The student who was groomed by her teacher when she was only 16-year-olds speaks out.

“I couldn’t be any more sorry. It looks bad. There wasn’t any bad intent…”

Passengers who were left stranded for 30 hours at a Queensland airport have finally boarded a flight to Melbourne.

Jetstar passengers slept on the floor of Proserpine Airport in the Whitsundays last night after the aircraft experienced an engineering issue.

A Jetstar spokesperson said bad weather meant they were unable to fly in an engineer to fix the problem, which led to the delay.

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The spokesperson said the airline "worked hard" to find accommodation for passengers but said it was difficult to find available rooms due to the school holidays.

"We put on a special flight last night to try to fly passengers who couldn't find accommodation to Brisbane, however this flight was unable to land in Proserpine due to fog," they said.

"We will always prioritise safety and we thank everyone for their patience and understanding as we work really hard to get them on their way today."

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Passengers slammed the airline today, telling 9News they were given little information on what was happening.

"Sleeping on the floor isn't comfortable and it's not something you wish on anybody," Simon Mossman said.

"Especially after such a long day and lack of communication."

Jetstar said food and drink vouchers were offered to all customers and they ensured outlets stayed open late to cater to the passengers' needs.

The flight is due to arrive in Melbourne this evening.

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Almost two years after her mum murdered her dad, Georgia Vella cannot understand why.

Mark Anthony Vella, 52, would have spoiled his daughter's two children rotten, she says.

"This can never be done because of the actions of my mother," she told the court as Dale Lee Vella sat silently in the dock awaiting sentence for murder on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Mum survives coma after scratch turns into flesh-eating infection

"I truly don't understand how she could have done this," Georgia Vella said.

She is not the only one struggling to understand, with Vella's barrister and the judge who will sentence her both grappling with an answer on Wednesday.

The 54-year-old never denied killing her husband at their Murrumbateman home on the NSW southern tablelands in August 2021.

Vella's guilty plea to manslaughter was rejected by the Crown.

Her barrister Greg Hoare told the Supreme Court jury to find her not guilty of murder, arguing she had a substantial mental impairment at the time.

Mr Vella's friend David Borg told the jury what Vella said as she asked him to call an ambulance.

"I was going to shoot myself, but I shot him," he recalled.

In a statement read by crown prosecutor Kate Ratcliffe on Wednesday, Borg remembered making that call, knowing his friend would not survive, and how it has haunted him since.

"It saddens me you thought your only two options were suicide or murder Dale," he wrote.

"I will never have another friend like Mark."

The jury rejected Vella's argument her capacity to understand what she was doing was substantially impaired when she shot her sleeping, legally blind husband through the eye with a shotgun, finding her guilty of murder the same day it retired.

It was clear from the jury verdict her impairments did not prevent her understanding her actions, Hoare said, however he told Justice Helen Wilson she would have to weigh up whether it impacts her sentence.

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The judge did not appear swayed by a psychologist's report diagnosing Vella with post-traumatic stress disorder, when a forensic psychiatrist had not diagnosed the same.

"He just doesn't have the qualifications," Wilson said.

Hoare also argued there could be some consideration given to the fact Mr Vella died instantly.

"That's because it was such a violent way to kill a person," the judge said.

Mr Vella's injuries were "so gross, so severe", and her motivation for inflicting them hard to determine.

"Lots of people in the community have depression but continue to function … I just struggle to see how it explains what happened."

"Perhaps there is no explanation," Hoare suggested, as the judge noted in any case there was not enough evidence to make a finding.

Ratcliffe reminded the jury who was actually on trial before it retired, as part of Vella's defence involved alleging years of emotional abandonment and abuse.

Hoare told jurors about the recent criminalisation of coercive control, telling them Vella had been "destroyed", and deserved an Oscar award if a video on her phone he called a suicide note was an act.

"I'm sorry guys, I just can't live like this anymore," Vella said in the video, the morning she killed her husband.

READ MORE: Officer charged with grandma's Tasering faces court

His older brother Paul Vella said they were not as close as he wished, as his wife "created friction".

"Mark always supported his wife and defended her if needed, I couldn't say the same about her defending him," he said in a statement read to the court on Wednesday.

Vella is due to be sentenced on July 14 unless a report from Justice Health has still not been completed.

"So often they are simply not done," Wilson observed.

Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Support is available from Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Childcare costs have risen faster than inflation and wage growth in the past four years, according to an analysis by the Australia Competition Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The interim report on the price and availability of childcare services found fees rose by 20 per cent for centre based and out-of-school hours care as well as 32 per cent for in home care.

But the report found government subsidies offset more than half of childcare fees on average.

READ MORE: Shark casually weaves through stunned swimmers at Florida beach

"The report found that after subsidies, out-of-pocket expenses increased 7 per cent for households using centre based day care services during the past four years, by 12 per cent for households using outside school hours care and 15.8 per cent for households using family day care," the ACCC said.

The commission estimates 1.2 million (70 per cent) of children under five and 655,000 children aged 6-13 (25 per cent) attended a childcare service.

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The report found disadvantaged households spend a greater share of their income on childcare despite receiving greater government contributions and paying less out-of-pocket expenses.

"Critically, our analysis shows that the cost burden is felt most by households that are already facing disadvantage," ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

"Our inquiry will continue to examine why low income households are paying a greater share of their disposable income on childcare fees."

The maximum subsidy rate is increasing from 85 per cent on 90 per cent on July 10.

The maximum household income to receive the subsidy will also increase.

"We are currently collecting an extensive amount of data about the cost of providing childcare services and how fees are set, to help us further understand what drives prices, availability and quality in the childcare sector," Cass-Gottlieb said.

READ MORE: RBA must take responsibility for 'poor insight', expert says

"We remind providers that they need to be transparent and honest about the reasons for any price changes."

Affordability was found to be the most important consideration when choosing how much childcare to use.

A consultation paper will be published on September 2023 and the final report is due to the treasurer on December 31.

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Chocoholics are being warned the cost of the sweet stuff is set to rise in the latest cost of living blow.

The price of cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate, is trading at its highest level.

High demand, a shortfall in production and bad weather forecast in the cocoa-rich region of West Africa are all forcing the cost of the product to rise.

READ MORE: 'RBA must take responsibility for their poor insight'

The knock-on effect will be felt in supermarkets.

So far this year, cocoa futures have risen about 21 per cent.

This season, cocoa yields are underwhelming, likely due to crop disease and heavy rains.

And next season, forecasters are expecting another deficit because of El Niño, a naturally occurring phenomenon in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which usually brings warmer global temperatures — poor conditions for growing cocoa.

Meanwhile, demand has stayed strong, particularly in Europe and Asia, noted Paul Joules, a commodity analyst for Rabobank who focuses on cocoa and dairy markets.

Initially, forecasters anticipated good supply this year, said Joules.

But some months back, they realised that supply wasn't keeping pace with expectations.

"Compared to the 2021/22 cocoa year, the 2022/23 cocoa season is heading towards a supply deficit due to a reduction in production," according to the International Cocoa Organization's monthly report for April.

Crop disease may be responsible for the disappointing results.

"What we saw was, potentially, more cases of swollen shoot disease," Joules explained.

Cocoa swollen shoot virus is spread by insects and is characterised by swollen stems, among other symptoms.

It has hampered production in cocoa-supplying countries for years.

To fight the deadly disease, farmers often have to root sick trees out and plant replacements.

It can take years for those new trees to reach peak production, Joules noted.

Other factors may have contributed to the lower yield, he said, like aging trees that don't produce as much cocoa.

Heavy rains in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa supplier, might also delay crops harvested in the spring and fall, the Cocoa Organization said, adding that rain and humidity make it more likely that crop disease could negatively affect the harvest.

And on top of this year's complications, El Niño is threatening next season's crop.

Ivory Coast could see its main cocoa harvest "suffer as El Niño climate conditions are expected to gain strength," warned a recent post from Gro Intelligence, which analyses agricultural data.

Bad weather in the area has major implications for the global cocoa market.

Ivory Coast is responsible for close to half of the world's cocoa beans, with Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria together contributing about quarter of the world's supply, according to Gro Intelligence.

Because of that, there is an "outsize impact of the region's weather patterns on world cocoa prices and supplies," according to Gro Intelligence's post.

The increase in prices could offer some relief to struggling farmers.

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Festivalgoers got more of an adventure than they bargained for Sunday when a rollercoaster ride got stuck at a fair in the US, leaving them hanging upside down for hours.

