Total solar eclipses happen quite regularly – but rarely somewhere tens of millions can flock to watch.

A New York appeals court judge today rejected Donald Trump's bid to delay his April 15 hush money criminal trial while he fights to move the case out of Manhattan — foiling the former president’s latest attempt to put off the historic trial.

Justice Lizbeth González made her ruling after an emergency hearing where Trump's lawyers asked to postpone the trial indefinitely while they seek a change of venue.

Trump was seeking an emergency stay, a court order that would prevent the trial from starting on time.

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The hush money trial is the first of Trump's four criminal indictments slated to go to trial and would be the first criminal trial ever of a former president.

Trump lawyer Emil Bove argued that the presumptive Republican nominee faces “real potential prejudice” as a defendant in heavily Democratic Manhattan.

Citing defence surveys and a review of media coverage, Bove argued that jury selection, scheduled to start next Monday, “cannot proceed in a fair manner”.

Trump has suggested on social media that the trial should be moved to Staten Island, the only New York City borough he won in 2016 and 2020.

Steven Wu, appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney's office, noted that trial Judge Juan M. Merchan had already rejected Trump's requests to move or delay the trial as untimely.

“The question in this case is not whether a random poll of New Yorkers from whatever neighbourhood are able to be impartial, it’s about whether a trial court is able to select a jury of 12 impartial jurors,” Wu said.

He blamed Trump for stoking pretrial publicity with "countless media appearances talking about the facts of this case, the witnesses, and so on".

In a separate appellate matter, Trump's lawyers are also challenging a gag order imposed on him in the case, which Merchan recently expanded to prohibit Trump from making comments about the judge’s family.

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The appeals court signalled it would take up that matter at a later date.

Paperwork relating to Trump's appeals were placed under seal and not publicly available.

Trump had pledged to appeal after Merchan ruled last month that the trial would begin April 15.

His lawyers had pleaded to delay the trial at least until summer to give them more time to review late-arriving evidence from a prior federal investigation into the matter.

Merchan, who had already moved the trial from its original March 25 start date because of the evidence issue, said no further delays were warranted.

Trump's lawyers filed their appeals today on two separate court dockets.

One was styled as a lawsuit against Merchan, a legal mechanism allowing them to challenge his rulings.

In New York, judges can be sued over some judicial decisions under a state law known as Article 78.

Trump has used the tactic before, including against the judge in his civil fraud case in an unsuccessful last-minute bid to delay that case last fall.

In this case, he is accused of falsifying his company’s records to hide the nature of payments to his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who helped him bury negative stories during his 2016 campaign.

Cohen’s activities included paying porn actor Stormy Daniels $US130,000 to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels.

His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.

Trump's move today is the latest escalation in his battles with Merchan.

Trump assailed the judge on social media after he imposed a gag order last month barring Trump from making public statements about jurors, witnesses and others connected the case.

After Trump's complaints, Merchan expanded the gag order to include members of his own family.

Last week, Trump renewed his request for the judge to step aside from the case, citing Merchan's daughter's work as the head of a firm whose clients have included his rival President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats.

The former president alleges the judge is biased against him and has a conflict of interest because of his daughter’s work.

The judge rejected a similar request last August.

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Trump has also made numerous other attempts to get the trial postponed, echoing a strategy he's deployed in his other criminal cases.

“We want delays,” Trump proclaimed to TV cameras outside a February pretrial hearing in his hush money case.

Merchan last week rejected his request to delay the trial until the US Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity claims he raised in another of his criminal cases.

Trump also filed an eve-of-trial lawsuit against the judge in his New York civil fraud case, accusing the jurist of repeatedly abusing his authority.

Among other issues, Trump’s lawyers in that case complained that Judge Arthur Engoron had refused their request to delay the trial.

Their suit was filed about three weeks before the trial was slated to begin.

A state appeals court rejected Trump’s claims, and the trial started as scheduled October 2.

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During the civil trial, Trump sued Engoron again, this time over a gag order he’d issued after Trump smeared the judge’s principal law clerk in a social media post.

The gag order barred parties in the case — and, later, their lawyers as well — from commenting publicly on court staffers, though not on the judge himself.

A sole appeals judge lifted the gag order, but a four-judge appellate panel ultimately restored it two weeks later.

The panel said Trump’s lawyers should have followed a normal appeals process instead of suing the judge.

Trump’s lawyers said they had been trying to move quickly.

Engoron, who decided that case without a jury, ruled that Trump, his company and key executives defrauded bankers and insurers by overstating his wealth in documents used to get loans and coverage.

Trump denied any wrongdoing and is appealing the finding and over $US454 million in penalties and interest.

A new type of scam which emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic is on the rise, and it's leaving some Australians baffled.

Sydney resident Tash, who asked for her surname to be withheld, was surprised to see a package arrive on her doorstep last week.

