Police are investigating and politicians have issued condemnations after Independent Victorian MP Catherine Cumming gave a speech seemingly calling for Premier Daniel Andrews to be attacked.

Speaking at a rally in Melbourne on Saturday, Cumming said she wanted Andrews to be turned into "red mist" – referring to a term which describes someone who's been shot.

"I joined the Angry Victorians Party for one reason," she said in a speech to the crowd.

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"To make Daniel Andrews turn into red mist."

"In the army we would call it pink mist, but I want him into red mist…

"Give anyone here in the army a job to blow someone up and they will."

Pink mist is a military term which refers to someone who has just been shot by a sniper.

Victoria Police confirmed to 9News.com.au they are investigating comments made at the rally.

READ MORE: What you need to know about voting in the Victorian election

"Police will investigate following a report of inciteful behaviour during a speech at a rally outside Flinders Street Station on 19 November," a spokesperson said.

"As the investigation is ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage."

Derryn Hinch, whose party Cumming was a part of when she was elected, condemned the comments on Twitter and apologised for his part in helping her make it to parliament.

"I sacked her before she was even sworn in," he wrote.

"She was a former mayor who came recommended by people I trust. Her performance, like today, has been despicable.

"I am sorry."

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https://twitter.com/HumanHeadline/status/1593843066686689280

Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy also hit out at Cummings.

"I condemn in the strongest possible terms remarks made by Dr Catherine Cumming today," he said in a statement.

"Statements and language like this have no place in our state, or nation. Dr Cumming should withdraw those remarks immediately and apologise unreservedly.

"It is incumbent on everyone participating in the State Election, from candidates to volunteers, to engage in this important process with respect."

A pilot who survived a light plane crash in Sydney is a newly-married man who is expecting a child.

The aircraft got into trouble moments after taking off from Bankstown Airport just before 11.30am and tried to land on the nearby Bankstown Trotting Recreational Club.

It is understood the plane was airborne for about four minutes when it lost power, before landing and skidding for several metres, losing part of its wing and slamming into a parked Mazda.

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CCTV footage from the scene shows the out-of-control light plane careering towards the carpark before crashing into the vehicle.

Five people were evacuated from the carpark as firefighters sealed off the area and contained a minor fuel leak.

Bankstown Paceway operations manager Steve Thurlow said the pilot told him he had a child on the way.

"I felt sorry for him," Thurlow told 9News.

"He said 'I just got married and I've got a kid on the way and all' .

"He said 'I thought to myself this is it'."

Sharon from Club Condell Park said a regular customer came in and alerted staff to the crash.

"I said 'oh my god, where?' and she said right next to the club," Sharon told 9News.

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The 28-year-old pilot was treated for shock but he was otherwise uninjured.

"He saw me and he just fell to his knees," Sharon said.

"The first thing he said was 'can I give you a hug?' but he was just trembling like you wouldn't believe.

"I just said you're going to see your baby', it's only metal, you're ok and you're going to see your baby.

"It sort of hit me because I realise how close he came to not being here but thankfully, thank god, the outcome is what it is."

The plane's owners Sydney Aviators declined to comment on the crash.

The owner of the Mazda was line dancing in the club at the time of the incident.

The plane has been towed and police have handed the scene over to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

The bureau will gather additional information to determine whether it will launch a full-scale investigation.

A body has been found in the search for a missing Eugowra man, Ljubisa 'Les' Vugec.

The 85-year-old was last seen at home in Evelyn Street, Eugowra, about 9am on Monday.

Family members reported him missing to police when they couldn't locate or contact him amid flooding in the NSW town, and police on Saturday afternoon confirmed a body has been found in the search.

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"About 3pm today (Saturday 19 November 2022), a body was located on the outskirts of Eugowra near Casuarina Drive," police said in a statement.

"The body has not been formally identified but is believed to be the missing man."

Police will now prepare a report for the coroner.

Four University of Idaho students who were found dead in a rental house last Sunday were stabbed to death in their beds and likely were asleep when the attacks occurred, the Latah County coroner told a cable news channel on Friday.

Cathy Mabbutt also told NewsNation that each victim suffered multiple stab wounds from a “pretty large knife".

“It has to be somebody pretty angry in order to stab four people to death,” Mabbutt told NewsNation.

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Efforts to reach Mabbutt by telephone on Friday were diverted to an Idaho State Police spokesman, who did not immediately return messages.

Mabbutt's comments expanded on the autopsy reports released on Thursday, which concluded the four students were murdered by being stabbed to death.

The killings have shaken Moscow, an Idaho Panhandle town of 25,000 residents that last saw a homicide about five years ago.

