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The images and stories of flash flooding coming out of Victoria's Great Ocean Road overnight have been described as "terrifying". It's easy to see why. Holidaymakers at Victoria's Wye River watched as cars were swept out to sea and a caravan park was rapidly inundated. Some had to get new clothes at an op-shop.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – The 1 Point Slam isn’t likely to be a one-hit wonder. The first question to Jannik Sinner in the official pre-tournament news conference Friday was, jokingly, asked how he could expect an Australian Open three-peat if he couldn’t beat an amateur in a one-point exhibition. “Yeah, hopefully I have a bit more control over three of five sets!” Sinner said.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says the Coalition will not support Labor's hate crime and gun control legislation, describing the proposal as "unsalvageable". The omnibus bill, drafted after the Bondi terror attack, would introduce a new offence targeting the promotion of racial hatred, alongside gun reforms, expanded visa powers and the ability to ban designated hate groups.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – Social media companies have revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children in Australia since the country banned use of the platforms by those under 16, officials said. “We stared down everybody who said it couldn’t be done” communications minister Anika Wells told reporters on Friday.
NEW YORK (AP) – A surging stock market and a flurry of deal making padded the profits of Wall Street’s two big investment banks, which both saw a double-digit jump in profits in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs’s net earnings rose 12% from a year earlier, posting a profit of $4.62 billion, or $14.01 a share. Meanwhile Morgan Stanley said it earned $4.4 billion.
NEW YORK (AP) – Elon Musk’s Grok keeps getting into trouble, and this time, more of the world’s governments are trying to intervene. First launched in 2023, Grok is Musk’s attempt to outdo rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini in building an AI assistant powered by a large language model, which is trained on vast pools of data.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – As Iran returned to uneasy calm after a wave of protests that drew a harsh crackdown, a senior hard-line cleric called Friday for the death penalty for detained demonstrators and directly threatened U.S. President Donald Trump – evidence of the rage gripping authorities in the Islamic Republic.
Several Middle Eastern allies of the United States have urged the Trump administration to hold off on strikes against Iran for the government’s deadly crackdown on protesters, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter. Top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have raised concerns in the last 48 hours that a U.S. military intervention would shake the global economy.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia has not spared a single Ukrainian power plant from attack since its all-out invasion, Ukraine’s new energy minister said Friday, as a recent escalation of aerial bombardments left hundreds of thousands of people without heat or light for days during the coldest winter in years.
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s second term has been eventful. You wouldn’t know it from his approval numbers. An AP-NORC poll from January found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of Trump’s performance as president. That’s virtually unchanged from March 2025, shortly after he took office for the second time.
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