Christopher Luxon, Cameron Bagrie, Mike Cronin, B McLean, Simon Bishell,Lynda Coppersmith.

Australian retail giant Harvey Norman has opened its latest store in the UK in a new foray overseas.

The store at the Merry Hill shopping centre in the West Midlands region of England covers more than 5000 square metres, and is 15km from the UK's third-largest city Birmingham.

It is modelled on Harvey Norman outlets in Australia and sells appliances, technology, furniture and beds.

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Harvey Norman already has two stores in Northern Ireland.

The company's UK managing director Lachlan Roach told the UK Retail Gazette it had been eyeing a presence in England for some time.

"With over 300 stores in eight countries across the globe, it will be no surprise that we have been wanting to make our entrance to the English market for a while.

"The opportunity we had to open in a key national destination like Merry Hill was not one to miss, and it makes for the perfect home for our flagship location.

"We're a customer-centric brand, and Merry Hill has a vibrant community, so we are thrilled to bring both our extensive range of lifestyle, technology, and entertainment products and the exceptional service that Harvey Norman is renowned for worldwide."

The UK has a population of nearly 67 million, with 3 million people living in the West Midlands.

But the country's economy has been sluggish in recent years as it battled high inflation and interest rate rises.

The record of major Australian retailers attempting to make a success in the UK is a mixed one.

In 2017, hardware giant Bunnings began an ill-fated launch there when its parent company, Wesfarmers, bought out UK homewares chain Homebase.

But it ended after a series of misjudgments, resulting in a $1 billion write-down.

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Several Waikato stores were burgled and damaged.

Westpac and St George customers have reported issues accessing internet banking for a third day in a row.

Both banks said they were aware of customers having issues accessing online and mobile banking this morning.

It comes after the services were restored following an outage yesterday and on Monday.

READ MORE: Nedd Brockmann completes gruelling 1600km run, raises $2.6 million

Both banks took to social media to apologise to customers who were experiencing issues accessing online and mobile banking this morning.

"Our teams are currently working to fix the issue," Westpac and St. George said in separtate statements said on X.

"We apologise for the inconvenience and will continue to share updates."

Extra water taken from kidney dialysis machines is now being used to clean dirty Sydney streets.

The City of Sydney is using surplus filtered water taken from the life-saving machines at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital instead of letting it circle the drain.

The council has developed a plan to use the runoff tanks rather than Sydney drinking water and in turn will save a whopping 1.5 million litres every year.

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Excess ultrapure water from the dialysis units are usually stored in 10,000-litre tanks on-site.

Global annual water usage for hemodialysis, also simply known as dialysis, is in the billions, according to the National Library of Medicine in the US.

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Two-thirds of this water is the reverse osmosis reject water emptied into the drain.

The "reject" water from Royal Prince Alfred will now be used in Sydney for council cleaning tasks such as hosing off footpaths and washing away graffiti.

Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney, praised the Australian-first scheme for its impact on the environment.

"Water is our most precious resource and finding ways to better manage it is crucial to Sydney's resilience. This is increasingly important as the climate crisis lengthens periods of drought," she said.

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"Not only does this collaboration mean there is more drinking water available, the filtered supply is great for street cleaning because it has low levels of particles, calcium and magnesium.

"That means it's less likely to leave residue and streaking, is less abrasive on road and footpath surfaces, and reduces equipment scaling."

The collaboration between the Sydney Local Health District and City of Sydney is set to improve water sustainability for both organisations. 

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A statue of the iconic viral Australian breakdancer Raygun has appeared on a lawn in a Melbourne suburb.

Rachael Gunn captivated the world earlier this year with her routine at the first, and possibly last Olympic-breaking event, quickly becoming an overnight sensation.

She has now been recognised with a statue standing on a Northcote lawn, according to a tip on 3AW's Rumour File.

READ MORE: Nedd Brockmann completes gruelling 1600km run, raises $2.6 million

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Raygun, a 36-year-old full-time lecturer at Sydney's Macquarie University, has completed a PhD in breaking culture and is a lecturer in media, creative arts, literature and language.

She failed to score any points at the Olympics in her routines, which included a "kangaroo" dance.