The leafy college town is about 129 kilometres south of Spokane, Washington.

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Officers have not identified a suspect or found a weapon, Moscow Police Chief James Fry has said.

All four victims were members of fraternities and sororities: seniors Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; junior Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington.

The women were roommates. The bodies were found around noon Sunday.

Police have said evidence found at the scene leads them to believe that the students were targeted, though they haven’t given details.

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Investigators say nothing appears to have been stolen from the victims or the home.

After initially saying there was no ongoing danger, police walked that back on Wednesday.

“We cannot say that there is no threat to the community,” Fry said.

“We still believe it’s a targeted attack. But the reality is there still is a person out there who committed four very horrible, horrible crimes.”

Two other people were found in the sprawling house, unharmed.

Fry declined to say whether they were able to provide an account of the killings, or to specify who called 911.

There was no sign of forced entry at the home, according to the chief, and a door was found open by the first police officers to arrive.

It seems New Zealand is about to slow down, with proposals to reduce urban speed limits right across the country, as well as on state highways. And while there has been some resistance, the evidence suggests it's the right move.

The changes are part of Waka Kotahi's Road to Zero project, which tasked local councils with developing speed management plans to reduce transport-related deaths. Generally, those plans will set 30-kilometre per hour (km/h) limits around schools and 40km/h limits in many residential areas of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

There's no doubt speed is a major factor in the number of deaths and injuries on New Zealand roads. It causes more injuries than alcohol and drugs, and it's estimated that 87 per cent of current speed limits are incorrectly set.

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But there's a counter-argument that speed limits should only be reduced in "high-risk areas", with school environs being the most common example. Widespread speed limit reduction, the argument goes, will waste drivers' time and damage the economy.

But this assumes the only way speed limits affect society is through crash-related deaths and injuries, and through time lost travelling. So it's important we recognise the other significant benefits that come from slowing traffic down.

Death and injury

The risk of injury or death if you are hit by a vehicle is substantially lower at speeds below 50km/h. At 40km/h, for example, the risk of dying drops from around 90 per cent to around 10 per cent. For injuries, the greater reductions are seen at speeds of 20 or 30km/h.

Research in the UK found the introduction of 20 miles per hour (mp/h) zones resulted in a 42 per cent reduction in road casualties, and the reduction was greatest in younger children. There was also no evidence of more people moving to drive on adjacent streets with higher speed limits.

Recent research in Wales, a country with a population of 3.1 million that implemented a default urban speed limit of 20mp/h (30km/h), found the economic value of savings from lower accident rates to be in the region of $NZD180 million in the first year alone. The total value is far greater if other benefits are included.

What statistics don't show is the reality of the suffering road crash deaths and injuries cause. But survivors' stories, such as those recorded by transportation consultant Jeanette Ward, also powerfully demonstrate how lower speeds can save lives.

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Economics and emissions

But what of the argument that slowing drivers down and prolonging trips mean the economy will suffer? There are two answers to this.

The first is that evidence shows lower speed limits in urban areas add virtually no time to journeys. You can see why in this simple simulation that compares traffic with different speed limits.

The second is that people don't always productively use the time saved by faster travel. In fact, research suggests people often choose to travel further, especially for their daily commute. Making journeys faster can also encourage people to travel more often. This is called induced demand and it adds to congestion.

Furthermore, there is a reasonably established relationship between the speed a vehicle travels and greenhouse gas emissions, with the lowest emissions being produced when a vehicle travels at around 55-80km/h.

However, this assumes a vehicle is moving smoothly, without stops and starts. Higher emissions are created when a vehicle has to repeatedly brake and accelerate. While individual driver behaviour can be a factor, the road environment and volume of traffic play a role too.

Research has actually found that in urban areas the optimum speed limit to minimise emissions for small petrol cars is 28.2km/h. For larger vehicles, diesels and SUVs, CO₂ emissions are minimised with a maximum speed of 20km/h.

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Pollution, noise and health

Nitrogen dioxide from traffic is estimated to cause 2000 deaths each year in New Zealand. Emissions are lowest with 20km/h speed limits.

The World Health Organisation estimates traffic noise is the second-biggest environmental stressor on public health after air pollution. Lower speeds significantly reduce noise, with research finding that "in urban areas with speeds of between 30 and 60kp/h, reducing speeds by 10kp/h would cut noise levels by up to 40 per cent".

Lower speed limits have also been shown to reduce health inequalities. One of the UK's most eminent experts, Oxford University's Professor Danny Dorling, said a 20 mile per hour (30km/h) speed limit was "the most effective thing a local authority can do to reduce health inequalities".

