Experts are investigating a suspicious attack on a young fur seal that had to be euthanised after sustaining severe injuries on an eastern Victorian beach.

A member of the public contacted Victoria's Marine Response Unit with a report of a beached juvenile fur seal at Lake Bunga beach near Lakes Entrance about 8am on 17 September.

It's understood the seal was unharmed and resting in the morning, but about 6pm that evening the same passerby returned to the beach and found the animal had sustained facial wounds and serious back injuries.

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Human and dog footprints were also found around the seal, along with a large stick which was not there in the morning.

A vet assessed the seal and found it had a spinal fracture and several rib fractures and made the decision to euthanise the animal due to the severity of its injuries.

Experts at Melbourne Zoo will now conduct a necropsy on the seal to better understand the injuries which led to its death.

The Victorian government's wildlife and biodiversity watchdog, the Conservation Regulator is also investigating the suspicious incident.

Anyone with information on the incident is encouraged to confidentially report it to Crime Stoppers.

Australia is likely to see El Niño weather events become more frequent and more intense within the next 20 years, raising the risk of severe droughts and bushfires.

This is among the key findings of a new report into how climate change will alter weather patterns in different regions of the planet this century.

It comes after the fifth-ever strongest El Niño on record ended in April, following three consecutive La Nina years.

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While many of the changes to weather patterns identified in the report – such as increasing temperature extremes and rising sea levels – are well-known, the findings on the impact on El Niño are relatively new.

"Just a decade ago, climate models mutually disagreed on how ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) would respond to global warming," said Professor Shang-Ping Xie, a Californian climate expert not involved in the research.

"Now, a consensus has started forming from model simulations that ENSO is likely to strengthen through the middle of this century."

However, that pattern would then weaken if greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase, as the balance between rainfall-reducing aerosols and rainfall-increasing greenhouse gases shifted.

In 2023, extreme weather events impacted communities across every inhabited continent, causing major flooding, droughts, and wildfires.

A world transformed

In tropical and sub-tropical regions, dramatic changes in rainfall are expected to impact billions of people.

Around 60 per cent of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere monsoon regions, where summer monsoons can bring up to 80 per cent of the annual rainfall.

As greenhouse gases rises, monsoons are predicted to become more intense, bringing life-threatening floods and landslides as well as impacting agricultural yields.

The findings come just days after hundreds were killed in late-season flooding and landslides in Nepal, weeks after similar natural disasters devastated India and Vietnam.

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North-western Europe will be at increased risk of extreme storms, while more than half the population of India (55 per cent) will be living in regions of deadly heat by the end of this century.

Meanwhile, in the polar regions – particularly the Arctic – more and more precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow, accelerating ice melt and global sea level rise.

While the effects of climate change appear stark, the UK research team say they hope producing such accurate region-specific climate models will help inform international climate policies and prompt regional mitigation strategies.

"Regional information is essential for preparing for these extreme events and implementing effective, science-led adaptation measures," said study co-author Matt Priestley from the University of Exeter.

"Without investments into advanced climate modeling and monitoring systems, policymakers and local communities are left navigating climate risks with insufficient information, which can lead to inadequate or misdirected efforts."

The report was published in Frontiers in Science today.

A service station worker has been left traumatised after being threatened by armed intruders in an early-morning smash and grab.

Underwood Caltex, located in Logan, Queensland, was the target of two break-ins in a space of just a few hours.

9News obtained exclusive footage of thugs who first broke into the petrol station at 1.30am and stole thousands of dollars worth of cigarettes.

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Just a few hours later, the Caltex was targeted again.

This time, a female worker had clocked onto her shift when thieves busted in using a crow bar.

Footage showed the woman attempting to escape and screaming at the intruders to leave her alone.

The armed intruders forced the employee into the back room and demanded she open the safe.

They grabbed more cigarettes and cash and took off in the woman's stolen car.

The shaken victim was barely able to walk when police and paramedics arrived.

Business owner Ankush Dhir said his employee was "really traumatised" after the break-in.

"It's going take a couple of weeks for her to recover from that incident," he said.

"It's totally horrible and insane what we have seen.""

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Dhir said his business was out of pocket $30,000 in cash and about $60,000 in tobacco products.

It's not the first time this Caltex has been targeted.

Dhir told 9News his business has been been the victim of break-ins four times in less than a year.

Queensland Police are still investigating the two robberies.

It remains unknown if the break-ins are connected.

When a mother arrived to drop off her daughter at Little Arias daycare in Denham Court one morning in April, she was surprised to find it empty.

