The town of Mildura in Victoria is enduring one of its worst floods since 70 years.

Waters are expected to peak at about 38.4 metres above sea level, and are 50mm under that just now.

The flooding has already exceeded the original expected peak.

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Homes have been affected on the town's outskirts, with fruit-growing blocks of land becoming islands.

Millions of dollars worth of crops and family businesses have been wiped out in days.

Tourism operators have also been hit hard during what is traditionally their busy season.

Authorities say the town's recovery will not be a speedy one.

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Once the water peaks, which is expected today, it is forecast to remain around that level for another week, until Christmas.

Even after that, the recession will be slow, until things return to normal as late as mid-February next year.

Flooding is also heavy in South Australia, with peaks not expected for weeks either. Walker Flat is under evacuation, with most of the town fleeing the rising waters.

Police are investigating whether a missing persons tip-off was used to lure officers into a deadly ambush in Queensland.

Constable Matthew Arnold, 26, Constable Rachel McCrow, 29, and neighbour Alan Dare were shot dead by Nathaniel and Gareth Train and Gareth's partner Stacey Train during the attack at Wieambilla on Monday.

Constable Randall Kirk and Constable Keely Brough, both 28, managed to escape with their lives in what Commissioner Katarina Carroll later called a "miracle".

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Kirk was wounded and is recovering in hospital after extensive surgery.

The police had arrived at the property in the western Darling Downs on Monday afternoon to follow up on a missing persons report.

Investigators are now examining whether that information was offered to police as an intentional lure.

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It's understood the Trains were already wearing camouflage gear when the shooting began.

An hours-long siege involving specialist officers followed the deaths of the two officers and Dare, before the Trains were all killed early on Tuesday morning.

A police memorial for McCrow and Arnold will be held next Wednesday.

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Details about how the public can pay their respects will be forthcoming.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the officers caught in the shooting in Parliament yesterday.

"Police officers in regional Australia are servants of the community and they're part of its fabric," he said.

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott says her donations have yielded more than US$14 billion ($21 billion) in funding for about 1,600 nonprofits since 2019, according to her long-awaited website Yield Giving, unveiled Wednesday night.

Scott also announced that she plans to introduce an “open-call process” that allows nonprofits seeking donations from her to send information to her for evaluation. Until now, Scott and her team secretly contacted organisations that they were interested in first, then offered unrestricted donations after receiving the group’s data.

Scott has signed The Giving Pledge, promising to give away more than half of her wealth, which largely comes from her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Bezos is worth $US124 billion ($185 billion), and has said he will give away most of his fortune, but has not signed The Giving Pledge. Bezos has committed $US10 billion over 10 years, or about 8 per cent of his current net worth, to the Bezos Earth Fund.

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“Information from other people – other givers, my team, the nonprofit teams I’ve been giving to – has been enormously helpful to me,” Scott wrote in a new essay. “If more information about these gifts can be helpful to anyone, I want to share it.”

The website includes a database of all of the gifts she's made, she has said, some of which have not previously been disclosed. That includes a $75 million gift to the organisation Co-Impact's fund that supports gender equality and women's leadership globally. Scott, and her then husband Dan Jewett, had been listed among the fund's donors, but the gift amount had not been published. Co-Impact did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Another $40 million donation to the nonprofit consulting group that has helped Scott vet and select recipients of her donations was also disclosed.

“While we are an advisor of Scott’s on her philanthropy, we did not have prior knowledge of or involvement with the decision to include Bridgespan as a grant recipient,” The Bridgespan Group said in a statement Wednesday. The group has posted a list of donors who gave to it in 2022 on its website, though it said in the statement that it does not “have a practice” of announcing donations.

Nonprofits disclose information about who funds them in tax forms submitted to the IRS, which are eventually made public. But the pandemic has contributed to delays in processing forms from 2020. The disclosure by Scott of this information about her donations helps to increase transparency around her giving.

Scott promised to release the database of donations in an essay in March 2022, saying the site would not go live until “it reflects the preferences of every one of these nonprofit teams about how details of their gifts are shared.”

The organisation Easterseals and its affiliates received a gift of $162 million from Scott in 2020. The organisation said it had not been contacted by representatives of Scott's to contribute content to the website but it has submitted extensive reporting about their use of the funds.

