A businessman has successfully craned in a collectable luxury car into his $39 million penthouse in Melbourne.

Adrian Portelli's $3 million McLaren Senna GTR was hoisted up 57 levels to the top of the Sapphire by the Gardens building on Exhibition Street this morning.

Portelli told 9News that the luxury car would become the "centrepiece" of the apartment.

READ MORE: Treasurer Jim Chalmers says stage three tax cuts 'legislated' to begin in July next year

"It was sitting in a factory and I can't drive it on the road," he said.

"I decided to have it craned up there instead.

"It's an art piece."

The 34-year-old businessman is no stranger to attention after he bid $4.5 million to purchase his first-ever home on The Block's Season 18 in November.

The millionaire has made his fortune from running LMCT+, which is a promotions and giveaway platform with a focus on luxury vehicles and prestige houses.

The company is also Australia's largest and fastest-growing car community.

READ MORE: Medical cannabis may improve quality of life, Australian study finds

Portelli told 9News the penthouse was a "spontaneous" purchase.

He said the entire side of the building had to be deconstructed to make way for the McLaren.

"It was a mission," he said.

"They had to take out all of the windows, so it might have found its forever home.

"The car is going to sit in the lounge room, it will be the centrepiece."

The penthouse won't be finished for another 12 to 18 months.

Portelli plans to make the apartment his weekender.

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Mark Zuckerberg has ditched his hydrofoil board for the world of martial arts.

The 38-year-old tech billionaire won two medals in his very first jiu-jitsu tournament held at a Silicon Valley school, adding to his vast array of extracurricular activities.

Zuck won a gold medal in the Nogi Master 1 White Belt Feather Weight Division and silver in the Gi Master 2 White Belt Feather Weight Division, BJJ Tour confirmed.

READ MORE: Will Zuckerberg's metaverse bet pay off, or is Meta headed for oblivion?

He posted about his victory on Facebook, writing: "Competed in my first jiu jitsu tournament and won some medals for the Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu team."

The post garnered more than 40,000 comments, including praise from UFC fighter Conor McGregor who hailed Zuckerberg with a "Yo!!! F—— awesome Mark."

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fzuck%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0chmk5TyGb4QLyTh9aFW8SjqRVY2nWW7t2ukNMT9DLT33pMsnCN4Kob4gJJ7fSShjl&show_text=true&width=500

Jiu-jitsu world champion Bernardo Faria also congratulated the Facebook founder.

During a 2022 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Zuckerberg said he found jiu-jitsu to help boost his energy and focus at work.

He called the sport "primal" and said he began practising the skill during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg explained to Rogan how he relished physical pursuits which require complete mental focus, which was why he'd taken up hydrofoiling.

During the pandemic, Zuckerberg spent large chunks of time away from San Francisco at his compound in Hawaii, where he worked on perfecting his foiling skills.

In 2021, he posted an unusual American-flag waving, foil-riding video on Instagram to celebrate Independence Day.

READ MORE: 'Is that a robot?': Zuckerberg's memorable July 4 Insta post

Zuckerberg's jiu-jitsu trainer said he was inspired by the famous tech founder's ability to continue to learn new skills and accept challenges for himself.

"Getting to see Zuck compete was pretty epic," Zuckerberg's trainer Kai Wu said.

"No match was easy and everything was earned.

"It was an honour to be able to help coach and offer any advice I could."

READ MORE: Body found in search for NZ boy who went missing in cave

Zuckerberg has given himself a series of annual challenges, including learning Chinese and killing all meat that he eats.

He succeeded in giving a 20-minute speech in Mandarin while visiting Tsingua University in Beijing in 2015.

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– Reported with CNN

From mining magnates, to technology entrepreneurs and packaging company heiresses, here's the top 10.

Over the past few months, a Queensland snake catcher has removed eastern brown and spotted black snake hatchlings from a child's bedroom, someone's wardrobe, his own home – multiple times – a wall cavity, and as of this week, a retirement home.

But Gunter Glasser, of Darling Downs Snake Catchers, says it's not where the venomous reptiles have been found that's causing him the most concern. 

It's when which worries him.

READ MORE: Snake season is coming to an end. But where do the reptiles go?

