MetService issued a severe thunderstorm warning about 6pm for parts of the South Island.

More than 80 per cent of schools in New Zealand use streaming in some form.

A Western Australian man has faced court in Victoria after being extradited to the state in connection to the murder of Geelong woman three decades ago.

Darren John Chalmers, 56, wore glasses and prison greens as he appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link from jail on Monday.

He was last week extradited from WA after being charged with the murder of 29-year-old Annette Steward on March 16, 1992.

READ MORE: 'Aggressive' passenger tasered after allegedly assaulting police officer on plane at Perth Airport

Steward, a mother-of-two who worked at a Point Henry factory, was found strangled to death in her Geelong West home on March 18.

A friend noticed her car was in the driveway and let himself into the house, where he found her body.

In 2015, Victoria Police offered a $1 million reward for information relating to her suspicious death.

Chalmers was remanded in custody and will next face court on June 13.

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

The Hutt South MP became a Cabinet Minister only this year and is now Police Minister.

Ethan Knox forced a teenager to eat a cigarette butt during a humiliating robbery.

Told to pick up a discarded cigarette, the 17-year-old was then forced to eat it as Ethan Knox and his accomplice filmed it on the teenager's own phone.

"Swallow it," they can be heard telling the boy on the video that was later uploaded to social media as they laugh.

READ MORE: German schoolgirls suspected of stabbing classmate to death

It was among a number of degrading acts the 17-year-old was forced to perform after being threatened with a knife on a Brisbane train.

Footage uploaded to Snapchat was shown in Brisbane District Court of the teenager eating the "dumper" cigarette butt, taking off his pants and then kissing a shoe worn by one of the offenders.

He was also forced to send a message to his girlfriend, breaking up with her.

Knox and the co-accused approached the 17-year-old who was sitting alone on a Brisbane train in March 2022, the court heard.

As the train approached a station in Brisbane's south, the boy was told: "You are getting off the train and you are coming with us".

READ MORE: Potential public holiday for King's coronation

The co-offender then lifted his shirt to reveal a knife tucked into his pants.

Knox took the boy's bag which contained a PlayStation 4 game console, two controllers, a wallet and phone charger.

Crown prosecutor Carla Ahern said when they got off the train they took his phone and subjected the boy to the humiliating acts as they filmed, calling him "fat boy" and "c***".

"This is going on your Snapchat bro," the boy is told on one of the videos that was later uploaded by the offenders.

They told the 17-year-old they would go to his house and "f you up and bash your dad and rape your fing sister" if he told anyone what happened.

The two co-offenders walked back to the station with the boy and later pushed him off a train at a stop after also taking his shoes.

The boy immediately told railway staff and Knox and the co-offender were arrested and detained by police at a stop heading to the Gold Coast.

"The offending is disgusting … the conduct is appalling," defence barrister David Funch said.

"When you look at this sort of offending it is very easy … to get carried away by the depravity of it all and not exercise appropriate restraint."

Mr Funch said Knox was homeless from 13 to 16 and had been addicted to methamphetamine.

READ MORE: How to get your share of $200 million in unclaimed Medicare payments

Knox, 19, pleaded guilty to armed robbery in company, deprivation of liberty and stealing.

Judge Michael Burnett sentenced him to three years in jail, suspended for four years after serving 364 days.

He also received a three-year probation term under strict conditions including drug testing.

READ MORE: Worker stabbed to death minutes before bottle shop shift ends

Knox's 364 days spent in custody was declared time served.

He remains in custody for other matters.

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

“If you had connected with his head, you could well have killed him.”

Australian company Latitude Financial has today warned the amount of customer details stolen during a cyber attack may grow.

In an update on the data breach, the non-bank lender confirmed that driver's licences, passports and Medicare numbers have been hacked.

The company publicly announced the data breach last Thursday. It said then that about 330,000 customers were believed to have had their personal details stolen.

READ MORE: Millions to receive cash boost today

"As our review deepens to include non-customer originating platforms and historical customer information, we are likely to uncover more stolen information affecting both current and past Latitude customers and applicants," the company said.

Latitude Financial offers interest-free instalment plans and personal loans for shoppers at firms such as Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys and David Jones.

It said the cyber attack is now the subject of an investigation by the Australian Federal Police, but the scale of the data breach could grow.

"As our review deepens to include non-customer originating platforms and historical customer information, we are likely to uncover more stolen information affecting both current and past Latitude customers and applicants," the company said.

