Jon Kudelka, the Australian political cartoonist, has died at the age of 53.
His wife, Margaret Kudelka, announced the news in a statement on Monday: “We are sad to tell you that our beloved, brilliant Jon Kudelka died peacefully in South Hobart on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by his family and friends.”
Ukrainian president says the power infrastructure generates money for Moscow so is akin to a military target. What we know on day 1,447
Russian energy infrastructure is a legitimate target for Ukrainian strikes because the energy sector is a source of funds for the production of weapons, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. “We do not have to choose – whether we strike a military target or energy … it’s the same thing,” the Ukrainian president said on X on Sunday. “We either build weapons and strike their weapons. Or we strike the source where their money is generated and multiplied. And that source is their energy sector … All of this is a legitimate target for us.” Russia has targeted Ukraine’s energy grid in a campaign of attacks that has been called Moscow’s weaponisation of winter.
Authorities in Dubai have arrested and handed over to Russia a man suspected of shooting and wounding a senior officer in Russia’s intelligence services, according to Moscow’s security service. Rory Carroll and Pjotr Sauer report that Sunday’s announcement came two days after a gunman shot Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseyev on the stairwell of his Moscow apartment, leaving him in a critical condition. The federal security service (FSB) said a Russian citizen was detained in Dubai on suspicion of carrying out the shooting. Television images showed masked FSB officers escorting a blindfolded man from a jet in Russia in the dark. The FSB said it had also identified two “accomplices”, one of whom was detained in Moscow and another who “left for Ukraine”.
Zelenskyy said the US had given Ukraine and Russia yet another deadline to reach a peace settlement and was now proposing the war should end by June, reports Donna Ferguson. The Ukrainian president also hinted that the new deadline could be linked to Trump’s US midterm elections campaign. Zelenskyytold reporters that both Ukraine and Russia had been invited to further talks this week.
A Russian airstrike on a residential area in eastern Ukraine killed one person and wounded two, officials said on Sunday. The attack on the city of Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region caused a fire in a nine-story apartment block, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. Russia also struck energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s Poltava region overnight into Sunday, Ukraine’s state-owned gas company Naftogaz said.
Kyiv’s foreign minister said the Ukrainian and Russian leaders needed to meet in person to hash out the hardest remaining issues in peace talks, and that only the US president had the power to bring about an agreement. “Only Trump can stop the war,” Andrii Sybiha told Reuters. From the 20-point peace plan that has formed the basis of recent trilateral negotiations, only “a few” items remained outstanding, Sybiha said. “The most sensitive and most difficult, to be dealt with at the leaders’ level.”
Zelenskyy said he was imposing sanctions on some foreign manufacturers of components for Russian drones and missiles which it uses against Ukraine. “Producing this weaponry would be impossible without critical foreign components, which the Russians continue to obtain by circumventing sanctions,” he said on X.
NZ court to consider an appeal from Australian white supremacist who pleaded guilty in March 2020 to murdering 51 people in mosque attack
The Australian white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019, in the worst mass shooting in the New Zealand’s history, is asking one of the country’s highest courts to vacate his guilty pleas and hold a new trial.
Brenton Tarrant pleaded guilty in March 2020 to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and a terrorism charge, after initially saying he would defend the charges. In August 2020, Tarrant became the first person in New Zealand under current laws to be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of ever walking free.
Sentencing of media tycoon is the culmination of a years-long saga that critics say represents Hong Kong’s transformation from a mostly free city to one where dissent is fiercely suppressed
Jimmy Lai, a once mighty media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences.
The sentencing is the culmination of a years-long saga that critics say represents Hong Kong’s transformation from a mostly free city to one where dissent is fiercely suppressed by the Chinese Communist party-controlled authorities.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has told members of the Jewish community “when one Jew is hurt, all Jews feel their pain” as he begins a four-day visit to Australia to speak with survivors of the Bondi terror attack and the victims’ families.
Herzog, who arrived in Sydney on Monday morning, laid a wreath at the site of the antisemitic attack alongside the NSW premier, Chris Minns.
Exclusive: Labour peer, who came to UK as a refugee, says some ministers try to show they won’t ‘just do things because of their background’
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, whose parents migrated to the UK from Pakistan, is facing the suggestion from a veteran Labour peer that she is “pulling up the drawbridge once inside” when considering the plight of refugee children trapped abroad.
Alf Dubs, who came to the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, said the home secretary and other ministers had “kowtowed” to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK by preventing unaccompanied children from seeking refuge with UK-based family members.
