The Guardian Australia
I have seen the raw grief of a family who lost a son to gambling. Labor’s stitch-up shows politics is broken
The deal the prime minister has cut with the Coalition on gambling will be a huge disappointment to people across Australia. This legislation was about more than just gambling reform. It was a test of whether our parliament listens to the people over...
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‘Our task is to laugh at these enemies’: the Ukrainian unit posting drone videos of Russian soldiers’ last moments
To many observers they will appear dehumanising and offensive. To many Ukrainians, however, they are a brutal reminder of the fate that awaits Russian soldiers who take part in Vladimir Putin’s invasion, as well as a potent propaganda weapon. Over the...
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Trump orders cuts to South Korea joint drills despite warnings about Kim regime
Donald Trump has said he is scaling back joint US military drills with South Korea aimed at deterring North Korea, despite military officials from both countries warning that Kim Jongun’s regime is learning new battlefield tactics from the Ukraine...
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‘Massive’ Ukrainian drone attack on Russia kills at least six, says Moscow
Ukraine has launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war, causing a fire at a distribution warehouse near Moscow and killing at least six people overnight, according to Russian authorities. Russia’s defence ministry said it had...
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‘Melancholic fantasy’: Wong escalates Labor rhetoric against Hanson, condemning ‘monoculture’ comment
Labor has escalated its pushback on One Nation’s surging political support, with the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, labelling Pauline Hanson’s push for a monoculture a “melancholic fantasy” that would harm national security. Wong, the first...
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Japanese ambassador to Australia downplays Albanese melon gaffe as Taylor claims PM has ‘stuffed up’
The Japanese ambassador has downplayed Anthony Albanese’s comments about a gift of melons from Sanae Takaichi, saying Tokyo had been reassured by the Australian government that the prime minister “did not make the comments in the way that has been...
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Trump reportedly hid in catering container to board secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat
Donald Trump departed on a secret military flight from Turkey to Britain last month when the White House said he was flying aboard Air Force One, in an extraordinary ruse - prompted by an Iranian assassination threat - that involved hiding the...
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‘Body’ found in suitcase near Goulburn was actually lifelike doll with ‘bruises and grazes’
What appeared to be a woman’s body found in a suitcase by the side of a road in regional Australia was in fact a lifelike doll with markings resembling bruises and grazes, police say. New South Wales police said they were called to Wolgon Road in...
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AFLW’s good old familiarity hits the big stage in women’s and men’s double-header
From a distance, everything looks a little different. The AFL’s foray into doubleheaders seemed, from a distance, to be heavily accompanied by caveats. The first game was scheduled to start at 4.35pm on a Sunday - hardly the most inspiring time...
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Daniel Andrews defends actions as opposition labels Labor ‘a gangster government’ after Ibac report released
Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has defended the actions of senior members of his government, whom the state’s anticorruption watchdog found engaged in “serious and concerning” conduct in their dealings with the leader of the firefighters’...
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What Ben Carroll’s cabinet cuts say about his ‘new direction’ for Victoria
It’s been exactly one week since Ben Carroll became Victorian premier, promising to differentiate himself from his predecessors Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews. With his new cabinet sworn in at Government House on Tuesday morning, Victorians are...
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Ralph Carr, entertainment industry and AFL figure, revealed as Melbourne businessman guilty of raping former staffer
Entertainment industry and AFL figure Ralph Carr can be revealed as the well-connected Melbourne man found guilty of raping a former employee, after a court order preventing him from being publicly identified was lifted. Carr, who also goes by the...
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Politician’s claim Earth’s magnetic poles could flip if NT doesn’t use more groundwater criticised by experts
A Northern Territory minister has been criticised for scientifically inaccurate claims that groundwater in the Northern Territory needs to be used to prevent the Earth’s magnetic poles from flipping. The NT minister for trade and business, Robyn...
