This year is now almost certain to be the hottest year on record, data shows. It will also be the first to have an average temperature of more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels, marking a further escalation of the climate crisis.

Data for November from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found the average global surface temperature for the month was 1.62C above the level before the mass burning of fossil fuels drove up global heating. With data for 11 months of 2024 now available, scientists said the average for the year is expected to be 1.60C, exceeding the record set in 2023 of 1.48C.

Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of C3S, said: “We can now confirm with virtual certainty that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first calendar year above 1.5C. This does not mean that the Paris agreement has been breached, but it does mean ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever.”

The Paris climate agreement commits the 196 signatories to keeping global heating to below 1.5C in order to limit the impact of climate disasters. But this is measured over a decade or two, not a single year.

Nonetheless, the likelihood of keeping below the 1.5C limit even over the longer term appears increasingly remote. The CO₂ emissions heating the planet are expected to keep rising in 2024, despite a global pledge made in late 2023 to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

Fossil fuel emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 to have a chance of limiting heating to 1.5C. The recent Cop29 climate summit failed to reach an agreement on how to push ahead on the transition away from coal, oil and gas. The C3S data showed that November 2024 was the 16th month in a 17-month period for which the average temperature exceeded 1.5C.

The supercharging of extreme weather by the climate crisis is already clear, with heatwaves of previously impossible intensity and frequency now striking around the world, along with fiercer storms and worse floods.

Particularly intense wildfires blazed in North and South America in 2024, the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams) reported last week. The fires, driven by severe droughts, affected the western US, Canada, the Amazon forest and particularly the Pantanal wetlands.

Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at Cams, said: “The scale of some of the fires in 2024 were at historic levels, especially in Bolivia, the Pantanal and parts of the Amazon. Canadian wildfires were again extreme although not at the record scale of 2023.” The fires caused high levels of air pollution across continents for weeks, he said.

The economic damage caused by extreme weather is rising, according to the research institute of insurance firm Swiss Re. Its data found that estimated economic losses in 2024 rose by 6% to $320bn, a figure 25% higher than the average over the previous 10 years.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton and more severe thunderstorms in the US, as well as floods in Europe and the UAE, contributed to insured losses. But less than half the losses across the world were covered by insurance as poorer people were unable to afford the premiums.

“Losses are likely to increase as climate change intensifies extreme weather events, while asset values increase in high-risk areas due to urban sprawl. Adaptation is therefore key, and protective measures, such as dykes, dams and flood gates, are up to 10 times more cost-effective than rebuilding,” Swiss Re said.

Donald Trump has called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, a day after meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Paris, claiming Kyiv “would like to make a deal” to end its war with Russia.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said both sides had suffered enormous losses in the war – which he claimed on the US election campaign trail he would be able to end “in 24 hours” if elected. Trump has already appointed the retired army general Keith Kellogg as his Russia and Ukraine envoy, tasked with ending the war.

“There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed,” Trump said on Sunday.

He said Kyiv had “ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians”. He did not specify whether the figure included those wounded. “Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness,” he added.

Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram on Sunday that he had had a “good meeting” with Trump in Paris. The news site Axios reported that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had persuaded Trump to meet Zelenskyy with him, Trump being initially reluctant to meet the Ukrainian leader.

Zelenskyy said on Sunday that 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 370,000 wounded, of whom about half had been able to return to service after treatment.

Russia and Ukraine have both been reluctant to publish figures of those killed or wounded in action. In February, Zelenskyy gave a figure for the first time, putting the number of those killed at 31,000. At the time, western estimates put the real figure closer to 70,000 military fatalities.

How Trump’s policy on Ukraine will look in practice remains something of a mystery. Kellogg has previously talked of putting pressure on Kyiv and Moscow to enter talks, and boosting military aid to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin refused to engage. Others in Trump’s orbit have espoused openly pro-Russian views.

There has been cautious optimism in Kyiv over Trump’s election, as many Ukrainians felt the red lines and “escalation management” of the Biden administration had disastrous consequences on the battlefield.

Ukraine has become increasingly exhausted after nearly three years of full-scale war, and the number of people who say they would consider territorial concessions to stop the conflict is increasing.

