Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is ready to assist those affected by the devastating wildfires in California, with 150 Ukrainian firefighters ready to go.

The offer by the Ukrainian president comes three days after Donald Trump Jr, son of US president-elect Donald Trump, responded to the Los Angeles wildfires by appearing to blame Ukraine on social media. “Oh look of course the LA fire department donated a bunch of their supplies to Ukraine,” Trump Jr said in a post on X on 8 January.

If deployed, Ukrainian firefighters would join those sent by Canada and Mexico, who have already converged on the Los Angeles area to help fire departments from around the state, even as Trump has threatened to levy tariffs against both countries.

On Sunday, Zelenskyy said in a post on X: “Today, I instructed Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs and our diplomats to prepare for the possible participation of our rescuers in combating the wildfires in California.

“The situation there is extremely difficult, and Ukrainians can help Americans save lives. This is currently being coordinated, and we have offered our assistance to the American side through the relevant channels. 150 of our firefighters are already prepared.”

Firefighters managed to make progress on several smaller fires in southern California over the weekend, but two big blazes, the Palisades fire and the Eaton fire, are yet to be contained after burning for six days straight.

The wildfires have reduced entire Los Angeles neighbourhoods to ash, killing at least 16 people, and forcing more than 150,000 to evacuate. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said the fires could be the most devastating natural disaster in US history.

Strengthening winds threaten to expand the swath of destruction through Los Angeles in the coming days.

On Saturday morning, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on X: “The humanitarian aid group is leaving for Los Angeles, California,” alongside photos of firefighters holding the flags of Mexico and California and standing on the runway in front of two planes. “We are a country of generosity and solidarity,” she added.

Newsom thanked Mexico in a message on X posted on Friday after the deployment was announced. “California is deeply grateful for President Sheinbaum’s support as we work to suppress the Los Angeles wildfires,” he wrote.

Crews from California and nine other states are part of the ongoing response that includes nearly 1,400 fire engines, 84 aircraft and more than 14,000 personnel, including those from Mexico.

Hundreds of inmates from California’s prison system were also helping firefighting efforts. Nearly 950 incarcerated firefighters were dispatched “to cut fire lines and remove fuel to slow fire spread,” according to an update from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Though the state has long relied on prison labor to fight fires, the practice is controversial as the inmates are paid little for dangerous and difficult work.

With Reuters

Gavin Newsom is scheduled to ease building restrictions for victims of the Los Angeles wildfires – part of a reconstruction effort that he said on Sunday would need a California version of the Marshall Plan, the US-led effort to rebuild western Europe after the second world war.

The California governor ordered the state’s tough environmental laws and permitting requirements to be suspended to help wildfire victims rebuild their homes and businesses, with costs so far placed at $135bn to $150bn over 10 years, according to AccuWeather.

“I find that strict compliance with various statutes and regulations specified in this Order would prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the effects of these fires and windstorm conditions,” Newsom wrote in the executive order.

“California leads the nation in environmental stewardship. I’m not going to give that up,” he later told NBC’s Meet the Press. “But one thing I won’t give into is delay. Delay is denial for people: lives, traditions, places torn apart, torn asunder.”

The building code suspensions apply only to properties and facilities in “substantially the same location” as before the fires, and whose height and footprint do not exceed 110% of their original size, the order says.

Newsom also called for a California version of the Marshall Plan. “We already have a team looking at reimagining LA 2.0,” he said, “and we are making sure everyone’s included, not just the folks on the coast, people here that were ravaged by this disaster.”

Meanwhile investigators are searching for clues as to why the major fires – Palisades and Eaton – were ignited, even as Santa Ana winds are expected to pick up overnight on Sunday and through Tuesday with no rain anticipated until later in the week.

One theory gaining traction is that overhead transmission and distribution lines, rocked or brought down by the winds, may have sparked, igniting the dry vegetation below. It is routine for utilities to shut off power during “red-flag events” but the power lines were on near the Eaton and Palisades fires started on Tuesday last week.