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Historic $350m NSW funding boost helps launch new Aboriginal family program to help children ‘tell their own stories’
An Aboriginal family preservation program aimed at giving at-risk children space to “tell their own stories” has been launched across New South Wales after a historic investment from the state government. The program, co-designed by First Nations...
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Suspect who sent anonymous tip to Alaska police charged with 1993 killing
A man suspected of having murdered a co-worker in Alaska in 1993 was arrested recently after he called in what he intended to be an anonymous tip revealing where he had hidden the victim’s long missing body, according to investigators. Christopher...
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Australia spent more than $9m for each asylum seeker held on Nauru last year - so why can’t they afford to buy food?
Most refugees and asylum seekers held in Nauru’s detention centres say they cannot afford to buy enough food or access clean drinking water, despite the Australian government spending the equivalent of more than $9m per person last financial year. The...
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Russia pounds Kyiv for five hours in one of its biggest ballistic missile attacks
Russia has carried out one of its biggest-ever ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, launching a fivehour raid that left at least one person dead and seven injured, with fires and damage across the city. Ukrainian officials said the capital was hit with...
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Life-changing MS drugs to stay on the PBS. So why are others under threat - and how is Trump involved?
Australians living with multiple sclerosis will continue receiving cheaper access to life-changing medical treatments, after an expert advisory panel decided to maintain taxpayer subsidies for key drugs. The health minister, Mark Butler, confirmed on...
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Former Sydney church turned LGBTQ+ arts venue weighs legal action after landlord orders it to stop ‘offensive trade’
A former church turned arts venue at the centre of a culture war is exploring legal action after receiving a notice from its landlord that forced its organisers to close the space and cancel planned events. Divine Playhouse is facing possible...
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Taking down the Nicky Winmar statue points to a troubling double standard in our public spaces
Divided opinion about the Western Australian government’s swift, unilateral removal of a statue honouring the former AFL player Nicky Winmar’s stand against racism in light of his domestic violence conviction highlights the potentially fraught nature...
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Young men report more ‘sextortion’ than any other age group, Australia’s online safety watchdog says
A new report by Australia’s online safety regulator has found “significant gaps” in how major tech platforms tackle online sexual extortion and child sexual exploitation, as “reports of this abuse continue to rise”. The findings come from eSafety’s...
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Take a stand on racism or send a message against violence: what should happen to the Nicky Winmar statue?
When the former Western Australia premier Mark McGowan attended the unveiling of a statue of the ex-AFL player Neil Elvis “Nicky” Winmar at Perth Stadium in July 2022, he said the Noongar man’s “powerful message” against racism “still resonates...
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As the Telstra crisis unfolded, the Coalition fell victim to another communications failure
As the government was being questioned over the regulation of telcos and the latest massive Telstra outage, the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, was being asked about communications failures of a different kind: his own, and those of his ministerial...
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Photo of bound Palestinian detainee corroborates Israeli torture reports, say rights groups
An Israeli soldier’s photo of a Palestinian man from Gaza stripped to his underwear, blindfolded and bound face-down to an iron rod corroborates extensive reporting on Israeli torture of Palestinians in detention and itself may constitute a war crime,...
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AI models already ‘doing things their creators never intended’, Australia’s assistant technology minister warns
Artificial intelligence models are already “cheating, deceiving and going their own way”, Australia’s assistant minister for technology, Andrew Charlton, has warned, as the federal government’s AI Safety Institute begins testing the latest models. In...
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Fears Queenslanders could be forced to pay for mine cleanup as LNP reviews environmental ‘red tape’
Queenslanders are being warned they could be left to pay for the clean up of abandoned mines if rehabilitation laws are weakened, after the state government announced a bid to cut environmental “red tape” for resources companies. The state’s...
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Australian aged care firm accused in class action of charging residents for high teas and classes they couldn’t use
Residents at one of Australia’s largest aged care providers have launched a class action lawsuit alleging fees for services such as high teas and exercise classes were illegally charged to clients who cannot use them due to immobility and other...
