Forbes has released its top 200 billionaires list for the year, noting there are more of the super-wealthy than ever before.

Police found the injured woman at an address in nearby Greenhithe.

J.K. Rowling did not break the law with tweets criticising Scotland's new hate speech law and referring to transgender women as men, the police said on Tuesday.

The Harry Potter author opposes the law, which came into force on Monday and makes it illegal to stir up hatred on the basis of characteristics such as age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

Rowling is among critics who say the legislation could be used to silence so-called "gender-critical" feminists, who argue that rights for trans women should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female.

READ MORE: 'Selfless, outstanding' Australian aid worker killed in Gaza airstrike

In a series of posts on X, Rowling referred to several prominent trans women as men. Misgendering could be an offense under the new law, in some circumstances.

Rowling posted that "if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested."

"Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal," she said.

Police in Scotland said the force had received complaints, but that "the comments are not assessed to be criminal and no further action will be taken."

Scotland's semi-autonomous government says the new legislation — known as the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act — will help tackle hatred and abuse.

Critics, however, say it will have a chilling effect on free speech.

Shane Reti says preferential entry schemes address his priority – doctor shortages,

At least 29 people have died in a blaze which started during daytime repair work at a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, state media reported on Tuesday.

A further eight people were injured, with seven of those in serious condition, the Istanbul governor's office said.

The governor's office said the fire started in the Besiktas district in central Istanbul on the European side of the city, and that all of the victims were construction workers.

READ MORE: Netanyahu says 'unintentional' Israeli strike in Gaza killed 'innocent people'

The fire began shortly before 1pm local time (9pm AEDT), state media reported, at a 16-story block on Gonenoglu Street, a busy part of Istanbul's Gayrettepe neighbourhood.

The nightclub is called Masquerade Club, according to CNN's producer at the scene.

The blaze started during renovations at the site, which is located underground, says Anadolu, the Turkish news state agency.

Turkish authorities have detained eight people in connection with the fire, including the business manager of the nightclub, its accountant and partners, as well as the person responsible for the metal workers related to the renovation, TRT News reported.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said authorities were collecting evidence from the site.

"A team of three experts specialising in occupational safety and fire is also continuing their work to determine the cause of the fire," he wrote on X.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, sent his condolences on social media.

"May God have mercy on our citizens who lost their lives," he wrote on X.

Imamoglu, of the opposition Republic People's Party (CHP), was re-elected as mayor on Sunday in local elections that marked the biggest election defeat to date for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development (AK) Party.

Details of latest accident come after the Easter weekend road toll hit a record high.

Māori Health Authority given its last rites as its doors are closed.

US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, marking the first conversation between the leaders since their historic in-person summit in November and the latest in ongoing efforts by US and Chinese officials to defuse tensions between the two superpowers.

The call comes amid heavy global turbulence – the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as North Korea's nuclear capabilities, were topics of discussion.

Other issues that have strained the Washington-Beijing relationship also came up, including Taiwan, China's recent provocations in the South China Sea and Beijing's human rights abuses.

READ MORE: Albanese seeks meeting with Netanyahu over aid worker deaths in Gaza

The two leaders also discussed a number of issues where US and Chinese officials see room for cooperation, including countering narcotics, the fast-developing world of artificial intelligence and climate change, according to a White House readout.

The White House described the one-hour-45-minute conversation as "candid and constructive" on a range of issues on which the leaders agreed and disagreed.

READ MORE: Fire at Istanbul nightclub kills dozens during renovation work

Biden stressed the need to maintain "peace and stability" across the Taiwan Strait and he also raised his concerns over China's support for Russia's defence industry, the White House added.

Biden also noted his worries about China's trade tactics that the White House said harm American workers and emphasised that the US will do what it must to prevent "advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment."

"The two leaders welcomed ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication and responsibly manage the relationship through high-level diplomacy and working-level consultations in the weeks and months ahead," the readout stated, noting Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China.

The Biden-Xi chat represents a follow-through on a simple commitment that Biden made publicly after meeting with Xi for multiple hours in Woodside, California, last year: That, moving forward, the two leaders would pick up the phone and call each other more often, with an eye towards preventing potentially dangerous misunderstandings between two of the most powerful countries in the world.

A senior administration official previewing the call was quick to note that despite the great lengths to which both countries have gone to over the last year to de-escalate historic high tensions in US-China relations, a phrase Biden had uttered after his summit with Xi still remains operable: "Trust but verify."

"I don't think we ever really take the Chinese at their word when they say they will or will not do something. It is about verifying, as the president says," the official told CNN when asked about Xi's pledge that Beijing will not interfere in the US' 2024 election.

"Verifying the results we see, the actions we see, and then continuing to underscore and press on what our concerns are."

That fraught dynamic was underscored during November's summit when Biden – after underscoring the constructive nature of his meeting with Xi – told a CNN reporter that he would still refer to the Chinese leader as a dictator.

The label, which Biden had previously used to describe Xi, quickly drew the ire of the Chinese government, and marked an awkward end to what was a momentous meeting between the two leaders.

The Biden administration plans to continue stressing to Beijing the US' grave concerns about Chinese efforts to hack US critical infrastructure, the official said.

CNN reported exclusively in January that Xi had told Biden when they met in November that China would not interfere in the US presidential election, and that that assurance had also been reiterated by the Chinese foreign minister to Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Biden and Xi also planned to examine some of the announcements that had come out of their California summit last year, including the re-establishment of the two countries' military-to-military communications and their pledge to work together to curb the production of fentanyl.

The conversation was meant to serve as a "check in" on the progress made over the last year in those areas, the official said.

Biden was also expected to address China's support for Russia over its continued war in Ukraine on Tuesday's call, on the heels of Xi's recent pledge to "strengthen strategic coordination" between China and Russia on a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.

And while China has shied away from publicly providing lethal aid to Russia to assist in its invasion of Ukraine, the official warned that China's support for Russia has allowed the country "to rebuild Russia's defense industrial base, essentially backfilling the trade from European partners."

"China, of course, is a sovereign country, it will make its own decisions about its relationships, but quite concerned about the direction of travel on this one, and I'm certain it will come up," the official said Monday.

Biden and Xi last spoke on the phone in July 2022.

"We would hope there would be a chance for another in-person meeting" in the near future, the senior administration official said.

Yellen set to visit China this week

In a significant mark of the Biden administration's ongoing engagement with Beijing, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is scheduled to visit China later this week, where she'll meet with her Chinese counterparts in her second visit to the country as Treasury secretary.

Yellen is scheduled to make two stops, traveling to Guangzhou and Beijing, for meetings with economists, students and members of the business community.

A Treasury official told reporters on Monday she planned to have frank discussions on what the administration considers "unfair" trade practices from China.

The Treasury secretary has vocally warned of the threat China's overcapacity poses to the global economy, but has also cautioned that decoupling with the manufacturing juggernaut would be "disastrous" for the US.

In addition to Yellen, other US officials have spoken with their Chinese counterparts in 2024, demonstrating just how critical the administration sees its bilateral relationship with the country.

In January, Sullivan met with the Chinese foreign minister in Bangkok, and Blinken met with the Chinese official in Munich in February.

Blinken is also set to travel to China himself "in the coming weeks," the senior administration official told reporters Monday, while Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to participate in a call with China's minister of defence "soon".

‘I’ll be surprised if any Northland farmers make a profit this year.’

Thanks to a Kiwi and his love of bugs, we get a sleep-in this weekend.