Dire bushfire conditions threatened south-eastern states on Friday as unrelenting heat bore down on large parts of Australia and Victorians prepared for catastrophic conditions not seen since 2019-20.
Melbourne’s maximum temperature was forecast to reach 43C on Friday, and up to 45C in some suburbs. The city was 41C by 1pm.
Moscow says any Nato peacekeepers would be considered legitimate targets; US embassy and Kyiv flag ‘potentially significant air attack’. What we know on day 1,416
The White Lotus and Gilded Age actor takes on her real-life husband Tracy Letts’ 1996 thriller, which could have afforded some modern-day tweaks
You can practically smell the stale cigarette smoke lingering in the air of the fake motel set for Bug. It’s the play’s only location – though it appears in a distinctive second guise in the second act – and in its staging at the Samuel J Friedman Theatre, the set comes to a corner in the center of the stage, jutting out toward the audience. The additional angle gives the room a little more depth, but it also distorts the room’s geography, rendering it neither proscenium neat nor fully realistic. That’s the increasingly hard-to-recognize world that Agnes (Carrie Coon) inhabits when she brings near-stranger Peter (Namir Smallwood) into her life.
Agnes is a waitress living out of the motel, drinking and taking drugs in between shifts. Her abusive ex, Jerry (Steve Key), just out of prison, lurks around, expecting Agnes to welcome him back to their “home” whenever he pleases. So when her friend RC (Jennifer Engstrom) introduces Agnes to the drifter and supposed veteran Peter, he can’t help but seem gentler by comparison. But when Peter thinks he notices a bug bite from their shared motel bed, he starts to spiral further into paranoia. Agnes, whether aided by drugs, love, grief over her lost child or a combination of those, spirals right along with him.
Dozens of authors, journalists, media personalities and a sponsor are boycotting the Adelaide festival after it dumped Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from its annual writers’ week lineup, citing concerns over “cultural sensitivity” in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
More speakers were expected to withdraw from the festival, with speculation that other high-profile figures were coordinating their exit announcements.
‘Five setters are a different beast’, says 30-year-old
Australian has attempted comeback from injury in recent weeks
Nick Kyrgios’s surgically-repaired knee and wrist will not prevent him from taking part at Melbourne Park, where Australian Open qualifying begins next week, but he will not feature in the singles draw.
The 30-year-old posted on social media saying he wasn’t ready for best-of-five set tennis, ruling himself out of contention for a wildcard, but he would still take to the court alongside friend and doubles partner Thanasi Kokkinakis.
Exclusive: research suggests supplementing eggs with a key protein reduces age-related defects, raising hopes of improved IVF for older women
Scientists claim to have “rejuvenated” human eggs for the first time in an advance that they predict could revolutionise IVF success rates for older women.
The groundbreaking research suggests that an age-related defect that causes genetic errors in embryos could be reversed by supplementing eggs with a crucial protein. When eggs donated by fertility patients were given microinjections of the protein, they were almost half as likely to show the defect compared with untreated eggs.
Featuring Wood, her famous sidekicks Julie Waters and Celia Imrie and other female standups, this documentary is tender, moving and an absolute hoot
There is a moment at the start of this documentary about the comedian Victoria Wood when you realise what she was up against at the beginning of her career: a snippet from the archives of Melvyn Bragg hailing her as Britain’s first female standup comedian. That wasn’t entirely the case, but it seems unthinkable now that it took until the 1980s for women to break through in any numbers. In 1985, when season one of Wood’s sketch show As Seen on TV aired on BBC2, there were sniffs of doubt that a woman could front a comedy programme, let alone a northern woman. How wrong they were. Clips from the show, featuring Wood, Julie Waters and Celia Imrie, are a hoot: high on a tipsy energy, the performers are all on the edge of collapsing into giggles.
For those who grew up with Wood as a national treasure, Becoming Victoria Wood will be a revelation. Her standup routines in the 1980s blazed a trail, with jokes about tampons and cellulite. She had a lonely childhood, was ignored by her mother and was shy and self-conscious about her weight. (Later press coverage fixating on her size was vile.) She didn’t feel clever or good-looking enough but she had a fierce streak of ambition that seemed to come from nowhere.
