HUNDREDS of homes have been inundated as Victoria faces its worst floods in more than a decade.

NASA says it's developing a car-sized satellite that by "no later than 2018" will plunge into the sun's outer atmosphere for an up-close study of its super-hot corona, solar wind and lethal radiation.

THE nine skydivers and tourists who died when their small plane crashed in New Zealand were identified today as five New Zealanders and visitors from Ireland, Australia, Germany and England, the news website stuff.co.nz reported.

TWO people were killed following a mid-air crash overnight between two light aircraft on the Isle of Wight, off England's southern coast, police said.

SAKINEH Mohammadi-Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, has also been sentenced to 99 lashes for a photo published of her without a headscarf, according to her son.

CHILE'S trapped miners got an uplifting visit overnight from four of the 16 survivors of a 1972 Andes plane crash, who endured extreme elements for 72 days before being rescued.

THE death toll from rain-triggered landslides that hit a remote village in southwestern China has risen to 24, with another 24 people still missing, state-run Xinhua news agency says.

A FIRE at car dealer has closed the Princes Highway at Banksia in Sydney's south and forced the evacuation of four nearby houses.

THE Macondo well, which spilled an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, has been secured and no longer constitutes "a threat", a senior US official says.

EARL weakened to a tropical storm after barrelling ashore in Nova Scotia last night as a hurricane, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said.