RUSH HOUR: The stories you need to know today
THIS morning, a teenager has sacrificed his own life in an incredible act of bravery, and a stunning innings from Glenn Maxwell has failed to stop Australia from losing at the T20 World Cup.
TODAY:
• There are growing fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin will move to take more of Ukraine;
• Malaysia says it has received new satellite images from France showing potential debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370;
• Turkish fighter planes have shot down a Syrian jet, allegedly for violating Turkey’s airspace;
• Australia has crumbled to a costly defeat against Pakistan at the T20 World Cup.
LIVE UPDATES
9:51am
A British teenager and her American boyfriend have shot a police officer in Florida before turning the gun on themselves, The Daily Mail reports.
Alexandria Holinghurst and Brandon Goode were stopped by officer Robert German, who called for backup after deeming them suspicious.
When the backup arrived, it found Officer German lying on the road with a fatal injury. The teenagers were gone.
Alexandria and Brandon were later found dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
9:43am
A public relations firm that focuses on the fashion and beauty industries is denying reports that fashion designer L’Wren Scott’s company was on the verge of shutting down.
The 49-year-old girlfriend of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was found dead in her Manhattan apartment on Monday. Authorities say she committed suicide.
Scott was reportedly considering a restructure of her global business, LS Fashion Ltd.
9:32am
Hundreds of students have stormed the Taiwanese government’s headquarters in protest at a deal that will lead to closer trade ties with China.
Another group of students has occupied the parliament chamber since Tuesday, the BBC reports.
The protesters fear the agreement will make Taiwan susceptible to pressure from China, which believes that Taiwan belongs to the mainland.
9:20am
Ministerial advisers encouraged federal officials to “massage” their economic forecasts to match Tony Abbott’s vow to create one million jobs of the next five years, The Australian reports.
Asking department experts to adjust their figures, the advisers to Employment Minister Eric Abetz sought to add 160,000 jobs to the projections due this week.
You can read more at The Australian.
9:11am
Australian Workers’ Union boss Paul Howes is expected to quit the union movement and seek a job in the corporate sector.
Fairfax reports the AWU national secretary will announce his surprise departure today after six years in the role.
The 32-year-old is perhaps best known as one of the “faceless men” who removed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from power in 2010.
9:01am
South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has signalled a significant shift in policy after a weekend of political twists broke the state’s election deadlock and delivered Labor a minority government, Adelaide Now reports.
“To those South Australians who have not felt represented by our government in the past, I commit myself to reaching out to you,” Mr Weatherill says.
You can read more at Adelaide Now.
8:48am
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia has added his voice to the growing chorus of leaders who are worried that Vladimir Putin will seize more of the eastern European nation.
“The problem with Putin is that he doesn’t want to talk to - not only to the Ukrainian government - but also to the Western leaders,” Mr Deshchytsia told the BBC.
“And this is quite a danger for the decision-making process. We could only expect that he might invade.”
8:38am
A British man who stands accused of orchestrating his wife’s murder at the hands of hit men while they were honeymooning will be extradited to South Africa next month, CNN reports.
Shrien Dewani, 33, allegedly hired a crew of men to kill his wife during a taxi ride in Cape Town. He claims she was the victim of a carjacking, and denies any involvement in the murder.
8:29am
The threat of nuclear terrorism will be the focus of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s talks at a security summit in the Netherlands.
Ms Bishop is attending the third global Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague this week.
Leaders from more than 50 nations will meet to discuss ways to keep nuclear material out of terrorists’ hands.
“I will also take the opportunity to meet with leaders and my counterpart ministers from other nations on matter of bilateral interest and concern,” Ms Bishop said in a statement.
8:19am
Tens of thousands of protesters have descended on Madrid, some having trekked from the furthest corners of Spain, at the end of a month-long “march for dignity” to protest against the government’s austerity policies.
Austerity has been forced on Spain as a condition of its $55 billion international bailout. The nation’s economy is in dire shape, with more than 26 per cent of the population out of work.
8:10am
A young Australian has become the world’s newest motorcycle racing star.
Jack Miller, a 19-year-old from Townsville, stormed to victory in the opening race of the Moto3 World Championship in Qatar this morning. It’s his first win in the “stepping stone class” to MotoGP.
8:01am
Veteran actor James Rebhorn has died at his home in the US state of New Jersey.
The 65-year-old actor was famous for starring in the TV series Homeland, along with movies such as Basic Instinct, Independence Day and Meet the Parents.
7:52am
Singer Marcia Hines has apologised to Ian Chappell for confusing him with the late Tony Greig.
Ms Hines was at the baseball in Sydney yesterday to sing America’s national anthem. She tweeted a photo of herself alongside Mr Chappell, with a cringe-worthy caption.
“Look who I bumped into at the baseball — the one and only legend Tony Greig ... Cool!” she said.
Ms Hines was quick to apologise when she was alerted to the mistake.
“How embarrassing for me posting that photo, apologies to the Greig family & Ian,” she said.
This is unfortunate #MLBSydney pic.twitter.com/C3F4PwOTMJ
7:41am
Three people have died and at least 10 have been wounded after gunmen opened fire in a church outside Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa.
The gunmen opened fire inside the Joyland Church in a Mombasa suburb of Likoni, killing two people, Kenyan officials said on Sunday, while a nurse at a nearby hospital reported a third person had died while being treated.
7:31am
The Senate will turn its attention to mining tax repeal legislation after rejecting the Abbott government’s plans to scrap the carbon tax last week.
