Natarsha Ikiua was on sick leave when she was recognised filming a health ad.

A high-profile Chinese woman accused of causing a head-on collision with Kyle Sandilands' driver will fight allegations she drove dangerously.

Yang Lanlan, 23, was driving her Rolls-Royce in Sydney's eastern suburbs on July 26 about 3.30am when she allegedly collided with a Mercedes driven by George Plassaras, a driver for the controversial radio figure.

She has been charged with dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, not giving particulars to police and refusing or failing to submit to breath analysis.

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She also faces a back-up charge of negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm.

Yang was excused from appearing at Downing Centre Local Court today, with her lawyer Michael Korn entering not guilty pleas to all the charges on her behalf.

"Obviously the matter is quite tough and it's drawn a lot of attention, but she's getting through it," he told reporters outside court.

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Enthusiastic onlookers filled the courtroom today, hoping to get a glimpse of the enigmatic 23-year-old.

Her family's wealth and supposed ties to high-ranking Chinese officials has generated significant online speculation in Australia and China.

Plassaras was trapped in his vehicle for an hour before being freed and taken to hospital with serious injuries, but Yang emerged unscathed, according to Sandilands.

The radio host sang the 52-year-old's praises while outlining his road to recovery.

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The driver had broken several ribs, both his femurs and hips and suffered a ruptured spleen and broken spine, Sandilands said.

"I saw him and went, 'oh shit, George you look horrible' – I was nearly crying," he said during the Kyle & Jackie O show in late July.

Yang tested positive during a roadside breath test but allegedly refused to undergo a breath analysis when she was arrested and taken to Waverley Police Station.

The case will return to court on January 30.

Yang is again excused from appearing.

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Founder Jeremy Tātere MacLeod says the trust will secure the festival’s future.

Westpac has paid back more than $50 million to staff after years of underpayment, the Fair Work Ombudsman has said.

The underpayments, which occurred over an 11-year period, were primarily caused by failures in Westpac's systems, governance processes, and compliance oversight, the ombudsman said.

Further shortcomings included inadequate record-keeping, reliance on systems requiring manual adjustments, and input errors.

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Employees were underpaid their casual loading and minimum wages for ordinary hours, allowances such as for higher duties and weekend penalties, termination payments, leave payments and more.

To date, Westpac has back-paid a total of more than $50.26 million, plus almost $9 million in interest and applicable superannuation, to nearly 47,000 current and former staff who were underpaid between January 2014 and February 2025.

Back-payments to individuals ranged from less than $5 to $56,085 in one instance. The average back payment was about $1000.

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Also, $90,490 has been paid into the federal unclaimed monies account for former employees who could not be found.

Anybody can check if unpaid wages are being held for them.

Westpac has also signed an enforceable undertaking, which will see the corporation pay $800,000 in a "contrition payment" to the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund.

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Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said an EU was an appropriate outcome as Westpac had fully cooperated with the investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying its non-compliance issues and ensuring future compliance.

"Westpac has made full back-payments for all underpayments owed to employees it could locate," Booth said.

"This includes back-payments extending well beyond the six-year liability limitation period. Under the Enforceable Undertaking, it has committed to rectifying any future underpayments it identifies in full, plus interest and superannuation, and implementing stringent measures to ensure all staff are paid correctly in future."

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The EU will also see the bank commission an independent audit to check compliance with workplace laws.

The ombudsman began to investigate the wages and entitlements of staff in December 2020 after Westpac self-reported its underpayments.

"Westpac uncovered these issues as part of our own review in 2020 and when we found them, we immediately moved to put things right," a Westpac spokesperson said.

"We're genuinely sorry this happened. Paying our people correctly is a fundamental obligation which we take seriously and we apologise again to all affected employees.

"As part of our comprehensive remediation program, we repaid those affected including employees who have since left the company. We did not ask anyone who has been overpaid to repay any money.

"We've also updated our systems and processes, investing significantly to better manage entitlements."

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The Liberal Party has been savaged for abandoning its net zero target, with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull accusing the MPs who drove the change of having the memory of goldfish.

Speaking to ABC radio this morning, Turnbull said Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's decision would have disastrous political consequences.

