As manhunt is under way, police do not believe attack was random but neither was it likely to be attack on religion.
Published On 8 Jan 20268 Jan 2026
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Two people have been killed and several injured in a shooting in the car park of a Mormon church in the Utah capital of Salt Lake City in the United States.
Police said the shooting occurred on Wednesday in the car park of a meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where dozens of people were attending a funeral.
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Three of the six injured victims are in critical condition.
Police confirmed that no suspect was in custody and have launched a manhunt, with the FBI reportedly offering assistance.
While police said they did not believe the shooting was random, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd told The Associated Press news agency it did not appear to be a targeted attack against a religion.
Church spokesman Glen Mills told reporters there had been signs of a fracas outside the church, where the funeral was taking place.
“Out in the parking lot, there was some sort of altercation took [place] and that’s when shots were fired,” he said.
About 100 law enforcement vehicles were at the scene in the aftermath, with helicopters flying overhead.
“As soon as I came over, I see someone on the ground… People are attending to him and crying and arguing,” said Brennan McIntire, a local man who spoke to AP.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, “This should never have happened outside a place of worship. This should never have happened outside a celebration of life.”
The church, which has headquarters in Salt Lake City, is cooperating with law enforcement.
About half of Utah’s 3.5 million residents are members of the faith. Churches like the one where the shooting occurred can be found in towns throughout the city and state.
The faith has been on heightened alert since four people were killed when a former Marine opened fire in a Michigan church last month and set it ablaze.
The FBI found that he was motivated by “anti-religious beliefs” against the church.
About 82 percent of mass killings in the US in 2025 involved a firearm, according to a database maintained by AP alongside USA Today and Northeastern University.
The shooting in Salt Lake City occurred amid growing unrest in the US, after a federal officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis amid ongoing protests against an immigration crackdown.
A funny thing about this year’s best films: Half of them are adaptations. As a movie lover who’s always hunting for new talent, new ideas and new stimuli, I used to view that as creative inertia. But 2025 has changed my mind.
Now I see artists drawing inspiration from the past to show that Hollywood should trust the sturdy bones that have kept it running for over a century: good yarns, bold casting, films that don’t feel made by focus groups or doomsaying bean-counters (or, God help us, AI), but by blood and sweat.
Our picks for this year’s best in arts and entertainment.
From original tales to radical reworkings of classics both high-falutin’ and raucously lowbrow, these 10 filmmakers all know that the most vital part of the storytelling business has stayed exactly the same. They have to wow an audience. And they did.
1. ‘Sinners’
Michael B. Jordan as twins Smoke and Stack in the movie “Sinners.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
A period-piece-vampire-musical mashup could have been discordant, but writer-director Ryan Coogler confidently makes all three genres harmonize. In “Sinners,” Coogler double-casts his longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan as twin bootleggers Smoke and Stack, then pits them against a pack of banjo-picking bloodsuckers helmed by a roguish Jack O’Connell. We’re expecting a big, bloody brouhaha and we get it. Underneath the playful carnage, however, the question at stake is: Why suffer the daily indignities of the Jim Crow-era South when you could outlive — and eat — your oppressors? “Sinners” is the most exciting film of 2025, both for what it is and for what it proves: that fresh blockbusters still exist and people are eager to gobble them up.
The stage’s iconic mean girl glides from 1890s Norway to 1950s England in this vibrant and venomous adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler.” Tessa Thompson stars as the restless housewife who needs to secure her milquetoast husband (Tom Bateman) a promotion and has a nasty habit of playing with guns. Keeping pace with her manipulative anti-heroine, writer-director Nia DaCosta (“Candyman”) makes a few calculated moves of her own, including gender-swapping Hedda’s ex into a curvaceous career woman (a haughty Nina Hoss) whose drab and geeky new girlfriend (Imogen Poots) irritates their hostess’ insecurities. As a capper, “Hedda” stages its brutal showdown at an all-night vodka-and-cocaine-fueled mansion shebang with a live jazz band, a lake for skinny-dippers and a hedge maze where former lovers are tempted to canoodle. The original play is over a century old, but every scene feels screamingly alive.
Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in “Eddington.”
(A24)
No film was more polarizing than Ari Aster’s COVID-set satire about a mask-hating sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix), a sanctimonious mayor (Pedro Pascal) and the high-tech cabal that benefits when these two modern cowboys come to blows. “Eddington” immortalizes the bleak humor and lingo of May 2020 (think murder hornets, Antifa and toilet paper hoarders). More stingingly, it captures the mental delirium of a small town — make that an entire planet — that hasn’t yet realized that there’s a second sickness seeping in through their smartphones. Everyone’s got a device in their hand pretty much all the time, aiming their cameras at each other like pistols in a Wild West standoff. Yet no character grasps what’s really going on. (I have a theory, but when I explain the larger conspiracy, I sound cuckoo too.) This is the movie that will explain pandemic brain to future generations. With distance, I’m pretty sure the haters will come around.
Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “One Battle After Another.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Every shot in Paul Thomas Anderson’s invigorating nail-biter is a banger: sentinels skateboarding over rooftops, caged kids playing catch with a crumpled foil blanket, Teyana Taylor’s militant Perfidia Beverly Hills blasting an automatic rifle while nine months pregnant. It’s the rare film that instantly imprints itself on the viewer. On my second watch, I was shocked by how much of “One Battle After Another” already felt tattooed on my brain, down to the shudder I got from Sean Penn’s loathsome Col. Lockjaw licking his comb to tidy his bangs. Riffing from Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland,” the central drama follows flunky anarchist Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) fumblingly attempting to rescue his daughter (Chase Infiniti) from Lockjaw’s clutches. But he’s not much help to her, and as the title implies, this is merely one skirmish in humanity’s sprawling struggle for freedom that has, and will, drag on forever. Anderson’s knack for ensemble work stretches back as far as “Boogie Nights,” yet here, even his unnamed characters have crucial roles to play. His world-building has never before felt this holistic and inspirational.
(“One Battle After Another” is now playing in theaters.)
5. ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’
Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh in the movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
(Roadside Attractions)
The backstory behind this stunner couldn’t be more baroque: Director Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls”) boldly revamped a Broadway musical of an Oscar-winning drama (itself taken from an experimental novel) about two inmates in an Argentine cell who mentally escape into the movies. Each incarnation has doubled down on the sensorial overload of what came before. If you know “Kiss of the Spider Woman’s” lineage, you’ll be impressed by how Condon ups the fantasy and stokes the revolutionary glamour with more Technicolor dance showcases for Jennifer Lopez’. (She’s doing her best Cyd Charisse, which turns out to be darned good.) If this is your first taste of the tale, give yourself over to the prickly but tender relationship between prisoners Luis and Valentin, played by feisty new talent Tonatiuh and a red-blooded Diego Luna. This is go-for-broke filmmaking with a wallop. As Luis says of his own version of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” playing in his head, “Call it kitsch, call it camp — I don’t care, I love it.”
Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s Cannes Grand Prix winner opens with a haunted vacuum cleaner. From there, it gets even more surprising. Ghosts have infested a wealthy widow’s factory and are possessing appliances, seducing her son and cozying up to the prime minister for favors. Some of these people have died by accident, some by corporate neglect or worse. This droll spook show bleeds into romance and politics and, to our shock, becomes genuinely emotional. (It helps to remember that the military killed over 80 Bangkok protesters in 2010.) But why vacuum cleaners, you ask? The conceit is more than a sticky idea. Ordinary people can get crushed but the anger they leave behind lingers like fine dust.
(“A Useful Ghost” opens Jan. 16, 2026, in theaters.)
7. ‘The Roses’
Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch in the movie “The Roses.”
