A Townsville woman says she was hit with a $2,000 "robodebt" notice despite a Federal Minister's claim the debt recovery program was suspended in the wake of February's floods.

Two holidaying nurses want to have a beer with two "cool" English tourists who managed to keep positive minutes after being attacked by a shark. The nurses provided first aid which is credited with saving the men's lives.

No charges will be laid against the organisers of a car festival that left Chaise Bouchere with horrific burns to his face and limbs, after the Northern Territory safety watchdog decided that funding future safety initiatives would be more beneficial.

Victims of a bushfire almost a decade ago are set to receive millions of dollars in compensation following a ruling by the High Court.

A new foundation to help fund lawsuits against perpetrators of child sexual abuse is launched, with profits from successful legal action used to help victims and survivors.

Already waiting for two previous inquiries to be acted upon, support agencies say the new family law inquiry announced last week will require they take resources away from frontline services in order to participate.

A Cairns apprentice's charges are upgraded to unlawful striking causing death after a man he allegedly hit during a fight outside a bar on the weekend dies in hospital.

The family of the man who died while zip-lining in Far North Queensland has described him as a "loving husband, father, son, brother and friend to all".

Robyn Hausler continued paying her mortgage and rates for six years, not realising the house she'd lived in for 20 years wasn't hers anymore. Now a court has ruled she can have her property back.

Di White says her son Anthony, 36, needed a ventilator to breathe after his diagnosis and "really didn't have a life" in the 16 months before he died in the bathroom at the local tavern.

Family and friends post tributes to Jeffrey and Matthew Hills, whose bodies were found in the wreckage of a plane which crashed in northern NSW on Friday.

Police say 47-year-old Cameron Martin died from a gunshot wound to the chest before he crashed a white Mercedes in a Gold Coast suburb on Friday night. His business partner and alleged bikie Shane Ross was also shot and found nearby almost three days later.

The father of murder victim Danielle Easey says he is waiting to come face-to-face with the man accused of the violent death of his daughter whose body was found wrapped in plastic and dumped in a Newcastle creek.

The former “Daily Show” host is serving as the host and emcee of this week’s 2019 Department of Defense Warrior Games in Tampa, where about 300 wounded, ill or injured active-duty and veteran military athletes are competing in 14 adaptive sports.

Greg Zanis, known by many as the “Cross Man,” died Monday after spending 23 years building wooden crosses for thousands of mass-shooting victims across the United States, including the 13 victims killed in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

Nine people died in the January 26 helicopter crash.

The facility’s inmates and employees are vulnerable.

For years, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office in Louisiana issued fake subpoenas to witnesses and crime victims. Unlike subpoenas used in ongoing prosecutions, these were used during the investigation process to compel targets to talk to law enforcement. They weren't signed by judges or issued by court clerks but they did state in bold letters across the top that "A FINE AND IMPRISONMENT MAY BE OPPOSED FOR FAILURE TO OBEY THIS NOTICE."

Recipients of these bogus subpoenas sued the DA's office. In early 2019, a federal court refused to grant absolute immunity to the DA's office for its use of fake subpoenas to compel cooperation from witnesses. The court pointed out that issuing its own subpoenas containing threats of imprisonment bypassed an entire branch of the government to give the DA's office power it was never supposed to have.

Allegations that the Individual Defendants purported to subpoena witnesses without court approval, therefore, describe more than a mere procedural error or expansion of authority. Rather, they describe the usurpation of the power of another branch of government.

The court stated that extending immunity would be a judicial blessing of this practice, rather than a deterrent against continued abuse by the DA's office.

The DA's office appealed. The Fifth Circuit Appeals Court took the case, but it seemed very unimpressed by the office's assertions. Here's how it responded during oral arguments earlier this year:

“Threat of incarceration with no valid premise?” Judge Jennifer Elrod said at one point during arguments. She later drew laughter from some in the audience when she said, “This argument is fascinating.”

“These are pretty serious assertions of authority they did not have,” said Judge Leslie Southwick, who heard arguments with Elrod and Judge Catharina Haynes.

The Appeals Court has released its ruling [PDF] and it will allow the lawsuit to proceed. The DA's office has now been denied immunity twice. Absolute immunity shields almost every action taken by prosecutors during court proceedings. But these fake subpoenas were sent to witnesses whom prosecutors seemingly had no interest in ever having testify in court. This key difference means prosecutors will have to face the state law claims brought by the plaintiffs.

Based upon the pleadings before us at this time, it could be concluded that Defendants’ creation and use of the fake subpoenas was not “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,” but rather fell into the category of “those investigatory functions that do not relate to an advocate’s preparation for the initiation of a prosecution or for judicial proceedings.” See Hoog-Watson v. Guadalupe Cty., 591 F.3d 431, 438 (5th Cir. 2009)

[...]

Defendants were not attempting to control witness testimony during a break in judicial proceedings. Instead, they allegedly used fake subpoenas in an attempt to pressure crime victims and witnesses to meet with them privately at the Office and share information outside of court. Defendants never used the fake subpoenas to compel victims or witnesses to testify at trial. Such allegations are of investigative behavior that was not “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.”

Falling further outside the judicial process was the DA's office itself, which apparently felt the judicial system didn't need to be included in its subpoena efforts.