"It was gutted, everything was emptied, toys were gone, everything was in the bin," she told 9News.

The owner of the Sydney business, Anna Marie Gewargis, messaged parents claiming there was a gas leak.

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In reality, the 32-year-old had been evicted, after failing to pay rent on the property for three months.

Parents with children enrolled at the family-run daycare claim they have not only been left without childcare, they're out of pocket – in some cases by thousands of dollars.

"She was offering packages but because we were so desperate at that time, we jumped at those packages", said one father.

Many claim Gewargis pressured them to pay the fees months in advance, then disappeared with their money when the daycare suddenly shut.

They say they've tried to contact her to ask for their money back but have never received a refund.

"I've messaged her countless times, I've tried to call her. I'd paid her close to $3800."

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It's not just parents who claim they've been ripped off, investors in the childcare business also claim they were blindsided.

One western Sydney business owner, who was a silent partner in the business, has documents which show he transferred Gewargis close to $270,000.

"I thought this was going to be beneficial for my family, for my future," he told 9News.

"About three months in, payments were starting to be missed and excuses were piling up. I was devastated, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat."

Another investor claims he gave her $80,000.

Coincidentally, around the same time, Gewargis hosted a lavish engagement party at Paradiso at Fairfield.

Adding to the fury of parents, the NSW Department of Education, the regulator for early childhood education and care, has confirmed Gewargis never had approval to open the daycare.

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In a statement, a department spokesperson said: "Gewargis has been prohibited from working in or operating an early childhood education and care service anywhere in Australia. We continue to investigate this matter."

Gewargis is also currently facing three charges of common assault, relating to children in her care.

She was so determined to hide the allegations, she tried to get a suppression order to stop the charges being reported but the magistrate hearing the case refused to grant the application.

NSW Police is now investigating the allegations of fraud under Strike Force Lutterworth.

When 9News approached Gewargis, who currently resides at Rosebery, she ran.

At the home on Grantham Crescent now, there's no sign a childcare was ever there.

The landlord says he didn't know Gewargis was running a business and claims, when she left, she even took the built-in microwave.

Parents now say they want to move on but are speaking out to warn others.

"I just can't think of how many people are going to get ripped off."

A bus carrying young students with their teachers has caught fire in suburban Bangkok, with 25 of those on board feared dead, Thai officials and rescuers said.

The bus was carrying 44 passengers from central Uthai Thani province for a school trip in Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi provinces, Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungruengkit told reporters at the scene.

Videos posted on social media showed the entire bus engulfed in fire with huge plumes of black smoke pouring out as it stood on the side of the road.

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Bodies were still inside the bus hours after the fire.

The students on the bus were reported to be in primary and junior high school.

Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said officials could not yet confirm the number of fatalities because they had not finished investigating the scene, but based on the number of survivors, he said 25 people are feared dead.

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He said the driver survived but appeared to have fled and could not yet be found.

Thai media reports and rescuers said it was heading to Nonthaburi when the fire started around noon in Pathum Thani province, a northern suburb of the capital.

A rescuer at the scene told Suriya that the fire likely started after one of the tires exploded and the vehicle scraped against a road barrier.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra offered her condolences in a post on social media platform X, saying the government would take care of medical expenses and compensate the victims' families.

Rescue group Hongsakul Khlong Luang 21 posted on its Facebook page that they found at least 10 bodies on the bus.

The group said at least 19 people survived the fire.

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Israeli ground forces have crossed into southern Lebanon, marking a significant escalation of an offensive against Hezbollah militants and opening a new front in a yearlong war against its Iranian-backed adversaries.

The incursion follows weeks of heavy blows by Israel against Hezbollah — including an airstrike that killed its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah — and seeks to step up the pressure on the group, which began firing rockets into northern Israel after the start of the war in Gaza.

The last time Israel and Hezbollah engaged in ground combat was a month-long war in 2006.

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The Israeli military said in a brief statement that it began "limited, localised and targeted ground raids" against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

"These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel," it said.

There was no word on how long the operation would last, but the army said soldiers had been training and preparing for the mission in recent months.

Israel has said it will continue to strike the group until it is safe for displaced Israelis from border communities to return to their homes.

Ahead of the Israeli announcement, United States officials said Israel launched small ground raids inside Lebanon, and Israel declared three small border communities to be a "closed military zone," restricting access only to army personnel.

There were no reports of direct clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants.

But throughout the evening, Israeli artillery units pounded targets in southern Lebanon and the sounds of airstrikes were heard throughout Beirut.

Smoke rose from the capital's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence, shortly after Israel ordered residents of three buildings to evacuate.

