World News

Tropical cyclones get energy from very warm ocean water they sit above which needs to be at least 26.5C or higher to form. Photo: The Solomon Islands Meteorological Service Explainer - The South Pacific tropical cyclone season is due to start in November and will run until the last day of April. On average there's nine each season and tropical cyclones can straddle either end of the season, as seen last year with Lola in October. But what actually is a tropical cyclone and what do all the categories mean? Here's everything you need to know. What is a cyclone? New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) describes tropical cyclones as rotating storms, characterised by a low-pressure centre, strong winds, and thunderstorms that produce heavy rain. NIWA meteoro...

By Chris Isidore for CNN A Boeing 737 MAX plane under construction at a factory in Washington state, USA. Photo: Jennifer Buchanan / Pool / AFP Analysis - Cash-starved Boeing, contending with massive financial losses from a crippling strike and years of operational and safety problems, is turning to major banks and Wall Street to raise tens of billions of dollars in cash. In a regulatory filing early Tuesday, the company announced plans to borrow $10 billion (NZ$16.5bn) from a consortium of banks. It also separately announced plans to raise $25 billion by selling stock and debt. The $10 billion borrowing plans would be included in the $25 billion that Boeing filed to raise. The company's debt surged in the last six years as Boeing reported core operating losses of more than $33 billi...

By Brendan Pierson, Reuters Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: AFP Facebook parent company Meta must face lawsuits by US states accusing it of fueling mental health problems among teens by making its Facebook and Instagram platforms addictive, a federal judge in California ruled on Tuesday. Oakland-based US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected Meta's bid to toss the claims made by the states in two separate lawsuits filed last year, one involving more than 30 states including California and New York and the other brought by Florida. Rogers put some limits on the states' claims, agreeing with Meta that a federal law known as Section 230 regulating online platforms partly shielded the company. However, she found that the states had put forward enough detail about allegedly mis...

By Byron Kaye and Cordelia Hsu, Reuters So far, no country has rolled out an age-based ban targeting internet platforms. Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Koroi Hawkins Analysis - For Tereza Hussein, a 14-year-old refugee who lives in Darwin, Australia's planned social media ban would mean losing a direct line to the most important person to her: a grandmother she has never physically met. "It's the only way I've ever connected to my grandma before, over socials," said Hussein, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but lived in a refugee camp in Malawi before settling in Australia when she was nine. "It's going to have a very big change in my life because it's going to be hard for me to talk to the people that I've left behind," she said. While Hussein rarely posts on social media, she ...

Photo: 123RF / Andrey Moisseyev The High Court of Australia has ruled against SkyCity Adelaide in a disagreement over the tax treatment of customer loyalty points used in its gaming machines. The decision on the long-running dispute with the Treasurer of South Australia means the points were gaming revenue and subject to a casino duty of about $14 million (A$13.1m as of 30 June), plus interest to be determined by a single judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia at a later date. "This is a long running matter involving highly technical tax issues regarding the calculation of casino duty," SkyCity chief executive Jason Walbridge said. The penalty could leave SkyCity Adelaide with a tax bill of as much as A$25.3m as of 30 September, with A$10.3 million already provided for in its 2024...

King Charles Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage Visit revives debate over whether a British royal should be Australia's head of state King is only British monarch who has spent time living in Australia Pro-republic campaigners promoting 'farewell to monarchy tour' King Charles, the only British monarch who has spent time living in Australia, arrives on Friday for his inaugural visit to an overseas realm as sovereign, his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer. The first visit by a reigning monarch in 13 years has revived debate in Australia over whether a British royal should be head of state, although polling shows Australians remain ambivalent about becoming a republic. Concern for King Charles's health has seen the republican movement's founder, "Schindler's Lis...

By Laila Bassam and Humeyra Pamuk, Reuters Members of the Lebanese civil defence battle a fire at the site of an Israeli strike on Beirut's Basta neighbourhood on October 11, 2024. At least 22 people were killed in Israeli strikes on a densely populated area of central Beirut on October 10, the Lebanese health ministry said. Photo: AFP At least one Israeli strike hit Beirut's southern suburbs early on Wednesday morning, Reuters witnesses said, hours after the US said it opposed the scope of Israeli attacks in Beirut amid a rising death toll and fears of wider regional escalation. Reuters witnesses heard two blasts and saw plumes of smoke emerging from two separate neighbourhoods. It came after Israel issued an evacuation order early on Wednesday which mentioned only one building. The...

Helen Regan, Lex Harvey, Manveena Suri and Esha Mitra for CNN Air India Airbus A350-900 aircraft. Photo: AFP / NICOLAS ECONOMOU Twin bomb threats have hit Indian airliners on opposite sides of the globe, forcing an emergency landing in the Arctic and fighter jets to scramble in Asia - the latest in a series of similar hoax scares for the country's airlines. Indian airlines have faced "a number of threats in recent days," all of which have been found to be hoaxes, flag carrier Air India said in a statement, as authorities in New Delhi and around the world investigate the string of false bomb warnings. An Air India flight from New Delhi to Chicago made an emergency landing in Iqaluit, Canada's northernmost city. All 211 passengers and crew were relocated to the airport, Canadian police...

By Luke Goodsell, ABC Entertainment Lisa Marie Presley, Priscilla Presley, and Riley Keough attend the Handprint Ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre on 21 June, 2022 in Hollywood, California. Photo: Jon Kopaloff / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP For years after rock 'n' roll titan Elvis Presley died, his daughter Lisa Marie said her father would appear in her dreams - her, curled up in the hamburger-shaped bed she loved as a child, him sitting beside her in astral conversation. "I don't really believe they were dreams," Presley writes in her newly released posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown. "I believe they were visitations." When Lisa Marie Presley died at age 54 in January 2023, it was almost as though some dark destiny had been fulfilled - the child of...

Australia Defence Minister Richard Marles says the government will make an initial investment of A$127 million over three years. File picture. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Australia says it will invest billions of dollars over the next two decades to expand a shipyard in Western Australia that will become the maintenance hub for its nuclear-powered AUKUS submarine fleet. The government will make an initial investment of A$127 million over three years to upgrade facilities at the Henderson shipyard near Perth, Defence Minister Richard Marles said in a statement. "The Defence Precinct at Henderson will optimise Australia's shipbuilding and sustainment industry while supporting continuous naval shipbuilding in Western Australia and Australia's nuclear-powered submarine pathway," Marles sa...