Plea after Coles store set on fire, Virgin Australia makes major announcement: Australia news live

Thousands in New Zealand have reported shaking after a 4.9 magnitude earthquake struck in between North and South Island.

Shaking was felt right across capital Wellington with a New Zealand Herald reporter saying it lasted for about seven seconds.

Police are offering up to $25,000 to help identify a person responsible for starting a fire in a Perth Coles store.

WA Police say the incident on Saturday cost the supermarket $100,000 due to the damage to stock, including all perishable items, with the sprinkler system deployed.

Police say a person set alight toilet paper before the fire spread to other aisles, emitting thick smoke throughout the store. Thankfully staff and shoppers were unharmed.

Police are appealing for anyone who knows anything about the incident or witnessed suspicious activity in the High Wycombe store to come forward.

A well known Syrian television anchor, Safaa Ahmed, and two other individuals were killed overnight after an Israeli airstrike on Damascus, according to Syrian news organisation SANA.

Syria defence ministry said the IDF launched an attack using drones and planes around 2am (local time).

“The General Authority for Radio and Television announces the death of the anchor Safaa Ahmed as a martyr following the treacherous Israeli aggression on the capital, Damascus,” SANA reported.

Queen Elizabeth died after suffering bone cancer, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claims.

The ex-Conservative leader, 60, met the monarch, who died aged 96 in September 2022 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland – two days after she met Boris at her beloved home there.

He says in his upcoming memoir ‘Unleashed’ about his final meeting with the Queen: “I had known for a year or more that she had a form of bone cancer, and her doctors were worried that at any time she could enter a sharp decline.”

Before his final meeting with Her Majesty, Boris said the Queen’s private secretary Edward Young warned him her health had “gone down quite a bit over the summer”.

He added in his book, which is being serialised by the Daily Mail: “She seemed pale and more stooped, and she had dark ­bruising on her hands and wrists, probably from drips or injections.

“But her mind – as Edward had also said – was completely ­unimpaired by her illness, and from time to time in our ­conversation she still flashed that great white smile in its sudden mood-lifting beauty.”

Read more here.

Donald Trump has taken aim at Kamala Harris, accusing the vice president of staging a photo she shared online.

Harris shared a photo of herself taking notes on board an aircraft as she promised "constant contact" with communities impacted by Hurricane Helene.

In the photo Harris is wearing headphones with the cable disappearing below the table. For Trump, this indicated the photo was staged with a mobile phone sat on top of the desk.

"Another FAKE and STAGED photo from someone who has no clue what she is doing. You have to plug the cord into the phone for it to work!" he wrote in response on X.

There was plenty of praise from his followers, however many pointed out Harris likely had a second device out of shot. Take a look for yourself below.

Organisers of a pop-up where they sold cookies from cult US brand Crumbl have responded to critics saying they didn't intend to make money from their venture.

The cookies were flown to Australia after they were purchased from a Crumbl store in Hawaii, with the organisers detailing the costs the operation involved after facing intense backlash online.

Their Bondi pop-up prompted huge queues over the weekend despite cookies costing $17.50 each. The organisers say they bought each cookie for $8 but spent an additional $7,000 on flights, duties, taxes, customs brokering and staff.

"This event was never about profit. We aimed to bring the cookies to Crumbl fans," organisers explained.

Crumbl responded to the pop-up online suggesting they were not associated with the operation.

Read more here from Yahoo Finance.

An online bookmaker has been slapped with a $33,000 fine after it was found to have taken 75 further bets from a punter despite them requesting to close their account.

It's the first time such laws have been used by Liquor & Gaming NSW since they were introduced five years ago.

“By engaging in this behaviour TexBet has broken a law that was put in place to protect vulnerable people who are trying to exclude themselves from gambling,” Executive Director Regulatory Operations Jane Lin said.

The bookmaker, also known as O’Shea Bookmaking Pty Ltd, had also sent four gambling ads despite the customer requesting not to receive such material.

Australian fashion retailer Mosaic Brands is closing more than 200 stores as it says goodbye to five household names.

The business has announced it will wind down Rockmans, Autograph, Crossroads, W Lane and BeMe in a bid to focus on its other entities.

Mosaic Brands CEO Erica Berchtold said its decision to throw all resources at Katies, Millers, Noni B, Rivers and Mosaic marketplace will hopefully allow the business to "retain existing customers and attract new ones".

The word unrecognisable gets bandied about a lot in the entertainment world, but Pamela Anderson is truly a different look these days as she continues to embrace her fifties.

The former Baywatch star, 57, made a conscious effort to reduce the amount of makeup she wears last year, previously stating "it's fun getting old" and the decision was "freeing" and left her feeling relieved.

“I started to feel like I was dressing for other people, whether that was husbands or just for the rest of the world and how they perceived me,” she told Bazaar UK recently.

