Nearby residents were warned to keep windows and doors closed due to billowing smoke.

Queenslanders who use symbols and slogans dubbed 'hate speech' could face two years in prison under new laws.

Symbols and slogans linked to Nazi propaganda as well as the Israel-Palestinian conflict are set to be banned in Queensland under legislation set to be tabled in parliament this week.

It will be an offence to use the slogan "from the river to the sea" as well as "globalise the intifada" in a public place, both of which have connections to the Middle East conflict, leaders said.

READ MORE: Coalition confirms it has reunited following bitter split over hate speech laws

Premier David Crisafulli claimed the laws would directly target antisemitism.

"This is about drawing a clear line and stamping out the embers of hatred that were allowed to burn unchecked for too long," he said.

"The Jewish community has been clear: Queensland needs stronger legislation backed by real enforcement to drive out antisemitism."

The new laws are similar to those rolled out in New South Wales in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, where 15 people were shot dead at a Hanukkah by the Sea event in Sydney last year.

Victoria has also strengthened its hate speech laws twice last year.

As part of the bill, assaulting or threatening a person officiating at a religious ceremony or damaging a place of worship could lead to seven years' prison.

Display of the Hizballah emblem will also be banned.

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READ MORE: US TV anchor willing to pay ransom for safe return of mother

The penalty for displaying terrorist symbols has also been increased from six months imprisonment to two years' prison.

Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington claims the new legislation proves the government is backing and protecting the Jewish community.

"This Government is doing everything possible to stop the rise of antisemitism," she said.

"[The bill] introduces targeted reforms to ban terrorist symbols and phrases and improve safety around places of worship."

The changes come as Israel's Prime Minister Isaac Herzog plans to visit Australia, with protests planned in Sydney

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A vendor says some festivalgoers reported falling ill despite eating nothing at the event.

On one occasion, she lost consciousness, and, when she woke, she stabbed the man.

North Korea will convene a major political conference later this month, the country’s state media said on Sunday, where leader Kim Jong Un is expected to outline his domestic and foreign policies for the next five years.

The ruling Workers’ Party congress, which Kim previously held in 2016 and 2021, comes after years of accelerated nuclear and missile development and deepening ties with Moscow over the war in Ukraine that have increased his standoffs with the United States and South Korea.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the party’s political bureau met under Kim's supervision and decided the congress would be held in late February.

READ MORE: Coalition confirms it has reunited following bitter split over hate speech laws

State media did not immediately specify a date or release agenda details.

The congress will likely continue for days as a highly choreographed display of Kim’s authoritarian leadership.

In recent weeks, Kim has inspected weapons tests and toured military sites and economic projects as state media highlighted his purported achievements, crediting his “immortal leadership” with strengthening the country’s military capabilities and advancing national development.

READ MORE: Severe Tropical Cyclone Mitchell forecast to make landfall as residents sleep

His recent activities and comments suggest Kim will use the congress to double down on economic development through “self-sustenance” and mass mobilisation while announcing plans to further expand the capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, including upgrading conventional weapons systems and integrating them with nuclear forces.

Kim also could highlight his increasingly assertive foreign policy based on closer ties with Moscow and Beijing while hardening an adversarial approach toward rival South Korea as he continues to embrace the idea of a “new Cold War”, experts say.

Kim's willingness to resume diplomacy with the US is unclear.

READ MORE: Israel says Netanyahu will meet with Trump this week about Iran talks

READ MORE: Massive preparations begin in Sydney ahead of Israeli president's visit

Relations derailed in 2019 after his second summit with US President Donald Trump due to disagreements over sanctions against his nuclear weapons program.

Kim has rejected Trump’s overtures for dialogue since the US president began his second term in January 2025.

Kim insists Washington abandon demands for the North to surrender its nuclear weapons as a precondition for future talks.

Entering his 15th year in rule, Kim finds himself in a stronger position than when he opened the previous congress in 2021 during the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Navigating what was seen as his toughest stretch in a decade of power, Kim acknowledged his previous economic policies failed and issued a new five-year development plan through 2025.

READ MORE: US TV anchor willing to pay ransom for safe return of mother

He called for accelerated development of his nuclear arsenal and issued an extensive wish list of sophisticated assets including solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, multi-warhead systems, tactical nuclear weapons, spy satellites and nuclear-powered submarines.

Kim has exploited geopolitical turmoil to his advantage.

