The deal includes a $15,000 allowance for managing new curriculum changes.

Residents across Victoria are warned not to be fooled by clearing skies, with more wet weather to follow a fast-moving storm that battered the state earlier today.

Storms passed over the city this afternoon, causing flash flooding and power outages for more than 7000 homes, but intense rainfall is still impacting large parts of the state.

A severe thunderstorm warning was earlier issued for Melbourne's northern, eastern and southern suburbs – stretching as far as South Gippsland – this afternoon and residents in multiple suburbs were warned to stay inside.

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"Very dangerous" storms swept across Greensborough, Camberwell, Preston and Resevoir in Melbourne at 2.50pm and the wild weather has travelled south and south-east.

Across the state, 171 calls for help have so far been issued, including 60 for building damage, 50 for flooding and nearly 30 calls for reports of trees down.

Heidelberg and Reservoir in Melbourne's north are the epicentres of those assistance calls according to the State Control Centre, with 24 SES units deployed to Heidelberg.

Nearby suburbs including Preston, Coburg and Craigieburn, were earlier issued with an emergency warning from Vic Emergency.

Up north, residents in Mildura, Swan Hill, Ouyen, Kerang, Walpeup, Robinvale, Birchip and surrounding suburbs have been told to stay informed as the storms move inland across Victoria this evening.

Those across most of Gippsland, from Drouin in West Gippsland to Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance in the East have also been warned to stay indoors tonight.

While the worst of the storms have passed over Melbourne, another band of rain could bear down on the state later this evening.

"We're going to see multiple rounds of showers and storms right across the state," Bureau of Meteorology's Dean Narramore said.

"We're seeing more heavy thunderstorms develop to the west of Swan Hill, through Sea Lake and then to the north of Bendigo and that's what's gonna move south in the coming hours.

Storm cells from the north and south could converge over Melbourne and trigger minor flash flooding later tonight, Narramore said.

"All that rain in the northern areas could approach the Melbourne area in the evening and overnight."

Parts of the Wimmera and Mallee, specifically north of Bendigo up towards Ouyen, as well as East Gippsland will also be in the firing line.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Daniel Hayes told ABC Radio Melbourne that some areas were soaked with one milimetre per minute of rainfall during the worst of the storm this afternoon..

"We have seen a few places that have been coming close to that one millimetre per minute," Hayes said.

Gisborne, located north-west of Melbourne, was smashed by 32.2mm of rain in the one hour until 2.24pm.

Nearby Spring Hill was inundated with 38.4mm in just over an hour before 2pm.

More than 7000 residents were without power across the city at around 4pm. That dropped to 3000 by 6pm.

The Dudley Street overpass in West Melbourne flooded as the skies opened and a rain bomb was unleashed on the Victorian capital.

Two cars became submerged as they drove through the area, with the flash-flooding seemingly coming out of nowhere.

The water subsided quickly and nobody was hurt.

The bridge at York Street in South Melbourne has been closed due to flooding.

Melbourne Airport in the city's northern fringes was also battered by rain, with a large blanket of fog also spreading over the tarmac.

Lightning was recorded just eight kilometres from the airfield, causing delays for some due to land on the tarmac.

A Virgin Australia flight from Hobart due to arrive at 2.15pm was diverted and headed back to Tasmania.

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Conditions are expected to move through eastern parts of Victoria and potentially south-eastern parts of NSW tomorrow.

Motorists and commuters are warned to drive safely, allow extra travel time and be alert to allow extra travel time and stay alert for hazards. These hazards could include fallen trees, debris, damaged power lines and localised flash flooding.

"If severe weather is impacting your area, consider delaying travel where possible and staying indoors until conditions improve. Never drive through floodwater," VICSES chief officer of operations Alistair Drayton said.

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Victoria already had a taste of the extreme weather on Sunday, with parts of the state battered by up to 40 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday.

There was localised flash flooding in the Wodonga area, sparking 90 calls for assistance from VICSES.

All up, SES volunteers responded to about 250 requests for assistance across the state between midday on Sunday and 10am yesterday.

