The price of watermelon is squeezing the household budget of Aussie families.

The summer favourite is being sold at Coles for $4.50 a kilo, which makes an eight-kilogram whole fruit about $36.

Meanwhile, Woolworths is selling the fruit for $3.90 per kilo, while the whole fruit costs $31, with prices varying slightly from state to state.

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Suppliers are putting the high prices down to a shortage of the fruit caused by irregular weather patterns in the Northern Territory.

Prices are expected to come down as supply increases when more fruit starts to arrive from northern Queensland.

According to experts, while watermelons are pricier right now, they taste better.

The recent hot and dry weather has impacted the flavour and little water in the fruit makes for a sweeter taste. 

There are cheaper fruit options in supermarkets at the moment, with some berries going for a bargain.

A punnet of strawberries at the big supermarkets is $2 while blueberries are about $3 a punnet.

Shoppers would be lucky to find stone fruits like nectarines and peaches on the shelves currently, but the summer fruits are just around the corner.

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A Coles spokesperson said the supermarket expects to see a strong season on quality and an abundant volume of Australian stone fruit and mangoes in the coming months.

"There is plenty to look forward to as we come into summer," the spokesperson said.

"As the weather starts to improve, we know our customers are looking for great value fruit to enjoy.

"We have some great specials for our customers at the moment on tomatoes, cucumbers, berries and citrus."

Meanwhile, a Woolworths spokesperson said the company paid its farmers the market price for their produce "which can be affected by weather and seasonality".

"We're in the cross-over between growing regions from the Northern Territory to northern Queensland but there's still quality fresh watermelons available," the spokesperson said.

"However, our farmers have told us that they've got a great crop on the way just in time for summer, so our customers can expect to see an improvement in the coming weeks.

"We're committed to delivering quality Australian fruit and vegetables to our customers at great value, and when in-season produce is in high supply we work hard to pass those savings on to our customers."

Charles and Bridget Poolman had never heard of diffuse midline glioma before the deadly type of brain tumour, also known as DMG, changed their lives in a matter of months.

The New South Wales couple's daughter Evie first started experiencing migraines, which a doctor initially told them was nothing to worry about.

But the nine-year-old's symptoms progressed and just before Christmas in 2020 she complained that she was "seeing double".

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They took their daughter to Sydney Children's Hospital for what they thought would be an hour-long appointment.

"She was a perfectly healthy, active child who had just celebrated Christmas and had a wonderful time. Then they did the CT scan," the couple told 2GB's Ben Fordham.

"The doctor pulled us into the room and said, 'Unfortunately we've found a mass'.

"Literally our lives as we knew it then just completely changed, as though someone had just ripped the earth from beneath our feet."

Over the next five months, Evie underwent four brain surgeries and 30 rounds of radiation for the condition, otherwise known as diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).

The tumour eventually claimed Evie's life.

The couple said the treatment plan Evie underwent is the same treatment children received 60 years ago.

"There's been no significant change in the way this type of brain cancer is treated," they said.

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"We thought we might be different and we held out hope. Tragically we were not different."

According to the charity Run DIPG, DIPG cancer primarily affects children with most diagnoses occurring between six and nine years of age.

It makes up 10 to 15 per cent of all brain tumours in children, with about 20-25 new diagnoses per year in Australia.

Fewer than 10 per cent of children with the tumours are alive more than two years after their diagnosis.

Poolman said he wouldn't accept this survival rate as "naturally as any parent wouldn't".

"It's just unacceptable that people are confronted with this in this day and age," he said.

"We'd never heard of it before we were confronted with it.

"The reality is treatment hasn't changed in 60 years and 25 per cent thereabouts of all the childhood deaths from cancer every year are relating to this cancer.

"And it's the most underfunded of all the cancers, yet it's the most deadly."

https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/evie-s-story-donate-here-to-rare-brain-cancer-rese/embed?style=Cover

The couple is now advocating and raising awareness of the condition in the hope that they can raise money to help with research.

"We can't just accept that when you're diagnosed with this you're going to die," Poolman said.

"We need to create solutions and options."

Donations can made to support research into the disease on the Run DIPG website.

NASA's first asteroid samples fetched from deep space have parachuted into the United States to cap a seven-year journey.

In a flyby of Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule on Sunday from 100,000 kilometres out. The small capsule landed four hours later (early Monday AEST) on a remote expanse of military land in Utah, as the mothership set off after another asteroid.

Scientists estimate the capsule holds at least a cup of rubble from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu, but won't know for sure until the container is opened. Some spilled and floated away when the spacecraft scooped up too much and rocks jammed the container's lid during collection three years ago.

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Japan, the only other country to bring back asteroid samples, gathered about a teaspoon in a pair of asteroid missions.

The pebbles and dust delivered on Sunday represent the biggest haul from beyond the moon. Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, the samples will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed.

Osiris-Rex, the mothership, rocketed away on the $1 billion mission in 2016.

It reached Bennu two years later and, using a long stick vacuum, grabbed rubble from the small roundish space rock in 2020. By the time it returned, the spacecraft had logged 6.2 billion kilometres.

