The iconic crocodile who starred in hit film Crocodile Dundee has died, his zoo has announced.
Crocosaurus Cove, where Burt had been kept since 2008, said he passed away “peacefully” over the weekend.
He was estimated to be over 90 years old, well over the usual life expectancy.
“Burt was truly one of a kind. He wasn’t just a crocodile; he was a force of nature and a reminder of the power and majesty of these incredible creatures,” the zoo said.
“While his personality could be challenging, it was also what made him so memorable and beloved by those who worked with him and the thousands who visited him over the years.
“Visitors from around the globe marvelled at his impressive size and commanding presence, especially at feeding time.”
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Burt was captured for the first time in the 1980s, the zoo said, and he appeared in Crocodile Dundee just before Christmas in 1986.
He starred alongside Paul Hogan in the film, helping to “shape Australia’s image as a land of rugged natural beauty and awe-inspiring wildlife”.
Known for his “independent nature”, the zoo said Burt was a “confirmed bachelor” with a “fiery temperament”, which earned him the respect of caretakers and visitors.
“As we mourn his loss, we are reminded of the vital role wildlife plays in our shared history and the importance of preserving it for future generations,” the zoo added.
The average saltwater crocodile usually lives up to 70 years.
Crocosaurs Cove said it plans to install a commemorative sign to celebrate his “extraordinary life and the stories and interactions he shared throughout his time at the park”.
A small plane has crashed into a popular Brazilian tourist town, killing all 10 people on board, according to officials.
More than a dozen people on the ground were also injured when the aircraft came down in the centre of Gramado in the south of the country on Sunday, Brazil‘s civil defence agency said.
In a post on X, the agency said the plane hit the chimney of a home before colliding with the second floor of a building, then crashing into a mobile phone shop in a largely residential area.
The aircraft’s owner and pilot, Luiz Claudio Galeazzi, died along with the nine other passengers on board, all of whom were members of his family, according to Rio Grande do Sul governor Eduardo Leite.
He told a press conference 17 people on the ground were injured, with 12 still receiving hospital care, including two who are in critical condition.
The twin-engine Piper PA-42-1000 took off shortly after 9am local time from nearby Canela airport and was heading to Jundiai in Sao Paulo state under unfavourable weather conditions, the governor said.
The cause of the crash is being investigated.
Gramado, in the Serra Gaucha mountains, is the most popular tourist destination in Rio Grande do Sul.
Christmas is a particularly busy period for the city, which is traditionally adorned with decorations and hosts festive events.
A US fighter jet has been shot down after it was mistakenly hit by an American missile cruiser over the Red Sea.
Both pilots in the aircraft ejected and were rescued – one of them had minor injuries.
An investigation is under way after what the US military described as an “apparent case of friendly fire”.
It is believed to be the most serious incident to threaten US troops in more than a year of America targeting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
US Central Command said the F/A-18 Hornet was shot down soon after it had flown off the deck of the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier.
The two-seater plane was then struck by one of the carrier’s escort ships, USS Gettysburg.
It was not immediately clear how the Gettysburg could mistake an F/A-18 for an enemy aircraft or missile, particularly as ships in a battle group are linked by both radar and radio communication.
However, Central Command said warships and aircraft earlier shot down multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile launched by the rebels.
The Houthis have targeted about 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones in solidarity with Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war started in October 2023.
The Hornet incident shows how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by Houthis despite US and European allies patrolling the area.
Image: Yemeni soldiers guard Mohammad Ali al Houthi, the head of the Supreme Political Houthi Council, in Sanaa. File pic: AP
This weekend, US warplanes carried out airstrikes that shook the capital Sanaa, which the Houthis have held since 2014.
Central Command described the strikes as targeting a “missile storage facility” and a “command-and-control facility” but did not elaborate.
The downed fighter jet was thought to be a F/A-18 Super Hornet which is assigned to the Red Rippers of Strike Fighter Squadron 11 stationed at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia.
At least 38 people have been killed in a crash involving a bus and a lorry on a major road in southeastern Brazil, authorities have said.
Another 13 people were taken to hospital following the crash in the country’s eastern state of Minas Gerais, the local fire department said. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described the incident as a “terrible tragedy”.
The coach, which had reportedly departed from Sao Paulo and was carrying 45 passengers, burst into flames when it crashed, with footage of the aftermath showing the burnt-out remains of the wrecked bus.
The bus driver was among those killed.
The truck driver fled the scene and three occupants of a car that collided with the truck and became trapped underneath survived the accident, the news agency Reuters reported.
Image: The car crushed under the truck. Pic: Belo Horizonte Military Fire Department/Reuters
Some witnesses said the crash happened after the bus blew a tyre, causing the driver to lose control and collide with a truck, while others told rescue teams that a granite block hit the bus, which was heading to the state of Bahia.
