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Don't mind us, mate, we're just job-hunting
THINK your boss is intimidating? Try working alongside eight menacing lions that stalk your every move and snarl if you get too close to their territory.
Builders at Monarto Zoo are working in a lion's den as they construct a new $350,000 viewing platform. And the ever-curious kings and queens of the jungle are keeping a close eye on proceedings. ``When they're up close you've got to watch what you're doing,'' project builder Justin Connolly, 40, said. ``You know there's a fence there but you're not quite sure so you've just got to be careful and when you've got your back turned you're always wary.''
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Pizza-loving Steve's footy plan ends in daring tower rescue
With a can of soft drink in hand and gourmet pizza steaming in the dinner room, Steve Adams was counting down the minutes to the State of Origin decider, fingers crossed for a quiet start to his Wednesday night shift.
But Senior-Constable Adams never got to watch the match -- instead, the rescue squad veteran was 150m up, inside a Sydney Tower lift well, in a knife-edge rescue of 11 people stranded in a broken elevator.
Sen-Constable Adams, 45, told yesterday how, while his pizza was getting cold and the Blues were being hammered, he perched on the roof of a second lift as it was lowered metre by metre from the top of the 354m tower to reach the stranded tourists. The shaft was damaged and the lift jammed after being buffeted by 80km/h winds, causing genuine fear the lift might plunge to the ground.
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Priest denounces heavy-handed `annoyance' code
World Youth Day organisers and the NSW Government yesterday defended legislation aimed at quelling disruptive protests during the event.
However, Jesuit priest Frank Brennan said the laws were contrary to Catholic teaching on human rights and barristers argued it was a ``disproportionate response''. World Youth Day 2008 chief operating officer Danny Casey said controversial ``annoyance'' laws that would be in force in NSW were not unique. Mr Casey conceded the church had asked for pilgrims to be protected but noted the ``annoyance'' laws already existed in 15 statutes. The laws include fines of up to $5500 for those who cause ``annoyance'' at WYD events.
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Maroons down Blues in a bone-rattler
It started with a high shot, a fight and a penalty. It started with this Origin series level at one-all, with each side boasting 12 series victories for their 28 years of rivalry and toil, and with each side boasting 17 men willing to do anything to make it 13:12. It is never more frenetic or frantic than this. The clash of foreheads, the smash of nose and chin and chest and shoulder. Bone and muscle. Tooth and fingernail. Anything and everything. Whatever it took. In the end, Queensland was too strong, winning 16-10 thanks to two Israel Folau tries -- one after a screaming overhead mark -- and another from Billy Slater.
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Grieving father tells of `fantastic kids'
The last time Darrell Hodges saw his five-year-old daughter, Jaime, and seven-year-old son, Kevin, was when he took them to the movies.``They were fantastic little kids. They were so full of love and so close to each other,'' he said. Today, Mr Hodges will formally identify the bodies of his children, who were allegedly murdered by their 69-year-old grandfather, John Walsh, with an axe on Monday at his home in Cowra, in southeast NSW.
``That's when it's going to hit me,'' he said. ``I'm still sort of waiting for someone to ... switch the remote and turn the movie off.''
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Bully teen model victor
From a bully to a beauty, Wollongong teenager Demelza Reveley clasped her claws around the catwalk crown as she beat rival Alexandra Girdwood to the Australia's Next Top Model title. In an intense grand final showdown broadcast live from Luna Park last night, Reveley -- the youngest girl in the competition at just 16 -- overcame the notorious bullying scandal and ``bottom heavy'' criticism to put her princess pout forward and claim the prize. While stand-in host Charlotte Dawson attempted to smooth over the cracks in Reveley's crown by addressing the bullying issue, the on-air apology to series victim Alamela Rowan seemed to fall on deaf ears.
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You can't beat a snooze in the sun
He has drawn the attention of national parks officers, council rangers, zoo vets, schoolkids -- and a drunk who tried to lie down beside him.
But if Sydney's sunbaking seal is bothered by the attention, he isn't showing it.
The New Zealand fur seal has made his home on the ramp beside Manly 16ft Skiff Club for the past 10 days. While the species usually lives on the South Coast, it is not uncommon to see them in Sydney Harbour during winter, but they don't usually hang around so long. ``It's a beautiful, sunny, protected spot and there's probably a good supply of fish around,'' said Kathleen Hellmann, from the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
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Dawn takes the plunge to compete again
It's appropriate that Olympic swimming legend Dawn Fraser is making a comeback to the sport in an Olympic year. But it's not sentimentality driving this 70-year-old or the excitement of Beijing just five weeks away.
It is the need for better fitness and loss of weight, and for her five-year-old grandson, Jackson. ``My grandson will get an opportunity to see me swim -- he's never seen me swim before -- and that's a thrill for me,'' Fraser said. ``I don't think I've lost my style but I've probably lost a bit of speed.''
The fact Fraser's name has been erased from the record books of the biennial Alice Springs Masters Games was another key motivator.
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Hicks steps out with Stott Despoja
David Hicks last night made his first public appearance since being released from jail in December, stepping out for drinks with departing Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja. With his father, Terry, at his side, a relaxed Hicks sipped beer and chatted freely with guests at an Adelaide function to mark Ms Stott Despoja's retirement from the Senate. The confessed terrorism supporter left the fashionable Universal Wine Bar in Adelaide's East End without breaking his silence with the media. ``We've already told you, he's not talking,'' another companion said, before ushering Hicks away.
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No regrets as Downer quits
Mistakes? Alexander Downer admits he's made a few, but he rings down the curtain on his quarter of a century in federal parliament without regrets.
The man who stepped aside from the Liberal leadership to allow John Howard to regain it, and then became Australia's longest-serving foreign minister, has finally ended the speculation about his future. In an exclusive interview with The Australian's Janet Albrechtsen, Mr Downer, 56, says he will leave politics this week to take up a UN role and to work as a business consultant in his home town of Adelaide. Mr Downer, who was in London last night, warns that the Liberal Party has lost the ability to sell its core message on individual freedom, and needs to construct a ``broader narrative'' to compete with Labor.
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Historical Australia
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