More cancer medications will be funded and HIV treatment will be more accessible after Pharmac outlined how it will start spending an extra $191 million in Budget money.The drug-buying agency today said more blood and breast cancer…

A man has died after a workplace incident in Kaiwera, Gore, this morning.Emergency services were called to the scene at about 9.55am.The incident has been referred to WorkSafe.A police spokesperson said the man’s death will…

Happy the elephant may be intelligent and deserving of compassion, but she cannot be considered a person being illegally confined to the Bronx Zoo, New York's top court has ruled.

The five-two decision by the state Court of Appeals comes in a closely watched case that tested the boundaries of applying human rights to animals.

The zoo and its supporters warned that a win for advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project could open the door to more legal actions on behalf of animals, including pets, farm animals and other species in zoos.

READ MORE: Investors hoping for Australian sharemarket rebound after horror day

The court's majority echoed that point.

The decision written by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said that "while no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion," a writ of habeas corpus is intended to protect the liberty of human beings and does not apply to a nonhuman animal like Happy.

The decision affirms a lower court ruling and means Happy will not be released to a more spacious sanctuary through a habeas corpus proceeding, which is a way for people to challenge illegal confinement.

Extending that right to Happy to challenge her confinement at a zoo "would have an enormous destabilising impact on modern society". And granting legal personhood in a case like this would affect how humans interact with animals, according to the majority decision.

READ MORE: Federal politicians get a pay rise

"Indeed, followed to its logical conclusion, such a determination would call into question the very premises underlying pet ownership, the use of service animals, and the enlistment of animals in other forms of work," read the decision.

Operators of the Bronx Zoo argued Happy is neither illegally imprisoned nor a person, but a well-cared-for elephant "respected as the magnificent creature she is".

The advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project argued that Happy is an autonomous, cognitively complex elephant worthy of the right reserved in law for "a person".

Two judges, Rowan Wilson and Jenny Rivera, wrote separate, sharply worded dissents saying the fact that Happy is an animal does not prevent her from having legal rights.

Rivera wrote that Happy is being held in "an environment that is unnatural to her and that does not allow her to live her life".

READ MORE: 'Scorched earth' tactics push Ukrainian troops back from key city

"Her captivity is inherently unjust and inhumane. It is an affront to a civilised society, and every day she remains a captive — a spectacle for humans — we, too, are diminished," Rivera wrote.

The ruling from New York's highest court cannot be appealed. The Nonhuman Rights Project has failed to prevail in similar cases, including those involving a chimpanzee in upstate New York named Tommy.

Steven Wise, the group's founder, said he was pleased it managed to persuade some of the judges. He noted that the group has a similar case underway in California and more planned in other states and other countries.

"We will take a really close look at why we lost and we'll try to make sure that that doesn't happen again to the extent that we can," he said.

Happy was born in the wild in Asia in the early 1970s, captured and brought as a one-year-old to the United States. Happy arrived at the Bronx Zoo in 1977 with fellow elephant Grumpy, who was fatally injured in a 2002 confrontation with two other elephants.

Australia's leading consumer advocacy group has raised serious concerns about major retailers Kmart, Bunnings and The Good Guys using facial recognition technology to record customers' faceprints.

An investigation by CHOICE has found that 76 per cent of Australians are not aware the retailers record their faces, with Kmart and Bunnings only advising customers of the security measure via small signs at entrances.

CHOICE has announced it is referring the retailers to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) to investigate potential breaches of the Privacy Act.

READ MORE: Biggest energy reserve shortage so far as regulator warns generators to follow market rules

The advocacy group is also calling on the federal government to implement a regulatory framework that protects consumers from harmful and unfair practices.

CHOICE consumer data advocate Kate Bower has slammed the retailers using facial recognition technology on customers as "completely inappropriate and unnecessary".

"Using facial recognition technology in this way is similar to Kmart, Bunnings or The Good Guys collecting your fingerprints or DNA every time you shop," Bower said.

"Businesses using invasive technologies to capture their customers' sensitive biometric information is unethical and is a sure way to erode consumer trust."