He used Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a window to accelerate weapons testing and align himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has accepted thousands of North Korean troops and large quantities of military equipment for the war.

READ MORE: Illegal e-bikes to be seized and crushed by police in tough crackdown

Kim also has pursued closer ties with China, traditionally the North’s primary ally and economic lifeline.

He travelled to Beijing in September for a World War II event and the first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in six years.

While Kim’s strict information blockade prevents precise assessments, South Korean analysts say the North's economy appears to have improved over the past five years, possibly due to a gradual recovery in trade with China and an industrial boost from arms exports to Russia.

The Coalition is back together after weeks-long split over the federal government's hate speech laws.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley confirmed the party has reunited and Coalition arrangements have been restored – including the reinstatement of three Nationals senators who crossed the floor.

"Coalition is back together and looking to the future, not the past," Ley told media in Canberra.

READ MORE: One dead, six hospitalised after falling ill at Sydney music event

"We're squarely focused on representing the Australian people and fighting for their needs, their aspirations and their hopes."

Ley acknowledged it had been a "difficult time" for Coalition supporters.

She said a deal had been struck after she and Littleproud resolved their differences, but would not elaborate on what had changed.

"We are back in Coalition. We are stronger," Ley said.

"Differences have been resolved and we know that every single day we will be holding this… Anthony Albanese failing Labor government to account.

"And you can count on us every single day as a united team to work very, very hard for you."

A joint party room meeting will take place on Tuesday.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said it was disappointing to see bitter division among Coalition ranks but described the issue which sparked the division as "substantive".

He said the split was not about personalities, but over "principles".

"It was over a substantive issue, a matter of principle that we weren't both afforded the time to be able to explore in a proper way, that the Albanese government tried to rush through," Littleproud said.

He said members of his party room had agonised over the hate speech bill so much that there were tears, which led to the Coalition's 17-day split.

Littleproud added that the Coalition would return stronger to ensure it does not happen again.

"The National Party believes that we are better together. Australia will be better with us being together," he said.

"This was a big decision for our party room."

READ MORE: WA braces for Severe Tropical Cyclone Mitchell to make landfall

Littleproud earlier told Today he has made it "very clear" he was open to reunification – but only if Ley dropped her demand of a six-month suspension from the shadow cabinet for the Nationals senators who split from the Liberals.

"The reality is, we made it very clear from the start that if our shadow ministers that crossed the floor were reinstated then the Coalition could come back together," the Nationals leader said.

"We've been very consistent all the way through."

"I hope that, in the near future, that there is a Coalition," he added.

"Because that's the only way to bring Anthony Albanese down."

The threat of Pauline Hanson's One Nation has been looming large over the past week amid the bitter Coalition division.

However, Littleproud said Hanson is not "serious" about becoming a genuine electoral opponent.

"She seems to be only coming after National and Liberal Party seats," he said.

"If the enemy is Anthony Albanese, as she articulates, she's not really serious, is she?"

READ MORE: Grandmother killed after car crashed through bedroom as she slept

Nine's political editor Charles Croucher said the Nationals and Liberals needed to "iron out" details over reinstating the Nationals senators.

"The Nationals and Liberals, on the sidelines now, are back together to reshuffle around the parliament," Croucher said.

"Getting back together is a start, but it's a long way back to any form of opposition for the Liberal and National parties."

The entire Nationals frontbench, including Littleproud, quit in protest after three senators were dumped from the shadow ministry for voting against the government's hate speech laws, despite the shadow cabinet agreeing to back the legislation. 

Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald broke ranks to vote against the hate speech bill in the Senate.

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US television presenter Savannah Guthrie claims she will pay a ransom in exchange for the safe return of her missing mother Nancy.

The anchor of prominent NBC News program Today shared a video on social media on Saturday (Sunday morning AEDT) alongside her two siblings Annie and Camron.

She said they had received a message from the potential captors of her 84-year-old mother, who has been missing for a week.

READ MORE: Coalition reunion expected soon following messy split over hate laws

"We received your message, and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us," Guthrie said.

"This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay."

It is the third time the family has directly addressed the kidnappers since Guthrie's disappearance.

Investigators think Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her home just outside Tucson, Arizona last weekend. DNA tests showed blood on Guthrie's front porch was a match to her, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said.

Authorities have not identified any suspects or ruled anyone out.

