Hundreds of thousands of protesters have hit the streets of the US to speak out against the massive Army event being held in Washington, DC.

It seemed impossible, but shortly after news broke that an Air India flight had crashed in the city of Ahmedabad, video started circulating on social media showing a man walking from the scene in a bloodstained shirt.

Then, it emerged there was one survivor: a British national of Indian origin, identified as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh by the Hindustan Times.

"Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly," it quoted him as saying in an interview at the hospital where he was being treated.

READ MORE: The girl who fell 3km from a plane explosion and survived

He said he had been visiting family and was returning to the UK with his brother, who had been sitting in a different row. He didn't know if his brother had survived, he said.

Air India later confirmed that of the 242 people on board the flight, 241 had died, making Ramesh the sole survivor.

His cousin Ajay Valgi told reporters in Leicester, England, that Ramesh had called his family to tell them he's "fine," adding that they were upset about his brother and all of the others who died.

A doctor told CNN that Ramesh's condition was "not very critical" and that he could be released in the next couple of days.

"He has some blood in the images, but he's not very badly injured. He is very comfortable and under strict observation, no issues," said Dr. Rajnish Patel, professor and head of surgery at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.

Indian news outlets have shared a photo of Ramesh's boarding pass, which indicates that he was in seat 11A of the flight, in the emergency exit row, just in front of the plane's left wing. CNN hasn't independently confirmed the veracity of the photo.

READ MORE: Black box recovered as investigations continue into Air India crash

CNN safety analyst and former US Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector David Soucie expressed surprise that someone seated at that part of the plane would survive such a crash.

That seat is "right where the spar of the wing would go under and it would be a solid place for the aircraft to hit the ground, but as far as survivability above it, that is incredibly surprising," he told CNN.

Ramesh told Indian broadcaster Doordarshan that he escaped through a small space near the door by his seat. He said his hand was burned by the flames as he fled from the aircraft.

"I don't know how I managed to escape," Ramesh said, adding that he saw other passengers die in front of him.

"For some time, I thought I was also going to die. But when I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive and I tried to unbuckle myself from the seat and escape from where I could," he said.

Ramesh's survival was described as miraculous by a British member of parliament.

"It's nothing short of a miracle. I have reached out to the family and I'm choosing to respect their privacy at this trying time. But as you may have picked up … one of his brothers was also on that flight who sadly didn't survive," Shivani Raja, member of parliament for Leicester East, told CNN's Max Foster on Thursday.

People inside the BJ Medical College and Hospital hostel were also killed when the plane crashed into it, a senior doctor at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, where a majority of the dead and injured people were taken, told CNN.

The doctor added that the death toll is likely to rise.

Earlier Thursday, Swapnil Bhalodia of the Indian Medical Association Medical Students Network said at least three medical students had died in the crash and another 30 were injured.

The plane was headed for London's Gatwick airport and was carrying Indian, British, Canadian and Portuguese nationals.

READ MORE: How people live through plane crashes that kill everyone else

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

President Donald Trump has urged Iran to quickly reach an agreement on curbing its nuclear program as Israel vowed to continue its bombardment of the country.

Trump framed the volatile moment in the Middle East as a possible "second chance" for Iran's leadership to avoid further destruction "before there is nothing left and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire."

The Republican president pressed on Iran as he met his national security team in the Situation Room to discuss the tricky path forward following Israel's devastating strikes, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to keep up for "as many days as it takes" to decapitate Iran's nuclear program.

READ MORE: What could the Israel-Iran conflict mean for Australia?

The White House said it had no involvement in the strikes, but Trump highlighted that Israel used its deep arsenal of weaponry provided by the US to target Iran's main enrichment facility in Natanz and the country's ballistic missile program, as well as top nuclear scientists and officials.

Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he had warned Iran's leaders that "it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come – And they know how to use it."

Just hours before Israel launched its strikes on Iran early Friday, Trump was still holding onto tattered threads of hope that the long-simmering dispute could be resolved without military action.

Now, he'll be tested anew on his ability to make good on a campaign promise to disentangle the US from foreign conflicts.