“About a third are against any deal, a third want a deal in any circumstances including through concessions to Russia, and a third are not sure. They want the war to end but not at any price,” said the political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko in an interview in Kyiv.

In recent months, Kyiv has been suffering from an acute personnel shortage as its mobilisation drive flounders and the army struggles to replenish ranks. This has led to the US administration making the unusual move of publicly calling on Kyiv to lower the mobilisation age from 25 to 18 years old. Zelenskyy has ruled out the move, which would be deeply unpopular in Ukrainian society.

Among Zelenskyy’s inner circle, there is an increasing awareness that, as the army struggles to hold back Russia on the frontline, some kind of negotiations will be necessary soon. But they fear that without solid security guarantees from the west, a ceasefire would be meaningless.

“I told [Trump] that we need a just and strong peace, which the Russians won’t destroy in a few years as they did before,” Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

Despite Trump’s optimism about a possible deal, it is not clear that Putin has any interest in negotiations at the moment. He has laid out his demands for ending the war, which include Russian control over the Crimean peninsula and four regions Moscow laid claim to in 2022, including parts of Ukraine not currently controlled by Russian troops. Putin also wants a ban on Ukraine joining Nato, as well as its disarmament. Most of these conditions would be absolutely unacceptable for any Ukrainian leader to sign.

In recent weeks, a number of sources close to decision-making circles in Moscow have told the Guardian that they did not see any desire on Putin’s part to make real concessions for the sake of peace. “So far, I’ve seen no indications, either privately or publicly, that Moscow is particularly flexible in its stance. Those signals simply haven’t been there,” said one source in the Russian foreign policy establishment.

• Donald Trump has called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, a day after meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Paris, claiming Kyiv “would like to make a deal” to end its war with Russia. “There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed,” Trump said on Sunday in an online post. “I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The world is waiting!” Trump added. Trump said both sides had suffered enormous losses in the war – which he claimed on the US election campaign trail he would be able to end “in 24 hours” if elected. “Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness,” he added.

• Zelenskyy described his discussions with Trump, brought together by French President Emmanuel Macron, as “constructive” but gave no further details. Zelenskyy cautioned that Ukraine needs a “just and robust peace, that Russians will not destroy within a few years.” “When we talk about an effective peace with Russia, we must talk first of all about effective peace guarantees. Ukrainians want peace more than anyone else. Russia brought war to our land,” he said Sunday in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Among Zelenskyy’s inner circle, there is an increasing awareness that, as the army struggles to hold back Russia on the frontline, some kind of negotiations will be necessary soon. But they fear that without solid security guarantees from the west, a ceasefire would be meaningless.

• Like Joe Biden, president-elect Trump made a connection between the upheaval in Syria and Russia’s war in Ukraine, noting that allies of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in Moscow, as well as in Iran, the main sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah, “are in a weakened state right now”. Trump has suggested that Assad’s ousting could advance the prospects for an end to fighting in Ukraine.

• In an interview taped on Friday, Trump said that his incoming administration would be open to reducing aid to Ukraine, which the United States has been steadfastly backing since its invasion by Russia. “Possibly. Yeah, probably, sure,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. Trump renewed his warning to Nato allies that he did not see continued US participation in the alliance as a given during his second term. Asked whether he would consider the possibility of pulling out of Nato, Trump indicated that was an open question. “If they’re paying their bills, and if I think they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely I’d stay with Nato,” he said. But if not, he was asked if he would consider pulling the US out of the alliance. Trump responded, “Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.” He refused to say if he had spoken to Putin since winning election in November. “I don’t want to say anything about that, because I don’t want to do anything that could impede the negotiation,” Trump said. The interview was taped Friday and aired on Sunday, ahead of three-way talks with Macron and Zelenskyy over the weekend in Paris.

• Hopes for victory, a swift end to the war and prayers for their loved ones’ survival or return from Russian captivity are among the wishes scattered throughout letters sent by Ukrainian children living in frontline areas to a volunteer group. Every winter the volunteers travel to heavily damaged cities to deliver gifts and ensure that, despite the war, Ukrainian children can celebrate the holiday season. Gift requests include power banks to help families endure outages, as well as bicycles, books and even pets. This year, the group received 2,310 letters, according to project manager Inna Achkasova from the NGO Ukrainian Frontiers, who launched the St. Nicholas’ Reindeers initiative in 2015.

