Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, says he will cover the pay of US Transportation Security ‌Administration officers during their second unpaid work stoppage in six months amid a protracted ‌federal funding lapse.

Also on Saturday, President Donald Trump threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to US airports if congressional Democrats did not immediately agree to fund airport safety.

“I will move our brilliant ‌and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no ‌one has ever seen before,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

The budget impasse over funding for the TSA’s parent agency, the Department ‌of Homeland Security, is in its fifth week. Screeners and other TSA personnel are days away from missing a second full paycheque, but are being pressured to show up as screening times at some airports stretch on for hours. 

TSA officers have called in sick in ​recent weeks as paycheques dried up. The shortage of security agents has led to travel disruptions at major airports.

“I would ‌like to ‌offer to ⁠pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse ​that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country,” Musk said in a post on his social media platform X.

DHS, TSA and representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Airlines and travel ⁠groups say absences among the TSA’s ‌roughly 50,000 ​airport security officers could increase again this weekend. TSA staffers earn an average of $US61,000 ($A86,759) annually, ​according to federal ‌data. 

Airports are running food drives and accepting donations for security screeners amid ​the partial US government shutdown.

DHS funding timelines remain uncertain. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Friday that bipartisan negotiators have narrowed the remaining ​disputes ​over DHS funding, but a deal ​has not been finalised. 

Democrats in Congress ‌in February agreed to fund most of the government in exchange for withholding funds from DHS following the killings of two US citizens in Minnesota by immigration authorities. 

Last year, President Donald Trump said a wealthy donor provided $US130 million ($A185 million) to help ​cover possible military pay shortfalls caused by that government shutdown, which lasted ​43 days and ⁠was the longest in US history.

Already soaked northern communities are being battered by the second coming of Tropical Cyclone Narelle, as they brace for the possibility of road closures and supply shortages.

Narelle is already impacting coastal areas of the eastern Top End with a coastal crossing early on Sunday morning near Cape Shield to the northwest of Groote Eylandt.

It is expected to track across the Top End throughout Sunday and Monday as a tropical low, with residents told to expect heavy, locally intense rainfall and damaging winds.

The storm was upgraded to category three late on Saturday and has brought with it damaging winds 130 km/h winds near the centre, and 185 km/h gusts, as well as severe rainfall across much of the Top End.

Towns on the Gulf of Carpentaria and further inland in the Northern Territory have been told by the Bureau of Meteorology to expect wind gusts up to 165 kilometres an hour and rainfall above 200 millimetres on Sunday.

The community was well-prepared for the storm and the government response so far had been effective, the director of the Savannah Way Motel in the Gulf town of Borroloola said.

“There has been a fair bit of water around from previous rain,” Anastasi Kambourakis told AAP.

“Most of the people who live in Borroloola are used to it this time of year.”

Narelle is the first cyclone to hit the area in more than a year and lessons have been learned from previous experiences.

“We did lose freight for a little bit,” Mr Kambourakis said.

“The government always prioritises getting it through to the community.”

Gulf communities are also warned to expect abnormally high sea levels that could cause sea water flooding of low-lying areas.

Residents sheltering at home should move to the smallest, strongest, most protective room in their house, such as a bathroom or a toilet.

Flood warnings are in place across much of the Top End, particularly in Katherine and Daly.

Patients were evacuated from Katherine Hospital in anticipation of Narelle worsening the delicate flood situation in the town.

The storm is expected to move slowly south and west on Sunday, with warnings in place for large swathes of Western Australia as well.

Residents across the Kimberley have been told to prepare now for the likelihood of heavy rain on Monday as the storm slowly weakens.

In Queensland, the clean-up from the cyclone has begun with energy crews deployed to return to power more than a 1000 homes.

Police have delivered fuel to remote communities on Cape York to help locals recover from the storm, which brought down trees and ripped off roofs as it passed.

South Australia has woken to a returned Labor government but it will be days before it is clear how many lower house seats One Nation has won despite a huge swing in its favour.

Premier Peter Malinauskas vowed his party would “work our guts out for the next four years” after increasing its majority.

“Although this is the best result our party has ever achieved, it’s very important that no one confuses tonight’s result as adulation,” he said.

Labor had secured 30 seats, the Liberals four seats but the remaining 13 seats in the lower house were in doubt.

