“It was absolutely incredible, like nothing I could ever imagine.”

Green Party removes Barbie memes to “protect Warner Bros’ intellectual property”.

An attendee claims the group was commended on their dedication to their costumes.

The Hawke’s Bay Magpies go top of the NPC as the Tui reach the semis for first time.

Both Katie Nimon and Catherine Wedd have ranked highly on National’s party list.

A US judge has given Bryan Kohberger's attorneys three weeks to submit evidence for the accused killer's alibi if he plans on using that as a defence.

The state has argued Kohberger must provide his exact whereabouts the night of last year's killings of four University of Idaho students and any witnesses who can support the defendant's claim that he was out for a drive alone that night.

His defence team submitted that "Mr Kohberger has a long habit of going for drives alone. Often he would go for drives at night. He did so late on November 12 and into November 13, 2022. Mr Kohberger is not claiming to be at a specific location at a specific time."

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Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder in the November 13 deaths of 21-year-olds Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen and 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, who were fatally stabbed in their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho.

A not guilty plea has been entered on Kohberger's behalf. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty, according to court documents.

Prosecutors at first submitted to the court that the alibi was too vague, arguing Kohberger needed to provide specific witnesses and locations, so they could be prepared to cross-examine them.

During Friday's hearing, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said there is not enough time for the state to prepare for a list of witnesses who may speak about Kohberger's alibi.

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"The state's position, at this point, is we will accept what the defendant has said, that he was driving around. … We are willing to accept that, with an order from this court from prohibiting the defence from offering third party evidence, whether by direct or cross-examination, in support of the defendant's claiming alibi."

Judge John Judge ruled that Bryan Kohberger has until September 8 to submit witnesses for his alibi. Judge also established October 2 as the start date for the trial, denying a defence request to stay the proceedings to investigate potential procedural issues with the grand jury.

Much of Friday's hearing involved discussion of a defence motion related to a request to compel the state to disclose DNA profiles. The defence team presented DNA experts as witnesses. Judge did not rule on that motion.

Prosecution motions are connected to the alibi; protecting the disclosure of information of people involved in the genetic genealogy investigation; issues on the timeline of the trial and Kohberger's right to a speedy trial; and a request to set deadlines on pretrial issues.

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The evidence in the case

Statements by a surviving witness and other evidence led investigators to believe the killings happened between 4am and 4.25am, according to court documents. There was no sign of forced entry, police have said.

The killing sparked fear in the quiet college town and led to weeks of speculation as to who was the killer. Kohberger, a criminology graduate student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested seven weeks later at his parents' house in Pennsylvania.

Authorities began to focus their investigation on Kohberger after learning he was the registered owner of a white Hyundai Elantra similar to one seen in surveillance footage near the crime scene, according to a probable cause affidavit released in January. His appearance also was consistent with a surviving roommate's description of the suspect, specifically noting his height, weight and bushy eyebrows, according to the affidavit.

Other evidence listed in the affidavit included phone records showing Kohberger's phone had been near the victims' home at least a dozen times since June. Records also show the phone near the site of the killings hours later, between 9.12am and 9.21am, the document says.

Additionally, Kohberger's DNA was a "statistical match" to DNA collected from the sheath of a knife found at the crime scene, according to court documents filed by prosecutors.

Labour wants the policy in place by 2025.

Elon Musk has flagged another major change to X, formerly Twitter, which would limit the ability of people to block accounts.

Musk, who has thrown out multiple pronouncements about the future of X on his own account since buying the site, said the "block" function would be removed as a feature.

However, it could still apply to direct messages.

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https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1692558414105186796

Currently, X users can elect to block an account, meaning its posts won't appear in their social media timeline.

The blocked account can also no longer interact with the blocker.

The "mute" function, which will remain, only stops an X user from receiving notifications about a muted accounts posts.

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Some online voiced concerns about the removal of peoples' ability to stop abuse or avoid traumatic content in their timelines.

And the announcement comes just days after at least two brands announced they would cease advertising on X after their content appeared on pro-fascist account.

