Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast

David Marr is on holiday in the outback, to see Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre in flood. He shares his birdseye view of the rare natural wonder.

Volkswagen was once the powerhouse of German industry. Now Chinese car makers are challenging its dominance, while Dieselgate still casts a shadow over the company. VW is cutting jobs, considering factory closures, and even turning one car plant towards defence production. Can the company reinvent itself before its glory days become history?
Guest: Jack Ewing, New York Times reporter and author of Faster, Higher, Farther: The inside story of the Volkswagen emissions fraud
Producer: Ali Benton

Mark Kenny reviews PM Anthony Albanese's week at the United Nations in New York, and asks whether the Australian leader should be more assertive in rebuking the US President, on issues like the regulation of AI. 
Guest: Professor Mark Kenny, Director of the Australian Studies Institute ANU, columnist for Canberra Times, co-host of Democracy Sausage podcast

Dozens of Australian and New Zealand doctors and nurses have worked in Gaza over the past two years. They temporarily joined the local medical staff in working around the clock, sometimes on very little food, trying to help people despite limited resources, and with the constant threat of attack. Forty of those medics have contributed accounts of their experiences to a book called '‘The Weight of Witness’. It is published by Readers and Writers Against Genocide, a collective of publishing professionals who contributed their services. 
Guests: Dr Bushra Othman, Palestinian Australian General Surgeon from Naarm/Melbourne. Has done three stints in Gaza, and edited the book.
Dr Amy Neilson, QLD-based specialist in rural and remote , tropical, and emergency medicine. Visiting Medical Officer in the NSW Hunter/New England regions. Senior lecturer in medical education at James Cook University, Cairns. Spent two weeks in Gaza in 2025.
Producer: Ann Arnold

A new book tracks this exotic 'spice' from the 16th century, and its origins in the world's only edible orchid, found in Central America, to the widespread use of vanilla flavouring today. And it explains how this very expensive resource came to be equated with bland. 'Vanilla' is now a synonym for ho-hum, whiter-than-white.
Guest: Eric Jennings, Professor of History, University of Toronto. Author of ‘Vanilla: the history of an extraordinary bean’ (Yale University Press)
Producer: Ann Arnold