In a historic result, One Nation had a 19.2 per cent swing, while the Liberals vote collapsed with a 15.9 per cent swing against it, with nearly 40 per cent of the vote counted. 

One Nation candidates were leading the primary vote in the lower house seats of Hammond, Mackillop and Ngadjuri, which would be decided on preferences. 

One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson said it was unclear how many seats the party had won but pointed to state leader Cory Bernardi’s success in winning his upper house seat.

She said the party would be going hard for former federal Liberal leader Sussan Ley’s seat of Farrer and at the Victorian state election.

“There’s a movement. There’s an undercurrent, and it’s people saying we’ve had a gutful. We want our country back. We want to have a voice,” she told Sky News.

Mr Bernardi said he was smiling.

“Because today an earthquake has rattled the foundations of uni-party politics in South Australia,” he said.

Liberal leader Ashton Hurn retained her seat in the Barossa Valley and will remain in the leadership role.

Federal Liberal senator Anne Ruston said the party had been sent a clear message and needed to return to the centre right.

She said the party could not win by moving to the the right or the left.

At the Labor victory celebration, Mr Malinauskas read a Henry Lawson poem, The Duty of Australians, and noted that our patriotism was “less brash and boastful and more dogged and determined”. 

“Diversity has always been our greatest strength,” he said.

A record 454,862 (34.5 per cent) people cast early votes and 174,000 (13.2 per cent) requested postal ballots, meaning almost half the 1.3 million eligible voters had potentially voted before election day.

Fuel companies will be allowed to co-ordinate on supply but have been warned not to collaborate on prices that disadvantage Australians at the bowser. 

Oil prices have soared and global supplies have been cut after Iran’s de-facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation against US-Israeli strikes.

Rising demand has also placed increasing pressure on fuel supply chains.

Australia’s consumer watchdog has granted an urgent interim authorisation to members of the Australian Institute of Petroleum allowing companies to discuss, exchange information about, and co-ordinate on the supply of fuel without risking a breach of competition laws.

But fuel suppliers are not allowed to share information about or reach an agreement on price.

Allowing major companies to co-ordinate raises a risk of harm to competition which is why the authorisation has strict conditions, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

“We recognise how critical it is that industry is able to quickly and efficiently co-ordinate and respond to the supply chain disruptions we are experiencing,” she said.

Any company that broke the rules would be penalised, Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned on Saturday.

“It’s really important the big players in the fuel markets don’t treat this as a chance to disadvantage the independents who play a vital role including in regional Australia,” he said.

“The government is working with industry and regulators to ensure Australians get a fair go at the pump and in the supply chain and anyone breaking the rules must have the book thrown at them.”

The watchdog has also imposed conditions to the authorisation that aim to maintain independent fuel distribution.

“We note that independent suppliers are part of their local, regional communities and have established relationships in their areas,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.

“They are a crucial part of supply chains in this market and need to be part of the solution to the fuel supply issues, including by receiving adequate allocations from the major suppliers.”

CBS News says it is shutting down its United States radio news service after nearly 100 years of operation as part of a round of lay offs, blaming a shift in radio station programming strategies and challenging economic times.

When it went on the air in September 1927, CBS News Radio was the precursor to the entire network, giving a youthful William S Paley a start in the business.

Famed broadcaster Edward R Murrow delivered reports from London during World War II as part of the service.

Today CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the United States, and is known best for its top-of-the-hour news roundups.

The service will end on May 22, the network said on Friday.

“While this was a necessary decision, it was not an easy one,” CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and president Tom Cibrowski said in a memo to staff on Friday.

Along with newspapers, radio was the dominant force in how people in the US got their news from the 1920s through the 1940s, with many listening to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats” during the Depression, before the format was largely supplanted by television in the 1950s.

Radio is even less a force in modern society, with the world online and on phones.

Those seeking audio often turn to podcasts before radio.

The front page of CBS News’ website did not immediately carry news of the demise.

Weiss is not a stranger to CBS’ storied history.

Addressing her staff in January, three months into her job as CBS News boss, she invoked the network’s newsman Walter Cronkite as a symbol of old thinking and said that if the network continues with its current strategy, “we’re toast”.

