Bulgaria's highest court has announced it will now hear the case of Australian Jock Palfreeman a fortnight earlier than originally scheduled.

The Supreme Court of Cassation was originally due to review the 32-year old’s parole on October 23rd, but announced it was moving the case forward due to the amount of public interest in the trial, and the restrictions placed on the convicted Australian’s movements

Palfreeman, originally from Sydney, was sentenced to 20 years' jail in 2009 for the fatal stabbing of law student Andrei Monov during a brawl in 2007.

An $870 million program offered by the Victoria State Government will upgrade the roads and fix the potholes.

1800 km of the roads will be fixed, 150,000 potholes will be repaired, and 30,000km roadside vegetation will be trimmed. Premier Daniel Andrews says the project aims to allow people get home safer and sooner.

Aside from fixing the roads, the government also wants to commit on rail investment, especially for the Metro 2 tunnel project which will run from Clifton to Fisherman Bend and Newport.

Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide are expecting an early summer, with warm weather predicted across Australia’s south-east coast.

A hot air mass from Western Australia is moving across South Australia and Victoria on Wednesday and Thursday, and expected to hit New South Wales on the weekend.

Adelaide is expected to hit 33 degrees on Saturday.

Several letterboxes on the Sunshine Coast have been filled with cheaply-made explosives, causing major damage and prompting a police that residents are at risk of injury. 

With dozens of letterboxes being destroyed across the region, officers said they believe young people are responsible for the destruction, with the explosions commencing at the start of the school holidays.

Inspector Mark Cordwell said the letterbox bombings pose a risk not just to residents and neighbours, but also to those making the explosive, as well as causing major damage to property.

Severe thunderstorms north of Brisbane in the early hours of yesterday morning flooded homes and businesses, and brought more than 100 millimetres of rain in parts of Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast..

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe storm warning just after midnight on Monday, after the storms developed along a trough that moved gradually north of Brisbane.

US Republican congressman Chris Collins, has resigned ahead of his expected guilty plea in a criminal insider trading case on Monday.

The criminal case is related to Australian biotechnology company Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd, a company for which Chris Collins sat on the board and held a 16.8% stake.

Iranian courts have sentenced one person to death for spying for the CIA, jailed two others for 10 years for the same crime, and have imprisoned a fourth person for 10 years for spying for Britain.

The verdicts come amid spiralling tensions between Tehran and the United States since President Donald Trump last year withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy in order to force Tehran to renegotiate the pact.

Conservation groups have slammed the Federal Government’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 Project, following the release of its Environmental Impact Statement.

The National Parks Association and the Colong Foundation are concerned about the impact of the project upon threatened species, after it was revealed that over 1,500 hectares of protected land would be affected.

A former English teacher is suing offshore detention operator Broadspectrum for devastating ill health caused by black mould in her accommodation, while she was teaching asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru.

The case is the latest claim of dangerous exposure to mould at the Australian immigration detention centre on Nauru.

Comcare has confirmed it received a complaint from a former employee in 2016, and a number of other former staff have also alleged their health was affected.