One man found out he was Māori from his dying grandmother.

Daman Kumar faces deportation to India despite his sister being allowed to remain in NZ.

The threat of a newly discovered asteroid has risen slightly in the past few weeks, as the world’s telescopes rush to track its course. But the chance of an impact is still quite slim.

New calculations suggest there's a 2 per cent chance the space rock 2024 YR4 will smack Earth in 2032.

This also means there's a 98 per cent chance it will safely pass our planet.

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The odds of a strike will almost certainly continue to go up and down as the asteroid’s path around the sun is better understood, and astronomers said there's a good chance the risk likely will drop to zero.

NASA and the European Space Agency's Webb Space Telescope will observe this near-Earth asteroid in March before the object disappears from view. Once that happens, scientists will have to wait until 2028 when it passes our way again.

What's an asteroid?

Asteroids are space rocks orbiting the sun that are considerably smaller than planets. Scientists believe they're the leftovers from the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago.

There are so many asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter — millions of them — that this region is known as the main asteroid belt. They sometimes get pushed out of the belt and can end up all over the place — like this one.

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How do scientists track potentially dangerous asteroids?

A telescope in Chile discovered the asteroid 2024 YR4 in December. It’s estimated to be 40 metres to 90 metres across. Observations by the Webb telescope should provide a more precise measurement, according to NASA.

NASA and the European Space Agency initially put the odds of a strike at just over 1%. By Thursday, it had risen to roughly 2 per cent. NASA describes that as still “extremely low.”

Until scientists have a better understanding of the asteroid's path around the sun, they caution the odds will continue to fluctuate — and quite possibly fall to zero.

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“You don’t have to be worried about anything. It’s a curiosity,” said Larry Denneau, senior software engineer with the University of Hawaii's asteroid impact alert system that first spotted the asteroid.

“Don’t panic. Let the process play out, and we’ll have a for-sure answer.”

In 2021, NASA gave the all-clear to another potentially worrisome asteroid, Apophis, after new telescope observations ruled out any chance of it hitting Earth in 2068.

Should we worry about asteroid 2024 YR4?

It's way too soon to fret over this asteroid, according to the experts.

“No one should be concerned that the impact probability is rising. This is the behaviour our team expected,” Paul Chodas, director of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, said in an email.

"To be clear, we expect the impact probability to drop to zero at some point.”

Since the asteroid's size and orbit are uncertain, it's unclear where it might hit and what the possible impacts would be should it strike Earth.

If the asteroid is on the smaller end, ESA said any potential impacts would be local similar to the Tunguska event that flattened thousands of square miles of forest in remote Siberia in 1908.

But if it's close to 100 metres, "the consequences would be significantly worse."

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Chodas said once Webb pinpoints the asteroid's size, NASA can predict “how serious an impact this asteroid could produce and how difficult a task it might be to deflect this asteroid.”

NASA already has some experience nudging an asteroid. The space agency's Dart spacecraft deliberately rammed a harmless asteroid in 2022 in the first planetary defence test of its kind, altering its orbit around its larger companion asteroid.

One iconic Aussie spot tops the list of landmarks outside the UK and US that have featured the most in movie scenes, new research by filming location experts Giggster has revealed.

Scarlett Johansson is condemning antisemitism and calling for legislation to protect the public from artificial intelligence after a deepfake video of her and other celebrities, created with the technology, widely circulated on social media this week.

The AI video showed an image of Johansson in a T-shirt emblazoned with a hand and middle finger extended, a Jewish star and Kanye West's name.

Though fake, the video implied she and others were responding to West's most recent antisemitic remarks and a swastika shirt he was selling on his Yeezy website, before it was pulled down by Shopify.

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"It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends, that an AI-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction," Johansson said in a statement obtained by CNN.

"I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by AI is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of AI, no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality."

Johansson's statement continued, "I have unfortunately been a very public victim of AI, but the truth is that the threat of AI affects each and every one of us. There is a 1000 foot wave coming regarding AI that several progressive countries, not including the United States, have responded to in a responsible manner. It is terrifying that the US government is paralyzed when it comes to passing legislation that protects all of its citizens against the imminent dangers of AI."

The fake video also included AI-generated imagery of Adam Levine, Mila Kunis, Lenny Kravitz, Mark Zuckerberg, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Stiller, Natalie Portman, David Schwimmer and others, set to "Hava Nagila," a Jewish folk song that is typically played at celebratory cultural events.

Johansson has been one of the most vocal celebrities to take a stand against the use of AI without consent.