Alolita Tekapu and her family among the first arrivals under a world-first agreement that allows people from Tuvalu to move to Australia
On a suburban street in eastern Melbourne on a cool summer’s day, Alolita Tekapu sits on the couch feeding her one-month-old son, Philip, while her three older boys play outside. Her husband folds laundry nearby, pausing occasionally to check on the children.
It’s an ordinary domestic scene. But the reason this family are in Australia is far from ordinary.
Emily Henry’s hit book has been adapted into a glossily made yet charmless attempt to resurrect the friends-to-lovers formula
Released just as the weather turns to freezing and we’re all daydreaming of an escape, Netflix’s early January romcom People We Meet on Vacation is at the very least smartly timed. Produced as part of the streamer’s Sony deal, it benefits from some real studio gloss (proper lighting!) and as Polo & Pan’s perfectly balmy Nana plays over a transporting shot of our heroine lounging on a beach (the song was also used in Netflix’s underrated Christmas romcom Let it Snow), I was ready to relax with her. But what a brief escape it turned out to be …
The adaptation of Emily Henry’s much-loved 2021 novel has the superficial trappings all in check (eyes with permanent twinkles, unrealistic main character job in this climate, more easily affordable Taylor Swift song on the soundtrack) but no heart or soul to go with it. There’s simply nothing to root for or care about or grasp on to, just the limp tracing of something we’ve seen many many times before. Its closest comparison would be When Harry Met Sally, a similar journey that turns friends into lovers over a fairly epic time span (the pair even meet in the exact same way, forced to drive home together from college). But what felt lived in and genuinely human back in 1989 now feels shallow and synthetic in 2026, a grim start to the year for a genre I keep hoping and praying for.
Austin Peay State University will also pay theater and dance professor Darren Michael $500,000 in settlement
Austin Peay State University has reinstated a professor who was fired for his social media post after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The Tennessee school is also paying the teacher $500,000 in the settlement.
Austin Peay spokesperson Brian Dunn said Darren Michael returned to his position as a tenured faculty member at the public university in Clarksville effective 30 December. A copy of the settlement agreement obtained through a public records request includes a $500,000 payment and reimbursement of counseling, as reported earlier this week by WKRN-TV.
Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie seek to compel justice department to release full set of files
Two US House of Representatives members have asked a federal judge to appoint a special master to compel the justice department to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.
On Thursday, Democratic representative Ro Khanna of California and Republican representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky asked US district judge Paul Engelmayer to release the full Epstein files, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Attacks bring total number of Palestinians killed by Israel to 425 since October ceasefire took effect
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli attacks in the Palestinian territory on Thursday killed at least 13 people, including five children, despite a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.
Four people including three children were killed when a drone struck a tent sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Real Madrid hold on and so does Xabi Alonso, all the way to the final. Judgment was due to come in Jeddah but it will be put off for another day at least, and instead of the sack there may be a medal waiting at the end of a month spent on edge after Real defeated Atlético 2-1. Goals from Fede Valverde and Rodrygo set up another Super Cup meeting with Barcelona on Sunday night, opportunity and obligation in one.
On a night when Madrid scored after 77 seconds, Atlético’s last opportunity to get a result they probably deserved and force a penalty shootout slipped agonisingly away with only 10 more seconds remaining. Julián Alvarez had it, Antoine Griezmann almost did, but, in at last, a shot from the former just evaded the latter. As the ball bounced past the post, it took Atlético’s hopes with it.
GM says end of tax incentives and less stringent emissions regulations slowed consumer demand for EVs in 2025
General Motors said on Thursday it will record a one-time earnings hit of $7.1bn in its quarterly financial results, mostly due to its pullback from electric vehicles in light of shifting US policies.
The Detroit auto giant’s fourth-quarter results will be dented by $6bn in charges connected to reversals on EV investments, according to a securities filing. The remaining $1.1bn includes costs from the company’s restructuring of its China operations.
MRI will determine Olympic availability for US star
Two-time champion chasing historic third gold
Chloe Kim’s pursuit of an unprecedented third straight Olympic gold medal has been thrown into uncertainty after the American snowboard star dislocated her shoulder during a training session in Switzerland.
Kim, the dominant force in women’s halfpipe snowboarding for nearly a decade, revealed the injury on Thursday, sharing video of the fall that caused the scare. The injury occured while Kim was training in Laax, a regular World Cup venue and a key pre-Olympic stop on the circuit. The 25-year-old landed a maneuver cleanly but lost her edge shortly afterward, sliding awkwardly across the pipe and into the wall.