"Thank you to the dedicated volunteers who worked throughout last night to assist impacted communities and remain ready to respond as further storms approach this week," Drayton said.

Sydney will also face the possibility of heavy rain from tomorrow afternoon.

What was set to be a record-breaking dry summer across swaths of inland Australia has ended dramatically, with a torrential downpour bringing widespread flooding in the final days of summer.

Before last weekend, much of inland Australia had not seen any rainfall for two to three months.

An area the size of Greenland is on flood watch, from the top of the Northern Territory, into Queensland, NSW and down into agricultural regions of South Australia.

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Two men have been charged after hundreds of thousands of dollars of cannabis was found in the back of a car in southern NSW.

The men were busted yesterday morning allegedly with 147 kilograms of the drug in the boot after they were pulled over by police in Goulburn.

Police searched the car as part of a roadside test and said they found 13 duffle bags filled with cannabis.

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Police allege the drugs are worth about $750,000.

The two men, a 26-year-old and a 31-year-old, were charged with supply of a prohibited drug greater than or equal to a large commercial quantity.

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They were refused bail to appear in court today, where bail was formally refused.

The pair will appear in Goulburn Local Court on April 15.

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Three people have been rushed to hospital after a truck veered off the road and ploughed through a fence into a front yard in Melbourne's south-east.

The gas tanker lost control on the Princes Highway in Carnegie around 12.30pm, according to police.

It crashed into several cars and power poles before coming to rest in the front yard of a house, narrowly avoiding the home.

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"Took out a powerline on the way, saw this blue flash, had no idea what it was. It was crazy," witness Martin Hallcroft said.

"Then I just heard metal on metal. Next thing I know we're all outside and our car is a crumpled heap."

Nobody was inside the home at the time.

"We had to ensure that everybody in the homes adjacent to the property stayed within their home," Fire Rescue Victoria firefighter Peter Quinn said.

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The circumstances surrounding the crash are unclear at this stage.

Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance (MICA) paramedics attended the scene.

The truck driver, a 44-year-old Kilsyth man, and his male passenger were transported to hospital for observation.

The driver of one of the vehicles involved, a 50-year-old female, was also transported to hospital in a stable condition with minor injuries.

Anyone who witnessed the crash, has dashcam or CCTV footage or anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has downplayed concerns about AI's energy cost, arguing it takes a lot of energy to train a human too.

Altman, who appeared at a Q&A session hosted by newspaper The Indian Express this week, pushed back on the comparisons between humans and artificial intelligence.

"One of the things that is always unfair in this comparison is that people talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model relative to how much it takes for a human to do an inference query," he said.

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"But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human.

"It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. 

"Not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you.

"Then you took whatever you took."

According to US research, a single ChatGPT query consumes nearly 10 times as much energy as a typical Google search, while it takes about half a litre of water to process 20 to 50 queries.

Generative AI models need massive computational power to train and run them.

Data centres, which contain buildings full of computer servers, churn through huge amounts of electricity all over the globe.

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Data centres consumed about 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022 alone, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

All of Australia consumed less than 300TWh that same year.

Altman argued concerns about water usage were "totally fake" but conceded "we used to do evaporative cooling in data centres".

"Now that we don't do that," he said.

"You see these things on the internet where [a post says] 'don't use ChatGPT, it's 17 gallons of water for each query' or whatever.

"This is completely untrue, totally insane, no connection to reality.

"What is fair though is the energy consumption, not per query, but in total because the world is now using so much AI.

"It is real and we need to move towards nuclear or wind and solar very quickly."

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‘Gentle giant’ Sefo Leger, 59, was stabbed within minutes of getting on the bus.

A man from New Zealand has been charged after authorities allegedly found several examples of extremist material on his phone.

The man, 24, arrived in Perth yesterday on a flight from overseas, where border force officers found several videos on his phone.

The videos, which were allegedly found on the internet, allegedly showed violent killings linked to different ideologies and homemade explosives.

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A house in Perth's CBD was searched, where police seized a computer.

It is not known if any alleged extremist material was found on it, though investigations on his phone and computer are still being carried out.

