Good morning and welcome to Thursday! Stay with us through the morning for all the latest news, weather, traffic and more of your daily need-to-knows. Email joshua.butler@illawarramercury.com.au to let us know of any news, or share a traffic tip.
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8.30am: and that's all from us this morning! Have a great Thursday, and go pick up a copy of the Mercury on your daily travels - lots of good stuff inside!
8.20am: a soft drink fan? A 50-year-old LA man drank 10 Cokes a day for a month in an experiment, and put on 10 kilos.
8.15am: a 3.2 magnitude earthquake has shaken Melbourne this morning. This meme is already doing the rounds:
8.10am: "9 household uses for beer" - you'll want to read this, from the Huffington Post.
8.05am: Paul Gallen won his boxing bout by TKO last night, but few spectators were happy about a fight titled a "farce" by many
8am: one last run-through of your morning Mercury headlines:
* Shellharbour council has become the first in the state to ban under-18s from addressing meetings
* Roy 'Dootch' Kennedy will face trial over child sex charges in the NSW District Court in February
* the latest crime statistics are out, and it's mostly good reading for the Illawarra - most major crime categories are on the way down
7.55am: #America
7.50am: more big new developments planned for Wollongong; a $30million hardware store at Fairy Meadow, and also plans for a few more high-rise unit blocks too
7.45am: there has been another child approach in the northern suburbs, this time at Balgownie.
7.40am: what do you think of Target's decision to stop stocking Grand Theft Auto V? After a public campaign, the record-breakingly popular game will not be sold by the retailer - Target's general manager saying "there is a significant level of concern about the game's content... we feel the decision to stop selling GTA 5 is in line with the majority view of our customers."
7.35am: the Australia Day aquathon is on again - get all the details here.
7.30am: Sony believes North Korea was behind the hacking and leak of terabytes worth of company information, including unreleased films and employee records. North Korea had declared an upcoming Sony film about James Franco and Seth Rogen assassinating Kim Jong-Un as "an act of war"
7.25am: the Australian Beach Soccer Cup, held at Wollongong North Beach, has announced its schedule for next weekend.
7.20am: it's summer, but the weather gods seemingly don't know that. If it makes you feel any better, most of the east coast is getting hit with these weird storms too - here's today's national forecast
7.15am: in more depressing American news, the Florida city of Fort Lauderdale has a law basically making it illegal to give food to the homeless, and a 90-year-old WWII veteran faced numerous charges after refusing to stop helping the homeless in a park
7.10am: update on the Eric Garner grand jury decision; the grand jury essentially cleared the officer of all charges, and Garner's family plan to sue New York City for $75million for wrongful death. More here.
7.05am: who are we to argue with the almighty Buzzfeed? Onesies for everyone!
7am: top of the hour, time for a recap:
Highs of 27 in Wollongong with storms predicted; trains are running on time; no accidents on the roads.
6.55am: BREAKING: a US grand jury has again declined to indict a police officer charged with killing an African-American; this time, after New York man Eric Garner died from a chokehold by a NYPD officer. More info here.
6.50am: Andre 3000, one half of Outkast, has unveiled his new art exhibit in Miami - 47 custom-made jumpsuits with some short, mostly confusing, slogans printed on them. Cool, man!
6.45am: want a Nobel Prize, but can't be bothered making some great scientific breakthrough or brokering peace in the Middle East? Well, for just $3.5million, you can have a lovely trophy sitting on your shelf. James Watson, who ran the human genome project, is selling his Nobel Prize.
6.40am: if you were planning to check out the first Eat Street Markets in Wollongong tonight, make some other plans - they have been postponed until next week, due to stormy weather predicted
6.35am: it's December, end-of-year "best of" lists are everywhere, but this mash-up of 2014's most popular songs will get you thinking about the year that was. DJ Earworm annually does one of these, and this year he mixes up Maroon 5, Taylor Swift, Pharrell, Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry, John Legend, Nicki Minaj, Lorde, Jason Derulo, One Drection, Sam Smith.... if it topped a pop chart, it's probably in there
6.30am: Stephen Jones says the government is ignoring areas like Oak Flats and Dapto in the broadband network rollout
6.25am: happy birthday to the Princes of Darkness himself!
6.20am: that accident at Warilla seems to have cleared, and has dropped off Live Traffic.
6.15am: (in George Costanza voice): "THAT'S GOTTA HURT"
6.10am: and some national news:
* the national economy grew only 0.3 per cent in the last quarter, sparking fears of an economic downturn and raising the possibility of further interest rate cuts
* Australia has fallen several places on an international corruption scale. Australia's "clean" rating has fallen from 85 in recent years to 80 this year, dropping us outside the top 10 "cleanest" countries for only the second time
* Target stores will pull video game Grand Theft Auto V off shelves, after a community campaign blasted the game's violence
6.05am: let's get a look at your morning Mercury headlines:
* Shellharbour council has become the first in the state to ban under-18s from addressing meetings
* Roy 'Dootch' Kennedy will face trial over child sex charges in the NSW District Court in February
* the latest crime statistics are out, and it's mostly good reading for the Illawarra - most major crime categories are on the way down
6am: good morning! It's Thursday December 4. Let's get into it:
WEATHER: a maximum of 27 degrees today in Wollongong, and 29 in Albion Park Again, a storm is likely. Winds are also going to pick up later in the afternoon
TRAFFIC: there's an accident in Warilla, on Shellharbour Road at Veronica Street. Traffic is affected in all directions - avoid the area.
TRAINS: good service on the South Coast line