TRANSCRIPT:
- A man killed in a collision with a bus in western New South Wales;
- Thousands evacuated from the path of a volcano in Indonesia;
- Olympic officials not worried about French plans to use artificial intelligence for Paris Games security.
A man fleeing police has died after his car collided with a bus on a New South Wales highway.
Police say they were trying to stop the Mazda sedan on the Mitchell Highway near Dubbo, but called off the pursuit due to safety concerns before the vehicle collided with a bus near an intersection.
Emergency services officers assessed all 26 of the bus passengers, transferring eight to hospital in a stable condition.
New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Rod Smith has praised the quick thinking of the bus driver.
"That vehicle crossed to the incorrect side of the road and collided head on with the bus travelling in the other direction. The 54 year old woman that was driving the bus took evasive action and probably saved the lives of a lot of people, for what we know at the moment."
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More than 2000 people have now been evacuated from towns close to a volcano in Indonesia that continues to spew ash clouds into the air.
An international airport in the city of Manado, less than 100 kilometres from the volcano, is also still temporarily closed.
The evacuations were ordered after authorities raised the alert status for the volcano and widened the safety zone close to Mount Ruang on a remote North Salewisi island.
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The United States has extended a deadline to decide trade exemptions under the AUKUS deal.
President Joe Biden originally had until today to decide if Australia and the UK qualified for the exemptions by way of having similar export control regimes to the US.
But the US State Department says it fully expects to finalise the exemptions for the defence project over the next 120 days.
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Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, is pushing back against an order by Australia's online regulator to take down posts about a stabbing at a western Sydney church.
The platform's Global Government Affairs team says Australia's eSafety Commissioner has demanded the global removal of posts that commented on the attack, or face a daily fine of $785,000.
But the platform says the posts do not violate X's rules on violent speech - and the Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what their users see globally.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns says he is not surprised by X's response.
"A disregard for the information that they pump into our communities, lies and rumors spreading like wildfire, and then when things go wrong, throwing their hands up in the air to say that they're not prepared to do anything about it. We've had enough, Sydney's had enough. To think about young police officers who have to go into harm's way to calm down a riot based on a rumour or innuendo means that their job is virtually, it's next to impossible for them. "
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The Northern Territory government has announced plans to convert the notorious Don Dale youth detention facility back into an adult jail.
Attorney General Chansey Paech says it's part of a wider overhaul of the system, which will see three new adult prisons in Alice Springs and Darwin.
In coming months, children will be moved from Don Dale to a new youth detention facility next to the adult prison in Darwin's northern suburb of Holtze, and two existing alcohol rehabilitation facilities will be converted into "therapeutic" women's prisons.
But it's a move that has generated outrage and concern from families and experts, who say the top end needs better services and not more prisons.
The number of prison beds in the Northern Territory is up to almost 2500, compared to only 41 public mental health beds territory wide.
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Video may have killed the radio star, but for another endangered format - records - sales are once again going strong.
Sales of vinyl records have rebounded in recent times, with the latest data from the Australian Recording Industry Association showing vinyl album sales jumped by 14 per cent last year alone to just over $42 million.
Thousands of vinyl enthusiasts have now marked Record Store Day today, a worldwide event to encourage music fans and artists.
Owner of Melbourne's Sound Merch record store, Tim Everist, says his business is among more than 200 taking part across the nation.
"Yeah, we had people lining up from 7 o'clock in the morning... Vinyl is a format that cannot and will not die."
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The International Olympic Committee says it has full confidence in French authorities to deliver a safe and secure Games in Paris this year, amid reports they will be using artificial intelligence to help with security.
Campaigners says people's privacy could be breached as French authorities use A-I to help secure the summer Olympics.
But I-O-C President Thomas Bach says he has no issues with A-I being used in that way - as well as for sport itself.
He says it could have groundbreaking applications in identifying new talents, as well as help with refereeing and judging.
"A.I. will be a revolution for our society and it will be a revolution for sport. I think this has become very clear today already. And I doubt that it will take 20 years."
