Fish landed on final day clinches Northland, and world’s, biggest surfcasting competition.

A man has been charged after allegedly obtaining more than $34,000 in a text message scam in Melbourne.

Police arrested the 27-year-old man at a property in Drinkwater Crescent, Sunshine West about 8.20pm last night.

The man was charged five counts of obtaining property by deception in relation to five alleged incidents that occurred between July and November 2022.

READ MORE: A tech expert played along with a scam. Here's what he found

In February, Australians are estimated to have lost $43,525,916 to scams, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) Scamwatch.

The predominate delivery method for scams is text messages. Nearly 27,000 people have reported text messages scams since the start of the year, with $6,757,758 lost.

Email and phone calls are also among the popular scam delivery methods.

READ MORE: Slip of the tongue proves surprise scope of Labor's NSW victory

The Sunshine West man was bailed to appear at Sunshine Magistrates' Court on September 21.

More information can be found on current scams can be found on the federal government's Scamwatch website here.

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

Italian authorities are searching for a man who jumped off a three-story building into a canal in Venice on Thursday.

Calling the man an "idiot", Venice's Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a Twitter post that he would give the man a "certificate of stupidity and a lot of kicks" for the act, which has gone viral on social media.

The mayor also added a video of the dive on his account, saying that the man and his accomplice who took the video will be arrested.

READ MORE: Putin says Russia will station tactical nukes in Belarus

In the video, the person, wearing only boxer shorts, can be seen jumping from a building rooftop into a canal, landing on his belly.

"We are trying to identify him, to report him, him and his buddy below who made the stupid video for social media," Brugnaro said.

The mayor also said he sent police to the building to determine how the man was able to enter the private residential building and how he was able to get to the rooftop.

"He risked his life in that jump, but he is also a delinquent. They don't understand the danger they create in this city. What if a boat would have been passing below?"

Brugnaro urged anyone who has seen the video to help identify the person – who he referred to as a tourist — but not to "like" the video on social media.

"They do these stupid things on social for the likes," the mayor said, adding that "we will use the law to prosecute him."

READ MORE: Labor wins NSW election after big swing against Coalition government

The jump is just the latest account of people behaving badly in Italy, especially those visiting.

Last year, more than 40 tourists were arrested for swimming (sometimes nude) in Venice canals and one man was arrested for surfing down the Grand Canal.

Elsewhere, an American tourist was fined for causing US$25,000 (AU$37,583) worth of damage after throwing her e-scooter down the Spanish Steps in Rome.

A Saudi tourist was fined after he drove a rented Maserati down the Spanish Steps.

READ MORE: 'I take full responsibility': Dominic Perrottet steps down

Another tourist drove a car down the pedestrian only Ponte Vecchio in Florence and another took a joyride on a moped through the ruins of Pompeii.

Other tourists smashed statues in the Vatican museum.

Tourists have also been fined for carving initials in landmarks, stealing chunks of the colosseum in Rome and making off with everything from mosaics to fingers from the country's world class monuments and museums.

At least 24 people were killed, dozens injured and four missing after powerful storms and at least one tornado pummelled Mississippi, USA on Friday night, ripping roofs off homes, nearly leveling some neighbourhoods and knocking out power for thousands, officials said.

The greater storm system is pushing east on Saturday morning.

US President Joe Biden spoke with officials after the deadly tornadoes, and said he's "praying for those who have lost loved ones in the devastating tornadoes in Mississippi and for those whose loved ones are missing."

READ MORE: Anti-trans activist Posie Parker leaves NZ after chaotic rally

Biden also pledged to "focus our federal support where it is needed most quickly," in the statement.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has issued a State of Emergency in all counties affected by the severe storms, according to a release.

"I'm devastated by the destruction and loss of life that these storms have caused," Reeves said.

He promised that the state of Mississippi would do everything to send resources to those in need and help them rebuild.

READ MORE: Labor wins NSW election after big swing against Coalition government

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a tweet that his department will "provide support to the impacted communities" in Mississippi through FEMA.

Mayorkas has spoken to Reeves, Mississippi Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith and Rep. Bennie Thompson about the storm response.