Israel launches risky phase of fighting

Israel has been emboldened by its recent battlefield gains against Hezbollah and appears intent on delivering a knockout blow to its archenemy.

But a ground operation marks a new and potentially risky phase of fighting.

It also threatens to unleash further devastation on Lebanon, where hundreds have been killed in recent Israeli strikes and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

Hezbollah is a well-trained militia, believed to have tens of thousands of fighters and an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles.

The last round of fighting in 2006 ended in a stalemate.

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Both sides have spent the past two decades preparing for their next showdown.

While Hezbollah has built up a formidable arsenal, Israel has invested great sums into training and intelligence gathering.

Recent airstrikes wiping out most of Hezbollah's top leadership and the explosions of hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah indicate that Israel has infiltrated deep inside the group's upper echelons.

Hezbollah vowed Monday to keep fighting even after its recent losses.

The group's acting leader, Naim Kassem, said in a televised statement that Hezbollah would be ready for a ground operation.

He said commanders killed in recent weeks have already been replaced.

The man widely expected to take over the top post from Kassem is Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees Hezbollah's political affairs.

Israel shifts attention from Gaza to Lebanon

Israeli strikes in recent weeks have hit what the military says are thousands of militant targets across large parts of Lebanon.

Over 1000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

Early Monday, an airstrike hit a residential building in central Beirut, killing three Palestinian militants, as Israel appeared to send a message that no part of Lebanon is out of bounds.

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Israel declared war against the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, that killed 1200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.

More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on October 8 in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost every day since then, coming close to a full-fledged war on several occasions but stepping back from the brink.

In recent weeks, Israel's war against against Hamas has scaled back and it turned its focus northward toward Lebanon, stepping up the attacks on Hezbollah.

Israeli leaders say they want Hezbollah to implement the US resolution that ended the 2006 war, which required the group to withdraw some 30 kilometres from the Israeli border.

Key setbacks for Hezbollah

Hezbollah has suffered key setbacks in recent weeks.

Before Nasrallah's assassination, a series of mysterious explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies blamed on Israel killed or wounded hundreds of people, many of them Hezbollah members.

And Israeli airstrikes have killed most of the group's senior commanders.

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But Hezbollah continued to launch rockets and missiles into Israel and is still believed to have thousands of fighters near the Israeli border.

Israeli leaders for years have accused Hezbollah of hiding weapons and fighters inside homes and other civilian structures in border villages.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians have fled southern Lebanon in recent weeks fearing an Israeli military onslaught.

Hezbollah has few air defences, giving the Israeli air force freedom of action over Lebanon's skies.

But a ground operation will be much more challenging, with Hezbollah forces embedded and hiding in local communities and familiar with the local terrain.

Still, Hezbollah's capabilities are unclear.

It's possible Hezbollah is holding back to save resources for a bigger battle.

But the militant group might also be in disarray after Israeli intelligence apparently penetrated its highest levels.

Some European countries began pulling their diplomats and citizens out of Lebanon on Monday.

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Germany sent a military plane to evacuate diplomats' relatives and others.

Bulgaria sent a government jet to get the first group of its citizens out.

Israel has a long and bloody history in Lebanon.

It briefly invaded in 1978 in a strike against Palestinian militants.

It invaded again in 1982 in an operation that turned into an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

The stepped-up action against Hezbollah also could raise the risk of a broader region-wide war as Israel confronts a series of foes backed by archenemy Iran.

Israel carried out an airstrike in Yemen against the Houthi militia in response to a series of missile strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also threatened Iran, warning the Tehran government that Israel is capable of striking anywhere in the Middle East.

The United States and its allies — including France, which has close ties to Lebanon — have called for a cease-fire, hoping to avoid further escalation that could draw in Iran and set off a wider war.

But Netanyahu has shown little interest, as his country racks up military achievements against a longtime foe.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, visiting Beirut on Monday, urged Israel to refrain from a ground offensive.

He also called on Hezbollah to stop firing on Israel, saying the group "bears heavy responsibility in the current situation, given its choice to enter the conflict."

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, speaking after meeting with Barrot, said the country is committed to an immediate cease-fire followed by the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south, in keeping with a United Nations Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war but was never fully implemented.

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The federal government will commit $30 million to the national consumer watchdog to help it crack down on misleading and deceptive pricing at Australian supermarkets.

Today the government will announce plans for the ACCC to investigate the pricing policies of major supermarket chains, such as Woolworths and Coles, including items on special.

Other practices by supermarkets, such as land banking, and the need for more competition in regional areas will also come under scrutiny by the regulator.

