Popular Australian actor Lincoln Lewis has issued a warning on the perils of social media after he was inadvertently embroiled in a malicious catfishing scam, which destroyed the lives of two young women. Melbourne woman Lydia Abdelmalek created fake accounts of celebrities, including the former Home and Away star, and used them to lure the women into destructive online relationships. …

Labor will set a national electric vehicles target of 50% new car sales by 2030, and 50% for the government fleet by 2025, as well as allowing business to deduct a 20% depreciation for private fleet EVs valued at more than $20,000, as part of its climate change policy to be unveiled on Monday. Bill Shorten will also flag a …

Malcolm Turnbull has called on Scott Morrison to “deal with” Peter Dutton after allegations that the immigration minister met the former Australian resident billionaire Huang Xiangmo after he paid $10,000 to a lobbyist. Turnbull , who introduced foreign interference laws in 2017, said the allegations contained in a Four Corners report regarding a meeting between Dutton and Huang following a …

An Australian member of Islamic State (IS) has begged to come home, describing “rivers of blood” flowing inside the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate and a life of horror and misery. Mahir Absar Alam, who was born in Sydney and went to high school in Loxton in country South Australia, urged Muslims around the world not to believe IS’s propaganda and to …

The Australian government has promised to deliver a surplus of $7.1 billion next year, pay off all debt in a decade, and provide tax cuts and cash handouts to most citizens if it wins the election next month. On Tuesday night, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivered his first federal budget, featuring the first surplus in 12 years. But the unveiling of …

The surviving children of Australia’s most notorious convert to the Islamic State group Khaled Sharrouf have escaped the last brutal battle against the terrorist organisation in Syria and are being held in a refugee camp in the country’s north, as their Australian grandmother pleads for help to bring them home. The ABC has confirmed Sharrouf’s three remaining children — Zaynab, …

Ashleigh Barty has claimed the biggest singles title of her career by defeating Karolina Pliskova 7-6 (1), 6-3 to win her maiden Miami Open singles title. In doing so, Barty consolidated her position as the first Australian woman since 2013 to reach the top 10 in the world rankings. She will rise to ninth when the new rankings are released …

The United States has cut $US700 million ($987 million) in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras after US President Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for over-migration and threatened to shut the US-Mexico border. A surge of asylum seekers from the three countries have sought to enter the US across its southern border in recent days, and US …

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been forced to deny her party has a women problem, with a Cabinet reshuffle following her election victory seeing the representation of women drop by one. In what the Premier said was a combination of “experience and new blood” from “the city and the bush”, Ms Berejiklian announced a number of new portfolios in her …

Daesh has lost its final shred of territory in Syria, according to US-backed forces which have declared an end to the group’s self-declared caliphate that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria, . Syrian Defence Force (SDF) spokesman Mustafa Bali took to Twitter on Saturday to announce a “total elimination of [the] so-called caliphate” after IS militants were defeated …