This is particularly important, given rates of road injury and death in New Zealand disproportionately affect Māori, younger people and low-income communities.

A range of other benefits from reducing speed limits are identified by Paul Tranter and Rod Tolley in their book Slow Cities. These include more physical activity from walking and cycling, time saved from not having to earn the money necessary to own and operate a car, and broader economic benefits for individuals and businesses.

Overall, reduced speed limits in urban areas would not only reduce injuries and deaths, they would also make our towns and cities better places to live.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation and has been reproduced with permission. Read the original here.

A US federal judge has sentenced disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes to more than 11 years in prison for duping investors in the failed startup that promised to revolutionise blood testing but instead made her a symbol of Silicon Valley’s culture of audacious self-promotion.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila was shorter than the 15-year penalty requested by federal prosecutors but far tougher than the leniency her legal team sought for the mother of a year-old son with another child on the way.

Holmes, who was CEO throughout the company’s turbulent 15-year history, was convicted in January in the scheme, which revolved around the company’s claims to have developed a medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked.

READ MORE: The fall of tech star Elizabeth Holmes

The sentencing in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where Holmes was convicted on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy in January marks another climactic moment in a saga that has been dissected in an HBO documentary and an award-winning Hulu series about her meteoric rise and mortifying downfall.

Holmes, 38, faced a maximum of 20 years, but her legal team asked the judge for a sentence of no more than 18 months, preferably served in home confinement.

Her lawyers argued that Holmes deserved more lenient treatment as a well-meaning entrepreneur who is now a devoted mother with another child on the way. Their arguments were supported by more than 130 letters submitted by family, friends and former colleagues praising Holmes.

Prosecutors also wanted Holmes to pay $1.2 billion in restitution. The amount covers most of the nearly $1.5 billion that Holmes raised from a list of sophisticated investors that included software magnate Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Walton family behind Walmart.

While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former Defence Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz "for the fool.”

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Holmes must report to prison on April 27. After giving birth to a son shortly before her trial started last year, she became pregnant at some point while free on bail this year.

Although her lawyers didn’t mention the pregnancy in an 82-page memo submitted to the judge last week, the pregnancy was confirmed in a letter from her current partner, William “Billy” Evans, that urged the judge to be merciful.

If Holmes' pregnancy had a role in determining her sentence, the decision could prove controversial. A 2019 study found that more than 1000 pregnant women entered federal or state prisons over a 12-month study period; 753 of them gave birth in custody.

According to a 2016 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than half of women entering federal prison — 58 per cent — reported being mothers of minor children.

Federal prosecutor Robert Leach declared that Holmes deserves a severe punishment for engineering a scam that he described as one of the most egregious white-collar crimes ever committed in Silicon Valley. In a scathing 46-page memo, Leach told the judge he has an opportunity to send a message that curbs the hubris and hyperbole unleashed by the tech boom.

Holmes “preyed on hopes of her investors that a young, dynamic entrepreneur had changed healthcare,” Leach wrote. "And through her deceit, she attained spectacular fame, adoration and billions of dollars of wealth.”

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Even though Holmes was acquitted by a jury on four counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to patients who took Theranos blood tests, Leach also asked Davila to factor in the health threats posed by Holmes’ conduct.

Holmes’ lawyer Kevin Downey painted her as a selfless visionary who spent 14 years of her life trying to revolutionise health care.

Although evidence submitted during her trial showed the blood tests produced wildly unreliable results that could have steered patients toward the wrong treatments, her lawyers asserted that Holmes never stopped trying to perfect the technology until Theranos collapsed in 2018.

They also pointed out that Holmes never sold any of her Theranos shares — a stake valued at $10 billion in 2014, when Holmes was being hailed as the next Steve Jobs on the covers of business magazines.

Defending herself against criminal charges has left Holmes with “substantial debt from which she is unlikely to recover,” Downey wrote, suggesting that she is unlikely to pay any restitution that Davila might order as part of her sentence.

“Holmes is not a danger to society,” Downey wrote.

Downey also asked Davila to consider the alleged sexual and emotional abuse Holmes suffered while she was involved romantically with Ramesh “Sunny" Balwani, who became a Theranos investor, top executive and eventually an accomplice in her crimes.

Balwani, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced December 7 after being convicted in a July trial on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

Five men were admitted to hospital after allegedly being assaulted, when meeting what they thought would be a person they had been talking to online, in Ballina, New South Wales.

The men, aged 77, 58, 53, 50 and 27, were all allegedly assaulted and robbed by a group of teenagers in Evans Head, in five separate incidents over the last two weeks.

After establishing the individual assaults were allegedly linked, NSW Police arrested and charged a 16-year-old boy and three 17-year-old boys.

