Hamas says it handed over list of Israelis and Palestinians for swap deal
Hamas said on Wednesday (on 8 October) it had exchanged a list of the names of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be released under a swap ...
Australia ordered thousands of people in its eastern regions to evacuate before Tropical Cyclone Alfred hits land on Saturday, as the storm brought heavy rain, huge waves and strong winds that cut off power, swamped beaches and shut airports.
Alfred's slow progress toward the coast fed concern it could bring a prolonged period of heavy rain and is expected to hit land as a Category 2 storm north of Brisbane, Australia's third-most populous city, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
"The evacuation centres are a last resort," Queensland Premier David Crisafulli told a news conference on Friday, adding that dozens had been opened.
"Have an evacuation plan if you are in one of those areas," he urged those in the cyclone's path, advising them to secure their homes before evacuating.
"If in doubt, go and stay with friends and families."
Wind gusts of more than 100 kph (62 mph) lashed the coastal regions of Queensland and New South Wales states overnight.
The storm moved slowly west 120 km (75 miles)from Brisbane and 85 kilometres (53 miles) from the tourist city Gold Coast, the weather bureau said.
It brought turmoil that snapped power links to more than 80,000 homes across the two states, electricity firms said, around half of them in Gold Coast.
Television images showed surfers riding the huge seas and people strolling near beaches, forcing officials to warn residents to stay indoors or prepare to evacuate.
"This isn't a time for sightseeing or for seeing what it's like to experience these conditions firsthand," said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. "Please stay safe. Be sensible."
Albanese told reporters that 120 defence personnel would help emergency crews in rescue and relief efforts.
FLOOD IMPACT
Heavy rains dumped more than 400 mm (16 inches) of rain in some parts of northern New South Wales over the last 48 hours, exceeding the mean total for March, data showed, as residents scrambled to save properties from the risk of floods.
New South Wales business owner Thomas Gough was busy stacking sandbags at his shop in Lismore, a rural town about 700 km (440 miles) north of Sydney, which was devastated by major floods in 2022.
"It's a beautiful place to live most of the time, but it feels like we have one-in-100-year events every five years - there's nothing we can do about it," Gough told broadcaster ABC News.
Brisbane Airport shut operations on Thursday and the city suspended public transport. More than 1,000 schools in southeast Queensland and 280 in northern New South Wales have been closed.
Officials have described Alfred as a "very rare event" for Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, which was last hit by a cyclone more than half a century ago in 1974. The city of about 2.7 million had near misses from cyclones in 1990 and 2019.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least eight people have died and more than 90 others were injured following a catastrophic gas tanker explosion on a major highway in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on 13 September with no tsunami threat, coming just weeks after the region endured a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake — the strongest since 1952.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
Türkiye on Wednesday (8 October) slammed an intervention by Israeli forces against a flotilla attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza as an act of piracy and a violation of international law.
Caretaker French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu struck a cautiously optimistic tone on Wednesday (8 October), saying a deal could potentially be reached on the country's budget by year-end, making the risk of a snap election more remote.
Four people have been confirmed dead after a six-storey building collapsed in central Madrid while being converted into a hotel, authorities said, following a 15-hour rescue effort involving drones and sniffer dogs.
Start your day informed with AnewZ Morning Brief: here are the top news stories for the 8th of October, covering the latest developments you need to know.
Hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers gathered on Tuesday at an Army facility outside Chicago, as Donald Trump's threat to invoke an anti-insurrection law and deploy troops to more U.S. cities intensified the battle over the limits to his authority.
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