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Sydney’s Bondi Beach was quiet and grieving as investigators on Monday said the two alleged gunmen who opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration were likely inspired by the Islamic State group and had recently traveled to the Philippines. The attack killed 15 people in Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years and is being investigated as an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community, police said. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said early evidence points to a father-and-son team who “aligned…

Bondi Beach Hanukkah shooting probed as terror attack; Israel’s envoy urges protection for Jewish Australians SYDNEY — Dozens queued along Sydney’s Bondi Beach to lay flowers and light candles for the victims of the weekend’s Hanukkah festival shooting, as Australia opened a terrorism investigation and Israel’s ambassador called for stronger protection of the country’s Jewish community. Police said 16 people were dead, including one of the alleged gunmen, after two attackers opened fire on Sunday in Australia’s worst mass…

Fifteen people, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed in the Bondi Beach attack in Sydney, which police have declared a terrorist incident targeting a Hanukkah celebration. Authorities said the shooting, believed to have been carried out by a father and son, struck on the first day of the Jewish festival of lights and left a cross-section of the city’s communities in mourning. Police said the victims ranged in age from 10 to 87. Another 42 people, including four children, were taken to hospitals across Sydney, according…

France and Italy are pushing to delay a final European Union vote on the Mercosur trade agreement, a last-minute intervention that threatens to derail a pact 25 years in the making and billed as the EU’s largest deal by tariff relief. The move comes days before European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is due in Brazil to sign the agreement with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and amid heightened pressure on the bloc to show unity. Supporters say the EU-Mercosur deal would diversify European trade away from…

Australia defended its record on combating anti-Semitism after an attack that drew national attention, saying it has robust laws and community protections in place as police investigate the incident. Officials condemned the violence and said authorities are working with community leaders to reassure the public and gather information. Law enforcement agencies did not immediately release details about the motive, injuries or suspects, and urged anyone with relevant information to come forward. The government pointed to…

LONDON — Sir Cliff Richard has revealed he has been treated for prostate cancer for the past year, saying the disease is “gone at the moment” and urging the U.K. government to introduce a national screening program for men. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, the 85-year-old singer said he learned of the diagnosis during health checks for insurance ahead of a concert tour of Australia and New Zealand. “I don’t know whether it’s going to come back. We can’t tell those sort of things but we need to, absolutely, I’m…

Police are investigating the deaths as an "apparent homicide". The Los Angeles Police Department has not publicly named the deceased, but the couple were identified in a family statement and were also named in statements from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3.30pm local time on Sunday and found a 78-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman dead inside the residence. A law enforcement official briefed…

Jose Antonio Kast won Chile’s presidency with about 58% of the vote, becoming the country’s most right-wing leader since the return to democracy 35 years ago. He defeated Jeannette Jara, a communist who headed a broad leftist coalition, after campaigning on a sweeping security and immigration crackdown and a promise to jump-start the economy. “Chile wanted change,” Kast told supporters, vowing to “restore respect for the law.” He has pledged to expel more than 300,000 immigrants in the country illegally, seal the northern…

HONG KONG — Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was found guilty Monday on two counts of foreign collusion and one count of seditious publication, a landmark verdict under Hong Kong’s national security law that could send the 78-year-old founder of the shuttered Apple Daily newspaper to prison for life. Lai, who has been jailed since 2020, listened impassively with folded arms as a panel of national security judges delivered the verdict in one of the Chinese territory’s most closely watched trials since Beijing imposed the…

In the hills of Cox’s Bazar, inside a shelter pieced together with bamboo and tarpaulin, Nur Haba unwraps a bundle of keepsakes. At its center is a faded photograph of Mariam. “She was shot dead in front of me,” Nur says quietly. The picture is one of the few belongings she salvaged from their home in Myanmar’s Rakhine State before, she recalls, soldiers torched it and the family fled. In the chaos of escape, as they waded across a river, her two-year-old son, Mohammed, was swept away and drowned. For the Rohingya—described…