The highly decorated US Army soldier inside the Tesla Cybertruck that burst into flames outside President-elect Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel shot himself in the head before the explosion and likely planned to cause more damage but the steel-sided vehicle absorbed much of the force from the rudimentary explosive, officials said Thursday.

Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference that a handgun was found at the feet of the man in the driver's seat, who officials believe is Matthew Livelsberger, 37, of Colorado.

The shot appeared to be self-inflicted, officials said.

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Damage from the blast was mostly limited to the interior of the truck. The explosion "vented out and up" and didn't hit the Trump hotel doors just a few feet away, the sheriff said.

"The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience," said Kenny Cooper, a special agent in charge for the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Among other charred items found inside the truck were a second firearm, a number of fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch, McMahill said. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.

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Investigators have not definitively identified the remains as Livelsberger, but the IDs and tattoos on the body "give a strong indication that it's him," the sheriff said.

Livelsberger served in the Green Berets, highly trained special forces who work to counter terrorism abroad and train partners.

He had served in the Army since 2006, rising through the ranks with a long career of overseas assignments, deploying twice to Afghanistan and serving in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, the Army said.

He was awarded a total of five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor. Livelsberger was on approved leave when he died, according to the statement.

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McMahill said Livelsberger rented the Tesla electric vehicle in Denver on Saturday and the sheriff displayed a map showing that it was charged in the Colorado town of Monument near Colorado Springs on Monday.

On New Year's Eve, it was charged in Trinidad, Colorado, and the towns of Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Gallup in New Mexico, along the Interstate 40 corridor.

Then on Wednesday, the day of the explosion, it was charged in the Arizona towns of Holbrook, Flagstaff and Kingman before video showed it on the Las Vegas Strip about 7.30am.

The FBI said Thursday in a post on X that it was "conducting law enforcement activity" at a home in Colorado Springs related to Wednesday's explosion but provided no other details.

The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans' famed French Quarter early on New Year's Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot to death by police.

That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack. The FBI said overnight that they believe Jabbar acted alone, reversing their position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others.

Both Livelsberger and Jabbar spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to multiple Army special operations units. However, one of the officials who spoke to the AP said there is no overlap in their assignments at the base, now called Fort Liberty.

Chris Raia, FBI deputy assistant director, said Thursday that officials have found "no definitive link" between the New Orleans attack and the truck explosion in Las Vegas.

Seven people nearby suffered minor injuries when the Tesla truck exploded. Video showed a tumble of charred fireworks mortars, canisters and other explosive devices crowded into the back of the pickup. The truck bed walls were still intact because the blast shot straight up rather than to the sides.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday afternoon on X that "we have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself."

"All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion," Musk wrote.

Musk has recently become a member of Trump's inner circle. Neither Trump nor Musk was in Las Vegas early Wednesday. Both had attended Trump's New Year's Eve party at his South Florida estate.

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A worker digging up clay in a southern England limestone quarry noticed unusual bumps that led to the discovery of a "dinosaur highway" and nearly 200 tracks that date back 166 million years, researchers said overnight.

The extraordinary find made after a team of more than 100 people excavated the Dewars Farm Quarry, in Oxfordshire, in June expands upon previous paleontology work in the area and offers greater insights into the Middle Jurassic period, researchers at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham said.

"These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited," said Kirsty Edgar, a micropaleontology professor at the University of Birmingham.

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Four of the sets of tracks that make up the so-called highway show paths taken by gigantic, long-necked, herbivores called sauropods, thought to be Cetiosaurus, a dinosaur that grew to nearly 18m in length. A fifth set belonged to the Megalosaurus, a ferocious 9m predator that left a distinctive triple-claw print and was the first dinosaur to be scientifically named two centuries ago.

An area where the tracks cross raises questions about possible interactions between the carnivores and herbivores.

"Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found," said Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

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Nearly 30 years ago, 40 sets of footprints discovered in a limestone quarry in the area were considered one of the world's most scientifically important dinosaur track sites. But that area is mostly inaccessible now and there's limited photographic evidence because it predated the use of digital cameras and drones to record the findings.

The group that worked at the site this summer took more than 20,000 digital images and used drones to create 3D models of the prints.

The trove of documentation will aid future studies and could shed light on the size of the dinosaurs, how they walked and the speed at which they moved.

"The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur's feet squelched in and out," said Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist at the Oxford museum.

"Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through."

The findings will be shown at a new exhibit at the museum and also broadcast on the BBC's Digging for Britain program next week.

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Nature photographers from around the world have captured the best and worst of nature, in the hopes of winning at the Nature Photographer Of The Year Awards.

A lot has happened in the past year when it comes to cash and its future in Australia, as well as all the other ways we pay for things.

For their part, banks have continued their push towards a cashless society, shutting down 926 ATMs and 230 local branches in the last financial year.

In May, Macquarie Bank became the first major Australian bank to transition to cashless, digital-only payments, phasing out cash deposits at branches but still allowing customers to withdraw cash from ATMs without fees.

