Category Archives: Sydney

Jesse Baird and Luke Davies disappearance: NSW police officer Beau Lamarre arrested amid search for missing couple

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Lamarre, 28, turned himself to NSW police on Friday morning and is assisting with inquiries at Waverley police station

A serving police officer has been arrested as New South Wales homicide detectives continue investigating the disappearance of the former Channel Ten presenter Jesse Baird and his Qantas flight attendant partner, Luke Davies.

Const Beau Lamarre – a former celebrity blogger – handed himself in at Bondi police station about 10.30am on Friday. No charges have been laid.

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Taylor Swift Sydney Eras concert: superstar wows 81,000 crowd after huge storm delays the start

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Thunderstorm prompts a short evacuation and axing of support act Sabrina Carpenter, but Swifties still treated to three-hour show from their idol

Taylor Swift fans were briefly evacuated from the floor and lower bowl of Accor Stadium in Sydney after a huge storm with nearby lightning strikes hit the area less than an hour before the show was to begin on Friday evening.

Accor Stadium posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, the start time had been delayed, and asked fans in the venue to stay undercover until “further notice”.

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TV presenter Jesse Baird and partner Luke Davies missing after blood found at home and in skip bin

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NSW police searching for former Channel 10 presenter, 26, and Qantas flight attendant, 29, after blood discovered at Paddington property and on personal possessions in Cronulla bin

New South Wales police are investigating the suspicious disappearance of the former Network Ten presenter Jesse Baird and his partner, Luke Davies, from Sydney’s eastern suburbs after bloody items were found in a skip bin.

Police said Baird, 26, and 29-year-old Davies, who works as a flight attendant for Qantas, were last seen in Paddington on Monday.

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Taekwondo master arrested after married couple and young son found dead in Sydney

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Bodies of woman, 41, and boy, 7, discovered in Lion’s Taekwondo Martial Arts Academy in North Parramatta after 39-year-old man found dead in Baulkham Hills home

A taekwondo instructor has been arrested over the “cataclysmic” deaths of a married couple and their seven-year-old son in Sydney.

New South Wales police said the 49-year-old man, a taekwondo master at a martial arts school in North Parramatta, went to Westmead hospital with stab or slash wounds to his chest, arms and stomach on Monday just before midnight.

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Rough sleepers dying ‘alarmingly’ premature deaths, Sydney homeless data shows

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People suffering from schizophrenia especially at risk, homelessness advocates say

One of Sydney’s largest homelessness services says its client data shows the city’s rough sleepers are dying at “alarmingly” premature rates, particularly those with schizophrenia.

Matthew Talbot Hostel, based in the inner-city suburb of Woolloomooloo,
said data from about 4,000 patients attending its health clinic shows those experiencing homelessness are dying at an average age of 55.9.

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Sydney lightning strikes: four people ‘knocked unconscious’ and train network faces delays

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About 75,000 lightning strikes were detected across the city and afternoon commuters facing delays with T1 Western and T9 Northern lines affected

Four people have been taken to hospital with burns after being struck by lightning in Sydney’s botanic gardens.

A spokesperson for New South Wales Ambulance said the quartet was standing underneath a tree when struck at about 12.45pm on Monday.

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Second Sydney primary school among four more sites testing positive for asbestos contamination

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Single piece of bonded asbestos found in a garden bed at Allambie Heights public school

A second primary school in Sydney’s north is among four additional sites that have returned positive results for asbestos contamination.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority on Saturday confirmed Allambie Heights public school in northern Sydney, two residential estates under construction in Sydney’s south-west and Munn Park in Millers Point tested positive for traces of asbestos-laden mulch.

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Taylor Swift concerts will go ahead in Sydney despite asbestos testing at Olympic Park precinct

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Environment minister says authorities are testing mulch in the area but any issues would be resolved before pop star’s sold-out shows at Accor Stadium

The New South Wales environment minister has sought to assure Taylor Swift fans that the pop star’s Sydney concerts will go ahead next weekend, amid an asbestos scare at the precinct where she is due to perform.

On Friday, the day after a special taskforce was launched to aid investigations into sites where mulch containing asbestos may be present, authorities have conducted testing at a location at Sydney Olympic Park, where Swift is set to perform to about 300,000 fans over four days of concerts as part of her Australian tour.

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‘I can’t believe it’: diehard Taylor Swift fan gifted Eras ticket at pub trivia night in Victoria

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Quiz organisers were taken by 15-year-old Emily’s enthusiasm and when she didn’t win they decided to reward her anyway

Andrew Caldwell was the same age as his daughter is now when he saw his favourite band. He was 15, it was 1989, and Metallica was touring Australia for the first time.

His daughter Emily’s tastes are a bit different. She’s a diehard Swiftie and Caldwell spent countless hours trying to secure a ticket to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour for Emily so she could have the same formative experience seeing her favourite band at 15.

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Sydney asbestos mulch sites: map and full list of locations where asbestos has been found

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Hundreds of sites including schools are being investigated amid the growing asbestos mulch crisis across NSW. This map shows contaminated parks and other locations

Asbestos-contaminated landscaping materials have potentially been used at hundreds of locations across Sydney and at least one in regional New South Wales.

