A massive clean up is underway in Western Australia after a second microburst in just three weeks pummelled the south west.

The storm first hit Perth, hard, ripping roofs of homes in the foothills and tearing up trees.

As the monster weather system moved south, it was still packing a punch as it hit Albany early this morning, dumping a record amount of rain on the south coast town.

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Torrential rains swallowed roads delivering Albany's highest ever rainfall with 126mm falling in 24 hours, leaving the Great Southern city soaking.

The deluge came from a microburst, similar to one that hit Perth three weeks ago, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

A microburst is a sudden, intense downdraft of wind, blasting down from a storm cloud. It can hit with torrential rain and cyclonic force winds.

The winds reached 113km/h in Gooseberry Hill on Thursday, downing power lines and trees.

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"Lightning struck the house which was very loud and scary," resident John Roberts told 9News.

"I got quite concerned, I saw some stuff flying through the air, so I went and hid in the garage."

John Roberts' home is one of three in the Perth suburb that lost its roof.

He's unsure if he'll ever be able to live in it again.

"It's bad inside – a lot of water damage, wind damage," Roberts said.

"The wind knocked a lot of the windows open and just tore the place up inside."

More than 200 SES volunteers have been out since yesterday, responding to 271 calls for help.

The storm caused several minutes of destruction, that will take months to clean up.

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Paul Charlton is challenging his murder conviction, after a jury found him guilty of killing singer Joanne Howe in Melbourne's south-east.

Joanne had been trying to leave Charlton in 2007, when she was strangled in her Hughesdale home.

Charlton told police he found her after taking his dog for a walk.

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It was a decade and a half before Charlton was charged and in 2023, a jury convicted him of Joanne's murder.

Appealing the conviction Charlton's defence claimed the jury got it wrong because they weren't given proper directions during the trial.

His lawyer telling the Court of Appeal there wasn't enough weight given to the defence claims that someone else could have attacked Joanne.

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"This was plainly a murder – the question was who was criminally liable," Paul Smallwood said.

Charlton has always maintained he didn't kill Joanne.

During his murder trial his defence claimed Joanne could have been killed by her estranged brother, by another man known to her, or during a random break in.

"He gets to come out of prison, lucky him he gets a day trip," Joanne's sister Lisa Hennessy told 9News following the hearing.

"I hope he gets another 10 years put on his sentence for putting our family through all this again."

Charlton is currently serving 24 years behind bars.

Three court of appeal justices will now rule on his conviction.

It is expected the decision will be handed down in the next few weeks.

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The Herald is aware of at least seven schools that closed their tuckshops today.

A beloved Darwin tourist attraction and reptile education centre has been targeted by a brazen thief who unlawfully entered the premises, stole a Holden Rodeo ute and used it to ram through multiple gates.

The offender appeared to have broken into Crocodylus Park after jumping a boundary fence.

The unknown male allegedly forced entry into multiple buildings at the park about 12am yesterday, with CCTV footage also capturing the thief picking up a 65-centimetre crocodile and taking selfies with it before placing it on the ground.

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Park Manager Emily Moyes said the young crocodile measuring 65 centimetres managed to escape but remains missing at the park.

"Very lucky and fortunate that this particular individual hasn't decided to take the crocodile with him," she said.

"They're pretty smart, so he'll be going along, hiding as he goes and probably enjoying himself in a new body of water somewhere."

The park's staff are confident the saltwater crocodile will be located within a few days, though it wasn't the only animal harmed during the ordeal.

Moyes also told 9News that the offender attempted to steal five vehicles, damaging two of them, before successfully escaping in the Holden ute which has since been found at Casuarina Beach.

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"We've lost a car, it's been burnt out so we've got a mechanic in. It will be well over $15,000," she said.

"Which is really hard for a small family business. We are privately run and tourism is a tough business as hard as it is. This is a huge setback for us."

The thief also ran over a family of ducks before making his escape in the stolen car.

"In the footage, you can clearly see him running over the family. It's not very nice at all," Moyes continued.

"We have seen them again, but we do have a few missing."

NT Police are investigating the incident, however, 9News understands no one has been arrested.

Anyone with information about the incident is urged to make contact on 131 444 or quote reference number NTP2500026561.

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Police are appealing for dashcam footage after a disturbing video emerged of a road rage incident involving a machete in western Sydney.

In the footage, a man wielding a machete can be seen confronting the driver of a ute at the intersection of Glossop Street and the Great Western Highway in St Mary's at about 5pm yesterday afternoon, smashing a window of the Toyota Hilux and damaging a side mirror before walking back to his Honda Civic.

"Oh my god," the woman filming is heard saying in the video.

