1. Barry Hall’s one-year-old son threatened by online trolls in wake of comments.
Retired AFL great Barry Hall claims his one-year-old son has been threatened by trolls in the wake of his scandalous remarks on Triple M radio last month.
The former Sydney Swans star was immediately sacked from the station’s commentary team after making a vile remark about his co-host Leigh Montagna’s pregnant wife. But speaking to 60 Minutes, the 41-year-old said the fallout continues.
“My future in terms of my earning capacity has really suffered from a stupid little comment that I shouldn’t have said,” Hall said.
“I’ve got no income and there’s no real light at the end of the tunnel when that will change or when that will be, so it’s a big c–k up.”
But it’s the “thousands and thousands” of messages of “absolute hate” on social media, that have unsettled Hall the most; “They just lay the boots in. It’s a form of bullying,” he said.
Among the worst are those aimed at his wife Lauren Brant and baby son, Miller.
“[The trolls were] basically saying that I was a pig and she deserves me,” he told the Channel 9 program. “Saying that my son’s ugly and talking about harmful things to them, and I’m not just talking about harmful words I’m talking about physical stuff.”
Though Hall conceded he shouldn’t have made the initial remark, he said he never intended to cause offence.
“I say crude stuff like that, not to be degrading to women or inappropriate,” he told 60 Minutes. “It’s more to get people laughing and I sort of understand now after the ramifications of what happened that shouldn’t certainly be on air.”
2. Multiple deaths in mass shooting at Florida video game event.
At least four people have been killed and 10 wounded in a shooting at a video game tournament that was being streamed online from a restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida, local media said.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said a suspect was dead at the scene.
“Searches are being conducted,” the sheriff’s office said on Twitter.
Emergency crews and law enforcement flooded into The Jacksonville Landing, a waterfront dining, entertainment and shopping site in the city’s downtown.
The shooting took place on Sunday during a regional qualifier for the Madden 19 online game tournament at the GLHF Game Bar inside a Chicago Pizza restaurant, according to the venue’s website.
A competitor in the Jacksonville tournament told the Los Angeles Times the shooter was a player who lost and opened fire on others before killing himself.
The venue was livestreaming the tournament when several shots rang out. One Twitter user, Drini Gjoka, said he was in the tournament and was shot in the thumb.
“Worst day of my life,” Gjoka wrote on Twitter. “I will never take anything for granted ever again. Life can be cut short in a second.”
The Florida shooting occurs amid a debate about US gun laws that was given fresh impetus by the massacre in February of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
Two years ago a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said many people were transported to hospital, and its deputies were finding many people hiding in locked areas at the waterfront precinct.
“We ask you to stay calm, stay where you are hiding. SWAT is doing a methodical search,” it said on Twitter.
“We will get to you. Please don’t come running out.”
3. Prime Minster Scott Morrison unveils his new ministry.
Scott Morrison is hoping to move on quickly from the political circus of last week by bringing together some of the coup instigators and Turnbull backers under the one tent.
But before his new 23-member cabinet and wider ministry is sworn in on Tuesday, he will tour western Queensland to get a first-hand picture of the drought.
Later in the week he will head to Jakarta as the final touches are put to the Indonesia-Australia comprehensive economic partnership agreement.
Mr Morrison said his new ministry - which includes some of those behind the toppling of Malcolm Turnbull - would bring healing to the coalition and prepare the government for an election due by May 2019.
It includes six women - up from five under Mr Turnbull - but three-quarters of his full ministry is male.
New Energy Minister Angus Taylor will work on a revised plan to get power prices down and maintain reliable electricity, while WA's Melissa Price comes into cabinet to oversee environment policy.
Despite his role in the destabilisation of Mr Turnbull last week, Peter Dutton remains Home Affairs Minister but loses his immigration role to Sydney MP David Coleman.
Mr Dutton's focus will be on cyber security, law enforcement, border protection and Australia's key security and intelligence agencies.
Victorian MP Alan Tudge will take on population and infrastructure, which Mr Morrison said was all about "congestion busting" in the capital cities.
With Julie Bishop going to the backbench and expected to retire from parliament at the next election, former Defence Minister Marise Payne takes on Foreign Affairs.
Despite having swung behind Mr Dutton's tilt at the leadership, Mathias Cormann has been returned as finance minister and Senate leader.
Mr Morrison has brought back the old portfolio of Industrial Relations, handing it to Kelly O'Dwyer who will oversee the coalition's attacks on union misconduct while also taking a fresh look at productivity gains from workplace reform.
Ex-Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce was made special envoy for drought assistance and drought recovery, however former prime minister Tony Abbott remains on the backbench.
4. Asylum seekers on the run in Queensland.
A government MP is among several calling for stronger border patrols after a fishing boat with suspected asylum seekers ran aground near Cairns.
Australian Border Force confirmed 11 people had been located by its officers and police after an "illegal fishing vessel" approached the mouth of the Daintree River on Sunday afternoon.
