RUSH HOUR: The stories you need to know today
‘I HAVE stretch marks on my tummy and cellulite from the knees up’: This brave bikini-clad mum has become an overnight positive body image icon after her Facebook post went viral.
Good morning, and welcome to our “headlines in a hurry” morning news coverage. We will be bringing you the best of what’s happening this morning, so you can get across the news quickly.
10.00am
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.
9.57am
A 6.7 magnitude earthquake has just struck off the coast of New Zealand.
BREAKING: A 6.7 magnitude earthquake has been recorded 178km off the coast of New Zealand. There is no tsunami threat. More to come.
— The Advertiser (@theTiser) November 16, 2014
Also in New Zealand, dozens have been hurt after a bus carrying about 50 school children crashed into a ditch. The bus crashed near Thames, east of Auckland on the north island, about 10.45am (NZDT) on Monday.
Twelve people suffered serious injuries and 34 minor injuries, a St John Ambulance spokesman says.
Police have closed the road while the bus is hauled out of the ditch.
9.40am
A man fatally struck by a Bronx train while his horrified wife looked on was pushed by a stranger, the New York Post reports.
Wai Kuen Kwok, 61 — who a grieving son said worked in a kitchenware factory in DUMBO so that his two kids wouldn’t have to struggle — was on his way to Chinatown with his wife for their weekly grocery shopping when he was killed, the son said.
Kwok was with his wife, Yow Ho Lee, when the madman shoved him in front of an oncoming D train at the East 167th Street station in Highbridge shortly before 9am, police said.
The maniac then fled the station while Lee watched helplessly as multiple train cars rolled over her husband, killing him, officials said.
The train’s motorman witnessed the push and slammed on his brakes, but it was too late, a transit source said.
9.20am
The Monash Freeway is closed in Melbourne following a horrific crash that claimed the life of a motorcyclist.
The fatal accident involved a truck and a bike, the Herald Sun reports.
UPDATE: All in-bound lanes are still closed on Monash Fwy after earlier fatal accident. #9Newscomau pic.twitter.com/YwrG2kUCV3
— Nine News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) November 16, 2014
Motorists are being advised to use the Princes Highway as closures cause traffic chaos.
9.00am
As pop stars and musicians join forces to aid Ebola relief in the studio, US health officials have boosted screening protocols for travellers returning from Mali to prevent the spread of the disease.
Travellers from Mali will from today be subject to the same screening and monitoring from the three other Ebola-affected countries.
Officials are growing increasingly alarmed about a new cluster of seven illnesses in the African country.
8.40am
The new Band Aid single has been broadcast for the first time with the classic charity hit “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” re-imagined to aid Africa’s Ebola crisis.
Featuring One Direction, Bono and Ellie Goulding, the Christmas single was broadcast on ITV’s X-Factor.
The recording is a new version of the Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” which was first recorded 30 years ago to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.
Organiser Bob Geldof said One Direction sang the opening line of the new record, and other stars taking part in the London recording on Saturday included Rita Ora and Ed Sheeran.
The full line-up also features Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Sinead O’Connor and Emeli Sande.
Geldof said the British government has agreed to waive tax on the single — which means all the money raised by the song will go to charity.
8.00am
And now to a feel-good story to make the sisterhood proud.
Since posting the image accompanied by a positive body image message just over 12 hours ago, the post has touched and inspired thousands of like-minded women, garerning more than 100,000 likes on Facebook.
Inspired by a from a group of young people as she walked along the beach in her two-piece — “I think she is over the bikini!” - the Brisbane mum wrote about how she felt about her body, saying she doesn’t care about size and just wears “what feels comfortable”.
“I have child bearing hips and stretch marks on my tummy that I am proud of because I carried two beautiful big 9 pound healthy baby boys, I have cellulite from my knees up, it has been there since I was 3 and cute, I am healthy, strong, proud and happy,” she wrote.
“And you are invited to feel the same! And if I come your way and you don’t like what you see then move away ... And sisters, now is the time to start looking after each other!!”
Cross has returned to Facebook saying she is “surprised” at the amount of attention the post has gained.
While the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, she also wrote that one user had reported the image to Facebook for “nudity”.
7.40am
A G-string clad mother of three has become the accidental attraction in a real estate advertising campaign for a house sale in Mt Martha, the Herald Sun reports.
An ambitious agent enlisted a drone to take an aerial photograph of the property, which includes a sweeping image of the beach.
