RUSH HOUR: The stories you need to know today
A CAR has crashed into the luxury fashion store Gucci this morning in the Melbourne CBD.
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.
9.30am
NASA’s unmanned Antares rocket has exploded on launch at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The Orbital Science unmanned rocket exploded Tuesday six seconds after launch on a resupply mission to the International Space Station, NASA said.
“We have lost the Orb-3 vehicle,” said the commentator on NASA television, after the liftoff at Wallops Island, Virginia.
“At this point it appears that the damage is limited to the facility,” the NASA commentator said.
Rocket carrying supplies to International Space Station explodes seconds after lift-off http://t.co/M7JPH31A9o pic.twitter.com/JfTi5T1yYO
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 28, 2014
Video shows moments of rocket explosion in Virginia. https://t.co/6uNHD0Lq1Q
— Matt Toal (@MattToal) October 28, 2014
9.15am
A car has crashed into the Gucci shop in Melbourne CBD. Passerby Cameron Waugh managed to snap this photo. He said he was on his way to work about 8.40am when he saw the car.
“I work in the building above ... I think it happened a couple of minutes before I got there, the guys said they heard it in the office.”
Ambulance officers were called to the incident on the corner of Collins and Russell St just before 8.30 this morning.
A spokesman for Victoria Ambulance told news.com.au a man, believed to be in his 30s was treated on scene. He is believed to have suffered minor nose injuries.
Someone needed a handbag really bad this morning from Gucci Melbourne pic.twitter.com/Fj401X07dH
— Deon Louw Botha (@DeonLouwBotha) October 28, 20149.10am
A father in South Australia managed to capture footage of the electrical storm last night.
Travis Casey recorded the lightning strike just metres away from him in West Richmond.
9am
The owner of a Territory hot air balloon company has been charged with manslaughter over the horrific death of Sydney woman Steph Bernoth.
Ms Bernoth allegedly suffered critical neck injuries when her scarf got tangled in a hot-air balloon’s cold air inflation fan. She died at Alice Springs Hospital days later.
Outback Ballooning owner Jason Livingston, 44, had purchased Outback Ballooning just one week before the accident. He will face Alice Springs Magistrates Court in November.
8.45am
Australia’s security agency has warned that there is no valid security reason to ban the burqa and the consequences could likely be “predominately, if not wholly, negative”.
The confidential Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, obtained by Fairfax, was dated February 8, 2011 and was circulated to police and key government departments.
It concluded: “Any move in this direction would likely have negative implications, including increased tensions and distrust between communities, and providing further fuel for extremist propaganda, recruitment, and radicalisation efforts.”
8.30am
Motoring groups have condemned the Federal Government’s decision to slug drivers with petrol tax increases of about $142 a year without approval from Parliament.
Fuel industry sources on Tuesday said it would be an administrative nightmare to try to refund motorists if the Senate refused to approve the Government’s decision to reintroduce automatic fuel excise increases every six months.
It has been estimated that the average motorist will pay about $142 per year extra for fuel by 2016-17, under a Government “tariff proposal’’ which will become active on November 10.
8.15am
The body of a woman has been found on Nobbys Beach near Newcastle, NSW.
About 6am a member of the public contacted police after finding the body of the woman believed to be aged in her 30s.
Police are appealing for anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
8am
The competition watchdog is demanding further explanations from domestic airlines for failures to pass on a single cent in carbon tax savings.
Qantas, Virgin Australia and Regional Express all publicly claimed the introduction of the tax would cost them millions and they would have to pass the costs on to consumers.
But when the tax was repealed, they reversed their position, saying they had absorbed the costs and there were no savings to be found.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is investigating why the airlines did not pass on savings after the tax was repealed, effective from July 1.
7.40am
A mother posted images of lasagne and roast dinners on Facebook while her starving, dehydrated, four-year-old son was locked in a filth-filled bedroom just days away from death, a court has heard.
The mother 24, and the boy’s father, 28, have each pleaded guilty to endangering life over the incident which prosecutor Lucy Boord today called the one of the most “serious cases of neglect the court will ever see”.
Ms Boord said the mother had posted the images on Facebook while her son lay locked in the squalid bedroom surviving off an occasional plate of yoghurt, custard or jelly being slipped under the door.
“It clearly shows food was being purchased,” she said.