Eight passengers were left suspended when a mechanical failure stalled the ride at the Forest County Festival in Crandon, Wisconsin, the Crandon Fire Department said.

"There was a mechanical failure with the ride where it became stuck up in the upright position. The ride was recently inspected by the state of Wisconsin here on site," fire department Captain Brennan Cook told CNN affiliate WJFW.

READ MORE: Mum survives coma after scratch turns into flesh-eating infection

Videos on social media and video taken by WJFW show a rescuer climbing up the side of the Fireball ride, while passengers wait upside down.

"Our department has never experienced a situation like we did (Sunday)," Erica Kostichka from Antigo Fire/EMS told CNN affiliate WAOW.

The passengers and the crews there to help them were harnessed to keep everyone safe during the rescue, Kostichka said.

An off-duty firefighter with specialised ropes rescue training happened to be on the scene and advised the Crandon Fire Department on potential rescue options, according to a joint news release Tuesday from the fire department and Crandon Area Rescue Squad.

Due to the height of the ride, special equipment and rescue teams were called in to help, the news release said.

Passengers waited for a ladder truck with a 30-metre platform to come from 45 minutes away, the release said.

Firefighters from three cities assisted the Crandon Fire Department in the rescue.

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The first passenger got back to solid ground at 3:20 pm CT, about two hours after emergency crews were dispatched, the news release said. The last passenger reached the ground at 5:01 pm – more than three hours after the ride stalled.

"Families are being reunited with people as they come down off of the ride from the rescuers and everybody seems to be doing as best as they can, given the circumstances," Cook told WJFW.

Nine patients were treated by emergency medical services and one person was transported to Aspirus Rhinelander Hospital by ambulance, according to the release.

Ten fire vehicles, nine ambulances and 50 people from three counties helped rescue the passengers, the fire department said.

The ordeal came two days after a father spotted a crack in a steel support pillar at the top of a roller coaster at Carowinds amusement park in Charlotte, North Carolina. That ride was closed for inspection and repair.

Crandon is in northern Wisconsin, nearly 50-kilometres east of Rhinelander.

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The Taliban are banning women's beauty salons in Afghanistan, a government spokesman has said.

It's the latest curb on the rights and freedoms of Afghan women and girls, following edicts barring them from education, public spaces and most forms of employment.

A spokesman for the Taliban-run Virtue and Vice Ministry, Mohammad Sidik Akif Mahajar, didn't give details of the ban. He only confirmed the contents of a letter circulating on social media.

READ MORE: Mum survives coma after scratch turns into flesh-eating infection

The ministry-issued letter, dated June 24, says it conveys a verbal order from the supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada.

The ban targets the capital, Kabul, and all provinces, and gives salons throughout the country a month's notice to wind down their businesses. After that period, they must close and submit a report about their closure. The letter doesn't give reasons for the ban.

Its release comes days after Akhundzada claimed that his government has taken the necessary steps for the betterment of women's lives in Afghanistan.

It drew criticism from human and women's rights defenders on social media.

The United Nations on Tuesday also said it was engaged with the authorities in Afghanistan to get the ban on beauty salons reversed. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, took to Twitter, urging the Taliban to halt the edict.

READ MORE: Officer charged with grandma's Tasering faces court

"This new restriction on women's rights will impact negatively on the economy and contradicts stated support for women entrepreneurship," it said.

Earlier, one beauty salon owner said she was her family's only breadwinner after her husband died in a 2017 car bombing.

She didn't want to be named or mention her salon for fear of reprisals.

Between eight to 12 women visit her Kabul salon every day, she said.

"Day by day they (the Taliban) are imposing limitations on women," she told The Associated Press. "Why are they only targeting women? Aren't we human? Don't we have the right to work or live?"

READ MORE: Victoria rattled by another early morning earthquake

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since seizing Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO forces were pulling out.

They have barred women from public spaces, like parks and gyms, and cracked down on media freedoms.

The measures have triggered a fierce international uproar, increasing the country's isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed — and have worsened a humanitarian crisis.

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"Get out of the water!" panicked onlookers can be heard screaming as a shark casually swims amongst a crowd at a packed beach in Florida.

Video filmed at the beach in Navarre on Monday shows a sizeable fin weaving its way through stunned swimmers.  

Those in the water can be seen backing out of the ocean, keeping their eyes on the giant ocean predator.

