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The New South Wales state government is threatening to pull funding from some Western Sydney libraries, after a local council controversially voted to remove same-sex parenting books from shelves.

NSW Minister for the Arts, John Graham told RN Breakfast the ban is an imported American culture war and sends a "terrible message"  to the community. He says the council is clearly in breach of the library guidelines and community expectations are that a "local councillor should be coming round to pick up their bin, not telling them what to read."

Guest: John Graham, NSW Minister for the Arts

Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi has been sentenced to death by one of the country's revolutionary courts.

The 33-year-old rose to international fame after using his lyrics for speaking out against the Iranian government during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

Schools, banks and electrical stores across Slovakia received more than 1300 bomb threats on Tuesday, prompting mass evacuations as police launched a terror probe.

The threats come at a time of high tensions over the war in neighbouring Ukraine, and Slovakian officials are treating the threats "as a particularly serious crime of terrorist attack". 

Guest: Dr Michal Vašečka, Program Director, Bratislava Policy Institute

When sperm whales swim together in the Caribbean Sea, they make clicking sounds, which sound a bit like morse code — some experts think they could very well be chit-chatting.

In a new report, scientists have developed a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet" that might be the basic building blocks of a whole language.

Guest:Shane Gero, Marine biologist; co-author of the study

Israeli tanks have rolled into Rafah in southern Gaza, closing a key aid entry point, as fears mount over a full scale invasion of the city.

The IDF's closure of the crossing is also preventing wounded patients -who were waiting to travel to receive treatment - from leaving. Dr Rick Brennan, WHO Regional Emergency Director says the ground invasion is leading to "catastrophic suffering" of innocent groups.

Guest: Dr Rick Brennan, World Health Organisation's Regional Emergency Director

Last time Irish singer-songwriter Ryan McMullan was in Australia, he was supporting Ed Sheeran — now, he's headlining a national tour.

He stopped by the RN Breakfast studio for a performance of his first single in two years. The singer also shared an anecdote about how he was initially discovered by Foy Vance by playing him a cover of Tracey Chapman's Fast Car in a toilet cubicle.

Guest: Ryan McMullan