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Last year, the Marvel star lawyered up in a fight against OpenAI as she spoke out about a synthetic voice "eerily similar" to hers being used for ChatGPT.

In her statement on Wednesday, Johansson called on elected officials to take legislative action against AI abuses.

"I urge the U.S government to make the passing of legislation limiting AI use a top priority," she said.

"It is a bipartisan issue that enormously affects the immediate future of humanity at large."

The AI video was created by Ori Bejerano, who describes himself as a generative AI expert on his Instagram bio.

His original post of the video includes a notice that reads, "This content was digitally crated or altered with AI to seem real."

"It's time to stop being silent and response to antisemites like Kanye West in the strongest way possible," Bejerano's Instagram caption, written in Hebrew and translated to English by CNN, read in part.

"We must demand from the social networks to stop giving stage to antisemitism and hatred."

While Johansson is the only celebrity in the fake video to speak out against the use of AI so far, some others have previously spoken out against West.

Over the weekend, before his Super Bowl ad aired, "Friends" star Schwimmer pleaded with Elon Musk to block West from X.

"We can't stop a deranged bigot from spewing hate filled, ignorant bile… but we CAN stop giving him a megaphone, Mr. Musk," Schwimmer wrote on Instagram.

"Kanye West has 32.7 million followers on your platform, X. That's twice as many people than the number of Jews in existence. His sick hate speech results in REAL LIFE violence against Jews."

West, who now goes by Ye, deactivated his X account late Sunday night.

Hen Mazzig, co-founder of the Tel Aviv Institute, an organization that works to combat Jewish hate and misinformation across social media, weighed in on the AI video.

"Misusing AI is dangerous, no doubt," Mazzig wrote on X.

"But you know what's even more dangerous? Unchecked antisemitic hate being platformed to millions every single day."

Anti-wind farm campaigners have heckled Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he held a media conference on the NSW South Coast.

Demonstrators accused Albanese of lying while they protested their opposition to planned offshore wind farms as he spoke in Lake Illawarra.

Their interruption started when the prime minister was asked about the impact of US tariffs on Australian exports.

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"My message is clear, which is we have got your back. We support blue-collar jobs," Albanese said.

A heckler called out "another lie" as others booed him when the prime minister continued speaking.

Albanese, whose visit to the region included a visit to the BlueScope Steelworks plant in nearby Port Kembla, gave a comeback to the hecklers.

"There will always be people who think that politics is yelling and shouting, rather than reasoned argument," Albanese said.

"[Wind] turbines are made of steel, by the way."

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After three months of community consultation in 2023, the federal government declared the Illawarra an offshore wind zone last June.

But some residents remain unhappy about potential environmental impacts of offshore wind farms.

Just minutes earlier, the prime minister introduced the Labor candidate for the federal seat of Whitlam in the Illawarra, Carol Berry.

She is contesting the seat after Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones announced he would retire from politics.

"We have brought in someone who has worked for decades and is embedded in this local community," Albanese said.

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Multiple bushfires continue to threaten towns in Tasmania's west, with further evacuation warnings issued this morning.

Residents in Corinna and Granville Harbour are being urged to seek shelter or leave the area as nine bushfires that aren't yet under control tear through Pieman River, Mount Donaldson, Violet Rivulet, Yellowband Plain, Rocky River, Heemskirk Road, and Corinna Road.

Zeehan residents are also warned not to return to the area as fires continue to burn nearby the town according to the Tasmania Fire Service, with Zeehan Primary School closed for today.

For further Tasmania bushfire warnings and updates, visit TasAlert.

The fires, which were started by dry lightning, have been burning for over a week and scorched over 70,000 hectares of wilderness.

Pieman Heads, Conison Rocks, and Sandy Cape residents are being told to monitor conditions as they change, while the area of Trial Harbour is being warned to prepare now for possible fires.

Communities in Renison Bell and Savage River are also urged to be aware of ember attacks from nearby blazes.

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Meanwhile, residents of Hobart and surrounds have woken to a smoky morning, as westerly winds push bushfire smoke towards the state capital.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a heatwave warning for the rest of today for Tasmania's north-west, where the fires are burning, as well as Furneaux Islands, North East, Central North, South East, and Western districts.

The heatwave is forecast to ease off this weekend across the state.

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A US man whose wife was killed in a horrific hippopotamus attack last year during a safari in Africa is suing the US company that arranged the trip, alleging it failed to ensure their safety and did not adequately screen and supervise the tour guides.

