A large area of outback heat that is set to increase over the weekend and days after could cause record high temperatures across three states.

Weatherzone reports that South Australia, Queensland, NSW, and the ACT could all break their heat records for October, with temperatures expected to reach the mid-40s.

Over the past week, Western Australia's north-west saw a large buildup of hot air that is now spreading across the country.

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The heat is causing warmer temperatures in outback areas earlier than usual.

Parts of Australia's south-east are also set to face a brief hit of premature heat later this weekend and into next week.

South Australia

There is a chance that South Australia's previous October heat record of 45.4 degrees at Oodnadatta could be broken, with temperatures of 43 degrees expected on Sunday and 45 degrees expected on Monday.

Queensland

Queensland's far south-west is expected to see five consecutive days of temperatures as high as 40 degrees starting today.

Sunday and Monday will be the hottest days with temperatures of 44 degrees and 45 degrees, respectively.

The state's October record currently sits at 45.1 degrees in Birdsville.

New South Wales

NSW's October temperature record is currently 43.9 degrees in the state's north-west.

Parts of the upper west are expected to reach 43 degrees on Tuesday.

After potential storms on Friday afternoon and evening, Sydney is set to have a cooler weekend with highs of 22 degrees before temperatures rise back up to 32 degrees by Monday and a potential 37 degrees on Wednesday.

Australian Capital Territory 

Despite the forecast not being extreme, Canberra is still expected to be hit with a heat surge early next week.

The capital could reach temperatures of 32 degrees on Monday and Tuesday, with the state's October temperature record sitting at 32.7 degrees.

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NZ paid Samoa $6m over the incident, but communities are still waiting for funds.

Several operations say they are owed thousands of dollars from GrabOne.

Sydneysiders have been warned to brace for large hail and wild winds as severe thunderstorms develop in New South Wales this afternoon.

A severe storm was detected near Leppington and Bringelly, in Sydney's south-west, and is set to produce hailstones and damaging winds as it moves east.

"We've seen a lot of storm activity brewing in the last couple of hours," meteorologist Angus Hynes from the Bureau of Meteorology said.

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"Now imminently moving across the west of Sydney."

"We've just seen those warnings be expanded to include the entire Sydney metro area, and at the moment, there are two storm systems in particular that we're watching pretty closely," he added.

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The storms and rain showers are developing following a hot day in which Sydney recorded a high of 34.7 degrees at the airport and in excess of 35 degrees out west.

Earlier today, Weatherzone had forecast that unstable weather was likely to develop as a cold front and low-pressure trough swept over the state and collided with a "much warmer" air mass.

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"An upper-level trough passing over southeastern Australia on Friday will also help to destabilise the atmosphere, resulting in an outbreak of thunderstorms across central and northeastern parts of the state," the site reported.

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"Isolated supercell thunderstorms are also possible on Friday, particularly over central eastern NSW," it added.

"If these supercells do form, they may cause destructive wind gusts in excess of 125km/hr and giant hail measuring more than 5cm in diameter."

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Meyer was released into dad’s custody and wasn’t meant to be unsupervised around girls.

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Far more Australians think Donald Trump's second term as US president is bad news than those who think it's positive, but they aren't ready to call for a rethink of the relationship with our most important ally.

Ahead of Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese next week, the Sydney-based United States Studies Centre has released new polling, providing a snapshot of how the US and its president are viewed on this side of the Pacific.

The poll of more than 1000 respondents revealed that while 16 per cent of Aussies think Trump's second term has been either good or very good for Australia, more than triple that figure – 56 per cent – think it's been bad or very bad.

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The proportion of Australians who view the United States as mostly harmful in Asia has also surged since Trump returned to the White House, up from 21 per cent last year to 33 per cent.

Despite that displeasure with the president, the research made clear that Australians remain supportive of the alliance with the US.

"Despite widespread unease about President Trump's second term, Australians remain committed to the alliance," USSC chief executive Dr Michael Green said. 

"This underscores the resilience of the relationship beyond any single administration, but there are warning signs."

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Far more of the survey's respondents thought the alliance makes Australia more secure than those who think it makes us less secure, and more than half disagreed with the idea of withdrawing from the alliance, compared to 17 per cent who agreed.

However, support for the United States in both questions had fallen from the year prior, when Joe Biden was president.

"Over the past four years, the majority of Australians consistently believed that the US alliance makes Australia more secure," the study found. 

"In 2025, only 42 per cent of Australians share this sentiment — a 13 percentage point drop from 2024 (55 per cent) and the lowest levels since USSC polling in 2022. 