(Jaap Buitendijk / Searchlight Pictures)
Technically, “The Roses” is rooted in the 1980s hit novel and subsequent blockbuster “The War of the Roses,” which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as an estranged couple who attack each other with lawyers, poison and chandeliers. In spirit, however, this redo is pure 1930s screwball comedy. Leads Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman are skilled verbal ninjas who hurl razor-sharp insults at each other’s egos, and although their characters’ divorce happens in California, director Jay Roach lets the actors keep their snippy British accents. The script by two-time Oscar nominee Tony McNamara (“The Favourite,” “Poor Things”) adds a cruel twist to the original: This time around, the marrieds truly do try their damnedest to love and support each other. And still, their walls come tumbling down.
Ye and Elon Musk in the documentary “In Whose Name?”
(AMSI Entertainment)
Nico Ballesteros was a high schooler with an iPhone when he entered Kanye West’s orbit in 2018. Over the next six years, the Orange County kid shot over 3,000 hours of footage as Ye (as the artist legally became known in 2021) jetted from Paris to Uganda, Calabasas to the White House, meeting everyone from Kenny G to Elon Musk on a quest to fulfill his creative and spiritual goals while incinerating his personal life and public reputation. Ye gave the documentarian full access with no editorial oversight, besides one moment in which he tells the camera that he wants the film to be about mental health. This riveting tragedy definitely is. We see an egomaniac whose fear of being beholden to anything motivates him to go off his meds, a billionaire provocateur who believes he can afford the consequences of his bigotry and, above all, a deeply flawed man who nukes his entire world to insist he’s right.
An image from the movie “Sirāt,” directed by Oliver Laxe.
(Festival de Cannes)
The techno soundtrack of Oliver Laxe’s desolate road thriller has rattled my house for months. Lately, I’ve spent just as much time contemplating the movie’s silence — those hushed stretches in which this caravan of bohemians speeds across the Moroccan desert looking like the only free people left on Earth. A father, Luis (“Pan’s Labyrinth’s” Sergi López), and his 12-year-old son team up with this band of tattooed burnouts in the hope of finding the boy’s runaway sister. Before long, Luis is just hoping to make it to safety, assuming anywhere safe still exists. Static on the radio warns that World War III might be underway. These outsiders click off the news and crank up the music. The paradox of “Sirāt” is that I’m dying to talk about it more but I’ve got to keep my mouth shut until people experience its dramatic twists for themselves.
(“Sirāt” returns to theaters on Feb. 6, 2026.)
10. ‘The Naked Gun’
Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson in the movie “The Naked Gun.”
(Frank Masi / Paramount Pictures)
Liam Neeson needed this pummeling pun-fest. So did everyone else in 2025. Director Akiva Schaffer’s continuation of the “Police Squad!” franchise let the 73-year-old “Taken” star poke fun at his own bruising gravitas. Playing the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Lt. Frank Drebin, Neeson kept us in hysterics with a stupid-brilliant barrage of surreal wordplay and daffy slapstick. The casting was as odd — and perfect — as rumors that he and his co-star Pamela Anderson started dating on set. This fourth sequel didn’t try to outsmart the classic Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker template. It simply told the same old story: Cop meets babe, cop and babe canoodle with a magical snowman, cop drops his trousers on live TV, this time minus the blimp. Goodyear? No, the worst — which made Neeson our hero.
Since I’m all jazzed-up about great movies, here are 10 honorable mentions very much worth a watch.
“The Ballad of Wallis Island” A kooky millionaire strong-arms his favorite mid-aughts folk duo into playing a reunion show on his Welsh island. Sounds cutesy, but it’s the movie I recommended most — to everyone from my mailman to my mother. They all loved it. Join the fan club.
“Bunny” This East Village indie by debut director Ben Jacobson is a scummy gem. A gigolo’s birthday goes very wrong. But all the characters racing up and down the stairs of his uber-New York walk-up hovel are a howl.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” Rose Byrne excels equally at comedy and drama. This audit of a breakdown smashes both together and cranks the tension up to eleven. Playing a high-stress working mom of an ill child, her try-hard heroine leans in so harrowingly far, she goes kamikaze.