Over the weekend she appeared at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in a classy pink gown and it's fair to say her look was a big hit with fans.

The mystery winner of a $1 million lottery prize now may struggle to claim their winnings after the time allotted to redeem the prize expired.

Tickets bought in South Australia have a one-year expiration date meaning the person who bought their winning Monday & Wednesday X Lotto ticket more than a year ago at a BP garage in Mawson Lakes have missed the opportunity to claim the prize.

The money has now been forfeited to the Lotteries Commission of South Australia. The player will only have a chance of getting their cash if they still have the ticket and submit a prize claim form and an ex-gratia statutory declaration.

“This also serves as an important reminder to register your tickets. If this ticket had been registered, we would have already united the winner with their $1 million prize," The Lott spokesperson Khat McIntyre said earlier this month.

A man has been charged after police in NSW allegedly found two pipe bombs in his car during a random breath test.

The alleged discovery was made on the Sturt Highway near Hay on Monday afternoon, prompting police to close the highway and set up an exclusion zone.

A 33-year-old man was later charged with two counts of possessing explosives in a public place, two counts of possessing prohibited drugs and custody of a knife in a public place.

He is due to front court today.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) deputy commissioner Krissy Barrett says arrests will be considered after the national police force said yesterday simply displaying a Hezbollah flag did not necessarily warrant charges.

Flags of the terrorist organisation appeared at an anti-Israel protest in Melbourne over the weekend.

And while the AFP has reiterated its laws, Barrett has acknowledged that displaying the symbol is likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate, therefore meeting the threshold for an arrest to be made.

The AFP is expecting at least six referrals from Victoria Police relating to the display of terrorist iconography by Tuesday.

"We will arrest and prosecute where we identify alleged offenders," Barrett told ABC Radio.

- With AAP

Swifties look away now.

A guitar signed by Taylor Swift and sold at auction for $4,000 (A$5,800) was immediately smashed to pieces with a hammer.

The move came at a fundraiser in Texas, where one attendee said the move, which prompted cheers, was "unexpected but not surprising".

Texas remains a solid Republican state for US presidential nominee Donald Trump and Taylor Swift riled his supporters when she endorsed Kamala Harris following her first debate with Trump.

Watch the moment the guitar was smashed up below.

While Australia has a long way to go before it says goodbye to coal, the UK has officially ended coal power after 142 years.

The major milestone came when the UK's last coal power station near Nottingham finished operations on Monday (local time) after running since 1967. It's a significant step in its journey to reduce its carbon footprint amid warming global temperatures, especially as the UK was the first to roll out coal power.

Gas continues to make up a sizeable chunk of the country's electrical output however the use of wind, solar hydro and wave energy has soared.

Read more here.

Lebanese-Australian community leaders are urging the government to step in and bring home Australians who cannot get out of Lebanon.

Israel has ramped up attacks on the Middle Eastern nation and the Labor government has for days now urged Australians to flee the country while they can.

However Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir says it's not as simple as that.

"There are thousands who can’t get out. They want to get out," he said, The Australian reported. “There’s only limited commercial capacity in and out of Beirut airport, and no safe border … It’s easy to tell them to get out but you have an obligation to ensure there is a plan of getting them it.”

It comes as the UK government has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Brits wanting to leave amid escalating violence.

The Israeli military on Tuesday said it had begun a “limited, localised” operation against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, opening a new front in its war against the Lebanese militant group.

The killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli airstrikes has prompted fears a full-scale regional war is about to unfold.

Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan said Australians in Lebanon “had their opportunity” to leave the country safely.

Tehan told Sky News there had been warnings “for many months” for them to leave.

“I think a majority of Australians will be thinking, well, you had your chance, you had your opportunity," he said.

Read the latest about the conflict here.

Oasis fans in Australia have been made to wait a little longer to find out if Sydney and Melbourne will be included in the band's reunion tour.

NME previously revealed the two cities were set to be part of the expanded tour after dates for the UK and Ireland were initially announced.

And while many around the world eagerly awaited an announcement from the band last night (AEST), only North American locations were confirmed.

Virgin Australia could soon be part-owned by Qatar Airways, adding a major Australia-to-the-Middle East route to the roster by mid-2025.

Qatar Airways intends to take a 25 per cent stake in Virgin Australia, which will be subject to approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.

The deal would allow flights from Australia’s four largest cities to Doha, under a plane and crew lease agreement.

In a statement, Virgin says the proposed minority ownership stake would create “more choice and better value for Australians”.

Read more here.

A 15-year-old girl has died on a busy Queensland highway after her e-scooter was involved in a crash with a 4WD.

Police believe the the two vehicles collided on the Bruce Highway at about 5.15pm on Monday before a motorbike then made contact, leaving the rider with serious injuries.

The female driver of the 4WD, 36, was not injured. Police investigations are ongoing with authorities asking anyone with information or dashcam vision to come forward.