TRANSCRIPT
Former Australian rules footballer, Neale Daniher [[Dan-ah-her]], has been named the 2025 Australian of the Year.
The AFL legend and FightMND founder has been awarded the honour for his work over a decade in raising awareness and over $100 million to find a cure for motor neurone disease, the illness he was diagnosed with eleven years ago.
Using technology that allows him to communicate despite the debilitating effects of Motor Neurone Disease, the 63-year-says he hopes winning the award will give a bigger focus to efforts tackling the disease.
"When I was diagnosed back in 2013, there was a small but dedicated research community. But we needed to build our capacity if we were serious about taking the fight to end MND."
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Meanwhile Brother Thomas Oliver Pickett has been named the 2025 Senior Australian of the Year.
He has helped to provide more than 60,000 free wheelchairs for young people in more than 80 countries through the charity Wheelchairs for Kids that he co-founded in 1996.
First Nations scientist Dr Katrina Wruck [[Ruck]] has been named Young Australian of the Year, recognised for her research in creating sustainable solutions for a healthier planet - including the founding of Indigenous-led company Nguki Kula [[newki koola]] Green Labs.
Finally, Vanessa Brettell and Hannah Costello have been named Australia's Local Heroes for 2025, for creating Cafe Stepping Stone, which operates as a social enterprise, employing women mostly from migrant and refugee backgrounds.
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A series of Melbourne monuments have been vandalised ahead of Australia Day, commonly referred to by Indigenous people as a Day of Mourning, or Survival Day and Invasion Day.
In the city's C-B-D, a controversial monument honouring one of Melbourne's founders, John Batman, has been cut in half.
A memorial to ANZAC soldiers in Parkville, in inner-city Melbourne, has been covered in slogans written in red paint.
Police are also probing the theft of two ceremonial flags and vandalism to an outdoor stage in Ringwood in the city's east.
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Eight people and a dog have been injured after a balcony collapse in coastal Victoria.
But police say the injuries to the three men, three women and two teenage girls are non-life-threatening, and they are in hospital in a stable condition after the incident at Anglesea on Victoria's Surf Coast in the state's south.
It's believed the group were having lunch when the flooring gave way and the group fell about 2.5 metres.
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The death toll from an intensified Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Jenin has risen to at least 14.
It follows the killing of two Palestinians in an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in Qabatiya, south of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
The Israel Defence Force (IDF) has confirmed the strike, saying it is part of a counterterrorism operation.
But Thameen Al-Kheetan from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says the operation is concerning.
"The deadly Israeli operations in recent days raise serious concerns about unnecessary or disproportionate use of force, including methods and means developed for war fighting, in violation of international human rights law, norms and standards applicable to law enforcement operations."
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There are fears that hazardous chemicals belched from burned homes and cars in Los Angeles could make it into runoff when it rains in California.
Most of the homes destroyed in one of the ravaged areas - the coastal Pacific Palisades town of Sunset Mesa - were built before 1979, when asbestos was freely used in construction.
LA council member Traci Parks has announced efforts to contain the runoff.
Workers have also begun placing concrete barriers used to control highway traffic along the Pacific Coast Highway and in Palisades neighbourhoods above the coastline to prevent landslides, like those that killed 21 and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage after a fire seven years ago in Santa Barbara County.
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In tennis... Madison Keys has conquered her internal demons to win the Australian Open- her first-ever Grand Slam tournament title.
The 29-year-old American has upset the world's top-ranked player, Aryna Sabalenka, to win the women's singles final at Melbourne Park.
She triumped 6-3, 2-6, 7-5, in two hours and two minutes....denying Sabalenka what would have been her third straight Australian Open title.
Keys says she had previously thought her career would be a failure if she didn't win a Grand Slam tournament.
She says, ironically, relaxing her position on that issue has helped her achieve that goal.
"I finally got to the point where I was okay if it didn't happen- I didn't need it to feel like I had a good career, or that I deserved to be talked about as a great tennis player. And I feel like finally letting go of that internal talk that I had just gave me the ability to actually go out and play some really good tennis to actually win a Grand Slam."
The men's singles final is tonight.
Number one seed Jannik Sinner of Italy takes on number two seed Alexander Zverev of Germany.