“Lurker” Today’s celebrity might be viral on Instagram and unknown everywhere else. Alex Russell’s stomach-churning psychodrama stars Archie Madekwe as an L.A.-based singer on the brink of genuine fame and Théodore Pellerin as the hanger-on who endures — and exploits — the fledgling star’s power moves and hazy boundaries.
“Magic Farm” Filmmaker Amalia Ulman’s rascally farce stars Chloë Sevigny and Alex Wolff as clickbait journalists who fly to Argentina to shoot a viral video about a singer in a bunny costume and wind up looking twice as ridiculous.
Keke Palmer, left, and SZA in the movie “One of Them Days.”
(Anne Marie Fox / Sony Pictures)
“One of Them Days” Keke Palmer and SZA play broke Baldwin Hills roommates who have nine hours to make rent. I’d happily watch their stoner high jinks in real time.
“The Perfect Neighbor” Pieced together primarily from police body-camera footage, Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary unfurls in a Florida cul-de-sac where a community — adults, kids and cops — agrees that one woman is an entitled pill. The problem is she thinks they’re the problem. And she has a gun.
“Sisu: Road to Revenge” If Buster Keaton were alive, he’d hail this grisly, mostly mute Finnish action flick as a worthy successor to “The General.” It even boasts a thrilling sequence on a train, although director Jalmari Helander also brazenly poaches from “Die Hard” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
“Train Dreams” Trees fall in the woods and a 20th-century logger (Joel Edgerton) plays an unheard, unthanked but beautiful role in the building of America.
“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) teams up with a soul-searching priest (Josh O’Connor) to solve a perplexing church stabbing. From deft plot twists to provocative Catholic theology, Rian Johnson’s crowd-pleasing murder mystery is marvelously executed.
Palestinian, Jewish and Indigenous groups say they will launch constitutional challenge to anti-protest laws described as ‘rushed’.
The state of New South Wales (NSW) will have the toughest gun laws in Australia as well as wide-reaching new restrictions on free speech in the wake of the Bondi Beach mass shooting, which left 15 people dead.
Less than two weeks after the attack on a Jewish celebration, new legislation was passed by the state’s legislative assembly in the early hours of Wednesday morning, including restrictions that appear to target speech in solidarity with Palestinians.
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Notably, the Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 gives police powers to restrict public protests for up to three months “following a terrorism declaration”, while the public display of symbols of prohibited organisations will be banned.
“Once a declaration is made, no public assemblies can be authorised in designated areas, including by a court and police will be able to move people on if their behaviour or presence obstructs traffic or causes fear, harassment or intimidation,” the NSW government said in a statement.
In the statement, NSW Premier Chris Minns and other top officials said that the sweeping changes would involve a review of “hate speech” and the words “globalise the Intifada” were singled out as an example of speech that will be banned. The term is often used in solidarity with Palestinians and their civil struggle against Israeli military occupation and illegal settlement expansion, dating back to the 1980s.
Minns acknowledged that the new laws involved “very significant changes that not everyone will agree with” but he added, “our state has changed following the horrific anti-Semitic attack on Bondi Beach and our laws must change too.”
He also said that new gun laws, which restrict certain types of guns to use by farmers, would also help to “calm a combustible situation”.
Constitutional challenge
Three NSW-based pro-Palestinian, Indigenous and Jewish advocacy groups said on Tuesday, before the final vote on the legislation, that they would be “filing a constitutional legal challenge against the draconian anti-protest laws”.
Palestine Action Group Sydney said in a statement shared on Facebook that it was launching the challenge together with the Indigenous group Blak Caucus and Jews Against the Occupation ’48.
“These outrageous laws will grant NSW Police sweeping powers to effectively ban protests,” the Palestinian advocacy group said, accusing the NSW government of “exploiting the horrific Bondi attack to advance a political agenda that suppresses political dissent and criticism of Israel, and curtails democratic freedoms”.
Changes to the state’s protest laws also come just months after more than 100,000 people marched over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in protest against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, after a court overturned an attempt by the Minns government to try to stop the peaceful protest from taking place.