Mr da Silva said in a statement on Saturday: “I deeply regret and send my prayers to the families of the more than 30 fatalities from the accident in Teofilo Otoni, Minas Gerais. I pray for the recovery of the survivors of this terrible tragedy.”
Governor Romeu Zema wrote on X that he had ordered “full mobilisation” of the Minas Gerais government to assist the victims.
“We are working to ensure that families of the victims are supported to face this tragedy in the most humane way possible, especially as it comes just before Christmas,” Mr Zema said.
This year alone, more than 10,000 people died in traffic accidents in the South American country, which has a population of more than 216 million, according to the Ministry of Transportation.
The doors of the white van are thrown open. Dozens of armed French police jump on board, their colleagues on the ground form a human chain and get to work.
The van is carrying precious cargo. Water. Small plastic bottles stacked roof high and van deep.
It’s chaotic.
Orders are being shouted in French and Chimaore, the language spoken by Mayotte’s African community.
Security is high. The gendarmes are backed up by armed local police.
Local residents are angry. That anger could easily turn to violence.
It’s why a 10pm curfew remains in place across the island. One resident described the situation as “volcanic”.
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3:05
Short supply of aid after Cyclone Chido
Cyclone Chido tore through Mayotte on Sunday, but this is the first water delivery Ouangani has received since Saturday.
Nobody understands why.
‘There’s no word and no one has water’
Arriving at the distribution centre just after the water is loaded on to another van for delivery to nearby villages is Ouangani’s mayor, a young, former English teacher who speaks multiple languages.
He is considered and thoughtful when describing the situation facing his country.
“It’s not sufficient,” he tells me. “There’s no word and no one has water.”
“The authorities weren’t prepared,” he adds. “There’s not only a water problem, it’s food, electricity. Nothing on the island has been done.”
He then delivers a dire warning of “people starving”.
Image: The destruction caused by Cyclone Chido
Image: Residents expressed their fury at the response to the cyclone
I ask him who he thinks is to blame? He says that everyone is responsible.
“I cannot imagine that with all the means we have with technology, that they couldn’t have seen this coming,” he says.
But this region is not remote. It’s only an hour-long drive south of the capital on one winding road.
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1:13
Macron met with anger in Mayotte
This van load of water is supposed to serve between three to five villages in the area.
That’s a population of anywhere between six and 12,000 people. Nobody knows for sure because of the problem with undocumented migrants.
We follow the van to the first drop-off.
The vehicle pulls up and drops off 10 to 20 crates of half-litre plastic bottles. Each crate has 12 small bottles. People have been waiting. They’re mostly women. Each one grabs a pack and disappears.
Within minutes it’s all gone.
Some more people show up seconds later. Their anger at missing out is obvious. “What’s the point?!” a man shouts.
‘It’ll only last about one or two hours’
Fundi has been lucky enough to get some water.
“We only just received aid now, I really don’t think that’s good enough,” she says.
Image: Fundi has a family of seven and said the water given out would only last a couple of hours
They were just outside when they saw the van arrive with the water. Pure luck.
“Usually communication is good, but I don’t know why they came unannounced like that today,” she says.
But it’s not enough, Fundi explains: “Twelve bottles of water that are only 500ml, for a family? That’s really very little, it’ll only last about one to two hours.”
It’s no wonder, Fundi has a family of seven living under one roof.
At least 11 people have been killed and dozens of others injured after a car was driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in Germany, local media reports.
News agency dpa said the driver has been arrested following the incident in the eastern city of Magdeburg, while public broadcaster MDR reports almost 70 people have been injured – 15 seriously.
A city spokesman said the initial assessment is that this was an attack, with all hospitals in the nearby city of Halle preparing for a mass casualty event, according to a security official.
German newspaper Bild reports at least 11 people have been killed and MDR said police have blocked off the area as there is a suspicion of explosives in the suspect’s car.
City spokesman Michael Reif said he suspects it was a deliberate act, adding there are “numerous injured” and that the “pictures are terrible”.
Magdeburg’s University Hospital said it is treating 10-20 patients and preparing for more, dpa reports.
Image: Emergency services at the Christmas market in Magdeburg. Pic: AP
Germany‘s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said “the news suggests something bad” and that his thoughts are with “the victims and their families”.
The state premier Reiner Haseloff, who is on his way to the scene, said it is a “terrible event, especially now in the days before Christmas”, according to MDR.
Image: Pic: AP
Police said on X that “extensive operations” were taking place at the market, which has been closed.
Weihnachtsmarkt Magdeburg has posted on Instagram warning people to leave the market and allow emergency services to do their work.