Weiss announced the hiring of 18 new contributors and said CBS News needs to do stories that will “surprise and provoke – including inside our own newsroom”.

A one-horse state political battle has captured the national spotlight, in the first major electoral test of One Nation’s surging popularity.

While the Labor Party is expected to easily win the South Australian state election on Saturday, opinion polls show One Nation at 22 to 28 per cent, outpacing the Liberal vote at 14 to 20 per cent. 

Flinders University public policy associate lecturer Josh Sunman said One Nation’s discipline had been the surprise story of the campaign. 

“The fact that we got to the final week and there was only one negative candidate story about One Nation, and that was (candidate Aoi Baxter) was perhaps a fly-in from Sydney, was really instructive to me,” he said.

Hours after he made the comment, the ABC reported a UK court had issued an arrest warrant for Mr Baxter over a charge of sexually touching a woman without consent, and he was swiftly disendorsed by One Nation.

Mr Sunman said One Nation had delivered targeted messaging and candidate discipline, and “I was expecting a lot more candidate scandals and meltdowns”.

The Liberals, meanwhile, had run a pretty dismal campaign, he said.

“They have to balance taking on Labor with One Nation, who are just eating away their primary, but they haven’t been able to advance a coherent campaign narrative,” he said.

However, Liberal leader Ashton Hurn had done an admirable job of trying to present a credible alternative premier, Mr Sunman said.

In the final opinion poll, released on Friday, YouGov forecast a 59-41 win for Labor on a two-party preferred basis against both the Liberals and One Nation, a 4.4 per cent swing in its favour.

YouGov’s Paul Smith said Labor was set to secure its largest two-party preferred vote in SA history, while the Liberals were on track for 19 per cent, their worst result in any state or federal election since the coalition was formed.

“One Nation’s surge to 22 per cent places them second in the state for the first time, with particularly strong support in regional areas,” he said.

Federal leader Pauline Hanson said the major parties were worried about the One Nation factor and agreed the election would be a barometer of the party’s popularity. 

“I’ve been here for the last week, and at a polling booth now … the on-the-ground feeling is extremely strong,” she told radio 2GB on Friday, as someone yelled at her “Pauline Hanson, you’re not welcome here”.

Adelaide University emeritus professor of politics Clem Macintyre said the rise and rise of One Nation had the potential to create a watershed moment in Australian politics, and the end of two-party politics at a federal level.

“If they do make a breakthrough, they’re going to have to work hard to be a more serious and viable alternative government,” he said.

“It’s more frustration with the major parties … I think we can still say One Nation is a party of disaffected voters.”

Mr Sunman said Mr Malinauskas was a dependable performer throughout the campaign, but there were warning signs for Labor. 

“Maybe he just comes off as a bit too arrogant sometimes, and there are echoes of the previous (Mike) Rann era.”

Mortgage holders could face as many as three interest rate hikes by Christmas, according to money markets, as concerns mount over the Iran war’s impact on inflation.

Rates traders upped their predictions on Friday, pricing in almost 75 more basis points of hikes by the Reserve Bank by the year’s end, after hawkish overnight meetings by global central banks.

Coinciding with more attacks on liquefied natural gas infrastructure in the Middle East, pessimistic commentary from the European Central Bank and the Bank of England heightened fears the conflict would compound Australia’s inflation problem.

If money market predictions are borne out, the Reserve Bank’s cash rate would end 2026 at an 18-year high of 4.85 per cent, adding to the misery of mortgage holders.

On Thursday, markets had been pricing in closer to two hikes in 2026.

IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said as well as a May hike, chances of follow-up rate rises in September and December were high if the war dragged on.

In addition to the primary impact on fuel prices, rising energy costs are contributing to so-called second-order effects as inflation ripples across the broader economy.

A project manager at one major Australian construction company said he had received about 25 emails since the start of the conflict from contractors notifying they would be raising prices due to higher fuel costs.

“Already got approached by our civil contractor, and he reckons he’s spending $7000 more per week already on his plant,” the project manager, who was not authorised to speak publicly, told AAP on Friday.

“That was at the start of the week, so probably more now.”

An email from another contractor, seen by AAP, said all new contracts for transportation of rental equipment would incur a 20 per cent fuel surcharge.

“The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is impacting global fuel supplies and driving up market prices,” the email read.