Donald Trump’s nominee for US surgeon general – Dr Janette Nesheiwat – accidentally knocked over a gun when she was 13 years old, causing it to fire and fatally shoot her father in the head.

The death of Nesheiwat’s father occurred in February 1990 at her family home in Umatilla, Florida, as reported on Friday by the New York Times.

“I was in Father’s bedroom at about 7.15am getting some scissors” out of a fishing tackle box on a shelf above her dad’s bed, she said, according to a police report reviewed by the New York Times. “I opened the … box and the whole thing tipped over”, causing a handgun to fall from inside, discharge and strike her father in the head as he slept in the bed.

Nesheiwat’s father, who immigrated from Jordan, died in a hospital the following day.

While avoiding discussing her role in the case, she has said her father’s death inspired her to become a doctor. Nesheiwat has spent the past 15 years as an urgent care doctor for CityMD, a for-profit chain of clinics around New York City.

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, she began appearing regularly on Fox News as a medical contributor.

Nesheiwat would replace Dr Vivek Murthy if her nomination is confirmed after Trump begins his second presidency.

Murthy was the first US surgeon general to declare gun violence as a public health crisis. In an advisory, he cited that firearms are now the leading cause of death in the US among children and adolescents.

A graphic accompanying the advisory explained how many of those deaths were unintentional, resulting from firearms that were stored loaded as well as unlocked.

To address the crisis, Murthy called on the US to ban automatic rifles, introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict use in public spaces and penalize individuals who fail to safely store their weapons.

Republicans have opposed efforts to treat gun violence as a public health issue, with House Republicans voting in 2023 to ban the Center for Disease Control from researching gun violence. Republicans have also pushed to prevent public health agencies from citing public health emergencies to pass gun control measures and has attempted to defund programs aimed at gun violence reduction.

Murthy was dismissed from his role as US surgeon general by Trump during his first presidency in 2017 before outgoing Joe Biden appointed him to the position again in 2021.

The New York Times reported that a Nesheiwat memoir being published later in December mentions her father’s death in the first sentence.

“When I was 13 years old, I helplessly watched my dear father dying from an accident as blood was spurting everywhere,” she writes in Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine. “I couldn’t save his life.

“This was the start of my personal journey in life to become a physician and enter the world of healing arts.”

But, according to the New York Times, nowhere in the next 260 pages of the book does she detail how her father died or say that he was shot.

The Orlando Sentinel provided more detail in 1990, describing in a news item how a bullet hit Ziad “Ben” Nesheiwat in the head and killed him after his 13-year-old daughter knocked over a tackle box, causing a gun to fall out and fire.

“As she says in her book, she became a physician because of her dad’s tragic accidental death,” a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, Brian Hughes, said in a statement to the New York Times after Nesheiwat did not respond for comment. “She became a physician to save lives, and that dedication to the lives of her fellow Americans is why president Trump nominated Dr Nesheiwat to be our next surgeon general.

“She and her family miss their father, and hope he’s proud of them.”

In his first sit-down television news interview since winning a second presidency in November’s election, Donald Trump renewed promises to pardon his supporters involved in the attack on the US Capitol in early 2021.

He also doubled down on promises of mass deportations and tariffs in the conversation with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker – the latter of which he acknowledged could cause Americans to pay more after riding voters’ complaints about higher prices back to the White House at the expense of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

“I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump said in the interview, claiming convicted Capitol attackers had been put through a “very nasty system”.

“I know the system,” said Trump, himself convicted in May by New York state prosecutors of criminally falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. “The system’s a very corrupt system.”

Trump said there may be some exceptions to his pardons over an attack on the Capitol that was meant to keep him in the Oval Office after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden – and which was linked to multiple deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers. He referenced previously debunked claims of anti-Trump law enforcement infiltrating his supporters’ ranks and agitating the attack.