“Any suggestion this (incident) is about all members of the house not eating — the prosecution disputes that.”
7.20am
A majority of Australians back the government’s plans for higher university fees, according to a nationwide poll, but only on the condition of reduced cuts to the education sector and student loans pegged to inflation.
A survey of more than 1200 people across the country, commissioned by Universities Australia, to be released today, reveals 56 per cent would support the deregulation of universities if the bill before parliament is amended.
The amendments, which Education Minister Christopher Pyne is likely to adopt, include reducing the planned 20 per cent cut in government funding to universities, dropping plans to charge interest on student loans at the government bond rate — keeping it pegged to CPI — and offering an adjustment package to assist with the transition to a market-based system.
But the poll of 1282 people aged over 18 found only 22 per cent backed the plans without change.
Meanwhile, one of Australia’s leading young economists Greg Kaplan, 36, said lifting university fees is likely to help more students from poorer families gain tertiary education, provided the extra income is ploughed back into needs-based scholarships and bursaries.
Kaplan, an assistant professor of economics at Princeton, said his research into British universities showed that fee increases had not harmed educational attendance by students from poorer families.
“But there are risks if fees go too high because some students from poorer backgrounds might find the potential cost daunting,” he said.
7.10am
The wives of some Muslim extremists in Australia are choosing love over jihad, secretly tipping off authorities to prevent their partners travelling overseas to fight with Islamic State.
The trend is part of what authorities believe is a quiet backlash by Islamic women against the violent and misogynistic terror group, which has radicalised more than 100 Australian men.
Since Islamic State came to prominence, security agencies have noted a conspicuous absence of women on their watchlists and say the local terror threat is being driven almost exclusively by young men.
7am
Senator Nova Peris sought taxpayers’ money to help her to carry out an extra-marital sexual tryst with Olympic medallist Ato Boldon in 2010, an NT News investigation has revealed.
Ms Peris, who was working as a communication officer with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies at the time and as ambassador for Athletics Australia, sought funds from Athletics Australia and other sources to pay for Mr Boldon to travel to Australia.
She also used that trip to carry out a “just like a Tim-tam... black on black” affair with Mr Boldon. She was married to Daniel Batman at the time.
6.30am
President Barack Obama says the United States cannot be seen as shying away from battle against Ebola.
Obama made the remarks at the White House on Tuesday and while he not directly criticise quarantine policies for returning health care workers implemented in the states of New York and New Jersey, he said the response to Ebola needed to be sensible and “based on science,” while supporting health care workers going overseas to fight the disease.
Obama said workers who go to Africa should be “applauded, thanked and supported”, and that a robust response in Africa will stop the spread of the disease in the US.
"Only two people have contracted #Ebola on American soil...today, both of them are disease-free." —President Obama
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 28, 2014"The best way to protect Americans is to stop the outbreak at its source." —President Obama on stopping #Ebola in West Africa
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 28, 2014"We’re going to have to stay vigilant here at home until we stop this epidemic at its source." —President Obama on #Ebola
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 28, 2014"America in the end is not defined by fear. That's not who we are." —President Obama on stopping #Ebola and keeping the American people safe
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 28, 2014Yesterday, a US nurse who fuelled Ebola fears by flying to Cleveland after being infected by her dying patient was released from a hospital isolation unit.
Another nurse, held for days in a medical tent in New Jersey after volunteering in West Africa, was in an undisclosed location in Maine, objecting to quarantine rules as overly restrictive.
While world leaders appeal for more doctors and nurses on the front lines of the Ebola epidemic, health care workers in the United States are finding themselves on the defensive.
Lawyers now represent both Amber Vinson, who contracted the virus while caring for a Liberian visitor to Texas, and Kaci Hickox, who is challenging the mandatory quarantines some states are imposing on anyone who came into contact with Ebola victims.
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.
Indigenous death in custody sparks rallies
Hundreds of Aussies have gathered to demand justice following the death of an Indigenous man in custody in the Northern Territory.
Shopping centre rocked by machete scare
A group of boys were allegedly spotted with machetes at a Melbourne shopping centre just a week after a ban on the weapons was rushed through.
Aussies gather to celebrate King’s birthday
A crowd of Aussies gathered to celebrate the King’s birthday, with soldiers and a marching band among those who turned out in force for the monarch.