Health official’s endorsement comes as South Carolina faces hundreds of cases and US risks losing elimination status
A senior US public health official called on Americans to get vaccinated against measles as outbreaks continue in multiple states and concerns grow that the country could lose its measles elimination designation. Dr Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, spoke in support on Sunday of the measles vaccine.
“Take the vaccine, please,” said Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “We have a solution for our problem.”
Adolescence leaves its mark on everyone but for my son the marks have been particularly obvious. I’ve lost track of how many casts he’s had. He loves electric bikes and at various times this has led to a broken arm, a broken hand, a broken leg, a wide variety of cuts and grazes, and terrifyingly close calls with much worse.
It also led to him getting a job as a delivery rider for the local Domino’s Pizza, which valued him for his speed (another broken wrist) and his ability to be cheerful in the face of unhinged customers. Once, after getting no answer when he buzzed a flat and phoned, he left a woman’s pizza on her doorstep. She called him “the scum of the earth” and promised he would lose his job and never get another one.
Pep Guardiola cherished a first victory at Liverpool since Covid, earned by defining contributions from players who know what it takes
Before joining his triumphant players to celebrate in front of Manchester City’s delirious away support, Pep Guardiola looked to the heavens above Anfield and blew a kiss. This stadium has tormented the City manager more often than most over the past decade but, should the title race twist as dramatically as this victory, his 11th and possibly final visit to Liverpool will be cherished as the turning point.
Was Guardiola’s kiss one of thanks for Gianluigi Donnarumma, the goalkeeper who deflated Liverpool in the Champions League last season with Paris Saint‑Germain and denied them a 99th-minute equaliser with a stunning save from Alexis Mac Allister? Or for the nerveless precision of Erling Haaland, who had completed the visitors’ comeback from the penalty spot six minutes earlier? The resilience of Marc Guéhi and co in the face of Liverpool’s second-half recovery merited a smacker, too. The former Liverpool transfer target would eventually get a kiss from his manager, deservedly so.
Hess had said representing the US was ‘a little hard’
Donald Trump responded to Hunter Hess on Truth Social on Sunday, calling the Olympian a “real loser” and criticizing comments the US freestyle skier made in a press conference days earlier.
Hess was asked in a press conference on Wednesday what it was like to represent the US in the Olympics given the current situation in the country, which has included ICE raids in Minnesota and a number of geopolitical crises. Hess said representing the US at the 2026 Winter Olympics brought up “mixed emotions” and that it was “a little hard.”
The claim that music sung in Spanish will alienate viewers ignores the fact that many people would rather join the fun than risk being left out of it
The morning after the 3 January US military action in Venezuela, in which Nicolás Maduro was captured, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace in parts of the eastern Caribbean, and my stay in St Kitts stretched into an unexpected extra week. At the mercy of the systems that determine which corridors open and when, and who gets routed where, an overwhelmed customer service agent suggested I charter a boat to nearby St Maarten, fly to Amsterdam, and then stitch together a series of flights to avoid the affected airspace. I understood the Caribbean, then, less as a string of proximate islands and, instead, as a set of routes connected by powers elsewhere.
Power doesn’t just regulate airspace, it also governs cultural transmission – who gets broadcast, who gets heard, and on what terms. That’s why the handwringingover the Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, and the characterization of his almost exclusive use of Spanish in his music as an intrusion, feel so disingenuous. The drama isn’t about understanding the lyrics. Rather it’s a claim about Bad Bunny and his music as fundamentally un-American, stemming from a fear of feeling left out, or the more colloquially known fear of missing out (Fomo).
Gout opts to focus on world under-20 championships
Teenage sensation’s absence is blow to Glasgow event
The Australian sprint sensation Gout Gout has decided not to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this year.
The 18-year-old will instead focus on the world under-20 championships in August, where he hopes to emulate the legendary Usain Bolt. The two events are taking place back-to-back, with Gout and his support team deeming it unwise for him to contest both so early in his burgeoning career.
Ousmane Dembélé struck twice as Paris Saint-Germain blew away bitter rivals Marseille on Sunday, reclaiming top spot in Ligue 1 with a crushing 5-0 victory at the Parc des Princes.
Dembélé opened the scoring after just 12 minutes and added a second before half-time as PSG delivered a real statement of intent going into the crucial months of the season.
Malinin delivers to secure US Olympic team gold win
Japan pairs skating brilliance pushes US team to limit
Host Italy secure team bronze on home Olympic rink
The United States held off a late charge from Japan to retain the Olympic team figure skating title on Sunday, with Ilia Malinin delivering in the men’s free skate to secure gold after three days of competition. Japan finished with silver, while host nation Italy claimed bronze.