Power lines and utility equipment have been identified as the cause of California’s 2018 Camp fire, killing 85 people and destroying the town of Paradise, the 2023 Maui fire in Hawaii and a 2021 fire in Otis, Oregon, that began when a utility pole fell and ignited a wildfire, destroying 300 homes.

Los Angeles department of water and power reportedly does not have a program in place to pre-emptively shut off power in urban areas when fire risk is high. Robert McCullough, a electric utility consultant, told the New York Times that the department’s shut-off plan is “woefully inadequate”.

The analyst also said that the utility’s electric grid was designed to withstand wind speeds of up to 56mph, which considered “quite low in today’s climate”. The department has said it did not cut power in advance of the fires in the city despite the wind speeds.

“Impacts to critical city services, including emergency response, the ability to fight fires, traffic and streetlights, as well as impacts to vulnerable people at home, are risks of widespread power outages, as are hospitals, dialysis centers and care centers,” the department explained in a statement to the outlet.

Theories that the power supply could have triggered the blazes have been bolstered by data from Whisker Labs, a tech firm that uses a sensor network to monitor power grids.

Whisker has said some homes in the Altadena area still had power at the time the fire started. Company CEO Bob Marshall said the grid showed considerable stress before the fire erupted, suggesting a power line could have come into contact with vegetation or touched another line.

A spokesperson for Southern California Edison (SCE), the utility that supplies power to Altadena, the area ravaged by the Eaton fire, said it will review “all information available to us as part of our investigation” in the fires.

Insurance companies have asked SCE to preserve evidence, according to a company filing to regulators. SCE has said it had found “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire”.

The Washington Post pointed to photo by a resident close to Eaton Canyon, where the Altadena blaze ignited, showing a transmission tower that it said was still energized when vegetation ignited below.

In an escalation of discontent among the highest-profile far-right followers of Donald Trump, his former adviser Steve Bannon has called Trump’s newest favorite, Elon Musk, “racist” and a “truly evil guy”, pledging to “take this guy down” and kick him out of the Maga movement.

In an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper in Italy, excerpts of which were published this weekend by Breitbart, Bannon criticised Musk’s embrace of some forms of immigration and vowed to ensure that Musk does not have top-level access to the White House.

“He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Bannon said. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it – I’m not prepared to tolerate it any more.”

He added: “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by inauguration day”, which falls on 20 January. “He will not have full access to the White House. He will be like any other person.”

Musk became one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, and certainly his richest, during the Republican’s ultimately successful campaign to regain the US presidency, spending reportedly about $270m and being rewarded with a place at Trump’s side ever since.

After his victory Trump tapped Musk to help lead an advisory group theoretically dedicated to cutting US government spending by up to $2tn, a quarter of its entire budget.

But Musk’s embrace of H-1B visas, which allow companies – such as Musk’s own SpaceX and Tesla – to hire skilled professionals and engineers from outside the US, has been taken badly by other Maga acolytes who are opposed to nearly all forms of immigration. Musk, who was born in South Africa, has himself held an H1-B visa.

“This thing of the H-1B visas, it’s about the entire immigration system is gamed by the tech overlords. They use it to their advantage. The people are furious,” said Bannon, whom Trump fired from his White House position during his first administration but who later reinvented himself through his War Room podcast as one of the chief evangelists of the Maga movement.

Bannon further widened his aim to attack Musk’s fellow tech giants Peter Thiel and David Sacks for having South African heritage.

“He [Musk] should go back to South Africa,” Bannon said. “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

Arguing that Musk’s “sole objective is to become a trillionaire” and calling him a proponent of “techno-feudalism on a global scale”, Bannon said, “I don’t support that and we’ll fight it,” adding: “He won’t fight. He’s got the maturity of a little boy.

“He will do anything to make sure that any one of his companies is protected or has a better deal or he makes more money.

“His aggregation of wealth, and then – through wealth – power: that’s what he’s focused on.”

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday he was ready to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to Pyongyang in exchange for the return of Ukrainian prisoners of war held in Russia. Zelenskyy’s offer came hours after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service confirmed Ukraine’s announcement from the previous day that it had captured two North Korean soldiers.

