This is the fourth case of meningococcal disease in Canterbury this year.

The man was drunk at the time and claimed he was lonely.

An Aussie farm has started tracking its chickens' steps to make sure people know how "free and healthy" their chooks really are.

The chickens at Honest Eggs Co near Castlemaine in Victoria are fitted with a 'FitChix' tracker to count their steps, which works similarly to the fitness watches popular with people.

Data shows the farm's chooks walk an average of over 21,000 steps in 12 hours – which is almost three times more than the average Australian. 

READ MORE: Australia's housing prices slump as rental values skyrocket

Honest Eggs use regenerative egg farming, which means their hens are moved every week to fresh pasture.

Co-founder Paul Righetti said the data gives consumers clarity about how active the chickens are, as well as helping farmers understand how they behave.

"We want to change egg farming for the better. In the past there has been some confusion about the industry," Righetti said.

READ MORE: Melbourne hospital systems back online after IT outage

"We want Australians to know that with regenerative farm eggs, you are purchasing both award-winning eggs while also supporting the natural regeneration of farming land."

'FitChix' branded egg cartons will be available to purchase in all supermarkets across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT from March 13.

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The United States Air Force has released new images of its advanced nuclear stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider.

The aircraft, capable of carrying nuclear and conventional weapons, has been developed by the air force and US aviation manufacturer Northrop Grumman.

It will form the backbone of the future for US air power in the decades ahead.

READ MORE: China 'sabre-rattling' of concern but no evidence of war threat: expert

The aircraft was unveiled to much fanfare in December 2022, the first time in more than 30 years a new US bomber has been publicly launched.

Pentagon officials said this week the Raider is scheduled to begin test flights later this year.

"The B-21, which we rolled out just a few months ago, will be the centrepiece for our Global Strike family of systems," US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said at an industry event in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday.

"The B-21 is projected to begin flight tests later this calendar year. Our goal is to get into production as quickly as possible with acceptable concurrency risk … overlapping some testing production."

Northrop Grumman said last year the Raider will help American pilots "penetrate the toughest defences for precision strikes anywhere in the world."

READ MORE: AUKUS nuclear submarines deal 'to create more than 10,000 jobs'

Six bombers are currently under production, the company said.

After adjustments for inflation, the cost of each aircraft, including training materials, support equipment and other components of the bomber, is US$692 million ($1.1 billion), according to an estimate last year.

The US Air Force plans to purchase at least 100 of the stealth bombers.

The US Congressional Budget Office estimated the aircraft will cost $1.2 trillion (A$1.77 trillion) through to 2046.

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Australian property values have seen their largest decline on record while rental values continue to climb amid low vacancies, according to new data.

CoreLogic has revealed home values dropped by 7.9 per cent in the past year and as interest rates continue to rise, the slump may not be over yet.

"The combined value of residential real estate in Australia rose to $9.3 trillion at the end of February, from $9.2 trillion in the previous month but well below the peak of $10 trillion in April 2022," Corelogic's head of research Eliza Owen said.

READ MORE: Fresh blow for Aussies as power bill surge on the horizon

But even though property prices have plummeted in the past year, the rate of decline has slowed over the past month.

It's not all bad news across Australia as regional South Australian properties trended upwards, by 13.2 per cent, in the past 12 months.

It was also welcome news for potential homebuyers in the often unreachable Sydney market, with home values decreasing by 13.4 per cent.

It comes as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) hiked interest rates for the 10th consecutive time to 3.6 per cent as the central bank battles inflation.

READ MORE: Scientists revive 'zombie' virus that spent 48,500 years frozen

Yesterday, RBA Governor Philip Lowe flagged there may be a pause in interest rate rises in the near future as inflation begins to respond to the monetary policy tightening.

But his message was echoed in the Corelogic data released today: the property market is slumping in response to fiscal tightening.

"Housing prices have also been declining, although it is difficult to determine the effect of this on spending as there had earlier been a large run-up in prices," he said during the Australian Financial Review's Business Summit.

READ MORE: How young NSW gambler hit rock bottom but bounced back

It's not just property values that have been impacted in the past 12 months, with rent values also skyrocketing.

