Austin Peay State University will also pay theater and dance professor Darren Michael $500,000 in settlement

Austin Peay State University has reinstated a professor who was fired for his social media post after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The Tennessee school is also paying the teacher $500,000 in the settlement.

Austin Peay spokesperson Brian Dunn said Darren Michael returned to his position as a tenured faculty member at the public university in Clarksville effective 30 December. A copy of the settlement agreement obtained through a public records request includes a $500,000 payment and reimbursement of counseling, as reported earlier this week by WKRN-TV.

Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie seek to compel justice department to release full set of files

Two US House of Representatives members have asked a federal judge to appoint a special master to compel the justice department to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.

On Thursday, Democratic representative Ro Khanna of California and Republican representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky asked US district judge Paul Engelmayer to release the full Epstein files, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Attacks bring total number of Palestinians killed by Israel to 425 since October ceasefire took effect

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli attacks in the Palestinian territory on Thursday killed at least 13 people, including five children, despite a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.

Four people including three children were killed when a drone struck a tent sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Space agency says US-Japanese-Russian crew of four will return to Earth in the coming days, earlier than planned

Nasa is cutting short a mission aboard the International Space Station after an astronaut had a medical issue.

The space agency said Thursday the US-Japanese-Russian crew of four will return to Earth in the coming days, earlier than planned.

• Atlético Madrid 1-2 Real Madrid

• Sørloth 58; Valverde 2, Rodrygo 55

Real Madrid hold on and so does Xabi Alonso, all the way to the final. Judgment was due to come in Jeddah but it will be put off for another day at least, and instead of the sack there may be a medal waiting at the end of a month spent on edge after Real defeated Atlético 2-1. Goals from Fede Valverde and Rodrygo set up another Super Cup meeting with Barcelona on Sunday night, opportunity and obligation in one.

On a night when Madrid scored after 77 seconds, Atlético’s last opportunity to get a result they probably deserved and force a penalty shootout slipped agonisingly away with only 10 more seconds remaining. Julián Alvarez had it, Antoine Griezmann almost did, but, in at last, a shot from the former just evaded the latter. As the ball bounced past the post, it took Atlético’s hopes with it.

GM says end of tax incentives and less stringent emissions regulations slowed consumer demand for EVs in 2025

General Motors said on Thursday it will record a one-time earnings hit of $7.1bn in its quarterly financial results, mostly due to its pullback from electric vehicles in light of shifting US policies.

The Detroit auto giant’s fourth-quarter results will be dented by $6bn in charges connected to reversals on EV investments, according to a securities filing. The remaining $1.1bn includes costs from the company’s restructuring of its China operations.

• Kim, 25, injured shoulder during training in Laax

• MRI will determine Olympic availability for US star

• Two-time champion chasing historic third gold

Chloe Kim’s pursuit of an unprecedented third straight Olympic gold medal has been thrown into uncertainty after the American snowboard star dislocated her shoulder during a training session in Switzerland.

Kim, the dominant force in women’s halfpipe snowboarding for nearly a decade, revealed the injury on Thursday, sharing video of the fall that caused the scare. The injury occured while Kim was training in Laax, a regular World Cup venue and a key pre-Olympic stop on the circuit. The 25-year-old landed a maneuver cleanly but lost her edge shortly afterward, sliding awkwardly across the pipe and into the wall.

Point proven? Well, not exactly. Just when Arsenal looked ready to lay down a real marker for their title aspirations, a rejuvenated Liverpool side that has been through the wringer since they were crowned champions last season showed the Gunners remain fallible.

It could have been even worse for Mikel Arteta’s side if Liverpool had been awarded one of two potential penalties or if Conor Bradley’s brilliant chip had not struck the crossbar in the first half.

The vice-president went ballistic against the media and the left – a version of Trump with even more menace

It was James David Vance’s pitch to his boss: don’t forget me!

