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By Maya Gebeily and Maayan Lubell, Reuters US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has again been speaking with leaders in the Middle East. Photo: Nathan Howard / POOL / AFP Israel has launched strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus and a military site near the western city of Homs, the Syrian defence ministry says, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tours the region pushing for a halt to fighting. The Israeli strikes targeted the central Damascus neighbourhood of Kafr Sousa and a military site in the Homs countryside, killing one soldier and injuring seven other people, the ministry said in a statement. The ministry said the strikes caused "material damage", but did not elaborate. Earlier in the day, Syrian state media said explosions were heard in Damascus after Israel struck a r...

Kea. Photo: Tim Norman Dr Eric Buenz is a biomedical researcher at NMIT, the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. He's also a recreational hunter. For the past decade Eric and his colleague Professor Gareth Parry have been interested in lead and its impact on human and animal health, with a focus on lead ammunition. Follow Our Changing World on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts Every year in New Zealand, recreational hunters shoot more than half a million wild game animals. Eric says three types of ammunition are used with centrefire rifles: lead bullets, lead-free copper bullets, and - most commonly - copper-jacketed bullets with a lead core. Lead is a very useful metal. It is soft, versatile and cheap. It is also very toxic. The World Health O...

By Jarrett Renshaw and James Oliphant, Reuters Photo: DUSTIN FRANZ / AFP With millions of US voters already heading to the polls, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris will seek support from undecided voters at a televised town hall in battleground Pennsylvania, while Republican Donald Trump swept through Georgia. Nearly 25 million voters have cast ballots, either through in-person early voting or mail-in ballots, according to tracking data from the Election Lab at the University of Florida. Several states, including the battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgia, set records on their respective first day of early voting last week. "The votes in Georgia are at record levels," Trump told a religious-themed "ballots and believers" event in Zebulon, Georgia. "The votes in ever...

Photo: Geoff Capes Foundation/supplied Geoff Capes, British strongman, shot put record holder and renowned budgerigar breeder, has died aged 75. Capes left an indelible mark on British sport, birdkeeping and 1980s popular culture. "The family of Geoffrey Capes would like to announce his sad passing today, 23rd October. Britain's finest shot putter and twice World's Strongest Man," the family said in a statement. Born in 1949 in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, Capes excelled in athletics, representing Britain in three Olympic Games from 1972 to 1980, and setting the national shot put record of 21.68 metres which has stood for 44 years. Although his best Olympic finish was fifth in 1980, he won two Commonwealth gold medals as well as a haul of European medals. Capes worked as a policeman and was a...

Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe disrupts proceedings as Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla attend a reception at Parliament House, 21 October, 2024. Photo: Lukas Coch / ABC The Australian senator who yelled at King Charles says she did so to raise the world's attention to the "ongoing, sophisticated genocide" of the country's first people. At a royal reception in Parliament House on Monday senator Lidia Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, shouted "you are not our King" and "this is not your land" at the British monach. Speaking to RNZ, Thorpe says she is loud and proud and calls out injustice where she sees it. "And with that so-called King sitting in all that stolen wealth, he needed to be called out for the injustices that his people, that his ancestors inf...