“These actions are essential to ensure we continue delivering reliable service and maintain our operations despite the current market pressures.”

Construction costs were already concerning the Reserve Bank before the outbreak of hostilities.

Annual growth in new dwelling prices jumped from three to 3.5 per cent in January as project home builders began to pass through higher labour and material costs.

Commonwealth Bank’s head of Australian economics Belinda Allen said her team had heard similar feedback on rising costs being passed through in meetings with businesses in industries such as mining and construction.

“Anyone that’s shipping things into Australia at the moment, particularly materials, are facing higher costs,” she told AAP.

“The challenge, of course, this time around for Australia is we were already facing high costs and stronger demand already, so we’re just adding to that pressure.”

Because fuel is an economy-wide input, rising prices translate through the entire economy, from transport costs to groceries, Mr Sycamore said.

“It’s the butterfly flapping its wings,” he said.

“It starts in the Middle East and it spreads across the globe. Our economy is no different.”

In a statement on Friday, Coles said oil prices were putting “significant cost pressure” on transport providers.

The supermarket giant said it would review the fuel component of its freight rates more frequently and reduce payment terms for smaller providers to help transport contractors manage rising fuel costs.

A US arts commission has approved the final design for a 24-carat gold commemorative coin bearing President Donald Trump’s image to help celebrate America’s 250th birthday on July 4.

The vote by the US Commission of Fine Arts, whose members are supporters of the Republican president and were appointed by him earlier in 2026, was without objection.

It clears the way for the US mint to begin production on the coin, whose size and denomination are still under discussion.

“As we approach our 250th birthday, we are thrilled to prepare coins that represent the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, and there is no profile more emblematic for the front of such coins than that of our serving President, Donald J Trump,” US Treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement.

The unprecedented move marks yet another example of Trump and his allies circumventing conventional past presidential practices – and even the law – to get what he wants.

It’s the latest instance of Trump putting his name and likeness in the historical archive, following his renaming of the US Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Centre performing arts venue and a new class of battleships, among other tributes.

Federal law says no living president can appear on US currency. But Megan Sullivan, the acting chief of the Office of Design Management at the Mint, said the Treasury secretary has authority to authorise the minting and issuance of new 24-carat gold coins, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has used to get around that prohibition.

Sullivan presented the coin’s final design at the commission’s March meeting on Thursday, US time, and said Trump had approved it.

“It is my understanding that the secretary of the Treasury presented this design, as well as others, to the president and these were his selection,” Sullivan said.

The front of the coin features an image of Trump in a suit and tie and with a stern look on his face.

His fists rest on top of what is supposed to be a desk as he leans forward. Lettering on the top half of the coin spells “LIBERTY” in a slight arc.

Directly underneath that are the dates 1776-2026. The words “IN GOD WE TRUST” are at the bottom, with seven stars on one side of the coin and six stars on the other side.

The reverse side depicts a bald eagle mid-flight with “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” and US motto “E PLURIBUS UNUM”, meaning “out of many, one” in Latin.

The coin will be part of a very limited production run, Sullivan said, but the number has not been determined.

The size and denomination of the coin also have not yet been decided, she said. Some commissioners noted Trump’s fondness for big things as they advocated for the largest size coin.

European Union leaders have called for a moratorium on military strikes on energy and water ‌facilities in the Middle East, amid growing concerns about the ‌impact of the Iran war on the global economy.

“The European Council calls for de-escalation and maximum restraint, the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure and full respect of international ‌law by ‌all parties,” ⁠the leaders of the EU’s 27 ​nations said in written conclusions of a summit in Brussels.

“In this regard, it calls for a moratorium on strikes against energy and water facilities,” they said.

The leaders called for ⁠reinforcing the bloc’s ‌existing ​Red Sea naval mission Aspides and counter-piracy naval mission Atalanta in ​the Horn ‌of Africa “with more assets, in line with their respective mandates”.

US ​President Donald Trump has lashed out at allies who have responded cautiously to his demands that ​they ​help secure the Strait ​of Hormuz, the conduit for ‌about a fifth of the world’s oil.

In their statement, the European leaders welcomed “the increased efforts announced by Member States, including through strengthened coordination with partners in the region, ​to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of ​Hormuz, once ⁠the conditions are met”.