The United States survived a final-day surge from Japan to retain the Olympic team figure skating title on Sunday night, with Ilia Malinin delivering under intense pressure in the men’s free skate to secure gold at the Milano Cortina Games. Japan finished one point behind in silver, while host nation Italy claimed bronze after three days of tightly contested competition.
The acting is absolutely excellent, but the script isn’t great. This show lacks the dread of William Golding’s novel
What, you wonder, could possibly have prompted the powers that be to commission an adaptation of a postwar allegory that throws into dreadful relief the impulse to tyranny, the fragility of democracy and the brittleness of our veneer of civilisation in this shining year of 2026? We may never know. Did I mention it takes place on an island in which all normal social rules no longer apply and the inhabitants are protected from any punishment or consequence, no matter what appetites emerge? Hmm. Well, on we go.
Here it is, Jack Thorne’s take – after his triumphant Adolescence – on William Golding’s endlessly harrowing 1954 classic and GCSE staple for the past 30 years, Lord of the Flies. It was his debut novel and born of his reaction to reading RM Ballantyne’s Victorian classic of heroic derring-do, The Coral Island, to his children in the late 40s. That paean to noble and manly virtues from the golden age of optimism hit differently by then, so Golding asked his wife if he should write a book about what would happen if a group of boys were stranded on an island together and behaved how a group of boys stranded on an island together really would behave. She encouraged him to give it a shot. He borrowed character names and made other references to Ballantyne’s book in his own, but Golding’s story is its dark counterpoint; a suggestion that if men are left to rule the world untrammelled there will soon not be many of them, or much of the world, left to dominate. I know – what an imagination, right?
The 30-year-old has labored in the shadow of household names like Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin. On Sunday, she made history of her own
For years, Breezy Johnson was the other American alpine skier. The one with the near-misses, the injuries, the suspension and the unfortunate timing to exist in the same stable at the same time as Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin. On Sunday, three weeks after her 30th birthday in the shadow of the Dolomites above Cortina d’Ampezzo, she became an Olympic champion.
Johnson crossed first in the women’s downhill at the Milano Cortina Games by four-hundredths of a second – the slightest winning margin in the event’s Olympic history outside the dead heat in 2014 – to become just the second American woman to win the sport’s most prestigious title. The only other was Vonn, who took gold in Vancouver 16 years ago.
Britain has contenders in curling and freeski slopestyle
High in the Italian Alps, where the thin air and oxygen deprivation often does strange things to the brain, British accents have started whispering about the possibility of Magic Monday – and Team GB winning three medals in one day at these Winter Olympics.
And the craziest thing of all? It’s not entirely out of the question.
ISU review resolves Olympic skating music dispute issue
Azerbaijan complaint prompts Olympic music listing edit
Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions resurface again at Olympics
A politically charged dispute between the Olympic delegations of Azerbaijan and Armenia over figure skating music has been resolved after skating and IOC authorities reviewed the matter and the official program listing was amended.
The International Skating Union (ISU) said in a statement to the Guardian on Sunday that it had examined the matter with relevant stakeholders. “The situation has been reviewed with all parties involved,” the ISU said. “The official names of the tracks that will be used are listed on the ISU website.”
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
Is it possible to acquire courage if you don’t have it? I was moved this week by the story of the Australian boy who swam to land for several hours in rough seas to raise the alarm that his mother and siblings had been swept out to sea. Despite his exhaustion, he then ran several kilometres to find a phone.
But I’m also thinking of the lesser demands for courage – such as standing up to a friend, or family member, or tackling a company that’s ignoring your polite requests when you’re suffering from its actions. Or I also wonder how people do certain jobs that, to me, require buckets of courage: starting a business or any other sort of professional risk-taking; reporting from a war zone like Lyse Doucet or Jeremy Bowen. Or just being a police officer knocking on a door of a suspect and not knowing what will come at you from the other side.
After days of pressure over the scandal, his departing chief of staff said on Sunday he took “full responsibility” for his advice to send Mandelson to Washington despite his ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which McSweeney conceded had undermined trust in Labour and in politics itself.
Those pushing to oust the prime minister are unlikely to be deterred by his right-hand man’s departure
For some Labour MPs, the sight of Keir Starmer accepting the resignation of his long-term consigliere, Morgan McSweeney, encapsulated everything they think is going wrong with the prime minister’s leadership.
After days of mounting criticism over McSweeney’s role in advocating for the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Washington ambassador, the prime minister’s chief of staff left Downing Street on Sunday.
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