MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Global online forum Reddit on Friday filed a court challenge to Australia’s world-first law that bans Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on the world’s most popular social media platforms. California-based Reddit Inc.’s suit filed in the High Court follows a case filed last month by Sydney-based rights group […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed a world-first social media ban for children younger than 16 that took effect Wednesday as families taking back power from tech giants but warned the implementation would be difficult. Many children posted farewell messages, while parents reported distraught children discovering they’d been shut out of […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Social media platforms must report monthly how many children’s accounts they close once Australia begins enforcing its 16-year age limit next week, a minister said Wednesday. Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X and YouTube would face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) from Dec. 10 […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government has begun a public education campaign with tips on how to wean children off social media ahead of a world-first national 16-year age limit taking effect in December. Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Friday that information on her agency’s website, esafety.gov.au, explained the new laws and […]

SYDNEY (AP) — The only Australian soldier to be charged with a war crime in Afghanistan pleaded not guilty Friday, but a prosecutor said he is unlikely to stand trial before 2027. Oliver Schulz, 44, is accused of shooting Afghan man Dad Mohammad three times in the head in an Uruzgan province wheat field in […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s highest court on Thursday removed the last chance for highly decorated veteran Ben Roberts-Smith to clear his name of findings that he unlawfully killed four unarmed Afghans under Australian soldiers’ control more than a decade ago. The High Court said it would not hear his appeal against a federal judge’s […]

Australian airline Qantas said Wednesday that a hacker made off with a trove of customers’ personal data including passenger names, emails, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers. The company said in a statement that a cybercriminal targeted one of its call centers on Monday and gained access to a third-party customer service platform […]

When a 21-year-old former student opened fire inside his school in Austria’s second-biggest city earlier this week, killing 10 people, it didn’t take long for the Alpine country’s press council to call on journalists to show restraint when reporting about the victims and their families. The appeal essentially reminded journalists covering the school shooting — […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian army whistleblower David McBride, who leaked allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan to the media, lost a court bid to have his prison sentence reduced on Wednesday. The three Australian Capital Territory Court of Appeal judges unanimously rejected the 61-year-old former army lawyer’s appeal against the severity of a […]

Australia’s most decorated living war veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, on Friday lost his appeal of a civil court ruling that blamed him for unlawfully killing four unarmed Afghans. Meanwhile a veterans’ advocate called on prosecutors to speed up their investigations of war crime allegations in Afghanistan that have left innocent soldiers under a cloud of suspicion. […]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A wave of antisemitic attacks has roiled Australia, with a dozen arrests for vandalizing or setting homes, schools, and synagogues on fire since October and hundreds more charged in just over a year with crimes targeting Jews. The attacks in areas where Jewish people live have provoked an outpouring of […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Best-selling British author Neil Gaiman released a statement Wednesday denying he had ever engaged in non-consensual sex after a magazine this week published allegations from several women, accusing him of sexual assault. The 64-year-old author of “The Sandman” comic book series and novel “American Gods” was responding to a New York […]