• In a post on X Sunday, Zelenskyy said: “Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong-un’s soldiers to him if he can organise their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia.” There would “undoubtedly be more” North Korean soldiers captured by Kyiv, he added. “There should be no doubt left in the world that the Russian army is dependent on military assistance from North Korea.”

• One of the men said he wanted to return to North Korea while the other said he wanted to remain in Ukraine, according to translated comments from a video of the two men’s interrogations posted by Zelenskyy. “For those North Korean soldiers who do not wish to return, there may be other options available,” said Zelenskyy. “In particular, those who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korean will be given that opportunity.”

• The soldiers are the first captive North Koreans to survive. They represent a PR opportunity for Kyiv, during a precarious moment for Ukraine as Donald Trump returns to the White House. Zelenskyy is keen to emphasise that Ukraine is fighting an unprecedented coalition of malign autocratic states. One is North Korea, which has supplied Moscow with short-range ballistic missiles, artillery shells and – since last November – about 10,000 elite troops.

• Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson said that his country was neither at war nor at peace as he announced that Sweden would be sending armed forces into the Baltic Sea for the first time as part of increased surveillance efforts amid a spate of suspected sabotage of undersea cables. The country announced it will contribute up to three warships and a surveillance aircraft to a Nato effort to monitor critical infrastructure and Russia’s “shadow fleet” as the alliance tries to guard against sabotage of underwater infrastructure.

• Russia on Sunday claimed the capture of two villages in eastern Ukraine where its forces have been steadily advancing for months. The defence ministry said forces had captured the village of Yantarne in the eastern Donetsk region, around 10km (six miles) southwest of Kurakhove, a key logistics hub that Moscow claimed to have seized last week. On Saturday, Russia’s army said it had also taken new territory northwest of Kurakhove. The defence ministry said Sunday that Russian troops had also captured the village of Kalinove in the northeastern Kharkiv region. The village is on the western bank of the Oskil River, which for a long time formed the front line between the two armies in the region.

• An emergency task force arrived in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region on Sunday as an oil spill in the Kerch Strait from two storm-stricken tankers continues to spread a month after it was first detected, officials said. The task force, which includes emergency situations minister Alexander Kurenkov, was set up after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called on authorities to ramp up the response to the spill, calling it “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in recent years.”

• A local woman died on Sunday in the Ukraine-controlled part of Russia’s Kursk region after Russian strikes damaged a state boarding school where local people were sheltering, a Ukrainian official said. On Saturday evening, “Russian aviation carried out two air strikes on the area of the boarding school in Sudzha, as a result of which one woman suffered a laceration wound to her arm, and died in the morning,” Ukrainian army spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky said on television news.

• In Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, drone attacks injured eight people Sunday in the main city of Kherson and a nearby village, regional authorities said. In the Russian-controlled section of the Kherson region, a Ukrainian drone killed a 76-year-old woman, Russian-installed Governor Vladimir Saldo said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s capture of two North Korean soldiers on the battlefield has provided a rare glimpse into their role and Pyongyang’s participation in the Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

The two soldiers were taken prisoner in Kursk oblast, the scene of intense fighting since Ukraine launched a cross-border raid five months ago. Video showed special forces soldiers carrying one of the wounded North Koreans across a snowy forest.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine would give journalists access to the pair, so the world “can learn the truth about what is happening”.

The prisoners have been transported to Kyiv and given appropriate “medical treatment” for their injuries, Zelenskyy said. He praised the paratroopers and tactical group that retrieved them, saying: “This was not an easy task.”

Russian forces and North Korean military personnel had previously executed wounded North Korean soldiers in order to “erase” any trace of Pyongyang’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, he claimed.

Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency has been questioning the soldiers, who were given fake Russian names and military documents. The pair speak no foreign languages. South Korea’s NIS intelligence service has been assisting, the SBU said.

The soldiers are the first captive North Koreans to survive. They represent a PR opportunity for Kyiv, during a precarious moment for Ukraine as Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Zelenskyy said he was ready to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to Pyongyang in exchange for the return of Ukrainian PoWs held in Russia.

