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Deep conversations. Extraordinary people. Human stories. Frances Whiting is an award-winning journalist who has spent more than 30 years telling stories of heartache, triumph, love, and loss. As Australia’s longest-running Sunday newspaper columnist and a best-selling author, Frances has built a unique, decades-long bond with her audience. In her new limited series from The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail, Frances takes you behind the scenes of her most candid interviews to reveal unforgettable stories of what it means to be human. From household names to everyday people with extraordinary lives, these are deep conversations that will stay with you long after they end. Hit follow to never miss an episode of Frances Whiting's Humankind.  Read Frances’s columns at couriermail.com.au/journalists/fran-whiting and features at qweekend.com.au. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The body of a woman, in her 50s, has been found inside a Sydney home with injuries so horrific that senior police officers described it as one of the worst crime scenes they had seen in years.  Energy Minister Mick de Brenni has refused to take responsibility for the Callide Power Plant explosion, sensationally accusing CS Energy bosses of lying to him about maintenance and safety at the facility. Port Lincoln father Troy Smith will likely avoid prison after being allegedly caught with more than 3g of meth inside his Bali hotel room, with prosecutors recommending he serve his sentence in a rehab facility.Chilling GoPro footage has emerged of a teen charged with terror offences armed with knives and tactical equipment before allegedly walking into a Labor MP’s office.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Julian Assange will today start his new life as a free man with his wife and two young sons in Australia.  The cost of dying is set to skyrocket in Victoria, with the Allan government considering introducing what has been panned as a “death tax by stealth”.  CS Energy issued warnings that maintenance was being neglected at its plants just two years before a major explosion tore through Callide Power Station.  A wealthy Adelaide college has raked in more than a quarter of a billion dollars in recent years. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The widow of slain camper Russell Hill says she feared Greg Lynn would walk free, saying “an innocent person doesn’t get rid of the bodies”.    Vape legalisation advocates say the Coalition could raise $510 million a year in tax revenue under its plan to regulate the sale of nicotine products through retailers like supermarkets or convenience stores.    A minibus carrying farm workers is believed to have been trying to overtake another car when it crashed into a tree in Victoria’s northwest.    Former NRL star Jarryd Hayne will not face a fourth trial after he successfully appealed his convictions over the alleged rape of a woman in 2018.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vapes will be made available at pharmacies without a prescription after the Albanese government struck a deal with the Greens that will soften a proposed retail ban on e-cigarettes.    The boss of Australia’s anti-doping agency has warned that the AFL – and Australian sport more widely – is at a “crossroad” as a damning report identified “key issues” around players buying cocaine, ice and ecstasy from criminals.    The notorious Bicycle Bandit who plundered 11 banks in a terrifying crime spree   has received one of the longest sentences in SA history – but a judge acknowledged the “air of artificiality” about his penalty, given that he’s about to die.  New data has revealed Queensland patients waited up to 14 hours in the state’s emergency departments as choked hospitals struggled to cope with soaring demand.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A young girl who witnessed her mother’s alleged shooting murder is struggling to process the terrible tragedy, according to those close to the Mackay family.    The Bicycle Bandit’s sentencing has been expedited after he expressed an intent to access his voluntary assisted dying kit – but one of his victims, who also has terminal cancer, says he deserves neither empathy nor sympathy.  With a little help after years of trying, purple Wiggle John Pearce is to become a father for the first time.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An eight-year-old boy took an illegal replica assault rifle to a Sydney school, forcing a class into lockdown and sparking a police investigation into how it ended up in the boy’s hands.  Elite private schools are exempting poorly performing students from national NAPALN tests in a bid to improve their overall scores, a scathing academic report has revealed.  Queensland’s political leaders are bitterly divided over the state’s nuclear future, with all levels of government at odds over the safety and economic viability of the controversial energy plan. Cameras to catch Adelaide drivers distracted by mobile phones have been switched on, with hefty fines for those caught breaking the law.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dozens of rounds of live ammunition, police uniforms and bulletproof vests are in the hands of criminals after being stolen from cop cars during the Wakeley riot two months ago. Queensland homeowners missing mortgage repayments are at their highest level since the early pandemic, with hundreds of families at risk as $223m worth of home loans go into the red.    