"The loss will be felt in these towns forever. Please pray for God's hand to be over all who lost family and friends," Reeves tweeted.

"We have numerous local and state search and rescue teams that continue to work this morning. A number of assets are on the ground to assist those that have been impacted," the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.

READ MORE: 'I take full responsibility': Dominic Perrottet steps down

Search-and-rescue efforts for storm victims began after a confirmed tornado struck the towns of Silver City and Rolling Fork, the latter of which was described by one resident as obliterated.

Rolling Fork, Mississippi, a town of fewer than 2,000 residents who live under the constant threat of flooding, was claimed by the Blues singer Muddy Waters as his hometown.

Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker says his "city is gone."

"Rescue efforts are happening as we speak," the mayor told CNN on Saturday morning.

The tornado was moving at 80km/h when it was located over the town just after 8pm CT (12pm Saturday AEDT), the National Weather Service said.

https://twitter.com/NWSJacksonMS/status/1639445617108983809?s=20

Many buildings and houses in the city were leveled by the storm, according to Walker. "There are some structures that have been left – some are not as damaged as others," he said.

"We're going to come back strong. Houses that are torn up can be replaced," said Walker, who urged residents to stay in place as rescue teams continue to canvas the area.

"I've never seen anything like this," Brandy Showah told CNN. "This was a very great small town, and now it's gone."

At least 13 deaths were recorded roughly 96 kilometres northwest of Jackson in hard-hit Sharkey County, home to Rolling Fork, according to county coroner Angelia Easton.

Three others were killed and at least two people are in critical condition in Humphreys County, emergency management director Royce Steed told CNN early on Saturday morning.

In Carroll County, three people died in one home, coroner Mark Stiles told CNN, adding that it appears they were killed in a tornado.

Additionally, two people were killed in Monroe County in northeastern Mississippi, coroner Alan Gurley said.

The tornado damaged homes and buildings, gutted trees and tore down power lines in the area, Showah told CNN.

Showah's grandmother's home suffered roof damage and its air conditioners were ripped out, Showah said, but her grandmother is safe.

Most of the trees in her grandmother's yard have been downed, including one that her grandfather planted 50 years ago.

"My friend was trapped in her home a few houses down, but we got her out," Showah said, adding that there are still people who live next to her grandmother trapped in their homes.

She said all the power in her grandmother's area has been knocked out.

The severe storms cut a ruinous path across the region, trapping people in their homes and knocking out power in Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Downed trees and storm debris litter and blocked roads.

Homes and buildings were nearly leveled, with household appliances, furniture and clothes lying where the walls or roofs of homes once stood, videos from the scene show.

The same "large and destructive" tornado was also confirmed near the community of Coila, according to the National Weather Service, which issued a tornado emergency – the most dangerous type of tornado warning – in Rolling Fork, Silver City and nearby Anguilla.

https://twitter.com/NWStornado/status/1639440523277783040?s=20

There have been at least 11 tornado reports across Mississippi and Alabama over the last 24 hours, according to the Storm Prediction Centre. These reports include the storm that impacted Rolling Fork, Silver City and Winona in Mississippi.

It's still unclear whether the destruction is the result of one long-tracked tornado or multiple tornadoes.

Power knocked out across parts of three states

In response to the desolation in Mississippi, the state has activated its medical support efforts, including additional ambulances and other emergency resources for those affected by the onslaught of deadly storms, Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted late on Friday.

"Search and rescue is active," Reeves wrote. "Many in the MS Delta need your prayer and God's protection tonight."

Tornadoes or severe storms that occur at night have the greatest potential to be dangerous because people are less likely to be notified in time if they're asleep.

The threat of storms persisted overnight for certain areas across northern Alabama and middle Tennessee, which faced tornado watches and warnings early Saturday.

The storms knocked out power for more than 83,000 homes and businesses across Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee as of 8.50am ET (11.50pm AEDT), with more than 47,000 outages reported in Tennessee alone, according to tracking site PowerOutage.us.

In Morgan County, Alabama, storm debris stretched for about a mile, according to a tweet from the county's sheriff's office.

