Queensland Police have finally identified a man found dead in the Maroochy River in November 2023 as 47-year-old Victorian man Alexander Marinis, bringing a 14-month mystery to a close.

Mr Marinis had no identification on him when his body was discovered, sparking a global search involving DNA testing, Interpol inquiries and public appeals. It wasn’t until a Centrelink employee recognised his face in a news report that investigators were able to trace his identity.

DNA testing later confirmed the match, allowing his family to lay him to rest in Melbourne in May this year.

“Great lengths were taken to identify the man… including DNA testing, door knocking, and work with Interpol around surgical artefacts in his knee,” Detective Senior Sergeant Robert Lowry told ABC News.

“While this is a tragic circumstance, I’m pleased we’ve been able to give his family some closure.”

Mr Marinis had withdrawn from family contact in 2015 and moved to the Victorian town of Yarram, where he lived a quiet, solitary life.

His mother, Maree Bergamo, said she made repeated efforts to find him — even hiring private investigators — but lost contact after he moved to Queensland in October 2023. He died just weeks later.

“Alex was an intelligent, decent and loyal person,” Ms Bergamo told ABC News. “It was distressing to know that he had been deceased for such a long time.”

Though his death has been deemed non-suspicious, the circumstances remain unclear. CCTV footage captured him days before his body was found, and his belongings – including a backpack and a Bunnings receipt – were recovered nearby. He had made two phone calls to emergency accommodation providers before disappearing from all records.

At his funeral, Mr Marinis was remembered as a gifted athlete and a kind-hearted man, adored by his family despite living much of his life in isolation.

Source: ABC News

Qantas has confirmed that a cyber attack on a third-party platform linked to one of its contact centres may have compromised data linked to six million customers.

The airline described the incident as “significant” and is working urgently to assess the extent of the breach.

In a statement released today, Qantas said the unusual activity was detected on Monday on a platform not owned by the airline but used to support customer service operations.

The affected data includes customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and frequent flyer numbers. However, Qantas reassured the public that “credit card details, personal financial information and passport details are not held in this system.” It also confirmed that no frequent flyer accounts, passwords, PINs or login credentials were accessed.

The compromised system has now been isolated, and Qantas has begun notifying affected customers.

Cybersecurity experts from CyberCX are assisting the airline with the investigation. A spokesperson from the firm told the ABC the attack appears consistent with tactics used by the notorious Scattered Spider group – an international hacking outfit known for targeting specific industries, most recently financial and insurance companies.

The spokesperson added that US authorities had recently issued warnings that Scattered Spider was planning to target the aviation sector.

Source: ABC News

Tens of thousands of New South Wales residents are facing severe disruption following a night of wild weather that brought destructive winds, torrential rain, power outages, and major delays across Sydney’s train network.

Seven emergency warnings remain in effect across the NSW coastline — stretching from the South Coast to the Central Coast — after a powerful storm system caused rivers to rise, homes to flood, and coastal erosion to worsen.

The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) has urged residents in Burrill Lake, near Ulladulla, to take immediate shelter, with floodwaters inundating around 200 homes. In Sanctuary Point near Jervis Bay, residents were told to move to higher ground, while urgent evacuation warnings were issued for Wamberal and The Entrance due to extreme erosion.

Nearly 30,000 properties remain without power, with the worst-affected areas ranging from Newcastle down to Batemans Bay. Endeavour Energy reported over 17,000 outages alone.

SES crews have responded to more than 2,300 incidents since the storm began, including flood rescues around the Shoalhaven area. Ulladulla recorded 223mm of rain overnight — the heaviest July total since 1994 — while Nowra received 156mm by early Wednesday morning.

Wind gusts reached 130kph at Wattamolla, 102kph in Sydney Harbour, and significant wave heights of six metres were observed off Port Kembla and Batemans Bay.

Sydney Trains CEO Matt Longland said damage to overhead wiring in Dora Creek and between St Marys and Penrith has forced closures, with buses replacing services. He warned of ongoing disruption: “Those repairs are going to take some time… there will be delays across the network.”

A critical incident unfolded in the Southern Highlands, where a 55-year-old truck driver remains in hospital after a tree fell on his vehicle in Moss Vale. Another driver in Cranebrook narrowly avoided serious injury when a tree brought down power lines and crushed the front of his car.

The Blue Mountains region also experienced severe impacts, with trees down across rail tracks in Lapstone, causing further delays and outages.

Authorities continue to urge caution and advise the public to avoid unnecessary travel as cleanup and repair efforts intensify across the state.

Source: ABC News