Natural gas prices in Europe surged as much as 35 per cent on Thursday as Iranian and Israeli strikes targeted some of the Middle East’s most important gas infrastructure, ‌doing damage that will likely take years to repair.

The strikes on energy facilities since the onset of the US and Israeli war on Iran have brought to life some of the energy industry’s worst fears – that a conflict in the region ‌will leave long-term damage and shortages in global energy supplies.

“We are now well on the road to the doomsday gas-crisis scenario,” said Saul Kavonic, an energy analyst at MST Financial. “Even once the war ends, the disruption to LNG supply could last for months or even ‌years.”

Iran on Thursday struck the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility in Qatar, the world’s largest LNG complex, a day after Israel attacked Iran’s huge South Pars gas facilities.

The hit on Ras Laffan destroyed two LNG trains that could cause a reduction of around 17 per cent of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports for between three and five years.

“I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that Qatar would be – Qatar and the region – in such an attack, especially from a brotherly Muslim country in the month of Ramadan, attacking us in this way,” QatarEnergy chief executive Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters.

Aerial attacks by Iran have already targeted a refinery in Saudi Arabia, forced the United Arab Emirates to shut gas facilities, and started fires at two Kuwaiti refineries. US President Donald Trump threatened retaliation if they persisted.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a call that he would not attack any more Iranian energy facilities, Trump said on Thursday.

Netanyahu confirmed at a press conference the US president had asked him to hold off on further such attacks.

The prime minister has been booed and heckled at Australia’s biggest mosque on one of the most important dates on the Islamic calendar, with police dealing with one protester.

Thousands of people lined the streets surrounding Lakemba Mosque in Sydney’s west on Friday morning as they took part in morning prayers ahead of Eid al-Fitr celebrations.

Anthony Albanese was invited to meet with community leaders, but his arrival quickly drew condemnation from locals.

One man was dragged out by police after booing Mr Albanese, but was released without charge after being given a move-on direction.

Others were heard yelling phrases including “disgrace”, “shame” and “genocide supporters”, though the prime minister remained calm and sat listening as Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir read out a statement panning Australia’s involvement in the Middle East war and the impacts it has had on the Muslim community.

Mr Albanese then left via a side exit, side-stepping a large crowd waiting for him on the Mosque’s steps.

For Mr Kheir, it was important the prime ministerial visit not be used as a mere photo opportunity.

“This is a time to call him out and to say to him vividly what is happening to this community, and the pressure that it’s under cannot be sustained anymore,” he told AAP.

Showgrounds and mosques across Australia will be packed for the weekend as Muslims celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Friday marks Eid al-Fitr, the end of the month-long observance of the Islamic event marked by prayers and daily fasting.

While Ramadan is noted for its importance in spiritual reflection, Eid represents a chance for the community to celebrate with food, music and family reunions.

The Eid Show, at Bankstown Showground in southwest Sydney, is expecting thousands of attendees this weekend and has grown massively in its 17-year history.

The event is expected to be even more significant this year with the spectre of conflict in the Middle East looming over much of the Australian Muslim community.

“It means happiness, celebration. It also means hope and looking forward to something in grim times,” organiser Radwan Dadoun told AAP.

There are estimated to be about one million Muslims living in Australia, according to Mehmet Ozalp, head of the Centre of Islamic Studies at Charles Sturt University.

While many of them will choose to spend much of the weekend at celebrations like The Eid Show, mosques are also expecting a cast of thousands to mark the important religious occasion.

“We do have a big gathering (on Friday), we’re going to have a congregation of four sessions,” secretary of the Melbourne Grand Mosque Imran Khan Mohammed told AAP.

“We’re going to have 15 to 18,000 coming from all over Melbourne.”

For the mosque, Eid al-Fitr is the biggest day of the year for attendance.

Sharing food and love among families and those less fortunate forms a vital aspect of the celebration.

The homeless, single parents and others feeling financial stress benefit from the sharing of incomes and food at Eid, Mr Mohammed said.

Both mosques and shows are open to non-Muslims who want to celebrate with their friends and neighbours, with Mr Dadoun having just one piece of advice for the uninitiated.

“Come hungry and come with the beautiful smiles that you have,” he said.