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An Australian man launched a crowdfunding campaign to fly to the US and move into Billie Eilish’s $3 million Los Angeles mansion following her “no one is illegal on stolen land” rant at the Grammy Awards. Drew Pavlou, a 24-year-old political activist and influencer, called out Eilish’s alleged virtue signaling in her anti-ICE remarks after she won Song of the Year at the 68th annual award show. “I am flying to the USA next Friday to attempt to move into Billie Eilish’s beachside Malibu mansion,” Pavlou wrote on X on Monday, sharing a link to the now-defunct GoFundMe. “No human...

Across advanced economies, the rental market is undergoing a profound change. In the years before covid-19 struck, rents were high but not growing fast: the cost of leasing a home rose by about 2% a year, according to official data. During the pandemic, rental inflation slowed and, in some cities, rents fell as landlords desperately looked for tenants. Today it is a different story. Rich-world rents are growing at an annual pace of 5% or so, the fastest sustained increase in decades—presenting a huge challenge for the quarter of rich-world households that rent. In some places, rental markets have gone...

As Prime Minister Mark Carney emphasizes national unity, separatist sentiment is gaining renewed attention in more than one part of the country. In the small central Alberta town of Innisfail, the quiet of Main Street contrasts sharply with the intensity of opinions surrounding the issue. Jeff Olson, owner of Innisfail Bowling and Entertainment, says he is fully behind separation, arguing Ottawa has long treated Alberta unfairly. “The job of the West is to keep the East prosperous. They’ve made that very clear,” Olson said. “We have taxation without representation. It’s getting to a point where the government is spending more...

Donald J. Trump Truth Social Post 06:29 PM EST 01.29.26 Based on the fact that Canada has wrongfully, illegally, and steadfastly refused to certify the Gulfstream 500, 600, 700, and 800 Jets, one of the greatest, most technologically advanced airplanes ever made, we are hereby decertifying their Bombardier Global Expresses, and all Aircraft made in Canada, until such time as Gulfstream, a Great American Company, is fully certified, as it should have been many years ago. Further, Canada is effectively prohibiting the sale of Gulfstream products in Canada through this very same certification process. If, for any reason, this situation...

Bounties as high as $100,000 are being offered to contract killers for the murder of dozens of Israeli researchers, including some in the US, on the website of a hateful anti-Zionist group. “The Punishment for Justice Movement” website offers between $50,000 for murdering one of the Jewish academics listed — and twice that amount for the killing of “special targets” — claiming the high-achieving researchers are complicit in child murder. Home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and social media accounts were listed for at least 40 academics, according to The Jerusalem Post. The website offered a $2,000 USD as reward...

Donald Trump’s strangely artificial Board of Peace event in Davos on Thursday looked like a Hollywood rendering of an international summit. Everything was too slick, faintly uncanny. Like an AI-generated image, it was photo-real yet failed the most basic human glance test. Too perfect. No wabi-sabi. The first tell was visual: the set, complete with a crisp new institutional logo: a globe on a shield, flanked by olive branches. It carried the unmistakable whiff of Grok or ChatGPT, but the strangeness went deeper than design. The speeches themselves were weirdly messianic and utopian. The most peculiar part was the show-within-a-show:...

Australia’s most prominent neo-Nazi organisation has announced it will disband ahead of sweeping federal laws coming into effect - but not without taking a parting shot at the government.

All week, Iranians have been mounting massive and widespread street protests. … These demonstrations have been far more consequential than previous such revolts. ... Even more remarkably, a number of bases for the fearsome Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia reportedly fell into the hands of protesters, with one Basij operative killed after demonstrators threw stones in Kuhdasht, a city in western Iran. At time of writing, this insurrection is still escalating. Although at least four protesters have been killed, the feared bloodbath by security forces hasn’t yet materialized. ... [If] this revolt ... succeed[s], this ... would...

Australia has activated a new requirement for search engines to verify the ages of their signed-in users, with companies now facing a six-month countdown to full compliance. The rule, which began on December 27, sits within a newly registered industry code under the authority of the eSafety Commissioner and extends the country’s expanding system of online content controls. Search services such as Google and Bing must soon introduce age-assurance checks when logged-in users perform searches that might surface adult or otherwise “high-impact” material. The mechanisms vary, but common approaches include prompting users to confirm their age through a pop-up screen...

One Australian politician has said the quiet part out loud It’s not often the Premier of New South Wales says something that changes the political debate in the UK and elsewhere, but so it is this week. Following the awful carnage on Bondi Beach, NSW Premier Chris Minns gave a press conference about new legal restrictions on speech, and said this: “I acknowledge that we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that, we have got a responsibility to knit together our community, that comes from different...

