Category Archives: Melbourne

Police praise mostly well-behaved NYE revellers despite firework-related blazes

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Melbourne and Sydney fires brought under control, including in Tempe, and stabbings reported in Guildford and the Mornington Peninsula

New Year’s Eve revellers have largely been praised for their behaviour at Australia’s biggest fireworks shows, while officers were kept busy with outbursts of trouble around local fireworks.

More than a million people swarmed the main vantage points around Sydney harbour and hundreds of thousands of Melbourne partygoers were treated to a fireworks and laser spectacular.

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New Year’s Eve fireworks 2024: the best places to watch NYE celebrations around Australia

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Night skies will light up on New Year’s Eve to welcome in 2025. Here’s your guide to child-friendly shows plus what time and where to see the fireworks in Sydney, Melbourne and across the country

Night skies across Australia will light up on New Year’s Eve to herald the beginning of 2025.

Whether you are in a capital city or regional town, there are fireworks displays scheduled early in the night – for children, and those wishing to hit the hay early – and at midnight, for people counting down to the new year.

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Easey Street double murder and rape accused faces Melbourne court nearly 50 years after alleged attack

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Perry Kouroumblis was extradited from Italy and charged over the 1977 deaths of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett

An accused double murderer has faced a Melbourne court close to five decades after police allege he stabbed two women to death in a frenzied attack.

Perry Kouroumblis, 65, appeared bleary-eyed as he sat in the dock of the Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday after arriving on Australian soil on Tuesday night.

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Renters’ personal details allegedly stolen in Melbourne real estate agency burglary

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Documents taken during break-in at Nelson Alexander agency in Northcote in October, police allege, and investigation under way

The personal information of a number of renters in Melbourne has been allegedly stolen from a Northcote real estate agency during a break-in, raising concerns about potential identity theft.

The ABC has reported that five boxes of documents, containing former renter information including names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and potentially ID documents, were allegedly stolen during a break-in at the Nelson Alexander agency in Northcote in October.

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Venomous tiger snake slithers up driver’s leg on Melbourne freeway

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Woman weaves through traffic at 80km/h before fleeing from snake in car barefoot and attempting to flag down passing motorists

Victoria police have carried out one of the “more bizarre welfare checks” after a deadly tiger snake slithered up a driver’s leg as she was travelling at 80km/h on a major freeway.

Police said they were called to Monash Freeway near the Toorak Rd exit in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs on Saturday morning after receiving reports of a barefoot woman trying to flag down passing traffic.

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Eastern Australia heatwave to make way for ‘volatile’ stormy weather

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Risk of blackouts has receded in Sydney, while a WA bushfire has prompted emergency evacuation in parts of Shire of Dandaragan

The heatwave baking much of eastern Australia will rapidly make way for conditions offering the “perfect ingredients” for thunderstorms later this week, raising risks of heavy rainfall and even flash floods.

Temperatures reached the high 30s across much of western Sydney on Tuesday with Penrith’s 39.7C the hottest – about 12C above the November average. Similar readings were forecast for Wednesday, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

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Australian police offer to help Laos investigation into suspected methanol deaths as Melbourne teenagers mourned

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Prime minister pays tribute to Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles while families vow to turn tragedy into ‘mission for change’

Australian federal police have offered to help the Laos investigation into multiple deaths linked to a suspected mass methanol poisoning event.

Melburnians Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both 19, were among six foreign tourists to die.

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Parents of teenagers who died in suspected Laos methanol poisoning hope deaths ‘not in vain’

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Bianca Jones’s father urged Laos government to investigate deaths to the ‘fullest’ and ensure it could not happen again

Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones’s devastated families have pleaded with Laos authorities to get to the bottom of a mass methanol poisoning tragedy.

The Australians, both 19, are among six foreign tourists who have died from a suspected methanol poisoning event in Laos.

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Teammates tie ribbons as community mourns Melbourne teens after suspected methanol poisoning

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Players heard news of Holly Bowles’ death as they gathered to remember her friend Bianca Jones, Beaumaris Football Club says

Tributes have continued to flow for two Melbourne teenagers who died while holidaying in southeast Asia, after the death toll from a suspected methanol poisoning in Laos rose to six.

Holly Bowles, 19, died on Friday in a Bangkok hospital, one day after her best friend, Bianca Jones, also 19, died in another Thai hospital.

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Melbourne teen Bianca Jones dies in hospital after methanol poisoning in Laos

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A New Zealand citizen is also ill, while a US citizen has died following a suspected mass poisoning event in the town of Vang Vieng

Melbourne teen Bianca Jones has died from methanol poisoning in a Thai hospital, a week after the Melbourne teen and her best friend fell ill while travelling in neighbouring Laos.

Anthony Albanese confirmed the 19-year-old’s death on Thursday, after her parents travelled to Thailand to be with her.