In the aftermath of the Israeli strikes, the US is shifting its military resources, including ships, in the Middle East as it looks to guard against possible retaliatory attacks by Tehran, according to two US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The Navy has directed the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner to begin sailing toward the Eastern Mediterranean and has directed a second destroyer to begin moving forward, so it can be available if requested by the White House.

As Israel stepped up planning for strikes in recent weeks, Iran had signaled the United States would be held responsible in the event of an Israeli attack.

The warning was issued by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi even as he engaged in talks with Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff over Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program.

Friday's strikes came as Trump planned to dispatch Witkoff to Oman on Sunday for the next round of talks with the Iranian foreign minister.

Witkoff still plans to go to Oman this weekend for talks on Tehran's nuclear program, but it's unclear if the Iranians will participate, according to US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic discussions.

The president made a series of phone calls Friday to US television news anchors to renew his calls on Iran to curb its nuclear program.

CNN's Dana Bash said Trump told her the Iranians "should now come to the table" and get a deal done. And Trump told NBC News that Iranian officials are "calling me to speak" but didn't provide further detail.

Trump also spoke Friday with British Prime Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron about the evolving situation, as well as Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, oil prices leapt and stocks fell on worries that the escalating violence could impact the flow of crude around the world, along with the global economy.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., offered rare words of Democratic praise for the Trump administration after the attack "for prioritising diplomacy" and "refraining from participating" in the military strikes.

But he also expressed deep concern about what the Israeli strikes could mean for US personnel in the region.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who's on Democrats' shortlist for top 2028 White House contenders, said if Israel can set back Iran's nuclear program with the strikes "it's probably a good day for the world."

READ MORE: Everything we know about the 'miraculous' survival of Air India passenger

"But make no mistake: We do not want an all-out war in the Middle East," Shapiro said. "That's not only bad for the Middle East, it's destabilising for the globe, and it's something that I hope will not occur."

Israel launched blistering attacks on the heart of Iran's nuclear and military structure Friday, deploying warplanes and drones previously smuggled into the country to assault key facilities and kill top generals and scientists — a barrage it said was necessary before its adversary got any closer to building an atomic weapon.

Iran retaliated by unleashing scores of ballistic missiles on Israel, where explosions flared in the skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and shook the buildings below.

The US military assisted Israel intercept the missiles fired by Iran in the retaliatory attack.

Trump, in the hours before the Israeli attack on Iran, still appeared hopeful in public comments that there would be more time for diplomacy.

But it was clear to the administration that Israel was edging toward taking military action against Iran.

The State Department and US military on Wednesday directed a voluntary evacuation of nonessential personnel and their loved ones from some U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Middle East.

Before Israel launched the strikes, some of Trump's strongest supporters were raising concerns about what another expansive conflict in the Mideast could mean for the Republican president, who ran on a promise to quickly end the brutal wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

Trump has struggled to find an endgame to either of those conflicts and to make good on two of his biggest foreign policy campaign promises.

And after criticizing President Joe Biden during last year's campaign for preventing Israel from carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Trump found himself making the case to the Israelis to give diplomacy a chance.

The push by the Trump administration to persuade Tehran to give up its nuclear program came after the US and other world powers in 2015 reached a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limited Tehran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

But Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the Obama administration-brokered agreement in 2018, calling it the "worst deal ever."

The way forward is even more clouded now.

"No issue currently divides the right as much as foreign policy," Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and an ally of the Trump White House, posted on X on Thursday.

"I'm very concerned based on (everything) I've seen in the grassroots the last few months that this will cause a massive schism in MAGA and potentially disrupt our momentum and our insanely successful Presidency."

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Two tourists have been caught on CCTV sitting on and breaking a "very delicate" art piece at an Italian museum.

The "Van Gogh" chair covered in Swarovski crystals, made by artist Nicola Bolla, was displayed in Verona's Palazzo Maffei Museum.

It was destroyed when a male tourist tried to sit on the chair, breaking it immediately.

READ MORE: A miracle in seat 11A: Sole survivor of Air India crash speaks

Another female tourist, appearing to be his partner, stood by taking photos while the man broke the chair.

The museum released the video footage of the incident, condemning the actions of the pair.

"Disrespectful behaviour has put the integrity of a work of art at risk: the 'Van Gogh' chair by the artist Nicola Bolla was damaged by some visitors," the museum said on Instagram.

