Woman falls from high-rise building after meeting man through Tinder
A New Zealand woman has died after falling from a high-rise building on the Gold Coast while visiting a man she met on Tinder.
Warriena Tagpugo Wright, 26, fell 14 storeys from the apartment of 28-year-old Gable Tostee at 2:20am on Friday, according to the Courier-Mail. Witnesses saw the pair on the balcony of the apartment prior to the incident. It is believed that the pair had been drinking.
Tostee voluntarily attended Surfers Paradise police station on Friday, and was released without charge.
Originally from Lower Hutt, near Wellington, Ms Wright came to Australia on July 29 for a friend’s wedding.
Fears for Australian surrogate children after Thai clinic abrupt closure
Roughly 50 Australian couples are uncertain of the fate of their surrogate children and stored embryos after a popular Thai surrogacy clinic was shut down due to improper conduct, Fairfax Media reports. The All IVF Centre in Bangkok was closed by authorities after the clinic was linked to an international baby trafficking syndicate.
Clients of the clinic are now unable to contact their surrogates, and there are fears that the Thai surrogate mothers will abort the babies after losing financial and medical support from the clinic.
The closure is part of Thailand’s crackdown on surrogacy businesses, sparked by the story of Gammy, the baby with Down syndrome whose biological parents left him behind in Thailand while taking his sister home to Australia.
Two dead in Victorian shooting
A man and a woman are dead and two others have been injured following a shooting spree in north-west Victoria, ABC News reports.
A man went to his ex-wife’s home at Kerang on Saturday night and shot her in the hand and neck before shooting her husband in the shoulder as he disarmed him. The couple were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The body of the gunman was later found 30km away at Murrabit West, along with the body of a woman. The woman is yet to be identified.
U.S. airstrikes destroy ISIS weapons
Airstrikes have destroyed ISIS arms and equipment, U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Saturday morning. Obama took the opportunity to stress that American soldier will not be deployed to fight in Iraq. “We will not have U.S. combat troops in Iraq. … we learned a lesson from our long and costly incursion,” he said.
Still in Iraq, over 5000 Yazidi refugees have been rescued by Kurdish forces in a mammoth humanitarian operation. The Yazidi refugees had fled to Sinjar Mountain to escape ISIS militants.
Joan Rivers says Palestinians “deserve to be dead”
American comedian Joan Rivers has sparked outrage after telling a paparazzi that Palestinians “deserve to be dead”. The 81-year-old said “They started it, we now don’t count who’s dead. You’re dead. You deserve to be dead. You started it. You started it. Don’t you dare make me feel sad about that.” It is unclear as to whether the person she was speaking to was of Palestinian descent.
Rivers went on to say that every Palestinian who didn’t leave their home was “an idiot” and that Hamas was elected by “a lot of stupid people who don’t even own a pencil”.
Rivers is the daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Known for her controversial statements, she has since released a statement saying the exchange has been taken out of context, and that she is “praying for peace”.
You can watch the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIibX4Drzxs
Meanwhile, air strikes from both sides have recommenced in Gaza, following the end of a 72-hour ceasefire on Friday.
Police investigate Sydney schoolboys for filming up teachers’ skirts
Police are investigating five Year 9 boys who shared sexual pictures and videos of their teachers on Facebook, Fairfax Media reports. The boys, from St Augustine’s College Brookvale on Sydney’s northern beaches, used iPhones to capture photos and videos up the skirts of two female teachers, sharing the images in a specially created Facebook group.
The five boys were suspended rom the school, however Fairfax Media understands that the boys have since returned.
Liberal Party registers domain name ‘Abbott Lies’ so critics can’t
The Liberal Party have purchased the domain name AbbottLies.com.au, in what appears to be an attempt to stop anyone else getting there first, 9 News reports.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has faced accusations of lying after introducing new taxes under this year’s budget, contrary to his election promises.
Traffic from the domain name redirects to the Liberal Party website.
Brisbane murder trial stopped after juror admits to researching suspect on Facebook
A Brisbane juror could face two years in prison after it was revealed they researched the defendant on Facebook. As a result of the juror’s conduct, the trial of Lawrence Alfred Gaskell for the alleged murder of his wife Katarina in the Queensland Supreme Court has been abandoned.
It is a criminal offence for jurors to make inquiries about the defendant in a trial in process under Queensland law. Gaskell will be tried again later this year.
Man dies in Sydney’s City2Surf fun run
A man has died in Sydney’s City2Surf run after going into cardiac arrest.
The 27-year-old Coogee resident collapsed near the finish line at 11 am and was rushed to St Vincents Hospital in Darlinghurst.
Ambulance officers managed to stabilise him however he died a short time after.
Over 80,000 people completed the race this morning, which raised over $4 million for charity.
Claims that Wendy Farnell is not Gammy’s biological mother.
Fairfax is reporting that Wendy Farnell, the woman that is believed to be baby Gammy’s biological mother, may not have provided the egg that was used to implanted Thai surrogate, Pattharamon Janbua.
Janbua – who gave birth to baby Gammy and his twin sister Pipah in December – told media that the egg that was implanted in her actually belonged to a ‘Thai woman through a surrogacy agency’.
Speaking to Fairfax media Ms Janbua said:
“Yes, the sperm came from [Mr Farnell] but the egg did not belong to the Chinese woman,” she said.
“They are not really related with the baby … I am not really sure they will give real love to Gammy’s sister.”
David and Wendy Farnell will give an exclusive interview to Channel 9’s Sixty Minutes tonight at 9:10pm.
Top Comments
Wow, Joan Rivers is even more nasty, uncaring and cruel than I thought. That is an absolutely monstrous thing to say!
I suppose when your parents lived through the holocaust you have pretty strong feelings when people attack you again. I suppose you aint; gonna lie down a second time!
It's a vicious cycle. Current and future Palestinians will feel the same way when they mourn their dead innocent children.
Those students should be expelled, not merely suspended. It is not fair that the teachers should have to face their abusers, even if they are minors, for the next three and a half years while the boys finish school. Any "rights" those kids had to attend the school were waived the instant they started filming, let alone sharing the footage.
That's a bit extreme. Yes, what they did was particularly revolting but they are Year 9 students - an age when kids do particularly stupid things. Most teachers are pretty forgiving of that age group - I'd be interested in hearing how the teachers themselves feel about this before demanding expulsion.
Those teachers have actually had to take time off for stress leave so I'm pretty sure they're feeling okay at all with the sexual assault and humiliation.
I teach year 9 boys. I'm pretty forgiving of them swearing, describing their sexual exploits from the weekend, discussing female students at top volume, describing what they'd like to be doing rather than English (trust me, it's not maths). But if one filmed up my skirt? I'd be demanding legal action at the most, explosion at the least. And I have no doubt my union would back me on that one.
Yes, kids are stupid. But by year 9 they also know what's right and wrong.
Would you be forgiving if a bunch of male colleagues filmed up the skirt of two female colleagues, popped it on facebook, then got to return to work with them? I would hope not.
As a teacher of year 7 students, I am forgiving of many things. But no, I would NOT be forgiving this. I would want them expelled.