University of Technology Sydney professor Edward Santow, who is a former Australian Human Rights Commissioner, has said facial recognition technology raises serious questions about privacy.

READ MORE: Microsoft officially retires Internet Explorer

"Even if that technology was perfectly accurate, and it's not, but even if it were, it also takes us into the realm of mass surveillance," he said.

"And I think there will be great concern in the Australian community about walking down that path."

Bunnings' chief operating officer Simon McDowell has said Bunnings "respectfully disagrees with CHOICE", with the technology being one of several measures used to keep staff and customers safe.

"Our use is solely for the purpose of preventing threatening situations and theft, which is consistent with the Privacy Act," he said.

"At selected stores, our CCTV systems utilise facial recognition technology, which is used to help prevent theft and support the safety of our team and customers.

"In recent years, we've seen an increase in the number of challenging interactions our team have had to handle in our stores and this technology is an important tool in helping us to prevent repeat abuse of team and customers."

READ MORE: Coles warns fruit and vege shortages to last for weeks

McDowell also responded to CHOICE's request for comment, while CHOICE said Kmart and The Good Guys did not respond to its inquiries.

The retailers advise of their use of facial recognition in the privacy policy on their websites as well as Kmart and Bunnings displaying small signs at store entrances.

However, CHOICE argues the retailers are not doing enough to alert customers to the security measure.

"Discreet signage and online privacy policies are not nearly enough to adequately inform shoppers that this controversial technology is in use," Bower said.

"The technology is capturing highly personal data from customers, including infants and children."

CHOICE surveyed more than 1000 Australians between March and April 2022 to gauge consumer awareness of facial recognition technology, with 76 per cent of people saying they did not know retailers were using facial recognition.

Those who suspected it was being used wrongly named Coles and Woolworths as using the technology.

READ MORE: Federal politicians get a pay rise as workers await minimum wage decision

Iran appeared to be readying for a space launch as satellite images showed a rocket on a rural desert launch pad, just as tensions remain high over Tehran's nuclear programme.

The images from Maxar Technologies released on Tuesday showed a launch pad at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran's rural Semnan province, the site of frequent recent failed attempts to put a satellite into orbit.

One set of images showed a rocket on a transporter, preparing to be lifted and put on a launch tower. A later image on Tuesday afternoon showed the rocket apparently on the tower.

LIVE UPDATES: Blackouts loom in energy crisis

Iran did not acknowledge a forthcoming launch at the spaceport and its mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But its state-run IRNA news agency in May said that Iran likely would have seven homemade satellites ready for launch by the end of the Persian calendar year in March 2023.

A Defence Ministry official also recently suggested Iran soon could test its new solid-fuelled, satellite-carrying rocket called the Zuljanah.

It wasn't clear when the launch would take place, though erecting a rocket typically means a launch is imminent. NASA fire satellites, which detect flashes of light from space, did not immediately see any activity over the site late on Tuesday.

US officials at both the Pentagon and State Department did not immediately respond to questions over the launch preparations.

READ MORE: World's nuclear arsenals on the rise as concerns grow over China and North Korea

Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space.

The programme has seen recent troubles, however. There have been five failed launches in a row for the Simorgh program, a type of satellite-carrying rocket. A fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers, authorities said at the time.

The launch pad used in Tuesday's preparations remains scarred from an explosion in August 2019 that even drew the attention of then-US president Donald Trump. He later tweeted what appeared to be a classified surveillance image of the launch failure. Satellite images from February suggested a failed Zuljanah launch earlier this year, though Iran did not acknowledge it.

The successive failures raised suspicion of outside interference in Iran's program, something Trump himself hinted at by tweeting at the time that the US "was not involved in the catastrophic accident."

There's been no evidence offered, however, to show foul play in any of the failures, and space launches remain challenging even for the world's most successful programs.

READ MORE: Investors hoping for Aussie sharemarket rebound after horror day

Meanwhile, Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in April 2020 revealed its own secret space program by successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The Guard launched another satellite this March at another site in Semnan province, just east of the Iranian capital of Tehran.