"Annual growth in rent values held steady on the previous month in February, at 10.1 per cent," Owen said.

"Annual growth in Australian rent values was 10.2 per cent in the 12 months to December, a record high.

"The most rapid annual rise is evident in unit rents across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where rents have increased around 14 to 17 per cent annually."

READ MORE: Germany cautious over Nord Stream pipeline attack reports

It is indicative of the struggles Australians are facing with the rental market with low vacancies and high prices.

Lowe also emphasised the supply and demand dilemma for renters.

"Rents are also rising rapidly, with rental vacancy rates at very low levels in many parts of the country," Lowe said.

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An Auckland woman said she is unable to pay her bills after eight lots of $278 (NZ$300) – a total of $2225 – were deducted from her bank account for 'Skycouches' on Air New Zealand flights she is not booked on.

Emily Cordwell had booked return flights for her family to London over the upcoming winter and needed to change the return journeys due to work commitments, which could only be done by calling the airline.

After waiting on hold for three-and-a-half hours last Thursday, she was told she could either pay $2780 extra to move the flights or put them into credit.

READ MORE: Fresh blow for Aussies as power bill surge on the horizon

Needing to discuss the situation with her husband, she said she would have to call back – leading to a four-hour wait on hold that evening.

"I was walking around with the phone while putting my kids to bed, cooking dinner. It was just ridiculous," she said.

When she finally got though, her nearly $11,127 worth of flights were put into credit so she could book new ones. She thought the problem had been solved but, looking back, said "that's where they really started".

Finding new flights on the Air New Zealand website, she went through the booking process, opted to pay for them using her credit, and agreed for her credit card to be charged $278 for a Skycouch, which is used to turn a row of economy seats into a "couch" after take-off.

She then received an error message saying the fares or flights she had selected were no longer available as they had been sold out since she made her selection, and that her payment had not been processed.

She tried to book the flights four more times, but received the same message on each occasion.

After trying twice more the following morning, she checked her bank account online and was "shocked" to find that $278 had been deducted from her account eight times for the Skycouches, plus $315 in fees.

While the $2540 transactions show as pending on her bank account, they have been deducted from her balance, leaving her more than $742 overdrawn and unable to pay for things, including bills.

An Air New Zealand spokesperson said Cordwell's initial Skycouch booking likely failed because the flights she had selected were no longer available.

"This can happen when partner airlines are included in the booking – there can be a slight delay in the back end to update availability. The website then invited them to try again – which the customer did, multiple times. Each time the customer attempted to book – and it failed – an authentication request was taken."

The spokesperson said the authentication requests were immediately reversed when the booking failed, meaning Air New Zealand is not holding the money.

"Authentication requests usually take about a week to drop off a credit card on their own," she said, adding that this is the case for New Zealand cards, but not necessarily for UK-issued cards like Cordwell's.

"We understand this isn't an ideal scenario and we're sorry this customer is currently experiencing this," she said.

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READ MORE: How young NSW gambler hit rock bottom but bounced back

Cordwell said she had contacted her bank about the situation and been told that she needed to sort it out with Air New Zealand.

She had opted to receive a call-back from Air New Zealand on Friday, and said she received a voicemail from a staff member at about 1pm saying "hello" a couple of times before hanging up.

"And they never tried to call me again. So I got on the phone to them again on Friday afternoon and I spent four hours on hold while I picked the kids up from school, cooked the dinner, all that kind of stuff."

When she was giving the kids a bath, she accidentally ended the call.

"I actually cried at that point because I'd had all that money taken out, I had no flights, and I'd been on the phone for 12 hours at that point. I just couldn't believe it."

When she tried again at about 5.30am on Saturday morning, getting through after an hour, she said a "helpful" staff member offered to research flights for her and call her back.

Later that day, the staff member rang to say she had found suitable flights, and Cordwell booked them with her over the phone, attracting a $222 fee for doing so.

Cordwell said the staff member was unable to help Cordwell with the Skycouch transactions, telling her they would take drop off her account within eight to 10 business days.

"But what am I supposed to do for the 10 days?", Cordwell asked. "I am overdrawn and being charged overdraft fees. How am I supposed to pay for things?"

