RUSH HOUR: The stories you need to know today
A COP tried to make a point on Twitter, saying “I will use my God given and law appointed right and duty to kill you”. It didn’t go down well.
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.
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.
9am
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has promised to be upfront with Australians about how the security system failed to put Sydney siege gunman Man Haron Monis under surveillance. “The system did not adequately deal with this individual,” he conceded on Wednesday morning.
“Two very decent people are dead, others are injured, others are traumatised because of a madman who was roaming our streets.”
Monis and two of his hostages died at the end of a 16-hour siege in Sydney’s CBD, in the Lindt cafe before dawn on Tuesday.
Mr Abbott said he intended to publish a report into what happened in the lead-up to Monday’s siege and why Monis was not on any counter-terrorism watchlist. The investigation will also look at how and where Monis got a gun.
“We want to know why he wasn’t being monitored given his history of violence, his history of mental instability and his history of infatuation with extremism,” Mr Abbott said.
It was impossible to monitor everyone all the time so security agencies made judgments about who posed the most risk, he said. The threshold for placing someone on a watchlist was whether they were regarded as being at risk of committing violence against innocent people.
8.55am
Disgraced former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid has been stripped of his Order of Australia (OAM).
The move comes days before he was due to make a court appearance in relation to an ICAC investigation. The former NSW minister has been found corrupt on a number of occasions.
“It is notified for general information that the Governor-General has cancelled the award of the medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division made to Edward Moses Obeid,” a government gazette said.
It comes days after Obeid, and fellow corrupt former Labor minister Joe Tripodi, were stripped of their “honourable” titles by NSW Governor David Hurley.
8.40am
The self-proclaimed Teen Wolf of Wall Street who claimed to have made tens of millions of dollars by trading stocks on his school lunch break has been exposed as a fraud.
Mohammed Islam now says he and his friend made the whole thing up after they were swept up in a media frenzy.
Islam’s hoax was so elaborate and well-crafted, he managed to fool New York magazine, which reported that the 17-year-old student from Stuyvesant High in Queens was worth a rumoured US$72 million.
8.25am
More details have emerged about the multi-million dollar drug bust in Melbourne.
Five people have been arrested this morning as part of a five month investigation from the Joint Organised Crime Task force, lead by the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police detectives.
The taskforce executed 15 warrants, targeting heroin, at residential and business properties in Wollert, Roxburgh Park, Epping, Bundoora, Essendon, Docklands, Campbellfield, Hadfield, Glenroy, Fitzroy, Meadow Heights, Narre Warren North, Dandenong and Brunswick.
Searches are still underway however police have already uncovered a large amount of cash and a significant amount of white powder believed to be heroin and also tablets believed to be ecstasy.
It is estimated that the powder, seized so far has a street value in excess of $4.5 million dollars and tablets valued in excess of $1.5 million.
8.20am
Kim Kardashian says she has a perfectly reasonable excuse for cropping out her daughter from an Instagram photo.
7.50am
Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police have smashed a multi-million dollar drug syndicate in Melbourne. The street value of seized drugs so far is in excess of $6 million.
Vicpol & AFP have smashed a multi million $ drug syndicate throughout Melbourne. Street value of seized drugs so far in excess of $6M
— Victoria Police (@VictoriaPolice) December 16, 20147.40am
The second test starts in Brisbane today. Test captain Steve Smith, 25, will lead Australia for the first time. He will be joined by debutante Josh Hazlewood, 23, as well as Mitchell Starc, who has been recalled to the team. After an exciting finish against India in Adelaide, the teams have only has three days to recover before the Brisbane test.
SPUDS is the nickname that team chat have come up with for Cricket Captain @stevesmith49 His initials are SPDS.
— ABC Radio Brisbane (@612brisbane) December 16, 2014
Smudger is the official nickname for @stevesmith49. We on 612breakfast prefer SPUDS. Any other suggestions?
— ABC Radio Brisbane (@612brisbane) December 16, 2014
7.30am
The cult classic film Beetlejuice looks like it will get a sequel, and actress Winona Ryder is also tipped to make an appearance.
Director Tim Burton has told MTV News that he will be directing the sequel and when asked whether Ryder would be returning he said: “Oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah”.
Michael Keaton said in February that he would return if Burton was in, so it looks like the film will get made.
7.20am
Janek Drevikovsky could be the most gifted all-round student in NSW after topping a record five subjects in this year’s HSC.
The student at Fort Street High School in Petersham was named first in English 1 and 2, German Continuers, German Extension and Latin Continuers.
“I actually found it quite enjoyable, which probably sounds quite masochistic, but it has been really good,” Janek told the Inner West Courier.
His secret: “Don’t be scared about putting in hard work. Do what you love — all of my subjects were things that I was passionate about.”
7.10am
A cop who left threatening comments on Twitter using the hashtag #CopsLivesMatter has been forced to take leave.
Officer Phillip White of the San Jose Police Department reportedly directed the messages towards demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri and New York who have been protesting against the deaths of unarmed black men.
In one of his tweets, White said: “Threaten me or my family and I will use my God given and law appointed right and duty to kill you. #CopsLivesMatter.”
In another, he said he would be off-duty at the movies with his gun if anyone “feels they can’t breathe or their lives matter.”
The tweets and hashtag played on protest slogans “I can’t breathe” and “black lives matter.”
San Jose Police Chief Larry Esquivel said it was important for the community to know that the comments did not reflect the thoughts or feelings of other officers in the department.
6.40am
Taliban insurgents have killed at least 141 people, most of them children, after storming an army-run school in Pakistan’s deadliest ever terror attack.
Chief military spokesman General Asim Bajwa said 132 students and nine staff were killed in an eight-hour onslaught at the army-run school in the north-western city of Peshawar.
Witnesses described how a huge blast shook the Army Public School and six Taliban gunmen in government paramilitary uniforms went from classroom to classroom shooting children, some as young as 12.
6.20am
Sydney siege gunman Man Haron Monis had dropped off the national security watch-list and was free on bail under laws set to be toughened.
The self-styled sheik, a dole recipient, was on the radar of intelligence authorities in the late 2000s but was recently judged not to meet the threshold for monitoring.
Senior government sources confirmed he had been “of interest” to intelligence agencies over several years for extremist behaviour.
“He had been the subject of security interest, yes,” a senior intelligence source confirmed to the Daily Telegraph.
“But he had dropped off.”
What is known is that Monis had been on a national security watch list prior to 2010, when his behaviour came to the attention of Australian intelligence and counterterrorism agencies.
It is believed undisclosed activities separate to his later conviction for sending offensive letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers prompted agencies to monitor him.
According to the Herald Sun, Monis had been married three times, had four children and a teenage stepdaughter, but hadn’t held down a job for more than a decade.
Early this year Monis was charged with 40 sex offences relating to assaults on seven people he treated while acting as a “spiritual healer”.
While a woman understood to be the girlfriend of Monis, can be seen in chilling videos posted to YouTube, claiming to be a terrorist, blaming rape victims for their attacks, and expressing happiness about the Holocaust and 9/11.
Sydney police spent three hours at the home of Amirah Droudis, aged 35, after her long-time lover was killed in gunfire with police at the end of the 17-hour siege in Martin Place.
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