Drescher’s son believes there’s more to her death than Thai police have revealed so far.

Five new councillors joined the 21-member Auckland Council this term.

The review found more than 30,000 roadside breath tests were wrongly logged.

James Holder shot and killed David Bridgwater during an early morning confrontation.

Two teenagers have been arrested after a man was slashed with a machete in an allegedly "brazen" attack in Melbourne's east.

A 13-year-old and a 15-year-old are being interviewed by police over a shocking incident that was captured on CCTV on Wednesday.

The footage shows a man and a woman walking down Blacksmiths Way in Belgrave about 7.10pm when they were approached by a group of males.

READ MORE: Man's new Tesla struck by suspected meteorite on remote Aussie highway

One of the males slung a machete at the man. 

Sabrina, a worker at the nearby Tacos 'N' Tequilas, said it all happened so quickly.

"I initially thought it was a stick that he hit him with," she told 3AW Melbourne.

"I went out to ask him if he was OK, and I saw he had a massive gouge on his forearm."

Police alleged the group fled the scene in a white BMW sedan, which was used to steal petrol from a service station on the Western Freeway in Ballan earlier that day.

The man, a 27-year-old from Ferntree Gully, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

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The two teenagers remain in custody as detectives work to identify a third offender.

Casey MP Aaron Violi said it was "heartbreaking" that the two innocent victims had been targeted in the attack.

"The worst feeling, to be honest, is that it wasn't surprising," he told 3AW.

"We have seen these attacks so often. We've seen how brazen they are. I wish I was shocked by the attack. I was heartbroken within my community, but we're seeing it too often.

"It is heartbreaking to see our state going through this, and it's every Victorian that's paying the price, higher insurance costs, not feeling safe."

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Previous texts revealed the former MP called the Trade Minister “pretty f****** amateur”.

There are now 14 measles cases confirmed across New Zealand.

Croatia will re-introduce compulsory military service for its male nationals from early next year.

Male Australian-Croatian nationals will need to report to the defence authorities of Croatia under the change which will come into effect on January 1 in 2026.

Failure to report to defence authorities is an offence.

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The Australian government's SmartTraveller website has advised dual nationals to check their obligations regarding compulsory military service with the Ministry of Defence in Croatia or the nearest Croatian diplomatic or consular mission in Australia.

Croatia's lawmakers voted to reintroduce mandatory military service this month in response to rising global tensions, including Russia's war in Ukraine.

The country previously abolished conscription in 2008.

Croatian officials have argued the current global situation required the nation to boost its defence forces.

"In the face of any threat, defending the country is crucial," defence minister Ivan Anusic said earlier this month.

In addition to the rule change, Australians should also be aware of the new European entry/exist system has started for all non-EU nationals, including Australians, travelling in or out of the Europe's Schengen Area. 

Travellers will need to register at borders and have their fingerprints and photos taken.

This may result in longer border queues.

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A man was struck by a suspected meteorite while driving on a remote highway in South Australia, leaving experts baffled and excited.

Whyalla vet Dr Andrew Melville-Smith was driving home in his brand new Tesla on the Port August Highway, about 40 kilometres north of Port Germein, on the quiet night of October 19, when he heard a "really violent explosion".

"I was out of it for a little while. I can remember coming to, and I was absolutely covered in glass fragments, and my wife's going, 'the car's blown up, the car's blown up'," he told 9news.com.au.

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"I thought we crashed."

Shattered glass fragments and acrid white smoke that "smelled like the car was on fire" filled the Tesla, but the car kept driving.

Melville-Smith and his wife, Jo, were startled and received minor cuts, but otherwise okay.

"It was really scary at the time. One minute we were fine, the next minute we were in absolute chaos," he said.

Melville-Smith pulled over and noticed the windscreen had been hit by something.

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Whatever it was had left a mysterious crater-like dent and melted part of the glass, which was warm to the touch.

"There is farmland, no industry. It was a calm night. There's no rain, no lightning," Melville-Smith said.

