Supermarkets giant Foodstuffs is trialling facial recognition technology across its North Island stores as the rates of theft, burglary, robbery and other crimes in supermarkets continue to soar.The chain said the move was an attempt…

Australia's top consumer advocate body has accused three major retailers of misleading customers about their rights to a refund, replacement or repair.

Choice undertook a "mystery shop" of 80 Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys stores across Australia ahead of the upcoming Black Friday sales.

They found that 71 per cent of stores provided misleading information on a consumer's rights if their product broke beyond the warranty period.

READ MORE: Popular Bunnings gardening product recalled across Australia

And 91 per cent reportedly tried to sell poor-value extended warranties that often don't provide much more cover than is guaranteed under Australian consumer law.

"We were shocked by the results of our mystery shop of Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys," Choice editorial director Marg Rafferty said.

"Consumer guarantees mean retailers must help customers if a product breaks within a reasonable period of time – even if the manufacturer's warranty has expired.

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"When we asked about consumer rights outside the manufacturer's warranty period, stores tried to sell us extended warranties, which are not much more than a sneaky sales tactic designed to squeeze more money from concerned customers."

While it is illegal for retailers to breach consumer guarantees, currently there are no fines for breaking this law.

"Without fines for doing the wrong thing, too many businesses are getting away with telling consumers they'll be denied their right to a repair, replacement or refund when something goes wrong with a product or service," Rafferty said.

JB Hi-Fi chose not to comment on the report when contacted by nine.com.au.

Harvey Norman and The Good Guys have also been contacted for a response.

Choice's top tips for Black Friday shoppers

• Consumer guarantees mean your product should last for a reasonable period and if it doesn't, you'll be entitled to either a replacement, repair or refund.
• The retailer is obliged to help you if a product you purchased from them becomes faulty within a reasonable period of time – they can't just fob you off to the manufacturer.
• Consider if you're actually getting any bang for your buck with extended warranties. Most extended warranties are poor value, and you're better off using your existing consumer rights.

An x-ray captured a shocking find inside luggage at John F. Kennedy International Airport in the US.

The Transportation Security Administration posted photos of an x-ray of a bag with a live cat trapped inside.

If it hadn't been for the x-ray alerting officers to the stowaway, the cat would have been on a flight from New York to Florida.

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"We're letting the cat out of the bag on a hiss-toric find," the TSA said in a Facebook post.

"This CATch had our baggage screening officers at John F. Kennedy International Airport – JFK saying, "Come on meow"!"

TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said an officer was "shocked" to find the orange cat inside the checked bag.

READ MORE: State of the Climate 2022 report findings

"Traveller said the cat belonged to someone else in his household," Farbstein said.

"On the bright side, the cat's out of the bag and safely back home."

A Malaysian national who made up refugee stories and lied to Immigration in claims for asylum has been convicted on immigration fraud charges at the Auckland District Court.Nurul Syahirah Binti Noor Azman, 30, was found guilty…

Australia's seventh biannual State of the Climate report has been released by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and the CSIRO today.

Unsurprisingly amid a La Niña summer, the 2022 report has found "changes to weather and climate extremes are happening at an increased pace across Australia".

The report, which draws on climate monitoring information, found an increase in extreme heat events, intense heavy rainfall, longer fire seasons and sea level rises.

READ MORE: Mass power outages loom as SA premier warns of floods through to 2023

The Bureau of Meteorology's Dr Karl Braganza says the report warns of increases in air temperatures, more heat extremes and fewer cold extremes in coming decades.

"Australia's climate has warmed on average by 1.47 degrees since 1910," Dr Braganza, manager of Climate Environmental Prediction Services, said in a statement.

READ MORE: Wild winds send tree crashing into cars at Melbourne train station

The report also found – as many states have experienced this year – that heavy rainfall events are becoming more intense and shows the number of short-duration heavy rainfall events is expected to increase in the future.

"We've seen contrasting rainfall trends across the north and the south of the country.

"There's been an overall decline in rainfall between April and October across southern Australia in recent decades, but in northern Australia, rainfall has increased across the region since the 1970s."

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the report was "sobering reading".

"Australia is experiencing climate change now, with impacts being felt by many communities, ecosystems and industry sectors," Plibersek said.

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"We believe the science. We've already legislated our 43 per cent emissions reduction target and are investing in transforming our energy systems."

Despite the recent inundation across multiple states, the State of the Climate report found that there's been a ten per cent decrease in April to October rainfall across the country's south-east since the late '90s.

READ MORE: Popular gardening product recalled from Bunnings stores across Australia

And they also found there's been a decrease in the number of tropical cyclones in the Australian region.

Snow and snow depth across alpine regions has also been found to be in decline since the late 1950s. 