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KPMG appoints chair who claimed leak allegations were ‘completely false’ and called senator’s actions ‘inappropriate’
KPMG has appointed a new chair who previously claimed leak allegations were “completely false” and described a senator’s actions in revealing the scandal as “very inappropriate and unfair”. Michael Ebeid was appointed to lead the embattled firm on...
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Australia’s mortgage burden is now above 1989 levels - when interest rates were 17%
Australia’s national mortgage burden is heavier now than it was when lending rates reached 17% at the end of the 1980s, new analysis reveals. Terry Rawnsley, an urban economist at KPMG, said his research was in part a “mythbusting” exercise aimed at...
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Delhi plans to ban petrol rickshaws and scooters in effort to cut toxic fumes
The unruly chaos of Delhi’s roads would be unrecognisable without the rickshaws and scooters that zip through India’s capital in their millions, emitting toxic fumes in their wake. But now, ambitious policies aim to give the city’s most recognisable...
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Liberal frontbencher calls for party ‘rebrand’ after drop in polls, prompting ridicule from Labor
Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh has said the party might need a “rebrand” to win back voters who continue to desert the opposition, with the Coalition hitting a new historic polling low. Her comments came after the opposition leader, Angus...
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Australian man charged with murder in Thailand after teenage girl’s body found in suitcase
An Australian man has been charged with the murder of a teenage girl whose naked body was found in a suitcase in Thailand. Pattaya City police told the Guardian the man, identified as Simon Peter Carman, 46, has denied the charges against him. In...
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Crisis looms for Pope Leo as splinter sect seeks to ordain far-right bishops
A far-right Catholic sect’s plan to ordain its own bishops on the first day of July has placed it on a collision course with the Vatican - posing a possible crisis for Pope Leo a little over a year into his papacy, and straining the Roman Catholic...
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Rookie One Nation MP blames lack of staff for mistakenly voting with Greens
One Nation’s rookie MP David Farley has blamed his political inexperience for mistakenly voting in support of winding back fuel tax credits, which drew condemnation from miners and the Coalition. Farley sided with the Greens and teal independents in a...
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Angus Taylor won’t say if he supports multiculturalism as Chalmers says he’s trying to ‘outOne Nation One Nation’
Angus Taylor has repeatedly refused to say whether he supports multiculturalism in Australia, sidestepping five questions at a press conference about his views and claiming “there’s all these vague words running around”. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers,...
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Tesla drivers crash into swimming pool and home in separate US incidents
Separate crashes in Texas and Connecticut involving Tesla electric vehicles left a woman dead when a car barreled into a house; and a driver rescued after plunging into a municipal swimming pool. A doorbell video camera captured the Friday night...
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A spate of shark bites has Australian ocean lovers on edge. People want to know why they’re rising
Rob Harcourt is heading back from a “beautiful surf” at Bondi on a warm and sunny winter’s morning in Sydney. But for him and many of his surfing mates, the compelling pull of the city’s world famous surf breaks has been neutered by tragedy, fear and...
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More than 13,000 seal pups die on remote Australian island amid bird flu outbreak
More than 13,000 seal pups have died on an Australian territory, as testing confirmed the spread of deadly H5N1 bird flu among penguins, seals and petrels on subantarctic islands. The mass mortality of southern elephant seal pups on Heard Island,...
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Pauline Hanson makes clear what a One Nation government would be like - it’s an ugly picture
For months, voters have been telling anyone who’ll listen that they want Pauline Hanson. Pollsters, journalists and the (current) political establishment have all heard how the major parties are letting down the country and One Nation is the...
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Birthkeeper hired by woman who died after freebirth tells inquest she was ‘not there to make a birth safer’
A birthkeeper hired by a woman who died after giving birth at home has told a coroner that she was “not there to make a birth safer”. Emily Lal gave evidence on Tuesday at the inquest into the death of 30-year-old Stacey Warnecke, who died on 29...