READ MORE: Massive preparations begin in Sydney ahead of Israeli president's visit

Savannah Guthrie was referencing a message that was sent to the Tucson-based television station KOLD on Friday afternoon (Saturday AEDT), according to Kevin Smith, a spokesperson for the FBI office in Phoenix.

KOLD said it received an email related to the Guthrie case on social media that day but declined to share specific details about its contents as the FBI conducted its review.

The station was one of multiple press outlets that received alleged ransom letters during the week. At least one letter made monetary demands and established Thursday evening and the following Monday evening as deadlines.

Law enforcement officials declined to affirm that the letters were credible but said all tips were being investigated seriously. They also said one letter referenced Nancy Guthrie's Apple watch and a specific feature of her property.

READ MORE: Illegal e-bikes to be seized and crushed by police in tough crackdown

It has been reported that a camera at Nancy Guthrie's home was not able to capture images of anyone the day she went missing.

Investigators have found that the home's doorbell camera was disconnected early on Sunday and that software data recorded movement at the home minutes later. However, Nancy Guthrie did not have an active subscription, so none of the images were able to be recovered.

Despite this, President Donald Trump, speaking on Air Force One, said the investigation was going "very well".

"We have some clues that I think are very strong," Trump said, while en route to his Florida estate. "We have some things that may be coming out reasonably soon."

Reported with Associated Press

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A YouTuber says he thought he was going to die when intruders, armed with machetes, broke into his home in Melbourne's south-east.

Kelvin Tavaziva became the victim of a terrifying home invasion in Clyde, where thousands worth of recording equipment and a car was stolen.

He was working on a video when two youths stormed into his bedroom.

READ MORE: Sydney shark attack victim 'healing' as he comes off life support

The 28-year-old said he thought "is this is the end of me, is this how my life ends?"

"He showed me he had a knife on his hip and I thought 'Oh, that's what's happening right now'," he said.

Then another guy came in with a machete and waved it at me.

Tavaziva, his younger brother and two friends were all forced into a room at knifepoint while up to five thugs ransacked the home.

The thieves stole $7500 worth of recording equipment including Kelvin's camera, microphone, laptop and phone, along with his Hyundai.

READ MORE: YouTuber fined after leading 'downright dangerous' rideout over Harbour Bridge

Police are investigating the incident and trying to work out if he was specifically targeted for his expensive equipment.

The offenders told Tavaziva that if he reported the incident to police they would return to hurt him. He has since moved away out of fear of retribution.

"Hopefully they get the help they need or sever the time they need to be able to reflect," he said.

"Overcome and heal from what's made them this way."

Kelvin has set up an online fundraiser to help him get back to entertaining his fans.

"YouTube is all I do. So I can't do anything right now. I'm hoping everything gets found," he said.

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US President Donald Trump's racist social media post featuring former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle was deleted after a backlash from both Republicans and Democrats who criticised the video as offensive.

Trump said later on Friday (Saturday AEDT) that he won't apologise for the post: "I didn't make a mistake," he said.

The Republican president's Thursday night (Friday AEDT) post was blamed on a staffer after widespread backlash, from civil rights leaders to veteran Republican senators, for its treatment of the nation's first Black president and first lady.

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A rare admission of a misstep by the White House, the deletion came hours after press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed "fake outrage" over the post. After calls for its removal – including by Republicans – the White House said a staffer had posted the video erroneously.

The post was part of a flurry of overnight activity on Trump's Truth Social account that amplified his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite courts around the country and Trump's first-term attorney general finding no evidence of systemic fraud.

Trump has a record of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas and of using incendiary, sometimes racist, rhetoric — from feeding the lie that Obama was not a native-born US citizen to crude generalisations about majority-Black countries.

The post came in the first week of Black History Month and days after a Trump proclamation cited "the contributions of black Americans to our national greatness" and "the American principles of liberty, justice, and equality."

An Obama spokeswoman said the former president, a Democrat, had no response.

'An internet meme'

Nearly all of the 62-second clip appears to be from a conservative video alleging deliberate tampering with voting machines in battleground states as 2020 votes were tallied. At the 60-second mark is a quick scene of two jungle primates, with the Obamas' smiling faces imposed on them.

Those frames originated from a separate video, previously circulated by an influential conservative meme maker. It shows Trump as "King of the Jungle" and depicts Democratic leaders as animals, including Joe Biden, who is white, as a jungle primate eating a banana.

"This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King," Leavitt said by text.

