The Australian Women's Weekly February 2025

February is a health reset month for me. I like to focus on goals that will bring me joy and overall wellness, which this year include cooking more healthy meals (I’ve bookmarked our Grilled chicken with tomato salsa recipe on page 140), reading more books, walking more and running another marathon. I’ve loved running since I was a child and have completed marathons all around the world. Training has such a positive impact on my physical and mental health, and I’m so proud my hometown of Sydney has joined the ranks of World Marathon Majors. I’m hoping to participate in this historic race later this year. Our cover star, Queen Mary, is also a runner. Along with King Frederik, she leads Denmark’s annual Royal Run (pictured) and was spotted running…

Letter of the month The January edition was full of interesting stories, especially Birth crisis in the bush, which revealed how many rural hospitals can no longer offer birthing services. Yvette Bracefield had to make a nerve-wracking dash to a hospital an hour away, and she gave birth to daughter Beatrix standing beside the Warrego Highway. It’s amazing that her husband, Michael, was able to find a safe place to pull off the road. Thank you for sharing Yvette’s great story, and the other stories in the article. Let’s look after bush kids and their mothers better. Mount Gravatt, Qld. Fashion boundaries Hearty congratulations to Amanda Blair for her column, Always in fashion (AWW, January). I’ve worn glasses for 51 years and always chose styles that blended in so I…

Golden GLOBES Wonderful Wicked Wicked’s soaring success continued, with the film picking up a Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. On stage, director Jon M. Chu acknowledged the hundreds of craftspeople who brought Oz to life. “So deeply proud and grateful,” Ariana Grande wrote. Women we love A bump & a book Narelda Jacobs and Karina Natt will welcome two new arrivals this year: A book, If Queers Weren’t Meant to Have Kids in October, and a baby, due in March. Vale Tomiko The world’s oldest person, Tomiko Itooka, has died, aged 116. Ms Itooka, who loved bananas and a yoghurt-flavoured Japanese drink called Calpis, was born in 1908 in Osaka. Thanks, pet Brenda Blethyn, who played DCI Vera Stanhope in the hit series Vera, has closed her…

An 11-year-old boy has set a world-record for assembling a portrait of the late Queen, Elizabeth II, using 3000 Rubik’s cubes. Henil Soni created his tribute in one hour. JAPAN Top dollar tuna A bluefin tuna the size of a cow has sold at auction in Japan for US$1.3 million to the owners of a group of Michelin-starred sushi restaurants. The sale price is the second-highest on record at the prestigious Tokyo Fish Market auction. UNITED KINGDOM Dinos make tracks About 200 huge footprints, dating back over 166 million years, have been uncovered in Oxfordshire in south-east England. The footprints reveal a dinosaur highway, most likely used by a long-necked sauropod called cetiosaurus and the smaller meat-eating megalosaurus. The discovery is Britain’s largest site of dinosaur footprints. Brazil A sinful…

In February 2024, a sobering report was released by the Productivity Commission. It showed that school attendance and retention rates in high schools were in steady decline, along with a drop-off in further education. One in five students attending government schools were not completing their full 13 years of education. That figure plummets even further for students in remote regions or from low socio-economic backgrounds. Palvisha Farooq could have become one of the statistics. But thanks to The Smith Family, she and her family received support to enable her to not only go on to university but hopefully help another generation of kids achieve their own educational dreams. Her parents arrived in Australia from Pakistan when she was just six months old and in later years, Palvisha and her three…

Kath Koschel NSW Australian of the Year Regular readers of The Weekly will be familiar with Kath Koschel and her inspiring Kindness Factory, and as delighted as we are that she is the NSW Australian of the Year. “It came as a big shock to hear my name read out,” she says. “I’m very proud, but I think the most pleasing part is that kindness is being recognised – it’s being taken a little bit more seriously.” A former professional cricketer and Ironman competitor, Kath’s very active life hit some devastating roadblocks when she suffered a broken back – not one, but twice – and lost her much-loved partner, Jim Punter, a 25-yearold rugby player, to suicide. Where others might have buckled, Kath, however, found an extraordinary source of strength…