"I thought it was something I had forgotten I ordered," she told 9news.com.au. 

"It came in a box with no markings on it and no packing slip."

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But when Tash opened the parcel, she immediately knew it was nothing she had ever bought online.

The clothing items inside looked cheaply-made and were also just a bit "weird", Tash said.

The package included two cheetah print tops, three black-and-white spotted tops and three pairs of three-quarter-length pants. 

The clothes looked like they would fit a small woman or older child and were not the right size for anyone in her family, making her rule it out as a gift, Tash said.

Baffled, Tash re-checked the name and address on the packaging – confirming they were her correct details.

"I thought it might be a scam," Tash said.

"I googled the sender and address and nothing came up."

It was only when Tash posted about her strange delivery on a local Facebook community group that she was given a hint as to what might have happened.

Other women shared similar experiences of randomly receiving unwanted goods in the mail addressed to them, such as a cheap pair of sunglasses.

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What appears to be happening here is a particular type of scam known as "brushing".

Brushing is when online sellers send unsolicited items in the mail to real people. 

The sellers then post reviews, purportedly from the recipient, in a bid to boost their retail profile.

Australia cybersecurity expert Simon Smith said brushing was most commonly used by sellers on online marketplace sites such as Amazon and eBay.

"It's all about misleading the public, making them look like they are getting lots of customers," Smith said. 

"What people do is say, 'I'll send something worth six cents'. It's relatively useless, but I've sent it.

"You didn't ask for it, but it doesn't matter. Now, I'll just get my backyard review team to write reviews, based on these fake sales. That will promote us more, make us look big and then we can get more and more customers."

Smith said brushing emerged on the scene as a new scam at the start of the pandemic in 2020, when many new retailers were rushing to cash in on the surge in internet shopping.

Since then, the scam, which is really a type of fraud, has only become more prevalent.

Although brushing was relatively benign as far as scams go, anyone receiving odd items in the mail should see it as a warning sign, Smith said.

"It's nothing horrendous in the sense that they're not stealing anything off you," Smith said.

"So, in itself, it's not that bad – but, when combined with other things, it can be bad."

While someone having their name and address accessed by scammers online was not necessarily a cause for alarm in most cases, the situation could become far more serious if this information was then linked to further personal details, such as a person's date-of-birth.

"You can often easily get that type of information by looking at Facebook 'Happy Birthday' (messages)," Smith said. 

"Name, address and date of birth – that opens up the door for fraud and for other heinous sort of things that can happen. 

"To individuals, (brushing) is a warning sign that should trigger people to think – this is my reminder to clean up my online presence."

Tash said she was still not sure how the sellers had accessed her details online.

"I'm wondering how they got my name and address," she said, adding she intended to take some of her details, like her birthday, off social media.

Do you have a story? Contact reporter Emily McPherson at em********@******om.au

A chilly, midday darkness fell across North America in recent hours as a total solar eclipse raced across the continent, thrilling those lucky enough to behold the spectacle through clear skies.

Eclipse mania gripped all of Mexico, the US and Canada, as the moon swept in front of the sun, blotting out daylight. Almost everyone in North America was guaranteed at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting.

It was the continent's biggest eclipse audience ever, with a couple hundred million people living in or near the shadow's path, plus scores of out-of-towners flocking in.

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Clouds blanketed most of Texas as the total solar eclipse began its diagonal dash across land, starting along Mexico's mostly clear Pacific coast and aiming for Texas and 14 other US states, before exiting into the North Atlantic near Newfoundland.

Just east of Dallas, the hundreds gathered at Mesquite's downtown area cheered and whistled as the clouds parted in the final minutes before totality. As the sun finally became cloaked, the crowd grew louder, whipping off their eclipse glasses to soak in the unforgettable view of the sun's corona, or spiky outer atmosphere, and Venus shining brilliantly off to the right.

City officials reminded everyone that the last total solar eclipse in these parts was the 1870s, making this one all the more special. Eclipse-themed music was turned off as the big moment approached.

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"Oh God, it's so dark," marveled Aiyana Brown, 14, who watched alongside her grandfather, Mesquite Mayor Daniel Aleman Jr. "I'm a huge science nerd, and this is amazing."

The weather also cooperated at the last minute near Austin. "I will never unsee this," said Ahmed Husseim of Austin, who had the eclipse on his calendar for a year. Husseim and his family were among hundreds who gathered on the lawn of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, with blankets, lawn chairs and country music.

Arkansas and northeast New England were the best bets in the US, going into Monday's spectacle. New Brunswick and Newfoundland in Canada also looked promising.

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The show got underway in the Pacific before noon EDT (2am AEST). As the darkness of totality reached the Mexican resort city of Mazatlán, the faces of spectators were illuminated only by the screens of their cellphones.