First responders rescued seven people who were trapped at a group home as trees and power lines collapsed on homes, the sheriff's office said. The agency also responded to an overturned trailer and an overturned camper with persons trapped inside.

South braces for weekend of storms

The main threats Saturday will be damaging winds and isolated tornadoes as the storm pushes off the East Coast by the evening.

On Sunday, a Level 2 out of 5 risk is in place across portions of the South for another round of severe storms that will bring damaging winds, isolated tornadoes, and severe hail to the area.

The areas impacted will include Montgomery in Alabama, Jackson in Mississippi, and Columbus and Macon in Georgia.

Flooding could also pose a threat across portions of the South as an additional 50mm – 100mm of rain is possible through Sunday.

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans on Saturday to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring Belarus, a warning to the West as it steps up military support for Ukraine.

Putin said he was responding to Britain's decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.

The Russian leader earlier made a false claim that the rounds have nuclear components.

READ MORE: Labor wins NSW election after big swing against Coalition government

He subsequently toned down his language, but insisted in a state television interview broadcast Saturday night that the ammunition posed an additional danger to both troops and civilians in Ukraine.

Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield, unlike more powerful, longer-range strategic nuclear weapons. Russia plans to maintain control over the ones it plans to Belarus, and construction of storage facilities for them will be completed by July 1, Putin said.

Putin didn't say how many nuclear weapons Russia would keep in Belarus.

The US government believes Russia has about 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, which include bombs that can be carried by tactical aircraft, warheads for short-range missiles and artillery rounds.

READ MORE: 'I take full responsibility': Dominic Perrottet steps down

In his interview, Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the United States, noting that the US has nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

"We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the launch platforms and training their crews," Putin said.

"We are going to do the same thing."

Russia has stored its tactical nuclear weapons at dedicated depots on its territory, and moving part of the arsenal to a storage facility in Belarus would up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict by placing them closer to the Russian aircraft and missiles already stationed there.

Some hawkish commentators in Russia long have urged the Kremlin to put the tactical nuclear weapons close to the weapons to send a signal to the West about the readiness to use them.

READ MORE: Tornadoes tear through US state killing over 20 people

Putin said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long asked for the nuclear weapons as a counter to NATO.

Belarus shares borders with three NATO members — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — and Russia used its territory as a staging ground to send troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Putin noted that Russia helped modernise Belarusian military aircraft last year to make them capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

He said 10 such planes were ready to go. He said nuclear weapons also could be launched by the Iskander short-range missiles that Russia provided to Belarus last year.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is living in exile, said the agreement to transfer the tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus "underlines the threat to regional security" from Lukashenko's regime.

"Europe won't be safe until Belarus dictator is removed & brought before tribunal to face justice for crimes against our country & Ukraine," Tsikhanouskaya wrote in English on Twitter.

While discussing in his state TV interview the depleted uranium rounds that Britain promised to ship to Ukraine, Putin charged the ammunition would leave a radioactive trace and contaminate agricultural land.

"Those weapons are harmful not just for combatants, but also for the people living in those territories and for the environment," he said.

Putin added that Russia has vast stockpiles of similar ammunition but so far has refrained from using them.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The rounds can't generate a nuclear reaction but they do emit low levels of radiation. The UN nuclear watchdog has warned of the possible dangers of exposure.

Such rounds were developed by the US during the Cold War to destroy Soviet tanks, including the same T-72 tanks that Ukraine now faces in its push to break through a stalemate in the east.

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

Water is the lifeblood of every community around the world. But a sustainable, clean supply for drinking, hygiene and farming is not guaranteed for hundreds of millions of people.

Losing money to an internet-based scam has long since moved beyond an uncommon scenario reserved for vulnerable people who fall into not-so-sophisticated traps.

Scammers are constantly evolving as new technology develops with more highly educated Australians falling for their tricks.

A variation of the multi-million-dollar "wrong number" text scam has been sweeping the US, with scammers developing long elaborate narratives to emotionally manipulate and trick people into making fake cryptocurrency investments.

READ MORE: The 'pig butchering' romance scam that cost a Sydney woman $46k

This type of scam is also known as "pig butchering", based on a Chinese phrase to fatten a pig up before harvesting it.