When Trump was asked about Capitol attackers who assaulted police officers he said that “they had no choice”. He also claimed individuals were pressured into accepting guilty pleas.

“Their whole lives have been destroyed,” said Trump, who criticized the outgoing president’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, on convictions of lying on gun ownership application forms as well as tax evasion. “They’ve been destroyed.”

Trump denied he would direct his second administration’s appointees to arrest elected officials involved in the investigation of the attack on the US Capitol, which led to federal criminal charges against him that have been dismissed. But he made it a point to tell Welker: “Honestly, they should go to jail.”

More than 1,250 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. And at least 645 people have been sentenced to serve some time in prison, ranging from a few days to 22 years.

During his sentencing Friday, Philip Sean Grillo of New York City, one of the Capitol attackers, tauntingly told the federal judge presiding over his case, “Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways.” Grillo received a one-year prison sentenced and was ordered to be taken into custody immediately.

Another of the convicted attackers, Edward Kelley of Tennessee, was found guilty at trial in November of conspiracy to murder federal employees. Jurors determined he had developed a list of officials he wanted to kill for investigating him in connection with the Capitol attack.

In other parts of Sunday’s interview, Trump reaffirmed his plans to enact tariffs on imports from some of the US’s biggest trading partners. He said he could not guarantee US families would not pay more as a result of his plan.

He also doubled down on refusing to admit Biden fairly defeated him in the 2020 election, claiming he won in November against Harris because the race “was too big to rig”.

On his plans of mass deportations, Welker asked Trump about families with mixed immigration statuses. Trump suggested immigrants living in the US legally were at risk if they had family members living in the country without permission.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump said.

He did claim to have some support for working with Democrats to protect Dreamers, or people who have lived in the US for years after being brought to the country as undocumented children. But, as he has done before, he promised to work to end birthright citizenship and said he would consider pushing to amend the US constitution to do so.

“We have to end it,” Trump said.

Welker also asked Trump if he had fully developed a plan to overhaul healthcare after saying he had “concepts” of one during his lone debate with Harris.

“We have concepts of a plan that would be better,” Trump replied, in part.

Barry Keoghan has deactivated his Instagram in response to the harassment of himself and his family after his reported break-up with the pop star Sabrina Carpenter, accusing fans of “crossing a line” and knocking on his grandmother’s door.

In a lengthy statement posted on X, the Oscar-nominated Irish actor wrote: “I can only sit and take so much. My name has been dragged across the internet in ways I usually don’t respond to. I have to respond now because it’s gettin to a place where there are too many lines being crossed. I can no longer let this stuff distract from my family and my work.”

The Saltburn star, who has a two-year-old son with a former partner, said he had deactivated his Instagram account after receiving messages containing “absolute lies, hatred, disgusting commentary about my appearance, character, how I am as a parent and every other inhumane thing you can imagine … Talking about how I was a heroin baby and how I grew up and dragging my dear mother into it also.”

Keoghan, who has been candid about his difficult childhood in foster care and the death of his mother after struggling with drug addiction, said the harassment extended to his son and grandmother, accusing people of “knocking on my grannies door” and “sitting outside my baby boy’s house intimidating them. That’s crossing a line.”

It’s not the first time Keoghan has called out online trolls. Speaking on Louis Theroux’s podcast in November, he said: “People love to use my son as ammunition or whatever. And it kind of leads me to stop, the more attention I’ve got lately and the more in the public I’ve become, the less I’ve posted about my child, because I don’t think it’s fair to put my child online.”

Keoghan told Theroux that his son’s absence from social media meant “people draw a narrative and go ‘absent father, shit, deadbeat dad’ and more disgusting things I wouldn’t even repeat. Just the audacity of some people, man, it sickens me and makes me furious.”

In his statement Keoghan, who is filming for Netflix’s Peaky Blinders movie, wrote: “Each and every day I work harder to push myself on every level to be the healthiest and strongest person for that boy. I want to provide opportunities for him to learn, fail and grow. I want him to be able to look up to his daddy, to have full trust in me and know I will have his back no matter what.”

He concluded: “I need you to remember he has to read ALL of this about his father when he is older. Please be respectful to all. Thank u x.”