"It's Groundhog Day," he said.

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"They're sending a message to most Australians, they do not take climate change seriously.

"What the Liberal Party is doing is essentially flying in the face of reality, not just the reality of the physics of global warming, but the reality of economics…

"If you want to fight to the death over who's going to have the 15 per cent or 10 per cent (of the vote) that people of Pauline Hanson's persuasion might be disposed to, knock yourself out, but that is no way ever to get back into government."

Climate policy has long been a sticking point in the Liberal party room, with Turnbull himself dumped as opposition leader back in 2009 after supporting the Rudd government's emissions trading scheme.

The party has hemorrhaged seats in capital cities – particularly in inner-metropolitan areas – to teal independents, Labor and the Greens in the past two elections, much of which has been attributed to comparatively weak climate policies.

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Turnbull said he had sympathy for Ley, a moderate who confirmed the switch to abandon net zero after a majority of Liberal MPs, driven by the conservatives, spoke out against the policy.

"Unfortunately she's caught in this terrible fishbowl, if you like, with the Liberal party room," he said.

"They've got the memory of goldfish and the dining habits of piranhas.

"They seem to just keep on forgetting and making the same mistake again and again… 

"It is leading them into this spiral which has resulted in them losing almost all of their city seats, losing almost all of their safest seats, the lowest vote they've ever had. 

"Now they want to double down and do it again."

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The government, as well as the teal independents and Greens, have also been quick to condemn the Liberals' decision.

But the criticism hasn't just come from politicians, with scientists lamenting the move as a step backwards.

"(It's) a catastrophic failure to acknowledge both climate science and energy system dynamics… this intentional policy failure immediately exposes Australia to the severe physical risks detailed in the National Climate Risk Assessment," Associate Professor James Hopeward from the University of South Australia said. 

"Under the highest warming scenarios (3.0°C) considered in the NCRA, severe heatwave events could more than quadruple, dramatically increasing heat-related mortality."

Ley said the Liberals would prioritise cheap energy over emissions reductions through a "technology agnostic" approach – including potentially funding more coal power, even though scientists, including those at the CSIRO, have repeatedly pointed to renewables as the cheapest form of energy.

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"The decision… doesn't pass the pub test," ANU energy expert Ken Baldwin said.

"It ignores… the economics which say that it is vastly cheaper to address climate change than to do nothing, and the business case for replacing our aging fleet of coal-fired power stations by using renewables as the cheapest option to keep electricity prices down."

Ley also said the party remained committed to the Paris Agreement – even though removing the net zero target would be in breach of the treaty – and reaching net zero would be a "welcome outcome".

"They will not happen by accident, something to 'welcome' if we stumble across it," Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vice-chair Mark Howden said. 

"Additionally, the Paris Agreement has a 'ratchet' clause which requires nations to successively increase their emission-reduction goals, so suggestions of stepping back our goals are incompatible with that agreement."

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Disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's web of high-profile connections grows ever more complex with the release of thousands of new emails and correspondences by the US House Oversight Committee.

US President Donald Trump again labelled the "Epstein file" a "hoax" after Democrats on the committee leaked three emails that mentioned Trump, including Epstein saying Trump "knew about the girls" Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was recruiting from Mar-a-Lago.

But more revelations are emerging from among the 20,000-plus trove of documents that followed those initial three emails – and they aren't all about Trump.

The emails below have been left in their original text and contain some spelling and grammatical errors.

READ MORE: BBC apologises to Donald Trump over misleading video edit

Bill Clinton

In other emails, Epstein strategised how to respond to accuser Virginia Giuffre's allegations, which included an account of meeting former president Bill Clinton on Epstein's island in the Caribbean.

"Presidents at dinner on caribean islands. ( clinton was never ever there, easy to confirm ). Sharing a bath with a Prince ( bathtub too small even for one adult ). sex slave being paid thousands of dollars. ( while at the exact same time, she was working as a hostess in a burger bar )."

Clinton has acknowledged travelling on Epstein's private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes.

Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them, including Giuffre.

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In a 2016 email to a reporter, Epstein denied ever spending time with Clinton or his vice president Al Gore on his island.