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The man was charged with one count of possessing or controlling violent extremist material, which carries a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment.

He will face Perth Magistrates Court today.

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NSW Premier Chris Minns says the discovery of the suspected remains of missing grandfather Chris Baghsarian is "an incredibly tragic development".

Police said a car forensically linked to the 85-year-old was seen a day after his kidnapping near where his suspected remains were found this morning.

"While formal identification is still under way, this is an incredibly tragic development, and our thoughts are with the friends and family of Mr Baghsarian at this heartbreaking time," Minns said.

"This kind of brutality has no place in our community. Police will not stop until they capture those responsible and bring them before the courts. The full weight of the law must come down on these people."

The human remains were discovered near a golf club in Pitt Town in the city's north-west about 8am today during the search for the 85-year-old.

Police are awaiting testing to positively identify the remains as Baghsarian, who was kidnapped from his home in North Ryde about 5am on Friday, February 13.

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A grey Toyota Corolla forensically linked to an abandoned stronghold in Dural was spotted in Pitt Town about 9pm on February 14, police said.

The car, which had cloned plates but is believed to have been stolen from Victoria, was found burnt out on Good Street in Westmead on February 16.

Detective Acting Superintendent Andrew Mark said information regarding the investigation led police to the golf course.

"We've traced that vehicle that we suspect was involved and that can forensically link the vehicle to Mr Baghsarian, and to the stronghold that we have spoken about in Dural," Marks said.

"Putting that together is why we believe it's Mr Baghsarian."

An autopsy will be conducted.

Baghsarian's family are "deeply upset" by today's discovery and have asked for privacy.

Police will now focus efforts on identifying the offenders.

"The efforts that have gone in, and the response that has come from the public, we're all outraged that this has happened to an innocent man," Marks said.

"I am proud of the police and the efforts. Police have been working 24 hours a day since Friday the 13th."

Marks said he is confident investigators will use every resource available to bring the perpetrators to justice.

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Today's search for Baghsarian

9News understands the remains were wrapped up in what appeared to be a carpet or towel.

Police searched dense bushland near Glenorie, about 15 minutes further east, yesterday.

Shortly before 9am today, a number of police vehicles left that search base to travel to a patch of overgrown grassland near Pitt Town Bottoms Road.

Once they arrived at the location, a blue tent – signifying the location of the remains – was raised in minutes.

The overgrown piece of land is located in semi-rural surroundings, with businesses including turf farms nearby.

Police on the scene this morning included tactical, general duties, and forensics officers as well as investigators.

The area has been carefully combed, with officers conducting line searches around where the remains were found.

The update came days after police confirmed they had found a burnt-out car in Sydney's west that has been linked to Baghsarian's abduction.

The car, a grey 2022 Toyota Corolla with cloned plates, was found in Westmead and linked to a crime scene police had established in Dural in Sydney's far north-west.

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Police believe those who kidnapped Baghsarian may have taken the grandfather to the property after the abduction.

During a raid, officers seized evidence, including disturbing images of the missing grandfather with his alleged kidnappers.

Videos of Baghsarian have also been sent to police.

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The Corolla, which had been spotted near the Dural property, was dumped and burned last Monday after 11.30pm, police said.

It had cloned plates of DVT007, and the Victorian registration 1UZ2BU.

Police have said the person they believe to have been the intended target of the kidnapping is safe and in no immediate danger.

The investigation continues, and anybody who has spotted any suspicious activity around Dural, or who has information or footage showing the car in question, is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online.

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has written to his British counterpart backing any plan to remove former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of royal succession.

His letter has sparked calls for Australia to go further and become a republic instead in the wake of the Mountbatten-Windsor's Thursday arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office

The UK government has confirmed it was looking at ways to remove him from the line for the throne.

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Mountbatten-Windsor is eighth in the line of succession and could technically be named regent or temporarily take over the King's duties even earlier, although Buckingham Palace has effectively ruled that out.

In a letter released last night, Albanese wrote to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressing his support for removing the former Duke of York.

"In light of recent events concerning Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, I am writing to confirm that my Government would agree to any proposal to remove him from the line of royal succession," Albanese wrote.

