Good Morning Australia!! - "It wasn't me!" is the phrase of the day at the White House - An icon of the 1970s has roared off into eternity in his black Trans-Am - A landmark human rights ruling in India - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

US Vice President Mike Pence was reportedly the first person to approach Donald Trump and deny that he was the one who wrote a scathing editorial in the New York Times that depicted the current occupant of the White House as being an amoral, mentally-deficient, and thoroughly uninformed chronic liar who has no business being where he is.  More than twenty top officials followed, some reportedly printing and signing their denials and handing them to Trump - the White House later denied that, but who knows at this point.  Throwing gasoline onto the glowing embers of paranoia and mistrust, Trump's Capitol Hill ally and not-so-libertarian Sen. Rand Paul suggested Trump force his top staff to take lie detector tests. 

Hollywood legend Burt Reynolds is dead of a heart attack at age 82.  Trading his good looks and college football fame for a career in Hollywood, working his way up to his first breakthrough role as the half-indigenous blacksmith Quint Asper on the long-running Western TV series "Gunsmoke".  From there came more film roles until 1972's critically-acclaimed outdoors adventure "Deliverance". 

Tired of playing humorless tough guys, he grew his trademark mustache and had his most successful period came with the redneck road comedies "Smokey and the Bandit", "Gator", "Hooper", "Cannonball Run", and the die was cast.  At one point, he had four movies in theaters at the same time, and for five years running was the highest-paid and most bankable star in Hollywood.  Tabloid headlines caused by bad break-ups and a pain pill addiction ended that (the ascot period), but Reynolds still popped up for well-received roles in "Boogie Nights", "Mystery, Alaska", and his own sit-com "Evening Shade". 

Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro is recovering in hospital after being stabbed in the liver at a campaign event.  Police arrested a suspect immediately after the stabbing, which happened as he was being hoisted above a crowd at a rally in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state.  Bolsonaro has polled high on the right with his vicious attacks on LGBT rights and praise for the murderous, fascist dictatorship of the 1970s.  For that reason and many others, he tends to wear bullet-proof vests in public; the person wielding the knife sunk it in below the vest.

India's Supreme Court has ruled that gay sex is not a criminal offence, overturning a 2013 judgement that upheld a British colonial-era law based in archaic prejudice against LGBT people.  The ruling states that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a fundamental violation of rights.  Human rights campaigners outside the court cheered and some broke down in tears as the ruling was handed down.

The earthquake in Hokkaido in northern Japan killed at least nine people; but 33 are still missing in landslides that buried small farming communities, and the death toll could go up.  The government deployed 25,000 Self Defence Force troops to assist in the search and rescue.

Russia has evacuated 4,000 children from towns in Crimea located near a metals plant that blew out a big cloud of noxious sulphur dioxide gas.  The Titan plant, built at the end of the Soviet-era, has suspended its production of titanium dioxide.  Residents of Armyansk and Perecop report a kind of slimy rust covering homes and trees, so people ought not eat their backyard produce.  Medical clinics report people coming with complaining of chemical burns and breathing problems.