The premier, Chris Minns, has said the Environment Protection Authority is examining the sites as it undertakes its largest investigation ever.

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Sydney’s 90m-year-old climbing galaxias fish may have been wiped out by school building works

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The species can climb waterfalls and reaches back to Gondwanaland – but there are fears polluted runoff has proven fatal

A “miracle fish” may have been snuffed out in its Sydney habitat by bungled construction work at a nearby government high school, local environmentalists fear.

The climbing galaxias (Galaxias brevipinnis) belongs to a species line reaching back to Gondwanaland. It was only identified in the Manly Dam region in Sydney’s north – the fish’s most northerly known location in Australia – in 1998.

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‘It’s almost like having the Olympics again’: Sydney’s lunar new year celebrations grow bigger every year

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The festivities’ popularity isn’t lost on older migrants from Asia, who arrived in a country very different from today’s Australia

Simon Chan has watched Sydney’s lunar new year celebrations grow over the past two decades, from the small-scale events of the early 90s to what are today thought to be the largest outside Asia.

“Its almost like having a World Cup or the Olympics again, obviously on a smaller scale but the feeling is similar,” says Chan, the president of the Chinese Australian Forum, adding: “We see thousands and thousands of people descend on these events, its massive here.”

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Former tropical cyclone Kirrily brings torrential rain and flash floods to NSW

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The SES rescued three people from flood waters as the tropical low moved south over the Queensland border, with more wet weather forecast

New South Wales was lashed with torrential rain in the early hours of Tuesday, and three people were rescued from flood waters in their cars, as ex-tropical cyclone Kirrily moved across the state.

After wreaking havoc in Queensland, the ex-tropical cyclone crossed the border into western NSW on Monday afternoon, bringing heavy rainfall and flash flooding to inland communities, before reaching Sydney around 5am and bringing 21mm of rain and localised flash flooding.

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NSW mega-councils to foot the bill if they want to reverse forced mergers

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Labor to create legal pathway for council demergers after forced amalgamations by former Coalition government

New South Wales mega-councils will be forced to pay for their own demergers, in a move likely to anger local governments that have long been advocating for the state government to stump up cash and allow forced amalgamations to be reversed.

The Minns government will on Tuesday introduce legislation to parliament to create a legal pathway to demergers for councils, including Sydney’s Inner West, that wish to split – but it has made it clear it won’t be footing the bill.

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Kurtley Beale trial: woman aired sexual assault allegations on family trip to buy wedding dress, court hears

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Former Wallaby has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting woman at Beach Road Hotel in December 2022

A woman aired allegations she was assaulted by the rugby star Kurtley Beale with her fiance’s family during a trip intended for wedding-dress shopping, a court has heard.

Beale, 35, is facing one count of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching in the NSW district court, following the alleged incident at Bondi’s Beach Road hotel in December 2022.

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NSW police say analysis shows pro-Palestine chant in viral Sydney Opera House video was ‘where’s the Jews?’

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Independent expert says with ‘overwhelming certainty’ the phrase was not ‘gas the Jews’, as was widely reported around the world

New South Wales police say an independent investigation has found no evidence pro-Palestine protestors used the offensive phrase “gas the Jews” during a march near Sydney’s Opera House two days after the 7 October attacks on Israel.

The investigation by an “eminent expert” from the National Centre of Biometric Science examined a compilation video containing a number of audio and visual files.

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Two killed by freight train in Sydney as attempted track rescue ends in tragedy

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A woman was being helped off Berowra tracks by a man when both of them were struck, police said

An apparent train track rescue has ended in tragedy for two people in northern Sydney.

A woman, aged in her 30s, was being helped off the tracks at Berowra by a man, aged in his 20s, when they were both hit by a freight train about midnight on Friday, police said.

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Sydney Harbour shark bite: NSW Ambulance apologises after staffer leaked photo of victim’s injuries

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Family of Lauren O’Neill told ‘we believe a NSW Ambulance staff member was responsible’ for leak after St Vincent’s hospital launched investigation

A New South Wales ambulance staff member is responsible for leaking an image of a shark bite victim’s injuries from inside the hospital, the state’s health department has revealed.

NSW Ambulance said in a statement on Thursday afternoon it had apologised to the family of Lauren O’Neill over the incident.

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Kurtley Beale trial: ‘convince him he is guilty’, alleged sexual assault victim wrote in taped call note

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Rugby union star has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting woman at Beach Road Hotel in December 2022

A woman accusing rugby star Kurtley Beale of rape made hand-written notes to herself before confronting him with the allegations in a secretly recorded phone call, a court has heard.

One of the notes mentioned trying to “convince him he is guilty and not innocent”, the court heard on Thursday.

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Mayor issues flood warning – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

We’ve just spoken to St Vincent’s hospital and confirmed that the woman bitten by a shark in Sydney Harbour last night remains in hospital in a stable condition.

The woman, in her late 20s, was bitten on the right leg by a suspected bull shark in Elizabeth Bay last night.

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