"It's a bit weird," Glasser told 9news.com.au

"Normally they come out in December and it peters out (at the) end of February.

"The whole year I've had more than I normally have.

"Every other year it's maybe one or two, at the most three.

"This year it's been every month. We're getting all these late ones".

Glasser said he had caught and released around eight baby snakes in April and another two this month.

And he's not alone.

READ MORE: Rescue mission for baby snake sucked into vacuum cleaner

He claimed a colleague in Lockyer Valley, "where it's slightly warmer", is seeing more hatchlings than him.

The encounters come as snake season, which typically runs from September to April, draws to a close. 

Snakes have two different ways of producing young: either by laying eggs, which eastern brown snakes do, or live birth, which tiger snakes and red-bellied blacks do.

Glasser believes a cooler spring and abnormally warm autumn is responsible for snakes delaying both births and egg-laying.

"I think it's just weird weather. It's upsetting them," he said.

"Everything has just (been) postponed."

READ MORE: With so many households struggling, how do we have a budget surplus?

Glasser said he was called to remove a hatchling this week from an aged care resident's room. 

He expressed concern about the number of hatchling callouts, explaining wild snakes would "have to feed up well if they're going to survive the winter".

"They're only these skinny little things," he said.

"You just hope they get enough food and find a hiding spot.

"It's just a bit of a concern."

READ MORE: Unusually-coloured snake is actually one of country's most dangerous

What will happen to hatchlings born late?

Billy Collett, operations manager at the Australian Reptile Park on NSW's Central Coast, explains snake species do not eat during winter as it could prove fatal.

If the reptiles are not warm enough they can't digest food, so it rots inside their stomach.

READ MORE: Challenges of milking Australia's most venomous snakes and spiders

"They have a rough start to life when they are born late," Collett told 9news.com.au.

"It's a hard thing, as we've just had a cold snap so the chances of them getting food before winter is limited.

"If they don't get that food it really limits their chances of survival.

"There are always stronger snakes in a clutch too, the leaner ones coming into a long, cold winter normally perish.

"They fight not only the odds of temperatures but also of predators, such as birds."

Collett added that tigers and red-bellied snakes are more tolerant to cold, while winter adversely affects species such as eastern browns and taipans. 

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Is the Treasurer a magician, a prince, an soldier or a tightrope walker? That's going to depend on which paper you pick up.

A jury has found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $US5 million ($7 million) in a judgment that could haunt the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House.

The verdict was announced in a federal courtroom in New York City on the first day of jury deliberations.

Jurors rejected Carroll's claims that she was raped, but found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her.

READ MORE: Federal budget 2023: Winners and Losers

Trump chose not to attend the civil trial and was absent when the verdict was read.

Carroll nodded as the verdict was read.

Afterward, her lawyers put their arms around her, and she hugged supporters in the gallery, smiling through tears.

Trump's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, shook hands with Carroll and hugged her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan.

As the courtroom cleared, Carroll could be heard laughing and crying.

Trump immediately lashed out with a statement on his social media site, claiming again that he does not know Carroll and referring to the verdict as "a disgrace" and "a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time".

The trial's outcome was a validation for Carroll, one of more than a dozen women who accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment.

She went public in 2019 with her allegation that the Republican raped her in the dressing room of a posh Manhattan department store.

READ MORE: Older Australians get biggest boost as budget sets JobSeeker increase

Trump, 76, denied it, saying he never encountered Carroll at the store and didn't know her.

He has called her a "nut job" who invented "a fraudulent and false story" to sell a memoir.

Carroll, 79, had sought unspecified damages, plus a retraction of what she said were Trump's defamatory denials of her claims.

The trial revisited the lightning-rod topic of Trump's conduct toward women.

Carroll gave multiple days of frank, occasionally emotional testimony, buttressed by two friends who told jurors she reported the alleged attack to them in the moments and day afterward.

Jurors also heard from Jessica Leeds, a former stockbroker who testified that Trump abruptly groped her against her will on a plane in the 1970s, and from Natasha Stoynoff, a writer who said Trump forcibly kissed her against her will while she was interviewing him for a 2005 article.

READ MORE: Imran Khan, ex-Pakistani PM, is arrested, his party says

The six-man, three-woman jury also saw the well-known 2005 Access Hollywood hot mic recording of Trump talking about kissing and grabbing women without asking.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll, Leeds and Stoynoff have done.

