Latest news with #Williamstown
News.com.au
6 days ago
- Lifestyle
- News.com.au
Bulldogs great Mark Hunter lists $4m+ Williamstown home
The striking family home of AFL father and son duo Mark and Lachie Hunter, as well as lacrosse World Cup player Colleen Hunter, has been listed for sale in Williamstown. A Footscray Football Club stalwart who played 130 games with the side from 1988-1996, Mark Hunter has gone on to a post footy career as a horse racing form analyst and professional punter with the RSN radio network. His son, Lachie, who grew up in the home for several years, played 173 games with the Bulldogs including their premiership win in 2016. He also collected the clubs best and fairest Charles Sutton Medal in 2018, and played 26 games for the Melbourne Football Club from 2023-2024. But the family home at 74 Morris St, Williamstown, is now just home to Mr Hunter and his wife Colleen — who represented Australia in four lacrosse World Cups. So they have decided to list the 953sq m property for sale, with a $4.35m-$4.75m asking price. The house has had a substantial overhaul since the pair bought it as a beach shack in 2007 for $1.78m, with a striking, angular facade making a big first impression that continues inside. The property now includes a four-bedroom floorplan with a lift between its two levels, as well as a pool and spa deck. A home theatre at the rear spills out to the pool area, while the main bedroom also has a view of the water feature. But day-to-day life is centred on the upper floor where an open-plan living and dining zone, with a smart kitchen at one end, is set between two balconies. Jellis Craig Inner West's Sam Wilson and Greg Cusack are handling the sale. Mr Cusack said after two weeks on the market the home had attracted strong numbers of interested buyers, with the 'overwhelming appeal' thanks to the property's location and views. The agent said one buyer in particular was eyeing the home office with the view across the Downer Oval home of the VFL's Williamstown Seagulls to an impressive water vista as the perfect work-from-home space. 'They love the idea of sitting upstairs in the study where they can enjoy the view,' Mr Cusack said. 'And with the space in the living zones and the ceiling heights give it a real feeling of space.' While many of the buyers were locals, some were coming from across 'the bridge' from suburbs including Fitzroy, Carlton and Richmond. Others were eyeing the home from Essendon. Expressions of interest for the home at No. 74 Morris St close at 5pm, June 12. While the Hunters have loved their time at the home, they are renewing their plans to sell after realising they weren't quite ready to part ways with it during an earlier sales campaign in 2021.
Washington Post
20-05-2025
- Science
- Washington Post
With a massive ark and museum, he spreads creationism a century after Scopes trial. He's not alone
WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. — As the colossal replica of the biblical Noah's Ark rises incongruously from the countryside of northern Kentucky, Ken Ham gives the presentation he's often repeated. The ark stretches one and a half football fields long — 'the biggest freestanding timber-frame structure in the world,' Ham says. It holds three massive decks with wooden cages, food-storage urns, life-size animal models and other exhibits.
Associated Press
20-05-2025
- Science
- Associated Press
With a massive ark and museum, he spreads creationism a century after Scopes trial. He's not alone
WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. (AP) — As the colossal replica of the biblical Noah's Ark rises incongruously from the countryside of northern Kentucky, Ken Ham gives the presentation he's often repeated. The ark stretches one and a half football fields long — 'the biggest freestanding timber-frame structure in the world,' Ham says. It holds three massive decks with wooden cages, food-storage urns, life-size animal models and other exhibits. It's all designed to argue that the biblical story was literally true — that an ancient Noah really could have built such a sophisticated ship. That Noah and a handful of family members really could have sustained thousands of animals for months, floating above a global flood that drowned everyone else in the wicked world. 'That's what we wanted to do through many of the exhibits, to show the feasibility of the ark,' says Ham, the organizer behind the Ark Encounter theme park and related attractions. And with that, he furthers his goal to assert the entire biblical Book of Genesis should be interpreted as written — that humans were created by God's fiat on the sixth day of creation on an Earth that is only 6,000 years old. All this defies the overwhelming consensus of modern scientists — that the Earth developed over billions of years in 'deep time' and that humans and other living things evolved over millions of years from earlier species. But Ham wants to succeed where he believes William Jennings Bryan failed. Bryan, a populist politician and fundamentalist champion, helped the prosecution in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, which took place 100 years ago this July in Dayton, Tennessee. Bryan's side won in court — gaining the conviction of public schoolteacher John Scopes for violating state law against teaching human evolution. But Bryan was widely seen as suffering a humiliating defeat in public opinion, with his sputtering attempts to explain the Bible's spectacular miracles and enigmas. The expert witness' infamous missteps For Ham, Bryan's problem was not that he defended the Bible. It's that he didn't defend it well enough, interpreting parts of it metaphorically rather than literally. 'It showed people around the world that Christians don't really believe the Bible — they can't answer questions to defend the Christian faith,' Ham says. 