The president is keen to emphasise that Ukraine is fighting an unprecedented coalition of malign autocratic states. One is North Korea, which has supplied Moscow with short-range ballistic missiles, artillery shells and – since last November – about 10,000 elite troops.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has acknowledged that North Koreans have been deployed to fight against Ukraine.

“There should be no doubt left in the world that the Russian army is dependent on military assistance from North Korea,” said Zelenskyy. Last month he said that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” fighting for Russia. Seoul put the figure at 1,000.

Russia has also deepened its cooperation with Iran. Tehran provides kamikaze drones used in nightly attacks against Ukrainian towns and cities. China does not contribute direct military aid but is a key diplomatic ally and delivers micro-electronic components used extensively in Russian weapons systems.

On Saturday, the SBU released video footage and photographs showing the two North Korean men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands, the other with a bandaged jaw. There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, wrote on social media: “We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang.”

The soldiers had reportedly told the SBU they were experienced fighters. One said he had been sent to Russia for training, not to fight. One had no identity documents, while the other was in possession of a Russian military ID card said to have been “issued in the name of another person”, a 26-year-old from Russia’s Tuva region, which borders Mongolia.

According to the SBU he was a rifleman who was born in 2005 and had been in the North Korean army since 2021. The other wrote his answers due to his injured jaw, stating that he was born in 1999, had joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper.

South Korea’s intelligence agency, NIS, confirmed Ukraine’s account, adding that one of the soldiers had said North Korean forces had suffered “significant losses during battle”. One of the men said he had gone without food or water for up to five days before his capture.

One of the men said he wanted to return to North Korea. The other said he would do what he was told but, if given the chance, wanted to live in Ukraine.

Russia, meanwhile, reported that its military had advanced to within 3km of the strategically important town of Pokrovsk, in the eastern Donetsk province and had seized a village south of the town. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces had repelled 46 out of 56 attacks on about a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector.

On Saturday, the Russian news agency Ria reported for the first time from the Ukrainian town of Kurakhove, a logistics centre south of Pokrovsk. Russian military said last week that it had captured the town, the scene of intense fighting. Ukrainian combat units recently pulled out of their last stronghold in Kurakhova, a thermal power plant.

Ukraine’s military made gains in the Kursk border region, according to reports by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which said geolocated videos showed Ukrainian soldiers had advanced to just north of the village of Pogrebki.

On Sunday, Germany’s chancellor said it was “no bad news” that Trump hoped to arrange a meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in an effort, according to the incoming US president, to “get that war over with”.

However, Olaf Scholz stressed that Ukraine’s sovereignty should not be called into question. Kyiv has rejected any deal that forces it to cede territory to Russia.

Referring to his own telephone conversation with Putin last month, for which he received much criticism, Scholz told the broadcaster ARD: “The point will come when real conversations have to be had.”

Germany, the second largest contributor to Ukraine’s war effort after the US, would continue to support Ukraine, he said, “but at the same time the killing has to stop at some point.”

He said it was necessary to “find a way out of this war, without a dictated peace in which the Ukrainians have no say”.

Early on Sunday, a Russian oil tanker that had run adrift in the Baltic Sea north of the German island of Rügen after suffering a blackout when its electricity supply failed, was manoeuvred safely into the port of Sassnitz by tug boats.

The tanker, Eventim, containing an estimated 99,000 tons of oil, is believed to be part of an extensive operation by Moscow to try to circumnavigate sanctions, for which dilapidated, unseaworthy ships are often used.

The 274-metre-long vessel with 24 crew members has effectively been impounded by authorities until a decision is made as to how to deal with it.

The Swedish prime minister has said that his country is neither at war nor at peace as he announced that Sweden would be sending armed forces into the Baltic Sea for the first time as part of increased surveillance efforts amid a spate of suspected sabotage of undersea cables.

The country announced it will contribute up to three warships and a surveillance aircraft to a Nato effort to monitor critical infrastructure and Russia’s “shadow fleet” as the alliance tries to guard against sabotage of underwater infrastructure.

