around: the wiring on the dressed is shaped to represent a bird…or maybe even a mockingjay.

The Social Reckoning has landed in Australian cinemas, bringing Aaron Sorkin back to the world of Facebook 16 years after The Social Network.

It is based on the Wall Street Journal’s 2021 investigation, the Facebook Files, with Jeremy Allen White playing reporter Jeff Horwitz and Mikey Madison playing whistleblower Frances Haugen.

Ahead of the premiere, I sat down with Madison and the film’s writer and director Aaron Sorkin.

First things first: while The Social Network and The Social Reckoning were both written by Sorkin and centre on Facebook, that may be where the similarities end.

Even Mark Zuckerberg has a new face, with Jeremy Strong taking over the role from The Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg.

Sorkin said “this isn't really a sequel”, but rather “another movie about Facebook written by the same writer who wrote The Social Network.”

The Social Network focuses on Zuckerberg’s origins and rise to Facebook’s top, while The Social Reckoning shifts the focus to the people who exposed what was happening inside the company.

In 2021, the WSJ published a series of stories known collectively as the “Facebook Files”.

The investigation detailed Facebook’s knowledge of harmful content being pushed through its platforms and its impact on users.

Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, leaked tens of thousands of internal documents to investigative journalist Jeff Horwitz. The revelations led to Haugen testifying before a U.S. Senate hearing and sparked fresh scrutiny of Facebook’s approach to harmful content and its algorithms.

For the film, Sorkin took on both the writing and directing. He had previously said he would only work on a follow-up to The Social Network if he could do it alongside director David Fincher.

“When you're working with someone like Mikey Madison, with Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, it's like somebody's tossed you the keys to a Ferrari – you don't wanna put it in the wall,” Sorkin said.

This is Madison’s first major role since she won Best Actress at the 2025 Academy Awards for Anora. The 27-year-old said she “fell in love” with the script, while praising Sorkin’s films as “some of my favourite works.”

“It felt slightly unorthodox for me and I knew I wanted to do it,” she added.

The Social Reckoning is in cinemas now.

Reporting by Emily Donohoe.

Shakespeare's darkest thriller is on stage this November

If three witches told you you'd be king one day, what would you do to make it happen?

For Macbeth, the answer is murder. He and Lady Macbeth can't shake the idea, and once there's blood on their hands, things unravel fast. Bell Shakespeare's version is back at the Sydney Opera House this November, after critics loved it the first time round. The Sydney Morning Herald called it "utterly compelling".

In a sentence? It's a proper psychological thriller, and you'll be thinking about it the whole way home. Bell Shakespeare's Macbeth returns to the Sydney Opera House from 18 Nov – 6 Dec.

A few weeks ago, an independent specialty bookstore in Melbourne became the target of an online hate campaign.

It began when a right-wing social media influencer with nearly 160,000 Instagram followers posted a video inside the shop.

Within days, the store’s Google page had been flooded with one-star reviews, its owners were receiving threats and the shopfront had been vandalised.

The store’s co-owners have reported the online attacks to police and Australia’s online safety authority, but say little has been done.

Amplify is a Melbourne bookstore founded in 2020 by Marina Sano and Teo Jing Xuan that exclusively stocks books written by people of colour.

The bookstore describes itself as an inclusive space for authors and readers, with its goal to “help you read widely and be a space where diverse voices are celebrated".

Teo told TDA: "We have championed a lot of local authors and a lot of diverse authors that otherwise would not have been given the same space and the same spotlight without a place like us.”

In late August, Sano and Teo noticed a sudden wave of negative reviews on their Google page.

They traced the reviews to a video posted by right-wing content creator Drew Pavlou. In the clip, he asks Teo whether he, as a person of Greek Cypriot descent, could have his books stocked there.

Teo told TDA she did not know she was being filmed until the video was posted online, which has since attracted more than 400,000 views and thousands of comments, including from tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Some commenters accused the bookstore of “discrimination”, while others urged people to review-bomb the business. One user, however, pointed out that Melbourne already has a specialty Greek bookshop.

A week later, another creator, Hugo Lennon, also known as Auspill, came into the store with a group of men. He filmed Teo and asked whether he could have his books stocked, saying: “I’m like Middle Earth”.

Lennon is one of the organisers of March for Australia, a movement that campaigns to end mass immigration and has attracted support from white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

Amplify’s shopfront was vandalised during a March for Australia rally shortly after Lennon’s video went live.

Teo said she reported both videos and the property damage to Victoria Police.

However, the bookseller said police told her they could not have the videos removed or assist further “unless someone was physically hurt”.

Victoria Police confirmed it had responded to reports of three men harassing staff and customers at the bookstore and had issued at least one move-on direction.

The first round of false Google reviews were removed at the bookstore’s request, however, new ones have come up in their place.

Teo also pointed to messages threatening to firebomb the premises. Since it all unfolded, the store has made the decision to turn their social media accounts private, as well as hire security while they continue to deal with the fallout from the videos.

"When your safety at work is being violated, that's a really tough thing to have to deal with and to reckon with,” Teo said, calling for the Government to implement better internet safety laws.

Currently, eSafety can order abusive content that harms someone online to be removed. It can also issue warnings and fines to the person responsible. But the legal threshold for action is very high due to the potential impact on freedom of speech.

After Teo reported the videos to the social media platforms hosting them, and police, she was told to file a report with eSafety. Over a month later, she has not received a response.

Reporting by Elliot Lawry.