But the picture also captured small business owner Mandy Lingard, a mother of three and grandmother of one, sunbaking topless in the privacy of her back yard.
Ms Lingard said the image has not gone unnoticed by her family and friends, saying her son is particularly embarrassed.
Real estate agent Steve Walsh of Eview defended the use of drones for aerial photography and says he did not realise Ms Lingard had ended up on the sale board.
Read more of this story at the Herald Sun
7.15am
As world leaders make their exodus from the country, we’re welcoming a swarm of celebrities who have descended in Sydney.
Brad Pitt touched down this morning to join wife Angelina Jolie for the premiere of her latest directorial project Unbroken.
The pair’s landing follows a fleeting visit from Kim Kardashian who hit Bondi’s exclusive Icebergs restaurant yesterday.
She quickly jetted off to Melbourne to launch her latest fragrance.
Kardashian’s solo trip to Australia comes only days after the 34-year-old tried to “break the internet” with nude magazine images, which we’ve included below, since you asked so nicely.
7.00am
The family of teenager Georgina Bartter who died after taking drugs at a Sydney music festival will farewell her at a mass in North Sydney today.
A funeral will be held for the 19-year-old at St Mary’s Catholic Church in North Sydney.
Instead of flowers, her family has requested donations to Dreams2live4 — aimed at making dreams come true for adult patients with metastatic cancer at Prince of Wales Hospital.
Her family is hoping part of her legacy will aid cancer patients for whom the Sydney teenager voluntarily worked before her suspected fatal drug overdose.
Ms Bartter used to help fundraise for the charity, while her mother Kirsty sits on the foundation’s committee.
Ms Bartter was found collapsed at the Harbourlife dance party last Saturday after her friends say she took one-and-a-half pills of what they believed was ecstasy.
She later died in St Vincent’s Hospital.
6.40am
The barricades are coming down and the world leaders have jetted off as Brisbane’s G20 has come to a close.
Praised as a “good old chinwag” and “productive” summit by President Obama himself, the meeting of world leaders has wrapped up with strong prospects for growth and some harsh words for President Vladimir Putin.
Brisbane is set to return to normal after the weekend of political hobnobbing that saw the city all but shut down and cost a whopping $400 million.
As well as farewelling world leaders, police officers and defence personnel have vacated the city as have protesters who are clear out after a weekend of protests — some peaceful and some less so.
6.25am
Four months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine, a video has emerged that shows how close the burning passenger jet came to hitting village homes and suggests that residents first assumed it was a Ukrainian military plane that had been struck.
The amateur footage, filmed by a resident of Hrabove, shows people reacting in alarm as wreckage blazes only a few metres away from their homes on the afternoon of July 17.
The video is perhaps the first taken immediately after the plane came down.
The reaction of villagers in the new video suggests their immediate assessment too was that another Ukrainian plane had been struck.
One person can be heard to say: “And where is the pilot?”
Another person answers: “Who the hell knows?”
All 298 people, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, aboard the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed when it was shot down over a rebel-held area.
On Sunday the investigation team said the wreckage of MH17 would be collected before being transported to the Ukrainian government-controlled city of Kharkiv and then flown to the Netherlands.
The Dutch experts eventually intend to reconstruct a section of the doomed airliner.
6.05am
Shocking vision of a violent attack has prompted a police investigation after the vicious bullying incident in Victoria was uploaded to Facebook.
A group of young men surrounded and a attacked a 14-year-old boy in a Ballarat car park while a bystander filmed the attack, the Herald Sun reports.
One of the attackers can be heard to yell “I’m going to stab ya with me knife” and “you’re going to get punched in the throat” while attempting to steal the boy’s jacket.
After the footage surfaced online this week, more than 304,000 viewers have witnessed the boy being kicked and punched in the chest and stomach.
The victim’s mum has described the attack as “sickening” and a police spokeswoman told the Herald Sun a number of people featured in the video were being investigated.
Dangerous act against posties on the rise
More and more Australia Post drivers are being subject to this concerning act, and it’s prompted a plea from the national service.
CCTV emerges before babysitter, girl killed
CCTV footage has captured a car leaving a Brisbane home before a fire broke out at the property and claimed the lives of an eight-year-old girl and her babysitter.
Convicted whistleblower launches appeal
A former military lawyer turned whistleblower has been given leave to appeal his sentence and convictions after he was jailed for leaking military information.