Good afternoon.
A coalition of Democrats broke from their party and voted with Republicans in the Senate to approve a funding package that is expected to bring a record-breaking US government shutdown to a close. The move has enraged many in the Democrats caucus, who are calling for their leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, to fall on his sword.
Donald Trump had a busy day on the sidelines, taking to Fox News to scold air traffic controllers, asking the supreme court to throw out the jury’s finding in E Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against him, and pardoning Rudy Giuliani (and others) for their roles in a plot to steal the 2020 election.
Top news
Alan Jones sexual abuse case to hear from 139 witnesses across over up to four months
Wiggles admit likely consumer law breach over Emma Bow headbands with button batteries
‘I can’t breathe in this city’: inaction over Delhi’s suffocating pollution sparks rare protest
In pictures
The editing of Donald Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021 has embroiled the BBC in controversy, led to the resignations of its top leaders and given fuel to claims of media bias at the storied British broadcaster – including, as Ben Jennings illustrates, from the UK’s rightwing media.
What they said …
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“Flesh was conceived in the shadow of failure.” – David Szalay
In the autumn of 2020, the Hungarian-British author abandoned a novel he had been working on for nearly four years. His new, “dark” novel has just won the 2025 Booker prize.
Full Story
Is Roblox an ‘X-rated paedophile hellscape’?
Senior correspondent Sarah Martin joins Nour Haydar to talk about her chilling experience posing as an eight-year-old girl on the popular online platform.
Before bed read
On the anniversary of the dismissal, columnist Peter Lewis asks: What would Whitlam do?
“I’m not pretending that history has all the answers to the technological tsunami we face … but I do know that to get the right answers we need to make sure we ask the right questions. Fifty years on, Gough offers a way to frame [them].”
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: BUS. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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