RUSH HOUR: The stories you need to know today
UPDATE: Reports that an award-winning animation studio could close has left fans around the world heartbroken but may not be permanent.
TODAY
• Melbourne businessman Chris Soteriou has described the moment he had his throat slit and was stabbed six times by his wife’s lover.
• At least 25 delegates who attended the AIDS conference in Melbourne last month have decided to seek asylum in Australia.
• Kylie Minogue has taken to the stage during the closing ceremony of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
• A man trapped in an underground grain silo for more than seven hours has been freed.
• A man who was unhappy with his takeaway gozleme has been punched in the head.
10am
That’s it for our live #RUSHHOUR news blog. You can get across the stories you need to know today below or go to news.com.au for the latest headlines.
9.25am
UPDATE: Fans were heartbroken at reports that Hayao Miyazaki’s legendary Studio Ghibli would close but an alternative translation of the general manager’s interview suggests this may not be the case.
The Japanese animation studio has given us such hits as Academy Award winning film Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro and Princess Mononoke.
Writer-director Miyazaki announced last year that he would be retiring and general manager Toshio Suzuki reportedly announced during a TV show that the studio’s production department would close. It was suggested that the company’s future would only be around managing its trademarks.
However, conflicting reports have since emerged that suggested that there was hope for Studio Ghibli and the decision was not definitive. According to Anime News Network, Mr Suzuki said there would be a “brief pause” in production but it was not impossible to keep producing movies.
Studio Ghibli fans were devastated that the department could close.
Studio Ghibli is closing down. They is no point in me being on this planet anymore. their movies moved me. Ill watch their collection again
— Dropout Bear Gimeno (@The_Killerjax) August 3, 2014I am choosing to believe that Studio Ghibli is staying open but that only children will be able to see it.
— Tiernan Douieb (@TiernanDouieb) August 3, 2014Studio Ghibli is shutting down this year. This sums up the mood of anime fans the world over =( pic.twitter.com/a63YqKmKFs
— Andy. âš½ï¸ï¸â˜•ï¸ (@Autographz) August 3, 20149am
More than 367 people are dead and almost 2000 have been injured in a strong earthquake which hit China’s mountainous southwest, bringing homes crashing to the ground and sparking a massive relief operation.
The quake, which struck in the Zhaotong prefecture of provincial Yunnan on Sunday, toppled buildings and left rescue teams and residents to pull survivors from beneath rubble, images on social media show.
8.25am
A man who was unhappy with the small amount of cheese on his takeaway gozleme has been punched in the head after complaining to the food stall owner.
The argument took place yesterday in the western Sydney suburb of Auburn in a park where a large crowd had gathered for a festival.
NSW Police said the 41-year-old man allegedly purchased a gozleme at a food stall, but returned it a short time later, unhappy with the small amount of cheese on it.
When the stall owner, 21, tried to refund the man, the pair reportedly began to argue.
It’s alleged the stall owner punched the older man in the head, causing a cut to his left ear.
The 41-year-old was taken to Auburn Hospital, where he received five stitches.
The stall owner has been charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm by unlawful act.
8.05am
UPDATE: In a definite highlight of the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony, an Australian athlete bombed Kylie Minogue’s performance.
While Minogue was going for a quick costume change in Glasgow, the woman — named by Channel 10 as Australian steeplechase runner Genevieve LaCaze — made her way onto the stage and started busting a move with the back-up dancers before being escorted by security guards.
Who was the Australian stage invader who snuck up onto stage and danced unnoticed #closingceremony #CommonwealthGames pic.twitter.com/NwUlON1SfQ
— Mr South Africa 2010 (@Denver_Burns) August 3, 20147.45am
An elderly man has survived after being trapped in an underground grain silo for more than seven hours.
Initial reports indicated the 70-year-old man had fallen into the silo but it has since been clarified the man was buried up to his shoulders in grain in the silo’s unloading dock.
The man became trapped around 2pm Sunday after machinery collapsed at the site at The Gums off the Leichardt Highway, about 200km west of Toowoomba.
7.30am
The Islamic State expanded two fronts on Sunday, defeating Kurdish troops protecting a major dam in Iraq. In Lebanon they also attacked a series of army posts along the border with Syria.
It was the worst spill over of fighting into Lebanon since the start of the civil war in neighbouring Syria.
The newly announced Islamic caliphate was pushing to expand on both its eastern and western borders into new territory, the first such expansion into new territory since it took over much of northern and central Iraq and merged it with previously held territory in eastern Syria to form a caliphate announced last month by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
7.20am
Victorian humanitarian Moira Kelly is leading a push to have Gammy, the seriously ill twin abandoned in Thailand by his Australian biological parents, brought to Melbourne for treatment.
It comes as the Thai surrogate mother of baby Gammy told Fairfax that his biological parents told her they could not take him because they were too old to care for twins.
Pattharamon Janbua said Gammy’s father was in his 50s and came to the hospital to take care of the boy’s twin sister but never looked Gammy in the face or carried him.
Gammy has Down syndrome and is being treated for a lung infection after fundraising raised almost $200,000.
7am
Aussie pop princess Kylie Minogue has taken to the stage during the closing ceremony of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Follow all the action on our live blog.
Check out how the Aussies did in the medal tally, click here.
Kylie! #Glasgow2014 pic.twitter.com/q9liuxVLGm
— Matt Young (@MattYoung) August 3, 20146.35am
At least 25 delegates who attended the AIDS conference in Melbourne last month have decided to seek asylum in Australia and have failed to board their flights home.
According to Fairfax the men and women are mostly from African countries and are staying in motels, backpacker hostels and rooming houses.
One of the men has reportedly said he was imprisoned a number of times because he was a member of an opposition political party, while another faced persecution because of his ethnicity.
6.15am
Melbourne businessman Chris Soteriou has described the moment he had his throat slit and was stabbed six times by his wife’s lover.
The father-of-three was happily married and never suspected that his wife Vicky Soteriou had been plotting to kill him on the night of his 44th birthday celebrations.
He said the attack happened after he saw a man crouching near his car in a dark laneway, prompting him to ask the guy whether he was “alright”.
“As I lifted my head he just grabbed me from the jacket and just slit my throat,” Mr Soteriou told Sunday Night.
“There was no feeling, just shock, like ‘woah’. I just felt the blood run down my chest and felt this warm fluid running down my body.”
It was also revealed that his wife had tried to ask another former lover to kill Mr Soteriou five years before, but he thought that it was a joke, and they broke up soon after that.
Ms Soteriou has been jailed for nine years non-parole for attempted murder.
6am
Good morning, and welcome to our morning news coverage. We will be bringing you the best of what’s happening this morning, so you can get across the news quickly.
Mushroom cook’s family heartbreak: court
Alleged triple-murderer Erin Patterson has told the jury she began to become concerned her husband was leaving her out of family events.
2.6m Aussies await pay rise answer
About 2.6 million Aussies on the minimum wage are set to get a pay bump when the Fair Work Commission hands down the annual wage review.
‘Significant’: Remote text service launched
A new satellite to mobile text messaging service has landed in Australia, that is accessible when you’re mobile coverage is out of range.