Speaking on the opening day of Sweden’s three-day annual Folk och Försvars (people and defence) conference in Sälen, northern Sweden, Ulf Kristersson also commented on the recent Baltic undersea cable breaks, saying “hostile intent cannot be ruled out”.

Amid hybrid attacks and “proxy wars” – citing Iran’s alleged use of members of Swedish gangs to commit crime – Kristersson said: “Sweden is not at war. But there is no peace either.”

He added: “True peace requires freedom and the absence of serious conflicts between countries. But we and our neighbours are exposed to hybrid attacks, carried out not with robots and soldiers, but with computers, money, disinformation and the risk of sabotage.” Those who want peace, he said, must “be prepared for war”.

In a later press conference he said Sweden would be sending an ASC 890 reconnaissance aircraft and up to three warships. “This is the first time that Sweden has contributed armed forces in our own immediate area,” he said.

Commenting on the investigation into the ship Eagle S, suspected of damaging a cable between Finland and Estonia last month, he said Nato is “ready to help” and that a Swedish submarine rescue ship is on site and has recovered an anchor.

“Sweden does not jump to conclusions or accuse anyone of sabotage without very strong reasons. The work continues and the national security council is updated on an ongoing basis,” he said.

“But we are not naive either. The security situation and the fact that strange things happen time and time again in the Baltic Sea also lead us to believe that hostile intent cannot be ruled out.

“There is little evidence that a ship would accidentally and without noticing it, drag an anchor with 300 metres of chain for over 100 kilometres, without understanding that it could cause damage.”

He said he would be meeting heads of state and government of the Baltic Sea in Helsinki, Finland’s capital, on Tuesday. “None of us are making frivolous accusations. But we all take it seriously.”

Domestic support for Sweden’s recent Nato membership was, he said, a sign that “Sweden has changed”. No longer, he said, is Sweden a “blue-eyed idealist on the sidelines”, but instead had become “a realist in the centre of events”.

Sweden contributes 2.4% of GDP to Nato, the prime minister said, a figure due to grow to 2.6% in three years’ time. Spending on civil defence is due to grow to a total of 37.5bn SEK (£2.75bn) by 2030, with the building of a new national cybersecurity centre under way.

In an interview with the Guardian last month, Sweden’s civil defence minister, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, said more countries should follow Sweden’s example when it comes to war preparedness amid the heightened security threat from Russia, which he said “will be here for a long time to come”.

The escalation of alleged sabotage on the Baltic, he said, means: “We need our authorities to be on their toes.”

Other speakers on Sunday were due to include Magdalena Andersson, former prime minister and leader of the Social Democrats, Maria Malmer Stenergard, the minister of foreign affairs, defence minister Pål Jonson and Bohlin.

On Monday, Nato’s deputy secretary general, Radmila Šekerinska, will also participate in the conference in an event dedicated to Nato’s vision under new leadership.

Ahead of the conference, Stockholm announced that it would be increasing the pace of its military defence modernisation, amid what it described as “the most serious security situation since the end of the second world war”.

It said: “The government notes that an armed attack on Sweden cannot be ruled out.”

Counter-terrorism police have taken over the investigation of a swastika vandalism attack at a Sydney synagogue as the police commissioner and state government call on the public to help catch the perpetrators.

The acting New South Wales premier, Penny Sharpe, said she was confident counter-terrorism police had the resources and skills to find the latest attack’s perpetrators.

“They bring all of the intelligence that we have about activity that is out there,” she told ABC radio on Monday.

“They are able to co-ordinate at the local level, at the broader level, they’re able to work very closely and do things like release CCTV.”

Jewish leaders condemned the latest attack, in which red swastikas were spray-painted across the front wall of Newtown synagogue in Sydney’s inner west by a male and female about 4.30am on Saturday.

They also ignited a clear liquid that burned out within minutes but the fire could have had deadly consequences if it had taken hold, the New South Wales police commissioner, Karen Webb, said on Sunday.

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The “hateful criminals” were not just attempting to deface a place of worship but were seeking to destroy it, said the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president, David Ossip.

