Australian authorities will review the country’s gun laws after two gunmen killed 15 people in a suspected terror attack targeting Jews at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach. The father-son attackers have been named as 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who died at the scene, and 24-year-old Naveed Akram, who had previously been investigated for his close ties to a Sydney-based Islamic State group. Jimmy Lai, the former Hong Kong newspaper owner and democracy campaigner, has been convicted of violating the controversial national security law imposed by the government in mainland China. The 78-year-old faces potential life imprisonment after being found guilty on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign powers and a third count of conspiracy to publish seditious information. The Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele have been found dead at their Los Angeles home, with police believed to be questioning a family member over the incident. The acclaimed filmmaker was known for classics including This is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men.

For all the doom and gloom about phone-addled youths, says John Harris in The Guardian, the “defining cultural theme” of 2025 has been the dawning realisation that a life beholden to screens is “no life at all”. Millions are cutting the time they spend on social media: according to research by the FT, hours spent on Facebook, Instagram and the like peaked in 2022 and had fallen by almost 10% by the end of 2024. The decline, gratifyingly, is most pronounced among people in their teens and 20s. Other data shows that, since 2014, the proportion of people who use such platforms to “stay in touch with friends, express themselves or meet new people” is down by over a quarter. Perhaps Australia’s new social media ban for under 16s is like smoking bans – merely accelerating a trend that was “quietly kicking in anyway”.

Pleasingly, people also seem to be ditching dating apps – the ultimate attempt to replace the “magical and often random” nature of human interaction with “cold digital logic”. Between 2023 and 2024, Tinder lost 594,000 users, while Hinge dropped by 131,000 and Bumble by 368,000. Shares in Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, are down nearly 80% since their lockdown peak, while Bumble stocks have lost 92%. In a letter to shareholders, Match said younger folk were seeking a “lower-pressure, more authentic” way to connect. With all this great data, I can’t resist a “dreamy, utopian” conclusion: perhaps some of the people whose chronic internet use has left them isolated, introverted and paranoid will “dance and socialise themselves into something better”. You never know.