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She was a passenger in a nearby car when the incident unfolded, and was too afraid to be identified.

"As soon as he was tapping on the window with the machete, I'm like 'yeah, something's going to happen'," she told 9News.

"We have no idea what happened, why he did this… it was just so scary." 

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Police have since spoken to the man behind the wheel of the Hilux, who was uninjured in the attack.

Meanwhile, the alleged machete-weilder is behind bars.

Exactly what led to the attack remains unclear, with Nepean police appealing for other witnesses or anyone with dashcam footage to come forward.

A 12-year-old year seven student was allegedly attacked by a student two years her senior at a Sydney high school.

The 14-year-old allegedly launched a brutal attack on the 12-year-old as dozens of students watched and filmed it on their phones.

"I received a distressing call from my daughter, she's crying, she's saying 'Mum, I've been ganged up on please come help me,'" the girl's mother told 9News.

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That was a week ago, and the mother says the school's response since has been a failure.

"Where were you guys? This was lunchtime," she said.

"Teachers are supposed to be on duty.

"No ambulance was called to check on her, other than them just giving her some tissues to wipe her bloody nose and bloody eye."

She also claims they refused to suspend the attacker despite it being recommended by police. 

"When I tried to speak to the principal about that, I got a laugh and she said 'we don't do that anymore'," the mother claims.

The girl's mother reached out to Premier Chris Minns and Education Minister Prue Car.

Their offices today confirmed to 9News that the student did end up being suspended later that day.

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Part of the mother's concerns are also why the students were able to use their phones, to record and post the videos online during school hours. 

The Department of Education says after the incident, the principal sent a reminder letter home to all students and families, reinforcing that mobile phones are banned.

"She's not OK," the girl's mother told 9News.

"She's not really eating, barely drinking, just in her room.

"She is such a bubbly, loving outspoken little girl, and I can't see that in her anymore."

Department of Education full statement:

Violence of any kind is completely unacceptable in NSW public schools.

Incidents of this kind are dealt with at a school level through the NSW Department of Education's Behaviour Management Plan.

One of the students involved in the incident was suspended on the day of the incident.

One of the students was provided with first aid for a bloody nose. There was no other evidence of injury.

The school continues to support students involved.

Minister for Education and Early Learning full statement:

"Our schools have zero tolerance of violence, and the principal took swift action against the perpetrator."

Lawyers for the trio said murder was never their intention.

The Government pulled off a successful infrastructure summit in Auckland.

He was diagnosed with leukaemia at 11 months, needing a stem cell transplant.

Anthony Albanese will join a phone call with a host of prominent European and other Western world leaders this weekend to discuss a potential peacekeeping mission in Ukraine.

The prime minister confirmed today that he had been invited by UK counterpart Sir Keir Starmer to join the call tomorrow night, although said it was not certain what would come from the conference.

"I look forward to re-engaging with President Zelenskyy but with other democratic leaders as well," Albanese told reporters today.

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"I won't pre-empt what comes out of that meeting but Australia has of course stood with Ukraine since the beginning of this process."

Other leaders also attending include Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy, France's Emmanuel Macron, New Zealand's Christopher Luxon, Canada's new Prime Minister Mark Carney and representatives from Germany and Italy.

The meeting comes weeks after Starmer first proposed putting British troops on the ground in Ukraine to maintain any eventual peace deal with Russia, which was followed by Albanese saying he would consider any request for Australian soldiers to join such a coalition of the willing.

"It's an illegal war. It's an immoral war. And it's one led by a Russian authoritarian dictator who has imperialistic designs on Ukraine and the region," Albanese said today.

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"This is a struggle for national sovereignty for the Ukrainian people but also a struggle for the rule of international law that is so important.

"That's why you have such overwhelming support from democratic nations."

He added that no peacekeeping plans have been committed to yet.

"We don't have peace, so therefore we don't have a peacekeeping agreement," he said.

Starmer, who has led efforts for a united European response to the war since Donald Trump re-entered the White House, has previously pledged to produce plan for peace in Ukraine to be presented to the United States.

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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said he wouldn't send ADF personnel to Ukraine, and dismissed the idea this morning as a "thought bubble".

"We should continue to support Ukraine, but not with troops on the ground in Ukraine," Dutton said.

"(Support for Ukraine) did have a bipartisan position and it appears that Mr Dutton has walked away from that," Albanese countered this afternoon.

"That's a decision for him. But we stand with Ukraine and we stand against and remain committed to opposing the actions of Vladimir Putin."

Overnight, Putin said there are "issues" with a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire thatUkraine has agreed to, although said he agrees in principle to the plan.

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