Police said the money Nelly Sione stole should have gone to helping disadvantaged people.

Ukraine’s Western allies rallied around the war-torn country on Saturday as they pushed to revise a United States peace plan seen as favouring Moscow despite its all-out invasion of its neighbour.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed Ukrainians “will always defend” their home.

A Ukrainian delegation, bolstered by representatives from France, Germany and the UK, is preparing for direct talks with Washington in Switzerland on Sunday (Geneva time).

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The 28-point blueprint drawn up by the US to end the nearly four-year war sparked alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, with Zelenskyy saying his country could face a stark choice between standing up for its sovereign rights and preserving the American support it needs.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Saturday, President Donald Trump said the US proposal was not his “final offer.”

“I would like to get to peace. It should have happened a long time ago. The Ukraine war with Russia should have never happened,” Trump said.

“One way or the other, we have to get it ended.”

The US plan foresees Ukraine handing over territory to Russia, something Kyiv has repeatedly ruled out, while reducing the size of its army and blocking its coveted path to NATO membership. It contains many of Moscow’s long-standing demands, while offering limited security guarantees to Kyiv.

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On Saturday, leaders of the European Union, Canada and Japan issued a joint statement welcoming US peace efforts, but pushed back against key tenets of the plan.

“We are ready to engage in order to ensure that a future peace is sustainable. We are clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force. We are also concerned by the proposed limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces, which would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack,” the statement said.

It added that any decisions regarding NATO and the EU would require the consent of member states.

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The leaders of France, Germany and the UK met during the day on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, to discuss ways to support Kyiv, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters at the summit that “wars cannot be ended by major powers over the heads of the countries affected,” and insisted Kyiv needed robust guarantees.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the US peace plan for Ukraine “requires broader consultation” because “it stipulates many things involving Europeans,” like Russia's frozen assets and Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. Europe's security issues must also be taken into account, Macron said, adding: “We want a robust and lasting peace."

Merz and Macron said that envoys from Germany, France, the UK and the EU will join Ukrainian negotiators as they meet a US delegation in Geneva on Sunday to discuss Washington’s proposal.

Zelenskyy confirmed the meeting on Saturday, after Trump set a deadline for Kyiv to respond to the plan by next Thursday.

Among those expected to represent Washington are Trump’s Army secretary, Dan Driscoll, and Marco Rubio, who serves as both national security adviser and secretary of state, according to a US official who was not authorised to publicly discuss the American participants before the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Driscoll presented the US plan to Ukrainian officials this week.

European leaders have long warned against rushing a peace deal, seeing their own future at stake in Ukraine’s fight to beat back Russia, and insist on being consulted in peace efforts.

‘Quite a way from a good outcome’

Kyiv's key allies in Europe reiterated their reservations about the Kremlin's readiness to end the war.

“Time and again, Russia pretends to be serious about peace, but their actions never live up to their words,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters ahead of the G20 summit, days after a Russian strike on western Ukraine killed over two dozen civilians.

European leaders have long accused Russia of stalling diplomatic efforts in the hope of overwhelming Ukraine's much smaller forces on the battlefield.

Kyiv has repeatedly accepted US ceasefire proposals this year, while Moscow has held out for more favourable terms.

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“An end to the war can only be achieved with the unconditional consent of Ukraine,” Merz said during G20 summit briefing, adding that he had told Trump in a long phone call on Friday that Europe needed to be a part of any peace process, and that Russia had previously failed to keep its promises to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity.

"From my perspective, there is currently a chance to end this war,” Merz added. “But we are still quite a way from a good outcome for everyone.”

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that a key principle for Kyiv's European allies was “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy defiant as Ukraine remembers Soviet-era famine

Zelenskyy, in a video address published on Saturday, said Ukrainian representatives at the Geneva talks “know how to protect Ukrainian national interests and exactly what is needed to prevent Russia from carrying out” another invasion. “Real peace is always based on security and justice,” he added.

Nine officials are to take part in the talks, including Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak and top envoy Rustem Umerov, according to a statement posted on the Ukrainian presidency’s website, which also stated that the negotiators are empowered to deal directly with Russia.

