Australia: A woman driving a sports car is "lucky to be alive" after the bucket of an excavator fell off the back of a truck on Sydney's M5 motorway, causing her car to roll several times. Emergency services were called to the eastbound lanes of the motorway at Hammondville following reports an Alpha Romeo was involved in a crash. NSW Ambulance Inspector Audi Josif, who was one of the first on the scene, says he was relieved to find the woman in her 20s "conscious and alert". He said: "If you'd seen the damage in the car you'd think, 'how can anybody survive that incident?' She is very lucky to be alive." The woman had to be cut from her car, which had rolled a number of times before landing upright, Josif said. She was stabilised and treated for serious head injuries before being taken to Liverpool Hospital in a stable condition. Police are appealing for witnesses, as well as the driver of the westbound truck carrying the excavator, who may not know about the incident, to come forward.
United States: A woman identified by a scholar as the inspiration for Rosie the Riveter, the iconic female World War II factory worker, has died in Washington state. The New York Times reports that Naomi Parker Fraley died in Longview. She was 96. Multiple women have been identified over the years as possible models for Rosie, but a Seton Hall University professor in 2016 focused on Fraley as the true inspiration. James Kimble published his findings in the journal Rhetoric & Public Affairs, saying a photo of Fraley at work was the basis for a widely seen poster of a woman flexing with the caption, "We can do it!" Fraley was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, she went to work at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, among the first women to do war work there.
Brazil: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is no longer quite the political dynamo he once was. At 72, he's a touch greyer, a touch weaker — after a bout with cancer and the loss of his wife — and a touch less popular than he was when he swept to a landslide victory back in 2002. But make no mistake about it, the man known simply as Lula remains the dominant figure in Brazil's politics. The crippling recession and sprawling pay-for-play scandal that engulfed the nation following his exit from office have only dented his popularity. To millions of Brazilians, he is still the radical champion of the poor. Never mind that he himself has been implicated in the corruption probe, alongside numerous other officials in his political party. All of which is why an appellate court ruling slated for Thursday that will either uphold or suspend Lula's nine-and-a-half-year prison sentence has become a crucial moment in this year's presidential election. If the sentence is upheld, Lula figures to be barred from running. If it's thrown out, he'll likely run and stand a real chance of winning.
President Trump is expected to invite French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House for the first state visit of his presidency https://t.co/FayscxMb2H pic.twitter.com/3iLz6I5qkp
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 23, 2018
France: Emmanuel Macron made his latest bid yesterday to wrest business from a post-Brexit Britain by calling on global business leaders to "Choose France" in a speech in English — an unprecedented move for a French president at home. At a summit behind closed doors in Versailles, Macron addressed 140 business leaders, including chiefs of Google, Goldman Sachs, Coca Cola, Chinese group JD.com and Facebook while 15 members of his government, including Edouard Philippe, his Prime Minister, held "speed dating" business sessions with other foreign bosses. Macron's stated aim is to sell France to investors as "the place to be" at a time when the French President has claimed the mantle of Europe's leader while the UK is mired in Brexit negotiations and Chancellor Angela Merkel is bogged down with forming a coalition government in Germany.
