Daniel Vale has a fiery criminal history.

Health NZ has put limits on double shifts and replacing sick staff to save costs.

The worker suffered bruising and required stitches in a finger.

Stormy weather has again washed ashore a large amount of the now decaying weed.

Samoa is dealing with more than 200 recorded cases of dengue fever.

Three brothers and a close family friend have been identified as the four people killed in a crash in Western Australia's Wheatbelt region overnight.

Police believe the silver Nissan Navara ute was travelling east on the Great Eastern Highway in Clackline when it left the road and hit a tree about 12.30am.

Superintendent Gene Pears confirmed the brothers, aged 21, 19, and nine, were travelling with a 45-year-old family friend from New South Wales.

READ MORE: Inside Westfield Bondi Junction for the first time since attack

All four people inside the car suffered catastrophic injuries and died at the scene.

Pears described the scene today as "very confronting".

"We're providing support for all of the people that attended this morning who did an amazing job under extremely hard conditions," he said.

"My heart goes out to the families. When you lose three young men in the prime of their life and their friend, this will have lifelong impacts for that family, for their friends, and for our community."

Clackline is located in the Wheatbelt region, about 80 kilometres north-east of Perth.

Major Crash investigators are urging anyone who saw the car travelling in the area prior to the crash, to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online at www.crimestopperswa.com.au.

Australians are facing a hike in fees for a new passport. Here is how the price compares with the rest of the world.

Astronomers have spotted the most massive known stellar black hole in the Milky Way galaxy after detecting an unusual wobble in space.

The so-called "sleeping giant," named Gaia BH3, has a mass that is nearly 33 times that of our sun, and it's located 1926 light-years away in the Aquila constellation, making it the second-closest known black hole to Earth.

The closest black hole is Gaia BH1, which is located about 1500 light-years away and has a mass that is nearly 10 times that of our sun.

READ MORE: A quarter of a billion people may be living on borrowed time

Astronomers discovered the black hole while combing through observations taken by the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope for an upcoming data release to the scientific community.

The researchers weren't expecting to find anything, but a peculiar motion — caused by Gaia BH3's gravitational influence on a nearby companion — caught their eye.

Many "dormant" black holes don't have a companion close enough to munch on, so they are much more difficult to spot and don't generate any light.

But other stellar black holes siphon material from companion stars, and this exchange of matter releases bright X-rays that can be spotted through telescopes.

The wobbling movement of an old giant star in the Aquila constellation revealed that it was in an orbital dance with a dormant black hole, and it's the third such dormant black hole spotted by Gaia.

The researchers used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert and other ground-based observatories to confirm the mass of Gaia BH3, and their study has also offered new clues to how such huge black holes came to be.

The findings appeared on Tuesday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

"No one was expecting to find a high-mass black hole lurking nearby, undetected so far," said lead study author Pasquale Panuzzo, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris, part of France's National Centre for Scientific Research, and a Gaia collaboration member, in a statement.

"This is the kind of discovery you make once in your research life."

READ MORE: Extra police, no ads: Bondi Junction Westfield to re-open

The secrets of ancient stars

The title for the most massive black hole in our galaxy will always belong to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole located at the centre of the Milky Way, which has about four million times the mass of the sun, but that is because it's a supermassive black hole, rather than a stellar black hole.

The process by which supermassive black holes form is poorly understood, but one theory suggests it happens when massive cosmic clouds collapse.

Stellar black holes form when massive stars die.

So Gaia BH3 is the most massive black hole in our galaxy that formed from the death of a massive star.

Stellar black holes observed across the Milky Way galaxy are about 10 times as massive as the sun on average.

Until the discovery of Gaia BH3, the largest known stellar black hole in our galaxy was Cygnus X-1, which is 21 times the mass of the sun.

While Gaia BH3 is an exceptional find within our galaxy by astronomers' standards, it is similar in mass to objects found in very distant galaxies.

Scientists believe stellar black holes with masses such as Gaia BH3's formed when metal-poor stars collapsed.

These stars, which include hydrogen and helium as their heaviest elements, are thought to lose less mass over their lifetimes, so they have more material at the end that can result in a high-mass black hole.