"You can also add, fresh politcal juice by stating that Clinton was never on the island," Epstein wrote.

"I never met Al Gore. No diners on the island either, no matter how much detail has been in the press."

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

The new emails undercut the former Prince Andrew's claim that a now-infamous snapshot of him with his arm around Giuffre's partly bare midriff was doctored because he couldn't remember it being taken.

"Yes she was on my plane, and yes she had her picture taken with Andrew as many of my employees have," Epstein wrote in one 2011 email in which he called Giuffre a liar.

Epstein repeatedly disparaged Giuffre, calling her "nothing more than a telephone answerer".

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He discussed getting a reporter to investigate her, suggesting "Buckingham Palace would love it".

When the Mail on Sunday sought comment before publishing a story in March 2011 about Giuffre's allegations, Epstein forwarded the email to a contact listed as "The Duke" that is partly redacted but appears to be Mountbatten-Windsor.

"Please make sure that every statement or legal letter states clearly that I am NOT involved and that I knew and know NOTHING about any of these allegations," the reply from the email listed as "The Duke" said.

"I can't take any more of this (on) my end."

When he asked Epstein how he planned to respond to the tabloid's request, Epstein said he wasn't sure.

"The only person she didn't have sex with was Elvis," he wrote.

Ghislaine Maxwell

In January 2015, an anonymous woman – later revealed to be Giuffre – filed a lawsuit alleging that Epstein and Maxwell groomed and sexually abused her between 1998 and 2002.

The lawsuit alleged they forced her to become a "sex slave" to powerful men – including a royal prince later revealed to be Mountbatten-Windsor.

Mountbatten-Windsor has denied the allegation and later settled a lawsuit Giuffre filed against him.

In several email exchanges on January 10, 2015, after the lawsuit was filed, Epstein and Maxwell coordinated their public response to the allegations.

"Initial response, too many unanswered question raised, relationship with jeffrey/…I am writing to writin to respond to alleagtinoin that have been made wchich are categorically untrue," Epstein wrote to Maxwell.

Maxwell responded by asking if her lawyer could speak with a lawyer, then wrote: "I have to distance myself from you in statement too. And they need me to say I was not aware of massage w/ andrew in my house. These things they have to stay along w/ meeting [REDACTED] and rebutting those allegations. I needs it asap."

After Epstein assured Maxwell he was on the phone with his lawyer about getting her a lawyer, she replied, "I need it written out in full."

"Call me," Epstein replied.

Maxwell later settled a defamation lawsuit with Giuffre in June 2017 for an undisclosed sum.

In an interview with the Justice Department this summer, Maxwell said her relationship with Epstein was "almost nonexistent" between 2010 and 2019 outside of corresponding over legal matters.

Soon-Yi Previn

The emails show an interesting exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Soon-Yi Previn, the wife of controversial filmmaker Woody Allen.

Epstein sent an article to Previn, titled, "Bill Clinton's CIA chief joins Trump campaign."

The article, published by The Hill in September 2016, was about the former Clinton-appointed CIA director James Woolsey joining Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

"Woody said it doesn't mean anything," Previn wrote in response to Epstein.

It's unclear why Epstein flagged the news to Previn and what, if any, interest she or her husband would have had in Woolsey's involvement with Trump.

Donald Trump

So far, no correspondence between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein has emerged, nor has Trump been accused of any wrongdoing in the documents released.

But Epstein had plenty to say about his one-time friend.

He called Trump "borderline insane" in a 2018 email exchange with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

"Trump – borderline insane," Epstein wrote on December 22, 2018.

It's unclear what prompted the exchange between Epstein and Summers.

A week after Trump was inaugurated to his first term as US president, he signed an executive order banning the entry of foreign nationals from Muslim majority countries for 90 days, widely referred to as the "Muslim ban".

Epstein said in an email to a New York Times reporter on January 28, 2017: "IT helps as he is seen as keeping his word."

He added later in the email: "That being said Donald is f—— crazy, I told you that."

In a March 24, 2018, email chain with Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, Epstein shared a Daily Beast article titled, "How Close Is Donald Trump to a Psychiatric Breakdown?"