Tacopina told the jury in closing arguments on Monday that Carroll's account is too far-fetched to be believed.

He said she made it up to fuel sales of a 2019 memoir in which she first publicly revealed her claims and to disparage Trump for political reasons.

Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Trump's October deposition and his notorious comments on a 2005 Access Hollywood video in which he said celebrities can grab women between the legs without asking.

She urged jurors to believe her client.

"He didn't even bother to show up here in person," Kaplan said.

She said much of what he said in his deposition and in public statements "actually supports our side of the case."

"In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself," she said.

"He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll."

Carroll testified that she had a chance encounter with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower.

She said it was a lighthearted interaction in which they teased each other about trying on a piece of lingerie before Trump became violent inside a dressing room.

Tacopina told jurors there was no reason to call Trump as a witness when Carroll can't even recall when her encounter with Trump happened.

He told the jury Carroll made up her claims after hearing about a 2012 Law and Order episode in which a woman is raped in the dressing room of the lingerie section of a Bergdorf Goodman store.

"They modelled their secret scheme on an episode of one of the most popular shows on television," he said of Carroll.

Two of Carroll's friends testified that she told them about the encounter with Trump shortly after it happened, many years before the Law and Order episode aired.

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Mindful of the pressure on household budgets, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has handed down a small-spending federal budget that strayed as far as possible from traditional descriptions of a "cash splash".

Despite a more than $4 billion surplus – the first of its kind in 15 years – the Albanese government chose to carefully funnel its unexpected windfall of tax revenue toward the nation's most vulnerable.

From single parents to solar power installers and even smokers – these were the winners and losers of the 2023 federal budget.

TWO-MINUTE GUIDE: What's in it for me?

COST OF LIVING: The measures that will offer the most relief

WINNERS

Aged care workers

More than 250,000 aged care workers in Australia, including registered nurses and home care professionals, will receive a pay increase of 15 per cent under a huge $11.3 billion package.

For some workers, this will represent a near-instant pay increase of up to $10,000 per annum when the new financial year rolls around in July.

Women

Several initiatives in this budget have been targeted at demographics that overwhelmingly comprise of women – from single parents to those on JobSeeker aged over 55.

Cheaper childcare from July will help women return to work sooner, while an extended paid parental leave scheme will encourage more fathers to spend more time away from work or to take on the role of primary carer.

More than 85 per cent of the aged care workforce receiving a pay increase are women, while $8.6 million is being spent on boosting the number of women in apprenticeships, traineeships and cadetships.

READ MORE: Older Australians get biggest boost as budget sets JobSeeker increase

Single parents

Single parents or sole carers of a dependent will have their base payment continue to be paid to them until their youngest child turns 14, up from the previous age of eight.

In September, around 57,000 eligible single parents, of whom around 91 per cent are women, will transition to a parenting payment with the current basic rate of $922.10 per fortnight until their youngest child turns 14. 

This is an extra $176.90 per fortnight compared to the current JobSeeker payment.

Older welfare recipients

For all recipients, the base rate of JobSeeker is increasing by $40 per fortnight from September 20, 2023.

But for recipients aged 55 to 59, the news is even better – they will automatically have their payment increased to a higher rate typically reserved for recipients aged 60 and over.

The only catch? Eligible 55-year-olds will have have been on the payment for nine or more continuous months to receive the supercharged rate.

BROKEN DOWN: All the cost of living measures to save you money

Veterans

An enormous backlog in claims by veterans will be assisted with $64.1 million being spent on more resources, along with more than $250 million being spent to upgrade the IT systems of veteran services.

To meet future expected claims, a further $4.8 billion will be funded for the compensation and support payments owed to veterans.

Renters receiving assistance

Renters who are currently on Commonwealth Rent Assistance will see the maximum rates increased by 15 per cent, at a cost of $2.7 billion to budget.

In real terms, this equates to around a $31 per fortnight increase in rental assistance payments, which is expected to help around 1.1 million households.

Potential homebuyers

Aussies looking to buy a house will have greater scope to cobble together a deposit with loved ones or friends under a newly expanded Home Guarantee Scheme.