The cliff-hanging uncertainty added to the drama. But the overcast skies in Mesquite near Dallas didn't rattle Erin Froneberger, who was in town for business and brought along her eclipse glasses.

"We are always just rushing, rushing, rushing," she said.

"But this is an event that we can just take a moment, a few seconds that it's going to happen and embrace it."

A festival outside Austin wrapped up early on Monday because afternoon storms were in the forecast. Festival organisers urged everyone to pack up and leave.

Sara Laneau, of Westfield, Vermont, woke up at 4am Monday to take her 16-year-old niece to nearby Jay Peak ski resort to catch the eclipse after a morning on the slopes.

"This will be a first from me and an experience of a lifetime," said Laneau, who was dressed in a purple metallic ski suit with a solar eclipse T-shirt underneath.

At Niagara Falls State Park, tourists streamed in under cloudy skies with wagons, strollers, coolers and lawn chairs. Park officials expected a large crowd at the popular site overlooking the falls.

During Monday's full eclipse, the moon slipped right in front of the sun, entirely blocking it. The resulting twilight, with only the sun's outer atmosphere or corona visible, would be long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets, stars and maybe even a comet to pop out.

The out-of-sync darkness lasts up to four minutes, 28 seconds. That's almost twice as long as it was during the US coast-to-coast eclipse seven years ago because the moon is closer to Earth. It will be another 21 years before the US sees another total solar eclipse on this scale.

It will take just one hour and 40 minutes for the moon's shadow to race more than 6500km across the continent.

Eye protection is needed with proper eclipse glasses and filters to look at the sun, except when it ducks completely out of sight during an eclipse.

The path of totality — approximately 185km wide — encompasses several major cities this time, including Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Montreal. An estimated 44 million people live within the track, with a couple hundred million more within 320km.

"This may be the most viewed astronomical event in history," said National Air and Space Museum curator Teasel Muir-Harmony, standing outside the museum in Washingon, awaiting a partial eclipse.

Experts from NASA and scores of universities are posted along the route, poised to launch research rockets and weather balloons, and conduct experiments. The International Space Station's seven astronauts also will be on the lookout, 435km up.

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Police made a shock find at the scene of a messy crash involving a bus in Perth.

Witnesses said a car slammed into the bus, but the driver was more concerned about what was in his backpack, despite being badly injured.

A backpack allegedly stuffed with cash and drugs was seized after the Mazda collided with the Transperth bus on the corner of Elderberry and Berrigan Drive in South Lake just before 7pm on Sunday.

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Witnesses claimed the driver, in his 30s, pleaded with passengers to take cash before police arrived.

Officers said they seized $40,000 along with illegal drugs.

"There were stacks of green cash and then there were bags of white powder," witness Ella said.

"They were just going through it all and they were like just getting stacks and stacks out of the car and putting in brown paper bags."

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According to witnesses, the driver of the car indicated to turn, but instead continued straight ahead, T-boning the bus.

The police investigation is ongoing.

The driver spent the night in the Royal Perth Hospital.

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WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died.

An Indigenous teen's death after he harmed himself in detention was a preventable tragedy, the corrections officer who found him in his cell has told an inquest.

Cleveland Dodd was found unresponsive in the early hours of October 12 last year, inside his cell in Unit 18 in Perth's Casuarina Prison.

The 16-year-old was agitated and had made eight threats to self-harm in the hours before he was discovered by youth custodial officer Daniel Torrijos and transported to hospital, where he died eight days later.

Torrijos told a coroner in Perth on Monday Cleveland was more upset than usual on the night of the incident that led to his death.

"Cleveland was very volatile and would act out and do crazy things but I never felt he was that down and out or depressed," he said.

"He was angry, more angry than usual … he looked stressed and angry."

The veteran officer, who was well-liked by the detainees, described Cleveland's death as a tragedy.

"Obviously it could have been avoided, it's been a build-up of a few things that happened over the years, it didn't happen overnight and I just don't want to see anything like that happen again," he said.

Youth custodial officer Nina Priestly said she had a "soft spot" for Cleveland and his death had "a huge impact on me".

"He was a funny kid and we enjoyed having a chat and making jokes," she said in a statement read to the court by Counsel Assisting the Coroner Sarah Tyler.

Priestly said she was an Aboriginal woman and joined the department to "help my people".

"I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to show the detainees compassion despite their circumstances," she said.

"His death is the exact opposite of why I joined."

Coroner Phil Urquhart heard Unit 18 detainees were constantly making threats to self-harm and it was often difficult to determine if they were serious.

"It's rolled like that for three or four years, a lot of self-harm attempts," Torrijos said.

"It's spiralled out of control … it's something that's like an epidemic, plague proportion."

The court heard Cleveland's threats to self-harm on October 12 started after staff working on the night shift ignored his requests for water five times because the day shift told them he'd been given six cups earlier.