The nonprofit news watchdog Media Matters for America documented in a report published Wednesday that ads for a host of mainstream brands have been run on the account, which has shared content celebrating Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

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Ads for brands including Adobe, Gilead Sciences, the University of Maryland's football team, New York University Langone Hospital and NCTA-The Internet and Television Association were run alongside tweets from the account that had garnered hundreds of thousands of views, CNN observed.

Spokespeople for NCTA and pharmaceutical company Gilead said that they immediately paused their ad spending on X after CNN flagged their ads on the pro-Nazi account.

Hurricane Hilary has roared toward Mexico's Baja California peninsula as a downgraded, but still dangerous, Category Two hurricane likely to bring "catastrophic" flooding to the region and cross into the southwestern US as a tropical storm.

Meteorologists warned that despite weakening, the storm remained treacherous.

One person has drowned in the Mexican town of Santa Rosalia, on the peninsula's eastern coast, when a vehicle was swept away in an overflowing stream. Rescue workers managed to save four other people, said Edith Aguilar Villavicencio, the mayor of Mulege township.

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It was not immediately clear whether officials considered the fatality related to the hurricane, but video posted by local officials showed torrents of water coursing through the town's streets.

While it's still likely to enter the history books as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, Hilary weakened from a Major Category Three hurricane down to a Category Two storm at midday Saturday local time and is expected to weaken further as it treks northward.

Elizabeth Adams, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service San Diego office, said rain could fall up to 762mm an hour across Southern California's mountains and deserts, from late Sunday morning into the afternoon. The intense rainfall during those hours could cause widespread and life-threatening flash floods.

California Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency, and officials had urged people to finish their preparations before sundown Saturday. It would be too late by Sunday, one expert said.

Courtney Carpenter, a National Weather Service warning coordination meteorologist, said experts forecast flash floods, mudslides, isolated tornadoes and wind damage to Southern California.

Heavy rainfall and strong winds alreading were setting in Saturday, and power outages are expected.

The US National Hurricane Centre issued tropical storm and potential flood warnings for Southern California from the Pacific coast to interior mountains and deserts. The San Bernardino County sheriff on Saturday issued evacuation warnings for several mountain and foothill communities ahead of the storm.

"This is being labeled as historic, life-threatening and potentially catastrophic rainfall for Southern California and a good chunk of the desert Southwest in general," said John Cangialosi, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Centre. "That is because we could see about a year's worth of rain from this event for those regions."

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"Make no mistake: This is a very, very dangerous and significant storm," said Nancy Ward, director of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, during a Saturday news briefing.

Ward said heavy rainfall and strong winds began Saturday, and power outages are expected.

Mexico's Navy evacuated 850 people from islands off the Baja coast, and deployed almost 3000 troops for emergency operations. In Nevada, Governor Joe Lombardo activated 100 Nevada National Guardsmen to provide support in areas that could be impacted by flash floods this weekend.

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Hilary rapidly gained strength Friday, becoming an exceedingly dangerous Category Four Major hurricane with top sustained winds of 230km/h at its peak. And though its maximum sustained winds dropped to 185km/h on Saturday, it still was a very dangerous Major Category Three storm.

By midday Saturday, the storm was centered about 570km south-southeast of Punta Eugenia, one of the westernmost spurs on Mexico's southern Baja peninsula. The hurricane was expected to brush past Punta Eugenia before making landfall along a sparsely populated area of the peninsula about 330km south of the Pacific port city of Ensenada.

It was still 1145km south-southeast of San Diego, California. It was moving north-northwest at 26km/h and was expected to turn more toward the north and pick up speed.

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It is then expected to rake northward up the peninsula, threatening heavy rains and dangerous flooding in the border city of Tijuana, where many homes in the city of 1.9 million cling precariously to steep hillsides.

Mayor Montserrat Caballero Ramirez said the city was setting up four shelters in high-risk zones and warning people to prepare. "We are a vulnerable city, being on one of the most visited borders in the world and because of our landscape," she said.

The US National Park Service closed California's Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve to keep visitors from becoming stranded amid flooding. Cities across the region, including in Nevada and Arizona, offered sandbags to safeguard properties against floodwaters. Major League Baseball rescheduled three Sunday games in Southern California, moving them to Saturday as part of split doubleheaders,

SpaceX delayed the launch of a satellite-carrying rocket from a base on California's central coast until at least Monday. The company said conditions in the Pacific could make it difficult for a ship to recover the rocket booster.

