World News

Review - Australia's take on the beloved mockumentary sitcom The Office brings us to the Sydney branch of Flinley Craddick, a small packaging company on the brink of being shut down under some real post-2020 circumstances. We follow the branch's regional manager Hannah Howard (Felicity Ward) - the franchise's first ever female lead - as she scrambles to keep her office running with deranged promises and workplace schemes. Hannah Howard (Felicity Ward) is hell-bent on keeping her "work family" together, even if it means lying about false orders to work from the office and subjecting everyone to TGIF Fridays. Photo: JOHN PLATT Howard is hell-bent on keeping her "work family" together, even if it means lying about false orders to work from the office and subjecting everyone to TGIF Frid...

After six weeks of confusion and online furore the official Miss Universe Organisation have named Manshika Prasad the winner. Photo: Asvin Singh After weeks of confusion, online furore and official pageant investigations, the winner of Miss Universe Fiji has officially been crowned. Manshika Prasad, a 24-year-old MBA student, was adorned with her tiara and winner's sash on stage at Fiji's Pearl Resort and Spa at the start of September. But two days after her win at Fiji's first Miss Universe pageant in more than 40 years, Miss Universe Fiji said a "breach of protocol" had occurred, and later announced "runner up" Nadine Roberts as the real winner, a 30-year-old model and property developer originally from the Gold Coast whose mother is Fijian. Manshika Prasad (middle) has had her thr...

New Zealand-based Tongan doctor Viliami Puloka and his research team has found about 35 per cent of Tongans in Aotearoa are participating in bowel cancer screenings. Photo: Supplied New Zealand-based Tongan doctor Viliami Puloka and his research team at the University of Otago has found about 35 percent of Tongans in Aotearoa are participating in bowel cancer screenings. This compares to 58 percent of the overall New Zealand population. Lead researcher Dr Puloka from the University's Department of Public Health said participants highlighted the importance of a "by Tongan, for Tongan" approach to screening. "Many Tongans are facing unnecessary deaths from bowel cancer because, while the programme exists, it isn't easily accessible to them," he said. "A Tongan-centric approach is essentia...

By Jonathan Allen and Brad Brooks, Reuters A Texas judge has temporarily blocked the execution Robert Roberson. Photo: Ilana Panich-Linsman / Innocence Project / AFP A Texas state judge has temporarily blocked the execution of a man who had been scheduled to become the first person executed in the United States for murder attributed to shaken baby syndrome, the court said. Travis County 200th Civil District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum issued the temporary restraining order just hours before Robert Roberson was to be put to death, according to Mangrum's office. The US Supreme Court earlier in the day had denied Roberson's request for a stay of his execution, which had been scheduled to take place at 6pm Thursday local time (midday Friday NZT). A spokesperson for the Texas Department o...

By Rich McKay, Reuters Colt Gray, left, and father Colin Gray. Photo: AFP PHOTO / BARROW COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE A grand jury has indicted a 14-year-old alleged shooter and his father who bought him the gun in the September slaying of two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school, affirming initial charges brought by prosecutors and adding numerous other criminal counts. The Barrow County grand jury indicted Colt Gray on a total of 55 counts, including four counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, plus aggravated assault and cruelty to children. Grand jurors indicted his father, Colin Gray, 54, with 29 criminal counts, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and adding reckless conduct to prosecutors' initial charges. In bringing second-degree ...

By Rachel Rasker, ABC Photo: 123rf If you had a health check-up recently, you might have been told that you're underweight, overweight or obese based on your body mass index or BMI. But the BMI was never intended as a diagnostic tool. At best, experts have called it "inaccurate"; at worst, it's been branded "nonsense". Yet the BMI has become embedded in our healthcare system, with those scoring too high or low excluded from accessing essential services such as medications and surgery. Now, there's a new formula on the block. The body roundness index (BRI) is gaining traction as a possible replacement for the BMI, with a recent study of more than 30,000 US adults finding a correlation between BRI and mortality risk. But health professionals have their hesitations, so don't expect to s...

Photo: Victor Okhrimets / 123RF By AFP Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has announced new measures to fight sextortion, a form of online blackmail where criminals coerce victims, often teens, into sending sexually explicit images of themselves. The measures include stricter controls on who can follow or message teen accounts and safety notices in Instagram direct messages and Facebook Messenger about suspicious cross-country conversations. The measures beef up Instagram's "Teen Accounts," which were announced last month and are designed to better protect underage users from the dangers associated with the photo-sharing app. The company is also implementing restrictions on a scammer's ability to view follower lists and interactions, as well as preventing screenshots in ...

By Jesmine Cheong, ABC with wires The AxEMU suit is pictured during a press conference of Prada and Axiom Space. Photo: AFP - Marco Bertorello The first woman on the moon will be wearing a designer spacesuit, as part of NASA's first human mission to the lunar South Pole. Prada has co-designed the space suit with private space company Axiom Space to provide the surface suits for NASA's Artemis III mission to the moon, planned for 2026. The designer suit does not stray too far from what astronauts have worn historically. Similar to the suits worn by the Apollo astronauts who last walked on the moon more than five decades ago, the external layer of the suit is designed to reflect heat and is mostly white. It is also designed to withstand extreme temperatures at the lunar south pole and ...

By Riley Stuart, for ABC in London British singer-songwriter Liam Payne poses on the red carpet on arrival for the BRIT Awards 2019 in London on February 20, 2019. Photo: AFP / TOLGA AKMEN Liam Payne's family say they're "heartbroken", and paid tribute to the former One Direction member's "kind, funny and brave soul" after he was found dead in Buenos Aires on Thursday. Payne, 31, had been staying at a hotel in Argentina's capital, and fell from a third-floor balcony. His death sparked an outpouring of grief from fans of the boy band, that rocketed to fame after forming as part of a British reality television show in 2010 before splitting up six years later. In a statement released Friday, his family said: "We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we'll remember hi...

By Jeremy Diamond, Dana Karni, Pauline Lockwood and Sophie Tanno for CNN Yahya Sinwar at a gathering in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis in 2017. Photo: SAID KHATIB / AFP The Israeli military has confirmed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar - the chief architect of the militant group's deadly 7 October 2023 terror attack that set off the war in Gaza - has been killed in battle. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that Sinwar was killed on Wednesday after a "year-long pursuit". "In recent weeks, IDF and ISA forces, under the command of the Southern Command, have been operating in the southern Gaza Strip, following IDF and ISA intelligence that indicated the suspected locations of senior members of Hamas," the Israeli military statement read. "IDF soldiers of the ...