Judging from the launch pad used, Iran likely is preparing for the Zuljanah test launch, said John Krzyzaniak, a research associate at the UK International Institute for Strategic Studies. Krzyzaniak earlier this week suggested a launch was imminent based on activity at the site.

The rocket's name, Zuljanah, comes from the horse of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Iranian state television aired footage of a successful Zuljanah launch in February 2021.

The launch preparations also come as the Guard reportedly saw one of its soldiers "martyred" in Semnan province under unclear circumstances over the weekend. Iran's Defence and Armed Forces Logistics Ministry, however, later claimed the man worked for it.

The United States has alleged that Iran's satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and has called on Tehran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

READ MORE: Elite Iranian colonel shot dead by motorbike gunmen

The US intelligence community's 2022 threat assessment, published in March, claims such a satellite launch vehicle "shortens the timeline" to an intercontinental ballistic missile for Iran as it uses "similar technologies."

Iran, which has long said it does not seek nuclear weapons, previously maintained that its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say Iran abandoned an organised military nuclear program in 2003.

However, Iran's likely preparations for a launch come as tensions have been heightened in recent days over Tehran's nuclear program. Iran now says it will remove 27 IAEA surveillance cameras from its nuclear sites as it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

Massive floodwaters ravaged Yellowstone National Park and nearby communities on Monday, washing out roads and bridges, cutting off electricity and forcing visitors to evacuate parts of the iconic park at the height of US summer tourist season.

All entrances to Yellowstone were closed due to the deluge, caused by heavy rains and melting snowpack, while park officials ushered tourists out of the most affected areas.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, though dozens of stranded campers had to be rescued by raft in south-central Montana.

READ MORE: Power grid back under strain as electricity shortfall predicted along east coast

Authorities also said they would be assessing a potential “loss of homes and structures” in Montana’s Stillwater County.

Elsewhere, some of the worst damage happened in the northern part of the Yellowstone and the park's gateway communities in southern Montana.

National Park Service photos of northern Yellowstone showed a landslide, a bridge washed out over a creek, and roads badly undercut by churning floodwaters of the Gardner and Lamar rivers.

The flooding cut off road access to Gardiner, Montana, a town of about 900 people near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Gardner rivers, just outside Yellowstone’s busy North Entrance.

At a cabin in Gardiner, visitor Parker Manning of Terra Haute, Indiana, got an up-close view of the water rising and the river bank sloughing off in the raging Yellowstone River floodwaters just outside his door.

“We started seeing entire trees floating down the river, debris,” Manning told The Associated Press.

“Saw one crazy single kayaker coming down through, which was kind of insane.”

READ MORE: Coles warns fruit and vege shortages to last for weeks

The Yellowstone River at Corwin Springs crested at 4.2 meters Monday, higher than the previous record of 3.5 meters set in 1918, according the the National Weather Service.

Floodwaters inundated a street in Red Lodge, a Montana town of 2100 that’s a popular jumping-off point for a scenic, winding route into the Yellowstone high country.

Forty kilometres to the north-east, in Joliet, Kristan Apodaca wiped away tears as she stood across the street from a washed-out bridge, The Billings Gazette reported.

The log cabin that belonged to her grandmother, who died in March, flooded, as did the park where Apodaca’s husband proposed.

“I am sixth-generation. This is our home,” she said.

“That bridge I literally drove yesterday. My mum drove it at 3am before it was washed out.”

Yellowstone officials were evacuating the northern part of the park, where roads may remain impassable for a substantial length of time, park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement.

But the flooding affected the rest of the park, too, with park officials warning of yet higher flooding and potential problems with water supplies and wastewater systems at developed areas.

“We will not know timing of the park’s reopening until flood waters subside and we’re able to assess the damage throughout the park,” Sholly said in the statement.

READ MORE: Russia move that could 'dictate the course of the entire war'

The park's gates will be closed at least through Wednesday, officials said.

It was unclear how many visitors have been forced to leave the park.

