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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – A man who set fire to a Melbourne synagogue while worshippers were inside was motivated by mental illness rather than antisemitism, an Australian magistrate said on Monday. Angelo Loras, 35, had pleaded guilty to arson and recklessly placing people at risk of death on July 4 when he doused the front door of the East Melbourne Synagogue with flammable liquid and ignited it. Around 20 worshippers were inside sharing a Shabbat meal, but no one was injured. Reports of antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents have risen sharply across Australia since the war between Israel and Hamas began...

From 10 December, social media companies will have to take "reasonable steps" to ensure that under-16s in Australia cannot set up accounts on their platforms and that existing accounts are deactivated or removed. The government says the ban - a world-first policy popular with many parents - is aimed at reducing the "pressures and risks" children can be exposed to on social media, which come from "design features that encourage them to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing". A study commissioned by the government earlier this year said 96%...

Some Australians are waiting more than six years to see specialists such as neurologists, prompting doctors to warn that people are suffering "irreversible complications" and risking death while languishing on public waiting lists. The ABC has analysed waiting lists for public specialists across the nation, with the results revealing an overstretched system. In some cases, patients were left waiting more than three-and-a-half years for urgent appointments to see neurosurgeons, despite the clinically recommended time frame being 30 days. Those waiting times were unacceptable, Australian Medical Association vice president Julian Rait said. "It's a devastating impact for very many people. Either...

The Liberals are no closer to resolving internal divisions despite frontbenchers getting set to agree on dumping net-zero policy. An announcement of dumping the policy, extending coal-fired power and embracing nuclear is expected to follow shortly after the party's shadow cabinet convenes in Canberra on Thursday. The decision follows a five-hour meeting between all 51 Liberal MPs and senators, where a majority spoke in favour of ditching Australia's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, according to people in the room. Championed by the ascendant conservative faction, the party's climate shift is a blow for Liberal moderates who see their chances...

Leaders and activists say they are feeling the weight of the moment, after Australia's first treaty with Aboriginal people was signed and formalised as law today. Victoria's treaty has become Australia's first modern treaty agreement with the country's Indigenous owners, in a move labelled "historic" by the United Nations human rights chief. Yiman and Ghangulu man man Mick Gooda, who has spent decades advocating for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, said he was "so happy and pleased" for the people of Victoria. Indigenous man wearing a navy shirt and glasses. Mick Gooda says the Victorian treaty...

This may offer some insight into why the UK government is inviting in so many Muslims, and doing everything it can to appease and accommodate them, even to the extent of letting Muslim rape gangs run wild for years, with British authorities too afraid of being called “racist” and “Islamophobic” to do anything about: key members of the British political elite, including Prince Charles, don’t find the Islamic supremacist world view, particularly in its hatred of and paranoia toward Jews, all that different from its own.“Prince Charles blames ‘foreign Jews’ for Middle East turmoil in 1986 letter,” by Chantal Da...

On 6 September 2025, two boys aged twelve and fifteen were walking home from basketball practice in Cobblebank, an outer suburb of Melbourne, when they were chased and set upon by a group of assailants who then hacked them to death with machetes. Seven teenagers have since been arrested and charged with murder. This double murder has become a flashpoint in the city’s ongoing crimewave. A surge in violent crime and property crime is afflicting the city, still regularly (but less credibly) listed among the world’s most liveable. The Melbourne crimewave is the most visible manifestation of endemic disorder created...

The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs. The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts. TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s ambassador to America, who trash talked Trump in the past found himself getting some payback in the Oval Office duding the US/Australia meeting. Not a great idea to get into fights with Trump, Chuckle.

President Trump tore into a foreign ambassador on Monday who badmouthed him in the past after signing a multibillion-dollar, rare-earth and critical minerals deal with visiting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. “Did an ambassador say something bad about me?” Trump asked Albanese when a journalist mentioned Australian Ambassador Kevin Rudd’s prior remarks vilifying the 45th and 47th president. “Where is he? Is he still working for you?” Albanese informed Trump that Rudd, a former prime minister and Australia’s top diplomat in Washington since 2023, was sitting across the table, prompting Trump to ask, “You said bad? “Before I took this...