Disney's 1994 feature film that Leavitt referenced is set on the savannah, not in the jungle, and it does not include great apes.

"Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public," Leavitt added.

By noon, the post had been taken down, with responsibility placed on a Trump subordinate.

Trump, answering questions from reporters accompanying him on Friday night aboard Air Force One, said the video was about fraudulent elections and that he liked what he saw.

"I liked the beginning. I saw it and just passed it on, and I guess probably nobody reviewed the end of it," he said.

Asked if he condemned the video's racism, Trump said, "Of course I do."

The White House explanation raises questions about control of Trump's social media account, which he's used to levy import taxes, threaten military action, make other announcements and intimidate political rivals. The president often signs his name or initials after policy posts.

The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how posts are vetted and when the public can know when Trump himself is posting.

Mark Burns, a pastor and a prominent Trump supporter who is Black, said Friday on X that he'd spoken "directly" with Trump and that he recommended to the president that he fire the staffer who posted the video and publicly condemn what happened.

"He knows this is wrong, offensive, and unacceptable," Burns posted.

Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., told The Associated Press she does "not buy the White House's commentary."

"If there wasn't a climate, a toxic and racist climate within the White House, we wouldn't see this type of behaviour regardless of who it's coming from," Clarke said, adding that Trump "is a racist, he's a bigot, and he will continue to do things in his presidency to make that known."

Condemnation across the political spectrum

Trump and White House social media accounts frequently repost memes and artificial intelligence-generated videos. As Leavitt did on Friday, Trump allies typically cast them as humorous.

This time, condemnations flowed from across the spectrum — along with demands for an apology that doesn't appear to be coming.

At a Black History Month market in Harlem, the historically Black neighbourhood in New York City, vendor Jacklyn Monk said Trump's post was embarrassing even if it was eventually deleted.

"The guy needs help. I'm sorry he's representing our country. … It's horrible that it was this month, but it would be horrible if it was in March also."

In Atlanta, Rev. Bernice King, daughter of the assassinated civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., resurfaced her father's words: "Yes. I'm Black. I'm proud of it. I'm Black and beautiful." Black Americans, she said, "are beloved of God as postal workers and professors, as a former first lady and president. We are not apes."

The US Senate's lone Black Republican, Tim Scott of South Carolina, called on Trump to take down the post.

"Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House," said Scott, who chairs Senate Republicans' midterm campaign arm.

Another Republican, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, is white but represents the state with the largest percentage of Black residents. Wicker called the post "totally unacceptable" and said the president should apologise.

Some Republicans who face tough re-elections this November voiced concerns, as well. The result was an unusual cascade of intraparty criticism for a president who has enjoyed a stranglehold over fellow Republicans who stayed silent during previous Trump controversies for fear of a public spat with the president or losing his endorsement in a future campaign.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the video "utterly despicable" and pointed to Trump's wider political concerns that could help explain Republicans' willingness to speak out. Johnson asserted that Trump is trying anything to distract from economic conditions and attention on the Jeffrey Epstein case files.

"You know who isn't in the Epstein files? Barack Obama," he said. "You know who actually improved the economy as president? Barack Obama."

A long history of racism

There is a long history in the US of powerful white figures associating Black people with animals, including apes, in demonstrably false, racist ways. The practice dates to 18th century cultural racism and pseudo-scientific theories used to justify the enslavement of Black people, and later to dehumanise freed Black people as uncivilised threats to white people.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in his famous text Notes on the State of Virginia that Black women were the preferred sexual partners of orangutans. President Dwight Eisenhower, discussing school desegregation in the 1950s, suggested white parents were rightfully concerned about their daughters being in classrooms with "big Black bucks". Obama, as a candidate and president, was featured as a monkey or other primates on T-shirts and other merchandise.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump said immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country," language similar to what Adolf Hitler used to dehumanise Jews in Nazi Germany.

During his first White House term, Trump called a swath of majority-Black, developing nations "shithole countries." He initially denied saying it but admitted in December 2025 that he did.

When Obama was in the White House, Trump pushed false claims that the 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, was born in Kenya and constitutionally ineligible to serve.

Trump, in interviews that helped endear him to conservatives, demanded that Obama prove he was a "natural-born citizen" as required to become president.

Obama eventually released birth records, and Trump finally acknowledged during his 2016 campaign, after having won the Republican nomination, that Obama was born in Hawaii. But immediately after, he said, falsely, that his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton started the birtherism attacks.

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