The rains hit right as summer tourist season was ramping up. June, at the onset of an annual wave of over 3 million visitors that doesn’t abate until fall, is one of Yellowstone’s busiest months.

Remnants of winter – in the form of snow still melting off and rushing off the mountains – made for an especially bad time to get heavy rain.

Yellowstone got 60mm of rain Saturday, Sunday and into Monday.

The Beartooth Mountains northeast of Yellowstone got as much as 100mm, according to the National Weather Service.

“It’s a lot of rain, but the flooding wouldn’t have been anything like this if we didn’t have so much snow,” said Cory Mottice, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Billings, Montana.

“This is flooding that we’ve just never seen in our lifetimes before.”

The rain will likely abate while cooler temperatures lessen snowmelt in coming days, Mottice said.

In south-central Montana, flooding on the Stillwater River stranded 68 people at a campground. Stillwater County Emergency Services agencies and crews with the Stillwater Mine rescued people Monday from the Woodbine Campground by raft.

Some roads in the area were closed due to flooding, and residents have been evacuated.

“We will be assessing the loss of homes and structures when the waters recede,” the sheriff's office said in a statement.

The flooding happened while other parts of the US burned in hot and dry weather.

More than 100 million Americans were being warned to stay indoors as a heat wave settles over states stretching through parts of the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and east to the Carolinas.

Elsewhere in the West, crews from California to New Mexico battled wildfires in hot, dry and windy weather.

Scientists say climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires, though single weather events usually cannot be directly linked to climate change without extensive study.

A Sydney mechanic has come to the rescue of a truck driver who didn't realise his wheels had caught fire.

Jon Hutchen, from Taren Point in the city's south, noticed the problem as he drove along the M1 Motorway at Berowra on Tuesday afternoon.

Hutchen immediately pulled over and grabbed the driver from the cabin.

READ MORE: Vape in seven-year-old's bag exposes Australia's black market dilemma

"He was just literally in shock, he didn't know what to say," Hutchen said

With only a small fire extinguisher in the vehicle, the mechanic then flagged down several trucks to stop and help.

"Thank God the whole truck wasn't on fire, it was just the back wheels," he said.

"I stopped eight semis and pulled out all their fire extinguishers and contained it until the fireys got there.

READ MORE: Investor makes move you would least expect from a landlord

"I kind of caused all the traffic by stopping all the traffic trying to get fire extinguishers."

The move blocked traffic and caused delays from Berowra to Asquith but Hutchen said he was glad no one was hurt.

"I'm sorry to everyone that I blocked but if it didn't happen a family driving past could've been hurt," he said. 

"A big thank you to all the truckies that actually stopped.

"I'm just so glad no one got hurt and he (the truck driver) was able to get out and wasn't hurt."

Hutchen said he hoped to get in contact with the driver.

"I would like to know to know his name," he said.

Questions have been raised during the murder trial of Chris Dawson about a possible sighting of his wife Lynette, months after she vanished in 1982.

Today, a recorded police interview from 2019 was played to the Supreme Court of Dawson's brother-in-law, Ross Hutcheon, who died six weeks ago.

The interview centred around Hutcheon's claimed sighting of Lyn at a bus stop opposite Gladesville Hospital up to six months after she disappeared.

READ MORE: Vape in seven-year-old's bag exposes Australia's black market dilemma

"She looked just like the Lyn I knew… same colour hair, same hairstyle, no sunglasses, no obvious attempt to disguise herself or anything like that," Hutcheon told the detectives.

Hutcheon says he told his wife about the possible sighting that same night and two officers later in 1999 but notes from the meeting show no record of that information.

"No mention of Gladesville?" Hutcheon asked the police officer after reading the police notes.

The police officer responded: "No."

"Wrong, wrong," Hutcheon said.

"Are you certain you told them about it?" the police officer asked Hutcheon.

"Certain, that is wrong," Hutcheon responded as he handed back the papers.

READ MORE: Investor makes move you would least expect from a landlord

The next time the alleged sighting was raised was in 2018 after Dawson was charged with killing the missing mother.

