Trump v Clinton: Stand by for the dirtiest campaign
Paul McGeough 12:28 AM Welcome to USA 2016 – citadel for democracy in a troubled world. Welcome to six months in the gutter.
Top world stories
'Duterte phenomenon' likened to Trump
Lindsay Murdoch 6:04 PM "It's going to be bloody. People will die," warns 71 year-old Rodrigo Duterte, the tough-talking politician already likened to Donald Trump.
Dead fish wash up on Vietnam's coast
Lindsay Murdoch 3:28 PM Protesters in Vietnam are blaming mass fish deaths on ocean pollution.
Heroin addiction grips the well-heeled
Andrew Purcell 3:08 PM For the first time since the Vietnam War, life expectancy is falling for white people in the United States. Drug use is a primary cause.
UK local elections put pressure on Labour
Britain's opposition Labour Party loses ground in regional and local elections, challenging the already fragile authority of its leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Brazil Supreme Court removes house speaker
Dilma Rousseff's foe Eduardo Cunha was removed as Speaker on charges of obstructing a corruption investigation, days before an impeachment process he engineered could oust her.
Russian orchestra plays as refugee camp burns
More than 30 people were killed Thursday when warplanes struck a tent camp for displaced Syrians in the northern Syrian province of Idlib.
Latest world news
Turkish journalist Can Dundar survives courthouse assassination attempt
Ayla Jean Yackley and Melih Aslan 1:23 AM An assailant attempted to shoot a prominent Turkish journalist on Friday outside a courthouse in Istanbul just before the verdict in his trial on charges of revealing state secrets was due to be announced.
Trash v Cash: Standby for the dirtiest campaign in American political history
Paul McGeough 12:28 AM Welcome to USA 2016 – citadel for democracy in a troubled world. Welcome to six months in the gutter.
'Boaty McBoatface' just can't be ignored
8:28 PM A new STG200 million ($A388 million) polar research ship is to be named after veteran BBC naturalist David Attenborough but the government has promised that "Boaty McBoatface", the name which topped a public poll, would not be ignored.
Canadian wildfire explodes in size, forces more evacuations
Rod Nickel 1:36 PM Expansion of fire cuts off evacuees in camps and shelters north of Fort McMurray as oil output drops, driving up global prices.
Paul Ryan declines to support Donald Trump: 'I'm not there right now'
Paul Kane 10:43 AM House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Thursday declined to support presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying that he would be willing to do so if the real estate mogul could unify a bitterly divided Republican Party. Former Texas governor and ex-presidential candidate Rick Perry, however, wants to be Trump's running mate.
Grim Sleeper serial killer guilty of murdering 10 women
Mike McPhate 9:42 AM The bodies of murdered young women began turning up one by one more than 30 years ago in South Los Angeles. The killer became known as "the Grim Sleeper" because he apparently took a long break between victims.
Donald Trump offends again on Cinco de Mayo: 'I Love Hispanics!'
Chris Zappone 8:18 AM Billionaire shows no shame despite slurs against Mexican migrants having been central to his bid for the White House.
Chinese boy born with 31 fingers and toes
7:10 AM A boy has been born in Hunan, China with 31 fingers and toes, a condition known as polydactylism.
Adam Whittington pleads for Australia not to abandon him
Latika Bourke 4:24 AM The Australian-British child-recovery agent Adam Whittington has hit out at Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's "double standards" over his ongoing detention in Lebanon compared to the Channel Nine crew who were the subject of high-level diplomatic talks until their freedom more than a week ago.
The 'Trump effect' will help authoritarians around the world
Anne Applebaum 3:38 AM Trump's rise fits very well into Chinese, Russian and other narratives about the benefits of authoritarianism
Turkey's Prime Minister resigns
Erin Cunningham Turkey's Prime Minister steps down, paving the way for President Recep Tayyip Erodgan to consolidate power.
Pakistani girl, 16, 'burnt alive' for helping couple to elope
Jibran Ahmed Pakistani police arrested 15 members of a tribal council accused of ordering the burning alive of a young girl for helping a couple elope.
Sailor rescued after two months adrift in Pacific; three mates perish: US Coast Guard
The US Coast Guard says a Colombian sailor has been rescued after surviving a two-month ordeal in the south-eastern Pacific, but his three companions reportedly died.
Indian boy Nihal Bitla, born with rapid ageing disease, dies at 15
Amrit Dhillon Nihal Bitla was born with a rare genetic disorder. On Tuesday he passed away, after a life spent raising awareness of his peculiar plight.
Muslim frontrunner to lead London tarred with 'extremist' brush
Nick Miller For a while, the campaign to find a successor for blond faux-buffoon Boris Johnson as London mayor looked to be one of the duller events of a busy British political spring.
Iraq's all-female combat unit seeks revenge on Islamic State
Emily Wither Thousands of Yazidis women have been killed or enslaved by Islamic State, but an all-female unit is trading freedom in Europe to make sure it doesn't happen again.
San Andreas Fault 'locked, loaded and ready to roll'
Rong-Gong Lin II Southern California's section of the San Andreas Fault is primed for a major earthquake a leading earthquake scientist has told the National Earthquake Conference.
Devastated residents flee Canada wildfire
Topher Seguin Thousands of people fleeing wildfires in a remote Canadian oil town face shortages of fuel and food but the frantic evacuation has also brought stories of shared resources and babies born in work camps.
Modi loses lustre as he courts rural vote
Vrishti Beniwal and Swansy Afonso For three generations, Kumar Jain's family of gold traders in India's financial capital has been among the staunchest supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party. Now they're thinking of looking elsewhere.