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Melbourne wellness influencer found short of breath and clammy after home birth hours before death
A Melbourne wellness influencer was found lying on the floor of her home in an altered state of consciousness beside a large blood clot in the hours before she died in hospital, an inquest has heard. Stacey Warnecke, 30, died in September from a...
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PhD student Maxim makes $18 an hour to research children’s cancer - it’s barely above Australia’s poverty line
Maxim Buckley studies how leukaemia cells communicate with each other. It’s critical research but as a PhD student he’s paid just $18.50 an hour, a rate that’s just above the poverty line. The 29-year-old is in his final months of research at...
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El Niño forms in Pacific as experts say it will likely turbocharge extreme weather
El Niño, Nature’s chaotic climate agent, has formed in a warmed-up Pacific Ocean and is expected to grow to historic strength, meteorologists announced on Thursday. Experts said the El Niño, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already...
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Tony Abbott backs One Nation preference deal and says Liberals can’t just be a ‘little less woke than Labor’
The new Liberal president, Tony Abbott, has backed preference deals with One Nation as he declared the party wouldn’t win the next election by being “slaves to focus groups” and just a “little less woke than Labor”. The opposition leader, Angus...
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Households outshine business in Australia’s rooftop solar revolution, report finds
Australia’s revolution in rooftop solar has left behind commercial and industrial buildings where installations have lagged far behind homes, according to new analysis. Australia leads the world in residential solar on per capita terms, with 22GW...
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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson tells rally Ben Roberts-Smith is a person ‘I respect and I admire’
The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, told a rally in support of Ben Roberts-Smith that the former soldier accused of war crimes is a person “I respect and I admire”, before its organiser called for “an army of civilians” to support him. About 100...
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Penny Wong says she believes Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and abused Australian women after Gaza flotilla
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, says she believes the Australian women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted and beaten by Israeli soldiers after being detained as part of a humanitarian flotilla attempting to bring aid to...
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Fired 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley says CBS told him to inject ‘falsehoods’ into reporting
The longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, who was fired by CBS News on Tuesday after clashing with the network’s new management, issued a public statement accusing the network’s new executives of silencing employees and claiming they...
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Not a paw swimmer: dog rescued from island off Australian coast after being swept into ocean
On Monday, radio operators in Batemans Bay along the New South Wales south coast got a call they hadn’t had before: a dog had been swept off the rocks and was in the ocean in distress. Rod Ingamells, the unit commander of the local Marine Rescue NSW...
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Australia’s 178 billionaires are $25.7bn richer than last year as 3.7 million live in poverty
The wealth of Australia’s billionaires increased by $25.67bn in the past year, equivalent to almost $50,000 a minute, according to new Oxfam Australia analysis of the 2026 Australian Financial Review Rich List. The antipoverty organisation said the...
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Government declines to protect Indigenous sacred site to be bulldozed for Brisbane Olympic stadium
The federal government has decided against an 11th-hour intervention to halt construction of an Olympic stadium and aquatic centre in the heart of Brisbane, in a park that traditional owners say is a First Nations sacred site. The environment...
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‘True patriot’: White House pays bizarre tribute to Harambe 10 years after gorilla’s death
The White House has posted on social media a tribute to mark Thursday’s 10th anniversary of the death of a figure it called “a true patriot”. The hero was not a human, however; it concerned the infamous case of the 400lb western lowland gorilla that...
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Jillian Segal hired former Scott Morrison adviser on $200,000 contract without public tender process
The antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, hired Scott Morrison’s former principal adviser on a $200,000 contract without a public tender process, with department officials saying his skills could not be provided by any other business. Society Advisory...
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Renters could save $20bn on bills in a decade from rooftop solar and appliance upgrades - if landlords act
Renters make up nearly a third of Australian households, yet many are missing out on energy upgrades - such as insulation, appliances and rooftop solar - that could slash their power bills and improve home comfort. The problem, according to the...