NASA's recovery effort in Utah included helicopters as well as a temporary clean room set up at the Defense Department's Utah Test and Training Range. The samples will be flown Monday morning to a new lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The building already houses the hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of moon rocks gathered by the Apollo astronauts more than a half-century ago.

The mission's lead scientist, Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, will accompany the samples to Texas. The opening of the container in Houston in the next day or two will be "the real moment of truth", given the uncertainty over the amount inside, he said ahead of the landing.

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Engineers estimate the canister holds 250 grams of material from Bennu, plus or minus 100 grams. Even at the low end, it will easily surpass the minimum requirement of the mission, Lauretta said.

It will take a few weeks to get a precise measurement, said NASA's lead curator Nicole Lunning.

NASA plans a public show-and-tell in October.

Currently orbiting the sun 81 million kilometres from Earth, Bennu is about half a kilometre across, roughly the size of the Empire State Building but shaped like a spinning top. It's believed to be the broken fragment of a much larger asteroid.

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During a two-year survey, Osiris-Rex found Bennu to be a chunky rubble pile full of boulders and craters. The surface was so loose that the spacecraft's vacuum arm sank half a metre into the asteroid, sucking up more material than anticipated and jamming the lid.

These close-up observations may come in handy late in the next century. Bennu is expected to come dangerously close to Earth in 2182 — possibly close enough to hit. The data gleaned by Osiris-Rex will help with any asteroid-deflection effort, according to Lauretta.

Osiris-Rex is already chasing after the asteroid Apophis, and will reach it in 2029.

This was NASA's third sample return from a deep-space robotic mission. The Genesis spacecraft dropped off bits of solar wind in 2004, but the samples were compromised when the parachute failed and the capsule slammed into the ground. The Stardust spacecraft successfully delivered comet dust in 2006.

NASA's plans to return samples from Mars are on hold after an independent review board criticized the cost and complexity.

The Martian rover Perseverance has spent the past two years collecting core samples for eventual transport to Earth.

Drivers in Adelaide were left stunned after they spotted what appeared to be a young child on an e-scooter riding through a busy intersection.

In video, they can be seen waiting at the traffic lights on Craigmore Road at Blakeview in the city's northern suburbs at 5.30pm on Saturday.

Vision shows the rider then turning right onto Main North Road, where the speed limit gets up to 90km/h.

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Witness Georgia Beer told 9News the child appeared as young as 10.

"It's a weird thing to see," Beer said.

"I think everyone was a bit in shock to see a child of that age so confident, I guess.

"If a truck came around, even a four-wheel-drive, no one could see him from that low.

"It's definitely not safe for him to be on a main road."

Police are investigating the incident.

‘We’ve had two excavators, five trucks, two loaders and a [bulldozer] all working on it.’

The NZ First leader intends to launch inquiries into said areas.

The cocaine seized had a total estimated street value of $80 million.

Dozens of people have been charged across NSW during a widespread police operation.

From Thursday morning to Saturday morning, police charged 140 people and seized five guns, 61 knives and a set of knuckledusters, in an operation targeting knife crime and "anti-social behaviours".

The 48-hour police blitz saw arrests made in Kincumber, Bankstown, Manly and Arndell Park and charges laid for weapons related offences, drug detections, outstanding warrants and bail condition breaches.

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More than 4000 random breath tests were also conducted across "known hotspots and districts throughout the state".

Police drug detection dogs were deployed to train stations around the city.

Detective acting Superintendent Glen Parks said Operation Foil had been a huge success.

"Operations such as this one is about keeping the public safe," he said.

"The fact we were able to get five firearms and 61 knives off the street demonstrates the success of the operation."

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The number of knives carried by young people stood out as cause for alarm.

"It is still concerning that we still have a portion of the community who chose to carry knives; and it's particularly concerning that a large number of these are young people," he said.

As part of the operation, a 30-year-old man was arrested in Kincumber, on the NSW central coast. Police allege the man was wanted for a number of offences including possessing a firearm, supplying prohibited drugs and kidnapping.

The man was charged with 18 offences and refused bail, to appear before Gosford Local Court in November.

On Thursday evening, a 46-year-old man was allegedly found with a set of knuckledusters at Bankstown station in Sydney's south-west.

Police charged him over the possession of the prohibited weapon.

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In another arrest made during the operation, a woman was arrested after a police chase along Reservoir Road in Arndell Park.

After the woman allegedly refused to stop, police deployed road spikes, bringing the vehicle to a stop.

She was charged for driving while disqualified, driving recklessly and drug possession.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has allegedly been assaulted while out in her local electorate.

It's understood Fyles was at Nightcliff Markets in Darwin about 11.40am when a member of the public, believed to be a woman, pushed a cream-covered crepe into Fyles' face.

9News understands Fyles has spoken with police since the incident.

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Police have said they "are investigating an incident that occurred at Nightcliff Markets about 11.40am this morning".

9News has been told Fyles usually attends the markets on a Sunday.

The minister has not yet made a statement but is due to front the media for an appearance on another matter tomorrow.

More to come.

Auckland will catch the edge of the “atmospheric river” causing havoc on the East Coast.