In using the fake subpoenas, Individual Defendants also allegedly intentionally avoided the judicial process that Louisiana law requires for obtaining subpoenas.

The case returns to the lower court where the DA's office will continue to face the state law claims it hoped it would be immune from. The Appeals Court doesn't say the office won't ultimately find some way to re-erect its absolute immunity shield, but at this point, it sees nothing on the record that says prosecutors should be excused from being held responsible for bypassing the judicial system to threaten crime victims and witnesses with jail time.

Just as in other types of victimization, victims of cybercrime can experience serious consequences, emotional or not. First of all, a repeat victim of a cyber-attack might face serious financial or emotional hardship. These victims are also more likely to require medical attention as a consequence of online fraud victimization. This means repeat victims have a … Continue reading Three Paper Thursday: Exploring the Impact of Online Crime Victimization →

'Seriously sometimes seems Google's moderators are only optimized to respond to social media outrage'

Three weeks after Google removed 49 Chrome extensions from its browser's software store for stealing crypto-wallet credentials, 11 more password-swiping add-ons have been spotted – and some are still available to download.…

For the second year in a row, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta was marked by the tragic death of a person in a balloon. Now, Wells Fargo Bank is trying to help the families of those at the center of this year's accident.
Wells Fargo opened the account for the families of pilots Keith Sproul and Stephen Lachendro, who were in the "Wings Of Wind" balloon when it hit a power line last Friday morning.
The gondola caught fire and separated from the balloon envelope, crashing to the ground.

Thieves made off with radios, computers and other items.
Wells Fargo has already donated $1,000 into the account to help the families deal with expenses surrounding the funeral, medical care costs and the break-in .
Donors who want to give to the account can contact Wells Fargo and should ask about donating to the Debbie Sproul account.

Social media posts falsely suggest that news outlets are misusing a boy's image to report the same child died of COVID-19 in three different countries. The posts actually refer to three different young people who died from the novel coronavirus in Portugal, Belgium and the UK.

The post Media Didn’t Misuse Boy’s Photo in Deaths of Three COVID-19 Victims appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Ohio State University will pay about $41 million to settle a dozen lawsuits by 162 men alleging sexual abuse by a team doctor, Richard Strauss.

Last Feb. 14, Gov. Cuomo signed the Child Victims Act into law. He did it in the newsroom of the Daily News, because it was this paper that, over many years, spotlighted the wrenching cases of people abused as children, perversely prevented from seeking justice as adults.

Yousef Selassie, 19, pleaded not guilty to first-degree grand larceny, identity theft and other charges at his Manhattan Supreme Court appearance for the lucrative scheme that operated from January through May this past year.

Rubin, now a genteel 72-year-old Staten Island resident, alleges in a newly-filed Child Victims Act lawsuit that he was sexually abused on a weekly basis between 1960-65 by a cabal of five predatory teachers at the prestigious school.

Mamadou Bah, 19, an immigrant from Senegal who dreamt of playing pro basketball, died after he stumbled into Gentlemen’s Quarters Salon on Church Ave. near Ocean Ave. in Flatbush just before 10 p.m. Tuesday.

The murder may have happened outside the city.

The funeral was held for Rav Yosef Kalish, 63, an Amshinover rebbe who was hospitalized with COVID-19 last week and died Sunday morning, The Associated Press reported.

NY Gov. Cuomo extended a “lookback window” created as part of the Child Victims Act last year that allows child sex abuse survivors of all ages to file civil suits beyond the normal statute of limitations.

Coverage of the shooting rampage Friday night in Isla Vista, which killed six UCSB students along with the gunman, raised a question: Why were only three of the six victims pictured on the front page of Monday's print edition?

Craig Nathaniel, 33, already served five years probation after pleading guilty to felony assault for the Dec. 23, 2012, attack.

The 36-year-old Domino’s Pizza deliveryman was dropping off a pie to a building on Fort George Hill near Fairview Ave on Sunday about 9 p.m. when the crew of crooks took his $1400 bike at knifepoint and cut the man’s hand. He refused medical attention, cops said.

Jose Rivera, 23, is facing attempted criminally negligent homicide, gun possession and reckless endangerment for the Thursday afternoon shooting that landed him in the hospital with a head injury after a bunch of witnesses attacked him.

Nearly all of the assaults occurred on Thursday along the border of South Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant between 9:55 and 11:15 a.m., cops said.

NY Gov. Cuomo extended a “lookback window” created as part of the Child Victims Act last year that allows child sex abuse survivors of all ages to file civil suits beyond the normal statute of limitations.

Ohio State University will pay about $41 million to settle a dozen lawsuits by 162 men alleging sexual abuse by a team doctor, Richard Strauss.

Ohio State University will pay about $41 million to settle a dozen lawsuits by 162 men alleging sexual abuse by a team doctor, Richard Strauss.

Airickca Gordon-Taylor spent her life educating others about the black teenage lynching victim's legacy.

Family and friends came together to commemorate the 31 people who died in the Ladbroke Grove train crash 20 years ago today

Bradly Scott Hunt, 32, was booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility after shooting and killing another man late Thursday night.

PENSION scam warnings have been issued by The Financial Conduct Authority and The Pensions Regulator after victims were scammed out of an average of £91,000. But how have people been duped by pension fraud?