Severe thunderstorms have battered Sydney leaving more than 1,900 homes without power in the city’s west. The SES received 79 calls for assistance. Most of the calls came from Campbelltown in the southwest. A carport roof was blown off by strong wings and landed on a neighbour’s house and one person had to be rescued from flood waters. Flash flooding closes roads and large hailstones caused some property damage.

Economists are predicting the unemployment rate will rise to four per cent for the month of January. January’s figures will be released on Thursday. Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood said economists “know” the unemployment rate will slowly rise this year. “That’s really due to the high interest rate environment,” Mr Boyd said. “Due to businesses cutting back on their expenses … and it’s also due to the still high level of migration we’ve got in Australia.”

The city of Sydney is coming under fire for taking twelve hours to close a park after discovering it was contaminated with asbestos. Harmony in Park in Surry Hills is one of 22 locations where asbestos has been found across Sydney. All of these have been linked to the same supplier, Greenlife Resource Recovery Facility. The company now has a prevention order stopping it from selling its product. It has launched a legal challenge, denying it is the source of the asbestos.

Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood says Wesfarmers’ profit results are “the one to watch”. Their results are set to be released on Thursday. “Because we’ve seen James Hardie yesterday, which makes fibre cement things for home renovations," he said. “And they’ve basically said people have cut back on renovating over the past 12 months due to the economic conditions. “So maybe we’ll see what happens with Wesfarmers and their big Bunnings warehouse business.”

Rock legends Pearl Jam are returning to Australia for the first time in 10 years. The Seattle grunge giants will play three shows in November across the east coast, on the Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne. They are touring in support of their 12th studio album – Dark Matter. They will be joined by fellow indie legends Pixies. Known for their incredibly energetic live shows, it will be the first time Pearl Jam has toured Australia since headlining the Big Day Out festival in 2014.

Sky News host Caleb Bond says Australia is a country that is “fundamentally built” on the use of cars. Mr Bond said Australia is such a “massive nation” to transport around without cars. “I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to convince Australians not to drive cars. “We’ve already tried this. “People are never going to give up their cars.”

Sky News host James Macpherson says the New South Wales government is “seeking community feedback” on its plans for Australia’s first “30-minute city”. The city is to be called Bradfield City and will be built next to the Western Sydney Airport. Mr Macpherson said the city is “due to be open in 2026”. “It will have pedestrian-only thoroughfares. “So, you won’t need a car, everything will be accessible by public transport within 30 minutes of where you live.”

Sky News host Caleb Bond that in the federal budget last year, the government announced they were going to “put a levy on farmers”. Mr Bond said the tax on Australian farmers was so that the government could “pay for foreign food” being brought into the country to be screened. “They have very quietly done away with this proposed levy now. “I can’t believe it was a thing in the first place. “I’d never heard of it, so very clearly it was very quietly introduced and now it’s very quietly removed.”

Sky News host Liz Storer has reacted to “Trump being Trump” in a campaign ad where the former US president made a mockery of Nikki Hailey’s own campaign ad. “You can’t beat the Trumpster when it comes to campaign ads,” she said. Sky News host Caleb Bond agreed with MS Storer saying he found Nikki Hailey’s ad “so annoying”. “If you didn’t already not like Nikki Hailey watching that ad would be enough to make you vote for Donald Trump,” Mr Bond said. The Republican Primary is due to be decided in July.

Sky News host James Macpherson says the Church of England has admitted to being scammed. Mr Macpherson explained it was by asylum seekers converting to Christianity to remain in the UK. “Asylum seekers have been told when you get to the UK, attend mass every week for a couple of months,” he said. “Get to know the Vicar, get baptised, and then you can claim as a God-fearing Christian, you would face certain persecution if you were ever sent to where you had come from. “An asylum seeker was asked, have you really converted to Christianity, to which he replied to which he replied, I swear on the holy Quran I have become a Christian.”

Macquarie Group Head of Commodities and Global Markets group Nick O'Kane will step down at the end of 2024 – after 28 years. Mr O’Kane is the highest paid banker at Macquarie Group, earning $58 million in a year. His salary and bonuses last year exceeded that of his boss, Macquarie CEO Shemara Wikramanayake whose reported paycheck was $30 million. Mr O'Kane's salary came after the massive boost to commodity prices, which Macquarie profited from, in the aftermath of Russia invading Ukraine. It was announced as part of a third quarter update from Macquarie which resulted in its shares, down three per cent in the past year, falling one per cent today.

Comedian Alex Stein says Vivek Ramaswamy would be the “best choice” for Donald Trump as a running mate in his presidential campaign. Mr Stein joined Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi to discuss the latest updates with US politics. “Honestly, Donald Trump and the entire Trump family have only been gracious and incredibly nice to me,” he said. “I wish I could tell you that I have some inside info on who’s going to be his running mate, I think Vivek Ramaswamy would be the best choice personally. “Vivek’s young, he’s a disruptor – I think he represents both sides of the aisle generally, he’s not just ‘far right’, so I think that he would resonate to a lot of the people that are centric or in the middle or undecided.”

Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes warns negative gearing is next on the chopping block after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s broken promise on stage three tax cuts. In a recent Essential poll, 53 per cent of respondents said they know little or nothing about the stage three tax cuts. “We have the Prime Minister on over 100 occasions saying that he was not going to change stage three tax cuts,” Ms Hughes told Sky News host Paul Murray. “Don’t hold your breath guys; negative gearing, it’s coming next. “They might not care about the tax cuts by the election, but they’ll care about the broken promises because you cannot believe a word this bloke says.”

Queensland Premier Steven Miles was again laughing off questions about youth crime from the opposition in the first session of parliament for the year. The premier was asked about the transparency of court proceedings involving juvenile offenders. This comes as Steven Miles left the issue of youth crime out of his speech at the Brisbane Media Club last week and chose to concentrate on the victims of natural disasters. Mr Miles finally acknowledged Queenslanders living in fear after the alleged murder of grandmother Vyleen White in an Ipswich shopping centre car park. He says the government’s response to youth crime in the state will keep a “laser focus” on keeping the community safe.

Victorian Liberal Party Leader John Pesutto threw Moria Deeming, Angie Jones, and Kellie-Jay Keen “to the wolves”, says Women’s Forum Australia Stephanie Bastiaan. UK women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen has joined Moira Deeming in taking legal action against Victorian Liberal Party Leader John Pesutto. “It has been nearly 12 months since the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally, and John Pesutto has not apologised to any of these women that he has defamed,” Ms Bastiaan told Sky News host Rita Panahi. “He also hasn’t condemned the violent trans rights activists who turned up to assault women and to stop them from talking about their sex-based rights in public. “John Pesutto made a decision to use his position of power to throw these women to the wolves, and it has had an enormous impact on their lives. “I’m so pleased these women are able to hold him to account in court, for as far as I’m concerned unless he turns around and apologises and also reinstates Moira Deeming into the party room – he should not be leader.”

Sky News host Rita Panahi reacts to “anti-Israel” protesters causing major disruptions in London. Protesters were pictured carrying Palestinian flags and protest banners reading “ceasefire now” and “stop the genocide”. Ms Panahi criticised the police officers managing the protest for doing nothing to prevent the disruptions. “These mobs seem to have no fear of police. Police force allows them to cause major disruptions,” she said. “Closing down major roads, stopping people going to work, going to hospital, going about their business, just so they can protest the only Jewish state in the world.”

US President Joe Biden’s mental decline is “becoming impossible to ignore”, says Sky News contributor Kosha Gada. “It’s sad on a human level when we see this,” she told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “Everybody who’s had aging parents or grandparents, you can see the decline is not linear, it’s exponential. “The decline that can happen in a year can be much more than what happened five years prior. “It’s becoming impossible to ignore – the whole world can see it.”

Former deputy prime minister John Anderson says the continually increasing amount of online attacks on Jewish people are now starting to be referred to as a form of “digital terrorism”. Mr Anderson joined Sky News host Peta Credlin to discuss the increase in anti-Semitism in Australia following the October 7 attacks in Israel. “Well it says something about the curriculum, doesn’t it – in our schools, that’s the first point,” he said. “If we understood the 1930s we might remember that some of the giants of that age, Roosevelt and Menzies used to say that their four freedoms were critical if people were to live in safety and security. “One of them was freedom from fear – if you are fearful, you cannot be free, you cannot reach your potential, you cannot make your maximum potential contribution to your society.”

Sky News host Peta Credlin says over 500,000 Victorian homes are “without power” tonight. Ms Credlin said this comes after all four units at one of the nation's largest coal-fired power stations “went offline”. “At around 2pm this afternoon, the giant Loy Yang A power station … suffered a catastrophic outage,” she said. AEMO reported a significant power system event before revealing it was investigating the cause of the outage in a statement at 3:30pm. “As Melbourne's temperature hit a high of 36 degrees,” Ms Credlin said.

Nationals MP Keith Pitt says a major outage at Victoria's biggest power station Loy Yang A represents a “glimpse of the future for Victoria” without coal-fired power. Approximately 500,000 households especially on the surf coast west of Geelong and in the inner west of the state have suffered power blackouts. Powerlines in Anakie, just north of Geelong, tripped and may have caused Loy Yang A and the four units in AGL’s facility to go offline. AGL is currently investigating the cause, and the units had been down since 2:15pm AEST, but would be providing hourly updates. “That is a big power station and that is a big outage and it’s a big blackout,” Mr Pitt told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “Welcome to a glimpse of the future for Victoria – if you want to know what it looks like without coal-fired power – this is it."