The exchange shows Epstein forwarding the story early that morning to Ruemmler, with her replying: "Not confidence inspiring."

Epstein then responded: "but – accurate."

A year earlier in July 2017, Ruemmler wrote an email to Epstein saying, "Trump is truly stupid."

"Duh," Epstein replied several hours later.

It is not clear why Ruemmler and Epstein were corresponding at the time.

In December 2018, Epstein emailed Ruemmler about Trump's behaviour, writing:

"you might want to tell your dem friends that treating trump like a mafia don, ignores the fact that he has great dangerous power. tightening the noose too slowly, risks a very bad situation. gambino was never the commander in chief. there was little gambino could do as the walls closed in. not so with this maniac."

In 2018, Epstein also questioned in an email with a reporter whether Trump was suffering from "early dementia".

Steve Bannon

In early June 2019, Trump made a state visit to the United Kingdom, where he was welcomed by the former Prince Andrew.

A photo shows Andrew grinning as he shakes Trump's hand.

In a June 2019 email exchange with Steve Bannon, Trump's former White House chief strategist, Epstein wrote, "prince andrew and trump today.. Tooo [sic] funny." And then he added, "recall prince andrews accuser came out of mara lago [sic]."

Bannon replied, "Can't believe nobody is making u [sic] the connective tissue."

It's unclear what exactly Bannon meant by the message.

Trump fired him from the White House in 2017, though Bannon remained influential in conservative politics, as he does today.

Trump and Andrew socialised together in the 1990s and 2000s, per newspaper reports, alongside Epstein and Maxwell, sometimes at Mar-A-Lago.

CNN reached out to Bannon for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Peter Mandelson

The new cache of documents from the House committee also seem to shed further light on the extent of the contact between Epstein and Peter Mandelson, who was recently fired as British ambassador to the US over his ties to Epstein.

Emails show that the pair were in contact as late as 2016 when Mandelson appeared to reference Epstein's birthday two weeks earlier.

"63 years old. You made it," he wrote.

Their exchange also appears to suggest that Mandelson had cautioned Epstein to avoid Mountbatten-Windsor, with the disgraced financier writing that "you were right about staying away from Andrew".

Mandelson responds, "Yes, without Andrew it would not have gone nuclear."

It's unclear exactly what the two men are referring to.

CNN has attempted to reach out to Mandelson for comment.

Mandelson was fired as Britain's ambassador to the US in September after Bloomberg published a trove of emails between him and Epstein which revealed the depth of their friendship.

Those emails had shown that Mandelson had sent Epstein messages of support until 2010 – even after the sex offender was convicted of soliciting prostitution with a minor in Florida two years prior.

– Reported with CNN and Associated Press.

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The driver responsible for one of Australia's deadliest bus crashes has lost his bid to reduce his jail sentence over a horrific mass fatality crash.

Brett Andrew Button, 60, was handed a decades-long sentence for causing a crash that killed 10 mostly young wedding guests and injured another 25 in June 2023.

He was driving too fast and under the influence of the opioid painkiller Tramadol before his bus tipped at a roundabout in Greta in the NSW Hunter Valley.

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His sentencing judge said in his half-century of involvement in the judicial system, he was unaware of any other case that had such a devastating impact on so many people.

Seven victims were from nearby Singleton – many linked to the local AFL club, including coach Nadene McBride and her daughter Kyah and Kyah's partner.

Others lived in Queensland or the married couple's childhood city of Melbourne.

Button appealed the length of his 32-year sentence, with his lawyer arguing some of the 35 criminal charges he pleaded guilty to had been double-counted.

The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed his appeal on Friday, leaving in place the full term and 24-year non-parole period.

Button's lawyer had argued the sentence was disproportionate to the crime.

"As catastrophic as the consequences were of the applicant's dangerous driving, the aggregate sentence imposed was manifestly unjust and unfair," Button's barrister Paul Rosser KC had written in submissions to the court.

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Button also argued the sentencing judge erred by finding the bus driver knew he was under the influence of the painkiller and that the tipping point of the bus was only 31km/h.