Latitude Financial also provided a breakdown of the customer data stolen to date.

READ MORE: McLeod's Daughters and Chopper actor dies snorkelling

The vast majority – 96 per cent – were driver's licences or driver's licence numbers, while less than 4 per cent was copies of passports or passport numbers and less than 1 per cent was Medicare cards.

"As our review deepens to include non-customer originating platforms and historical customer information, we are likely to uncover more stolen information affecting both current and past Latitude customers and applicants," the company said today.

From today, it will begin contacting affected customers and applicants about what data was stolen and what the company is doing about it.

It has also set up dedicated contact centres for affected customers in Australia and New Zealand.

"Our focus is on protecting the ongoing security of our customers, partners and employees' personal and identity information," chief executive Ahmed Fahour said.

Because the cyber attack remains active, Latitude Financial said it was taking some of its systems for customers and merchant partners offline. But the company said it was working to gradually restore them to service in coming days.

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

Rogue MP Moira Deeming has vowed to fight the "unjust" push to expel her from the Liberal Party after she attended an anti-transgender rally that she claims was crashed by neo-Nazis.

Deeming spoke at the 'Let Women Speak' event held by British anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull outside the Victorian parliament in Melbourne's CBD on Saturday.

A group of neo-Nazis joined the anti-transgender demonstrators and repeatedly performed the Nazi salute.

READ MORE: Millions to receive pension, JobSeeker and carer payment boost

Deeming condemned the actions of the neo-Nazi group who "gate-crashed the Let Women Speak (LWS) event".

"Most of the LWS supporters did not realise who they were until they were being escorted out by Victoria Police, when they did the despicable Nazi salute," Deeming said in a statement obtained by The Age.

"I completely reject the beliefs of National Socialists (Nazis) and I have seen first-hand the impact that the Holocaust had on a family member."

https://twitter.com/msanto92/status/1637593483174350848

Opposition Leader and Leader of the Victorian Liberals John Pesutto announced his intention to oust Deeming from the Parliamentary Liberal Party, describing her position as untenable.

Pesutto said the move was not linked to Deeming's long-held anti-transgender views, but her role in organising and promoting an event affiliated with well-known white supremacists.

He said Deeming should have been aware of Keen-Minshull's associations with white supremacists and questioned why she did not leave when the group of Nazi sympathisers showed up.

"I am a strong supporter of free speech, but free speech doesn't include hate speech," Pesutto told media today.

"I will never, ever accept any member of the Parliamentary Liberal Party under my leadership ever associating with anybody who shares a platform with people who peddle hate, division, and attack people for who they are."

He specifically referenced British women's rights activist, Kelly Jane Keane, who was at the centre of the demonstration on Saturday.

"Having seen the ugly scenes and having had an opportunity to disown and dissociate from those very people, Ms Deeming chose to celebrate, as evidenced on social media," Pesutto said.

Displaying the swastika is outlawed in Victoria, but the Nazi salute is legal.

Victorian Equality Minister Harriet Shing questioned whether the opposition leader only took action against Deeming due to the event's links with white supremacists.

"Mr Pesutto and his colleagues have consistently voted against legislation that we have proposed and passed to remove the stigma and discrimination against LGBTIQ Victorians," she said.

"He has questions to answer on whether he will stand up for trans rights and call out transphobic comments made within his party room.

"It's not good enough for Mr Pesutto to take action only when Nazis show up on the steps of parliament, (he) needed to take action when an anti-trans rally took place on the steps and when members of his parliamentary party made comments that were directly intended to cause hurt and trauma to trans people."

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.

Two long-time US military aviators had just started aerial firefighting while their experienced pilot was flying his final shift when their large air tanker crashed fighting the Black Summer bushfires.

A NSW inquest into the 2019-20 horror fire season resumed on Monday to examine their deaths.

Calls played to the inquest recorded the local incident controller telling the Rural Fire Service state area command aircraft were grounded on the morning of the crash.

READ MORE: Millions to receive cash boost today

"Let's just get LATs (large air tankers) up there and see what they can do," came the response.

Captain Ian McBeth, 44, first officer Paul Clyde Hudson, 42, and flight engineer Rick DeMorgan Jr, 43, were killed when their Lockheed EC-130Q LAT crashed northeast of Cooma in southern NSW on January 23, 2020.