Following the huge display of public support for ending Israel’s war on Gaza, Australia joined more than 145 other UN member states in recognising Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September this year, much to the outrage of Israeli officials.
Within hours of the Bondi attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted for alleged war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), linked the shooting to Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood.
UN special rapporteur Ben Saul, who is also an international law chair at the University of Sydney, criticised Netanyahu’s comments.
Saul, whose UN mandate focuses on ensuring human rights are protected while countering terrorism, called for a “measured response to the Bondi terrorist attack”.
“Overreach does not make us safer – it lets terror win,” Saul said in a post on social media.
Heroes to be honoured
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday that he plans to create a special honours list to recognise the people who rushed in to try to stop the two attackers as they targeted the Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14.
Australian public broadcaster the ABC reported those honoured would likely include Australian-Syrian shop owner Ahmed al-Ahmed, as well as Boris and Sofia Gurman, a local couple who tried to stop the gunmen but were among those killed in the attack.
While al-Ahmed has been widely hailed as a hero around the world, less is known about a second Muslim man who ran in to help, even as he was tackled by bystanders because he was mistaken for being an attacker.
The man’s lawyer, Alisson Battisson, says that her client, whom she did not name, is a refugee who is potentially facing deportation due to a past criminal record, despite his repeated attempts to help stop the Bondi attack.
Dec. 23 (UPI) — The federal government is suing Washington, D.C., to ease its gun-ownership laws, which are the strictest in the nation.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed the suit Monday in federal court seeking to declare the laws unconstitutional and prevent the District from enforcing them. The laws ban most semiautomatic rifles and other firearms from being registered with the police department. This makes any possession of those guns illegal. AK-47s and AR-15s are among those that are illegal. Those owning those guns can face misdemeanor charges and fines.
The action “underscores our ironclad commitment to protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Washington, D.C.’s ban on some of America’s most popular firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment — living in our nation’s capital should not preclude law-abiding citizens from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
The suit cites District of Columbia v. Heller, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 2008. Before Heller, the District made it illegal to carry unregistered firearms but it also banned the registration of handguns. The Heller decision said that people can have guns in their homes for self-defense.
After Heller, the District updated its gun laws and included a registry and training requirements. But it still makes assault rifles impossible to register.
The suit filed by the Justice Department argues the merit of the law.
“D.C.’s current semi-automatic firearms prohibition that bans many commonly used pistols, rifles or shotguns is based on little more than cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories, and fails to take into account whether the prohibited weapon is ‘in common use today’ or that law-abiding citizens may use these weapons for lawful purposes protected by the Second Amendment. Therefore, the District’s restrictions lack legal basis,” the filing said.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday, reported by the Washington Post, that the District would “vigorously defend our right to make decisions that keep our city safe.”
“Gun violence destroys families, upends communities, and threatens our collective sense of safety. MPD has saved lives by taking illegal guns off our streets — efforts that have been praised by our federal partners,” Bowser said. “It is irresponsible to take any steps that would lead to more, and deadlier, guns in our communities, especially semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s.”
Lawyers from Everytown Law, a gun safety organization, said the city’s gun bans are legal.
“The legal consensus is clear: assault weapon bans are constitutional. Since the Supreme Court’s rulings in Bruen and Rahimi, federal courts have repeatedly affirmed that these laws are consistent with the Second Amendment,” Bill Taylor, deputy director of Second Amendment litigation at Everytown Law, said in a statement. “Assault weapons are designed for mass devastation, and we look forward to supporting D.C. as it defends this critical common-sense safety measure.”
District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told prosecutors in August not to enforce felony charges for the city’s ban on openly carrying rifles and shotguns in public or the city’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 bullets.
Albanese said Australia has more guns now than 30 years ago, when the country’s deadliest-ever mass shooting took place.
Australia will launch a national gun buyback scheme, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced, as the country continues to come to terms with the deadly attack on a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead.