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The move left many people wondering how much longer they will be able to deal in cold, hard cash with their own bank.

Businesses too have continued to go cashless in increasing numbers, with cafe chain Gloria Jeans announcing it was joining the likes of McDonald's and KFC in making some of its stores cash-free.

Then, just when it was starting to appear inevitable that physical money would disappear for good, the Albanese government stepped in with a big announcement about a cash mandate.

Here's everything you need to know about the state of play with cash, digital payment surcharges, and those old-fashioned paper things, cheques.

What will the cash mandate look like?

The federal government announced its plans for a cash mandate in November, which will essentially require businesses to accept cash as payment for groceries, fuel and other essentials.

However, some smaller businesses are likely to be exempt from the legislation, depending on their size, proximity to population centres and capacity to handle cash.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government would begin consultation on a cash mandate before the end of the year, but it won't be implemented until 2026, well after next year's election.

"People are increasingly using digital payment methods, but there is an ongoing place for cash in our society," Chalmers said in a joint statement with Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones.

Are we actually using a lot less cash?

The short answer is most definitely yes. But that's not the complete picture.

Figures from the Reserve Bank of Australia's 2023/2024 annual report show that, in the last financial year, it issued $3.6 billion in banknotes. 

While that might sound like a lot, it is only 40 per cent of the typical amount it issues.

Here's the surprise though – the value of banknotes in circulation remains historically high at $100.8 billion, as of June 2024. This is the equivalent of around 4 per cent of GDP. 

The total decline in banknotes in circulation for the last financial year was just 0.5 per cent, while the number of $100 bills in circulation actually went up by 1 per cent.

So, while they might not be spending it, people are holding onto their cash.

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The Royal Australian Mint's latest annual report also shows a similarly stark decline in the number of coins it produced in the last financial year. 

While the Mint's target was to make 128 million coins for the year to the end of June 2024, it only produced around 40 per cent of that – 47 million, a sharp drop fuelled by the banks drastically reducing the number of coins they ordered.

On the flip side, ATMs are still getting a healthy workout, despite there being 926 fewer of them compared to seven years ago, according to figures from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority.

Australians withdrew $106.85 billion from ATMs between October 23, 2023 and September 24, 2024, up from $104.5 billion a year earlier, RBA data shows.

Australian cash advocate Jason Bryce, who runs the group Cash Welcome, maintains this figure itself shows cash is far from dead.

"Australians want cash and are voting for cash with their wallets and withdrawing more of their money from their accounts and walking around with it in their pockets," he said.

What is happening with cheques?

At the same time as announcing its cash mandate, the government gave an update on its plans for phasing out cheques.

The Albanese government now aims to stop cheques being issued by mid-2028, and stop them being accepted by September 30, 2029.

Initially, it had planned to phase out cheques in June 2023.

In the last decade, cheque usage in Australia has plunged by 90 per cent, with cheques now making up just 0.2 per cent of non-cash retail payments.

Banks have started taking matters into their own hands.

ANZ has already stopped issuing chequebooks to customers. Other banks, including CBA, NAB, Macquarie and Bendigo, have already begun to phase out cheques.

A crackdown on card surcharges

The surcharges applied by businesses to card payments have long been a source of frustration for customers.

The hidden fees are one of the many reasons pro-cash advocates cite for preferring to use physical money over digital payments.

An ABC analysis of RBA figures earlier this year found Australians pay about $960 million a year in card surcharges – no small figure in a cost-of-living crisis.

In October, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced it was cracking down on the fees, with surcharges on debit card payments looking set to be scrapped.

Credit card surcharges will not be included in the move.

The ban could be introduced from the start of January 2026, subject to consultation with the RBA.

In order to make this happen, the government will give the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) $2.1 million in funding to "tackle excessive surcharges" and reduce payment fees.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a "tragic incident" following the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people.

The plane was flying on Wednesday from Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, when it turned toward Kazakhstan and crashed while making an attempt to land.

There were 29 survivors.

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In an official statement issued on Saturday, the Kremlin said air defence systems were firing near Grozny on Wednesday due to a Ukrainian drone strike, but stopped short of saying one of these hit the plane.

On Friday, a US official and an Azerbaijani minister made separate statements blaming the crash on an external weapon.

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A Queensland family have lost their entire house deposit and their new home after unknowingly falling victim to a sophisticated mortgage scam.

A fraudulent email, posing as their conveyancer, robbed Sarah and Laine Robinson of a quarter of a million dollars.

The Benowa couple thought they were being safe with their money when they transferred their $300,000 deposit for their dream home to their conveyancer in person at the bank.

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Unknowingly, the majority of those funds, slid directly into a scam account and cost them their Mount Nathan property.

"We purchased it, we thought we had, and the day before settlement, it was gone," Sarah told 9News

"$250,000 was transferred, that was lost."