The trio were experienced aviators and have been memorialised by the US National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

McBeth spent years as an aerial firefighter, including with the Wyoming and Montana Air National Guard branches.

He had performed 994 tanker drops across 3010 hours piloting C-130s.

"He had just handed in his resignation. This was Ian's last shift," counsel assisting the inquiry Adam Casselden SC said on Monday.

Hudson and DeMorgan both worked on C-130 planes during their respective careers with the US Marine Corps and Air Force, and had recently begun working for Coulson Aviation.

Coulson was among companies that provided the 38 privately owned and operated aircraft engaged by the RFS through the National Aerial Firefighting Centre during the fire season.

The three men were hailed as heroes and posthumously awarded an RFS commissioner's commendation.

READ MORE: Cold change hits after heatwave sees March records tumble

NSW State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan began the hearing on Monday by praising their bravery and generosity for coming to protect Australia.

She acknowledged the presence of McBeth and Hudson's widows. DeMorgan's family was unable to attend.

The inquest heard on a day of extreme fire danger, when aircraft had been grounded for several hours already, two LATs were tasked to southern NSW from Richmond RAAF base, without any supervising aircraft, about 11am on January 23, 2020.

McBeth had a US "initial attack" firefighting qualification certifying him to drop fire retardant without a supervising aircraft or "birddog".

The RFS does not have an equivalent certification but recognises the overseas one, Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigator-in-charge Laura Henwood told the inquest.

A Boeing 737 LAT, known as B137, took off first at 11.27am, followed by the C-130, dubbed B134, about half an hour later.

A birddog pilot rejected the task one minute before B134 took off.

B137 dropped retardant on a fire at Adaminaby at 12.20pm, refusing further tasking to the site 12 minutes later.

The two planes came into communication range of one another about 12.35pm just outside Canberra.

The pilot of B137 told authorities in a sworn statement he communicated the deteriorating conditions at Adaminaby to McBeth.

"I'll go take a look," he responded.

About 1pm, B134 radioed to say it would head to the nearby Good Good fireground due to the poor conditions at Adaminaby, and again three minutes before it crashed to say it would carry out multiple runs on the fire.

The plane likely stalled as it climbed after dropping fire retardant, a separate ATSB investigation found.

The inquest will aim to provide answers to the family of the three American firefighters, while assessing how a similar incident could be avoided as Australia becomes increasingly reliant on LATs to fight fires.

The hearing continues.

The head and tail of a shark believed to be rarely seen in British waters were cut off after the animal was found dead on a beach.

The incident prompted broadcaster and popular historian Dan Snow to appeal for the head to be returned so scientists can study it, the BBC reports.

Walkers at on Lepe beach in Hampshire, southern England, last Saturday discovered a dead shark.

READ MORE: Shark chases New Zealand swimmers to steps of beach access

But it was later spotted without its head, tail and fin, believed to have been removed under the cover of darkness.

Later, Snow and a group of local residents dragged the 2.4m shark from the beach to a nearby road to secure the carcass.

He tweeted a video showing their efforts but said "trophy hunters" had reached it first.

"We have recovered a good chunk of it but some trophy-hunters got there just before us and they took the head and the dorsal fin on the tail," he said.

https://twitter.com/thehistoryguy/status/1637356737727528962?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Snow said he and the group had been requested by scientists to safeguard the carcass "of this once-in-a-lifetime find in British waters".

From images on social media, the shark was identified as a smalltooth sandtiger by the UK Shark Trust.

"Smalltooth Sandtigers are seldom encountered and considered naturally rare. In the Northeast Atlantic their range reaches to the French coast at the top of the Bay of Biscay. Making this report an exceptional one," the trust said in a statement.

"The head in particular holds the key to unlocking intricate details of the shark's life, even from before birth, so we'd welcome news of its whereabouts."

Snow also appealed on Twitter for the return of the shark head.

READ MORE: Cold change hits after heatwave sees March records tumble

He said scientists who contacted him wanted to study it to "help us learn about our oceans and the ocean health and climate change".

Ben Garrod, a professor in evolutionary biology at University of East Anglia, said it was important for scientists to examine the shark as it offered a "snapshot" of animals living in international waters.

"The oceans cover 71 or 72 per cent of our planet, however it's still incredibly mysterious," he told the BBC.

"Every time we see a whale breaching or a shark washing up, this is like finding a Roman hoard or Viking daggers."

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.