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On Saturday, Ukraine commemorated the “great famine” that Soviet leader Josef Stalin imposed in the early 1930s, which led to millions of deaths.

“We all know how and why millions of our people died, starved to death, and millions were never born. And we are once again defending ourselves against Russia, which has not changed and is once again bringing death,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram marking Holodomor Memorial Day.

“We defended, defend, and will always defend Ukraine. Because only here is our home. And in our home, Russia will definitely not be the master,” he added.

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Exclusive: JK Rowling does it. As did Anne Rice and Mark Twain.

You may not realise it, but Dr Seuss did it too.

The historic practice of writing under a pseudonym, pen name or nom-de-plume may be dying a slow death – thanks, in part, to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in publishing.

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Research by Cambridge University this week found 51 per cent of published novelists in the UK are worried AI might end up making their jobs redundant.

There are already terabytes of AI slop masquerading as books being peddled on the internet – but Queensland fantasy author Darryl King isn't worried these will destroy his career.

King, who publishes his In All Jest series under the name D.E. King, told nine.com.au there could be very different consequences of ChatGPT's influence on the book industry.

"I think all authors are struggling to find ways to market themselves and to stand out now already without AI," King explained.

"It's a bit like music where as authors, we have to go and do more signings and appearances at libraries to validate we're real."

Recent studies have found book readers value the human element more than ever when it comes to fiction.

King said this has translated into book buyers wanting to know the author more intimately.

This means no fake name and no shadowy anonymous figure, instead of a real-life author headshot.

It could impact romance writers, who typically use pen names to preserve anonymity from their real-life acquaintances, the most.

Do you have a story? Contact reporter April Glover at Google Play.

Concerns about an AI bubble have been simmering for at least a year and a half. Nvidia's incredibly strong earnings this past week tried to put those fears to bed. It may not have been enough.

Nvidia on Wednesday posted sales and profits up more than 60 per cent year-on-year, stronger than Wall Street had projected. CEO Jensen Huang said "sales are off the charts". And the company expects fourth quarter revenue of about $US65 billion ($100 billion), once again ahead of Wall Street's projections.

Nvidia executives said these results, along with growth from other major AI players and the billions being poured into AI infrastructure, indicate that fears of an AI bubble are overblown.

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"There's been a lot of talk about an AI bubble," Huang said on a call with analysts on Wednesday. "From our vantage point, we see something very different."

Some Wall Street analysts agree. But the wider market is not yet convinced: After briefly ticking up on Thursday morning following Nvidia's report, the chipmaker's shares (NVDA) dipped back into the red. They closed Friday down 1 per cent, although the stock remains up 29 per cent from the start of this year.

In other words, Nvidia answered a lot of questions about where the industry stands right now, but it may take more to shift the overall AI narrative.

Not to burst your bubble

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said the company anticipates $US3 trillion ($4.65 trillion) to $US4 trillion ($6.2 trillion) in annual AI infrastructure spending by the end of the decade, adding that demand "continues to exceed our expectations". Already, tech giants are expected to pour $US400 billion into AI-related capital expenditures this year, to meet what they say is growing demand for AI and cloud services but also to avoid falling behind industry rivals.

Nvidia has every reason to try to reassure investors — expectations for the company are sky-high after nearly two years of astronomical growth. And many look to the chipmaker as a bellwether for the overall tech industry.

Even as Silicon Valley tries to figure out the business model for generative AI, Nvidia has a big role to fill in the existing tech services people use every day, Huang said. That could help insulate Nvidia even if returns from new AI applications are smaller than expected or take longer to arrive than planned.

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"The world has a massive investment in non-AI software, from data processing to science and engineering simulations, representing hundreds of billions of dollars in cloud computing spend each year." Much of the infrastructure powering that software has transitioned from running on older CPU chips to Nvidia's GPUs, the chips known for running AI tools, Huang said.

Kress also took the unusual step of ticking through highlights from the chipmaker's partners' recent financial reports. At Meta, for example, AI recommendation systems are leading to "more time spent on apps such as Facebook and Threads". Anthropic recently noted it expects to earn $US7 billion in annual revenue this year. And Salesforce's engineering team is 30 per cent more efficient now that it's using AI for coding, she said, among a long list of corporate customers she rattled off.