US President Joe Biden said Friday the Federal Emergency Management Agency had pre-positioned staff and supplies in the region. "I urge everyone, everyone in the path of this storm, to take precautions and listen to the guidance of state and local officials," he said.

Deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department took to the road to urge homeless people living in riverbeds to go to shelters, where cots and food were being arranged.

Officials in Southern California were re-enforcing sand berms, built to protect low-lying coastal communities against winter surf, like in Huntington Beach, which dubs itself as "Surf City USA."

In nearby Newport Beach, Tanner Atkinson waited in a line of vehicles for free sandbags at a city distribution point.

"I mean a lot of people here are excited because the waves are gonna get pretty heavy," Atkinson said.

"But I mean, it's gonna be some rain, so usually there's some flooding and the landslides and things like that."

About 100 people sought refuge at storm shelters in the twin resorts of Los Cabos, at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula, and firefighters used an inflatable boat to rescue a family in San Jose del Cabo after the resort was hit by driving rain and wind. In La Paz, the picturesque capital of Baja California Sur state on the Sea of Cortez, police patrolled closed beaches to keep swimmers out of the whipped-up surf.

Forecasters said the storm could bring heavy rainfall to the southwestern United States, dumping 80mm to 150mm in places, with isolated amounts of up to 250mm, in portions of southern California and southern Nevada.

"Two to three inches of rainfall in Southern California is unheard of" for this time of year, said Kristen Corbosiero, a University at Albany atmospheric scientist who specializes in Pacific hurricanes. "That's a whole summer and fall amount of rain coming in probably six to 12 hours."

The region could face once-in-a-century rains and there is a good chance Nevada will break its all-time rainfall record, said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections and a former government in-flight hurricane meteorologist.

Some things just don't belong at the bottom of the ocean. And according to the Santa Barbara County, California, district attorney's office, that includes unpermitted crates of wine.

Agencies in Santa Barbara County destroyed 2000 bottles of wine that were sold by the company Ocean Fathoms, the office of the county's district attorney announced last week. Starting in 2017, the company was sinking crates full of bottles without obtaining a proper permit from the California Coastal Commission and US Army Corps of Engineers.

The crates of wine were submerged about 6km off the Santa Barbara Harbor under 21 metres of water, according to a 2021 complaint from the California Coastal Commission.

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The bottles were left to ferment for a year, after which they were plucked from the "environmentally sensitive" waters and sold for up to US$500 ($784) each. Ocean Fathoms lauded the sea floor off the Southern California coast as the perfect environment to age wine — 12 degrees, no oxygen, no light and rolling currents.

The bottles' destruction was part of a plea agreement involving two owners, Emanuele Azzaretto and Todd Hahn. They pleaded no contest, according to Deputy District Attorney Morgan Lucas, to misdemeanours of illegally discharging material into waters of the US, selling alcohol without a license and aiding and abetting investor fraud.

Azzaretto and Hahn are also required to pay US$50,000 ($78,405) in restitution to one of their investors, according to the DA.

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CNN has reached out to Ocean Fathoms, Azzaretto and Hahn for comment.

The California Coastal Commission also expressed concern about the bottles themselves, which were adorned with various sea creatures that attached themselves to the glass during the aging process.

Ocean Fathoms highlighted the creatures on its website, writing, "sea life that attaches to our bottle is the ultimate in nature's packaging. Each bottle is adorned with barnacles, coral, sea shells and ornate hard shelled tubes formed by annelida sea worms."

The commission, however, described the sea life in its 2021 complaint as "collateral damage of your unpermitted operation" as they "do not appear to have survived the journey to the surface."

Santa Barbara County District Attorney John Savrnoch claimed that "nearly every aspect" of the business operation violated some sort of federal or state law.

The US Food and Drug Administration did not consider the wine to be fit for human consumption because of potential ocean contamination and because it lacked federally approved labeling, the DA's office said.

Other missing business operating fundamentals, according to authorities: an ABC alcohol sales permit, a valid business license and tax payments to the State of California (the company did collect sales tax from customers, the DA said).

Authorities disposed of the alcohol at a local wastewater treatment plant and recycled the bottles, the DA said.