News24 Top Stories

A News24/SABI poll puts Jacob Zuma’s MK Party at 43% in eThekwini, nearly four times the ANC’s 11%.

In this week’s News24 Sunday Edition: Carol Paton reveals how an exclusive News24/SABI poll puts Helen Zille at 36% in Johannesburg’s mayoral race, short of the 50% threshold and reliant on a coalition with the ANC; Helena Wasserman profiles ProNutro, a 64-year-old South African cereal born from a public health crisis and killed off by PepsiCo, whose creator Philip Hind died in a plane crash; and Ntwaagae Seleka exposes how police allegedly hid while 18 patrons were killed at Dora’s Tavern, with backup taking two hours to arrive.

On 4 November, South Africans vote for the councils that run their municipalities. To find out where voters stand, News24 commissioned SABI Strategy Group to survey 5 001 registered voters: nationally, and in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Tshwane and eThekwini. The results show who leads, what voters want fixed, who they trust, and which coalitions they would accept. Explore the findings, the analysis, and the full results.

The News24/SABI poll took the temperature of the electorate. These are the insights we gained.

Shaun Pollock says the ‘chokers’ tag stays until the Proteas win a white-ball World Cup. Winning the Test mace helped, but the former captain of South Africa feels belief comes more from recent white-ball near-misses.

Ernst Roets’s Lex Libertas has met with senior White House officials to lobby for US-facilitated negotiations between the SA government and minority groups, which could lead to “sustainable settlements” for minority groups in South Africa.

Can scammers make an AI clone of your voice sophisticated enough to trick your loved ones into sending sensitive information or money to them? William Brederode tried to scam his mother and his girlfriend to find out.

Arguments advanced on behalf of rape-accused suspended top cop Shadrack Sibiya, his own WhatsApp messages and a recorded threat to the father of his child accuser, paint a very dark picture of a once-powerful police officer who allegedly believed he was entitled to seek sex and sexual material from teenagers, write Karyn Maughan and Iavan Pijoos.

While the EFF respected Jacob Zuma, he was not the future and voters should not believe this either, said the leader of the Red Berets, Julius Malema, as he campaigned in the former president’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday.

A South African pilot and his New Zealand colleague landed a flydubai jet safely after the co-pilot attacked the captain mid-flight in what experts say could have been a catastrophic disaster.

While the health department has spent the last week trying to reassure the public that everything was under control amid a medicines crisis, it has been using Section 21 medicines as a “last resort” to source alternative medication for the country for the past ten years.

While gunmen were unleashing volley after volley of bullets on patrons at Dora’s Tavern last Saturday night, police allegedly hid nearby, too scared to enter without backup, which took two hours to arrive, sources have revealed.

The UAE’s attorney general said the co-pilot of a flydubai flight to Israel had planned a “terrorist act” and used the cockpit’s emergency axe to attack the captain, the official UAE news agency WAM reported on Saturday.

Two Turkish fugitives wanted in their home country for separate gender-based violence cases were arrested in South Africa.

From 1 October 2026, City Power is officially “ringfenced”. So says a letter to customers dated 21 September 2026 from the utility’s acting CEO, Charles Tlouane. But in reality, it’s ringfencing in name only, says Chris Yelland.

The DA has said that Joburg’s bridges are in trouble after claiming that 78% were rated poor or very poor by the city.

Auto assessments were introduced eight years ago to simplify the process of filing a tax return for taxpayers with uncomplicated financial affairs.

There is a psychological shift that happens when the fuel price jumps again overnight, another few cents added while you slept, and you are suddenly paying R26, then R28, then knocking on the door of R30 a litre. It feels like an arbitrary tax on your freedom of movement.

The industry body that sets the rules for the world’s biggest gold market faces an existential legal battle in a London courtroom next week, in a case that could have far-reaching implications for how the industry polices its supply chain.

Rhodes University awarded News24 consumer journalist Wendy Knowler an honorary Doctor of Laws on Friday, in recognition of nearly three decades of consumer journalism that held powerful institutions to account and gave ordinary South Africans a voice. Read her acceptance address at the university’s graduation ceremony in full.