Keoghan had been in a relationship with Carpenter for almost a year, and appeared in her Please Please Please video clip, until reports of their break-up broke last week.

Ghana’s former president John Dramani Mahama has won a historic comeback election victory after voters appeared to punish the ruling New Patriotic party over its management of an economic crisis.

The NPP’s candidate, the vice-president, Mahamudu Bawumia, on Sunday conceded defeat in the weekend presidential election after failing to shake off widespread frustration over the high cost of living.

Defeat in Saturday’s election ended eight years in power for the NPP under President Nana Akufo-Addo, marked by the west African state’s worst economic turmoil in years, high inflation and a debt default.

For Mahama, the country’s president from 2012 to 2017, it was his third attempt to reclaim the presidency after falling short in 2016 and 2020 elections.

“The people of Ghana have spoken, the people have voted for change at this time and we respect it with all humility,” Bawumia said in a press conference flanked by party officials.

In what was a speedy concession with official vote tallies still coming in, Bawumia said he had called Mahama, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), candidate to congratulate him.

Blaring horns, waving flags and cheering, Mahama supporters were already celebrating outside the party campaign headquarters in the capital, Accra.

Mahama has yet to speak publicly since Bawumia’s concession. But on his X account, Mahama confirmed he received Bawumia’s congratulatory call over his “emphatic victory”.

Ghana’s economic woes dominated the election, after the continent’s top gold producer and world’s second-biggest cacao exporter went through a crisis of default and currency devaluation, ending with a $3bn (£2.3bn) IMF bailout.

Earlier, the NDC spokesperson Sammy Gyamfi said the party’s internal review of results showed Mahama had won 56.3% of the vote, against 41.3% for Bawumia.

Political parties had agents at polling stations to observe and tally the initial vote counts before the ballots were sent for official collation by the election commission.

The commission had said official results were expected by Tuesday.

With a history of democratic stability, Ghana’s two main parties, the NPP and NDC, have alternated in power equally since the return to multiparty politics in 1992.

Under the slogan “Break the 8” – a reference to two terms in power – Bawumia had sought to lead the NPP to an unprecedented third term. But he struggled to break away from criticism of Akufo-Addo’s economic record.

Though inflation slowed from more than 50% to about 23%, and other macro-economic indicators are stabilising, economic struggles were still a clear election issue for many.

That frustration opened the way for a comeback challenge from Mahama. But during campaigning, the former president also faced criticism from those who remember his government’s financial problems, especially the massive power cuts that marked his time in office.

Ghana’s former president John Dramani Mahama has won a historic comeback election victory after voters appeared to punish the ruling New Patriotic party over its management of an economic crisis.

The NPP’s candidate, the vice-president, Mahamudu Bawumia, on Sunday conceded defeat in the weekend presidential election after failing to shake off widespread frustration over the high cost of living.

Defeat in Saturday’s election ended eight years in power for the NPP under President Nana Akufo-Addo, marked by the west African state’s worst economic turmoil in years, high inflation and a debt default.

For Mahama, the country’s president from 2012 to 2017, it was his third attempt to reclaim the presidency after falling short in 2016 and 2020 elections.

“The people of Ghana have spoken, the people have voted for change at this time and we respect it with all humility,” Bawumia said in a press conference flanked by party officials.

In what was a speedy concession with official vote tallies still coming in, Bawumia said he had called Mahama, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), candidate to congratulate him.

Blaring horns, waving flags and cheering, Mahama supporters were already celebrating outside the party campaign headquarters in the capital, Accra.

Mahama has yet to speak publicly since Bawumia’s concession. But on his X account, Mahama confirmed he received Bawumia’s congratulatory call over his “emphatic victory”.

Ghana’s economic woes dominated the election, after the continent’s top gold producer and world’s second-biggest cacao exporter went through a crisis of default and currency devaluation, ending with a $3bn (£2.3bn) IMF bailout.

Earlier, the NDC spokesperson Sammy Gyamfi said the party’s internal review of results showed Mahama had won 56.3% of the vote, against 41.3% for Bawumia.