A group of Western and allied states issued a joint statement condemning the Israeli security cabinet’s approval of 19 new communities in Judea and Samaria, stating that the move was "part of a wider intensification of the settlement policies in the West Bank." The statement, issued by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom, described the decision as a unilateral action and claimed that such steps "not only violate international law but also risk fueling instability." According to the statement, the decision risks undermining "the implementation of the Comprehensive...

Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel, Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog, and Chairman of The Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors, Mark Wilf, have sent a strongly worded letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese following the deadly terrorist attack at the Sydney Jewish community’s Hanukkah celebrations. In the letter, the leaders of The Jewish Agency called on the government of Australia to act decisively to eradicate antisemitism through education, legislation, and law enforcement. They expressed their deep condolences to the Jewish community in Australia and to the Australian people, emphasizing that their hearts are with the...

..... Patrick, who has written five other books, says Masters’ 2017 book on the SAS, No Front Line, includes only a single paragraph about the storming of the Taliban-held mosque for which Roberts-Smith received the VC and only a single sentence mentioning Roberts-Smith. Yet Patrick argues this action is probably the high point of the entire war for Australia. The award of a Battle Honour Citation for the entire Special Operations Task Group Rotation 12 for “extraordinary heroism and combat excellence”, the first such award since Vietnam, suggests Patrick is correct. ..... Patrick condemns all war crimes but believes people...

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has erupted at the nation’s leaders over the Bondi terror attack, reiterating her longstanding warnings about mass immigration, Islam, and multiculturalism. Speaking today, the 71-year-old said Australians who continue to vote for major parties should expect “what we’re going to get”. Ms Hanson said the violence reflected a broader breakdown in social cohesion and national identity, which she blamed on immigration policy and political leadership. “(If) you keep voting for these bastards who actually don’t have pride for our country, Australia, our flag, then be prepared to get what we’re going to get,” Hanson said....

“DITCH the winter chill” and “expand your horizons in sunny South East Queensland!” reads one newspaper advert, luring New Zealand’s health-care workers towards a new life in Australia. “Warmer days and higher pays”, enthused another, last year, from the Australian state’s police service. Kiwis who chose “policing in paradise” could look forward to 300 days of annual sunshine and a A$20,000 ($12,500) relocation bonus, it declared. For many New Zealanders that is an easy sell. They are leaving their country in record numbers. Almost 129,000 residents emigrated last year—40% above the pre-pandemic average for this century. It is not a...

Left-wing Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was greeted with boos and abuse at Bondi Beach on Sunday when he attended a memorial vigil to remember those murdered in the terrorist attack that struck a Hanukkah celebration one week ago. Shouts of “shame!” rang out as the Labor leader made his way through the crowd with his security team and staff. Grim-faced Albanese and his wife were further jeered with one man yelling out “blood on your hands” joined by a second who cried, “you are not welcome.” Other hecklers could be heard yelling out, “you don’t represent Australia” as he...

An emotional meeting took place at a Sydney hospital between Rabbi Mendel Kastel, the brother-in-law of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was murdered in a terrorist attack in the city, and Ahmed al-Ahmad, the Syrian Muslim citizen who courageously intervened and neutralized one of the terrorists during the attack. Al-Ahmad’s attorney, Sam Issa, also attended the meeting, which was reported by Kan News. Speaking to Ahmed at his hospital bedside, Rabbi Kastel expressed his gratitude. “Thank you-not only for saving lives, but for your courage,” he said. “The fact that you come from a non-Jewish background, from a Muslim background, makes...

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been heckled and booed on his return to Bondi Beach for a vigil, the first time he has visited since a brief visit on Monday morning. A National Day of Reflection is being held today to honor the victims of the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, on a night that should have been the final night of Hanukkah.

The Australian state of New South Wales is proposing to ban public displays of Islamic State group flags or extremist symbols after a mass shooting driven by antisemitism killed 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Under draft laws to be debated by the state Parliament, publicly displaying the IS flag or symbols from other extremist groups will be offenses punishable by up to two years in prison and fines. The state’s premier, Chris Minns, also said chants of “globalize the intifada” will be banned and police would be given greater powers to demand protesters remove face coverings at demonstrations. “Hate...

Bondi Beach is meant to be neutral ground. A place without history. A democratic beautiful stretch of sand where politics dissolves into sunlight, surf, and families pushing strollers toward the water. That illusion died when Jews gathered there to light Hanukkah candles—and were slaughtered for it. The massacre belongs to a broader pattern that has accelerated since Oct. 7, 2023: Jews targeted far from any battlefield, in the ordinary spaces of civic life. Synagogues, campuses, cafés, city streets—and now a beach—have become killing fields aimed not at a state, but at a people. The mass murder at Bondi did not...