"[They were] waiting for the security personnel to leave, chose to take a 'spectacular' photo, ignoring every rule of respect for art and cultural heritage."

In another post to Facebook, the museum said they were able to fix the chair after days of not knowing whether the piece could be saved.

"We are sharing this episode not only for the record, but to start a real awareness campaign on the value of art and the respect it deserves," the post read.

"A heartfelt thanks goes to the police, our security department and the restorers, whose precious work allowed the work to be recovered."

It's not clear if the pair were found following the incident. 

The world was shocked by the plane crash in India that killed hundreds.

But focus after the disaster quickly shifted to the sole survivor who somehow survived the crash.

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was somehow thrown clear when the Air India flight exploded and split in two.

Even more remarkably, Ramesh was able to walk away from the crash with only minor injuries.

It seems like an unthinkable fluke, but Ramesh is not the first person to survive a plane crash through bizarre and surprising circumstances.

Here are some other remarkable plane crash survival stories.

Llandow crash

Eighty people were killed in what was then the world's worst air disaster in 1950.

The plane stalled on landing at Llandow Aerodrome in Wales and broke into pieces on landing.

The Avro Tudor V had been stripped so more seats could be put on board for the trip to watch Wales play Ireland in a rugby international.

Two survivors sitting in the newly installed seats at the tail walked away from the crash unharmed.

The only other survivor was a passenger who was in the toilet as the plane landed. He spent four months in hospital.

Read the full story

The 3km fall

The chances of surviving a mid-air plane explosion are so small that it is almost beyond comprehension.

Flying over the Amazon rainforest on Christmas Eve, 1971, a Lockheed L-188A flew into a dark cloud and was struck by lightning.

Teenage girl Juliane Koepcke was the sole survivor and recounted how the plane went into a nosedive.

"Suddenly the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. I was in a freefall, strapped to my seat bench and hanging head-over-heels.

"The whispering of the wind was the only noise I could hear."

The teen blacked out as she was spinning uncontrollably to the ground, so it is not certain how she survived the landing.

But ploughing through more than 30m of the thick leaves and branches of the Amazon rainforest canopy had slowed her down enough that the final impact did not kill her.

Read the full story

The plane bombing survivor

When a briefcase bomb exploded on a Yugoslavian plane in 1972, 23 passengers and four crewmembers were sucked out of the wreckage. The chances of any surviving were surely zero.

But, locals from a nearby village rushed to the wreckage and found 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovic still strapped into her seat and very much alive.

She fell from a distance of ten kilometres up – no one has ever fallen from that high without a parachute and survived.

An explosion in the baggage department split the plane into several pieces, sucking the passengers and other flight crew out of the plane.

But Vulovic was pinned in the fuselage by a food cart, keeping her in place as it fell to the ground.

Her section of the aircraft landed at an angle on a snowy mountainside in then-Czechoslovakia.

The trees and the snow, as well as the angle of the mountain, made for a softer landing.

Read the full story

Stranded in the ocean

Bahia Bakari was a 12-year-old returning from a wedding when the Yemen Airways plane she was in crashed into the Indian Ocean in 2009.

Clinging to wreckage in the pitch black, Bakari remembered hearing cries for help from other passengers.

But when help finally arrived 11 hours later, she was the only one still alive.

Bakari suffered a broken collarbone, a broken hip, burns and other injuries.

But she had no lasting physical injuries.

Read the full story

The safest spot?

When Jeju Air Flight 2216 crashed on landing after a bird strike in December last year, the only survivors were two flight attendants seated at the rear of the plane.

The crash split the fuselage, separating where the attendants were sitting from the remainder of the plane.

But despite the old adage, the rear is not necessarily the safest part of the plane.

"There isn't any data that shows a correlation of seating to survivability," says Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation said after the crash.

"Every accident is different."

Read the full story

Chronically over-budget, significantly delayed and lacking firepower – that's the expert assessment of a major warship project they say should be scrapped.

The Hunter Class frigate project is already seven years behind schedule and many billions of dollars more expensive than initially anticipated.

In 2018, British company BAE Systems won a $35 billion tender to build nine frigates, or $3.8 billion each, with the first scheduled to be in service by 2027.

