World News

White Lotus S3 is slated to release in 2025. Photo: YouTube / HBOMax The first preview of The White Lotus season three has arrived. On Tuesday, HBO Max released a compilation trailer showcasing the streaming service's upcoming projects for the back-end of 2024 and going into 2025, featuring snippets of The Last of Us season two, Dune: Prophecy and more. But the two-minute trailer revealed little about Mike White's beloved murder mystery anthology - The White Lotus bit ran at just six seconds long. Let's take a closer look. What do we know about season three so far? After two hit seasons, it was announced in November, 2022 that the acclaimed show had been renewed for a third, however production had been halted due to actors and writers' strikes. The tiny new teaser tells us everything ...

Crew members of China's South Sea Fleet take part in a logistics supply drill near the James Shoal area on South China Sea. Photo: AFP Australia, the US, Canada and the Philippines will hold a joint exercise in the South China Sea. The ABC understands the Australian Defence Force has sent a surveillance aircraft to join the exercise. The exercises are almost certain to draw an angry response from Beijing, which claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea as its own territory. Australia will join another combined military drill in the contested waters of the South China Sea, where there have been a series of increasingly dangerous confrontations between China and the Philippines. The latest joint maritime exercise will be conducted alongside Canada, the Philippines, and the Unite...

By Rushdi Abualouf and Tom Bennett, BBC News Yahya Sinwar, pictured in 2022. Photo: AFP / MAHMUD HAMS After two days of lengthy negotiations in Doha, Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as its new overall chief, replacing Ismail Haniyeh who was assassinated in Tehran last week. Since 2017, Sinwar has served as the group's leader inside the Gaza strip. He will now become leader of its political wing. The Hamas leadership unanimously chose Sinwar to lead the movement, a senior Hamas official told the BBC. The announcement comes at a moment of soaring tensions in the Middle East, as Iran and its allies threaten retaliation for the killing of Haniyeh, which they blame on Israel. Israel has not commented. Over the course of two days in Doha, intensive meetings involving Hamas's leading figures h...

This year's Olympic gold medallist in the men's 100m freestyle, Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle. Another 19 swimmers in this year's event swam fast enough for gold at the 1996 event. Photo: AFP When you reflect on Zoe Hobbs' achievement as the first Kiwi to run in an Olympic 100m sprint in nearly 50 years, also consider this: Zoe Hobbs ran fast enough to win gold at every Olympics until 1964. The world's attention during the Olympics rightly falls on medalists - who is fastest, who is strongest, who can throw an object the furthest, who can leap the highest (assisted or unassisted). Olympic 100m sprinter Zoe Hobbs Photo: AAP/Photosport But for every gold medalist, there are dozens of other athletes who have trained for years or even decades, who don't even make it past the preliminarie...

By Sam Cabral, BBC News, Washington Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has been selected as Kamala Harris' vice presidential pick. Photo: Jim WATSON / AFP With one viral line on cable TV - "these guys are just weird" - Tim Walz vaulted into contention for the job of Kamala Harris's running mate. The 60-year-old brings with him a folksy, plain-spoken and sharp-tongued approach to taking on the Republican opposition. He also comes with a compelling resume - a public school teacher, football coach and National Guardsman before he entered politics. His political experience, representing a Republican-leaning district in Congress and then later passing left-wing policies as Minnesota's governor, could have broad appeal at a time when American politics is so polarised. Teacher, football coach, Con...

New Zealand golfer Lydia Ko competes at the Evian Championship 2024. Photo: AFP Not even a gold medal is likely to persuade Lydia Ko to get another tattoo. Ko is preparing herself for her third Olympic golf tournament in Paris with two medals already in the trophy cabinet. She won silver in Rio in 2016 and bronze in Tokyo three years ago. A gold medal in Paris would mean she would become just the sixth New Zealander to have won a medal of every colour at a summer Olympics. "Yes it would be the Cinderella story if I win gold here," Ko told RNZ. Lydia Ko ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics Photo: RNZ "I went into Rio hoping to medal, while Tokyo was a bit of a surprise as I wasn't playing at my highest level of golf." Since winning in January, Ko has had just three top ten finishes inc...

Max Brown and Grant Clancy from New Zealand in the men's canoe double 500m. Photo: Iain McGregor / www.photosport.nz The confusion was almost immediate. "Why didn't the New Zealand crew go when the gun went off?" quizzed a member of the international press as heat one of the men's C2 500m event got under way on the Vaire-sur-Marne course in Paris. While their rivals charged off the line in a brutal display of power, the Kiwi duo of Max Brown and Grant Clancy appeared to be struggling to even get going. And that was the last that was seen of the pair - in television coverage anyway. In farcical scenes, they went on to finish more than 46 seconds - or around 200 metres - behind the winners of the 500m race. The New Zealand crew weren't just off the pace in the men's field - their time of ...

By Rebecca Swash for BBC US filmmaker David Lynch. Photo: AFP / Chris Delmas David Lynch has revealed he's been diagnosed with emphysema, a chronic lung disease, from "many years of smoking". The Hollywood film director, who was behind the hit mystery TV series Twin Peaks, said that despite the diagnosis, he is in "excellent shape" and will "never retire". In an interview with the British film magazine Sight and Sound, the 78-year-old said the condition affects his mobility which means he will only be able to direct films remotely in future. Lynch has now posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying his diagnosis is the "price to pay" for his smoking habit but revealed he quit two years ago. What is emphysema? Emphysema is a form of COPD or Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It occurs w...

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate. Photo: Jim WATSON, Chris Kleponis / AFP By Andrea Shalal, Jarrett Renshaw, Nandita Bose and Richard Cowan US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, choosing a progressive policy champion and a plain speaker from America's heartland to help win over rural, white voters. Harris announced the selection in a text message to supporters. "I'm pleased to share that I've made my decision: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will join our campaign as my running mate," she said. "Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families. I know that he will bring that same pr...

By Geeta Pandey, BBC News and Mushtaq Khan, BBC Marathi, Mumbai Lalita Kayi was found in dense forests in the Sindhudurg district. Photo: BBC An American woman who was found chained to a tree "screaming" in a forest in the western Indian state of Maharashtra had shackled herself, police and her doctor have told the BBC. Lalita Kayi, 50, was rescued about 10 days ago from the dense forests of Sindhudurg district after her cries for help were heard by shepherds. In a written statement to the police, she had alleged that her husband "chained her and left her in the forest to die without food or water". Kayi, who is receiving treatment in a psychiatric facility, has not spoken publicly. The US embassy has also refused to comment, citing her right to privacy. Kayi's discovery had shocked ...