The World Today

There's calls today to phase out the practice of placing people with a disability together in group homes amid growing reports of neglect and abuse. Academics say the homes have become filled with the same abuses of the past, and it's time to move to new housing models. It comes after more than 100 academics last night published an open letter calling on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to hold a royal commission into abuses in the homes.

Energy market analyst UBS has found Victoria's wholesale electricity price has increased since the closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station less than two months ago. Victoria's ability to export power to other states has also decreased.

Fairfax Media has become the subject of a bidding war with a rival offer from yet another American investment group. Hellman And Friedman has pipped Texas Pacific's Group's $1.20 a share offer with a bid between 2.5c and 5c a share higher, with the upper price valuing the media group at about $2.85 billion. Fairfax shares surged 6.8 per cent in late morning trade.

There's a new global cyber-attack underway, and while 'Adyllkuzs' exploits the same vulnerabilities as the recent WannaCry ransomware worm, its subtle impact means it may have been quietly infecting computers for over two weeks. Cybersecurity experts say companies, government departments and computer users concerned about being hacked may themselves be partly to blame.

A new report on affordable housing has singled out Perth and Sydney as problem areas where supply is failing to keep up with population growth. The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute found new homes are not being built where they are needed the most and it calls for government intervention.

To Westerners, "Timbuktu" has long been mythologised as a mystical paradise. From the eighteenth century, British explorers tried repeatedly to reach the city in the African nation of Mali. But one expedition after another went wrong, and few made it out alive. Timbuktu was also rich as a centre of learning, home to tens-of-thousands of ancient manuscripts and in 2012, a team of librarians and archivists travelled to the city to save the work from al-Qaeda-linked jihadists.

Conservationists are lobbying the NT Government to enact a more robust framework to protect the coast amid pressure to 'develop the North'. The government agrees a strategy is long overdue, and says its 2018 plan will ensure future developments don't come at the ultimate price.

President Donald Trump faces allegations that he tried to shut down investigations into ties between Russia and his campaign team. The now sacked FBI director James Comey has released a memo in which he documents a conversation where President Trump asked him to shut down the FBI's inquiry into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The White House denies the allegations. But they've surfaced as outrage intensifies over the President passing classified information to the Russians.

There is outrage over revelations that the President passed classified information to Russian officials. It's understood the intelligence relates to a potential Islamic State terror plot involving the use of laptops on planes. The White House says the President acted appropriately and did not compromise the source of the information. Many in the intelligence community say President Trump's actions are putting lives at risk.

Professor of Law at George Washington University, Jonathan Turley, testified at the President Bill Clinton impeachment hearings 20 years ago and was the lead defence attorney during the most recent impeachment trial of a judge. Professor Turley says many people are viewing impeachment as a way to end Trump's presidency, but the standard for impeachment requires 'substantial improper conduct', and the allegations 'thus far' do not reach the level of an impeachable offence.