Albanese called the plan the country’s biggest gun buyback since 1996 – the year of Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in modern history, the Port Arthur massacre in the island state of Tasmania – and said authorities will purchase surplus, newly-banned and illegal firearms.
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“Right now, there are more guns in Australia than there were during Port Arthur. We can’t allow that to continue,” Albanese told a news conference on Friday, adding that there are currently more than four million firearms in the country.
“Non-citizens have no need to own a gun. And someone in suburban Sydney has no need to own six … The terrible events of Bondi show we need to get more guns off our streets,” he said.
Albanese added that authorities in Australia’s states and territories will be tasked with collecting the weapons and processing payments for surrendered firearms under the scheme. Federal police will then be responsible for destroying them.
“We expect hundreds of thousands of firearms will be collected and destroyed through this scheme,” Albanese added.
Aided by some of the toughest gun restrictions globally, Australia has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world.
Restrictions were tightened after a lone gunman, armed with semiautomatic weapons, killed 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site almost 30 years ago.
The massacre shocked the country, with authorities soon after launching a major gun amnesty and buyback scheme that removed more than 650,000 newly-prohibited firearms from circulation.
‘We need to do more to combat this evil scourge’
Sunday’s shooting in Sydney’s Bondi Beach area – in which two attackers, named as father and son Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, went on a shooting spree and killed 15 people – has had a similarly jolting impact on Australian society as the Port Arthur massacre and prompted self-reflection.
Albanese said 50-year-old Sajid – who was shot dead at the scene – and 24-year-old Naveed – who was charged with “terrorism” and murder offences after he awoke from a coma on Tuesday – were inspired by “Islamic State ideology”.
On Thursday, Albanese announced tougher hate speech laws as he acknowledged the country had experienced a rising tide of anti-Jewish hate since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Albanese said rising anti-Semitism in Australia “culminated on Sunday in one of the worst acts of mass murder that this country has ever seen”.
“It was an attack on our Jewish community – but it was also an attack on the Australian way of life,” he said.
“Australians are shocked and angry. I am angry. It is clear we need to do more to combat this evil scourge, much more,” he added.
The prime minister also announced on Friday that Australia will hold a national day of reflection this Sunday – one week after the mass shooting.
Albanese urged Australians to light candles at 6:47pm (07:47 GMT) on Sunday, December 21 – “exactly one week since the attack unfolded”.
“It is a moment to pause, reflect, and affirm that hatred and violence will never define who we are as Australians,” he told reporters.
Earlier on Friday, hundreds of people plunged into the ocean off Bondi Beach in another gesture to honour the dead.
Swimmers and surfers paddled into a circle as they bobbed in the gentle morning swell, splashing water and roaring with emotion.
“They slaughtered innocent victims, and today I’m swimming out there and being part of my community again to bring back the light,” security consultant Jason Carr told the AFP news agency.
“We’re still burying bodies. But I just felt it was important,” the 53-year-old said.
“I’m not going to let someone so evil, someone so dark, stop me from doing what I do and what I enjoy doing,” he said.
Surfers and swimmers congregate in the surf at Bondi Beach as they participate in a tribute for the victims of Sunday’s Bondi Beach attack, in Sydney, on December 19, 2025 [David Gray/AFP]
The Australian government has announced a gun buyback scheme in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack – its deadliest mass shooting in decades.
The scheme is the largest since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, which left 35 people dead and prompted Australia to introduce world-leading gun control measures.
Fifteen people were killed and dozens injured on Sunday when two gunmen, believed to have been motivated by “Islamic State ideology”, opened fire on a Jewish festival at the country’s most iconic beach.
On Friday police said a group of men who were arrested in Sydney after travelling from the state of Victoria had “extremist Islamic ideology”.
Police allege Sunday’s attack, which they have declared a terrorist incident, was committed by a father-son duo. Naveed Akram, 24, has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist act. His father Sajid was killed during the attack.
The day after the shooting, national cabinet – which includes representatives from the federal government and leaders from all states and territories – agreed to tighten gun controls.