The bus driver had previously argued he did not realise he was affected by the opioid because he had taken it for so long and never felt impacted by it.

Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC told the appeal hearing Button should have known he was under the drug's effect because he was fired from a previous job when his employer learned he had become addicted.

The bus, which was carrying guests from a wine estate wedding, entered an elliptical roundabout on the way to Singleton before tipping over and hitting a guardrail.

"This next part's going to be fun," Button told passengers before accelerating into the roundabout and speeding around the turn before the crash.

Survivors described feeling they were about to die as the bus fell sideways towards a roadside barrier.

"The sensation of falling sideways and being completely powerless was terrifying," Jason Junkeer told Button's sentencing hearing.

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The BBC has apologised to US President Donald Trump over a misleading edit of his speech on January 6, 2021, but said it strongly disagreed that there was a basis for a defamation lawsuit.

The BBC said Chair Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House saying that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit of the speech Trump gave before some of his supporters stormed the US Capitol.

It said there are no plans to re-broadcast the documentary that spliced together parts of his speech that came almost an hour apart.

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"We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action," the BBC wrote in a retraction.

Trump's lawyer had sent the BBC a letter demanding an apology and threatened to file a US$1 billion ($1.53 billion) lawsuit.

The dispute was sparked by an edition of the BBC's flagship current affairs series Panorama, titled "Trump: A Second Chance?" broadcast days before the 2024 US presidential election.

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The third-party production company that made the film spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and "fight like hell."

Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

Director-general Tim Davie, along with news chief Deborah Turness, quit Sunday, saying the scandal was damaging the BBC and "as the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me."

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The Pentagon conducted its 20th strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat earlier this week, a Defence Department official said.

"The strike occurred in the Caribbean and four narco-terrorists were killed, no survivors," the official confirmed in a statement to CNN on Thursday.

Trump administration officials have acknowledged they do not necessarily know the identities of the individuals aboard the vessels before they are targeted.

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The strike occurred on Monday, the official said. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth previously announced two Sunday strikes, the 18th and 19th conducted by the US military, on two vessels each with three people aboard.

Hegseth said in a post on X the following day that those strikes killed all six. The 20th strike was first reported by CBS News.

The attack brings the total number of people killed by the US military's strikes on the alleged drug boats to 80.

CNN has reported that the military is using a variety of fighter jets, drones, and gunships to carry out the strikes in the campaign officials say is meant to disrupt the flow of drugs into the US.

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The Justice Department has told Congress the administration does not need its approval to carry out the strikes, which some experts have said could violate US and international law.

The ongoing campaign has also begun to surface tensions with allies; the United Kingdom has stopped sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels to avoid being complicit in the strikes, CNN reported this week, which the UK believes are illegal.

The president of Colombia also said this week that he had ordered his country to suspend intelligence sharing with the US until the attacks stop.

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Australia's first tropical cyclone of the season could reportedly develop as early as next week, as sea surface temperatures warm off the northern coast.

Weatherzone reported that sea surface temperatures in the region were topping 31 degrees, well above the minimum of 26.5 degrees needed for a cyclone to form.

"Water temperatures to the north of Australia are currently sitting around 1 to 2 degrees above average for this time of year, with sea surface temperatures as high as 31 degrees to the west of the Top End and north of the Kimberley," Weatherzone's Ben Domensino wrote.

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"The blob of warm water to the northwest of Darwin ranks in the top 10 percent of historical records for this time of year, meaning the ocean is primed to support tropical cyclone development in the coming weeks."

The Bureau of Meteorology's tropical cyclone forecast says there is a small chance a storm could form as early as Tuesday next week.

But several forecast models show the odds shortening a bit towards the end of next week.

"Another factor that adds weight to the increasing potential for early-season tropical cyclone activity next week will be a tropical atmospheric wave passing to the north of Australia," Domensino wrote.

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"This wave, called the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), should cause an increase of cloud and thunderstorm activity near northern Australia next week.

"This enhanced storminess can help create low pressure systems that can deepen to become tropical cyclones."

Despite the overall long odds of a cyclone forming, let alone making landfall in Australia, next week, residents in the country's north are urged to keep an eye on the Bureau's weather updates.

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