"I agree with His Majesty that the law must now take its full course and there must be a full, fair and proper investigation.

"These are grave allegations and Australians take them seriously."

The support of Albanese and the leaders of the other Commonwealth countries who retain the UK's reigning monarch as their head of state is essential to any plan to remove him.

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Greens deputy leader and spokesperson for the republic Senator Mehreen Faruqi said the prime minister's letter was not a show of leadership but rather a "humiliating reminder" that Australia is shackled to a "corrupt and crumbling" royal family.

"Rather than pleading with a foreign government to clean up its messes, Australia should be cutting ties altogether and choosing its own head of state," she said.

"Australia needs to confront the bigger truth that the monarchy is an outdated, unaccountable institution built on colonial violence and stolen wealth.

"The latest horrific scandal is not an aberration. It is a symptom of a broken system that is not fit to represent us.

"You cannot polish a rotten crown. The time for a republic is now."

Pro-republic advocates also called to separate from the monarch shortly after the former prince's arrest, saying the head of state should represent the "very best of us".

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Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest followed years of allegations over his links with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019, but the accusation at the heart was that the royal shared confidential trade information with the disgraced financier when he was a trade envoy for the UK. 

He was released on Thursday night (early Friday AEDT) after spending about 11 hours in custody.

He remained under investigation, meaning he was neither charged nor exonerated.

Emails released last month by the US Department of Justice appeared to show him sharing reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore, and sending Epstein a confidential brief on investment opportunities in Afghanistan.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing in his association with Epstein but has not commented on the most recent allegations that have emerged with the release of the Epstein files.

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In the wake of the arrest, UK Defence Minister Luke Pollard told the BBC that wiping his chances of being a successor to the throne was the "right thing to do" regardless of the outcome.

He told BBC radio at the weekend that the UK government had been working alongside Buckingham Palace to stop Mountbatten-Windsor from "potentially being a heartbeat away from the throne".

UK media quoted unnamed royal sources saying Buckingham Palace would not oppose the move.

While King Charles was able to strip his brother of all his royal and military titles and banish him from Royal Lodge, removing him from the line of succession would require legislation in the UK and the other Commonwealth "realms", including Australia.

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In November, University College London said if the worst were to happen to King Charles and then Prince William, Prince Harry would be next in line to be named as regent to Prince George, but only if he returned to the UK.

Were he to refuse, Mountbatten-Windsor would be next in line, although he was "unlikely to be considered suitable following his fall from grace".

"A person can only be removed as a counsellor of state by legislation," it said in an FAQ.

"Because seven people can now be called upon to act as counsellors of state, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is very unlikely to be called upon again."

– Reported with Associated Press

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The parents of missing South Australian four-year-old Gus Lamont have issued a plea for information about the disappearance of their son, releasing a new photo and video of him.

Gus Lamont went missing from his Oak Valley Station home in the state's outback on September 27 last year.

His parents, Josh and Jess, have today urged anyone with information about his disappearance to come forward, sharing their grief and devastation.

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"Our lives have been shattered, and every moment without him is unbearable," they said in a statement shared by South Australia Police.

"We are united in our search for answers about what happened to our little boy, Gus, who means everything to us… we know someone out there may have information. If someone knows what happened, we are pleading with that person—or anyone who may have seen or heard anything—to please come forward.

"Even the smallest detail could give us the answers we so desperately need."

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The new photo released of Gus shows the four-year-old in the back of the car next to a cattle dog.

He is wearing a navy shirt with a graphic design on the front, and long navy pants.

A 10-second video shows Gus riding on a child's bicycle somewhere on the property.

Earlier this month, SA Police declared Gus' disappearance as a major crime.

Police also said a person with close ties to the household, who is not one of Gus' parents, had been speaking to detectives but allegedly "withdrew cooperation." They are now considered a suspect.

Separately, police charged Gus' 75-year-old grandparent Josie Murray with firearms offences, but have clarified those charges are not linked to the toddler's disappearance.

Murray was bailed to appear in the Peterborough Magistrates Court on May 6.

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