Speaking to media on Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there are now more than 4 million firearms in Australia – more than at the time of the Port Arthur massacre.
“We know that one of these terrorists held a firearm licence and had six guns, in spite of living in the middle of Sydney’s suburbs… There’s no reason why someone in that situation needed that many guns.
“We need to get more guns off our streets.”
Earlier on Friday, a senior New South Wales police officer told national broadcaster ABC seven men arrested by counter terrorism police in Sydney on Thursday evening may have been on their way to Bondi.
Tactical officers swarmed on the group, who had travelled from Victoria and were known to police there, in dramatic scenes in the suburb of Liverpool.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said “some indication” that Bondi was one of the locations they were considering visiting, but “with no specific intent in mind or proven at this stage”.
Rarely used national security powers were relied upon to swoop before their plans developed.
“We made the decision that we weren’t going to … take any chances in relation to what they might be doing,” he said.
Officers found a knife, but no guns or other weapons, Mr Hudson added.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference on Monday, a day after a mass shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia. Photo by Steven Markham/EPA
Dec. 15 (UPI) — Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Monday that his government will seek to strengthen Australia’s already stringent gun laws after a father-and-son duo killed 15 people and injured 40 others on Sunday in one of the country’s worst-ever shootings.
“People’s circumstances change. People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licenses should not be in perpetuity,” he told reporters during a Monday press conference.
The shooters have not been identified, although authorities have said the father was 50 years old and the son 24.
They are alleged to have opened fire late Sunday afternoon into crowds of people at the iconic Australian tourist destination. The 50-year-old father was shot and killed by police at the scene. The 24-year-old son has been hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
Authorities are investigating the shooting as a terrorist attack targeting Australia’s Jewish community during Hanukkah celebrations.
Six firearms have been confiscated by the New South Wales Joint Counter Terrorism Team, which is investigating the shooting.
The NSW Police Force said in a statement Monday that three firearms and two improvised explosive devices were located at the scene following the shooting and are undergoing forensic examination.
Search warrants executed Sunday night at two homes, one in Bonnyrigg and another in Campsie, uncovered two additional firearms.
A sixth firearm and a third improvised explosive device were discovered Monday at the Bondi crime scene, NSW Police Force said.
Authorities said earlier Monday that the 50-year-old alleged shooter is a licensed firearms holder and that they are investigating to confirm that the six firearms confiscated are the six he is licensed to have.
Albanese said Monday that he will take to the National Cabinet later that afternoon a proposal to empower agencies to examine what can be done to strengthen Australia’s gun laws.
“If we need to toughen these up, if there’s anything we can do, I’m certainly up for it,” he said.
The identities of the alleged shooters have not been made public. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told reporters that the 24-year-old son is an Australian-born citizen, and that the father had arrived in the country in 1998 on a student visa, which was then transferred to a partner visa in 2001. He has been on resident return visas since.
Asked what country the father was a native of, Burke declined to answer, saying he has not been cleared by police to make that information public.
Albanese said the son was known to police, and first came to their attention in October 2019.
“He was examined on the basis of being associated with others and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” he said.
The probing of the son was the product of those he was associated with rather than anything he had done, he said, adding that the investigation was conducted over a six-month period.
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon earlier Monday told reporters that “there was very little knowledge of either of these men by the authorities.”
“The person had a firearms license for a number of years for which there were no incidents,” he said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pledged a review of his country’s gun laws and added support for Jewish Australians, as his government faces scrutiny following a deadly shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
On Monday afternoon, Albanese faced reporters to answer questions about the shooting, which took place a day earlier, during a local Hanukkah celebration. At least 15 people have died, including a 10-year-old girl, and dozens are reported injured.
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“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of terror, an act of anti-Semitism: an attack on the first day of Hanukkah, targeted at the Jewish community,” Albanese said in prepared remarks, after visiting the crime scene.
“A dark day in Australia’s history, on what should have been a day of light.”
