Good Morning Australia!! - Republicans couldn't win so they changed the rules - Thailand's junta solidifies its iron grip - Police find a little girl in the forest, apparently being raised by monkeys - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Cheeky cat upstages the mayor of Riga, Latvia during an interview.

Republicans in the US Senate invoked the "nuclear option", changing the rules of the upper house of congress in order to ram through Donald Trump's pick to fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court.  It's the first time that has happened in more than 50 years.  Minority Democrats temporarily blocked Judge Neil Gorsuch by preventing a three-fifths majority that has been the traditional benchmark for Supreme Court justices.  At stake was ideological control of the Supreme Court as conservatives attack race relations, civil rights, voting rights, abortion, and other culture war issues.  This transforms the US Senate from its role as "the adults in the room", a slower-moving and more deliberative body that sought consensus rather than political brawling. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in Florida for talks with Donald Trump at his garish and vulgar Mar-a-Lago resort.  Why there, and not the White House?  Maybe because the grifter-in-chief can charge the government he purports to lead to use his facilities.  North Korea's nuclear ambitions and what China can do to curb them will be at the top of the agenda, as will trade policy and China's massive territory grab in the South China Sea.  Beijing spent the last couple of years building military bases on top of reefs and shoals located hundreds of kilometers away from its internationally-recognized maritime boundaries.

Deepening this potential foreign policy crisis between Washington and Beijing, Chinese coastguard vessels are maintaining a presence around the Luconia Shoals, a group of reefs in the South China Sea claimed by Malaysia and 1,600 kilometers away from the Chinese mainland but only minutes away from Borneo.  The Chinese vessels are larger than the lone Malaysian coast guard ship assigned to the area, and out-gun it by being equipped with machine guns.  Meanwhile, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered troops to occupy uninhabited islands and reefs in the disputed South China Sea, angering China.  "The unoccupied, which are ours, let's live on it," Duterte said during a visit to a military base in Palawan.

Thailand's king has signed a new constitution into law, leaving the country in the grip of the ruling junta run by former general Prayuth Chan-ocha since the coup in 2014.  There will be "elections"; but any new government will be constrained by the unelected senate and military, and will have to stick to a 20-year development plan laid out by the junta.  This is not the constitution voted on by the people last year, and no one in the public has read it.  The newly endorsed constitution will not be released publicly until it is published in the Royal Gazette, at which point it becomes law.

The streets of Buenos Aires were eerily quiet as practically the entire city observed a 24-hour general strike against Argentina's conservative President Mauricio Macri's crummy austerity policies.  Under Macri, poverty has skyrocketed up to 33 percent of the Argentine population.  The strike coincided with regional leaders arriving in the capital for an economic forum; cops did clash with protesters outside.

Brazil's supreme court says police strikes are unconstitutional.  This comes after February's strike in Espirito Santo state which saw an explosion in crime and murders, and which forced schools and businesses to close until order was restored.  The national police union greeted this ruling with a vote for a nationwide industrial action to protest - it could involve officers symbolically handing in their guns and uniforms, or a similar stop-work action.

Somalia's President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo is trying to get Al Shabaab fighters to leave the terrorist organization with promises of education, training, and employment.  The group is responsible for hundreds of attacks in Somalia and neighboring Kenya, including one that killed ten people on the day of Farmajo's announcement.  "We want to pardon the Somali youth who were misled by al-Shabab," he said, laying out a 60-day amnesty period for militants to come in from the desert before what appears to be an imminent war against Al Shabaab.

Religion is on the decline in Ireland.  The brand new census figures from the Republic of Ireland show that the number of people who identify as having no religion has increased by 73.6 percent.  Roman Catholics are still the majority with 78.3 percent of the population, but that's dramatically down from 84.2 percent in April 2011.  The overall population increased by 3.8 percent from April 2011 to April 2016 - to 4,761,865. 

Might need a grain of salt with this one.  Police near Lucknow, India are reportedly trying to identify a little girl found apparently living with monkeys.  When they found the 10- to 12-year old in Katarniya Ghat forest, she was naked, running on all fours, and surrounded by monkeys which were very protective of her.  After a rescue effort, cops brought the girl to hospital where ate her meals off the floor with her mouth - two months later, she now wears clothing and eats with her hands.  The girl doesn't talk but seems to understand people.  She'll live in a home for juveniles until authorities identify her parents.