It's believed the group ran into the national park, sparking a police and immigration operation.
ABF didn't confirm how many were still on the run.
If those in custody are confirmed as asylum seekers, the boat arrival would mark the first suspected illegal entry vessel on Australian land since 2014.
Morrison government MP George Christensen was among several federal MPs saying the government hadn't done enough to secure the nation's borders.
"Qld borders need to be made more secure esp (especially) given proximity of PNG & Indonesia, considering level of radical Islamism in Indonesia, Malaysia & Philippines," he tweeted.
"With Peter Dutton back as Home Affairs Minister, I suspect this incursion will be dealt with swiftly and that there will be more focus on border security in North Queensland," he later posted to Facebook.
Opposition immigration and border protection spokesman Shayne Newman pinned the arrival on the new prime minister.
"This boat arrival falls squarely at the feet of PM Scott Morrison," he tweeted.
"Unlike the chaos and division inside the Government that has put the security of Australia's borders at risk, Labor is a united team."
Paramedics in Mossman treated two people in custody for fever and chills while another three were assessed.
ABF told Senate Estimates in April the last people smuggling venture under the Operation Sovereign Borders construct to reach Australia was in July 2014.
One Sri Lankan man who came to Australia alone in November that year was the last documented boat arrival.
5. Pope Francis asks for forgiveness from church sex abuse victims.
The Pope has vowed to pursue justice for victims of church abuse in Ireland as he ended his historic visit to the country by seeking forgiveness for its dark litany of clerical crimes.
Addressing a large crowd of pilgrims at an open air Mass in Dublin's Phoenix Park, Pope Francis laid bare the many forms of abuse and mistreatment meted out to children and vulnerable adults in past decades.
Seeking forgiveness for each scandal in turn, the pontiff also acknowledged that members of the church's hierarchy had also sought to cover up the sins of colleagues and failed to show compassion for the victims.
"We ask forgiveness for the abuses in Ireland, abuses of power, of conscience, and sexual abuses perpetrated by members with roles of responsibility in the church," he said on Sunday.
But pressure on the Pope increased the same day when a former top Vatican official accused Francis of having known of allegations of sex abuse by a prominent US cardinal for five years before accepting his resignation last month.
Vatican officials on Sunday declined immediate comment on an 11-page letter given to conservative Roman Catholic media outlets by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.
Vigano said he had told Francis in 2013 that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had faced extensive accusations of sexually abusing lower-ranking seminarians and priests.
McCarrick became the first Cardinal in living memory to resign his position in the Church leadership after a review concluded that allegations he had sexually abused a 16-year-old boy were credible.
In Ireland, the legacy of church abuse cast a long shadow over the first papal visit to the country since 1979, as the pontiff repeatedly moved to address the scandals.
His words drew praise in some quarters but others accused the Pope of not going far enough.
A total of 500,000 tickets were snapped up for the Phoenix Park Mass but the actual crowd appeared significantly smaller.
The awful weather, widespread travel restrictions and long walking distance to the venue were all likely factors, but some who compared it with the massive crowds who greeted John Paul II four decades previously suggested it was also a sign of the church's waning influence in Ireland.
At an address at the holy shrine of Knock, in Co Mayo, the Pope said no-one could fail to be moved by stories of young abuse victims who were "robbed of their innocence" and left with "painful memories".
Before departing Dublin for his flight home, the Pope held a short meeting with a number of Irish bishops.
He told them the scandals had also caused "hurt and discouragement" to current members of the priesthood, something he said was often "ignored or underestimated".
6. NSW boy shot in the back in suspected hunting accident.
A 15-year-old boy shot in the back during a hunting trip has been flown to Sydney in an induced coma.
The boy was struck after an unattended shotgun in the back of a ute fired about 9am on Sunday on a rural property in Sofala, 40km north of Bathurst, emergency services said.
NSW Ambulance said paramedics stabilised him as well as they could before flying him to Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney.
Police say they are investigating but it appears to have been an accident.
Top Comments
Barry may not have meant his comments to be degrading and inappropriate, but that’s what they were, and playing it off as ‘just a joke’ is getting tired. The online abuse is absolutely out of line, but losing work is the natural consequence of your behaviour.
If it was proven ongoing behaviour I would agree but making the family suffer for one moment of madness seems a bit much for me.
Agree with Rush. I don’t condone his partner and son being brought into it at all - but Barry’s comments in this interview show he still just doesn’t get it. It doesn’t matter if he intends his crude comments to be humourous but not degrading - he needs to understand that they ARE degrading, regardless of his intention - and that these types of comments are disrespectful and innapropriate full stop, not just if they are said “on air”.
A crude degrading comment from an ex-footballer is being given the benefit of the doubt as being but "one moment of madness"...? Seriously?
Meanwhile, get the kid off social media. You might as well paint a target on his back. It's astounding that celebrities sell their kids' privacy, and then get all surprised when people say awful things about them.