In a sea of legitimate emails, a well-disguised phishing fraud slipped through the cracks, the only distinguishable flaw was the "dot AU" missing from the end of the email address.

"If they [the bank] had said, 'hey, listen, let's contact where the money's going to and let's double check these details' none of this would have happened," Laine claimed.

The Gold Coast couple are not the only ones to fall victim to such a scam.

Just weeks ago, Brisbane pair Christine and David Rose were defrauded $40,000 in an almost identical scam.

"It had the same banners down the bottom, the same email signature, everything," Christine told 9News.

The Robinsons' bank was able to recover $80,000 for the couple said they refused to reimburse the total amount they lost.

They are now hoping their story will help spread the word and save others a similar heartbreak.

"We've worked so hard for the last 20 years to get to this point and it's all for nothing," Sarah said.

"Call and confirm everything that they send you, call and confirm, 'Is that from you? Is this real?'"

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A Brisbane disability pensioner has lost his home of 30 years after a suspicious fire gutted the property in the early hours of this morning.

Wayne Price managed to escape from the burning property in the suburb of Inala in the city's south-west after he woke up to smoke and flames at 2am.

Four firefighting crews worked to save the home after the suspected arson attack but the house suffered significant structural damage.

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"I'm totally devastated, I don't know what I'm going to do to be honest," Price, who is uninsured, told 9News.

"I've had some bad experiences in the past, but this would have to be the worst by far, I can't believe this has happened to me."

"How do you explain something like this, no one deserves to be treated like this."

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Police were at the scene of the Inala home and another nearby property today, which detectives believe was also set alight 25 minutes earlier but only superficially damaged.

Both fires are believed to be linked.

Meanwhile, CCTV has captured a third fire which started in a nearby park.

Price said the fire is the latest in a string of incidents which has devastated him.

"I've had my tyres slashed, I've had my windows smashed," he said.

"I've had to lock things away and they still get in and steal things."

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Three homes have been lost, along with 11 sheds and outbuildings across Victoria's south-west, as an out-of-control bushfire continues to burn in the Grampians National Park.

Fire crews are still battling the blaze, which threatened multiple communities on Boxing Day under the worst fire conditions firefighters had seen since the 2019-20 Black Summer fires.

The fire has burnt 74,000 hectares, roughly the size of Singapore, and is expected to burn for weeks to come.

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Cooler conditions have come as a reprieve for locals in nearby towns including Pomonal, Moyston and Willaura.

Today's high of 25 degrees is a stark contrast to the extreme conditions experienced on Boxing Day when much of the state was placed under a total fire ban with catastrophic and high fire danger ratings.

The intense heat paired with severe, damaging winds, with peak gusts reaching 100km/h, created dangerous conditions.

Forest Fire Management Victoria Chief Fire Officer Chris Hardman said the damage could have been a lot worse if it weren't for the efforts of firefighting crews.

"Without their hard work, we would have had much bigger fires causing much bigger damage," Hardman said.

"On behalf of all Victorians, I would like to thank them because what they did on Boxing Day in extreme fire danger saved a lot more anguish and pain that Victorians now don't have to suffer."

Thousands of firefighters worked across the state on Boxing Day to ensure communities were kept safe.

According to Victoria Police, authorities responded to six illegal campfire callouts on Boxing Day, many of which were discovered in regional Victoria.

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Fire danger subsides 

Multiple Victorian towns have been urged to monitor conditions as several watch and act warnings remain in place.

The latest warnings can be found here.

Firefighters are expected to take advantage of milder weather today, with crews working to reinforce containment lines and extinguish any remaining hot spots.

While the weather has improved, authorities warn conditions are still dangerous for people near the bushfire.

Three residential homes were lost in Moyston along with 11 sheds and outbuildings at Moyston and Pomonal, with impact assessments continuing.

Emergency services are expected to undergo further impact assessments when it is safe for personnel to enter the fire-impacted area.

The bushfire is travelling from Grampians National Park in an easterly direction and has impacted a communications tower at Mt William, meaning internet and mobile services could be affected.

About 163 people have attended assistance relief centres, with two remaining open in Ararat and Stawell.

Government disaster assistance is available for communities affected by the fires.

The disaster relief will apply to residents living in four local government areas: Ararat, the southern Grampians, the northern Grampians and the Macedon Ranges Shire.

"We know this is a challenging time for all communities, and all communities will be supported through this period," Deputy Premier Ben Carroll Carroll said.

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‘The victim was taken to Rotorua Hospital for treatment for their injuries.’

A man is in a critical condition after a reported shark attack in Queensland.

Emergency services were called to Humpy Island in The Keppels about 4.37pm today after members of the public reported that a man in his 40s was bitten.

He suffered significant injuries to his neck, which are considered to be life-threatening, a Queensland Ambulance spokesperson told 9News.com.au.

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A helicopter was sent to the scene with a medical team on board.

Humpy Island is one of the most popular islands in the Keppels known for camping, diving and snorkelling.

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