World News

By Esther Linder, ABC with wires Smoke billows from a site targeted by Israeli shelling in the southern Lebanese village of Zaita. Photo: MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP Hundreds of people are dead across Lebanon after the Israeli military carried out a bombing campaign in the country's south and east. Following what is said to have been Lebanon's deadliest day since its civil war, the US and UN have urged both parties to de-escalate tensions before war breaks out. Read more: Here's what we know so far: What's happening in Lebanon? After months of stewing tensions, Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah campaigns across the Israeli-Lebanese border has intensified, forcing thousands to flee. The Israeli military bombed about 1600 locations it said were Hezbollah targets throughout Leban...

By Maya Gebeily, Tom Perry and James Mackenzie, Reuters Bystanders and reporters look at the destruction in a street under a residential building whose top two floors were hit by an Israeli strike in the Ghobeiri area of Beirut's southern suburbs. Photo: AFP An Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a full-fledged war in the Middle East. Israel's military said the airstrike on the Lebanese capital killed Ibrahim Qubaisi, who it said was the commander of Hezbollah's missiles and rocket force. Two security sources in Lebanon described him as a leading figure in the Iran-backed group's rocket division. The attack dealt another blow to Hezbollah after a series of setbacks at the hands of Israel over ...

By Maya Gebeily, Tom Perry and James Mackenzie for Reuters People inspect the debris at the site of an overnight Israeli strike on a house in the southern Lebanese village of Akbiyeh on 24vSeptember. Photo: AFP / Mahmoud Zayyat Israel struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Iran-backed group attacked military facilities in northern Israel on Tuesday, increasing fears of a full-blown conflict after Lebanon suffered its deadliest day in decades. Israel's military said it hit dozens of Hezbollah targets overnight, a day after carrying out airstrikes against the armed group which Lebanese authorities said killed nearly 500 people and sent tens of thousands fleeing for safety. Hezbollah said it targeted several Israeli military targets overnight including an explosives factor...

Vehicles wait in traffic in Damour, south of Beirut on 24 September, as people flee southern Lebanon. Photo: IBRAHIM AMRO / AFP New Zealanders are being told to leave Lebanon now, as Israel and Hezbollah continue to exchange heavy fire and hundreds of people have been killed. The government's SafeTravel website warned the security situation could get worse and flights out of the country could be disrupted or cancelled with little notice. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which runs SafeTravel, also told citizens not to travel to Lebanon. "We continue to advise that New Zealanders do not travel to Lebanon. If you are currently in Lebanon, we encourage you to leave now via commercial options. "Airports and airlines may pause or cancel operations at short notice. If you choose not...

By Brianna Morris-Grant, ABC News Ryan Wesley Routh (left) and Thomas Matthew Crooks both allegedly sought to kill former US president Donald Trump. Photo: AFPTV / AFP and AFP / HANDOUT Two men have now allegedly tried to assassinate former US president Donald Trump. One, now sitting in a Florida detention centre, allegedly left behind handwritten multiple letters, Google searches, notebooks, and interviews. The other, shot dead, left behind only a mystery. A box that went unopened for months Before he was allegedly spotted pointing the barrel of a rifle through the fence of Donald Trump's Florida golf course, a witness says 58-year-old Ryan Routh left a box at his home. For months, the box went unopened. As news broke of the apparent assassination attempt and Routh's name and photo ...

By Andrew Goudsward, Reuters Ryan Routh has been charged with two gun crimes, though more charges may follow. Photo: AFPTV / AFP The man accused of hiding out with a gun near Donald Trump's Florida golf course in an apparent bid to kill the former president wrote a letter months earlier describing an "assassination attempt" and offering a bounty on Trump's life, US prosecutors said. Ryan Routh, 58, has been charged with two gun crimes after he allegedly pointed a rifle through the tree line on 15 September while the Republican presidential candidate was playing golf at his course in West Palm Beach, according to a criminal complaint. He has not yet entered a plea. Routh is due to appear at a hearing scheduled to begin at 11am (3am Tuesday NZT) on Monday in which prosecutors where wil...

A newly created mpox isolation female ward at a government hospital in Chennai, India. Photo: R.SATISH BABU/AFP India said that an mpox case involving a man in the southern state of Kerala was from the fast-spreading clade 1b variety, marking South Asia's first recorded case from the new strain. Health Ministry spokesperson Manisha Verma confirmed the strain after news agency ANI cited official sources as saying that the mpox case reported in the Malappuram district of Kerala last week belonged to clade 1. The patient is a 38-year-old man who had travelled from the United Arab Emirates and had been admitted to the government medical college hospital in the district, Kerala authorities said last week. The state health department did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for detail...

By Velvet Winter of the ABC The Menendez family and their grisly story get the Ryan Murphy treatment in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Photo: Supplied: Netflix Warning: This article discusses abuse. After working on Glee, American Horror Story and American Crime Story, Murphy came out with the confusingly titled Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. It raked in 13 Emmy nominations (plus one win for actor Niecy Nash) and notched up 1 billion view hours within its first 60 days on the platform - one of only four shows to ever achieve this feat. Now, the streaming giant is unleashing Murphy on another dark chapter in American history, with his anthology series Monster next taking on the true story of brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were sentenced to life without ...

By Maayan Lubell and Maya Gebeily, Reuters Smoke billows from a site targeted by Israeli shelling in the southern Lebanese village of Zaita. Photo: MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP Israel launched airstrikes against more than a thousand Hezbollah targets on Monday, killing 492 people and sending tens of thousands fleeing for safety in Lebanon's deadliest day in decades, according to authorities. After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since hostilities flared in October, Israel warned people in Lebanon to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a short video statement addressed to the Lebanese people. "Israel's war is not with you, it's with Hezbollah. For too long Hezbollah has been using you as human sh...

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Uniondale, New York, on 18 September 2024. Photo: AFP Republican Donald Trump said that he will not make a fourth consecutive run for the US presidency if he loses the 5 November election, saying "that will be it" in an interview released on Sunday. Asked if he saw himself running again in four years if he is not successful in his third consecutive bid for the White House, the 78-year-old former president told Sharyl Attkisson's Full Measure programme: "No I don't. I think that will be - that will be it. I don't see that at all. Hopefully, we will be successful." Trump faces a tight race against Democratic US Vice President Kamala Harris, with polls showing the two neck-and-neck in key b...