An offshore wind farm proposed for NSW’s south coast has divided the tight-knit Illawarra community.    Millionaire John Singleton has lavished Erin Molan with a share in a $700,000 prize filly he’s named after her.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former premiership-winning South Australian greyhound trainer Tony Rasmussen has been banned for life and fined a record $220,000 after being found guilty of a string of welfare and integrity charges.  The Reserve Bank is set to pave the way for an upcoming interest rate rise when it concludes its board meeting on Tuesday afternoon amid a robust jobs market and concerns that fresh stimulus will heighten already elevated levels of inflation.  The notorious, terminally ill “Bicycle Bandit” who terrorised the state for a decade will spend what remains of his life in jail, after a court rejected his final plea for mercy.  An extra $720 million has been injected into the Queensland economy since the end of trade blocks imposed by the Chinese Government on Australian products like beef, barley and cotton.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto has taken another swipe at the Allan government for failing to condemn union heavyweight John Setka’s savage attack on the AFL. Taxpayers were slugged more than $100,000 for an Australian delegation to attend the funeral of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has boldly declared Brisbane’s Olympic and Paralympic Games “mess” would be fixed within 100 days of an LNP government surging to power, salvaging Queensland’s reputation on the world stage. A teenager allegedly tried to steal a police car after a violent failed carjacking but was tasered and capsicum-sprayed, a court has heard. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A menacing attack by John Setka on AFL umpiring boss Stephen McBurney that included his image on a spoof “Wanted: Dead or Alive” poster has been slammed by anti-violence campaigners and the state opposition. Youth offenders have injured 137 people in six years by crashing cars they have stolen in aggravated burglaries.  A NSW Police officer faked a breath test when he caught the son of his senior colleague drink driving on a country road in the state’s southwest. Hundreds of  people rallied at Tyndale Christian School in Salisbury East on Wednesday night, in opposition to proposed changes to discrimination laws for faith-based schools. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CFMEU boss John Setka has demanded the AFL sack its umpire boss, former building watchdog Stephen McBurney, or face delays on its league-related projects nationwide.  In NSW, Disruption to Sydney’s light rail network for 24-hours on Wednesday could soon extend to the city’s trains and buses, the sector’s union has warned. Taxes on Queenslanders will help plug the state’s revenue hole as the golden era of coal royalties comes to an end. Two former Adelaide coaches have questioned the team’s mentality on the back of a string of narrow defeats that has left its season in free fall. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A former Labor minister has sided with families of Covid victims who feel outraged that Daniel Andrews was given the nation’s highest King’s Birthday honour – as polling shows 95 per cent of people don’t think he deserves it.  Premier Steven Miles says today’s state budget will be the “best ever” despite it containing the second-largest deficit in a decade to help fund a major pre-election cash splash. South Australia’s richest private schools have prime real estate holdings estimated to be worth more than $12bn, with one  located on a vast holding near the CBD valued at nearly $3bn. A 12-year-old repeat offender with a record of more than 80 charges is back at home after being caught breaking and entering just three days after he had been freed on bail by the NSW Supreme Court.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nine chairman Peter Costello has been captured on video pushing a journalist to the ground at Canberra Airport, after the former federal treasurer refused to answer the reporter’s questions relating to the rolling harassment scandal at the under-siege media company.  Four years on from the deaths of Russell Hill and Carol Clay, the couple’s loved ones sat ­metres away from the man ­accused of murdering them.    The price tag of the Miles government’s centrepiece “Big Build” has ballooned to $107bn over the next four years – almost the same cost, per minute, of the Apollo Project that landed men on the moon.    Port Adelaide has brushed off scepticism about its early-season form, believing it has set a really good platform to attack the second half of the campaign as it chases a flag.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An encampment of rough sleepers has sprung up outside the Reserve Bank’s Martin Place offices as hundreds of people sleep on the street in the City of Sydney every night.    Taxpayers are forking out $2 million a year to look after a intellectually disabled boy, but his care is still failing so catastrophically he has been the subject of more than 500 critical incidents in less than two years.    A court has heard two Queensland owned electricity generators allegedly manipulated the price bracket of their wholesale power packages to create massive artificial spikes in energy market prices for their own profit.    Alleged Bicycle Bandit, armed robber and terminal cancer patient Kym Allen Parsons has been approved for voluntary assisted dying and has the means to end his life, eight months before his trial.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.