“This was a failed act of terrorism which risked the safety and property of residents peacefully sleeping in their homes near the synagogue,” he said.

The investigation had been taken over by the counter-terrorism command’s hate crime unit, Webb said.

“I appeal to anyone out there who knows who has perpetrated these disgusting offences to come forward and tell police who they are,” she said.

“There are other local investigations where there are graffiti on ride share bikes and skate parks and other things will continue to be dealt with locally, unless there’s a suggestion that they are linked.”

Anthony Albanese defended his government’s action to curb antisemitism following the incidents in Sydney and the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue in December.

“I’ve campaigned against racism and anti-Semitism my whole life,” he said.

“We have introduced significant legislation, the first ban on the Nazi salute and hate symbols.”

The federal opposition has criticised Labor’s response, claiming the government has failed to strengthen anti-hate laws and been too slow in getting the Australian federal police to set up an antisemitism task force.

There has been a series of antisemitic attacks in Australia.

In December the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne was set on fire in an attack condemned by the prime minister, Albanese, and other leaders.

Hours before the Newtown attack, similar graffiti was spray-painted on a home in Queens Park in the city’s east, and cars and a trailer were vandalised.

On Friday the Southern Sydney synagogue in Allawah was vandalised with swastikas, while police are also investigating offensive comments written on a poster in Marrickville.

Police have released an image of a man wanted for questioning about the Allawah attack.

The Inner West mayor, Darcy Byrne, also condemned the “appalling and cowardly” vandalism, and said “these ongoing gutless attacks are against everything our multicultural and multi-faith inner west community stands for”.

Investigators have released images of two people clad in black clothing they want to speak to about the attack in Newtown.

One was riding a mountain bike and the other had a motorised scooter.

The rise of hate speech and intimidation in Australia has been linked to the conflict in Gaza.

The race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, in December said antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism against Arabs and Palestinians had dramatically increased.

Counter-terrorism police have taken over the investigation of a swastika vandalism attack at a Sydney synagogue as the police commissioner and state government call on the public to help catch the perpetrators.

The acting New South Wales premier, Penny Sharpe, said she was confident counter-terrorism police had the resources and skills to find the latest attack’s perpetrators.

“They bring all of the intelligence that we have about activity that is out there,” she told ABC radio on Monday.

“They are able to co-ordinate at the local level, at the broader level, they’re able to work very closely and do things like release CCTV.”

Jewish leaders condemned the latest attack, in which red swastikas were spray-painted across the front wall of Newtown synagogue in Sydney’s inner west by a male and female about 4.30am on Saturday.

They also ignited a clear liquid that burned out within minutes but the fire could have had deadly consequences if it had taken hold, the New South Wales police commissioner, Karen Webb, said on Sunday.

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The “hateful criminals” were not just attempting to deface a place of worship but were seeking to destroy it, said the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president, David Ossip.

“This was a failed act of terrorism which risked the safety and property of residents peacefully sleeping in their homes near the synagogue,” he said.

The investigation had been taken over by the counter-terrorism command’s hate crime unit, Webb said.

“I appeal to anyone out there who knows who has perpetrated these disgusting offences to come forward and tell police who they are,” she said.

“There are other local investigations where there are graffiti on ride share bikes and skate parks and other things will continue to be dealt with locally, unless there’s a suggestion that they are linked.”

Anthony Albanese defended his government’s action to curb antisemitism following the incidents in Sydney and the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue in December.

“I’ve campaigned against racism and anti-Semitism my whole life,” he said.

“We have introduced significant legislation, the first ban on the Nazi salute and hate symbols.”

The federal opposition has criticised Labor’s response, claiming the government has failed to strengthen anti-hate laws and been too slow in getting the Australian federal police to set up an antisemitism task force.

There has been a series of antisemitic attacks in Australia.

In December the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne was set on fire in an attack condemned by the prime minister, Albanese, and other leaders.

Hours before the Newtown attack, similar graffiti was spray-painted on a home in Queens Park in the city’s east, and cars and a trailer were vandalised.