Craig and Lisa Manders were on a guided walk in Zambia in June when a hippo charged out of the water, grabbed Lisa Manders by its mouth and crushed her head and body with its bite, according to the lawsuit filed against African Portfolio, a safari tour company based in Greenwich, Connecticut. The company denies the lawsuit's allegations.

The lawsuit, filed February 5 in Stamford, Connecticut, alleges that as a horrified Craig Manders watched the attack, the tour guides – including at least one armed with a rifle – walked away without helping the couple. Lisa Manders, 70, suffered catastrophic injuries and died shortly after, the lawsuit says.

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"We're doing this because this should never have happened," said Paul Slager, an attorney who is representing Craig Manders with his law partner, Nicole Coates.

"There are basic safety standards that businesses are expected to follow, and that includes people in the safari tour industry. And those were not followed, and the consequences here were absolutely devastating."

Slager said the lawsuit seeks monetary damages that have not yet been determined, as well as accountability for Lisa Manders' death and keeping others safe in the future. He said Craig Manders was not giving interviews.

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The Manders, of Cranford, New Jersey, were on a special anniversary trip and it was their first time in Africa, Slager said. Lisa Manders had worked in the financial industry for over 40 years and loved cooking, travelling and visiting New York City, where she was born in Queens in 1953, according to her obituary.

The couple had three children and a granddaughter.

The company's lawyer, Rodney Gould, said it was not negligent or reckless in connection with Lisa Manders' death.

He said African Portfolio only arranged the couple's lodging and the owners of the lodging, Chiawa Safaris in Zambia, provided the tour guides.

"It's a horrible tragedy when somebody goes on one of these trips and is injured or killed. It's awful," Gould said.

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"I think it's important to understand what African Portfolio's role in this is. It's a tour operator. It arranges trips. It puts together the pieces."

He added, "My client didn't conduct the safari. It arranged it. It booked all the components."

Gould also said the company was not negligent in vetting Chiawa, because it has an excellent reputation. He said African Portfolio will either ask a judge to dismiss the lawsuit or request that the matter go to arbitration, which was a condition of an agreement the Manders signed for the trip.

In a statement, African Portfolio did not directly address the lawsuit. It said Chiawa arranged the walking safari and guests were accompanied by an experienced and highly trained guide, a ranger and an armed National Park scout.

It said Chiawa told authorities that safety measures were implemented before the attack and "repeated warnings" were issued to guests to return to the safety of the vehicle "during the incident."

Asked whether the guests were warned about the hippo before the attack, African Portfolio said in an email only that "the statement is an accurate reflection of the events as we understand them." Gould declined to comment.

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The company also said its founder flew to Zambia immediately after the attack and joined Chiawa's owner in ensuring that "everything possible was being done to support the family and all those involved.

Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family, and everyone else involved in this tragic incident."

The lawsuit, which does not mention Chiawa, says African safaris are "inherently dangerous activities" because of the unpredictability and sometime aggressive nature of wild animals, and they require careful planning and execution to be completed safely.

It says African Portfolio vetted and oversaw the tour guides and vouched that they were competent, qualified and trained to keep people safe.

The suit alleges that African Portfolio "encouraged and/or permitted" the Manders to be exposed to an "avoidable and highly dangerous encounter with a dangerous hippopotamus in the Zambian wilderness."

It also accuses the company of failing to provide safe conditions during the wilderness walk and failing to ensure that the tour guides were adequately selected, screened, supervised and trained to provide a safe experience.

African Portfolio also failed to take adequate steps to protect the Manders before and during the attack, the suit alleges.

Hippos are the world's second-largest land mammals after elephants, measuring about 3.5m long and about 1.5m tall, according to International Fund for Animal Welfare. The average male hippo weighs about 3.2 tons.

Hippos are known to be territorial and aggressive at times. A year before Lisa Manders died, seven people were killed in the southern African nation of Malawi when a hippo charged into a canoe and capsized it on a river.

Estimates of how many people are killed by hippos each year vary, with lower figures beginning at around 500.

Lisa Manders suffered "significant premorbid fear and emotional pain, suffering and mental anguish" before her death, the suit says.

Craig Manders suffered severe and debilitating emotional and psychological injuries that have made it difficult for him to cope with daily routines, it says.

The lawsuit is seeking damages on allegations of negligence and recklessness.

"He's suing both for the loss of his wife and the impact that has on him and his life," Slager said.

"And he also has a claim for having witnessed what happened to her, having seen the attack, which is unthinkable. It's unimaginable."

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A humpback whale briefly swallowed a kayaker off Chilean Patagonia before quickly releasing him unharmed. The incident, caught on camera, quickly went viral.