Political parties had agents at polling stations to observe and tally the initial vote counts before the ballots were sent for official collation by the election commission.

The commission had said official results were expected by Tuesday.

With a history of democratic stability, Ghana’s two main parties, the NPP and NDC, have alternated in power equally since the return to multiparty politics in 1992.

Under the slogan “Break the 8” – a reference to two terms in power – Bawumia had sought to lead the NPP to an unprecedented third term. But he struggled to break away from criticism of Akufo-Addo’s economic record.

Though inflation slowed from more than 50% to about 23%, and other macro-economic indicators are stabilising, economic struggles were still a clear election issue for many.

That frustration opened the way for a comeback challenge from Mahama. But during campaigning, the former president also faced criticism from those who remember his government’s financial problems, especially the massive power cuts that marked his time in office.

As the search for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer goes on, New York police late Saturday released two additional photos of the suspected shooter that appeared to be from a camera mounted inside a taxi.

The first shows him outside the vehicle and the second shows him looking through the partition between the back seat and the front of the cab. In both, his face is partially obscured by a blue, medical-style mask.

Retracing the gunman’s steps using surveillance video, police say, it appears he left the city by bus soon after the shooting Wednesday morning outside the New York Hilton Midtown. He was seen on video at an uptown bus station about 45 minutes later, said the New York police’s chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny.

With the high-profile search expanding across state lines, the FBI announced late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, adding to a reward of up to $10,000 that the NYPD has offered. Police say they believe the suspect acted alone.

On Saturday, NYPD investigators arrived in Atlanta following tips on the suspect. However, there were no additional details provided by local authorities’ beyond confirmation of the New York investigators’ presence in Georgia.

Police don’t know who he is, where he is, or why he did it. But they are confident it was a targeted attack instead of a random act. And New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, insisted Saturday that “the net is tightening”.

Aided by drones, police officers scouring Central Park found a backpack believed to have been discarded by Thompson’s killer during his escape. NBC News, citing two sources, reported that there was fake money from the board game Monopoly inside the backpack.

In addition to the apparent targeted nature of the attack, the words “delay”, “deny” and possibly depose were written on shell casings found in the wake of Thompson’s killing. Such evidence has suggested the possibility that the motive is linked to the healthcare industry’s routine denial of payments for medical services to many Americans.

Healthcare debt has emerged as the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US while for-profit health insurers such as UnitedHealthcare are among the country’s wealthiest entities. Thompson, 50, who lived in Minnesota near UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters, commanded a salary of $10m annually before he was shot dead as he prepared to attend a meeting with investors of the company.

Thompson’s survivors include a wife and two sons, now 19 and 16.

• The Associated Press contributed reporting

Victoria police say Friday’s arson attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne is being treated as an act of terrorism.

The Victoria police chief commissioner, Shane Patton, made the declaration about Friday’s Ripponlea fire being regarded as a suspected terrorist attack on Monday morning.

He said the decision followed advice provided at a meeting between Victoria police, the Australian federal police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio).

“Based on that, I am very confident that we now have had an attack – a terrorist attack – on that synagogue,” Patton said at a press conference, alongside the AFP’s deputy commissioner, Krissy Barrett, and the state premier, Jacinta Allan.

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He said it was “clear” that the fire was “ targeted, it was callous and an horrific attack on the synagogue”.

“But by default, it’s an attack on the Jewish people,” he said.

Patton said police were searching for three suspects over the fire, which occurred early on Friday morning. About 60 firefighters and 17 trucks were called to the site about 4.10am.

He said the investigation will be handed over from the arson squad to the joint counter-terrorism team, consisting of Victoria police, AFP and Asio officers.

“What concerns me is the callous nature of this attack, the emboldened nature of this attack, and the fact that the attack has taken place where it occurred,” Patton said.

“When you have a crime like this that strikes at the fabric of the community. That is very, very concerning to us.”

Barrett said the declaration allows for “more powers, more capability and more intelligence”.

“I want to thank Victoria police investigators for the significant information they have gathered so far, which has helped lead us to believe that this is likely to be politically motivated attack,” she said.

“This is now a terrorism investigation.”