Image: Pic: D’rthe Hein/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
Sky News’s Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins said initial videos from the scene show what appears to be a car “driving at speed” into a crowd at a Christmas market.
“The police have put out a statement saying there’s an extensive police operation that’s going on and they haven’t officially said yet whether this is terror,” she added.
“That of course will be something that a lot of people will be asking. There has been a warning for Christmas markets across Europe to be on high alert for possible terror attacks.”
Image: Pic: dpa via AP
Germany’s interior minister Nancy Faeser said last month there were no concrete signs of a danger to Christmas markets this year, but added it was wise to be vigilant.
On 19 December 2016, an Islamic extremist drove a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more.
Magdeburg, which is west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has a population of about 240,000.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
US politicians have rejected a spending bill endorsed by president-elect Donald Trump – leaving Congress with no clear plan to avert a fast-approaching government shutdown.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump dismissed a bipartisan compromise, which Republicans and Democrats had reached to prevent a shutdown just days before the Christmas winter break.
Instead, he urged Republicans in the House of Representatives to back a new deal which included a three-month extension of government funding and a two-year suspension of the debt limit into January 2027. The debt ceiling caps the amount the federal government can borrow.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader and top Democrat in the chamber, called the revamped Republican proposal “laughable” – and the bill was rejected on Thursday night by a 175-235 vote, with all but two Democrats and 38 Republicans voting against it.
Several Republicans had said they were not interested in getting rid of the debt ceiling if they did not also cut spending.
“It’s like… increasing your credit card limit, while you don’t do anything to actually constrain spending,” said Republican Representative Chip Roy.
The outcome is a massive setback for Mr Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who has been tasked by the incoming president with pruning the federal budget.
Musk, a tech entrepreneur and the world’s richest person, led the charge earlier in the week against the bipartisan funding deal in dozens of posts on his social media platform X, describing it as “criminal”. His opposition led support for the package to quickly crumble.
Congress now has until midnight on Friday to approve a spending bill that would avert a government shutdown.
Image: The threat of a government shutdown has sent House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and the rest of his leadership team back to the drawing board. Pic: Reuters
“We’re going to regroup and we will come up with another solution, so stay tuned,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said after the vote.
But Mr Trump remained defiant, insisting Congress scrap the debt ceiling, or extend it to 2029.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous debt ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal,” he said in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning.
He has repeatedly urged Republicans in the House to tie up loose ends before he takes office on 20 January.
It leaves the government in limbo with just hours to thrash out a new bill to put to a vote.
If the House fails to approve a spending bill or extend the deadline a government shutdown will begin impacting federal employees and the public services they provide.
Essential government agencies like the FBI, Border Patrol and the Coast Guard would remain open.
But the Transportation Security Administration has warned travellers could face long lines at airports.
National parks and monuments would close, and while troops would stay at their posts, many civilian employees in agencies like the Department of Defence would be sent home.
Sometimes federal workers are furloughed, meaning they keep their jobs but temporarily don’t work until the government reopens.
Other federal staff may stay on the job but without pay, with the expectation they would be paid back in full once the government reopens.
Courts would also be affected, with civil proceedings paused, while criminal prosecutions continue.
Automated tax collection would stay on track, but the Internal Revenue Service would stop auditing tax returns.
The last government shutdown – the longest in history – took place in December 2018 and January 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term in The White House.
How could a man drug and rape his wife and invite strangers to do the same?
It is a question that has underpinned weeks of evidence in the trial of Dominique Pelicot who was today jailed for 20 years for the attacks on his then wife Gisele Pelicot.
A further 50 men were convicted alongside him – the majority for rape – and between them sentenced to more than 400 years in prison.
The court heard distressing details of a decade of abuse, including how Pelicot recruited men and filmed the assaults.
Kerry Daynes, a consultant forensic psychologist, tells Sky News she sees Pelicot as a “career criminal” – rubbishing his defence’s claim that a psychological disorder caused his actions.
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2:09
The men convicted of raping Gisele Pelicot
What motivates this type of crime?
Pelicot is “somebody who has developed a fetish, in his eyes, for degrading women unbeknownst to them”, Ms Daynes says.
“So whether that’s through voyeurism, upskirting, or the drugging and raping of his wife, this has got to be connected to a need for power and control.
“I think that Giselle understands this and said, ‘No, actually, I refuse to be humiliated. I refuse to be degraded by you, because all of that shame you want me to feel actually belongs to you’.”
Why did Pelicot target his family members?
Ms Daynes says he could have chosen to victimise members of his family, Giselle particularly, because he viewed it as “less risky”.
“If you engage in behaviour that is so disgraceful, so abusive and hideous, and you allow yourself to really acknowledge that, you would break down.
