The most senior police officer behind the arrest of Latrell Mitchell and Jack Wighton has admitted giving false evidence and lying under oath while testifying against the NRL stars.

During an explosive cross-examination, Sergeant David Power apologised to Wighton and admitted core allegations he made about why he kicked him out of a Canberra nightclub weren't accurate.

It prompted Wighton's lawyer to accuse police of trying to "frame" his client, declaring the case was an "old-school stitch-up".

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Power earlier alleged he saw Wighton with clenched fists, anger in his face and holding a man by the shirt before he removed him from Fiction nightclub.

But Wighton's lawyer Steve Boland pieced together a timeline of events via CCTV footage that led the officer to admit none of it happened.

"What I saw appears to have not happened and my memory has failed me," Power told the court.

He later addressed Wighton, saying: "Sorry Jack, if that's what happened mate … I'm sorry."

Boland, who said the officer had invented his evidence rather than forgotten what he'd seen, criticised his apology.

"You're not mates are you … how inappropriate," he told the court.

He labelled the sergeant's story "a total and utter fantasy you dreamt up to justify everything that happens".

Power denied he'd intentionally misled the court.

He acknowledged he had a "long-term memory issue".

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https://twitter.com/tiffgenders/status/1719161877538947144

After Wighton was removed from the nightclub, he and Mitchell were accused of fighting before both were arrested.

Mitchell could be heard crying out in pain and screaming "please" as the players' friends begged police to stop their "police brutality" as they handcuffed him.

The group had been at the nightclub celebrating Wighton's 30th birthday before they spilled onto the street when the former Raider was removed from the venue for alleged aggressive behaviour.

Among the group protesting with police was Canberra captain Elliott Whitehead, who told one officer watching Mitchell's arrest "the way you came over was out of order".

Power said he "didn't see an issue with it" even after watching the footage of the arrest.

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Vision played on Monday showed Mitchell surrendering onto his knees before police elbowed, kneed and pushed him face-down onto the ground.

Mitchell feared for his life and was a "weeping mess", the court heard.

His defence centres around alleged heavy-handed police conduct, the star South Sydney fullback having told police while being arrested: "I've done nothing wrong but be a blackfella in Australia."

The Birpai and Wiradjuri man is charged with affray, fighting in a public place and resisting a territory official.

Wighton, who is also a Wiradjuri man, is charged with fighting in a public place and failing to comply with an exclusion direction.

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The rain has been persistently bucketing down for 10 months.

A missing python has been found following an ordeal that saw two domestic snakes released into the wild and one man arrested in Sydney's south.

Two domesticated snakes, Mango and Bagel, were released from a storage unit into Coogee two weeks ago, which led to a 25-year-old man being charged with damaging property on Saturday.

The snake's owner, a 25-year-old female, had posted photos to Facebook of the snakes asking for locals to help locate the reptiles – named Mango and Bagels – the week prior to the arrest.

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Today, Bagel was found and returned to her owner, the woman confirmed in a Facebook post.

"She was thirsty but otherwise not a scratch on her, I can imagine she thoroughly enjoyed her time as a wild snake," the owner shared.

"Thanks endlessly… to WIRES, the local Randwick and Maroubra police force, and the entire community as a whole for having such a keen eye out for my babies."

The yellow python, Mango, has not been located.

"Mango is still unfortunately missing, as the weather warms up she might be spotted lounging in the sun," she wrote.

"If you see her please call WIRES or local police."

The 25-year-old male allegedly responsible for releasing the snakes into Coogee has been arrested and refused bail. 

A search is underway for the body of a surfer who is believed to have been killed in a shark attack off the coast of a South Australian town.

Emergency services responded to reports of an attack off the coast of Granites Beach in Westall Way Loop near Streaky Bay about 10.20am today.

9News understands about six surfers were in the water but the 55-year-old man paddled out wider than the rest of the group.

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A witness on a clifftop said they saw the shark attack the man, which left him floating before he was attacked again.

The witness believes the shark was about 4.5 metres in length.

"Eyre and Western Police immediately responded and initiated a search with the assistance of Police Water Operations, PolAir, State Emergency Service (SES) and local volunteers," South Australia Police said in a statement.

"The man's body is yet to be found and the search will continue through to day's end," police said.

The beach is popular among surfers on the Eyre Peninsula.

It's also known for having a large population of great white sharks.

This is the third shark attack off the South Australian coast this year.

Streaky Bay is about 700 kilometres from Adelaide, on the state's far west coast.

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Scientists have warned our planet has three years less than previously thought to avoid a long-feared climate change landmark that will bring about more catastrophic weather, destroy most coral reefs, and cause significant water shortages.

Warming of 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times has been earmarked as a crucial goal in the fight against climate change, including in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change, that will be unavoidable by early 2029 – little more than five years from now – if global emissions from fossil fuels continue at their current rate.

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The authors of the study calculated what's known as the remaining carbon budget (RCB) for 1.5 degrees – the amount of carbon that can be released into the atmosphere for there to be a 50 per cent chance of limiting warming to that temperature.