Point proven? Well, not exactly. Just when Arsenal looked ready to lay down a real marker for their title aspirations, a rejuvenated Liverpool side that has been through the wringer since they were crowned champions last season showed the Gunners remain fallible.
It could have been even worse for Mikel Arteta’s side if Liverpool had been awarded one of two potential penalties or if Conor Bradley’s brilliant chip had not struck the crossbar in the first half.
The vice-president went ballistic against the media and the left – a version of Trump with even more menace
It was James David Vance’s pitch to his boss: don’t forget me!
The vice-president was nowhere to be seen last weekend when US special forces swept into Venezuela and snatched its leader, Nicolás Maduro. Instead Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and a potential rival to Vance in the 2028 presidential election, grabbed all the Maga glory.
During black summer, my daughters were too young to know what was happening. Now, amid another Australian heatwave, they deserve answers
When the forecasts for this week started to roll in, my mind immediately drifted back to Australia’s black summer.
I had taken my daughters down to the pool in our estate in western Sydney, hoping for a brief reprieve from the relentless heat. The Gospers Mountain fire was raging in the Blue Mountains, but on that particular day the smoke didn’t seem too bad.
Manchester United supporters group The 1958 has called for a vote of no confidence in the club’s ownership model, calling Sir Jim Ratcliffe “an incompetent clown”. The organisation will also hold a protest at the home match against Fulham on 1 February to make their voices heard at Old Trafford.
The group wants the removal of the Glazer family and Ratcliffe from the club. Concerns were also expressed in relation to the work of the chief executive, Omar Berrada, and the director of football, Jason Wilcox, in the aftermath of Ruben Amorim’s sacking, which will lead to an interim replacement.
Security forces reported to have killed at least 45 people since protests began 12 days ago, as pressure on regime increases
Iran was plunged into a complete internet blackout on Thursday night as protests over economic conditions spread nationwide, increasing pressure on the country’s leadership.
While it was unclear what caused the internet cut, first reported by the internet freedom monitor NetBlocks, Iranian authorities have shut down the internet in response to protests in the past.
Hajar Abdelkader won just three points in 6-0, 6-0 loss
‘Wildcard should not have been granted’ to Egyptian
Tennis Kenya said a controversial wildcard granted to Hajar Abdelkader should not have happened after the young Egyptian’s performance at a professional tournament in Nairobi went viral.
The 21-year-old won three points and served 20 double faults on her way to a 6-0, 6-0 defeat against German world No 1,026, Lorena Schaedel. Videos shared on social media showed the Egyptian struggling to serve and position herself on the court.
An almost admiring feeling pervaded the early coverage – and not just among right-leaning outlets
If you believe the early public opinion polls, Americans are uncertain about last weekend’s raid on Venezuela and the seizure of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.
But many in the media seem to be trying to move that wavering needle to approval.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Preceding the release of My Days of 58, the Americana legend once known as Smog discusses his Yorkshire youth, why Spotify is like the mafia and the bleak state of AI
We got married to [Smog’s] Our Anniversary. When you write songs, do you think about how listeners might carry them into their own lives, or do the songs stop being yours after they are done?Vanearle When I wrote [2019’s] Watch Me Get Married, I thought maybe people would have that as their wedding song. But mostly it’s inconceivable what people are gonna do with a song. I don’t think about it too much because there are 100,000 places where it’s gonna live. Have I ever heard about any inappropriate uses of songs? I think having Our Anniversary as a wedding song is a little surprising, but maybe they’re realists.
As an appreciator of dub, if you could spend a week in a studio to collaborate with any dub artist at their peak, who would you go for? albertoayler I’d have to say Lee “Scratch” Perry just because he was so crazy. He was like a little kid – just infectious excitement. I think that he would have been easy to hang out with. But also, King Tubby was such a minimalist and I’d be curious about how he determined when enough was enough – investing so much power in the fewest elements. Have Fun With God [the 2014 dub remix album of 2013’s Dream River] was very traditional – all the moves were taken from 70s Jamaican records. Maybe once is enough. But I do like the idea of recycling recorded things to make something else – that’s what initially attracted me to dub. If I did [a new remix album], I may do a chopped and screwed record.
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