The statue appears to have recreated that moment. 

"Following on from her huge success of breakdancing in Paris, Raygun is now dancing in the streets in the north," a caller told 3AW's Rumour File.

It's not known who created the statue.

A 39-year-old woman has been killed after she was hit by a car while walking near Hervey Bay in Queensland last night.

Emergency services were called to the intersection of Toogoom Cane Road and Pialba Burrum Road in Toogoom about 6.25pm.

Police believe the woman was hit by a GWM Cannon ute.

READ MORE: Nedd Brockmann completes gruelling 1600km run, raises $2.6 million

The woman was treated at the scene for critical injuries but died a short time later.

Police said the driver of the ute, a 31-year-old Eli Waters man, was physically uninjured and stopped at the scene to assist the woman.

Authorities are appealing for anyone with dashcam footage to come forward, as investigations continue.

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Australian ultra-marathon legend Nedd Brockmann has crossed the finish line after a gruelling 1600 kilometre run at Sydney Olympic Park.

He completed the final stretch of the Uncomfortable Challenge today, which raised $2.6 million for homelessness charity, We Are Mobilise.

Brockmann was cheered on by a crowd of thousands, who watched Brockmann fight his hardest to finish his final lap.

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Brockmann hugged his mum and burst into tears after finishing the mammoth run.

"I can't wait for a shower," he said as he laid on the track.

Brockmann completed 3,760 laps of the track at Sydney Olympic Park, which is 125.325 master laps (a master lap covers a distance of 12.84 kilometres).

It was also the biggest day of donations yesterday, with over $770,000 raised for the charity.

"12 days, 13 hours, 16 minutes, and 45 seconds. Average 128 kilometres a day. $2.6 million raised for Aussies experiencing homelessness and counting," he said on social media today.

"CONQUER."

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He started on October 3 with a goal to beat the world record – running 1600km in 10 days – while trying to raise $10 million for homelessness charity We Are Mobolise.

While significant injuries prevented him from beating the world record, he has still raised an impressive $2.6 million.

Ashleigh Clarke has been a nurse for nearly a decade but the idea of affording a house is still a pipe dream.

The 32-year-old, who lives in Newcastle in NSW, often worries about rent stress and said she simply can't afford a mortgage under the state's current award pay rates.

Many of Clarke's colleagues are under the same financial strain and it's bleak proof of how Australian healthcare workers are being locked out of the housing and rental market.

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Clarke's woes about low pay and home ownership slipping away sadly aren't unique.

Fresh data from Anglicare Australia reveals the country's housing crisis has led to countless essential workers such as nurses, aged care and ambulance workers being unable to afford rent.

"If I was to seek another [affordable] rental in this current climate or pursue a mortgage, that's out of my reach," Clarke, an emergency room nurse, told 9news.com.au.

"We have looked into [a mortgage] with both of our incomes, and we can't afford it.

"Mortgage prices are astronomical and even closer to my workplace [in Maitland] are out of reach."

Anglicare's Rental Affordability Snapshot included a breakdown of affordable rentals across the country.

It looked at 45,115 rental listings in March 2024 and found just 2.2 per cent – 976 of them – were affordable for the average ambulance worker.

Only 1.5 per cent or 696 were affordable for aged care workers and just 1.4 per cent, a total of 629 rentals, for nurses.

Early childhood workers and construction workers only had 0.9 per cent of the available rentals affordable for their average wages.

The instability of rent is also a great concern for healthcare workers like Clarke.

"You could be given notice and kicked out tomorrow," she said.

"If we were to get kicked out, I would be extremely stressed about finding a place."

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Clarke said she and her fellow nurses feel frustrated and betrayed over their lack of wage growth in NSW.

As a delegate for the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association (NSWNMA), she is fighting alongside her industry colleagues for a 15 per cent wage increase.

NSW nurses and midwives were found to be living on 2008 wages, adjusted for inflation.

"They called us heroes in COVID," Clarke said, "but they can't even give us a pay rise."

"As a nurse, nine years in, I'm almost doing the job of two nurses some days and still getting paid the same," Clarke added.

