Train passengers in Victoria will finally be able to pay their fare using a bank card, phone or smartwatch from next year, in a long-awaited update to the state’s ticketing system. The public transport minister, Gabrielle Williams, on Friday announced more than 20,000 new card readers would be installed across the metropolitan and V/Line networks…
Some of the oldest photographs in England which show the country’s transformation after the industrial revolution have been acquired by Historic England. Images from the Janette Rosing collection include some of the earliest landscape photography ever taken in the country, spanning the breadth of southern England from the harbours of Clovelly and Plymouth in Devon…
Nearly 500 cat figurines were stolen in one week from Gordon Ramsay’s new London restaurant, the TV chef has said. The restaurateur, 58, recently launched Lucky Cat 22 Bishopsgate by Gordon Ramsay in one of London’s tallest buildings, which features the beckoning Japanese cat models called maneki-neko. He told ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show there…
A string of explosions has rocked buses in the Israeli city of Bat Yam, in what police described as a “suspected terror attack”, with an official saying that there were no injuries. No injuries were reported in the blasts late on Thursday. Police said bomb disposal units were searching for any additional bombs in the…
An ancient gummy-looking worm-like creature with a vicious hunting method that involves projecting sticky goo from its head has been crowned New Zealand’s bug of the year. The Peripatoides novaezealandiae is from the family of velvet worms, or Ngāokeoke in the Māori language. The invertebrates have rows of pudgy legs and skin speckled like a…
Major savings providers have pledged to fight any attempts to cut tax breaks on cash Isas after it emerged the government was considering a proposal to slash the maximum amount that people can put into them from £20,000 a year to £4,000. In recent weeks a row has broken out over whether ministers should scale…
Mexico will never tolerate an “invasion” of its national sovereignty by the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum has warned after Washington designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. “This cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty,” the Mexican president said. “With Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even…
The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will lay off roughly 7,000 workers in Washington and around the country beginning on Thursday, a person familiar with the plans told the Associated Press. The layoffs affect probationary employees with roughly one year or less of service at the agency and largely include workers in compliance departments, according…
The advertising regulator has found Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting misled consumers with an unsubstantiated claim that gas was clean, in an online advertisement in The Australian last year. Ads for Hancock Prospecting’s recruitment webpage futureaustralianjobs.com ran in the digital edition of the Weekend Australian in October 2024. The ads featured the text: “Our clean gas…
They may be the footwear of choice for Hollywood A-listers and pop stars, but Birkenstock sandals are not works of art, Germany’s top court ruled on Thursday. The German sandal maker had sought a ruling that its footwear, known for its cork and latex soles, could be classified as art and thus afforded strong copyright…
