Brisbane news live: Cemetery catches fire in Brisbane’s east

A grass fire was spotted burning in Balmoral Cemetery late yesterday, with one fire creeping metres from Wynnum Road.

A fire was spotted at Balmoral Cemetery.Credit: Hannah Delbridge

Fire crews arrived at the eastern Brisbane cemetery shortly before 5.30pm, finding two fires had been alight but one had burnt out.

The second was contained by firefighters, and police also attending the scene said no traffic blocks were needed while crews contained the second fire, which covered a four-square-metre area at the edge of the cemetery near Wynnum Road.

Fire crews had both blazes extinguished by about 6.30pm.

The week ends in the River City with another pleasantly mild day, the weather bureau forecasting a top of 27 degrees on a mostly sunny Friday.

The weekend is looking largely the same, give or take a slight rise in the daily maximums.

Showers may be about at the weekend, but meteorologists suggest there isn’t much in it.

Here’s the seven-day outlook:

Here’s what’s making news further afield:

Labor’s plans to restrict public access to government information will not pass parliament, as the Coalition and the Greens unite to oppose the bill in the Senate, calling the measure a tax on truth.

Liberal MPs will be hauled back to Canberra on Wednesday for a crunch meeting to resolve the party’s position on net zero, infuriating moderate Senator Jane Hume, who labelled the divisive debate over the slogan “net zero” as crazy. She argued the Coalition parties broadly agreed on almost everything but those two words.

Koalas are starving in their thousands on an island in Victoria, where once-healthy trees have been stripped to bare branches as population numbers careen out of control. Heartbroken locals have told of koalas falling from trees and resorting to eating pine needles.

Fresh satellite images suggest the next step of a large-scale massacre of civilians is under way in the Sudanese city of El Fasher, which fell to a paramilitary force 11 days ago after an 18-month siege. The images, analysed by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, show what appear to be mass burials being conducted in the city this week.

Nancy Pelosi has announced her retirement.Credit: AP

Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as the powerful Speaker of the US House of Representatives, will not run for re-election to Congress in 2026, ending a four-decade career of a progressive Democratic icon often vilified by the right. The 85-year-old congresswoman was first elected in 1987.

‘Screaming in my head’: Here’s how Jake Weatherald found out about his Ashes call-up.

Good morning and welcome to Brisbane Times’ news blog for Friday, November 7. Today should be mostly sunny with a top of 27 degrees.

Here are this morning’s local headlines:

A pair of Brisbane suburbs once best known for their car yards and sprawling industrial hubs could be unrecognisable in a decade or two – but views on how they should be developed are divided.

Ipswich Road in Moorooka, a the suburb that, along with nearby Salisbury, is shaping as a major future development corridor.Credit: William Davis

The $900,000-a-year executive responsible for Melbourne’s most expensive infrastructure project commutes from Brisbane and is paid additional expenses to attend unscheduled meetings.

Victims of Thursday’s devastating Emerald house fire – a man, a teenager, a toddler and a baby – have been identified.

A man who was working as a nurse at Greenslopes Private Hospital on Brisbane’s southside has been charged with raping two female patients, both in their 80s.

The mother of a man shot dead during an armed stand-off with police has wept in court at an inquest as she described her son as loving and always willing to help people.

And test your knowledge of local, national and international news stories with this week’s trivia challenge.