READ MORE: Iran 'launches more than 100 drones toward Israeli territory'

By 2020 the price tag had blown out to $45 billion or $5 billion a piece, and Defence is now estimating it will cost $27 billion to build just frigates, or $9 billion each, with the first to be in service by 2034 – seven years late.

BAE Systems is the company that will build Australia's AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines.

Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge said the Hunter Class project was the "high point of decadence" in Defence decision-making.

He said Defence adjusted the original BAE British design with a series of add-ons, including different combat and radar systems – which made it massively more expensive.

"That frigate program is beyond scandalous – It's entered ludicrous mode for a wasteful use of taxpayer money and a very slow, small contribution to Australian military power," Shoebridge said.

He said the Hunter had just 32 missiles, which was a third of the weaponry of the Chinese cruiser that circumnavigated Australia in March.

"We're in a very dangerous world and a very dangerous period in the world, and waiting to the mid-2030s and into the 2040s for three frigates for this amount of money, makes no sense.

"We could go to the Japanese or the South Koreans and get a properly armed cruiser much faster than BAE is delivering this program."

Defence analyst Dr Marcus Hellyer was equally scathing of the Hunter frigate, saying Navy's adjustments to the design had not only significantly increased its cost, but the frigate's weight, taking it from 8000 tonnes to more than 10,000 tonnes, making it slower.

"It is monstrously expensive," Hellyer said. "And I would say, if you're in a hole, stop digging.

"The government itself has decided it can't wait for the Hunter Class frigate, so it has kicked off a new frigate program and it is considering a competition between a German design and a Japanese design.

"So the government itself has pretty much said we need to do something different – in a sense, they're halfway there already."

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the Hunter frigate project would not be cut despite its problems.

"I wish I had a time machine to go back to 2016 and avoid the mistakes that the Coalition government made, but we've moved on," Conroy said.

"We've got the project on track. Steel is being cut right now, we've signed the contract, there are about 2500 people working on this project right now.

"The fastest way of delivering new capability for the Royal Australian Navy, is following through on this, building this project, now that we've fixed up many of the mistakes the Coalition government made."

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

A Sydney man will face court after he allegedly led police on a pursuit at speeds of almost 300km/h in February.

Police attempted to stop the man when he was spotted riding a motorcycle south on the M1 motorway at Albion Park on February 26.

Police said during a short chase, the rider allegedly rode away from police at high speeds.

READ MORE: Atomic agency confirms Iranian nuclear site hit

The pursuit was stopped by police for safety reasons. 

He was spotted later that evening, spotted again further south on the Princes Highway.

An investigation was launched, and months later, the man was arrested at Killarney Heights in Sydney's north.

A 33-year-old man was arrested, with police allegedly finding a small amount of cocaine in his possession.

He has been charged with two counts of not stopping for police, speeding more than 45km/h over the speed limit, and drug possession.

Police will allege the man took helmet footage of the pursuits, which was posted to social media and indicated he reached speeds of up to 299km/h.

The man was expected to face Manly Local Court today.

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

An accused triple murderer has opened up about lying to police after cooking a deadly mushroom lunch and fibbing to two of her alleged victims about having cancer tests done.

But Erin Patterson denies she deliberately foraged for death cap mushrooms and she knew they were inside toxic beef Wellingtons when she served them to her former in-laws.

The 50-year-old faced a fourth day in the Supreme Court witness box today, when she was cross-examined by the prosecution on several lies.

READ MORE: Mother accused of being alleged mastermind of crime spree in Sydney's west

Patterson has denied deliberately poisoning her estranged husband's parents, aunt and uncle by serving them death cap mushroom-laced beef Wellingtons in July 2023 at her home in regional Victoria.

She has been charged with three murders over the deaths of Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, and attempted murder over Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, the only surviving lunch guest.

Her defence finished examination of Patterson this morning, asking about her lies to police after the meal.

Patterson admitted she lied during her police interview about foraging for mushrooms, owning a dehydrator and using it to dehydrate food.

She said it was a "stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying" in response to being told two of her lunch guests had died.

Defence barrister Colin Mandy SC asked if she had ever "intentionally picked death cap mushrooms" to which she said "no".

She denied intentionally including the toxic fungi in the beef Wellingtons.