“Therefore it’s imperative for sex offenders to find a psychological way of dealing that […] so they engage in psychological acrobatics.”
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2:37
‘I never regretted waiving anonymity’
Does Pelicot have a split personality?
The claim Pelicot suffers from a split personality is “absolutely ridiculous”, Ms Daynes says.
“It implies that there’s some sort of psychiatric condition underlying this. There’s not. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
“He’s not driven by any kind of psychosis or even major personality dysfunction. He is, quite simply, a sexual deviant who hates women, and wants to abuse them and degrade them.”
She continued: “Pelicot’s lawyers have said this is a man who has been leading a double life. I agree with that, but he’s not somebody with a split personality. He is simply somebody who is able to compartmentalise.
“This is how sex offenders operate. They’re not monsters lurking in alleyways. They’re not somehow different from the men that we share our lives with.
“They are the men that we share our lives with, and that’s what this case really graphically illustrates.”
A dramatic change in tone by Ukraine’s president – acknowledging the strength of Russia’s hold over swathes of Ukrainian territory – has coincided with the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House.
The incoming US commander-in-chief has said he can end Russia’s war in Ukraine in a day – though without saying how.
One thing is certain, however; his approach will be very different to Joe Biden’s.
Mr Trump has already signalled he disapproves of allowing Ukraine to launch longer-range American ballistic missiles against targets inside Russia – a sign that crucial US military support to Ukrainian forces could be about to be reduced or even end altogether.
For Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he is fast adapting to the new reality his country is facing.
His government wasn’t a huge fan of Mr Biden but he was at least significantly more predictable than his replacement – and consistent in his condemnation of Vladimir Putin.
Then again, Mr Trump’s unpredictability could be used to Ukraine’s advantage when dealing with Moscow.
Image: There are fears Mr Trump could reduce – or even end – military support for Ukraine. Pic: AP
The new president will not want to look soft or weak as he seeks to push the two sides into a deal.
Into this mix, Mr Zelenskyy has notably altered his language when describing how the conflict could end.
Previously there was no suggestion of negotiations with Moscow which didn’t involve the complete withdrawal of Russian forces.
Now, however, the Ukrainian president has started to voice what he and his Western allies have known for a long time – that Russia’s entrenched positions are impossible to shift with the current level of Western support and Ukrainian fighting capability.
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3:32
Zelenskyy tells Stuart Ramsay how a ceasefire could work
Mr Zelenskyy first signalled his new approach in an interview with Sky News’s Stuart Ramsay, when he said for the first time that Kyiv wants NATO membership for the parts of Ukraine under government control and would wait to regain the rest through diplomacy.
In an interview this week with France’s Le Parisien newspaper, he went further.
“We cannot give up our territories. The Ukrainian constitution forbids us to do so. De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We do not have the strength to recover them,” he said.
“We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit down at the negotiating table.”
Mr Zelenskyy continued: “It’s not about who sits across from you; it’s about the position you’re in when negotiating. I don’t believe we’re in a weak position, but we’re also not in a strong one.
“First, we need to develop a model, an action plan, a peace plan – call it what you will. Then, we can present it to Putin or, more broadly, to the Russian people.”
The compound in front of the blue and white low-rise building is buzzing with rushed activity.
On one side there are men stacking boxes of water bottles. On another, women sitting on chairs are picking through bundles of clothing on the ground before folding and organising them into piles of men’s, women’s and children’s sizes.
Instructions are being shouted.
Through the doors of the house, in the lounge at the front, there’s more urgency. Here, some women are sorting out baby food, nappies and sanitary products.
This is the local community response to a call for emergency aid after Mayotte was devastated by Cyclone Chido on Sunday.
Image: Work to gather aid is under way
The aid is being collected here in a neighbourhood in Reunion’s capital Saint-Denis, an island east of Madagascar.
This is where Somo is helping. She’s wearing a black hijab and her face is framed by her black-rimmed spectacles.
Somo came to Reunion to study law two years ago. Her mum Echat, dad Saindu and sister Kaounaini live on Mayotte.
Somo has had no contact with any of them since the deadly storm tore through the island on Sunday.
Image: Somo
“I’m really worried,” she tells me. She’s very softly spoken and is smiling nervously. But it’s easy to see Somo’s desperation. “I’m just dying waiting for news,” she adds.
Somo knows her mother and father are alive because word has reached her from other community members who reported seeing them after the deadly storm.
But there is no news about her sister and her six children aged between two and 16 years old. They are all still missing.
Somo has been frantically calling their numbers non-stop since Sunday, but nobody has answered.
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2:07
Thousands feared dead after cyclone
The family’s home has been completely destroyed. Somo is desperate to send money to them but there’s no way of doing so.
She’s especially worried about her father because he’s alone.
