Good Morning Australia!! - SpaceX successfully launches a big rocket that some believe heralds the future of space travel - High rise buildings are thrown about in a powerful earthquake in Taiwan - US Democrats pound the orange clown over his "treason" comments - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

SpaceX and NASA successfully test-launched the Falcon Heavy, billed as the world's most-powerful rocket. 
Dayum, that's a big rocket
The amazing part was the booster rockets, which detatched from the main vehicle a few minutes into the flight and returned to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, touching down vertically.  The publicity stunt was to place CEO Elen Musk's personal sports car and a dummy in a space suit in the nose of the rocket as its payload, instead of bricks or weights as test flights often do.  The car and driver will spin around the Sun on an elliptical Earth-Mars orbit for centuries to come, if the Ferrenghi don't steal it.  Musk hopes the Falcon Heavy program will carry kit and crew to Mars for eventual colonization. 

Poland's President Andrzej Duda ended speculation and announced he would sign legislation making it a crime to refer to Auschwitz and other nazi death camps as "Polish".  Critics say the law, written by the ruling ultra-nationalist PiS Party, whitewashes the historic reality of nazi collaborators in Poland as well as attacks free speech rights.  Israel is particularly angered over the law.  People convicted under it face heavy fines and as much as three years in prison.

At least two people are dead, scores and hurt, and many are trapped in rubble after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake and its aftershocks struck northern Taiwan.  The city of Hualien is particularly hard-hit:  The Marshal Hotel pancaked, crushing the first two storeys of the high rise building; several other residential and office buildings are toppled or severely damaged.
Hualien, Taiwan
Hualien, Taiwan
Hualien, Taiwan
The death and injury toll will no doubt be revised several times as rescue and recovery teams work their way through the debris.

No one was hurt when two cars at the rear of an Amtrak "Acela" train broke loose during an early morning run from Washington, DC to Boston, up America's northeast coast. 
Ouch
One passenger said the power went one, and all was dark except for "a lot of sparks".  Acela is what passes for high speed rail in the US, although it's a slowpoke compared to its Japanese, Chinese, and European counterparts.  It's the third incident involving Amtrak trains in recent days; On Sunday, an Amtrak train struck a freight train parked on the tracks in South Carolina, killing two; before that, a train carrying Republican lawmakers (who withhold funding from Amtrak) crashed into a trash truck at an unprotected crossing, killing the driver.

Director Quentin Tarantino has responded to Uma Thurman's accusations, and says putting her behind the wheel of a Karmann Ghia to perform a driving stunt on the set of "Kill Bill" was not only the "biggest regret of his career", but the "biggest regret of his life".  Uma Thurman wanted a stunt driver to do the scene, but Tarantino browbeat her until she relented.  The car crashed on a lousy Mexican road and she suffered neck and knee injuries that bother her to this day.  Thurman released video of the crash on social media, and frankly it doesn't make Tarantino look too good (even though he helped her uncover it).  She accuses producer Harvey Weinstein of destroying the car to get rid of evidence that could have been used in a lawsuit.

US Congressional Democrats are lambasting the idiot in chief Donald Trump for his statement on Monday that those who didn't applaud his State of the Union Address were "un-American" and "treasonous".  New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries asked, "Is it treason for a presidential campaign to meet with a hostile foreign power to sell out our democracy and rig the election?" in a fiery speech on the House floor; "We do not have to stand for a reality show host masquerading as president of the United States of America," he added.  Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in her military service in the Iraq war said, "I swore an oath - in the military and in the Senate - to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to mindlessly cater to the whims of Cadet Bone Spurs and clap when he demands I clap," referring to the excuse Trump gave for getting out of serving in the military in the Vietnam War.  The White House says the orange clown was speaking "tongue in cheek" on Monday.