READ MORE: British man served 17 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit

But astronomers hadn't been able to find evidence directly linking high-mass black holes and metal-poor stars until they found Gaia BH3.

The study authors said that paired stars tend to be similar in composition.

True to expectations, the researchers found that the star orbiting Gaia BH3 was metal-poor, which means that the star that formed Gaia BH3 was likely the same.

"What strikes me is that the chemical composition of the companion is similar to what we find in old metal-poor stars in the galaxy," study coauthor Elisabetta Caffau, a Gaia collaboration member at the Observatoire de Paris, said in a statement.

The star orbiting Gaia BH3 likely formed in the first two billion years after the big bang created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.

The star's trajectory, which moves in the opposite direction of many stars in the galactic disk of the Milky Way, suggests it was part of a small galaxy that merged with the Milky Way more than eight billion years ago.

Now, the team hopes the research can allow other astronomers to study the colossal black hole and uncover more of its secrets without having to wait for the rest of the Gaia data release, slated for late next year.

"It's impressive to see the transformational impact Gaia is having on astronomy and astrophysics," said Carole Mundell, the European Space Agency's director of science.

"Its discoveries are reaching far beyond the original purpose of the mission, which is to create an extraordinarily precise multi-dimensional map of more than a billion stars throughout our Milky Way."

A man has suffered a facial injury after he was hit with a megaphone during an assault in Melbourne's CBD last month.

Police believe the assault unfolded after two men witnessed a group of protesters hanging up posters outside a business on Swanston Street about 6.20pm on March 24.

The men pulled down the posters before the protesters confronted them.

READ MORE: NZ couple killed by ram were good people, didn't deserve this, says police officer nephew

Detectives said a brawl ensued, resulting in one of the victims, a 31-year-old Murrumbeena man, suffering facial injuries.

It's believed he was struck in the face with a megaphone by a protester.

Investigators have released images of two women and a man that they believe may be able to assist with their enquiries.

The first woman is described as being of Middle Eastern appearance, aged in her 20s-30s, wearing a black baseball cap, black T-shirt, a keffiyeh, olive/green cargo pants, black work boots and long black hair.

The man is described as being a Caucasian male in his 30s wearing a dark T-shirt with 'Resistance' printed on it, green and brown camouflage pants, black Vans street shoes, with red hair and red beard.

The second woman is described as Middle Eastern appearance, in her 30s, red hooded sweatshirt with centreline zip, blue jeans, white street shoes, with long black hair tied back.

The couple who died at a rural Auckland address on Thursday afternoon can be named as Alfred Helge Hansen and Gaye Carole Hansen.

The pair, aged in their 80s, were found dead in a paddock by a relative who'd gone to check on them on Thursday morning.

It is believed they died after a ram attacked them.

READ MORE: Heroic security guard killed in Bondi Junction stabbing to be farewelled today

Stuff understands the husband went to feed the ram, but didn't return.

His wife was killed when she went looking for him.

Police said another person at the farm was injured by the ram.

Police were called to the property on Anzac Valley Rd in Waitākere just before 7.30am on Thursday, and a scene examination was underway.

Police said the ram was still in the paddock when they arrived and it was shot after becoming aggressive towards them.

The victims' nephew and family spokesperson Dean Burrell said their deaths were linked to an animal.

READ MORE: US and UK issue new sanctions on Iran in response to Tehran's weekend attack on Israel

"My aunty and her husband lived at this property.

"They've lived here for about eight years.

"Unfortunately they've both lost their lives in a tragic accident."

The circumstances of their passing was very unexpected, he said, adding that he was still coming to terms with it.

Burrell said the couple rented the property.

They were retired hobby farmers and had sheep, cattle and chickens for 8 years.

"They're good people. They're over 80.

"They don't deserve this.

"Everyone is in shock as to what's happened. They are very upset."

READ MORE: Solomon Islands election: Plenty at stake for Australia and the Pacific

Burrell said he felt like he was dreaming when he found out what happened.

"I just didn't believe it."

Burrell, a front line police officer, was supporting the family given he understood the formal investigation process.

His grief was yet to sink in, he said.

He and his family requested privacy while they came to terms with the loss.