'We want you to know that we've got answers,' Ham adds, speaking in the accent of his native Australia. Ham is founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis, which opened the Ark Encounter in 2016. The Christian theme park includes a zoo, zip lines and other attractions surrounding the ark. Nearly a decade earlier, Answers in Genesis opened a Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg, Kentucky, where exhibits similarly argue for a literal interpretation of the biblical creation narrative. Visitors are greeted with a diorama depicting children and dinosaurs interacting peacefully in the Garden of Eden. The group also produces books, podcasts, videos and homeschooling curricula. 'The main message of both attractions is basically this: The history in the Bible is true,' Ham says. 'That's why the message of the Gospel based on that history is true.' Creationist belief still common If Ham is the most prominent torchbearer for creationism today, he's hardly alone. Polls generally show that somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 3 Americans hold beliefs consistent with young-Earth creationism, depending on how the question is asked. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 37% of U.S. adults agreed 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.' That percentage is down a little, but not dramatically, from its mid-40s level between the 1980s and 2012. Rates are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents. 'Scopes lost, but the public sense was that the fundamentalists lost' and were dwindling away, says William Vance Trollinger Jr., a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio. But the reach of Answers in Genesis demonstrates that 'a significant subset of Americans hold to young-Earth creationism,' says Trollinger, co-author with his wife, English professor Susan Trollinger, of the 2016 book 'Righting America at the Creation Museum.' Leading science organizations say it's crucial to teach evolution and old-Earth geology. Evolution is 'one of the most securely established of scientific facts,' says the National Academy of Sciences. The Geological Society of America similarly states: 'Evolution and the directly related concept of deep time are essential parts of science curricula.' The issue has been repeatedly legislated and litigated since the Scopes trial. Tennessee repealed its anti-evolution law in 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that a similar Arkansas law was an unconstitutional promotion of religion, and in 1987 it overturned a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution. A 2005 federal court similarly forbade a Pennsylvania school district from presenting 'intelligent design,' a different approach to creationism that argues life is too complex to have evolved by chance. Science educators alarmed Some lawmakers have recently revived the issue. North Dakota's Senate this year defeated a bill that would have allowed public school teaching on intelligent design. A new West Virginia law vaguely allows teachers to answer student questions about 'scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.' The Scopes trial set a template for today's culture-war battles, with efforts to expand vouchers for attendees of private schools, including Christian ones teaching creationism, and to introduce Bible-infused lessons and Ten Commandments displays in public schools. Such efforts alarm science educators like Bill Nye, the television 'Science Guy,' whose 2014 debate with Ham was billed as 'Scopes II' and has generated millions of video views online. 'What you get out of religion, as I understand it, is this wonderful sense of community,' Nye says. 'Community is very much part of the human experience. But the Earth is not 4,000 years old. To teach that idea to children with any backing — be it religious or these remarkable ideas that humans are not related to, for example, chimpanzees or bonobos — is breathtaking. It's silly. And so we fight this fight.' Nye says evidence is overwhelming, ranging from fossils layers to the distribution of species. 'There are trees older than Mr. Ham thinks the world is,' he adds. Religious views on origins vary One weekday in March, visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, which draw an estimated 1.5 million visits per year (including duplicate visits). 'We are churchgoing, Bible-believing Christians,' says Louise van Niekerk of Ontario, Canada, who traveled with her family to the Creation Museum. She's concerned that her four children are faced with a public-school curriculum permeated with evolution. The Creation Museum, van Niekerk says, 'is encouraging a robust alternate worldview from what they're being taught,' she says. Many religious groups accommodate evolution, though. Gallup's survey found that of Americans who believe in evolution, more say it happened with God's guidance (34%) than without it (24%). Catholic popes have shown openness to evolution while insisting the human soul is a divine creation. Many liberal Protestants and even some evangelicals have accepted at least parts of evolutionary theory. But among many evangelicals, creationist belief is strong. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest evangelical body, has promoted creationist beliefs in its publications. The Assemblies of God asserts that Adam and Eve were historical people. Some evangelical schools, such as Bryan's namesake college in Tennessee, affirm creationist beliefs in their doctrinal statements. There's a larger issue here, critics say Just as Ham says the creation story is important to defend a larger truth about the Christian Gospel, critics say more is at stake than just the human origin story. The Trollingers wrote that the Answers in Genesis enterprise is an 'arsenal in the culture war.' They say it aligns with Christian nationalism, promoting conservative views in theology, family and gender roles, and casting doubt on other areas of scientific consensus, such as human-made climate change. Nye, too, says the message fits into a more general and ominous anti-science movement. 