The prosecution honed in on Patterson's fibs during cross-examination, accusing her of lying about dehydrating mushrooms because she knew telling police the truth could implicate her in the toxic lunch.

"I agree that I lied because I was afraid I would be held responsible," Patterson said.

Prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers SC suggested Patterson disposed of a food dehydrator because she had used it to dehydrate death cap mushrooms, which she denied.

READ MORE: Maker of explosives used in 2002 Bali Bombings opens coffee shop

Rogers also suggested Patterson had weighed death cap mushrooms to "calculate" the amount needed for "a fatal dose for one person", but Patterson disagreed.

The prosecutor asked if she had intended to serve beef Wellington to her estranged husband Simon, who pulled out of the lunch the night before.

"If he'd come I would have given him a beef Wellington too, yes, but not one with death cap mushrooms in it intentionally," Patterson said.

Rogers asked Patterson about lies she told Don and Gail Patterson, regarding tests on a lump in her arm in the weeks before the lunch.

Patterson accepted she did not have a lump and did not have an appointment at hospital, despite telling Gail she did.

"I suggest that you told Gail Patterson that you had a lump in your elbow and had to go to St Vincent's Hospital to plant the seed of you having a serious health issue," Rogers said.

"I don't think that's right, no," Patterson said.

Patterson said she initially thought she had a lump in her elbow and had pain for a number of weeks and felt embarrassed she "probably whinged a bit too much to Don and Gail about it".

"They made me feel loved and cared for in the way that they were asking about my health and I didn't want that to stop, so I just kept going," she said.

Patterson denied she told her lunch guests she had been diagnosed with cancer and needed advice on how to break this news to her children.

"I can't remember the precise words, but I do know what I was trying to communicate was … that I was undergoing investigations around ovarian cancer and might need treatment in that regard in the future," she said.

As the trial nears the end of week six, Justice Christopher Beale told the jury he could not put a figure on how much longer it would go for but they should make arrangements.

Patterson may continue in the witness box until next week, followed by legal discussions without the jury, and then potentially more evidence before closing addresses which could take two days each.

The judge may then take another couple of days to give the jury his directions before they're sent away to deliberate on a verdict.

The trial continues.

LISTEN NOW: The Mushroom Trial: Say Grace is the latest podcast from Nine and The Age. Join journalists Penelope Liersch and Erin Pearson as they take listeners inside the case that's grabbed global headlines. You can listen on Apple here and Spotify here.

Three Te Pāti Māori MPs have received the harshest penalties in Parliament’s history.

Households might be holding back on their spending, but there's one thing Australians have been happy to splash out on recently: booze.

New ABS data released this morning showed spending growth was essentially flat in April, rising by just 0.1 per cent for the month, it fell 1.2 when only goods were considered.

That came on the back of fresh GDP figures yesterday, which showed the proportion of income Australians are saving has risen to 5.2 per cent – up from less than 4 per cent late last year.

READ MORE: Qantas lures iconic brand into frequent flyer program

But while households are clearly still keeping their belts tight after years of high inflation and interest rate rises, they've been happy to spend more on alcohol recently.

A survey by comparison site Canstar Blue found Australians are spending $77 on wine every month, on average, an increase of 17 per cent from the same time last year, when the figure was sitting at $66.

The jump in beer spending has been even steeper: up 30 per cent, going from $76 to $99.

That's well in excess of inflation, as the average price of beer rose a far more modest 4.5 per cent in the 12 months to March.

READ MORE: Aussie city indefinitely suspends e-scooters after father killed

"The Easter holidays helped pick up spending slightly for the month of April, but these latest figures show households chose to spend more on experiences than on discretionary items, like clothing and footwear," Canstar Blue spokesperson Eden Radford said.

"Despite spending on alcoholic beverages and tobacco falling for the month, Canstar Blue research shows average monthly spending specifically on wine and beer has increased over the last year, with survey data showing $99 for beer and $77 for wine.

"If this month's figures are anything to go by, households will continue to keep a close eye on their budgets, with many likely holding out for big sale seasons or tax returns, before making any big purchases."

Yesterday's relatively weak GDP figures have fuelled expectations that the Reserve Bank will reduce interest rates again when it next meets in July, with the market now pricing in an 86 per cent chance of a cut, up from 81 per cent on Tuesday.

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.