The Australian government has yet to name the suspected attackers, identifying them only as a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son. The father died in a shootout with police, while the son is currently being treated at a local hospital.
Hanukkah is sometimes called the Festival of Lights, and in Monday’s news conference, Albanese encouraged Australians to participate in a show of solidarity with the country’s Jewish community.
“I would urge and join with others who have urged Australians across the country to light a candle, put it in their front window tonight at 6:47pm [19:47 GMT] to show that light will indeed defeat darkness – part of what Hanukkah celebrates, of course,” he said. “We are stronger than the cowards who did this.”
But while Albanese and other officials urged calm, critics questioned whether the government had done enough to curtail both anti-Semitism and gun violence.
Netanyahu spurs scrutiny
One of Albanese’s highest-profile critics in the wake of the attack was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The right-wing Israeli leader blamed Albanese’s centre-left government for failing to protect Australia’s Jewish community. He also linked the shooting to Australia’s recent decision to recognise Palestinian statehood.
“Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the anti-Semitic fire,” Netanyahu said in remarks directed at Albanese, voicing sentiments he later repeated in a social media post.
“It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.”
Those remarks fuelled outrage and accusations that Netanyahu was leveraging the tragedy for political aims.
In a post on social media, UN special rapporteur Ben Saul also criticised Netanyahu for linking Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood to Sunday’s shootings.
“I am disgusted that the Israeli PM links Australia’s principled support for a Palestinian State with yesterday’s terrorist attack in Bondi,” said Saul, who also serves as an international law chair at the University of Sydney.
“Australia has taken extensive measures to prevent anti-semitism,” Saul added.
When asked on Monday morning about Netanyahu’s remarks, Albanese said his focus was on bringing people together.
“This is a moment for national unity,” the Australian prime minister told reporters in Sydney. “This is a moment for Australians to come together. That’s precisely what we’ll be doing.”
He also said his government would beef up funding and support to protect Jewish community members, including covering the costs of guard services.
“We’re extending the funding for the National Council for Jewish Community Security and its state-based community security groups, to provide overall security cover to the Jewish community,” Albanese said.
“We’re also working with Jewish community organisations to see how we can best support charity efforts, including through tax-deductible status for donations.”
Mourners gather by floral tributes at the Bondi Pavilion in Sydney on December 15, 2025 [Saeed Khan/AFP]
Australia’s gun reforms under scrutiny
Albanese also told reporters on Monday afternoon that he would be convening a meeting of state premiers to discuss “tougher gun laws, including limits on the number of guns that can be used or licensed by individuals”.
“People’s circumstances change. People can be radicalised over a period of time. Licences should not be in perpetuity,” said Albanese.
His remarks follow questions about the six guns recovered from the scene of the shooting and the revelation that the 24-year-old suspect had previously come under police scrutiny.
Officials have repeatedly said the 50-year-old suspect had “met the eligibility criteria for a firearms licence”, and that the 24-year-old was previously not deemed to be a threat.
Australia introduced some of the world’s strictest gun laws, including bans on automatic and semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, after a shooter killed 35 people in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur in 1996.
The 1996 reforms, introduced under former Prime Minister John Howard, were hailed as a success after Australia saw no mass shootings occur for close to two decades.
However, according to a recent report from the Australia Institute, the implementation of the laws has lapsed in recent years, with more guns now in the country than before 1996.
On Monday, Albanese said the reforms had “made an enormous difference” and were a “proud moment” of bipartisan action, but that reviews were now needed to ensure better coordination between states.
Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, where the shooting took place, also told reporters on Monday he would be reviewing gun laws.
“We want to make sure that prospective reform and change in New South Wales has a lasting impact,” Minns said. “It’s not the last time I’ll be mentioning it, and you can expect action soon.”
Sunday’s shooting at Bondi Beach follows several other mass shootings in recent years, including a 2022 attack in Wieambilla, Queensland, linked to Christian fundamentalist ideology that left six people dead.
An Australian man was also responsible for the attack in 2019 that killed 51 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, where semiautomatic weapons are still sold.