“We remain grateful for Ms. Scott’s generous philanthropy and will continue to impact the lives of people with disabilities, including veterans and seniors, through her transformational support,” Sharon Watson of Easterseals said by email.

Habitat for Humanity International also said it had not been contacted by Scott's representatives specifically about content posted to the website.

Scott, whose net worth Forbes currently estimates at US$27 billion ($43 billion), has not given any interviews about her donations, opting to discuss her reasons in a handful of essays that she posted on Medium and now on Yield Giving.

On the site, Scott writes that she and her team evaluate organisations by analysing their “potential for sustained positive impact,” including their finances, history, measurement of outcomes, and if they have “experienced leadership representative of the community served.”

Scott says the “open-call” process she plans to start will focus on specific types of organisations or certain locations. She plans to post criteria for eligibility and selection, as well as naming the panel evaluating the applications publicly.

“Will the website be helpful? Will expressing things in my own way (laboring over every word) lead to any misunderstanding?” she wrote. “Will misunderstanding be a barrier between us? Yes. Sometimes humans misunderstand each other. And yet, over time, each of us can help remove barriers through what we continue to choose to do.”

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

“Frankly, it’s been a bit of a shambles,” says a disgruntled Whakatāne councillor.

A heartbroken family has made a desperate plea for help after a young man was gunned down outside his property in Melbourne's north earlier this year.

Korey Kesici, 22, was shot multiple times after he went to speak to men sitting in a stolen white BMW parked outside his home on Bangalore Way, Mickleham about 12.05am on May 5.

Kesici died on the street in front of his parents and sisters.

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His sister, Jasmine Kesici, said it has been incredibly difficult. 

"I hear gunshots every time I close my eyes and the gut-wrenching screams of my mum," she said.

Police have ruled his death as a "deliberate, targeted and organised crime hit".

The BMW was found on fire in nearby street St Georges Boulevard shortly afterwards.

A stolen red Holden Commodore ute, which was seen driving in convoy with the BMW after the driver stole petrol at a service station on the corner of Main Street and Edgars Road in Thomastown about 11pm on May 4, was then set on fire in Beveridge about 7.30pm on May 6.

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Police have spent seven months trying to identify the murderers, having combed through thousands of hours of CCTV footage.

They have now released CCTV of a man seen near Kesici's house shortly before the shooting, as well as the man who stole petrol for the red Holden, in the hope someone can identify them to police.

The investigation into Kesici's murder, including the motive, has been complicated by his crime connections, Detective Acting Superintendent Dean Thomas has said.

"We know Korey had connections to a number of organised crime groups, including outlaw motorcycle gangs and other organised crime groups," he said.

"What is clear to us is that this was a deliberate, targeted organised crime hit. It was more than a simple street exchange. Korey's murder involved a confronting level of public violence.

"Police ask that people look closely at the footage of the men and the two vehicles and if they have any information that may identify them, to please contact police."

Police are also keen to speak to anyone who witnessed the incident, as well as anyone in the area between 11pm and 1am and who may have dashcam or CCTV footage of either car or man involved, or anyone who has information on associates of Kesici's or any motivation for the shooting.

Information can be provided anonymously via CrimeStoppers.

The fourth wave of COVID-19 appears to have passed its peak in New South Wales, the state's Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant has said.

The latest NSW Health COVID Surveillance Report, released today, suggests PCR positivity, hospital admissions and admissions from emergency departments are "stable or declining".

Though the results are "good news", Chant said there is still a high number of positive cases circulating in the community and people should remain vigilant ahead of the holiday period.

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"A number of indicators suggest we have reached the peak of the COVID-19 wave," Chant said.

"While this is good news, we are still seeing a high number of cases across the state and encourage you and the community at large to remain vigilant and take some simple steps to protect themselves or others.

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"I'd like to remind everyone about the importance of staying at home if you have cold or flu symptoms."

There were 39,761 people diagnosed with COVID-19 in the week ending December 10, which reflects an increase of 3.6 per cent since the previous week.

The news comes as estimates from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show there were approximately 14.83 million excess deaths linked to COVID-19 across the world from 2020 to 2021.

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The paper, published in the journal Nature, revealed that coronavirus has been responsible for nearly three times the number of deaths reported over the same period.

Excess mortality accounts for both the total number of deaths directly attributed to the virus and the indirect impact, such as disruption of essential health services or travel impacts.

