World News

X is owned by billionaire Elon Musk. Photo: Beata Zawrzel / NurPhoto via AFP Media platform X said on Saturday it would close its operations in Brazil "effective immediately" due to what it called "censorship orders" by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes. X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, claims Moraes secretly threatened one of the company's legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform. The social media giant published pictures of a document allegedly signed by Moraes which says a daily fine of 20,000 reais (NZ$6000) and an arrest decree would be imposed against X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao if the platform did not fully comply to Moraes' orders. "To protect the safety of ou...

By George Sandeman & Brandon Drenon, BBC News Former US President Donald Trump shortly after the assassination attempt. Photo: JEFF SWENSEN / AFP / GETTY A police sniper potentially saved lives by shooting the rifle of Donald Trump's would-be assassin and knocking him down, an investigation says. According to a report by Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins, the sniper's bullet damaged Thomas Matthew Crooks's gun and disrupted his aim after he took his first shots in Butler, Pennsylvania. Moments later, a Secret Service sniper killed him. Read more: The report comes as the Secret Service temporarily reassigns some bodyguards from President Joe Biden to Trump, according to US media. Trump will also be given bulletproof glass protection to allow him to resume outdoor rallies. The fo...

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi, Ramadan Abed and Jaidaa Ahmad for Reuters Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike in al-Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip on 17 August. Photo: MAJDI FATHI / NurPhoto via AFP At least 17 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike in the central Gaza town of Zawayda, health officials say, as Israel issued new evacuation orders, citing Hamas rocket fire nearby. Israel also announced the names of two soldiers Israeli media reported were killed on Saturday afternoon when a roadside bomb exploded in the central Gaza Strip, and an air strike in the occupied West Bank that it said killed two senior Hamas militants involved in the killing of an Israeli. The violence occurred before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to...

By Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax, Reuters Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he believes Democrat Kamala Harris will be easier to beat than President Joe Biden even as some polls show her edging ahead in the race for the 5 November presidential election. Trump, the former president, spoke on Saturday (local time) at a rally in Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania, a state looming large in the campaign. Vice President Harris will conduct a bus tour of western Pennsylvania starting in Pittsburgh on Sunday, ahead of the kickoff of the Democratic National Convention on Monday in Chicago. "I believe she will be easier to beat than him," said Trump, referring to her as "radical" and a "lunatic". Trump has sought to portray Har...

Photo: Photo12 via AFP The hat worn by actor Harrison Ford in the second instalment of the Indiana Jones film franchise has sold for over $US600,000 at auction. The brown felt fedora - specifically made for the Temple of Doom film - fetched $US630,000 ($NZD1.040 million) in Los Angeles on Thursday. Other items of movie memorabilia were sold at the same time including props from Star Wars, Harry Potter and James Bond productions. Jones, an adventuring archaeologist, is seen with the hat early on in the movie where he and his companions jump from a crashing plane in an inflatable raft. During the scene, he is on board a plane with nightclub singer Wilhelmina "Willie" Scott, played by Kate Capshaw, and his 12-year-old friend Short Round, played by Ke Huy Quan, while escaping the clutches of...

By Hugo Bachega in Beirut and Aleks Phillips in London, BBC News A man inspects the damage to a building after an Israeli strike in the southern town of Kfour, in the Nabatiyeh district on 17 August. Photo: MAHMOUD ZAYYAT / AFP An Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon has killed 10 people, Lebanese officials say, in one of the deadliest attacks in the current violence along the Lebanon-Israel border. The building hit, in the city of Nabatieh, was housing Syrian refugees, the Lebanese Health Minister, Firass Abiad, told the BBC. Israel said it had targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot, which was denied by the owner of the facility. In response Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political Lebanese group, fired a barrage of rockets, targeting a kibbutz in northern Israel and anothe...

Strapper Donna Fisher parades Australian racehorse Black Caviar in the mounting yard for the last time during her farewell at Caulfield Racecourse in Melbourne in April 2013. Photo: AFP / Paul Crock Champion racehorse Black Caviar has died a day before her 18th birthday. A statement on Saturday on behalf of Black Caviar's owners announced the death. The Australian star captivated the nation and retired in 2013 with 25 wins from 25 starts, taking AU$7,953,936 (NZ$8,762,443) in prize money. "She was a remarkable horse who gave us all the ride of a lifetime and wonderful memories," trainer Peter Moody said in the statement. Moody later revealed the cause of death was laminitis, a painful disease of the foot that eventually progresses to a point that a horse can no longer walk. "She had a m...

By Ana Faguy, BBC News Graceland Memphis Tennessee Photo: By PaddyBriggs - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15041528 A Missouri woman is accused of trying to defraud Elvis Presley's family of millions of dollars and steal the family's ownership interest in Graceland, the US singing legend's family home. Lisa Jeanine Findley, who used a variety of aliases, was arrested for allegedly orchestrating a scheme to conduct a fraudulent sale of Graceland, located in Memphis, Tennessee home. Findley, 53, was federally charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft and was expected to appear in court Friday. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison. The Presley family has not publicly commented on the charges. The US Justice Department claims Fi...

By Jonathan O'Callaghan, BBC A sudden solar superstorm is thought to be behind a devastating bombardment of high-energy particles that happened around 14,000 years ago. (File photo: A solar eruption captured by astronomers in 2010.) Photo: NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Centre/ Solar and Heliospheric Observatory The Sun is going through a period of high activity, but it is nothing compared to an enormous solar event that slammed into our planet 14,000 years ago. If one were to occur today, the effect on Earth could be devastating. The oldest trees on Earth date back a whopping 5000 years, living through all manner of events. They have stood through the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the birth of Christianity, the European discovery of the Americas and the first Moon landing. Trees ca...

A helicopter with water in the fight to put out fires ravaging Turkey. Photo: Facebook / Bekir Karacabey A fire raging on Turkey's Gallipoli peninsula may have unearthed the remains of fallen Anzac soldiers, the Returned and Services Association says. The wildfire - one of a number of large blazes that damaged large swathes of the country this week - was brought under control on Friday (local time), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said. Images of the site in northwest Turkey showed soot-blackened gravestones in a scorched garden looking out over the Aegean Sea, the Associated Press reported. The RSA's Mark Compain said drone video of the fire damage looked similar to another wildfire there in 1994, which unearthed soldiers' remains. "Bones, you know, littered the area that I w...