On Friday the Southern Sydney synagogue in Allawah was vandalised with swastikas, while police are also investigating offensive comments written on a poster in Marrickville.

Police have released an image of a man wanted for questioning about the Allawah attack.

The Inner West mayor, Darcy Byrne, also condemned the “appalling and cowardly” vandalism, and said “these ongoing gutless attacks are against everything our multicultural and multi-faith inner west community stands for”.

Investigators have released images of two people clad in black clothing they want to speak to about the attack in Newtown.

One was riding a mountain bike and the other had a motorised scooter.

The rise of hate speech and intimidation in Australia has been linked to the conflict in Gaza.

The race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, in December said antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism against Arabs and Palestinians had dramatically increased.

A man accused of shooting dead 98 kangaroos on an army base in New South Wales denies all charges against him.

Joey Pace, 43, of Williamtown, appeared briefly in Raymond Terrace local court on Monday after being arrested by NSW police in the Hunter Valley.

The man’s defence lawyer, Glenn Kable, told the court Pace would be pleading not guilty to all charges.

The magistrate Gregory Moore adjourned the case to 26 August for hearing and continued Pace’s bail.

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Moore ordered police provide Pace with the brief of evidence against him by 1 May.

Police raided Pace’s property at Williamtown in December and allegedly seized three firearms after the discovery of the dead kangaroos on the Singleton army base in October.

A number of firearms were also allegedly seized from a second Hunter property.

A firearms suspension notice has been issued.

Pace has been charged with six offences including aggravated animal cruelty between 1 and 8 October at Broke, discharging a firearm on the Singleton military base, trespassing on commonwealth land and harming or attempting to harm protected animals, namely the 98 kangaroos.

He is also accused of failing to ensure a Stirling 20 rifle was kept safely at Williamtown on 20 December 2024, and not having approved storage for ammunition when being the holder of a category A or B licence.

Police were called after the dead kangaroos as well as an ammunition box and two cartridges were found on the Singleton army base on 8 October.

Pace did not comment outside court.

One in five generation Z and millennial Britons prefer strong leaders without elections to democracy, and voters overall are feeling downbeat about politics, a report has found.

The polling, due to be published next week as part of the FGS Global Radar report, found that overall 14% of people agreed with the statement: “The best system for running a country effectively is a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with elections,” rather than the alternative: “The best system for running a country effectively is democracy.”

That rose to 21% of people aged between 18 and 45, who answered that the best system was a strong leader without elections. In contrast, only 8% of people over 55 preferred that system to democracy.

The report’s findings, that a sizeable minority of under-45s are unconvinced by the need for elections, come as some electorates have been opting for populist leaders, such as Donald Trump, through the ballot box, and the billionaire Elon Musk has been wielding power over public debate by shaping what is seen on his social media platform X.

Last week, the FT reported that Musk, who has been appointed by Trump to help overhaul the public sector, had privately discussed with allies how Keir Starmer could be removed as UK prime minister before the next general election, in a move that would constitute an intervention into British democracy.

The FGS report polling found that men were more likely to lean away from democracy than women, at 17% compared with 13%, and Reform UK voters were fractionally more likely to do so than voters for other parties, at 17% compared with Labour voters at 16%, Conservative at 14%, Lib Dem at 9% and Greens at 8%.

Despite last year bringing a Labour landslide, changing the government in the UK, and delivering a second Trump administration in the US, nearly one in four voters said they thought voting did not make a difference. Those most disillusioned with voting were aged 25 to 44, with three in 10 saying it made no difference.

The survey found pessimism about the state of UK politics, with 47% saying: “None of the current political parties represent my views and values very closely.”

From polling 2,000 adults of voting age, it found 23% think that “the UK is going in the right direction”, while 64% agree with the statement: “It feels like the UK is in a period of steep decline.” About one in six said they felt that “the UK’s best years are behind us”.

The annual Global Radar report, which looks at the big themes of 2025, predicts that this will be the year of Trump and there will be a period of shock and awe while he delivers his agenda.

