1. Joe Hockey awarded $200,000 over defamatory ‘Treasurer for sale’ by Fairfax Media
Treasurer Joe Hockey has won a defamation lawsuit against Fairfax Media who have been ordered to pay $200,000 in damages to the minister.
Mr Hockey sued the publishers of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times over a newspaper headline, which read ‘Treasurer for sale’ which referenced Hockey’s alleged involvement with the Liberal Party fundraising group the North Sydney Forum (NSF).
While appearing via video link on Tuesday afternoon Federal Court Judge, Justice Richard White upheld the claim that Hockey was defamed in a series of articles and tweets on May 5 last year.
Justice White estimated more than 1 million people would have seen one of the 2,466 posters with the “strong and eye-catching headline” placed outside newsagents and other places selling the newspaper and said Mr Hockey be awarded $120,000 in relation to that publication.
Justice White awarded $80,000 in relation to the tweets.
The amount, totalling $200,000 was just half of what Mr Hockey’s lawyers were seeking on his behalf.
In what the Sydney Morning Herald described as a “partial victory” for the millionaire MP all of Hockey’s other claims he filed suit for were dismissed.
Mr Hockey was not present in the Sydney courtroom to hear the outcome of his case.
Both the plaintiffs and the defendants have 21 days from the making of the final orders to appeal the decision.
2.A woman has revealed the frantic text message her boyfriend sent her as he was suffering a fatal asthma attack.
Nathan Phillips, 24, was visiting his grandmother Manchester, England, when he started struggling to breathe.
He called for an ambulance, but when one still hadn’t arrived 40 minutes later, he sent a message to his girlfriend Jessica Leavy saying: “I’m dying.”
Nathan Phillips and Jessica Leavy
Ms Leavy and her sister drove to meet Mr Phillips but he collapsed in their car en route to hospital.
Soon after, paramedics arrived on the scene and took him to intensive care but he never regained consciousness. He was pronounced dead two days later.
“We were really close. I was head over heels in love with him,” Ms Leavy told the Manchester Evening News. “It was the most horrible thing I have lived through in my life. It was my powerlessness – I felt powerless to do anything.
“I could not stop what was happening, I could not change anything. I was watching and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
3 .A woman has given birth on the side of a lonely road deep in a forest, and then survived in her car with her newborn daughter for three days.
Amber Pangborn was driving to her parents’ house in Paradise, Nevada, when she went into labour.
She had been trying a new route and was desperately lost when she ran out of petrol, leaving her stranded on an isolated stretch of dirt road in the middle of the Plumas National Forest.
Now in the final stages of labour, Amber climbed into the back seat of her car and started pushing.
“I laid out a sleeping bag in the back seat, lied down, gripped the handle above the back window and gave birth to my daughter,” she told KNVN TV.
The lonely stretch of road where Amber was stranded.
The little girl, Marissa, was born without complications but Amber’s ordeal was only just beginning. She and her new baby then had to survive three days before they were rescued.
They had just a bottle of water and three apples to live on and couldn’t even get out of the car as a swarm of bees attacked every time they tried.
“The meat bees came out and were trying to get the placenta,” Amber said. “I was trying to protect (my daughter) from getting stung and I got stung trying to keep them away from the baby but they kept going back to the placenta.
“I was just thinking ‘Oh my gosh,’” she said. “I wasn’t sure we were actually going to get out of there.”
Eventually, Amber engineered her own rescue, lighting a fire with a can of hairspray and a lighter. The blaze attracted a Department of Forestry helicopter, which flew mother and baby to safety.
4. Experts have suggested that there is “no legal obstacle” stopping infamous terrorist Khaled Sharrouf’s wife and family from returning to Australia.
Khaled Sharrouf’s wife, Tara Nettleton, and their five children are currently based with Sharrouf in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. Nettleton’s family, in particular her mother, have been at the centre of a desperate campaign to bring Tara and her children home, although it does not seem like she is being held there by force.
Despite the initial reactions to Ms Nettleton’s mother’s plea that it would be “difficult” for Tara to return home, it seems it might not be as difficult as they think.
If Tara and her children were able to flee the country of Turkey without criminal prosecution, and safely board a flight home, there would be very few legal barriers stopping her from entering the country once more.
If the only possible difficulties she could encounter would be her passport being cancelled, or her being placed on a US no-fly list.
However, if Ms Nettleton was to return home, her children would likely be made state wards and given to their grandmother.
Robin Michael with his wife Kerry Michael.
5.A South Australia man who was charged with murder after his wife was found at the base of a cliff during a hiking trip in Tasmania has himself been found dead in prison.
The Adelaide Advertiser reports that Robin Michael, 66, took his own life in his prison cell near Hobart over the weekend.
Michael’s wife, Kerry Michael, 44, was a fitness fanatic and a mother of one, who loved the outdoors, especially hiking and mountain climbing. Her husband was charged with murder after she fell to her death near the summit of Mt Roland in February.
The Advertiser reports that Michael told friends in a Facebook post that Kerry had been having an affair with one of his friends.
“I thought she was my life partner and would never do me wrong. She is my heartbeat,” he wrote.
“What the hell I did to drive her away I will never know, and am probably the least able to understand and accept.”
Kerry’s sister Tracey told News Limited that ‘Kez’ had “so many friends” and was “the life of the party” and completely devoted to her young son.
“She was really fit, she’d go to the gym and run every day. We are just comforting each other and trying to remember Kerry in the happy times,” she said.
6.Hold onto your hats: Real Housewives Of Melbourne breakout star Gina Liano has a guest spot on Neighbours … and she wants to do more acting, maybe on prison drama, Wentworth.
The Herald-Sun reports that Gina will make her debut on Neighbours tonight, playing the adoptive mother of Olympia Valance’s character Paige.
“I play Mary Smith and I’ve been in Singapore and decided I needed to reconnect with her so I turn up out of the blue,” Gina said, adding that she now has the bug: “I’d love to do Wentworth. I think it would be so much fun playing a tough chick who’s got a bit of an attitude.”
The make-up department must have had an easy day. Publicity shots show Gina looking exactly as she does on Real Housewives, with big hair, and heavy make-up.
7.And you thought real estate in Australia was expensive?
The Daily Mail reports that you can now rent a tent in somebody’s backyard – you read that right – in Silicon Valley for $899 (around $1200) a month.
The Mail says: “John Potter, a freelance web developer, advertises the tent on Airbnb, for $31 ($50) a night with breakfast included. It is close to Google’s California headquarters and is doing a roaring trade with technology workers who are new to the area. Tenants are even allowed one shower a day and given the option to eat indoors.”
But hey, don’t even think about it. The tent is already booked out.