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World’s biggest miner BHP backtracks on climate action with key projects put on ice, leaked documents reveal
The world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to push major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, internal documents...
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No refunds for 15,000 Australian ticket holders after Candace Owens’ tour cancelled
None of the 15,000 ticket holders for conservative influencer Candace Owens’ cancelled Australian tour are expected to get their money back from the promoter, after it spent all its money then collapsed. Owens herself says she is hundreds of thousands...
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US is ‘simply choosing not to stop’ Ebola outbreak after massive public health cuts, experts say
A previously undetected outbreak of Ebola is coursing through parts of central Africa, and the US appears to be doing little to help stop it, after massive cuts to global and domestic public health efforts. There is no cure and no vaccine for the rare...
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Labor denies CGT reform will ‘kill startups’ as tech giant Canva warns of stifling innovation
The founder of Australian startup success story Canva says the capital gains tax discount is critical to entrepreneurs launching new companies, heaping more pressure on the Labor government to reconsider its budget changes which critics warn could...
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Jayson Gillham: MSO executive suggested cancelling pianist’s concert before seeing Gaza comments, court hears
A Melbourne Symphony Orchestra executive suggested cancelling a concert by Jayson Gillham before he had read the comments the classical pianist made about Israel killing journalists in Gaza, a court has heard. Gillham is suing the MSO over a cancelled...
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Police running out of room to store illegal cigarettes they’ve seized amid Australia’s booming illicit trade
Police are struggling to store a growing wave of illegal cigarettes and vapes seized from criminals, with secure facilities at capacity and the high cost of destroying illicit products becoming prohibitive. The Australian federal police (AFP) has been...
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Liberal party ‘corroded by hate’, MP says amid concerns of ‘dog whistling’ on immigration
Liberal MPs have expressed concern about Angus Taylor’s immigration policy, with one claiming the party’s soul is being “corroded by hate”. Several Liberal MPs have said they now believe Pauline Hanson’s party is in control of the Liberal...
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Brazil’s Atlantic forest records lowest deforestation in 40 years
Brazil’s Atlantic forest, the country’s most threatened biome, last year recorded its lowest level of deforestation since monitoring began 40 years ago, a new report shows. The forest is Brazil’s most populous biome, and home to 80% of the population...
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Paramedic felt ‘shock and disbelief’ when Clare Nowland shot by NSW police Taser, inquest hears
A paramedic has relived her disbelief while watching a police officer fatally taser a 95-year-old woman with dementia. Then-senior constable Kristian James Samuel White fired his weapon at Clare Nowland after being called to Yallambee Lodge nursing...
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Irish TV to air Father Ted instead of Eurovision final in protest against Israel’s inclusion
It is considered one of the funniest episodes of a beloved sitcom, but the Father Ted storyline about Eurovision has been dragged into the row over Israel’s participation in this week’s song contest. Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ, which is...
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Betting account on 18th birthday, dead at 22: inquest probes death of Melbourne man who gambled $895,000
A Melbourne man gambled $895,733 through online betting platforms in the four years between his 18th birthday and the day he took his own life, an inquest has heard. Victorian coroner Paul Lawrie’s inquest into the circumstances of Kyle Hudson’s death...
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Pardoned January 6 rioter sentenced to seven years for Virginia burglary
A convicted participant in the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack who was pardoned at the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency has been ordered to serve seven years in prison after a jury found him guilty of committing a burglary in Virginia in May...
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Almost $4bn more for Victoria’s contentious Suburban Rail Loop to be included in federal budget
The federal budget will include another $3.8bn for the Suburban Rail Loop, Melbourne’s controversial and costly 90km public transport project. Prime minister Anthony Albanese will announce the additional funding alongside the Victorian premier,...
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Snow forecast for three states as cold weather front descends on Australia’s south-east
A cold front and chasing highpressure system should cause the mercury to plunge across most of southern Australia in coming days. The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a first taste of wintry conditions across much of the country, with the first...
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