While on the opposite end of the scale, the fire season has similarly extended across the country in recent decades and is set to continue doing so, going forward.

"We're expecting to see longer fire seasons in the future for the south and east, and an increase in the number of dangerous fire weather days," Dr Braganza said.

Meanwhile Dr Jaci Brown, director of CSIRO's Climate Science Centre, notes global concentration of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are at their highest levels on Earth in at least two million years.

"The concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are continuing to rise, and this is causing Australia's climate to warm," Dr Brown said in a statement.

Globally, fossil fuel CO2 emissions were back to near pre-pandemic levels in 2021 the report states, meaning the decline in emissions during the pandemic lockdowns will have a negligible impact on climate change.

The rates of sea level rise have varied across Australia's coastlines but the report found those in the north and south-east have experienced the most significant increases.

The report also found that oceans around the continent have warmed by more than one degree since 1900.

"The warming of our oceans is contributing to longer and more frequent marine heatwaves, and this trend is expected to continue into the future," Dr Brown said.

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"We're seeing mass coral bleaching events more often, and this year, for the first time, we've seen a mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef during a La Niña year."

The report was last published in 2020 and this year's edition also includes new information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report, first published last year.

It's created with the intension to inform a range of economic, environmental and social decisions made by governments, industries and communities.

The man who was arrested and charged after standing atop a moving car in Brisbane earlier this month has apologised for letting "himself, his family and his community" down.

Police said they were conducting patrols at about 8pm on November 5 when they saw the man breaking the law in Brisbane's nightclub district, Fortitude Valley.

The 23-year-old man was charged with willful damage, public nuisance and possessing dangerous drugs and fronted court today.

READ MORE: Labor and the Coalition neck-and-neck days out from the Victorian election, polling shows

"I'd like to apologise for my actions, they do not speak for my character," the man said outside court today.

"I understand many might not believe that but I am the steps to change my life and my behaviour."

READ MORE: Wild winds send tree crashing into cars at Melbourne train station

"I have let myself, my family, the community down. There is no excuse and I am deeply sorry."

The moment the man was "car surfing" was filmed, leaving bystanders completely shocked.

A fisherman has reeled in an enormous goldfish while in France.

Andy reportedly caught "Carrot" the enormous goldfish while fishing at the Bluewater Lakes fishery in the Champagne region of France.

The fish weighs a whopping 30 kilograms.

READ MORE: Tsunami warning issued after powerful earthquake hits Solomon Islands

Bluewater Lakes fishery said Carrot is around 20 years old and is in "excellent health and condition".

She is expected to live for another 15 years.

The fishery is also home to a large population of carp, alongside enormous fish like Carrot.

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"Utmost care is taken when all our carp are caught, and are treated for any cuts and wounds etc," the fishery said.

"They're never taken out of the water, all photos and care is done on a floating mat just in case the carp decide to flip."

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones won't be returning to Twitter and will remain banned from the platform, according to its new owner, Elon Musk.

Musk declared on Friday that Jones' account will not be restored, in spite of some users' requests, and spent the weekend defending the decision even as Twitter moved to restore other suspended accounts including that of former US president Donald Trump.

"No," Musk tweeted flatly in response to one user's call for Jones to be reinstated on Twitter.

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Musk elaborated on his position on Sunday evening, citing Bible scripture and his own personal experience with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to explain his opposition to Jones, who has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

"My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat," Musk tweeted.

"I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame."

The announcement on Jones prompted a flood of replies, with some Twitter users commending Musk for continuing to deny Jones a platform while others, including some of Jones' own self-professed supporters, said it showed Musk's inconsistent and arbitrary support for free-speech principles.

After one Twitter user criticised Musk's decision and expressed disappointment that Jones would not be allowed back on Twitter, Musk replied: "Too bad."

In a response video posted Friday to the alternative video site Rumble, Jones said he didn't care if he was allowed back on Twitter, and listed various other digital platforms where his content remains accessible.

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"Don't blame Musk at the end of the day because he didn't bring me back," Jones urged his followers.

"I'm the most controversial figure in the world because I'm the most threatening to the new world order.

"So don't expect him to bring me back on day one."

While Musk appeared to draw a line at Jones' conspiracy theories on school shootings, he has taken a more permissive stance on COVID-19 misinformation.

On Monday, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said her personal account had been restored after it was banned from Twitter at the beginning of the year for repeatedly violating platform policies on COVID-19.

At the time, Twitter had banned Greene over the sharing of a chart misleadingly linking deaths to the COVID-19 vaccines, despite authoritative scientific research demonstrating the vaccines to be safe and effective.

"My account is back," Greene tweeted from her official congressional account.