The vice-president was nowhere to be seen last weekend when US special forces swept into Venezuela and snatched its leader, Nicolás Maduro. Instead Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and a potential rival to Vance in the 2028 presidential election, grabbed all the Maga glory.

During black summer, my daughters were too young to know what was happening. Now, amid another Australian heatwave, they deserve answers

When the forecasts for this week started to roll in, my mind immediately drifted back to Australia’s black summer.

I had taken my daughters down to the pool in our estate in western Sydney, hoping for a brief reprieve from the relentless heat. The Gospers Mountain fire was raging in the Blue Mountains, but on that particular day the smoke didn’t seem too bad.

David Hart, 22, imprisoned for one year over nuisance calls to London hospitals and Westminster Abbey

A man has been jailed for a year in New York for calling in a series of hoax bomb threats, many of which targeted institutions in the UK.

David Hart was prosecuted by US authorities after a joint investigation by Scotland Yard and the US department for homeland security.

• The 1958 says club has become a ‘laughing stock’

• Protest planned at Old Trafford in early February

Manchester United supporters group The 1958 has called for a vote of no confidence in the club’s ownership model, calling Sir Jim Ratcliffe “an incompetent clown”. The organisation will also hold a protest at the home match against Fulham on 1 February to make their voices heard at Old Trafford.

The group wants the removal of the Glazer family and Ratcliffe from the club. Concerns were also expressed in relation to the work of the chief executive, Omar Berrada, and the director of football, Jason Wilcox, in the aftermath of Ruben Amorim’s sacking, which will lead to an interim replacement.

There’s a great deal of unpretentious B-movie fun to be had in this brief, brutal and slickly made creature feature

There’s a refreshing lack of subtext and pretension to this week’s gory creature feature Primate, a straight-to-the-point riposte to the glum, trauma-heavy horror films we’ve been enduring of late. Rather than following his genre peers who are busy aiming for the lofty heights of Don’t Look Now and Possession, British director Johannes Roberts is happy to give gen Z their very own Shakma, the goofy 1990 schlocker about a baboon driven wild by an experimental drug.

That film took a while to gain a cult following, ultimately accepted by the same drunk Bad Movie crowd who took in Troll 2, but Primate won’t take anywhere near as long. It’s a far better, slicker movie for one, a surgically well-made crowd-pleaser that swaps out baboon for chimp, cleverly turning him from test subject to domesticated pet. At 89-minutes and paced like a rollercoaster, there’s little room for life lessons, although the film does make for a stern, grisly reminder of why chimps should not be considered part of the family (something many still don’t seem to understand).

Security forces reported to have killed at least 45 people since protests began 12 days ago, as pressure on regime increases

Iran was plunged into a complete internet blackout on Thursday night as protests over economic conditions spread nationwide, increasing pressure on the country’s leadership.

While it was unclear what caused the internet cut, first reported by the internet freedom monitor NetBlocks, Iranian authorities have shut down the internet in response to protests in the past.

• Capacity will increase from 37,645 to about 53,000

• Proposals were approved by city council on Thursday

Leeds have received planning permission to redevelop Elland Road and lift the stadium’s capacity from 37,645 to about 53,000.

There had been fears that a delay to the long-mooted introduction of a tram network in the surrounding area until the late 2030s might impact the club’s plans to expand the ground but the proposals were approved by the city council on Thursday.

DHS secretary’s claims have been widely disputed with video of shooting showing vehicle turning away from agent

• US politics live – latest updates

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, has doubled down on her claim that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis was acting in self-defense and responding to an “act of domestic terrorism”.

Noem also said that she was “not opposed” to sending additional federal agents to Minneapolis.

Disgraced former movie mogul would avoid a third trial in New York on charges that came to define the #MeToo era

Disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is weighing a potential guilty plea to resolve an undecided third-degree rape charge and avoid a third trial in New York on charges that came to define the #MeToo era.

Weinstein, in a wheelchair and looking noticeably paler than he did when he was last in court in June, was brought to Judge Curtis Farber’s court on Thursday, seeking to have his latest sex crime conviction thrown out over claims of juror intimidation.

