World News

By Brajesh Upadhyay, BBC News, Washington Photo: AFP US President Joe Biden has said he is not confident there will be a peaceful transition of power if Donald Trump loses the presidential election in November. In his first interview since he dramatically dropped out of the race last month, Biden told CBS News: "If Trump loses, I'm not confident at all." "[Trump] means what he says, we don't take him seriously. He means it, all this stuff about 'if we lose it will be a bloodbath'." Trump's comment that it would "be a bloodbath for the country" if he loses the election, made as he was talking about the auto industry in March, triggered a wave of criticism. Democrats were quick to reiterate their campaign message that the former president poses a threat to democracy. The Biden campaign ...

Samantha Murphy has been missing for more than six months. Photo: Victoria Police / Supplied Patrick Orren Stephenson, 23, has faced court after being charged with the murder of missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy, who disappeared while on a jog over six months ago. Stephenson's defence and prosecutors requested a 12-week adjournment in order to go through a "huge amount" of evidence. What's next? Stephenson will remain in custody until the matter returns to court on November 14. An "unprecedented" amount of evidence, including extensive CCTV footage, is causing delays in court for the matter of Patrick Orren Stephenson, accused of murdering Victorian woman Samantha Murphy. The 23-year-old appeared before the Ballarat Magistrates' Court via video link on Thursday. He wore a white t...

By Mike Wendling, BBC News NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Commander Butch Wilmore (L) and Pilot Suni Williams walk out of the Operations and Checkout Building on June 05, 2024 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photo: JOE RAEDLE / Getty Images via AFP When two American astronauts blasted off on a test mission to the International Space Station on 5 June, they were expecting to be back home in a matter of days. But things did not quite go to plan. In fact, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams are still there, floating high above the Earth nearly two months later. The pair - who are stuck indefinitely - now face the sudden prospect of missing the summer entirely and even spending Christmas and New Year in space. Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, flew a Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the sta...

A balloon holds the Olympic cauldron after it was lit during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. Photo: PETER CZIBORRA/AFP Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo says she hopes the Olympic flame suspended below its balloon can remain in central Paris near the Louvre museum after the games end. The flame - which is not a flame but an illusion of fire created with lights - has become a fixture of the Paris Olympics, with hundreds of Parisians and tourists coming to watch it every evening when it goes up at sundown in the Jardin des Tuileries park near the Louvre. Hidalgo said it was not her decision to make, as the Louvre and Tuileries are state property, but added she had written to President Emmanuel Macron, asking for the flame to remain in place and not be moved to another location. "I woul...

Departure monitors show cancelled and delayed flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on July 19, 2024, in Arlington, Virginia, during a major worldwide computer systems outage. Photo: AFP/Mandel Ngan By Annika Burgess for the ABC CrowdStrike would be feeling "very embarrassed" after issuing its Root Cause Analysis (RCA) of the faulty software update that led to potentially the largest global IT outage in history, experts say. It came down to a mistake first-year programming students are taught how to avoid. On 19 July, the fateful Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Friday, about 8.5 million Windows systems around the world went into meltdown when an update for CrowdStrike's Falcon sensor product went very wrong. The US cybersecurity company released a preliminary report days afte...

An image released by the Kursk Region Governor shows damage in the town of Sudzha on 6 August 2024, caused by shelling from Ukranian forces in Russia's Kursk Region. Photo: AFP / Governor of Kursk Region A state of emergency has been declared in the Kursk region of Russia, as a rare cross-border attack by Ukrainian troops continued for a second day. The acting regional governor, Alexei Smirnov, said the move was necessary "to eliminate the consequences of enemy forces coming into the region". Thousands of people have also been evacuated from border areas, Smirnov said earlier, adding that doctors were being drafted in from other cities. Earlier, President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of launching a "major provocation" after Moscow said hundreds of troops crossed the border near the to...

File photo. Three Taylor Swift concerts had been scheduled to take place in Vienna. Photo: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen / ANP MAG / ANP via AFP Taylor Swift's three concerts in Vienna this week were cancelled after government confirmation of a planned attack at the stadium, the organizer said late on Wednesday. "With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone's safety," Barracuda.music said in a post on Instagram, adding all tickets would be automatically refunded. Austrian police on Wednesday detained two people suspected of plotting attacks on concerts, Franz Ruf, director general for public security, said at a news conference on Wednesday evening. "During our investigati...

A protester holds a placard reading "Racists not welcome here" during a counter demonstration against an anti-immigration protest called by far-right activists in the Walthamstow suburb of London. Photo: AFP / Benjamin Cremel Counter-terrorism units will be assisting police as they prepare for more "disgraceful disorder" across the UK. The fatal stabbing of three young girls in the northwest English town of Southport has been seized on by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups, with disinformation spread online and amplified by high-profile far-right figures to spark disorder in towns and cities. On Tuesday British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said violent protesters who had targeted Muslim communities would swiftly face the "full force of the law" as he sought to quell days of anti-immig...

By Carolyn Enting* Photo: Your new luxury superfake handbag might fool everyone, but what are the ethics around on-selling or gifting it? On online forum Repladies Designer, members tend to "rehome" their luxury superfakes within the community of replica buyers, for good reason. In New Zealand the Copyright Act 1994 and the Trade Marks Act 2002 contain a range of criminal offences that can lead to prosecution. In 2012 two Auckland apparel distributors were fined $20,000 each for importing counterfeit jeans. The New Zealand Customs Service plays a role in protecting New Zealand from unlawful imports or exports of pirated goods and counterfeit goods. Border enforcement measures are not undertaken for goods imported by a person for their private and domestic use, but that doesn't let bu...

By Daniel Thomas and Michelle Fleury, BBC News Elon Musk. Photo: SLAVEN VLASIC / AFP Elon Musk's X/Twitter is suing a group of major companies, alleging that they unlawfully conspired to boycott the site. It accuses the food giants Unilever and Mars, private healthcare company CVS Health, and renewable energy firm Orsted - along with a trade association called the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) - of depriving it of "billions of dollars" in advertising revenue. The lawsuit relates to the period in 2022 just after Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, when advertising revenue dived. Some companies had been wary of advertising on the platform amid concerns that its new owner was not serious enough about removing harmful online content. X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said "peop...