READ MORE: Scientists revive 'zombie' virus that spent 48,500 years frozen

This article first appeared on Stuff and is republished here with permission.

The Optus boss claims none of the customers who had their data breached has fallen victim to misuse of their exposed details.

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin told the Australian Financial Review's Business Summit the premeditated and "highly motivated" attack shouldn't have breached the company's defences.

"But given how inevitable these types of attacks are, I'm relieved we were able to act fast to ensure that ultimately the data that was exposed was not successfully used to harm any customers," she said.

READ MORE: Uber to issue refunds after surge pricing fury amid Sydney train chaos

Nearly 10 million Australians had personal data exposed in the hack last October but 2.8 million of those were seriously impacted with passport, drivers licence and Medicare numbers breached.

But despite the large number of customers impacted, Bayer Rosmarin claimed no customers had fallen victim to the misuse of their data.

"Not a single customer has suffered any financial loss or fallen victim to a crime through misuse of the data," she said.

"This outcome should reassure all of us about what a strong and fast and collaborative response can achieve."

Optus is facing class action complaints following the breach and several government reviews.

The hack was one of many late last year, including health insurer Medibank, and sparked the federal government to introduce heft fines for major corporations who are subject to serious or repeated breaches.

READ MORE: Multiple Melbourne hospitals hit by IT outage

Bayer Rosmarin claims the telco did everything it could to protect customers and be transparent about the hack.

"We were being transparent, open and honest. We were apologetic and accountable," she said.

"We did more than any other company in a cyberattack before had done, and we did it much quicker.

She said the company sent out 16 million customer communications with 110 bespoke messages for different cohorts.

"There were a couple of messages that, when you read them, you thought: 'Oh, this looks like it's been written by someone who hasn't slept in four days'," she said.

"So I wish every single one of those 110 communications had been to our usual level of quality."

READ MORE: China 'sabre-rattling' of concern but no evidence of threat of war

Bayer Rosmarin added the telco is looking towards the future and implementing further protections to their cyber security.

She said the company has introduced a bug bounty program and is undergoing cyber-attack simulations.

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A report claiming Australia faced a potential war with China within three years has been branded as "scaremongering" by an expert on international relations.

James Curran, a professor of modern history at Sydney University and a former federal government adviser, spoke with 9news.com.au after The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers published a special report under the headline "Red Alert: War risk exposed".

READ MORE: Chinese minister warns China, US on course for conflict

The report was based on the findings of five national security experts, who in a joint statement said they believed Australia "faces the prospect of armed conflict in the Indo-Pacific within three years", and the nation was unprepared for such a war.

It also pointed to a move by China against the self-governing territory of Taiwan as a potential trigger for conflict involving China, the US and its allies such as Australia.

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of the mainland and China's President Xi Jinping has said he would never rule out the use of force to achieve "reunification".

But Curran said there was no evidence from authoritative sources supporting the claim of a potential war by 2026, or that the federal government was blind to the potential threat from China.

The "Red Alert" findings were based on "the crudest type of realism that ironically could potentially bring on the war no one wants to see", Curran said.

READ MORE: China to increase defence spending 7.2 per cent

But he stressed Australia must recognise rising Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific as a potential threat and did not back any form of "appeasement" to Beijing.

"The sabre-rattling by Xi in Beijing is of concern," Curran said.

"And any war between China and the US would have disastrous consequences for East Asia."

His comments come as the federal government prepares its response to a landmark defence strategic review by the former Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston and the former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith.

The government response is due next month before the May federal budget that is expected to include a rise in defence spending.

On the diplomatic front, Australia has worked to rebuild more stable relations with China, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meeting XI on the sidelines of a G20 summit late last year and Foreign Minister Penny Wong holding a series of meetings with her Chinese counterparts.

READ MORE: The Aussies being warned of a $100,000 financial blow

Curran said the Albanese government working for more stable relations, while striving to improve Australia's defence capability, had unsettled some "hawkish" commentators.

"There is bi-partisan consensus that Australia wants to ramp up the nation's defences," Curran said.

"Albanese has said there is no way Australia will not increase defence spending." 