As part of the new changes, any two eligible borrowers can apply to the scheme beyond married or de facto couples – meaning friends or business partners could come under the scheme.

Furthermore, Australian permanent residents will also be eligible.

Small businesses

More than $290 million is being spent in cash flow support to give small businesses an instant asset write-off of $20,000.

This means up to 3.8 million small businesses with an annual turnover of less than $10 million will be able to immediately deduct eligible assets costing less than $20,000 from July 1 2023.

READ MORE: The 11 million Aussies who are eligible for free GP visits

Patients

Australians who regularly see their doctor, have a script filled or find their local hospital to be overwhelmingly busy will be boosted by a huge $5.7 billion investment in Medicare.

The funding will provide eight new Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, and will provide higher bulk billing incentives for GPs, particularly for children under the age of 16, pensioners and other concession card holders.

Under changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, general patients will be able to save up to $180 per year on medicines now prescribed for 60 days instead of 30.

Eco-tradies

Tradies specialising in eco-friendly upgrades to residential homes can expect the phones to start ringing, with a huge investment being made to make Australian's homes more efficient.

The $1.3 billion Household Energy Upgrades Fund will create low-interest loans to help households install measures such as solar panels or double-glazed windows to cut down on energy use.

Artificial intelligence

If you're a semi-sentient being trapped in some circuitry cobbled together by clumsy human hands, well you're in luck: the government is providing $101.2 million to support the growth of "critical technologies" such as artificial intelligence.

Under the funding a new program will be created that rewards the nation's brightest minds in the fields of AI and quantum technology.

Former smokers

Australians who have given up the smokes but continue to worry about the health of their lungs are in luck: the government is investing $263.8 million over four years from 2023-24 to establish a new national lung cancer screening program.

In real terms that means Australians will be able to access free lung cancer screening tests up to twice a year, particularly if they live in a rural or regional area.

EXPLAINED: JobSeeker goes up by $40 – here's exactly who will get it

Government coffers

For the first time in 15 years, the government's yearly budget is marked with a black pen instead of a red one.

This year's budget delivered an unexpected $4.2 billion surplus, with 82 per cent of revenue upgrades to the bottom line returned back to the budget.

It is important to remember that a budget surplus is simply the government's income against its spending for one financial year – Australia's gross debt is still an eye-watering $887 billion.

READ MORE: Billions on the table for power price relief for eligible households, businesses

LOSERS

Middle and upper class Australians

Australians who are well off – or not receiving any form of government assistance – found little joy in this budget, with the vast majority of big-spending items going towards the nation's most financially vulnerable.

For the very-well off with over $3 million in superannuation, the news gets a little worse: they won't be able to continue to make concessional contributions at the reduced tax rate of 15 per cent.

Vapers and smokers

Recreational vaping is set to be all but banned, and smokers will see the tax on cigarettes – both rolled and loose-leaf tobacco – increase by 5 per cent per year, for three years.

More than $63 million will also be spent on a new national advertising campaign that outlines the dangers of vaping and smoking.

READ MORE: The cash sweetener for renters amid a surging property market, with a catch

Dodgy fishmongers

Fishmongers trying to pass off imported seafood as being locally sourced will be put under the microscope, with the government committing to the rollout of "country of origin" seafood labelling for the next 12 months.

Scammers

Scammers who swindle victims by sending "spoof" text messages – which impersonate official organisations such as Linkt or myGov – will be disheartened to hear that $10.5 million is being spent to establish an SMS Sender ID registry.

The registry will mean scammers could no longer fake sending texts from industry or government brand names.

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Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers says his budget's cost of living measures will take the "sting out of" surging inflation but won't go too far and drive it up further.

Balance between helping struggling Australians and keeping the pressure off rising prices was the key theme when Labor's money man sat down with 9News chief political editor Charles Croucher to discuss what's expected to be Australia's first budget in the black for 15 years.

Chalmers said inflation, though predicted to almost halve over the next 18 months, was still driving a lot of the government's budget policy and defended the decision to raise JobSeeker and other payments by $40 a fortnight, less than recommended in a recent report.

TWO-MINUTE GUIDE: What's in it for me?

