The Australian Women's Weekly April 2018

I have a friend who is known for her extroverted personality. She’s the kind of person you marvel at as she enthrals a table of 30 people with her latest story, complete with theatrical embellishment. Standing at a petite 5ft, 5in, she’s not afraid to climb onto a nearby chair for greater effect. She has run her own business, worked in Paris, London and New York and never misses an opportunity to grab a stray microphone and regale a room full of strangers with a song (despite lacking any discernible musical talent!). So, when on a recent interstate flight together she went missing for 20 minutes I assumed she was off making friends. The truth is she was in the toilet cubicle hyperventilating as she ran cold water over her…

TIME TO TAKE A STAND I picked up my partner’s copy of your magazine from the coffee table on a lazy Saturday and came across the article Sticks and stones and mobile phones (AWW, March). As a childless man undergoing IVF with my partner, this article broke my heart. To think, we are trying so hard to bring a child into the world and as a community we are losing our children to soul-crushing peer bullying. We need to stand up to this before more lives are affected. Thanks to The Australian Women’s Weekly for helping expose the devastation that social media and technology in general is aiding and abetting. We need to teach our children kindness, understanding and appreciation of diversity. Zero tolerance of bullying is the only way…

SHE SHOWED WOMEN the sky is the limit when she became the first female pilot to cross the Atlantic solo in 1932, but Amelia Earhart’s legacy has been eclipsed by her mysterious disappearance in 1937. Now a new study claims to have finally settled the matter. An American professor says he has established with 99 per cent certainty that bones found on the Pacific Island of Nikumaroro in 1940 were Amelia’s. The bones and a bottle of the herbal liqueur Benedictine were sent to Fiji for analysis, but the researcher declared the bones belonged to a male and they were subsequently lost. Now, academics using a computer program which estimates sex and ancestry from skeletal measurements, say the bones are indeed Amelia’s. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? New Zealand’s favourite gladiator…

BANISH THE BIG C Australia is likely to become the first country in the world to eradicate cervical cancer thanks to the success of our national school-based vaccination program. A NEW HOME These shy Albatross chicks feel right at home in their new mudbrick nests on Albatross Island in Bass Strait. Scientists hope their new homes will improve breeding success and survival rates for this vulnerable species. QUEEN GOES GREEN The Queen is keen to turn the palace green. She has banned plastic straws and bottles on all royal estates. Internal caterers will now only be able to use china, and paper goods must be recyclable.…

They’ve been dubbed “the fab four” – a nickname coined in the ’60s for The Beatles, the greatest pop phenomenon and most potent influencer of youth culture in the 20th century. More than 50 years later Wills, Kate, Harry and his soon-to-be bride Meghan Markle are driving a youth movement of their own with their smart combination of accessibility – not a quality the royal family is known for – and targeted charity initiatives hand-picked to represent their individual interests. They make a powerful team and as they proved last month at their Royal Foundation Forum, a new annual event to showcase the work of the philanthropic venture set up by brothers William and Harry in 2011, they’re engaging and fun, too. When asked about the difficulties of working with…

1 This adorable red panda cub is the latest success story from Perth Zoo’s breeding program. 2 Chris Hemsworth melted hearts when he went surfing with daughter India. 3 Ninety-nine-year-old George Corones has smashed the 50m freestyle world record in his age category. 4 Bindi Irwin is among 17 history-making women to be immortalised in plastic by the makers of Barbie. She tweeted that she was “honoured”. 5 The NSW town of Hay marked Mardi Gras for the first time with a parade of 20 floats down the main drag of the town of just 2000 people.…