news

Tuesday's news in under 2 minutes.

A navy boat is now on the scene.

UPDATE 3.40pm:

According to Customs, 106 people have been rescued from the water by the HMAS Parramatta.

Authorities say that two people have sustained minor injuries.

Search and rescue operations are continuing.

Earlier Mamamia reported:

It has been reported that a boat carrying an estimated 105 asylum seekers has capsized, 120 nautical miles off Christmas Island.

An ongoing search and rescue operation is now underway.

An AMSA spokesperson has said that HMAS Parramatta is on the scene and “is now conducting a rescue operation with support from a Customs Dash-8 aircraft”.

1. Russia’s anti-gay laws are making headlines across the world again, this time fueled by Russian athletes Kseniya Ryzhova and Tatyana Firov locking lips on the podium after winning the World Athletic Championships in Moscow for the 4 x 400 meter relay. Media are speculating that the athletes were deliberately protesting their country’s new anti-gay laws.

2. News Ltd are reporting that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is ‘comfort eating’ during the election campaign. Reporting that he now has a ‘moon face’ compared to two months ago when he challenged Julia Gillard, Brisbane Nutritionist Julie Masci said the Prime Minister has ‘packed on the weight, the bloat factor and moonfaced look is caused by too much sugar or salt’. Seriously. Lay off how the politicians look! It’s hardly relevant to how they do their job.

ADVERTISEMENT

3. A man has reportedly taken his own life at Australian-born singer Olivia Newton-John’s luxury Florida home. The man is yet to be identified but Palm Beach police have confirmed that he had no connection to Newton-John or her husband John Easterling, who were away at the time.

4. A survey from Fairfax has found that Australia two biggest supermarkets – Coles and Woolworths – are charging customers significantly more when they purchase groceries online. The survey revealed that customers are paying up to 27 cents more for some items at Woolworths, and 47 cents more at Coles.

The dress is gifted.

5. An American 911 operator has donated her wedding dress to a bride-to-be from Washington.

The 911 operator took the call from the bride-to-be after her dress and other personal effects were stolen; she credits the generous 911 operator with saving her wedding. Aww.

6. A Victorian mother – Vanessa Tanasio – who was technically dead for 42 minutes – has been revived by doctors who used a CPR machine to keep blood flowing to her brain, while they performed emergency heart surgery. On Monday the 41-year-old mother of two had two heart attacks.

7. Oscar Pistorius yesterday appeared in court for a procedural hearing – six months after killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day – and learned that he will face trial March 3, 2014.

8. Channel Ten Newsreader Sandra Sully has spoken to CLEO magazine about the decade long bullying she received from a female newsroom co-worker. Sully admitted that she was at first too scared to report the bullying in fear that nobody would believe her. Sully told CLEO that she ‘felt completely disempowered because the presumption about television presenters is that we’re completely self-centred and egotistical.’

Have you seen anything else in the news today that you’d like to chat about?