"Nearly a third of Australians (29 per cent) now believe the alliance makes Australia less secure — a figure that has almost doubled since 2024."

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The polling was released ahead of Albanese's trip to Washington, where he will finally sit down with Trump in a formal, bilateral meeting.

While the AUKUS pact, Australian defence spending levels, tariffs, and security in the Indo-Pacific region could all be raised during the summit, critical minerals could also emerge as a key talking point for the two leaders.

"When it comes to critical minerals, Australia has so much to offer the world," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said in Washington this morning. 

"We know that American companies desperately need critical minerals, and Australia is very well placed to service that need…

"No doubt it will be part of the discussions that Prime Minister Albanese has with President Trump next week."

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A renewed search for four-year-old Gus Lamont has come to an end, with police and troops not finding any trace of the missing South Australian boy.

Search crews, including the Australian Defence Force and SES were out in the landscape surrounding Yunta, in SA's mid north, from first light this morning, searching for fresh clues to try and find out what happened to the boy who has been missing since September 27.

Today marked day four of an extended search under the name Task Force Horizon to try and find Gus, with the focus on a 5.5km radius around remote homestead Oak Park Station, where he went missing.

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Police searched 95 square kilometres on foot this week.

The original search area extended well beyond that, with the use of the mounted operations unit and Polair estimated to have searched 470sqkm.

Police have this afternoon confirmed that they found no trace of Gus.

"The fact Gus is a small child, the terrain is extremely rugged, harsh and subject to changing weather conditions has made the searching difficult and more challenging for those involved," a statement from SA Police reads.

"Each of these factors may have contributed to the lack of evidence discovered. The location also presents less opportunities for police searching for a missing person, compared with an urban environment.

"Police have been making every effort to return Gus to his family through detailed, meticulous and protracted searching of the property and this remains a priority."

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The search for Gus has been one of the largest of its type carried out by SA Police.

Police say further searches will be considered.

SA Police said the family of Gus Lamont were continuing to cooperate fully with police and were being supported by a victim contact officer.

Gus was last seen about 5pm on Saturday, September 27 at his family's homestead Oak Park Station in remote South Australia, about 40km south of Yunta.

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US President Donald Trump wants to leave his mark on the nation's capital by building a Paris-style arch just west of the Lincoln Memorial.

Trump unveiled the plan at a White House dinner for the wealthy businesspeople who have pledged money toward the $386 million ($US250 million) cost of adding a massive ballroom to the Executive Mansion.

Trump did not put a price tag on the cost of the arch.

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"It's going to be really beautiful," the US president said. "I think it's going to be fantastic."

Many presidents and first families try to leave their imprint on the White House, and Trump is already doing that with many of the design and construction changes he's made to the property, perhaps most notably by converting the Rose Garden into a stone-covered patio.

But the arch goes far beyond the White House, giving Trump a chance to leave another lasting monument in a city known for them. It would expand on his earlier talk of sprucing up the city by replacing its "tired" grasses, broken signage and street medians.

Trump seems to draw inspiration from the French.

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The proposed arch bears a striking resemblance to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the famous monument at the end of the Champs-Élysées honouring those who fought for France during the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.

A military parade held in Washington earlier this year to mark the Army's 250th birthday was inspired after Trump witnessed a similar event down the famous Parisian boulevard eight years ago as a guest of France's president, Emmanuel Macron.

The White House did not immediately respond Thursday to an emailed request for more information on the arch, including the timeline for completing it.

Harrison Design, a local firm, is working on the project, according to a weekend social media post from Trump. A representative for the firm did not respond to an emailed request seeking comment Thursday.

It was unclear if the White House had presented the proposal to the National Capital Planning Commission, which has responsibility over planning and siting monuments, memorials and statues in the city. The commission's offices have been closed during the government shutdown.

L. Preston Bryant Jr., a former chairman of the commission, stated in an email that federal law requires that the proposed arch be reviewed and approved by the commission.

The arch would stand at the Washington end of Memorial Bridge, which spans the Potomac River from Arlington, Virginia. At the dinner, Trump showed off three different-sized models of the arch, which will feature a statue of Lady Liberty on top, and acknowledged that the largest one was his favourite.

Trump thanked his dinner guests for being "so generous in your contributions" to pay for the ballroom and said there might be enough money left over to cover the cost of building the arch.

"It's fully taken care of now and, in fact, we'll have money left over and we'll use that for something," he said. "We'll use that probably, maybe for the arch or something else that will come. But we love to fix up Washington."

The White House has said it will disclose information on who has contributed money to build the ballroom, but has yet to do so.

That project was announced in late July.

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