READ MORE: Mum survives coma after scratch turns into flesh-eating infection

Surprisingly, some took their time exiting the water, with one frustrated bystander commenting: "They're still out there."

Cristy Cox, who filmed the video, told the Pensacola News Journal the shark appeared to come out of nowhere.

"It all happened so fast! A dolphin was actually side by side with the shark at first and then just disappeared," Cox said.

Beach Safety Director Austin Turnbill told the New York Post there was no reason to be concerned by the shark sighting.

"There's sharks in the Gulf, everywhere. We see sharks almost every day and there's nothing to be alarmed of for 99.9 percent of the time," Turnbill was quoted as saying.

EXCLUSIVE: A Melbourne mother-of-two has told how a tiny cut on her forearm almost killed her after it suddenly got infected and a flesh-eating disease took hold.

Two days earlier, Amanda Stacey had been working her normal shift as a kitchen hand at a Melbourne RSL club when she had a seemingly minor fall.

"I was doing some cleaning at the time and I just slipped," Stacey said of the accident in September last year. 

"I hit my arms on the bench on the way down and my bottom on the floor."

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Stacey said she was more worried about her bruised right arm after the fall, and barely registered the little cut on her arm, which her colleague put a small bandaid over.

With more work to do, Stacey dusted herself off and finished her shift.

It wasn't until Stacey was back at work just under 48 hours later that she started to "feel a bit off".

Stacey was sent home sick but said she had almost no memory of that, or the events that followed.

"I only found out what happened that night by going through my text messages later," Stacey said. 

"I had sent a message to one of my friends saying, 'I'm at home in bed, laid up and sore everywhere. If you need me I'll be asleep.'"

Stacey was home alone, with her two children staying at their father's place for the weekend.

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Luckily, Stacey's 14-year-old daughter tried to ring her and grew concerned when several of her calls went unanswered. She then raised the alarm with a friend of her mum's.

When Stacey's friend came to check on her, she found her unconscious and with an extremely swollen arm.

"The doctors said two more hours and I would have been dead, that's how fast these sort of flesh-eating infections move," Stacey said.

Stacey was rushed to Footscray Hospital in an ambulance, where she would spend the next 10 days in a coma.

While she was in a coma in intensive care, doctors operated on Stacey to remove the dead and infected skin from her forearm, as her family waited anxiously by her bedside.

"The doctors were saying to them every single day, she might not be here tomorrow," Stacey said. 

Stacey said she was stunned when she woke up and was told how close she had come to death.

"I didn't know what had happened," she said.

"There was a big tube down my throat. It was such a shock. I couldn't talk, see properly, or walk."

Stacey spent the next three weeks in Sunshine Hospital before being discharged.

Unable to work while recovering from the flesh-eating disease, Stacey said she found herself struggling physically and financially.

"I had money saved up, but soon my savings were gone," she said.

Stacey's friends advised her to seek legal advice about whether she could claim compensation through the government's WorkCover compensation scheme.

"I wasn't sure at first, because I'm not that sort of person," Stacey said. 

"I love my boss and I didn't want to put any more financial strain on him. I had to do something though, otherwise my kids were going to be the ones that suffered."

After being reassured that any money paid out would come from her workplace's insurance cover, Stacey engaged law firm Slater and Gordon to make a claim on her behalf.

Her claim was successful and she is now being paid a large proportion of her weekly wages through WorkCover.

Slater and Gordon workers' compensation lawyer Michelle Cavalieri, who acted on behalf of Stacey, said many people are under the misapprehension that an employer needed to be at fault before a worker's compensation claim could be made.

"It doesn't matter how your injury occurred …you could have been walking and tripped on your own shoelace and hurt your knee," Cavalieri said.

"It's no-one's fault, but if it occurred at work – or during your work hours – you're still entitled to make a claim."

Under WorkCover, payments can be made to replace lost wages and to cover medical expenses. 

A year after the accident, or when an employee's injuries are considered stable, they can also make a further claim for a lump sum impairment benefit.

For cases involving potential negligence and serious injury, claims are made under common law.

Stacey said she hoped that sharing her story would raise awareness about the dangers of flesh-eating bacteria.

"I'm usually the type of person who just keeps on going and doesn't stop," she said. 

"In this case I should have taken it more seriously from the beginning."

Contact reporter Emily McPherson at Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.