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Final hours of missing Melbourne woman Isla Bell’s life captured by CCTV, police allege

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Nineteen-year-old last seen leaving her Brunswick home in October and remains yet to be formally identified have been found in Dandenong

The final hours of missing teen Isla Bell’s life have been captured on CCTV in the Melbourne apartment building of her alleged killer, according to court documents.

The documents released by the court on Wednesday afternoon detail how the 19-year-old allegedly ended up at Marat Ganiev’s St Kilda East apartment on 7 October.

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Police suspect arson behind overnight fire that destroyed Melbourne’s Lux nightclub

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About 50 firefighters and 15 fire trucks called to battle blaze at venue in Chapel Street, South Yarra

A Melbourne nightclub has been razed after a suspicious fire broke out in the middle of the night.

Lux nightclub on Chapel Street in South Yarra was engulfed in flames early on Thursday, with about 50 firefighters and 15 fire trucks called to battle the blaze.

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‘Every parent’s nightmare’: family of Melbourne teen fighting for life after feared methanol poisoning hopes for answers

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Parents ‘want to ensure no other family’ feels same anguish as Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles remain in Thai hospitals

The family of one of two teenagers fighting for life in hospital after a suspected methanol poisoning incident in Laos hope authorities work out exactly what happened “as soon as possible”.

Melbourne friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both aged 19, had been staying at a hostel in Vang Vieng, north of the Laos capital Vientiane, when they fell critically ill last week.

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Melbourne best friends on ‘dream getaway’ before feared methanol poisoning in Laos left them fighting for life

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Teenagers Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles in hospitals in neighbouring Thailand after incident last week

Two Australian teenagers are fighting for their lives in Thailand after a suspected methanol poisoning in neighbouring Laos, with the family of one them saying they were struggling to comprehend what had happened.

Friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles from Melbourne had been staying at a hostel in Vang Vieng, north of the Laos capital, Vientiane, when they fell critically ill last week, 3AW reported.

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Melbourne warehouse fire leads to evacuation of 150 nearby residents in middle of night

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Victoria police believe building on Spencer Street was empty at the time of the blaze

Police are investigating a warehouse fire in West Melbourne which led to 150 people being evacuated from an apartment complex in the middle of the night.

Fire Rescue Victoria found the warehouse “fully involved with fire” after being called to the incident on Spencer Street early on Saturday.

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Man charged over Melbourne carjacking and siege involving father and toddler

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Man charged with assaulting police, false imprisonment, threats to kill and other offences following a carjacking and siege

A man has been charged over carjacking and a siege involving an innocent father and his toddler, who were held inside their own home for hours.

The ordeal stared on Tuesday when a police helicopter followed a car in Melbourne’s west that was believed to have been stolen in a carjacking in Snake Valley earlier in the day, Victoria police said.

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Alexis Wright wins $60,000 Melbourne literature prize

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The Waanyi writer, who won the Miles Franklin award and Stella prize this year for her novel Praiseworthy, has been recognised for her body of work and contribution to Australian culture

Alexis Wright has been awarded the $60,000 Melbourne prize for literature, capping off an extraordinary year in which she has won more than $200,000 in prize money after the publication of her epic novel, Praiseworthy.

The Melbourne prize for literature, awarded every three years, recognises a Victorian writer whose “body of published work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life”. Past winners include Christos Tsiolkas, Alison Lester and Helen Garner.

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Police to charge man who allegedly carjacked 70-year-old and held father and toddler in Melbourne siege

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The 26-year-old Snake Valley man remains in hospital with police expecting to charge him on Wednesday afternoon

A man will be charged after allegedly carjacking a 70-year-old woman before breaking into a Melbourne home and holding a father and his toddler inside in an hours-long siege.

A 26-year-old Snake Valley man, known to police, allegedly carjacked the woman in the western Victorian town about 2.30pm on Tuesday.

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‘Tragic death’ of toddler at Melbourne hotel pool while mother used phone prompts coroner’s call for better supervision

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The boy, known as Master K for inquest, floated to surface and was undiscovered for more than nine minutes

A two-year-old who drowned in a pool while his mother looked at her mobile phone and cared for another infant two metres away highlights the need for close supervision around water, a Victorian inquest has heard.

The boy had been playing in a toddlers’ pool adjoined to an adult pool at Crown Towers, a luxury hotel in central Melbourne, in 2021 when he slipped and fell into the deeper pool.

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Blockbuster: will Victoria’s tough housing market push The Block into the red?

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Some predict the TV show will lose money this season as investors exit property and contestants face ‘a buyer’s market’ at auction

Channel Nine’s hit series The Block could be caught in the firing line of Victoria’s flat housing market and investor woes, with one expert predicting the show will make a loss this year.

The properties in the seaside township of Cowes, on Phillip Island, are set to go under the hammer on Saturday.

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