In nationwide day of action, people brave plunging cold temperatures to march in city and demonstrate against ICE Thousands chanted and marched in New York City on Friday to protest the Trump administration’s escalating mass deportation campaign. Among the protesters were young and old people, all braving plunging cold temperatures in thick coats, hats and gloves. Continue reading...

The BoM forecasts parts of inland NSW will exceed 45C on Saturday, with Thargomindah in Queensland to reach 46C, Mildura 45C and Canberra 41C Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A cool change this weekend is expected to bring an end to eight consecutive days of blistering temperatures above 40C in Australia’s south-east. But before it does, the heat continued on Saturday. Heatwave warnings remained in place for parts of every state and territory excluding Tasmania, with Canberra forecast to reach a top of 41C and parts of inland New South Wales, including Broken Hill, expected to climb higher than 45C. Continue reading...

‘Everyone wants to know,’ Melania says at the beginning of the two-hour extravaganza – but do we? It’s Friday afternoon at Hoyts on Sydney’s northern beaches, and the atmosphere is horrific. I am here to see Amazon’s $75m “documentary” on Melania Trump, which has already been condemned as a flop ahead of its release. When I arrive, I panic for a second that I have the time wrong. There are no Melania posters anywhere and the screening is tucked into the back bottom corner of the large movie theatre, like the weird leftover table at a wedding. Continue reading...

University researchers say growth of the hidden fast food industry may pose risks to public health One in seven food businesses on major delivery platforms, including Deliveroo and Just Eat, is now a “dark kitchen”, a university study shows. The findings, which shine a light on the scale of the hidden takeaway industry, found that 15% of all online food retailers in England were dark kitchens. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Formal validation for claret reflects hotter conditions, falling consumption and shift towards chillable reds Bordeaux’s wine industry has historically adapted to consumer habits. In the 1970s the region leaned towards white, but by the 2000s was famed for powerful oak-aged reds. Now it’s turning to a much older form of red with a name familiar to anglophones: claret. With origins in the 12th century, when it was first shipped to Britain, claret was soon our favoured wine, an unofficial byword for bordeaux red, which in recent decades has become increasingly full-bodied. Continue reading...

Paul W Brown reportedly voiced concerns about the FBI’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in Fulton county The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office was reportedly removed from his post after questioning the Trump administration’s renewed interest in investigating the role of Fulton county, Georgia, in the 2020 election. The agent, Paul W Brown, had expressed concerns around the unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in Fulton county, which have been perpetuated by Donald Trump since he was defeated by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, according to an MS NOW report on Friday. Citing sources, MS NOW also reported that Brown refused to carry out searches and seizures of records connected to the election that Trump lost four years before winning a second presidency in 2024. Continue reading...

News from Friday’s press conferences, including Everton, Tottenham, Manchester City and West Ham Continue reading...

Newly released documents reveal Lutnick sent email to ‘Jeff’ and floated plan for ‘Sunday evening for dinner’ Howard Lutnick, currently serving as Trump’s US secretary of commerce, arranged to visit Jeffrey Epstein’s island in 2012, according to Epstein-related files released by the Department of Justice on Friday. According to the newly released documents, on 20 November 2012, Epstein’s longtime assistant emailed Lutnick saying that “Jeffrey Epstein understands you will be down in St Thomas some over the holidays” and that “Jeffrey requested I please pass along some phone numbers to you so the two of you can possibly get together”. Continue reading...

Rubaya mine produces about 15% of the world’s coltan, which is processed into tantalum, used in mobile phones More than 200 people were killed this week in a collapse at the Rubaya coltan mine in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Lumumba Kambere Muyisa, spokesperson for the rebel-appointed governor of the province where the mine is located, told Reuters on Friday. Rubaya produces about 15% of the world’s coltan, which is processed into tantalum – a heat-resistant metal that is in high demand by makers of mobile phones, computers, aerospace components and gas turbines. The site, where locals dig manually for a few dollars per day, has been under the control of the M23 rebel group since 2024. Continue reading...