"Whereas you could have someone who is a CEO of a company, it doesn't matter if you don't turn up to work that day, they're still getting paid."

Survey findings from the NSWNMA also painted a concerning picture of the healthcare industry's housing insecurity.

Half of all nurses and midwives surveyed in NSW were found to be renting.

Its housing advocacy report noted 47 per cent of respondents were "worried about losing their place to live" and 60 per cent felt they were experiencing rental stress.

Rental stress is defined as when a person is spending more than 30 per cent of their income on rent.

Anglicare's report, meanwhile, came with an urgent plea to the government to boost social housing so all Australian healthcare workers can have an affordable roof over their heads. 

"It should be a national scandal that so few of our essential workers can afford to keep a roof over their head," Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said.

"Our Snapshot shows that more and more essential workers are being pushed into serious rental stress – and pushed out of their own communities.

"Virtually no part of Australia is affordable for aged care workers, early childhood educators, cleaners, nurses and many other essential workers we rely on. It's no wonder so many critical industries are facing worker shortages."

On Friday, King Charles and Queen Camilla will touch down in Australia for a royal visit to Sydney and Canberra.

Perth entrepreneur Casey Bryden can't help but think back to the last time the royal couple came Down Under nine years ago in 2015 and how it set her and her mother on the path of an "insane adventure".

Back then, Bryden – who quit her job in marketing when she had her first child – was running a small hobby business with her mother, Jillian Intini, selling parasols online and at markets.

READ MORE: Where you can see King Charles and Queen Camilla during the visit

"My mum is a nurse, and she was seeing lots of women come through with skin cancer, and she wanted to change her own approach to sun care," Bryden said.

"So she bought some old umbrellas at a swap meet, cut them up herself, went to Spotlight, bought block-out fabric and made her own parasol. 

"It sounds tacky, but the thing that she made was actually really beautiful, and her friends loved it. 

"I said, if we can make these, I feel like we could sell them."

Sun Bella got off to a steady, but somewhat slow, start, Bryden said.

"It was really just plodding along in the background, we were selling them online and when a sale would come through Mum and I would text each other, 'Sold one!'"

Then came the moment that changed everything, when Bryden heard that the then Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall would be heading to Perth.

"Someone said, 'Camilla's coming, you should try and get a parasol to her,'" Bryden said.

"So we set out on pretty much an impossible task, and never thought that it would happen."

They set about crafting a personalised version of Sun Bella's parasol, with the handle hand-turned by a local retired engineer at the Stirling Community Men's Shed.

To get their parasol in Camilla's hands, Bryden reached out to the Department of the Premier and Cabinet to see if they needed a gift for the Duchess.

"They accepted my offer – on the condition that they could pay us for it," Bryden said.

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But even then it wasn't a certainty, Bryden said, with the department's representative saying they couldn't make any promises.

However, sure enough, the Duchess was soon filmed strolling the grounds of Government House with the parasol.

In a moment of serendipity for the mother and daughter duo, the royals' visit to Western Australia coincided with an extreme heatwave.

The parasol almost never left Camilla's hands during their entire sweltering visit to WA, Bryden said.

"It was unbearably hot. Poor Charles was given an Akubra and it was so hot that he kept taking it off, while Camilla looked effortlessly cool for the entire trip," she said.

While it was a personal thrill to see Camilla using their parasol, what it did for their tiny business was crazy, Bryden added. 

"We just really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. We were still packing our own orders back in those days," she said. 

As Bryden, her mother and father were sorting out the orders on their kitchen table, Bryden said she noticed the sales rolling in on her open laptop.

"We were packing these parasols in bloody tubes, and the computer was sitting on the kitchen bench, but it was going ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, literally faster than we could pack one order," she said.

In the space of two weeks, Sun Bella sold $20,000 worth of parasols, compared to their usual $1000 worth at the time. 

"It catapulted our business from a hobby to a real business," she said.

The genius marketing move, which many start-ups are likely to attempt to replicate during the royal visit this week, has had a lingering effect on their now successful business, Bryden said.

"I actually had a lady a couple of months ago who purchased a parasol, and she still had the newspaper clipping from 2015."

Do you have a story? Contact reporter Emily McPherson at em********@******om.au