"We looked at all the camera footage, and we couldn't see a darn thing. It's just black. There's nothing to see. There's no flash, nothing. It was so fast wasn't even captured on the cameras."

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Melville-Smith believes all evidence points to a meteorite collision.

"When you rule everything else out, and impossible is the only thing that is possible. Maybe impossible is the possible," he said.

"The next day, we took it to a windscreen place and they said they've never seen anything like it."

Melville-Smith contacted the South Australia Museum, which oversees all reports of meteorite crashes, to investigate.

SA Museum Minerals and Meteorites Collection Manager Dr Kieran Meaney was initially sceptical, but now believes it may have been a meteorite strike.

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"We get a lot of meteorite inquiries at the museum, and most of the time they turn out to be a rock from Earth that is doing a very good impersonation of a meteorite," he said.

"So, my initial thought was, nah, there's no way this is going to be the real deal.

"And then once I looked at all the details and the glass of his windscreen seems to have melted a little bit, and the acrylic layers in the glass have discolouration, almost like they've been burnt.

"It was certainly hit by something, and it was something hot, and we don't have another good explanation for what else it could have been."

Melville-Smith believes the chances of a meteorite strike on his moving car were one in trillions, while the SA Museum said it was unable to find an instance like this recorded before.

"If it is a meteorite, this is so rare," he said.

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Tesla and SA Museum experts have inspected the still-intact windscreen today and delicately removed it for examination.

SA Museum Director of Collections and Research Adam Moriarty said the team will work with partners to analyse the windscreen and associated debris to establish whether it was a meteorite.

"Other possibilities include road debris kicked up by passing vehicles, and even falling satellite debris," he said.

"It should be remembered that the chances of a meteorite strike on a moving vehicle are extremely remote, but the museum is keen to keep an open mind."

It will take time to analyse the windscreen.

If the results come back positive for a meteorite strike, the museum will organise a field trip to the location to try and find it. 

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South Australia has a long history of meteorite findings dating back to 1875 with the discovery of the Yardea meteorite in the Gawler Ranges.

State legislation dictates that all meteorites found are the property of the Crown and must be held by the SA Museum, due to their significant scientific importance.

The museum has more than 150 meteorites from Australia and overseas in its collection.

It recognises all discoveries with a personalised medallion for the finder. 

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The Justice Department's decision to sideline two US attorneys and remove mentions of Donald Trump and the US Capitol attack from court papers before the sentencing of a pardoned January 6 rioter is being viewed by former and current career prosecutors as an alarming whitewashing of history.

The events around the case of Taylor Taranto, who was convicted of bringing illegal guns near Barack Obama's Washington, DC, residence after talking online about violence toward the federal government, has shocked the network of Justice Department employees and alumni, several sources told CNN.

Taranto was arrested in June 2023 after claiming on an internet livestream that he had a detonator the day before, law enforcement officials told CNN at the time, and was searching for underground tunnels that led inside Obama and others' homes.

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He had also been present at the Capitol riot and charged with related crimes, though he was never convicted because Trump pardoned him before a trial. He has already spent 23 months behind bars and hasn't been detained since he was pardoned.

Judge Carl Nichols, a 2019 Trump appointee, had found him guilty at trial in May of the gun crimes and for making a false threat to use a car bomb against a federal building.

In a sentencing memo for Taranto filed Tuesday, prosecutors Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White wrote that after "then-former President Donald Trump published on a social media platform the purported address of former President Barack Obama," Taranto had re-posted Trump "and thereafter started livestreaming from his van" as he drove through Obama's neighborhood.

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Trump's original post – which included the Obama address – was itself a repost of a blog article.

Politico reporter Kyle Cheney highlighted the filing and mentioned it also included Taranto taking part in the January 6 riot, on the social media platform X late Tuesday night. Within 24 hours, the court filing was no longer available in the court record and the two prosecutors who had signed it were suspended from their jobs.

In the original memo, Valdivia and White wrote that "Taranto was accused of participating in the riot in Washington, DC, by entering the US Capitol Building" and "after the riot, Taranto returned to his home in the State of Washington, where he promoted conspiracy theories about the events of January 6, 2021."

