NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe has visited Coffs Harbour as planning continues for the proposed Great Koala National Park, a major conservation project aimed at protecting one of Australia's most significant koala populations and more than 100 threatened species.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – More than 100,000 live cockroaches illegal to keep in Australia were confiscated from a single breeder in the country’s largest-ever seizure of exotic invertebrates, officials said Friday.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – An Australian state police force has worked to form a heavily armed rapid response team since gunmen killed 15 people and wounded three police officers armed only with handguns at a Sydney Hanukkah celebration in December, a government inquiry heard Wednesday.
HONG KONG (AP) – China’s exports picked up pace in May, rising 19.4% from a year earlier, its customs agency said Tuesday, as shipments remained robust despite impacts from the Iran war. The stronger than expected performance was an improvement from April’s 14.1% year-on-year increase.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI filed preliminary paperwork that would open the door to it becoming a publicly traded company, the third in a powerhouse trio of artificial intelligence companies racing to Wall Street debuts.
U.S. airlines spent more than $6 billion on jet fuel in April, up 78% from a year earlier despite using slightly less fuel, government data released Monday showed. Meanwhile, the airline industry’s top global trade group warned that soaring energy costs could nearly halve profits in 2026.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian forces struck oil facilities in Russia and occupied Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian officials said Monday, as part of their campaign to make Moscow pay an economic cost for the war. Separately, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that Roman Abramovich acted as a go-between for messages between Kyiv and Moscow.
President Donald Trump is dismissing the idea that launching the war with Iran this year betrayed his refrain of “No new wars” that he made repeatedly as he campaigned again for the White House. It came hours before Israel and Iran traded fire in retaliatory strikes that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a full-scale regional war.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – The tenuous ceasefire in the Middle East has held up, sometimes barely, despite being shaken by repeated flare-ups over the past two months. But it is now coming the closest yet to blowing apart and sending the region back into full-scale war – and the detonator is Lebanon.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Iran launched missiles at Israel in the first such bombardment since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, raising the possibility of a return to heavy fighting and complicating mediation efforts to end the war.

































































































