This carefully plotted tale of the investigation into a small boy’s death is a compelling, psychologically astute watch – which constantly pulls the rug out from under you By ’eck – it’s grim out west. Such is the overriding impression wrought by Under Salt Marsh, a six-part crime drama set in the fictional Welsh town of Morfa Halen. As the title suggests, the town sits alongside the treacherously boggy lands, under lowering skies and just, but only just, above rising sea levels. The latter is threatening to make the defences the inhabitants are struggling to build obsolete. A huge storm is thought to be approaching and emergency evacuation warnings readied. Think of the place as a conservation area for the pathetic fallacy. There is a lot of actual and metaphorical gloom about. Much of it is attached to local primary school teacher Jackie Ellis (Kelly Reilly). Already bowed under the weight of her nine-year-old niece Nessa’s (Amara Atwal) disappearance three years ago, she finds the body of one of her pupils, Cefin, as she walks home across the marshes one night. The child has apparently drowned in a drainage ditch. When detective Eric Bull (Rafe Spall), who was also involved in Nessa’s case, arrives to investigate the boy’s death, it becomes clear from his and Jackie’s immediate hostility that they have a fraught history – although its precise nature differs slightly from the one audiences have come to expect. It’s a series that is good at subverting expectations at every turn – not least in its delicate evocation of grief and the manifold ways a landscape can affect its people. Morfa Halen’s townsfolk are hardy and self-reliant, qualities born of their environment and isolation. But the drama poses the question of whether such independence serves a person or a community equally well under more extreme circumstances – be they meteorological or emotional – or whether a community can implode under the strain. Continue reading...

George Zinn, 71, further admitted to possessing child sexual abuse material and pleaded no contest to allegations A man accused of trying to thwart authorities investigating Charlie Kirk’s killing by falsely confessing to the deadly shooting faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading no contest to the allegation – and separately admitting to possessing child sexual abuse material. The case centering on George Zinn, 71, all but concluded at a court hearing Thursday in Provo, Utah, about 5 miles away from the college campus where the Turning Point USA executive director was fatally shot on 10 September 2025. Continue reading...

Sundance film festival: a once-in-a-lifetime dinner party from 1972 is transformed into a thrilling and inspiring hang-out movie In August 1972, the experimental film-maker William Greaves convened a once-in-a-lifetime dinner party at Duke Ellington’s townhouse in Harlem. The occasion was a celebration and reconsideration of the Harlem Renaissance, the watershed African American cultural movement of the 1920s. The guest list included its still-living luminaries, some of the 20th century’s most influential – and still under-appreciated – musicians, performers, artists, writers, historians and political leaders, all in their sunset years. Over four hours and untold glasses of wine, talk wheeled freely from vivid recollections to consternation, lively anecdotes to contemplations of ongoing struggle. Greaves, by then niche renowned for his innovatively meta documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, lightly directed the conversation but otherwise let the energy flow. He considered it the most important footage he ever recorded. You could probably release that remarkable footage in full, completely unedited and unstructured, and still have a good documentary; every piece is now, 50 years later – the same distance to us as the Harlem Renaissance was to them – a bridge to a time no living person can remember, each face and gesture informed by decades of aftermath no straightforward nonfiction film on the period could capture. But Once Upon a Time in Harlem, directed by Greaves’s son David, who was one of four cameramen that day, manages to seamlessly clip and contextualize the party into 100 mesmerizing minutes. It’s both a sublime hang-out of a film and a celebration of individual achievements, a fascinating map of a long-ago scene and a referendum on legacy. Once Upon a Time in Harlem is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution Continue reading...

Thursday’s arrests of Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort demonstrate the administration’s lawless crusade against routine journalism Two federal courts reviewed the government’s evidence against journalist Don Lemon and declined to approve his arrest last week. But nevertheless, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, persisted, desperate to please her authoritarian boss no matter what the constitution and law say or what her ethical obligations as an attorney require. Thursday’s arrests of Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort – like the recent raid on the Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson – demonstrate the administration’s lawless crusade against routine journalism. In normal times the expectation is that even when a journalist’s conduct might technically fit the legal elements of a crime – jaywalking to get footage of a protest, for example – prosecutors will exercise their discretion and judgment to not apply the law in a manner that chills the free press. Seth Stern is the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation and a first amendment lawyer Continue reading...

Newly released files from DoJ show the pair making plans in 2013 for the Tesla CEO to visit Epstein’s private island Elon Musk had more extensive – and more friendly – communications with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein than previously publicly known, according to documents released on Friday by the Department of Justice. Emails in the files appear to show the two cordially messaging each other to make plans for Musk to visit Epstein’s island. The documents include Musk and Epstein emailing in December 2013 to determine when Musk should make the trip to Little St James. Continue reading...