In off-record interviews with 70 political experts and opinion formers, the report said they highlighted the fact that the UK is now a beacon of relative stability – compared with the last parliament and with the current state of play in major European neighbours – allowing businesses to plan, take decisions and engage.

But many also predicted there would be inevitable clashes with business, trade unions and Labour backbenchers, with interviewees questioning whether the cabinet has the stomach for the fight.

The report said that even the Labour supporters it spoke to were worried that the government was struggling to articulate its strategy and agenda, and concerned about a lack of a clear vision and narrative to explain what the Starmer government is doing, why it is doing it and who it is for.

Public Enemy’s Chuck D has asked people to stop using the rap group’s song Burn Hollywood Burn as a soundtrack on videos of the California wildfires, saying it has “nothing to do with families losing everything they have”.

The rapper issued the statement on the weekend in response to several videos uploaded to TikTok and Instagram that use the 1990 Public Enemy song over footage of the wildfires, which have killed at least 24 people, destroyed more than 12,300 buildings and displaced more than 200,000 people so far.

“Burn Hollywood Burn is a protest song,” the rapper wrote in a statement that he shared online. “Extracted from the Watts rebellion monikered by the magnificent Montague in 1965 against inequality when he said ‘burn baby burn’ across the air.

“We made mind revolution songs aimed at a one-sided exploitation by an industry. Has nothing to do with families losing everything they have in a natural disaster. Learn the history. Godspeed to those in loss.

“Please don’t use our song on your reels and pictures of this horrifying natural disaster,” he added.

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Since last Tuesday, wildfires have continued to break out and burn across Los Angeles county, with thousands of homes and buildings incinerated in the suburbs of Pacific Palisades, Eaton Canyon, Malibu and the Hollywood Hills.

The two biggest wildfires – Palisades and Eaton – are still less than 30% contained, with officials in California warning on Sunday that strengthening winds in the coming days threaten to spread the destruction further.

The fires have consumed about 62 sq miles (160 sq km), the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) reported. All the confirmed deaths have come from the Palisades and Eaton fires, which officials said were only 11% and 27% contained, respectively, by early Sunday. The death toll is expected to rise.

Hollywood has been greatly affected by the fires, with many celebrities losing their homes in Pacific Palisades and Malibu, including Billy Crystal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Anthony Hopkins, Jeff Bridges, Mel Gibson, John Goodman, Paris Hilton, Cary Elwes, John C Reilly and Eugene Levy.

Meanwhile, actor James Woods revealed his house survived the Pacific Palisades fire, days after he emotionally told CNN that it was likely gone. It was “a miracle”, he wrote on X on Friday, adding: “We managed to get to our property and our home, that we were told [was] gone forever, is still standing.”

On the weekend, Disney announced it would donate US$15m (A$24.3m) to fire relief assistance groups, including the American Red Cross and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. Paramount, Fox and Warner have also each announced US$1m donations for various relief agencies.

Actor Jamie Lee Curtis, whose house in Pacific Palisades has survived the flames, said on social media that her family foundation would donate US$1m to “start a fund of support for our great city and state and the great people who live and love there”.

The annual No Trousers Tube Ride event has returned in colourful fashion as people stripped down to their underwear and hopped on the London Underground.

Hordes of bare legs were seen at Newport Place in Chinatown before heading on to the tube in their underwear of choice.

Crowds gathered at Waterloo station and one group of women kicked their legs with raised arms while dressed in coloured knickers. Others were seen strutting down escalators, taking selfies on the platform or posing inside train carriages as they showcased an array of underwear styles and colours.

Wearing garments ranging from pink knickers to black Y-fronts to grey boxers adorned with red hearts, participants were smiling and laughing as they took part in the free event.

Some added flair to their clothing, with one man dressed in a white shirt, black tie and brown waistcoat, while another opted for a more cosy look in an orange puffer jacket, orange beanie and blue scarf.

The Facebook event instructed participants to dress in “pants as normal or low-key as possible, so it looks like you’ve just forgotten your trousers”.

The annual event was described as “a fun activity just for the sake of fun”.