Power price relief is now headed for Aussie budgets with gas prices to be capped for a year after the government passed its energy intervention package through parliament.

The four-point energy plan, spruiking a $1.5 billion bill, was agreed upon by national cabinet last week but now the plan is law.

It includes money paid to state and territory governments to ease pressure on energy bills, capping gas prices at $12 a gigajoule for a year, capping coal prices at $125 per tonne in NSW and Queensland, and bolstering the country's renewable energy capacity.

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The energy relief bill passed the Senate 28 votes to 22 after earlier progressing through the House of Representatives.

It comes after the government struck a deal with the Greens, all but guaranteeing the bill's passage.

Some crossbenchers also voted to pass the plan.

"We stand for Australian manufacturing. And we stand for Australian households. And this legislation will support both," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

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https://twitter.com/ccroucher9/status/1603267662661840896

But not everyone was impressed with the legislation, as the opposition mostly voted against it.

The Greens said households will be hundreds and even thousands of dollars better off under the agreement.

"It's time to take on the greedy coal and gas corporations, bring down power bills and put more money in people's pockets," Greens leader Adam Bandt said.

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The federal government's plan is all about intervening in the energy market after this year saw threats of blackouts and skyrocketing prices due to shortfalls in the system.

Now that the government can intervene on gas and coal price caps, it's hoped it will filter down to ease pressure on consumer budgets.

Energy market intervention will slow but not stop wholesale price increases but big coal and gas companies are not impressed after their previous monopoly on choosing their price was slashed by this energy bill.

Parliament was specially recalled today to vote on the bill but the Coalition was furious they only saw the bill late last night.

"This bill isn't going to give enough relief from the rising energy costs, but it's something," senator Tammy Tyrrell said.

Gas companies share the fury claiming it will ruin the market as the plan provides more incentives for households to switch to electricity, but not everyone was buying their argument.

"The gas industry are the biggest bludgers in Australia," CEO at Smart Energy Council John Grimes said.

The question now turns to when exactly households can expect to see some relief.

Waikato police got tip-off from public, four charged on drug supply, two on gun possession

The motel manager said the letter was not meant to harm anyone; her boss disagreed.

For almost two years, the remains of an 87-year-old Victorian man have been decomposing inside a Melbourne hospital's small mortuary.

Tibor Tivadar Horvath's daughter has refused to allow Maroondah Hospital in Ringwood to release his body to a funeral home, placing hospital staff at risk.

Mary Bruinink has claimed in court, with no evidence, that the hospital wants to destroy her father's remains to avoid further investigation into his death.

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Eastern Health, which operates the hospital, successfully applied to Victoria's Supreme Court for urgent orders to have the body removed.

Horvath died from natural causes in January 2021, succumbing to aspiration pneumonia after suffering congestive heart failure and Alzheimer's disease.

His daughter, who is named as executor on his will, asked the Coroners Court to investigate his death, however it declined as it was not a reportable death.

She unsuccessfully appealed this decision, and then told the hospital she was seeking an independent autopsy.

To date this has not been arranged.

Horvath's remains are being held in the hospital's small mortuary, which only has space for four bodies and is not set up for long-term storage or preservation.

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The hospital purchased a coffin in August this year, to reduce the health risk to staff and protect the man's dignity.

The following month, the hospital contacted the woman and offered to pay funeral costs, but she rejected these attempts.

She has alleged her father did not die on January 10, as stated in his death certificate, and claimed the hospital denied her the right to advocate for him, the court heard.

She further alleged the hospital was "determined to destroy" his body to prevent further investigation and feared the body in the coffin may not be her father's.

Justice Rita Incerti found there was no evidence to back up any claims of wrongdoing against the hospital.

She ordered the hospital arrange for the body to be urgently taken to a funeral home.

"The person with the right to arrange the burial or cremation of the deceased's body, has shown by her conduct that she is unwilling or unable to make proper funeral arrangements," she said, in a decision published on Wednesday.

"In these circumstances, the hospital is the proper party to arrange the disposition of the deceased's body on the basis that the deceased died in the hospital.

"Given the time that has already elapsed since the death and the impact on the hospital having to store the body, it is critical that the deceased's body be delivered immediately to a funeral home."

The justice ordered the man's body must be cremated no later than December 23.