Saudi Arabia narrowly failed on Wednesday to win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, a blow to Riyadh’s efforts to boost the country’s rights reputation abroad and four years after it was rejected in a 2020 bid to join the 47-member body.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Wednesday its fighters had pushed back advancing Israeli forces in clashes along the border, including in a village where Israeli troops had been filmed hoisting an Israeli flag.

Cyber security reform proposing mandatory standards for smart devices and reporting requirements for some businesses “strike the right balance” and puts Australia on the path to learning from past incidents.

Hezbollah militants targeted Israeli soldiers near the Lebanese border village of Labbouneh with artillery shells and rockets on Wednesday, the group said in a statement, a day after Israel said it had killed two successors to Hezbollah’s slain leader.

Hurricane Milton barreled toward Florida’s battered Gulf Coast as an enormous Category 5 storm on Tuesday, triggering massive traffic jams and fuel shortages as officials ordered more than 1 million people to flee before it slams into the Tampa Bay area.

Hundreds of Australians have arrived home after being evacuated in the latest round of flights from Lebanon, as bipartisanship on the Middle East conflict breaks down in federal parliament.

The UK has offered dozens of stranded migrants, held for years in a camp on a secretive UK-US military island in the Indian Ocean, a temporary move to Romania.

Anthony Albanese has marked the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, while also acknowledging Palestinians being killed in Gaza.

Weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations may be shut down as NSW’s premier suggests police time could be better spent focusing on tackling serious crime.

The Category 5 Hurricane Milton was expected to grow larger on Tuesday as it threatened Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida, where more than a million people were ordered to evacuate from its path.

The mayor of the capital of Mexico’s violence-plagued state of Guerrero was killed on Sunday less than a week after he took office, the state’s governor confirmed.

Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city Haifa and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.