The death of the 71-year-old actor and comedian leaves behind a long line of unforgettably original comic creations, from Beetlejuice to Schitt’s Creek Catherine O’Hara, actor known for Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek, dies aged 71 One of the later and less beloved Christopher Guest comedies featuring his troupe of peerless, often SCTV-related improvisers is For Your Consideration, a medium-funny savaging of Hollywood’s feverish awards-season prestige campaigning. The film’s unquestionable highlight is Catherine O’Hara, playing an actor who gets a whisper of awards buzz for a schlocky, still-filming drama called Home for Purim, and slowly loses her mind with the knowledge that she could maybe, possibly be recognized by her peers. O’Hara, known for her distinctively brassy yet malleable trill of her voice and her frequently red hair, peels back her performer’s bravado to expose the frenzied need beneath it. She somehow plays the outsized beneath the regular-sized, as her Marilyn Hack goes from plugging-away workhorse to desperate striver. Unsurprisingly, O’Hara briefly generated awards buzz of her own for playing this part; even less surprisingly, an Oscar nomination was not forthcoming. It couldn’t be; otherwise, it might have marred O’Hara’s masterclass in how certain actors, especially those specializing in comedy, are destined to go under-recognized in their lifetimes. Continue reading...

ICE in Minneapolis, Russian airstrikes in Kyiv, Alex Honnold climbing a Taipei skyscraper and Sabalenka at the Australian Open – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists Continue reading...

White-ball captain claims he was protecting teammates Bethell and Tongue investigated over drinking session Harry Brook, the England white-ball captain, has admitted teammates were present on the night he clashed with a nightclub bouncer in New Zealand last year. Speaking at the start of England’s tour of Sri Lanka, Brook said that he was on his own when he was punched by a bouncer on the eve of the third one-day international against New Zealand in Wellington. Continue reading...

A robotic team fuelled by data and scrutinised relentlessly in a climate of angst and rage feels like a digital-age metaphor Like most people who have no talent for business ideas, I have a huge number of highly promising business ideas always on the go, ideas that are available for investment from any passing billionaire or Dragons’ Den rainmaker type. Not one of the A-listers, obviously. I’m not insane. Not a Meaden or a Paphitis. But perhaps one of the minor ones, some strangely groomed South African retail magnate called Dork van Frotwangle who looks as if he keeps a bag of human fingers in his freezer and will mysteriously disappear mid-series and never be mentioned again. Continue reading...

Deputy attorney general makes announcement over fatal shooting in Minneapolis as fierce protests there continue The US deputy attorney general announced on Friday that the justice department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti last Saturday by immigration officers, as fierce protests continued on the streets there. “We’re looking at everything that would shed light on that day,” Todd Blanche, deputy to attorney general Pam Bondi, said at a press conference on Friday morning in Washington DC. Continue reading...

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said at a press conference that to protect victims the department 'redacted every woman depicted in any image or video, with the exception of [Ghislaine] Maxwell'. Blanche expressed sympathy for Epstein's victims, saying that they 'have gone through unspeakable pain ... I hope that the work that the men and women within this department have done over the past two months is able to bring closure.' He also added that 'with a production of this magnitude, mistakes are inevitable' and invited 'victims to reach us directly to correct redactions and any concerns when appropriate' Continue reading...

Famous figures including Woody Allen were invited to party with disgraced financier and Mountbatten-Windsor, documents indicate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor attended an intimate party with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein months after he was released from prison, files suggest. Another cache of documents relating to the disgraced financier were released by the US justice department on Friday. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

Convicted child sex offender asked accountant to ‘send 13k dollars’ to partner of then UK business secretary Jeffrey Epstein sent thousands of pounds in bank transfers after his release from prison in 2009 to Peter Mandelson’s husband, according to emails published by the US Department of Justice on Friday. The latest documents raise fresh questions about Epstein’s relationship with Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington when details of his support for the disgraced financier emerged in September. Continue reading...

‘There is a lot of experts that wanted to retire me’ Serb won five-set epic to reach Australian Open final Novak Djokovic thanked his doubters for helping to give him strength after he produced an incredible performance to defeat Jannik Sinner, the No 2 and two-time defending champion, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the Australian Open final. Djokovic, the fourth seed, will contest his 11th Australian Open final and 38th grand slam final overall on Sunday, his first since winning the US Open in September 2023. At 38 years old, he is the oldest Australian Open men’s finalist in history. Continue reading...

EFL examining if funds mostly from gambling proceeds Bidders’ advisers say money is from investments The English Football League is taking its time assessing the prospective buyout of Sheffield Wednesday to establish whether the purchase would be largely funded by the proceeds of gambling and crypto-gambling operations. A consortium was given preferred bidder status by Wednesday’s administrators on Christmas Eve, with the funding coming from two of its members, the professional poker player James Bord and the crypto-gambling casino owner Felix Roemer. The EFL is assessing whether the bidders comply with the requirements of its owners’ and directors’ test (ODT). Continue reading...

Actor, known for roles in Schitt’s Creek, Home Alone and Best in Show, has died with cause of death unknown Catherine O’Hara, actor known for Schitt’s Creek, Home Alone and Best in Show, has died at the age of 71. Her manager confirmed the news to Variety. She died after a brief illness. Continue reading...