COST OF LIVING: The measures that will offer the most relief

"There's always people who say don't do anything, there will be groups who say that we should be doing more, and I respect all of those opinions right across the spectrum of views," he told Croucher on Tuesday night.

"What we've tried to do here is strike a good balance."

Chalmers said the rising prices confronting Australians weren't because government payments were too generous or wages were growing too quick but due to the war in Ukraine and supply issues in the economy.

"With this package we've targeted it, we've made it responsible over a period of time, and that's because our cost of living package is designed to address cost of living pressures, not add to them," he said.

WINNERS AND LOSERS: Who gets the most?

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor wasn't giving his opposite number any credit for the surplus the Coalition failed to achieve throughout nine years, calling it a "big-spending" budget in a year when a "drover's dog" could have balanced the books.

"It gives with one hand, takes with the other divides Australians into those who get benefits from the government and the vast majority who are going to pay for those benefits," Taylor told Croucher.

RENEWABLE ENERGY 'SUPERPOWER': How the government is tackling climate change

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Behind all the rhetoric, promises and policies, these graphs tell the real story of the federal budget.

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Eurovision, the zany, annual pop extravaganza, begins this week in Liverpool.

English singer and songwriter Mae Muller will be looking to take it home for the hosts with I Wrote A Song, after the nation came runner-up last year, represented by Sam Ryder with his song Space Man.

Normally the winner of the previous contest would host the next one, but that winner was Ukraine with its folk-rap ensemble Kalush Orchestra, and the ongoing war there has made that impossible.

Britain has vowed to make the event a celebration of Ukrainian culture and creativity.

Who will represent Australia and why is Australia competing in EUROvision anyway?

Perth band Voyager will represent Australia at this year's competition with their song Promise.

Guy Sebastian's appearance for Australia in 2015 was supposed to be a one-off, but we've been invited back every year since.

The contest enjoys a cult following here, attracts a lot of Australian viewers, and gets widespread media attention.

This will be the first time Australia has sent a band, instead of a soloist, to the event, but our synth-metal rockers won't look out of place in the Eurovision line-up which is known for attracting diverse and eclectic performers.

In 2006, Finnish heavy metal band Lordi donned monster prosthetics for their winning performance Hard Rock Hallelujah.

The contest also delivers a generous serving of pop ballads like ABBA's infamous Waterloo which won in 1974, and has since been deemed the best song in the competition's history.

If Australia were to win Eurovision (Dami Im came second in 2016 with Sound of Silence so it's certainly not impossible) it's unlikely we'd ever host the contest ourselves, instead we'd likely co-host within a country on the European continent.

Liverpool, the World Capital of Pop

BBC Director-General Tim Davie said Liverpool, "the undisputed capital of pop music", and birthplace of The Beatles, would be "an amazing host".

The UK had become disenchanted with the contest after a string of poor results but coming second last year has reignited widespread enthusiasm, according to Muller.

"I feel like with the UK, we have the tendency to be quite like self-deprecating," Muller said.

"We don't take ourselves too seriously and I feel like that might have been like half our problem maybe with Eurovision. And I feel like now we're like, 'Let's take this seriously. Like, let's do this'."

The last time the UK won the contest was 1997, thanks to Katrina and the Waves and Love Shine A Light.

The intervening years have seen five last-place results for the UK.

For years, the Brits blamed their streak of bad results on Europe's dissatisfaction with them over Brexit.

Separating pop and politics

The contest claims to be a "non-political event" and its rules expressly state "the ESC (Eurovision Song Contest) shall in no case be politicised and/or instrumentalised and/or otherwise brought into disrepute in any way".

The contest was founded in 1956 to help unite a continent scarred by World War II, and has since grown to include more than 40 countries.

While organisers strive to keep pop and politics apart – banning overtly political symbols and lyrics – global tensions have often imposed themselves on the contest.

Russia was kicked out of this year's competition because of its invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine's win last year, helped by a landslide phone-vote was seen as an act of solidarity by the European audience.

Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the inclusion of Israel have also affected the show in past years.

Can Aussies vote?

Yes, but not for Australia.

Australians can vote in semi final 1 held on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning AEST) (because we're competing in semi final 2 on Thursday) and the grand final on Saturday (Sunday morning AEST), if we make it that far.

Voting is conducted online here.

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