Last Saturday, Adrian Simancas was kayaking with his father, Dell, in Bahía El Aguila near the San Isidro Lighthouse in the Strait of Magellan when a humpback whale surfaced, engulfing Adrian and his yellow kayak for a few seconds before letting him go.

Dell, just metres away, captured the moment on video while encouraging his son to stay calm.

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"Stay calm, stay calm," he can be heard saying after his son was released from the whale's mouth.

"I thought I was dead," Adrián told The Associated Press. "I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me."

He described the "terror" of those few seconds and explained that his real fear set in only after resurfacing, fearing that the huge animal would hurt his father or that he would perish in the frigid waters.

Despite the terrifying experience, Dell remained focused, filming and reassuring his son while grappling with his own worry.

"When I came up and started floating, I was scared that something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn't reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia," Adrian said.

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After a few seconds in the water, Adrian managed to reach his father's kayak and was quickly assisted. Despite the scare, both returned to shore uninjured.

Located about 3000km south of Santiago, Chile's capital, the Strait of Magellan is a major tourist attraction in the Chilean Patagonia, known for adventure activities.

Its frigid waters pose a challenge for sailors, swimmers and explorers who attempt to cross it in different ways.

Although it's summer there, temperatures in the region remain cool, with minimums dropping to 4 degrees and highs rarely exceeding 20 degrees.

While whale attacks on humans are extremely rare in Chilean waters, whale deaths from collisions with cargo ships have increased in recent years, and strandings have become a recurring issue in the last decade.

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An incident in which a car was driven into a union demonstration in Munich on Thursday "is suspected to be an attack", Bavarian governor Markus Söder said.

Police said at least 28 people were injured, two severely, when a car ploughed into a group of demonstrators just hours before world leaders were set to descend on the southern German city for a high-level security conference.

The suspect is a 24-year-old asylum-seeker from Afghanistan, deputy police chief Christian Huber said.

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US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as other diplomats are set to arrive in the city today ahead of the Munich Security Conference tomorrow, which will be held 1.5 kilometres from the location of the incident.

Authorities launched a major operation near the city's central train station, a spokesperson said, according to Reuters.

The incident unfolded near downtown Munich about 10.30am (8.30pm AEDT) and a damaged Mini could be seen at the scene.

Police detained the driver and did not consider him a further threat, the force said in a post on X.

Police will investigate how far along the suspect was in his asylum application, spokesperson Thomas Schelshorn told CNN.

"What motive the perpetrator had, to drive into this crowd with a vehicle, has to be now found out," he said, adding that officers will conduct witness interviews and forensics "to get a picture at the end of what could have been behind this".

Schelshorn told CNN that some of the casualties are "seriously" injured.

"When I talk about gravely injured people, this also involves people where there's a fear if they will survive," he reflected.

The man was known to officials in connection with theft and drug offenses, the Associated Press reported, citing Bavaria's state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann.

Mayor Dieter Reiter said he was "deeply shocked" by the incident. He said that children were among those injured.

Participants in a demonstration by the service workers' union ver.di were walking along a street near downtown Munich when the car overtook a police vehicle following the gathering, accelerated and plowed into the back of the group.

Officers arrested the suspect after firing a shot at the car, Huber said.

Verdi, the key trade union for Germany's public sector, said it had no further information on the incident.

Those on the picket line were employees for local childcare services, according to the union, which organised the rally after negotiations for federal and local public service wages had stalled.

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One eyewitness recalled police shooting at the car.

"I saw that a man was lying underneath the car," the eyewitness told German program BR24.

"Then I tried to open the door, but it was locked."

Eventually, the eyewitness retreated and turned to those injured, BR24 reported.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was "shocked by a terrible attack" in Munich.

"Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. The perpetrator must feel the full force of the rule of law," he said in a post on X.

The Bavarian capital will see heavy security in the coming days as the three-day conference, an annual gathering of international foreign and security policy officials, opens tomorrow.

Local security measures have been bolstered due to the conference, authorities said, with at least 5000 police officers on duty this weekend.

Bavaria's state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said authorities do not believe the car ramming was connected to the conference, but they still need to determine the motive.

Just yesterday a German national was held over a foiled bomb attack plot on a temporary shelter for asylum-seekers in the eastern city of Brandenberg, according to the public prosecutor's office in Dresden.

It's not known if the two are connected in any way.

Today's incident follows a series of attacks involving immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany's February 23 election.

Most recently, a two-year-old boy and another person were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria.

– Reported with Associated Press and CNN

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