"Oh well, things started to get very serious, especially when he was charged and what have you, I thought, 'Gee, I better do something about this,'" Hutcheon said in the interview.

Dawson's sister, whose name is also Lynette, was grilled by the prosecutor about why she didn't discuss the sighting with her family for 36 years.

She told the judge she always assumed her sister-in-law had upped and left and never imagined it would be treated as a murder.

READ MORE: Aussie share market wipes more than $110 billion

The crown questioned if the sighting was raised around the same time as the Teacher's Pet podcast, which raised suspicions about the case.

Dawson denies murdering his wife, insisting she ran away and never returned.

The trial continues.

By Katie Todd of RNZ As many as half the country’s GP clinics are not enrolling new patients, and others are asking people to wait weeks for an appointment.Family doctors say they are grappling with a concoction of winter illnesses,…

The Australian sharemarket shed almost $90 billion in value in a horror day as investors eye the implication of Wall Street entering a "bear market".

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 closed down 3.55 per cent or 246 points to 6686 points, although that was a slight rebound from the morning, when it was down to 6600 points.

The biggest losers of the day came largely from the resources sector, including Fortescue Metals (down 8.48 per cent), James Hardie Industries (down 6.88 per cent) and Bluescope Steel (down 5.94 per cent).

READ MORE: Russia move that could 'dictate the course of the entire war'

The early carnage was the ASX 200's worst loss since March 2020, following fears that the then-incoming COVID-19 pandemic would wreak huge damage to the world economy.

Today's results on the local index follow those of Wall Street overnight, where soaring inflation in the US has fuelled fears of an economic recession.

https://twitter.com/CommSec/status/1536519518587359232

Wall Street was officially dubbed a "bear market" overnight, which in economic terms means prices are falling and investors are feeling encouraged to sell.

A bear market derives its name from the way a bear swipes downward with its claws, leaving marks that are synonyms with falling red lines on stock charts.

READ MORE: Power grid back under strain as electricity shortfall predicted along east coast

Dow loses 876 points over worries of 'drastic' rate hikes

Overnight, US stocks plunged as Wall Street investors grew increasingly nervous about the prospect of even harsher medicine from the Fed to take the sting out of inflation.

The Dow sank 876 points or 2.8 per cent.

The Nasdaq was down by 4.7 per cent and has tumbled more than 10 per cent in the past two trading sessions.

The broader S&P 500 fell 3.9 per cent.

That index is now more than 20 per cent below its all-time high set in January, putting stocks in a bear market.

READ MORE: Coles warns fruit and vege shortages to last for weeks

Recession fears mounted after Friday's miserable Consumer Price Index report showed US inflation was significantly higher than economists had expected last month.

That could make the Federal Reserve's inflation-control efforts more difficult.

After raising rates by a half point in May — an action the Fed hadn't taken since 2000 — Chair Jerome Powell pledged more of the same until the central bank was satisfied that inflation was under control.

At that point, the Fed would resume standard quarter-point hikes, he said.

But after May's hotter-than-expected inflation report, Wall Street is increasingly calling for tougher action from the Fed to keep prices under control.

Jefferies joined Barclays on Monday in predicting that the Federal Reserve would hike rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, an action the Fed hasn't taken since 1994.

READ MORE: Bitcoin plunges below $34,000 and the crypto meltdown claims another casualty

"After holding their breath for nearly a week awaiting the US CPI report for May, investors exhaled in exasperation as inflation came in hotter than expected," Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, said in a note to clients Monday morning.

Stovall said the risk of larger hikes dragged the markets lower Monday.

Investors fear two outcomes, neither of them good: higher rates mean bigger borrowing costs for businesses, which can eat into their bottom lines.

And overly zealous action from the Fed could unintentionally plunge the US economy into a recession, especially if businesses start laying off workers and the red-hot housing market crumbles.

There's no sign that the job and housing markets are in danger of collapse, although both are cooling off somewhat.

Additional reporting provided by CNN.

The information provided on this website is general in nature only and does not constitute personal financial advice. The information has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information on this website you should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.