'Nobody is talking about climate change right now,' he laments. Exhibits promote a 'vengeful and violent' God, says Susan Trollinger, noting the cross on the ark's large door, which analogizes that just as the wicked perished in the flood, those without Christ face eternal hellfire. And there are more parallels to 1925. Bryan had declaimed, 'How can teachers tell students that they came from monkeys and not expect them to act like monkeys?' The Creation Museum, which depicts violence, drugs and other social ills as resulting from belief in evolution, is 'Bryan's social message on steroids,' wrote Edward Larson in a 2020 afterword to 'Summer for the Gods,' a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Scopes trial. More attractions are planned The protests that initially greeted the museum and ark projects, from secularist groups who considered them embarrassments to Kentucky, have ebbed. When the state initially denied a tourism tax rebate for the Ark Encounter because of its religious nature, a federal court overturned that ruling. Representing Ham's group was a Louisiana lawyer named Mike Johnson — now speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite those blips, Ham's massive ministry charges forward. Expansion is next, with AIG attractions planned for Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri — both tourist hubs offering more opportunities to promote creationism to the masses. Todd Bigelow, visiting the Ark Encounter from Mesa, Arizona, says the exhibit vividly evoked the safety that Noah and his family must have felt. It helped him appreciate 'the opportunities God gives us to live the life we have, and hopefully make good choices and repent when we need to,' he says. 'I think,' Bigelow adds, 'God and science can go hand in hand.' ___ Associated Press writer Dylan Lovan contributed. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Tree falls into home during severe thunderstorm displacing woman in South Jersey
The Brief A Gloucester County woman is displaced after a tree falls into the side of her home. Power lines were downed after heavy rain and wind. WILLIAMSTOWN, N.J. - Evidence of storm damage is littered throughout the community of Williamstown, in Gloucester County, where the most significant damage was a tree falling into a home during the height of severe weather. What we know A severe thunderstorm came through Gloucester County leaving a trail of damage behind in one Williamstown neighborhood. A tree into a home is the most severe damage on the 100 block of Bellwyn Avenue near West Cushman Avenue. The woman who lived inside fortunately got out without injury. Other smaller trees and branches also came down during the storm, along with power lines. Atlantic City Electric arrived on scene late into the night after a second round of rain came through around 8:30 Friday night. What they're saying "I looked out my kitchen window and I seen that tree in the house," said Billiejo Baker. She is talking about the house next door. Her neighbor is displaced after the gigantic tree came crashing down onto her home. "I went out the side door to go and check on her because she lives alone," said Billiejo. "The front bedroom on the corner and the front bedroom next to it. It went through both of them." "She was in there trying to find her cats and we were in there. All our neighbors were checking on her and helping her but her cats are still in there," said Billiejo. Al Baker cannot believe the damage. "It's unbelievable," he said. Baker said he knew it was not going to be good but he did not think it would be this bad. "I was outside when it first started hitting. I am like, 'It is time to get in the house.' Five minutes later, all this happened," he said. He describes hearing the tree hit his neighbor's house. "I thought a bomb went off," he said. A tree in his yard took down a power line. Big picture view The community spent the evening helping others clean up what they could until a tree removal company came in to chop and remove the big stuff. "We're just neighbors. We look out for each other," said Billiejo.
Herald Sun
07-05-2025
- Sport
- Herald Sun
VFL: Williamstown's Lachie Gollant suspended for four matches
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victorian Football. Followed categories will be added to My News. This is the ugly tackle that will take a chunk out of Williamstown forward Lachie Gollant's VFL season. The VFL tribunal last night suspended the ex-Adelaide Crows forward for four matches over an incident in last Saturday's match against Southport at Point Gellibrand. Gollant tackled Southport player Zach Molloy in the second quarter, with the former Collingwood VFL player hitting the ground close to the boundary fence behind the goals. Molloy played no further part in the game. Molloy has entered concussion protocols and will miss the Sharks' next two matches. Gollant was charged with misconduct, with the VFL match review panel judging it careless conduct with 'severe impact'' and 'high contact''. Gollant was offered a four-match suspension but chose to contest it. Last night he was found guilty and banned for four games. But with Willy having two byes, the ban will keep him out of football for longer. The Towners do not play this weekend, have games in rounds 8, 9, 10 and 11, then have another bye, meaning the 23-year-old cannot return until Williamstown's Round 13 western derby with Werribee. Gollant joined the Towners this year after playing 16 AFL games for the Crows. But his club may seek to have the byes included in his suspension period, an exemption granted to young Saint Alix Tauru last week. Tauru, a top-10 pick in last year's draft, also received a four-match suspension for rough conduct towards Brisbane's Curtis McCarthy. Before being given the reprieve, St Kilda coach Ross Lyon hit out at the suspension as Tauru was set to miss six weeks of footy due to byes which came during the period of suspension. 'Well, is it four or is it six weeks? We're incredibly disappointed. I'm really frustrated. It talks to a broken system,' Lyon said. 'We've already had one bye, we're having another one this week. I just don't understand the human side … So we've got a first-year top 10 draft pick, that if you think the penalty is four weeks, that's okay, but they know we've got a bye and then at the end of that, there's another bye. So, how the tribunal doesn't take into consideration that it is six weeks?'