Nvidia isn't the only one arguing that AI bubble concerns may be exaggerated.

"The pure Nvidia numbers/guidance and strategic vision shows the AI Revolution is NOT a Bubble…instead its Year 3 of a 10-year build out of this 4th Industrial Revolution in our view," Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives said in emailed commentary.

Brian Colello, senior equity analyst at investment research company Morningstar, said he doesn't "see many signs to suggest that 2026 will be a weak year for Nvidia in any way" and sees the bubble fears weighing on the company's stock as a "buying opportunity".

Fears remain

But despite those strong results, it appears the stock market may not be ready to relax just yet.

Questions remain about whether tech firms will maintain their massive spending on AI infrastructure, especially as Nvidia has invested in key, unprofitable customers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar also raised alarms earlier this month when she suggested that the government should backstop the debt tech companies are incurring to build AI infrastructure. Some took her comments as a sign OpenAI may struggle to afford its commitments, although the company later tried to walk back the statement.

And while Nvidia likely has enough customers even if a bubble burst causes some casualties among AI firms, investors may still be worried about what a downturn or even a slowdown could mean for the larger market.

Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company, said questions about the sustainability of Big Tech's infrastructure spending spree and Nvidia's circular funding deals were not "put to rest" with its latest report. Instead, they may just be "punted" to the next quarter.

That means Nvidia almost certainly has more work ahead to convince the world that we're in for an AI boom and not bust.

The top prize of $5m comes a week after three players shared a record $55m jackpot.

Education Minister Jason Clare has criticised the failure of a prestigious girls school in Brisbane, after a leaked internal document showed teachers had commented on the appearance, behaviour and personalities of children.

Year 11 students at Somerville House, a 126-year-old boarding and day school in South Brisbane, stumbled upon a spreadsheet and found teachers had made notes about them.

Parents were then asked to think of the teachers, with students blamed for sharing the document. 

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Exams have been pushed back a day while the school investigates.

Clare said the school has failed in this instance. 

"They've failed the students, and they've failed the parents of the kids who go to that school," he told Weekend Today.

"Schools have got to collect information, but they've got to do it in a secure way, and they've also got to do it in a professional way.

"And I don't those things has happened here."

Somerville House principal Dr Sandra Hastie said students were being offered counselling and apologised for the "distress and hurt" caused.

"We recently experienced an incident whereby some students accessed some notes about themselves and their peers.

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"We sincerely apologise for the distress and hurt many within the school community are experiencing. We are very disappointed by what has happened, as the nature of some of these comments fall short of our standards and values.

"As soon as we were made aware of this incident, we worked with external experts to help us investigate what has happened."

Hastie said the school's investigation was ongoing.

"We are taking this situation very seriously and student wellbeing is our priority," she said.

"We have communicated with our school community and made counselling and pastoral care services available to them. We have also opened our Employee Assistance Program to students and families to ensure they have access to support.

"We are committed to adhering to our legal obligations and we have notified the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)."

Somerville House was established in 1899 and is a prep to year 12 girls school taking day and boarding students.

Fees start at $23,000 to more than $30,000 a year. 

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Kane Penk said he was high on drugs and can’t remember most of his crimes.

The child suffered serious injuries before being freed by responders.

Police officially release the names of the three children and father who died.

Detectives have charged a man who allegedly stole a car with a sleeping toddler inside in Victoria's north last week.

It is alleged that the man stole the vehicle from a supermarket car park on Maude Street in Shepparton just before 2pm on November 14.

When the man realised a 15-month-old boy was in the car, he removed the child and left him in a box in the car park, police said.

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The female car owner returned and found the unharmed toddler.

The man allegedly fled in the Volkswagen, which was found in Mooroopna the next day.

A 32-year-old was arrested in central Shepparton yesterday afternoon.

The Mooroopna man was later charged with motor vehicle theft, reckless conduct, endangering serious injury and committing an indictable offence while on bail.

Detectives also charged the man with multiple other offences in an unrelated incident in the Shepparton and Barmah areas on November 17.

Charges include motor vehicle theft, dangerous driving while pursued by police and aggravated reckless exposure of a police officer to risk by driving.

The 32-year-old has been remanded to appear at court on Monday.

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