In 2021, a United Nations report estimated the RCB was about 500 billion metric tonnes – enough to last until 2032.

The new study argues the RCB was just 250 billion metric tonnes at the start of the year.

With the planet emitting about 40 billion per year, warming of 1.5 degrees will be locked in by early 2029.

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However, with global emissions still rising – although they appear to be starting to plateau – the mark may be reached even quicker.

The reason for the smaller RCB is the world has been removing smoky aerosol pollutants in the atmosphere.

While a positive step, those pollutants slightly cool Earth and mask the effects of burning fossil fuels, so the planet warms marginally faster without them.

Regardless, the planet is preciously short of time to avoid hitting 1.5 degrees of warming.

Once Earth reaches that measure, the risk of extreme weather and other catastrophes increases, as the world will likely lose most of its coral reefs, a key ice sheet could kick into an irreversible melt, and water shortages, heat waves and death from extreme weather dramatically increase, according to an earlier United Nations scientific report.

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"We have got to the stage where the 1.5 Celsius carbon budget is so small that it's almost losing meaning," climate scientist Glen Peters of the Norwegian CICERO climate institute, who wasn't part of the research, said.

"If your face is about to slam in the wall at 100 miles per hour, it is sort of irrelevant if your nose is currently one millimetre or two millimetres from the wall… we are still heading in the wrong direction at 100 miles per hour."

Climate scientist Bill Hare of the Climate Action Tracker said "breaching the 1.5-degree limit does not push the world over a cliff at that point, but it is very much an inflection point in increasing risk of catastrophic changes".

Even though the carbon budget looks set to run out in early 2029, that doesn't mean the world will instantly hit 1.5 degrees of warming – that could happen a bit earlier or as much as a decade or two later, but it will happen once the budget runs out, study lead Robin Lamboll said.

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Despite 1.5 degrees of warming looking unavoidable, the researchers said it was critical for the planet to quickly reduce emissions so higher and even more catastrophic thresholds are avoided.

The study said the carbon budget with a 50 per cent chance to keep warming below 2 degrees is 1220 billion metric tons, which is about 30 years.

There are about 23 and 12 years left for a 66 and 90 per cent chance of avoiding that mark respectively, the study says.

"We don't want this to be interpreted as six years to save the planet," study co-author Christopher Smith, a University of Leeds climate scientist, said.

"If we are able to limit warming to 1.6 degrees or 1.65 degrees or 1.7 degrees, that's a lot better than 2 degrees. We still need to fight for every tenth of a degree."

– With Associated Press

2022 was a bumper year for people moving to Australia's shores, new data has revealed.

As of June 30 last year, nearly a third of Australia's population – 29.5 per cent – was born overseas, according to a new set of migration data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The data shows the country's overseas-born population grew by 155,000 people between June 2021 and June 2022.

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However, the number of people born overseas last was still slightly less than in 2020, when 29.9 per cent of Australians were born overseas.

Jenny Dobak, the ABS' head of migration statistics, confirmed the spike said last year saw Australia's number of overseas-born residents increase by 2.1 per cent.

"Western Australia had the highest proportion born overseas at 34 per cent, while Tasmania had the lowest at 16 per cent, in 2021," she said.

The top three countries of birth for Australia's overseas population are unlikely to come as a surprise,

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England held its place as the largest country of birth for Australians with 961,000 migrants – a record it has held since it colonised Australia. 

Those born in India were the second largest group of people born overseas, with 753,000 migrants in 2022. 

Meanwhile, people born in China made up the third-largest share of overseas-born Australians at 597,000. According to the 2022 data, that number actually decreased last year, after reaching a peak in 2019.

Together, those three countries accounted for over one-third of all the migrants living in Australia last year. 

New Zealand, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa, Italy and Nepal rounded out the top ten.

Overseas-born population over the years

According to the first country-wide census in 1891, 32 per cent of the population were born overseas, reflecting high levels of immigration in preceding years. 

The proportion fell to its lowest level of 10 per cent in 1947 – mainly due to lower levels of migration during World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. 

The proportion then rose rapidly as a result of higher levels of post-war migration.

Since then, there has been a steady increase in the overseas-born population until 2021.

In 2021, the number and proportion of migrants declined. 

This has been attributed to the COVID-19 travel restrictions and the resulting impact on overseas migration, both to and from Australia. 

There was a decrease in arrivals of people born overseas immigrating to Australia, as well as a decrease of people born in Australia departing to live overseas.

This set of figures all come from data collected between June 2021, and June 2022.

In other recent population news, Australia's population hit 26.5 million people in March 2023, thanks to a post-COVID-19 pandemic migration boom, according to the (ABS).

The nation's population grew by 2.2 per cent in the 12 months to March 2023, with most of this (81 per cent) due to an influx of migrants.

A total of 681,000 people migrated to Australia – more than double the number in the previous year – after all major pandemic-related border restrictions ended in February 2022.