The repeal bill has been listed as the first item of business in the upper house when parliament resumes on Monday.
7:22am
Spain’s first democratically-elected prime minister after the decades-long rule of General Franco has died at the age of 81.
Adolfo Suarez died on Sunday afternoon in Madrid’s Cemtro Clinic hospital. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for years.
Mr Suarez was admitted to hospital on Monday with pneumonia. The official cause of death was “chronic obstructive pulmonary disease made worse within the context of Alzheimer’s disease”.
“Suarez was a statesman who put the whole of the Spanish nation ahead of his personal and party interests, said Spain’s King, Juan Carlos.
7:13am
The former archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, will take the stand today to answer questions on how he handled an abuse complaint from alter boy John Ellis.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is entering its third week in Sydney.
Dr Pell is expected to shed some light on his role in instructing the church’s legal team, which “vigorously defended” the case.
7:06am
An avalanche has killed two skiers at the Russian mountain resort that was used for the Sochi Winter Olympics.
Six skiers were on the slope when the avalanche struck, the Rosa Khutor resort said in a statement. The snow buried two women, and rescuers who dug them out were unable to save them. The four other skiers escaped unharmed.
Rosa Khutor was the site of the Alpine skiing competitions during the Winter Games in February and the Paralympics that followed. The resort reopened to the public on Saturday.
6:57am
The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius has been extended until May 16.
It will continue until April 4, then break for a recess before resuming from April 14 until May 16, the court in Pretoria has announced in a statement.
Pistorius claims he shot Reeva Steenkamp through a locked toilet door in his home after mistaking her for an intruder.
6:45am
A husband who refused to let bikies sleep with his wife was “fined” $5000 and threatened with violence if he refused to pay, The Courier-Mail reports.
The Brisbane man is among scores of Queenslanders who paid thousands of dollars to former Bandidos in the past year to stave off beatings.
State and federal police launched simultaneous raids throughout Brisbane yesterday, swooping on 12 senior members and associates, and charging them with 37 counts of extortion.
You can read more at The Courier-Mail.
6:36am
Hillary Clinton is probably one of the last people you’d expect to appear in a gratuitous selfie. But the former Secretary of State, who is expected to run for president in 2016, has surprised us all.
Mrs Clinton, alongside her husband Bill and daughter Chelsea, posed with late night host Jimmy Kimmel during a panel discussion on Saturday.
Now it’s trending online and stuff.
6:27am
Three people have been killed by a mudslide in the United States, and rescue workers are trying to find at least 18 others who are still missing.
The disaster in the northwest state of Washington happened on Saturday, when the side of a hill suddenly collapsed on top of homes and a highway.
About 100 rescuers are on the ground, but the deep, unstable mud is extremely unsafe. On Saturday night, workers had to abandon a search to find someone yelling for help from a buried house.
6:18am
Turkish fighter planes have shot down a Syrian jet in a move which is likely to ramp up tensions between the two nations.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed the Syrian warplane strayed into Turkey’s airspace.
“If you violate our border, our slap will be hard,” Mr Erdogan said.
A spokesman for Syria’s military confirmed that the incident happened, but said the plane was shot down in Syrian airspace while attacking rebels, calling it an act of “blatant aggression.”
6:12am
Australia faces a series of must-win matches to qualify for the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup after falling to Pakistan in its opening game.
Glenn Maxwell scored a breathtaking 74 runs off 33 balls, but that wasn’t enough to get the Aussies past Pakistan’s impressive total of 5-191.
It didn’t help that David Warner and Shane Watson both got out in the first over of the chase.
6:08am
A teenager has sacrificed himself to save his girlfriend’s life, pushing her out of the way of an oncoming train.
Mickayla Friend, 16, was walking to her high school dance in California with her boyfriend, Mateus Moore. The couple was walking along train tracks when a train approached from behind.
“The engineer was on the horn ... Then finally, they both looked back at the same time,” a witness said.
“They would have both been underneath that train if he didn’t push her out of the way at the last second.”
Mateus was reportedly killed at the scene, and Mickayla is believed to be in critical condition at a local hospital.
6:05am
There are growing fears that Vladimir Putin will move to take more of Ukraine, with Russian troops massing on the nation’s eastern border.
“The aim of Putin is not Crimea but all of Ukraine,” the country’s National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy says.
“His troops massed at the border are ready to attack at any moment.”
Mr Parubiy’s warning comes a day after Russian forces used armoured personnel carriers and stun grenades to capture Ukraine’s main air base in Crimea.
6:02am
Malaysia says it has received new satellite images from France showing potential debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
“This morning, Malaysia received new satellite images from the French authorities showing potential objects in the vicinity of the southern corridor. Malaysia immediately relayed these images to the Australian rescue co-ordination centre,” Malaysia’s transport ministry said yesterday evening.
France’s foreign ministry said the images came in the form of satellite-generated radar echoes.
You can read all the latest details here.
6:00am
Good morning, and welcome to our “headlines in a hurry” news coverage. We will be bringing you the morning’s biggest stories so you can get across the news quickly.
Albo urges Aus to ‘chill out’ on cancel culture
The Prime Minister says no one would run for office if they were held accountable for things they said 20 years ago.
One thing keeping Aussies awake at night
Australians are more worried about their jobs, the family finances and the broader Australian economy due to the US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy.
Fresh blow to controversial park plan
Plans to carve up a popular golf course for new public amenities have faced another hurdle and been described as a “con job”.