Allan said the fire was an “evil attack” and vowed to support the Addas Israel community rebuild the synagogue.

Patton said he did not believe firearms were involved in the incident, despite the discovery of a “very old damaged two calibre bullet” on the footpath outside the synagogue “many hours after this attack”.

“We have nothing to suggest whatsoever that has any connection with [the arson attack]. Nonetheless, as a result of completeness, we’ve taken that away for examination,” he said.

The synagogue has sustained significant damage and has been boarded up.

Floral tributes and notes have been left outside, as well as signs from the synagogue saying “We will rebuild”. The Victorian government has already committed $100,000 to the rebuild effort and the community had raised about $300,000 online.

Meir Chaim Spigelman, president of the Adass Israel community, said it was too early to know the extent of the damage but expected it would run into the “tens of millions of dollars”.

“Initially, we thought it wasn’t so bad because the structure outside has stayed intact but inside, it has been completely destroyed,” he said.

“The fire tore everything apart except for our scriptures. They aren’t burnt but the heat has singed some of them.”

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has for days accused the federal government of dragging its feet in declaring the fire an act of terrorism, and creating a hostile climate for the Jewish community.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Sunday said he personally believed the attack met the criteria for being labelled a terrorist act but that there was a process to be followed.

Ten people were injured after a police traffic officer reportedly trying to show off on a motorcycle crashed into bystanders at a holiday parade in Palm Springs, California, according to authorities and witnesses who spoke to a local newspaper.

All of the injured were taken to hospitals for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening on Saturday night, including the officer, police said.

The name of the officer wasn’t immediately released. But the Palm Springs Post reported that he may have suffered a traumatic injury to his wrist.

The Desert Sun said witnesses told the newspaper that the officer was reportedly popping a wheelie and suddenly lost control of his motorcycle.

It slid into the crowd of spectators and brought the festive event to a standstill for more than an hour.

Authorities said some emergency responders participating in the parade helped the injured along with ambulances and fire trucks still adorned with holiday lights.

The crash occurred at about 6pm as crowds gathered to watch the 32nd annual Palm Springs Festival of Lights Parade that typically draws between 80,000 and 100,000 spectators.

“I feel terrible about the accident and injuries to the very people we protect,” the Palm Springs police chief, Andy Mills, said on Facebook.

City officials said the California highway patrol is investigating the crash and looking for any witness videos.

Researchers are preparing to make one of science’s most unusual journeys. They are planning to transport a container of antimatter in a lorry across Europe.

Antimatter is the most expensive material on Earth – it’s estimated it would cost several trillion dollars to make a gram – and it can only be manufactured in particle physics laboratories such as the Cern research centre near Geneva.

It is also extremely tricky to handle. If antimatter makes contact with normal matter, both are annihilated, releasing a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation. Only by carefully combining sets of powerful electrical and magnetic fields in special devices can antimatter be stored safely.

“That makes moving it around very difficult, though we are now close to making our first journey,” said Prof Stefan Ulmer, a scientist at Cern. “Antimatter has so much to tell us. That is why we are doing this.”

Moving the antimatter will be a scientific first, though it has a fictional precursor. In Dan Brown’s thriller Angels & Demons – made into a film starring Tom Hanks in 2009 – terrorists steal a canister of antimatter from Cern and try to obliterate the Vatican with it.

The prospect of a similar blast happening in real life is remote, scientists insist – the quantities of antimatter carried will be insufficient to make an explosion of any recognisable nature.

Scientists want to study the particles as they believe they may hold the solution to a fundamental mystery. “We believe the big bang produced the same amounts of matter and antimatter,” said Ulmer. “These should have annihilated each other, leaving a universe made of electromagnetic radiation and not much else.”

That the cosmos seems to be filled with galaxies, stars, planets and living beings made of matter shows this notion must be wrong. There is a basic asymmetry that has favoured matter and stopped the universe from becoming a simmering, empty void.

For this reason, physicists want to study the differences between the particles that make up matter and antimatter. These might provide clues about why the former has come to dominate the universe.

As the Cern scientist Barbara Maria Latacz told Nature: “We are trying to understand why we exist.”

