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Saturday set to be a "dangerous day" for NSW flooding as Sydney records wettest year on record.
Sydney is experiencing its wettest year on record as widespread rain and thunderstorms put large parts of NSW on flood alert.
By 1.30pm yesterday, the rain gauge at Sydney's Observatory Hill had passed 2200 millimetres recorded this year, breaking the annual rainfall record of 2194mm set in 1950.
Saturday is set to be a "dangerous day" for the city with warnings of renewed river flooding to the west, months after record peaks were observed.
"We know that our catchments are saturated," Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke told media yesterday. "The dams are full and our rivers are already swollen so any extra rainfall - no matter how minor - is likely to exacerbate existing flooding."
50 current FLOOD warnings across NSW ☔
— NSW SES (@NSWSES) October 6, 2022
6th October at 6pm
ADVICE - 36
WATCH & ACT - 14
EMERGENCY WARNING - 0
Monitor the latest warnings on the interactive map on our website: https://t.co/t578A4uJoA
For road closures and to plan your trip visit: https://t.co/PHnMnBFSBx pic.twitter.com/XY9iCOF1ZL
SES Commissioner Carlene York warned renewed flooding could present different challenges, especially to inland communities.
"Don't assume you will get a warning ... it may go straight to an evacuation order," she said.
The Bureau of Meteorology also says rain is likely to lead to river level rises across many already flooded rivers in southern Queensland, Victoria and northern Tasmania, with minor to major flooding likely.
This week, we have already seen significant rainfall across large parts of the country. ☔️ Now a cold front will be added to the mix, leading to another round of #rain, severe storms and gusty winds. https://t.co/TJeugueifY#NSW #QLD #Victoria #Tasmania #Southaustralia pic.twitter.com/23eyqv0AXI
— Weatherzone (@weatherzone) October 6, 2022
- With AAP.
Brittany Higgins quizzed on secret recordings.
Content warning: This post mentions sexual assault and may be distressing for some readers.
Brittany Higgins will be quizzed about secret recordings she took of conversations with a senior Liberal minister and her chief of staff.
The former Liberal Party staffer was called as the first witness in the criminal trial of Bruce Lehrmann, who has been accused of raping her. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent.
Yesterday, the court heard Higgins secretly recorded a phone conversation with her former boss and then-employment minister Michaelia Cash in 2021, days after she resigned from her staffer position.
Senator Cash had called to offer Higgins alternatives to resigning from her office.
Higgins said the phone call was strange because the senator was pretending as though she didn't know about her alleged rape even though the pair had spoken about it before.
"It was ridiculous. It was the weirdest phone call I have ever had in my life," she said.
Higgins also recorded a conversation with Senator Cash's former chief of staff Daniel Try without his knowledge.
Defence lawyer Steven Whybrow put to Higgins that she had sent the recordings to multiple people, including journalists, to begin backgrounding for the story. But Higgins said it was for her legal protection and so that she could corroborate her story.
"I was trying to give them (the recordings) to as many people as possible to have them just so that they existed," she said.
"It's my word against a cabinet minister's and the disparity between those two powers is ridiculous."
The trial continues.
If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.
- With AAP.
23 children killed at mass shooting at Thai child daycare centre.
A former policeman has killed 34 people, including 23 children, during a knife and gun rampage at a daycare centre in Thailand, later shooting dead his wife and child at their home before turning his weapon on himself, police say.
In one of the world's worst child death tolls in a massacre by a single killer in recent history, most of the children who died in Uthai Sawan, a town 500km northeast of Bangkok, were stabbed to death, police said.
The age range of children at the daycare centre was from two to five years, a local official told Reuters.
At least 37 people have been killed in a massacre at a daycare centre in Thailand by a fomer police officer.
— 9News Australia (@9NewsAUS) October 6, 2022
MORE: https://t.co/nHRRSk0ERq#9News pic.twitter.com/WqFdTwJ8fQ
The attacker has been identified as a former member of the force who was dismissed from his post last year over drug allegations and was facing trial on a drugs charge. The man had been in court earlier on Thursday and had then gone to the daycare centre to collect his child, police spokesman Paisal Luesomboon told broadcaster ThaiPBS.
When he did not find his child there, he began the killing spree, Paisal said.
"He started shooting, slashing, killing children at the Utai Sawan daycare centre," Paisal said.
"It's a scene that nobody wants to see. From the first step when I went in, it felt harrowing," Piyalak Kingkaew, an experienced emergency worker heading the first responder team, told Reuters.
A teacher who was eight months pregnant was also among those stabbed to death, said district official Jidapa Boonsom.
Thailand's police chief Damrongsak Kittiprapas said "he started killing anyone he met along the way with a gun or the knife until he got home. We surrounded his house and then found that he committed suicide in his home".
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha called the shooting a "shocking incident", while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it is "impossible to comprehend the heartbreak" of the attack.
It’s impossible to comprehend the heartbreak of this horrific news from Thailand. All Australians send their love and condolences.
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) October 6, 2022
Thailand's government said it would provide financial aid to the victims' families to help cover funeral expenses and medical treatment.
- With AAP.
The return of the mullet.
Billy Ray Cyrus has probably the world's most famous one but his daughter Miley's is getting a good run too.
Action stars were renowned for them at one stage - so were Aussie Rules football players. But after years in the fashion wilderness, the mullet is back.
Men, women and all gender identities are again embracing the hairstyle that Australians have identified as part of our 'bogan' past but now with a modern twist.
Today, we look at the history of the iconic cut that's all business in the front, party in the back.
Missed yesterday's news feed? Catch up on what women were talking about here.
Feature Image: Twitter@weatherzone/ Martin Ollman/Getty/AAP.