Sean Gallagher, a US-based cybersecurity researcher at Sophos, received one of the texts himself and engaged with a scammer for about three months to see how elaborate the scheme would be.

The wrong number text scam

The scammer, named "Harley", first sent Gallagher a text which read: "Hey Jane are you still in Boston?"

Gallagher played along, replying: "sorry wrong # (number)".

The scammer continued to engage Gallagher in conversation, suggesting the mistake was "fate" before asking to be his friend.

Gallagher played into the narrative, telling Harley he was "over 50 and living alone".

He also told the scammer he was a security researcher but "they just kept rolling with it".

Over three months, Harley sent photos, videos and claimed to run a winery in Canada.

She told Gallagher an emotional story about her husband cheating and leaving when she was pregnant with their first child.

Harley later told Gallagher her business was struggling because of COVID-19 but she was now wealthy because her aunt taught her how to make money using cryptocurrency.

After months of Harley building an emotional relationship, the scammer began pressuring Gallagher into investing in cryptocurrency.

Gallagher eventually accused Harley of trying to scam him but before giving up the game, tracked the scammers through their cryptocurrency accounts and found they had stolen about $US3 million ($4.4 million).

READ MORE: Snake myths busted and, in one case, verified

Pig butchering scams

The "wrong number" text scam is a type of pig butchering scam, often used on dating apps.

Gallagher said many scams use an "urgent call to action", which might involve receiving a text impersonating a company claiming you have an outstanding fine.

"They are scaring you… there's something that you need to immediately act on, to prevent yourself from losing money or whatever," he explained.

Gallagher said with pig butchering, there was "no urgency".

"They are in it for a very long time as we demonstrated in this case," he said.

"They use the whole process of building a relationship and building trust to erode away any sort of inkling you might have … that something is amiss by just the length of engagements."

He said the quick scams often asked for smaller amounts but the longer scams targeted more money.

"They assume that if they have you on the hook, they will be able to manipulate you emotionally and they will play to your sense of expertise to make you feel confident about the situation," he said.

"And that you will fall for it because they are treating you like you are smart but they're treating you also like you're an idiot."

EXPLAINED: What should you do if you drop your phone in water?

He said scammers were often getting smart people who had "good critical thinking skills".

"People who fall for these things end up in situations where they're either entering the dating market or they've been isolated from friends," Gallagher said.

"They're looking for social contact and are more susceptible or amenable to a random person reaching out to them to form an emotional relationship, whether it's friendship, or a business relationship or romantic relationship."

How do the scammers operate?

Gallagher used the conversations to track "Harley", who he quickly worked out to be a team of scammers working from Cambodia while using a woman to front the conversations.

The team was connected to another operation in China, which Gallagher said was using cryptocurrency to launder money.

Gallagher and his team worked out the operation had scammed the $US3 million after tracking the crypto wallets the scammers sent him to transfer funds into.

"Tracing those wallets, we found the amount of currency over a period from October to when we ended the research that $US3 million worth of crypto had been pushed through those wallets."

READ MORE: Sydney couple scammed out of $100,000 in just two hours

How to spot a pig butchering scam

New technologies are making it more difficult to spot scammers as it's easier to create fake identifications.

Gallagher said the easiest way to spot a scammer was if they asked to continue a conversation on another app, especially Whatsapp or Telegram.

"Every aspect of WhatsApp can be faked," he said.

"The reason they do that is to prevent fraud from entering into conversations, so they move off to an encrypted conversation to prevent interception."

READ MORE: Your landlord has just slugged you with a huge rent increase – what can you do now?

As for other text scams, Gallagher said people should "generally suspicious of any text message that comes in".

"You're not going to get a text out of the blue," he said.

He said to always check the source of the message – for example, whether it was sent from an email address or an international number.

More than $4 billion was lost to scammers by Australians last year and that figure is continuing to grow, according to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC).

More information can be found on current scams can be found on the federal government's Scamwatch website here.

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

The early numbers rolling in paint a picture of an uphill battle for the NSW Liberal Party.

Napier Tech Old Boys lost just one match last year. They started with 10 tries.

Peace and prosperity are the expectations of all parties said Mahuta.