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The ACCC says the alleged hoarding of land by major supermarket companies is slowing the ability for competitors to open new stores.

Those sites could be targeted in this crackdown for release to help inject more competition into the market.

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The Albanese government's new cash boost for the ACCC comes just a week after the consumer watchdog took court action against Coles and Woolworths, accusing them of price gouging.

It alleges both companies sold tens of millions of hundreds of affected products and derived significant revenue from those "illusory" sales.

Then last Friday, the ACCC's supermarket inquiry interim was published, and labelled supermarket retailing in Australia an "oligopoly", with Woolworths and Coles accounting for 67 per cent of sales nationally.

The price of a typical basket of groceries has increased by more than 20 per cent in the past five years, the watchdog found.

The ACCC inquiry's remaining five months wIll examine whether supermarkets were using market power, and how it might affect customers and supplies.

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A blood-stained sandbag was seen on the grass in front of the site.

Jamie Gill was drinking with the siblings before his body was found in a paddock.

Tim Walz and JD Vance will meet for their first and possibly only vice presidential debate on Wednesday, in what could be the last debate for both campaigns to argue their case before the election.

The debate in New York hosted by CBS News at 11am (AEST) will give Vance, a Republican freshman senator from Ohio, and Walz, a two-term Democratic governor of Minnesota, the chance to introduce themselves, make the case for their running mates, and go on the attack against the opposing ticket.

The matchup could have an outsized impact.

YOU CAN WATCH THE DEBATE LIVE AND FREE ON 9NOW FROM 11AM

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Polls have shown Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump locked in a close contest, giving added weight to anything that can sway voters on the margins, including the impression left by the vice presidential candidates.

It also might be the last debate of the campaign, with the Harris and Trump teams failing to agree on another meeting.

The role of a presidential running mate is typically to serve as an attack dog for the person at the top of the ticket, arguing against the opposing presidential candidate and their proxy on stage.

Both Vance and Walz have embraced that role.

Vance's occasionally confrontational news interviews and appearances on the campaign trail have underscored why Trump picked him for the Republican ticket despite his past biting criticisms of the former president, including once suggesting Trump would be "America's Hitler."

Walz, meanwhile, catapulted onto Harris' campaign by branding Trump and Republicans as " just weird," creating an attack line for Democrats seeking to argue Republicans are disconnected from the American people.

A new AP-NORC poll found that Walz is better liked than Vance, potentially giving the Republican an added challenge.

After a Harris-Trump debate in which Republicans complained about the ABC News moderators fact-checking Trump, the debate will not feature any corrections from the hosts.

CBS News said the onus for pointing out misstatements will be on the candidates, with moderators "facilitating those opportunities."

Both sides are trying to lower expectations

Ahead of the debate, allies of both men were lowering expectations that their candidate will have a decisive performance.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., called Vance "an accomplished debater" and contrasted that with Walz, saying he was "not a lawyer-debater type." Klobuchar said Walz spent time growing up thinking about football, not debating.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, portrayed Walz much differently than Klobuchar.

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"Tim Walz is very good in debates, really good. He's been a politician for nearly 20 years. He'll be very well prepared for tomorrow night," Miller told reporters Monday.

He predicted the Democratic governor of Minnesota will be much more "buttoned up" than he is on the campaign trail and ready to defend his record, but added, "That's not to say that JD Vance won't be prepared tomorrow, or that somehow he isn't up to the challenge."

Vance, speaking to reporters last week, said he didn't "have to prepare that much" for the debate because he had "well-developed views on public policy."

But Vance has been doing debate prep sessions where he's been joined by his wife, Usha Vance, Miller, senior Vance aides, and Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who has played Walz, according to a person familiar with his preparations who requested anonymity to discuss strategy.

Moderating their mock debates was Monica Crowley, who served in the Trump administration, hosts a podcast and contributed to Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for remaking government that Trump claims he knows " nothing about."

"JD Vance is prepared to wipe the floor with Tim Walz and expose him for the radical liberal he is," Emmer told reporters on Monday.

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Walz's debate prep has included sessions hunkered down in a Minneapolis hotel, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg standing in for Vance, according to a person familiar with the process who requested anonymity to discuss the campaign's internal dynamics.

Others helping in the preparations include Rob Friedlander and Zayn Siddique, who helped Harris prepare for her debate with Trump, along with other aides to Walz and the campaign.

Klobuchar said Walz will show the American people "a real person" who brings "buoyancy" and positivity to the debate stage that will contrast with Vance, but "he is not going to be shy about pointing out the problems."

"Just because he's an optimistic, positive person doesn't mean he's a pushover," she said.

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