Encrypted chats show activists tracked ICE agents using a sophisticated database before the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. They then used it to mobilize agitators.

Top currency official says Japan will work closely with US authorities, which last week conducted market ‘checks’

Bullion extends rally after biggest weekly gain since 2008 financial crisis

Thirty-thousand flocked to pack the upper levels of the stadium to catch the big game Sunday on the venue’s Infinity Screen, and it had all the feel of a real game day.

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Several beaches in Sydney are closed this morning after shark sightings in the water.

Lifeguards have evacuated the water at Manly beach, Dee Why beach and Palm beach this morning, all around 9am, after the sightings. The beaches are closed.

The search will continue as is in it current intensity for a number of days yet. We will act on all information coming forward.

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© Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

© Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

© Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

As has been the case over the years, the iconic New York City landmark was lit up in different colors to honor a major moment in the sporting world, which has led to some issues in the past. 

The beautiful Malta setting isn't enough to make this a must-watch rom-com.

Sundance film festival: a new documentary explores the author’s physical and spiritual healing from the 2022 knife attack that almost killed him

On 12 August 2022, as Salman Rushdie was about to launch into a lecture on the importance of protecting writers from harm at New York’s Chautauqua Institution, a man in a black mask rushed the stage with a knife. To the horror of the packed amphitheater, the man stabbed the Indian-born British-American author – once the subject of an infamous fatwa from the leader of Iran in the 1980s – 15 times in the face, neck and torso, before members of the audience rushed the stage and disarmed him. Rushdie survived, narrowly; the stabbing left him on a ventilator, severed tendons in his left hand, and cost him his right eye.

A full recreation of that attack from Rushdie’s perspective — 27 seconds of struggle, the mysterious man’s face, several sickening punches of blade — opens a new documentary on Rushdie’s recovery and resilience, which drew a standing ovation at the Sundance film festival. Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, directed by Alex Gibney and based on Rushdie’s memoir of the same name, is unsparing on the devastating results of the stabbing: in never-before-seen footage recorded by the author’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Rushdie appears gruesomely disfigured — his skin discolored, his entire abdomen bisected by stitches, his swollen neck held together by stitches, his eye indescribably mangled. His first coherent thought after regaining consciousness, he recalls in the film, was simply: “We need to document this.”

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© Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

The Rams have been trying to outrun their one fatal flaw all year, only to be burned by it at every critical turn.

"Will you heed my call to war?"

Sixth seed marches into quarter-finals with 6-3, 6-4 victory while the defending champion must pay forfeit agreed on with her podcast co-host

While speaking on a podcast before her big match against Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula was discussing their battle last January in the Adelaide final. Keys’s performance, Pegula recalled, had prompted Pegula to accurately predict to their mutual friends that Keys would win the Australian Open two weeks later. It is normal for players to discuss future opponents, but they do not usually do so in conversation with each other. With a chuckle, Keys interjected: “Jess is like, ‘I hope I don’t see that level [tomorrow].’”

She did not. Keys’s reign at the Australian Open came to a difficult end in the fourth round as the defending champion and ninth seed was crushed under the weight of her hefty unforced error count and a spotless performance from Pegula, the sixth seed, who marched into the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-4 win. This was, in some ways, a historic match on Rod Laver Arena: the first grand slam singles match between two podcast co-hosts.

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© Photograph: Mark Baker/AP

© Photograph: Mark Baker/AP

© Photograph: Mark Baker/AP

"I hope what I've done fits inside the palace that people have made for themselves with these wonderful stories already and enriches it in some way."

Kristyna Kaltounkova scored her ninth goal of the season for New York (7-0-2-6) and Anna Bargman scored her second goal this season with six minutes to play.

When the clock hit zero, LA Rams' Davante Adams had nowhere to go but back to the locker room. No celebration, no champagne, nothing.

Earlier in the game, Gonzalez gave the Broncos and Stidham, the Denver backup who hadn’t thrown an NFL pass since 2023, hope when he was beaten on a 52-yard pass play by Marvin Mims Jr.

New England punched its ticket to Super Bowl 2026 with its 10-7 win over the Broncos in the AFC Championship game.

The early bloom could threaten the yucca moth -- Joshua trees' only pollinator -- whose evolution has synced with the predictably timely blossoming of their flowers.

• Los Angeles Rams 27–31 Seattle Seahawks

• Darnold and Stafford shine in high-class QB duel

• Patriots grind out AFC championship in snow

Sam Darnold threw for three touchdowns, the Seahawks’ “Dark Side” defense came up with a critical fourth-down stop, and Seattle advanced to the Super Bowl, beating the Los Angeles Rams 31-27 in an electrifying NFC championship game on Sunday.

“It’s amazing,” Darnold said. “To be able to do it with these guys in this locker room, though, with this coaching staff, that’s why it means the world to me.”

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© Photograph: Godofredo A Vásquez/AP

© Photograph: Godofredo A Vásquez/AP

© Photograph: Godofredo A Vásquez/AP

Last week was one in which Stearns cashed in some of his prospect capital to fill two significant holes.

The extent of passengers' injuries is not immediately clear.

This is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the moment, everything else is a distraction

When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we often mean and blame our phones. It’s easy, it’s meant to be easy. One flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster, from crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie. Each new unauthorized attack and threatened invasion grabs the headlines, until something else takes its place, and meanwhile the government’s attempts to terrorize and silence the people of our country continue.

So let me break it down. There is one story: our country is on the brink of an authoritarian take-over. In Minneapolis an innocent poet and an ER nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by federal agents. It is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to detention centers; videos of their gyms for kids recall the youth choruses that the Nazis so proudly showed off at the Terezin concentration camp. Intimidation and violence are being weaponized against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are afraid to leave their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and shackled, regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or people from another country peacefully living and working here for decades.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

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© Photograph: Adam Gray/AP

© Photograph: Adam Gray/AP

© Photograph: Adam Gray/AP

Are the German people on board with the government’s massive militarisation programme? Kate Connolly reports

“Not so long ago, to be a German soldier dressed in German uniform was quite a difficult role to embody. I mean, you could be going down the street and you could be spat on, or you could have names called at you.

“I’ve recently seen people get into conversation with soldiers, which I hadn’t seen in the past, [and] more recently, somebody going up to a soldier and actually getting him into conversation about his role, and at the end of the conversation, thanking him.”

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© Photograph: Leon Kuegeler/Reuters

© Photograph: Leon Kuegeler/Reuters

© Photograph: Leon Kuegeler/Reuters

Industry's stars and showrunners broke down the various levels of that major sex scene.

“Sounds like you’re a little triggered.”