He had spent most of the day in his cell, which had no running water, and was facing the prospect of having to wait until morning before he was given any more.

The United Nations stipulates "drinking water shall be available to every prisoner whenever he or she needs it".

Torrijos said if he had been allowed to unlock Cleveland's cell door and give him water he would have but he was directed not to.

In the 86 days leading up to October 12, Cleveland spent 22 hours or more in his cell per day on 75 of them and had only three hours of schooling in four weeks.

The inquest heard Torrijos had been investigated and disciplined about two years earlier for failing to properly do cell checks on seven occasions and reporting that he had.

Asked about the finding, Torrijos said he was overworked and it was unrealistic to expect him to be able to complete the amount of tasks assigned to him.

Lifeline 13 11 14

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (for people aged 5 to 25)

13YARN 13 92 76

Aboriginal Counselling Services 0410 539 905

The contents of a long-awaited report on a safe injecting room in Melbourne's CBD can now be revealed by 9News.

Former police chief Ken Lay delivered his findings to the Victorian government almost a year ago, however until now they have been kept secret.

The report recommends the city does need its own safe injecting room, but stops short of naming an address, sources said.

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Instead Lay has defined three key areas in the city where drug use and death are most prominent:

– From the top of Bourke Street down to Swanston Street;

– The epicentre at Elizabeth and Flinders Streets; and,

-A round the Queen Victoria Market.

9News visited some of the hotspots to speak to drug users.

Just 200 metres from state parliament, mates Michael and Glenn prepared methamphetamine, or ice, in a public laneway.

They said they don't use the Richmond injecting room because it's too far to travel.

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Michael was born to a heroin-addicted mother and spent his life in foster care.

"I would say no one knows what someone is going through," he said.

Michael and Glenn both insist they would use a safe injecting room if there was one in the city.

"Yeah I would because they have the vein finders, I've got that much scar tissue," Glenn said.

Nearby, behind Melbourne Town Hall a makeshift memorial has been set up to remember 38-year-old Danial Korver, where his mother laid flowers. Korver injected heroin in Rainbow Alley and died alone.

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"I remember saying to the police woman, how do you know it's him?" Katrina Korver said.

"She said 'oh, we took his fingerprints'.

"Every day I cry. We all miss him."

She visits the alley every week and claimed if the city's promised injecting room had been built already, her son would still be alive.

"I have no doubt in my mind he would have used it," Korver said.

The state government has had the Lay report for 10 months but is yet to make an official announcement about it.

The report also recommended the injecting room needs an outreach service to shepherd drug users back to the facility to use safely.

Australia will trial self-driving cars in regional Queensland as experts anticipate the technology will officially hit the roads by 2030.

The cars will be tested on roads in Mount Isa under a project dubbed ZOE2 and will inform officials on whether our roads, lines, signs and infrastructure are built for them.

Australia has been ready for self-driving cars for the past four years, Queensland Transport and Main Roads project lead Amit Trivedi said.

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"It is a new wave of mobility and technology coming to our roads and we as a government want to be ready and reap the benefits for our people," he told 9News. 

The cars have also been programmed to be extra safe for the trial.

"Human's reaction time is between 1.3 to 1.4 seconds whereas an automated vehicle's reaction time is three to four times better," Trivedi said.

Mount Isa resident Ranita Toholke took a ride in one of the self-driving cars and said it was "amazing".

"I was really surprised. It was a bit daunting the fact that you didn't have to do anything," she said.

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Trivedi forecasted that about 2 to 10 per cent of new vehicles sold in Australia will have highly-automated features built in by 2030.

While the self-driving cars are still years away for Australia, Waymo robo-taxis have taken passengers on more than 1 million rides in the US. 

Prime-time radio host Stacey Lee has shared shocking footage of a brazen daylight robbery at her Adelaide home.

The thieves drove away with thousands of dollars worth of the 5AA presenter's belongings, and they're still on the run.

A thief can be seen hiding underneath a dark hood in broad daylight in the CCTV footage, as he forces his way through Lee's front door.

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Joined by three accomplices, the gang gets straight to work, bagging the presenter's belongs, then loading them into her mother's white hatchback and driving off with it.

The robbery unfolded at her home in the city's eastern suburbs around 3pm last Thursday.

Lee said she hasn't slept since.

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"We've changed our locks and we're looking at other security options now and it's just sad that you have to be distrusting," she said.

The gang turned the house upside down as they grabbed iPads, jewellery and even passports.

Lee said the drawers were turned out and even her wedding dress was on the floor.

But it's priceless possessions that will be missed the most.

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"You know I had stuff from my Yiayia that's been handed down," she said.

"It probably doesn't have much value that stuff but it's invaluable to me."

Police have told Lee they don't believe the burglary was targeted, but that they do suspect the group might be connected to other robberies around the area.

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The major weather system is set to bring days of heavy rain and strong winds.