A visit to Greene's personal profile on Monday afternoon showed that her tweets were indeed once again visible.

Greene herself has drawn criticism for her support for multiple fringe beliefs, including previously her endorsement of a conspiracy theory that claims the Sandy Hook shooting had been a staged event.

READ MORE: Dozens killed, hundreds injured in Indonesian earthquake

Her account was also observed "liking" social media posts calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be put to death and tweeting that she hoped Pelosi would lose her memory sitting in prison.

The decisions underscore the chaotic and seemingly improvisational management style that has characterised Musk's ownership of one of the world's top social media platforms.

Musk's decision on Jones, issued abruptly and with finality, contrasted sharply with the billionaire's approach to Trump — which was based on an unscientific Twitter poll whose results Musk tried to portray as the will of the people, even as he suggested the poll was being manipulated by anti-Trump bots while voting was still open.

The account decisions also appear to backtrack on his promises not to make any "major content decisions or account reinstatements" before convening a new content moderation council.

Musk told advertisers during a Twitter Spaces event on November 9 that it could be months before the council meets for the first time.

Musk's approach has now raised fresh questions from users about the rubric he will use to determine the future of individual suspended accounts — a decision matrix that users increasingly perceive as grounded in Musk's personal beliefs and driven by his whimsy, rather than by objective free-speech principles or clear terms of service.

Children's charity The Smith Family has been hit with a cyberattack, with some personal information of donors potentially stolen.

CEO Doug Taylor said in a statement the hack was an attempt to steal money from the charity, but that the attempt was "unsuccessful".

"We immediately took steps to secure our systems," Taylor said.

READ MORE: Four states on alert as extreme weather batters Australia

"We then commenced an investigation of the incident and engaged specialist cyber security experts to understand what happened.

"We have also taken steps to further strengthen our systems.

"From our investigation, we identified that during the attempt to steal our funds, personal information about some individuals may have been accessed.

"The personal information of supporters that may have been accessed includes a mixture of names; (a) combination of phone number, address and/or email address; information about whether a donation payment was processed successfully or declined and the donation amount; and in some instances, first and last four digits of the credit or debit card used to donate."

The Smith Family confirmed no middle card digits, expiry dates or CVV numbers were accessed, as the charity doesn't store that information in its systems.

Personal information such as passport details or driver's licences is also not at risk, as donors aren't required to offer them.

READ MORE: Dozens killed, hundreds injured in Indonesian earthquake

"The data accessed in itself cannot be used to make fraudulent purchases," Taylor said.

"While there is no current evidence of misuse of any individual's personal information, we are informing individuals about the incident and providing simple steps to protect their information and avoid any potential scams.

"We are also contacting individuals whose personal information was not accessed and are not directly affected by this incident."

Taylor said the charity apologised for "any inconvenience or stress".

Smith Family donors seeking more information about the incident are invited to email *****@****************om.au” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” >What to do if you have been hacked

The threat of a tsunami has been lifted after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Solomon Islands

The quake's epicentre was in the ocean about 56 kilometres southwest of the capital, Honiara, at a depth of 13 kilometres, according to the United States Geological Survey.

There were no immediate reports of widespread damage or injuries.

READ MORE: Four states on alert as extreme weather batters Australia

The US Tsunami Warning System earlier warned of a tsunami risk for the coasts of the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, but later withdrew the warning.

"Based on all of the available data, the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed," the US Tsunami Warning System said.

There may be minor sea level fluctuations of up to 0.3 metres above and below the normal tide over the next few hours.

Government spokesperson George Herming said he was in his office on the second floor of a building in the capital, Honiara, when the quake rocked the city.

He said he crawled underneath his table.

"It's a huge one that just shocked everybody," Herming said.

"We have tables and desks, books and everything scattered all over the place as a result of the earthquake, but there's no major damage to structure or buildings," he said.

Herming said the Solomon Islands, which is home to about 700,000 people, doesn't have any big highrises that might be vulnerable to a quake.

He said there was some panic around the town and traffic jams as everybody tried to drive to higher ground.

The Australian High Commission to the Solomon Islands reported earlier the tsunami warning for Honiara had been lifted.

"But expect unusual sea currents around most coastal waters. People are also advised to be vigilant as aftershocks are expected to continue," the authority said.

READ MORE: Dozens killed, hundreds injured in Indonesian earthquake

https://twitter.com/BOM_au/status/1594878857030823937

The Solomon Islands sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc along the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

The Bureau of Meteorology said there is no tsunami threat to Australia.

It comes after a devastating earthquake hit Indonesia's main island of Java overnight, killing at least 162 people and injuring hundreds.

READ MORE: Undersea earthquake strikes off NSW coast

More to come…