Curran also said Australia had a role to play in encouraging Washington and Beijing to resolve their issues, particularly over Taiwan.

"There is a role for statecraft and developing guard rails against conflict … things like (former prime minister) Kevin Rudd has put forward," he said.

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For those battling addiction, rock bottoms can come in different forms.

Jordyn Bateman, 28, hit his while collecting empty cans for 10 cents a pop so he could go and play one of the 86,000 pokie machines scattered around New South Wales.

After 10 years of losing on the pokies, as the gambling machines are known in Australia, the painter from the Central Coast was broke.

Whatever wages came into Bateman's pocket were going straight back out.

"I'd lose a lot," he said.

"And then I'd have to borrow money from friends and family," he added, describing to 9news.com.au the demoralising cycle familiar to all problem gamblers.

"I was even crushing cans. You know, how you get 10 cents from the cans?

"It got to a stage where I was doing that.

"Then I sort of realised, 'What am I doing?'"

Bateman was 18 the first time he played the machines, just as he was able to go into pubs and legally buy a beer.

Inside, it didn't take long for a bank of pokies to capture his attention.

He dropped in some cash, and so it began. Slowly at first.

"It's pretty easy to just go and do," is how he remembered it.

He had some wins early on.

"It wasn't a lot. But it definitely hooked me in."

Last year The Washington Post reflected on the omnipresence of pokies across Australia, and especially in NSW.

The ubiquity of pokies has become normal in Australia; not so for international visitors.

The paper reported Australia has less than half-a-per cent of the world's population but 20 per cent of its pokies – and 80 per cent of those located outside casinos.

There are around 86,000 electronic gaming machines (EGMs) in NSW, so it's little surprise Bateman found himself reeled in.

According to a 2017 government report looking at the risks of EGMs, one of the key findings was that the machines have computers which run "sophisticated techniques, designed to maximise spending and time on device per user".

The report said the EGMs very successfully employ complex "game maths" and "psychological principals" to maximise bet sizes and usage.

"These characteristics have the effect of increasing the addictive potential of EGMs," it warned.

Bateman began to spend hours playing.

Where he was once gambling on trips to the pub with friends, he was soon playing on his own.

It had become a secret.

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Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have announced that their daughter was christened in a private ceremony in California, publicly calling her a princess and revealing for the first time that they will use royal titles for their children.

Princess Lilibet Diana, who turns two in June, was baptised on Friday by the Archbishop of Los Angeles, the Rev John Taylor, Harry and Meghan said in a statement. Lilibet's title and that of her brother, Archie, who will be four in May, will be updated on the Buckingham Palace website later.

The announcement marked the first time that the children's titles had been used in public.

READ MORE: Victims fight for stake of Sydney fraudster's multi-million dollar assets

The question of the children's titles took centre stage two years ago during Harry and Meghan's television interview with Oprah Winfrey. Meghan, who is biracial, said that when she was pregnant with Archie "they" — presumably the palace — "were saying they didn't want him to be a prince … which would be different from protocol."

Meghan suggested that this was because Archie was the royal family's "first member of colour" and would have marked the first time a royal grandchild wasn't given the same title as the other grandchildren.

At the time, royal experts said Meghan's comments appeared to be based on a misunderstanding of the way royal titles are conferred.

Titles are conferred in line with a decree issued by King George V in 1917 that limits the titles of prince and princess to the male-line grandchildren of the sovereign.

READ MORE: Angela has never met a female colleague in 38 years on the job

As long as the late Queen Elizabeth II was alive, Harry and his older brother, Prince William, were the sovereign's grandchildren. Harry and William's children, as great grandchildren, didn't receive the titles automatically.

But Elizabeth had the power to amend the rules, and in 2012 she decreed that the children of Prince William and his wife, Catherine, would be princes and princesses. This decree didn't apply to Harry and Meghan.

However, the situation changed when King Charles III ascended the throne on the death of his mother last September. William and Harry are the king's sons, meaning their offspring are now royal grandchildren and so entitled to be known as prince and princess.

Nonetheless, they have remained a plain "master" and "miss" on the Buckingham Palace website for the past six months.