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A white ute was seized during a search at a property along the Pacific Highway at Broadwater.

Police allege they found illegal drugs and the goods stolen during the assaults, while searching properties along the state's north coast.

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All four teens were refused bail in children's court over the last two days.

Anyone with any information is urged to contact crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.

Elon Musk’s managerial bomb-throwing at Twitter has so thinned the ranks of software engineers who keep the world’s de-facto public square up and running that industry insiders and programmers who were fired or resigned this week agree: Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.

Musk ended a very public argument with nearly two dozen coders critical to the microblogging platform's stability by ordering them fired this week.

Hundreds of engineers and other workers then quit after he demanded they pledge to “extremely hardcore” work by Thursday evening or resign with severance pay.

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The newest departures mean the platform is losing workers just at it gears up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which opens Sunday.

It's one of Twitter's busiest events, when tweet surges heavily stress its systems.

“It does look like he’s going to blow up Twitter,” said Robert Graham, a veteran cybersecurity entrepreneur.

“I can’t see how the lights won’t go out at any moment."

Although many recent Twitter departures predicted a more gradual death.

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Hundreds of employees signaled they were leaving ahead of Thursday's deadline, posting farewell messages, a salute emoji or other familiar symbols on the company’s internal Slack messaging board, according to employees who still have access.

Dozens also took publicly to Twitter to announce they were signing off.

Earlier in the week, some got so angry at Musk's perceived recklessness that they took to Twitter to insult the Tesla and Space X CEO.

“Kiss my ass, Elon,” one engineer said, adding lipstick marks. She had been fired.

Twitter leadership sent an unsigned email after Thursday's deadline saying its offices would be closed and employee badge access disabled until Monday.

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No reason was given, according to two employees who got the email, one who took the severance, one still on payroll.

They spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.

A trusted phalanx of Tesla coders at his side as he ransacked a formerly convivial workspace, Musk didn't appear bothered.

“The best people are staying, so I'm not super worried,” he tweeted Thursday night.

But it soon became clear some crucial programming teams had been thoroughly gutted.

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Indicating how strapped he is for programmers, Musk sent all-hands emails Friday summoning “anyone who actually writes software” to his command perch on Twitter’s 10th floor at 2pm, asking that they fly into San Francisco if not local, said the employee who quit Thursday but was still receiving company emails.

After taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Musk booted half of the company’s full-time staff of 7,500 and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial efforts.

Then came this week's ultimatum.

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Three engineers who left this week described for The Associated Press why they expect considerable unpleasantness for Twitter’s more than 230 million users now that well over two-thirds of Twitter's pre-Musk core services engineers are apparently gone.

While they don’t anticipate near-term collapse, Twitter could get very rough at the edges, especially if Musk makes major changes without much off-platform testing.

Signs of fraying were evident before Thursday’s mass exit.

People reported seeing more spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages. Engineers reported dropped tweets. People got strange error messages.

Still, nothing critical has broken. Yet.

“There’s a betting pool for when that happens,” said one of the engineers, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Musk that could impact their careers and finances.

Another said that if Twitter has been shutting servers and “high volume suddenly comes in, it might start crashing".

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“World Cup is the biggest event for Twitter. That’s the first thing you learn when you onboard at Twitter,” he said.

With the earlier layoffs of curation employees, Twitter’s trending pages were already suffering.

The engineering fireworks began Tuesday when Musk announced on Twitter that he had begun shutting down “microservices” he considered unnecessary “bloatware".

“Less than 20 per cent are actually needed for Twitter to work!” he tweeted.

That drew objections from engineers who told Musk he had no idea what he was talking about.

“Microservices are how most modern large web services organize their code to allow software engineers to work quickly and efficiently,” said Gergely Orosz, author of the Pragmatic Engineer blog and a former Uber programmer.

There are scores of such services and each manages a different feature.

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Instead of testing the removal of microservices in a simulated real-world environment, Musk’s team has apparently been updating Twitter live on everyone’s computers.

And indeed, one microservice briefly broke, the one people use to verify their identity to Twitter via SMS message when they log in. It’s called two-factor authentication.

“You have hit the limit for SMS codes. Try again in 24 hours,” Twitter advised when a reporter tried to download their microblogging history archive.

Luckily, the email verification alternative worked.

One of the newly separated Twitter engineers, who had worked in core services, told the AP that engineering team clusters were down from about 15 people pre-Musk, not including team leaders, who were all laid off, to three or four before Thursday’s resignations.

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Then more institutional knowledge that can’t be replaced overnight walked out the door.

