| | 13/02/2025 Trump says Putin agreed to peace talks, wealth gap widens, AI helps find rare bird |
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| | | Good morning. He hasn’t managed to bring peace in a day as he promised, but Donald Trump has spoken to Vladimir Putin by phone and they have agreed that talks will be begin “immediately” to end the war in Ukraine. We have a full report and live coverage of the biggest global story of the morning. At home, a report lays bare how Australia’s wealth, housing and educational divide has grown in the past two decades. We have a story about a storage unit break-in that reveals a wider dispute about who bears the cost – and the moving tale of how a woman’s transgressive older sister helped transform her own life. |
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| Australia | | Like ‘gold’ | Critically endangered plains-wanderers have been found living in Melbourne’s west for the first time in more than 30 years, with researchers describing it as “like gold”. | Energy | A Sydney Harbour’s worth of extra water would be needed each year to run the Coalition’s proposed nuclear reactors, according to federal government analysis that opens a new front in the political fight over Peter Dutton’s signature energy policy. | Poverty gap | The proportion of wealth held by Australia’s bottom 40% has declined significantly in two decades while 3.3 million live below the poverty line, a damning report into equality in Australia shows. | Safe keeping | Tracey lost “priceless” goods when her Melbourne storage unit was broken into – but then a legal battle began over who should bear responsibility. | Protest warning | Sydney’s mayor has warned that new laws proposed by the New South Wales government to stop rallies outside place of worship could end peaceful protests at Town Hall – a regular site for demonstrations in the city. |
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 | World | | Ukraine talks pledge | Donald Trump has said that he and Vladimir Putin have spoken directly and agreed to begin negotiations immediately to broker a ceasefire to the war in Ukraine. It came after Russia said it would not swap land it holds in Ukraine for territory occupied by Kyiv’s forces in Kursk, while Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, pictured, has told allies in Brussels the US was no longer “primarily focused” on European security and that Europe would have to take the lead in defending Ukraine. | ‘On the brink’ | Several Democratic state attorneys general have warned that the US is in the grip of a full-blown constitutional crisis as they battle Donald Trump in court over actions they argue are lawless and unconstitutional. Inflation picked up speed last month in the US. | Hamas defiant | Hamas says it will not accept “threats” from the US and Israel over the ongoing truce in Gaza amid an impasse over the implementation of the ceasefire deal. You can follow developments live but the Islamist group is facing hard choices, our correspondent writes. | Red flag | Sir Jim Ratcliffe, one of Britain’s richest people and part-owner of Manchester United, faces growing concerns over the financial health of his chemicals empire as its debt pile is forecast to reach almost £10bn ($A20bn). Separately, he said cutting 200 jobs from the United staff will stop the club going bust. | ‘Joe Donor’ | A sperm donor who subjected a couple to a “nightmare” of controlling behaviour over their child has been named by a British judge as a warning about the dangers of unregulated sperm donation. |
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| Full Story | | Sam Kerr found not guilty Our sport reporter Jack Snape tells Nour Haydar what lies ahead for the football superstar now that she’s free to return to the pitch. | |
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| In-depth | | Germany’s Greens have partly shouldered the blame for the country’s economic woes with the co-leader taking the economy portfolio in the unpopular coalition government facing defeat in this month’s election. The party has become a target of ridicule for other politicians and, worst of all, the climate discourse has become a “witch-hunt” and the party hardly mentions its environment policies. |
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| Not the news | | In a moving piece about family and relationships, Josie McSkimming writes about how she spent much of her adult life as an evangelical Christian before her transgressive elder sister, the poet Dorothy Porter, gave her the strength to change her life. |
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| Sport | | Rugby union | The most important Wallabies winter in two decades kicks off this weekend when the Super Rugby Pacific sides play their first games of the 2025 season with high hopes of an Australian winner. | Kerr case | The Australian, UK-based human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has called for an investigation into the English prosecution service decision to charge Sam Kerr, calling it an “attack on free speech”. | Cricket | A second-string Australian side have slumped to a 49-run defeat against Sri Lanka after a brilliant 127 off 126 balls from the hosts’ captain, Charith Asalanka, in the opening ODI match in Colombo. | Football | There are more Champions League games to follow live this morning, along with the last ever Merseyside derby at Goodison Park as Everton take on Liverpool.Arsenal’s Kai Havertz will miss the rest of the season with a hamstring injury in a blow for their chances of catching the table-topping Reds. |
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| Media roundup | A bet by a trader immortalised in The Big Short is helping gold soar towards $3,000 an ounce, the Fin Review reports. A huge operation to crackdown on alleged teenage offenders has become Victoria’s largest police operation, involving 140,000 officer hours, the Herald Sun reports. A sharp rise in cases of the bacterial disease melioidosis in Queensland’s far north has left health experts puzzled, the Cairns Post reports. |
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| What’s happening today | Canberra | National apology breakfast at 7am with Anthony Albanese to give keynote address. | Education | MissingSchool event at Parliament House calling for policies to address chronic school absence. | Environment | Lowy Institute panel on climate resilience in the Pacific at the National Press Club. |
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| Brain teaser | And finally, here are the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. | |
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A message from Lenore Taylor editor of Guardian AustraliaI hope you appreciated this newsletter. Before you move on, I wonder if you would consider supporting our work as we prepare for a pivotal, uncertain year ahead.
The course of world history has taken a sharp and disturbing turn in 2024. Liberalism is under threat from populist authoritarianism. Americans have voted to install a president with no respect for democratic norms, nor the facts that once formed the guardrails of public debate.
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| Lenore Taylor
Editor, Guardian Australia |
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