TRANSCRIPT
- 2024 confirmed as the warmest year on record.
- A second Sydney synagogue vandalised with antisemitic graffiti overnight.
- And in tennis, The head of men's tennis rejects claims of favourable treatment toward Jannik Sinner following doping scandal.
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The Grantham Institute on Climate Change says 2024 was the hottest year on record with such a big jump that the planet temporarily passed a major climate threshold.
The Institute is one of six climate agencies to release 2024 temperature data on Friday showing last year's global average temperature easily passed 2023's record heat and kept pushing even higher.
Bob Ward from the Grantham Institute in London says higher temperatures were causing more evaporation and the rapid drying out of vegetation affecting wildfire outbreaks.
"Areas that have been previously prone to wildfires are becoming even more dangerous. It's not increasing the likelihood of a fire starting, which might be due to natural or manmade causes, but what it does mean is that when a fire starts it spreads very rapidly because the vegetation dries out. And we know that in California in particular, there have been long periods of drought the last couple of years."
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Entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed and over 180,000 people have evacuated as five wildfires continue to burn in Los Angeles.
The California wildfires have caused widespread devastation, claiming at least 10 lives, destroying nearly 10,000 structures and consuming and ravaging the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood.
And the second biggest blaze, at 55 square kilometres, is the Eaton Fire in Altadena, an eastern suburb of Los Angeles.
A curfew has been put in place to prevent further looting.
The fires come amid a drought which saw only 0.03 of an inch of rain falling in the South California region in the last three months of 2024, allowing for a build-up of vegetation and fire fuel.
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A synagogue in the Sydney suburb of Newtown has been vandalised with antisemitic graffiti overnight.
The synagogue had Nazi swastikas sprayed across the front of the facility, just one day after swastikas were also sprayed across a Sydney synagogue in Allawah.
Premier Chris Minns described the attack on the Southern Sydney Synagogue in Allawah, within his Kogarah electorate, as hate-filled, horrific, and designed to divide the community.
The incident follows a wave of antisemitic and anti-Israel vandalism across Sydney in recent weeks and a firebombing attack at a synagogue in Melbourne last month.
In a statement David Ossip, President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said the attacks are part of a concerted campaign to intimidate, harass and menace the Jewish community.
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Palestinian journalists in Gaza are pleading for international media organisations to speak out against the Israeli assault which has reportedly killed almost 200 of their colleagues.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate claims nearly 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 11 of those killings were targeted attacks on journalists.
The PJS spoke outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, with journalist Abubaker Abed saying he and his colleagues are being targeted for reporting on what he calls a "genocide".
"We've been immolated, incinerated, dismembered and disembowled, and recently, we've been freezing to death. What more ways should you be seeing us killed then so you can move and stop the hell inflicted upon us. But we never stopped. We never stopped to tell you the truth, to narrate our stories, and to tell you that we are being genocided."
Israel denies that it targets journalists, saying it only targets Hamas militants.
The Gaza Health Ministry say over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's assault, the majority of whom are women and children.
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In sport,
The head of men's tennis has rejected claims Jannik Sinner has received favourable treatment and is confident the sport will survive if the world number one ultimately cops a lengthy doping ban.
Sinner has arrived in Melbourne for his Australian Open title defence with his future in doubt after the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed a decision to ban him for one month for twice testing positive for an anabolic steroid last March.
ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi insists Sinner's case has been handled appropriately, referring to the International Tennis Integrity Agency accepting the 23-year-old's explanation that the drug entered his system unintentionally.
But with WADA now appealing the short-term ban, Sinner could still be suspended for up to two years.
The Italian starts his Grand Slam campaign on Monday.