Matter is made up of subatomic particles such as protons and electrons, while antimatter consists of particles that include antiprotons and positrons (as antielectrons are also known). A key source of the latter type of particle is based at Cern in a device known as the Antiproton Decelerator, where antiprotons are generated, collected and studied.

The aim is to measure precisely the properties of antiprotons and compare them with protons. Known as the Base experiment, it could reveal tiny hidden differences that would explain why matter has thrived at the expense of antimatter.

Background magnetic fields near the device are limiting this work, and scientists want to transport samples to other labs. “By moving them to a new location, we can make measurements that are 100 times more accurate and get a deeper understanding of antiprotons,” said Ulmer.

To achieve this goal, Cern scientists have built transportable devices containing superconducting magnets, cryogenic cooling systems and vacuum chambers where antiprotons can be trapped, avoiding contact with normal matter, and carried on seven-tonne lorries.

Initially, antiprotons will be transported within Cern. Over the next year, containers will be moved further afield to a dedicated precision lab at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

“In the long term, we want to transport it to any lab in Europe,” said Christian Smorra, leader of the transport project. In this way, scientists hope to find why antimatter all but vanished from the universe. “This could be a gamechanger,” said Ulmer.

A pair of iconic ruby slippers that were worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and stolen from a museum nearly two decades ago sold for a winning bid of $28m at auction Saturday.

Heritage Auctions had estimated that they would fetch $3m or more, but the fast-paced bidding far outpaced that amount within seconds and tripled it within minutes. A few bidders making offers by phone volleyed back and forth for 15 minutes as the price climbed to the final, eye-popping sum.

Including the Dallas-based auction house’s fee, the unknown buyer will ultimately pay $32.5m.

Online bidding, which opened last month, had stood at $1.55m before live bidding began late Saturday afternoon.

The sparkly red heels were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in the actor’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005 when Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case.

Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018. Martin, now 77, who lives near Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota, wasn’t publicly exposed as the thief until he was indicted in May 2023. He pleaded guilty in October 2023. He was in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen when he was sentenced last January to time served because of his poor health.

His attorney, Dane DeKrey, explained ahead of sentencing that Martin, who had a long history of burglary and receiving stolen property, was attempting to pull off “one last score” after an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1m insured value. But a fence – a person who buys stolen goods – later told him the rubies were just glass, DeKrey said. So Martin got rid of the slippers. The attorney didn’t specify how.

The alleged fence, 77-year-old Jerry Hal Saliterman of the Minneapolis suburb of Crystal, was indicted in March. He was also in a wheelchair and on oxygen when he made his first court appearance. He’s scheduled to go on trial in January and hasn’t entered a plea, though his attorney has said he’s not guilty.

The shoes were returned in February to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw, who had loaned them to the museum. They were one of several pairs that Garland wore during the filming, but only four pairs are known to have survived. In the movie, to return from Oz to Kansas, Dorothy had to click her heels three times and repeat, “There’s no place like home.”

As Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers of Oz, put it, the sequined shoes from the beloved 1939 musical have seen “more twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road”.

Over 800 people had been tracking the slippers, and the company’s webpage for the auction had hit nearly 43,000 page views by Thursday, said Robert Wilonsky, a vice-president with the auction house.

Among those bidding to bring the slippers home was the Judy Garland Museum, which posted on Facebook shortly after that it did not place the winning bid. The museum had campaigned for donations to supplement money raised by the city of Grand Rapids at its annual Judy Garland festival and the $100,000 set aside this year by Minnesota lawmakers to help the museum purchase the slippers.

After the slippers sold, the auctioneer told bidders and spectators in the room and watching online that the previous record for a piece of entertainment memorabilia was $5.52m, for the white dress Marilyn Monroe famously wore atop a windy subway grate.

The auction also included other memorabilia from The Wizard of Oz, such as a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who played the original Wicked Witch of the West. That item went for $2.4m, or a total final cost to the buyer of $2.93m.

The Wizard of Oz story has gained new attention in recent weeks with the release of the movie Wicked, an adaptation of the mega-hit Broadway musical, a prequel of sorts that reimagines the character of the Wicked Witch of the West.