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Two new prosecutors then filed an amended version of the sentencing memo to the court on Wednesday.

That new memo scrubbed all references to Trump and him posting Obama's supposed address – which Taranto had reposted – as well as Taranto's participation and conviction related to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

"It's shocking that prosecutors could be put on leave for accurately stating the court record in a sentencing memo, and it's just as shocking that those truthful statements have been whitewashed in a revised filing," said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department attorney and now executive director and founder of Justice Connection, which works to represent the viewpoints of former federal prosecutors, especially those who have been fired by the Trump administration.

"These prosecutors did their job and upheld their duty of candour by informing the court of clearly established facts relevant to their case," Young added.

Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney in Washington, DC, did not comment on the suspensions and filing changes when asked about it during a news conference Thursday.

"I think the papers speak for themselves, and what goes on in this office is not something that I'm going to comment on. Thank you," Pirro said.

'Orwellian'

On Wednesday, the moves made by the Justice Department had employees reeling within the US Attorney's Office in DC and the FBI, which had investigated and caught Taranto, believing he was a danger to the public in 2023, people familiar with the office told CNN on Thursday.

One source called the sentencing memo change "Orwellian."

Valdivia had no indication he may have employment issues – especially given that on Tuesday, the day before his suspension, he helped to secure a guilty verdict from a jury in a fraud case where he was on the trial team, according to two people familiar with the US Attorney's Office.

Separately, White is a supervisor on Superior Court cases and was a US Marine.

A Justice Department spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday following the suspensions: "While we don't comment on personnel decisions, we want to make very clear that we take violence and threats of violence against law enforcement, current or former government officials extremely seriously. We have and will continue to vigorously pursue justice against those who commit or threaten violence without regard to the political party of the offender or the target."

The spokesperson declined to clarify if the comments were about Taranto's 2023 actions toward Obama, or his participation in the Capitol riot in 2021, in which a mob of Trump supporters injured multiple people, including many police protecting the federal building.

The move by Justice Department officials to place the two attorneys on leave and erase all mention of Trump posting Obama's address or Taranto's participation in the events of January 6 comes at a time when administration officials have already worked to fire scores of federal prosecutors and officers they see as potential roadblocks in their efforts to use the DOJ against political opponents.

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia were recently pushed out of the Justice Department after failing to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James and many prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases were removed from the DC US Attorney's office earlier this year.

Taranto sentenced to 21 months

When Taranto was initially investigated, one source said, he had been on federal law enforcement radar because he had been at the January 6 riot. But federal authorities focused on him after he livestreamed a video in 2023 where he threatened bombing federal facilities, and law enforcement then arrested him near Obama's Washington address.

Taranto was arrested that day and law enforcement officials found guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his van. He was later found guilty by Nichols of several gun related charges and making false threats that he would drive a car bomb into a federal building.

The DOJ continued to seek the 27-month sentence originally sought by White and Valdivia, who said in court documents that Taranto has also made threats against former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin.

Taranto's attorney asked the court to sentence him to time served in jail already, with no further detention. The defence attorney, Carmen Hernandez, has asked for rehabilitation that the court could order, noting Taranto's past military service and post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis, according to a filing on Thursday.

Typically, a defendant's history and characteristics become part of court arguments for or against leniency when a judge decides a sentence.

At a hearing Thursday, Nichols sentenced Taranto to 21 months in prison, essentially covered by time served.

Nichols found that Taranto "made troubling statements" in his online livestream but noted he had no criminal history and his conduct "was far from egregious."

Taranto spoke briefly during Thursday's hearing, not to apologise for his conduct but to highlight a book on the 1787 constitutional convention and mention that some people questioned the results of the 2020 election.

"I would like to keep people's minds open," he concluded.

The judge also said he thought the two prosecutors placed on leave "upheld the highest standard" throughout the case.

"My view is that they did a commendable and exceptional job," Nichols said of the prosecutors, adding that he felt "they did a truly excellent job in this case."

White and Valdivia attended Taranto's sentencing and declined to comment.

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