"We're going to be signing an agreement that's been negotiated over a period of four or five months."WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump on Monday signed a critical minerals and rare earths deal with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling the leader a trusted friend and steadfast ally.Under the deal, the U.S. and Australian governments will invest more than $3 billion in critical mineral projects over the next six months, “with recoverable resources in the projects estimated to be worth $53 billion,” according to the White House. The Department of War will also invest in constructing a “100 metric ton-per-year advanced gallium...

To recap the past week: Hamas films themselves executing over 100 Palestinians. The media is silent. Hamas launches RPGs at Israeli troops, murdering two. The media is silent. Israel responds by striking a Hamas commander. The media says Israel violated the ceasefire.

Chilling security footage shows a sushi chef being randomly stabbed by a homeless woman while the chef was walking down the street to work. Wan Lai, 26, was walking down the sidewalk in a busy area of Melbourne, Australia, when a redheaded stranger ran up behind her, tapped her on the shoulder and plunged a knife into her chest. Lai, clearly stunned, clutches the wound and slowly sits on the ground as a good Samaritan runs over to help and offers Lai her coat, according to the clip. She was rushed to the hospital, where she spent three days recovering...

British far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson has arrived in Israel for a visit at the invitation of Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli. In a video uploaded to X from the arrivals hall at Ben Gurion Airport, Robinson says he is “here to show solidarity with the Jewish people and the Israeli people” after the British government announced that it would recognize an independent Palestinian state — which Robinson repeatedly refers to as a “terrorist state” — last month. Robinson, the founder of the far-right nationalist English Defense League, says he supports Israel because he “sees it as an ally, as...

The Trump administration is fighting to block a global carbon tax that a United Nations (UN) agency is attempting to pass quietly this week. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a UN body based in London, is meeting this week to adopt a so-called “Net-Zero Framework,” which would levy significant penalties on carbon dioxide emissions from ships that exceed certain limits. The Trump administration argues the proposal could raise global shipping costs by as much as 10%, ultimately driving up prices for American consumers. “President Trump has made it clear that the United States will not accept any international environmental agreement...

Hamas appeared to renege on key demands of President Trump’s cease-fire deal just hours after the world celebrated the end of the Gaza war — with a top official saying the terror group will not give up its arms or control over the Gaza Strip. Spokesman Hazem Qassem claimed Monday that Hamas has no need to abide by every word of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, including calls for the terror group to lay down its arms. “We do not need to limit ourselves to the Israeli terms and definitions related to weapons,” Qassem told the Al-Arabiya news channel. “We will...

When I wrote on Saturday that the foreign policy establishment is in utter shambles, I'm not sure I expected them to respond with such utter shamelessness. Yet, here we are, with former Secretary of State Antony Blinken giving Joseph Robinette Biden credit for the recently negotiated Gaza peace deal. No, I'm not kidding, and that's not even the worst of it. As RedState reported, the deal will see the release of the remaining hostages, with Israel not having to vacate Gaza. Instead, they'll pull back to a predetermined line inside the territory, forming a buffer zone to ensure the disarmament...

Synergy is facing new revelations it has overcharged West Australians for power. (ABC News: Cason Ho) More than 170,000 customers have been overcharged a total of $40 million by WA's state-owned energy retailer Synergy since 2009, it has been revealed. The overpayments range from amounts under a dollar, to thousands of dollars, according to Synergy CEO Kurt Baker, who said most of those affected were residential customers. "We've accepted payments to approximately 170,000 closed accounts, resulting in overpayments," he told ABC Radio Perth. "In many cases this has happened because Synergy's allowed customers to continue to pay to their closed...

All of Canada’s major pollsters are now showing at least a 10-point gap between the Conservatives and the Liberals. Were these sentiments to hold up in a general election, Conservative Pierre Poilievre would be looking at one of the largest landslides in modern Canadian history. Polls are pointing to a Conservative majority of 205 seats against a Liberal opposition of just 81. That would represent the most crushing electoral victory since 1984... The Liberals are now in third place anywhere outside of Ontario and Quebec – most notably in the previously Liberal stronghold of Atlantic Canada. And the Conservatives continue...

“Dogs are eating the bodies of the dead... is there anything worse than that?” says F, a 60-year-old resident of Gaza. This is not a metaphor – it’s a glimpse into the daily nightmare now unfolding in the Gaza Strip two years after the designated terror group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel. After two years of war, residents of the Palestinian enclave, like F – who spoke to The Jerusalem Report on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from Hamas – are still struggling to fully grasp what their lives have become after the militant group’s devastating decision...