• Hajar Abdelkader won just three points in 6-0, 6-0 loss

• ‘Wildcard should not have been granted’ to Egyptian

Tennis Kenya said a controversial wildcard granted to Hajar Abdelkader should not have happened after the young Egyptian’s performance at a professional tournament in Nairobi went viral.

The 21-year-old won three points and served 20 double faults on her way to a 6-0, 6-0 defeat against German world No 1,026, Lorena Schaedel. Videos shared on social media showed the Egyptian struggling to serve and position herself on the court.

An almost admiring feeling pervaded the early coverage – and not just among right-leaning outlets

If you believe the early public opinion polls, Americans are uncertain about last weekend’s raid on Venezuela and the seizure of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.

But many in the media seem to be trying to move that wavering needle to approval.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Preceding the release of My Days of 58, the Americana legend once known as Smog discusses his Yorkshire youth, why Spotify is like the mafia and the bleak state of AI

We got married to [Smog’s] Our Anniversary. When you write songs, do you think about how listeners might carry them into their own lives, or do the songs stop being yours after they are done? Vanearle
When I wrote [2019’s] Watch Me Get Married, I thought maybe people would have that as their wedding song. But mostly it’s inconceivable what people are gonna do with a song. I don’t think about it too much because there are 100,000 places where it’s gonna live. Have I ever heard about any inappropriate uses of songs? I think having Our Anniversary as a wedding song is a little surprising, but maybe they’re realists.

As an appreciator of dub, if you could spend a week in a studio to collaborate with any dub artist at their peak, who would you go for? albertoayler
I’d have to say Lee “Scratch” Perry just because he was so crazy. He was like a little kid – just infectious excitement. I think that he would have been easy to hang out with. But also, King Tubby was such a minimalist and I’d be curious about how he determined when enough was enough – investing so much power in the fewest elements. Have Fun With God [the 2014 dub remix album of 2013’s Dream River] was very traditional – all the moves were taken from 70s Jamaican records. Maybe once is enough. But I do like the idea of recycling recorded things to make something else – that’s what initially attracted me to dub. If I did [a new remix album], I may do a chopped and screwed record.

City targeted by Trump has seen swarm of immigration agents on the streets – and residents say the tension is palpable

Edwin Torres DeSantiago received a text message on Wednesday morning as he was tracking immigration enforcement across Minneapolis – a person was shot by ICE at 34th Street and Portland Avenue.

He jumped into his car to head to the scene. Torres DeSantiago manages the Immigrant Defense Network, a group that monitors ICE activity and responds to community needs after someone is taken. He has responded to dozens of scenes in the past few months, and even more in the last few days since the federal government surged its presence in the midwestern city.

The White House has said using the US military is always an option, but few analysts believe it a likely one

• Europe live – latest updates

The Trump administration has said repeatedly that the US needs to gain control of Greenland, a mineral-rich, largely self-governing part of Denmark with foreign and security policy run from Copenhagen.

The White House has said using the US military is “always an option”, but few analysts believe an armed operation is likely and France’s foreign minister has said the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has ruled out the possibility of an invasion.

Certain canines can learn using cues from people’s gaze, gestures, attention and voices, researchers find

Whether it is a piece of food or a four-letter expletive, words can be learned by young children overhearing adults – but now researchers have found certain dogs can do something similar.

Scientists have discovered canines with the unusual ability to learn the names of myriad objects can pick up such labels by eavesdropping on conversations.

South London house to feature never-before-seen archival items and creative workshops for young people

On the evening of 6 July 1972, thousands of young people across the UK had their lives changed when the sight of David Bowie performing Starman on Top of the Pops was beamed into their living rooms.

Come the end of 2027, Bowie fans will be able to walk the very floorboards where the young David Jones had his own Damascene cultural conversion, when his childhood home in south London, is opened to the public for the first time.