“Everything could break,” the programmer said.

It takes six months to train someone to work an on-call rotation for some services, the engineers said.

Such rotations require programmers to be available at all hours.

But if the person on call is unfamiliar with the code base, failures could cascade as they frantically plow through reference manuals.

“If I stayed I would have been on-call constantly with little support for an indeterminate amount of time on several additional complex systems I had no experience in,” tweeted Peter Clowes, an engineer who took the severance.

“Running even relatively boring systems takes people who know where to go when something breaks,” said Blaine Cook, Twitter’s founding engineer, who left in 2008.

It’s dangerous to drastically reduce a programming workforce to a skeleton crew without first bulletproofing the code, he said.

“It’s like saying, ‘These firefighters aren’t doing anything. So, we’ll just fire them all.’”

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The engineers also worry Musk will shut down tools involved in content moderation and removing illicit material that people upload to Twitter, or that there simply wouldn’t be enough people on staff to run them properly.

Another concern is hackers. When they’ve breached the system in the past, diminishing damage depends on detecting them quickly and kicking them out.

It’s not clear how Musk’s housecleaning at Twitter has affected its cybersecurity team, which suffered a major PR black eye in August when the highly respected security chief fired by the company earlier this year, Peiter Zatko, filed a whistleblower complaint claiming the platform was a cybersecurity shambles.

“So much of the security infrastructure of a large organization like Twitter is in people’s heads,” said Graham, the cybersecurity veteran.

“And when they’re gone, you know, it all goes with them.”

Showers, storms and damaging winds are forecast for the New South Wales Central West this weekend, as major emergency flood warnings remain in place.

Condobolin is expected to have its highest flood since 1894 as water levels are expected to rise today.

Floodwaters from the Lachlan River are continuing to flow about 85 kilometres downstream from Forbes.

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Water levels in Forbes are expected to recede but remain at major levels across the weekend, as frustrated residents continue the clean up from the "wall of water" at Eugowra.

Emergency warnings are also in place at Gooloogong and Derriwong.

The State Emergency Service (SES) responded to 245 requests for assistance on the last 24 hours.

The SES is urging communities to be prepared for potential flash flooding as rain falls on already full catchments this weekend.

"While the weather is not expected to be as severe as last weekend, storms are unpredictable in their timing and location and may cause flash flooding and landslips," the SES said in a statement.

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"Windy weather can bring down trees, blow around outdoor items and remove roofs, so NSW SES advises people to prepare their properties now."

The SES is once again urging residents to not attempt to drive through floodwaters.

"Across the state, unfortunately we continue to receive calls to rescue people who have driven through floodwater, so we urge drivers to stop, turn around and find another way."

There are currently 113 warnings across the state, with 23 remaining at the emergency level.

The "extensive search" for missing Eugowra man Ljubisa 'Les' Vugec, 85, continues today, after emergencies services found a "life-like mannequin" yesterday.

Developments are fast-moving and NSW residents can check the most up-to-date warnings at the SES website here



From snakes and spiders to highly venomous jellyfish, Australia is home to any manner of weird, wonderful, albeit dangerous creatures.

This Saturday marks the first national Venomous Bites and Stings Day and experts want the public to know the latest first aid so they can act fast in the case of a life-threatening emergency.

Wildlife enthusiast Dan Rumsey is no stranger to reptiles but found himself in a scary situation with a deadly snake a few months ago, as he travelled with a mate through Windorah, in outback Queensland.

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"He was bitten by the world's most venomous snake, a taipan," Rumsey said.

"It was a very remote part of the country to be bitten by a highly venomous animal.

"It was pretty full on.

"Thankfully it was a dry bite, meaning he wasn't envenomated, but he was still flown to hospital."

Rumsey acted fast to administer first aid, not knowing if the deadly venom was flowing through his friend's veins.

READ MORE: New hotspot for 'mysterious', near-invisible animal emerges

He applied a pressure-immobilisation bandage to the affected limb and told his friend to stay still.

"He was seated in a rest position in a car within minutes of the bite," Rumsey explained.

They raced to the highway where paramedics met them.

From there, his friend was flown to hospital in Toowoomba, and given the all-clear.

Rumsey said staying calm and acting fast can make all the difference.

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"Don't panic," he said.

"The sooner you get the bandage on and stay still the better.

"Your body will have a slower reaction to the venom if you are envenomated.

"There was a bite in Windorah a few weeks later, which was an envenomation, and the person who got bitten was very sick."

Have you been bitten by a snake or spider? Email www.bitesandstings.com.au for up-to-date venomous first aid guidance and educational materials. Download the Bites and Stings app for first aid information at your fingertips.