A boat carrying three people was rescued from the Coral Sea 835 kilometres off the coast of Queensland in the dead of night after their rescue beacon was detected by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

The emergency signal was first detected at 1.30am on Wednesday, and was found to originate from a 9-metre inflatable catamaran with three people on board.

The boat was reportedly on its way from Vanuatu to Cairns when contact was made with emergency services.

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Both hulls of the inflatable catamaran were said to be damaged after "several shark attacks".

AMSA requested the assistance of a nearby freighter ship carrying vehicles and directed them to the source of the distress signal.

The Dugong Ace, a vehicle carrier registered to Panama, was asked by AMSA to go to the source of the signal, while a rescue aircraft was scrambled from its base in Cairns.

The freighter was able to reach the stricken catamaran and conduct the rescue of the three people on board.

Two Russian citizens and a French citizen were brought aboard the freight ship.

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An Australian woman says she was forced to provide incredible dashcam footage to her insurance provider to prove her daughter was not at fault when her car was hit while sitting stationary in traffic.

Lifelong NRMA customer Jenny told Ben Fordham on 2GB she lodged an insurance claim after the front of her car was clipped in an accident while her daughter, an off-duty police officer, was behind the wheel on July 9 on their way back from a snow trip.

She claims an insurance representative said her daughter was at fault for the crash which damaged their vehicle, meaning she would have to pay the excess.

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"When we initially made the claim over the phone she kept referring to it as our car hitting another car, I kept saying to them, 'No, that's not correct'," she told Ben Fordham Live on 2GB.

"She was actually stationary in the outside lane, traffic has built up on Hume Highway, she has basically come to a full stop.

"A car was coming up the inside and was clipped by a car that tried to come into that lane.

"That caused it to roll approximately eight times and it rolled across the front of our car."

https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/exclusive-dash-cam-footage-clears-young-driver-of/embed

NRMA later cleared Jenny's daughter of blame after she took dashcam footage to an in-person NRMA office proving her innocence – however, the issue still wasn't resolved.

Nearly a month later, on August 1, the smash repair company informed Jenny that NRMA had denied their insurance claim to fix the paint blend on the vehicle.

"They (didn't) want to blend the paint to the surrounding panels, (but) according to the paint repair guidelines, if a panel's got to be replaced, then the paint has to be blended to the surrounding areas," she said.

"One of the doors had to be replaced and the front (panel), but the NRMA wouldn't allow that to happen."

READ MORE: Qantas' reputation is in the bin. What can new CEO Vanessa Hudson do to retrieve it?

The car is close to brand new and was purchased in May for $61,000.

Jenny decided to submit a claim with the driver at fault's insurance company to fix the paint job.

The claim was accepted within a matter of days.

"It's been two months of a nightmare," she said.

"The at-fault insurance company rang me and confirmed all the details … (it was) the identical claim to what we put through to the NRMA."

The car is still not ready two months after the initial claim was made.

In a statement to 9news.com.au, NRMA said it had apologised to Jenny over the incident.

"We understand this accident was a traumatic experience for our customer, her daughter, and their family," it said.

"When a customer has been in an accident our priority is ensuring that they're safe and that we make their claims experience as easy as possible."

"We've spoken with our customer today to apologise directly for their experience.

"We will always review dash cam footage to help determine who is at fault in an accident and agree this should have been resolved as soon as they had lodged their claim.

"We will also take the appropriate steps with the relevant teams to do everything we can to prevent a similar issue happening in the future."

Authorities in the US state of Indiana, are asking for public help and cooperation after finding two dogs inside a cage under a tarp without water.

According to Police Department, the dogs were found in a street in the town of Connersville, about 120kms south-east of Indianapolis

They were "hot and lethargic" inside the cage due to heat and lack of air flow, officers said.

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The animals had also defecated inside the crate and were confined in a very small area, where movement was nearly impossible, police said.

The owners left a note to "surrender" the dogs to whoever found them and left a bag of dog food and small amount of water in the cage, according to police.

The dogs, named Kilo and Rosco, were handed to a local animals shelter, despite it already being over capacity.

The Connersville Police Department asked anyone with interest in adopting the dogs or any other pets to contact the Fayette County Animal Shelter.

A 22-year-old German man has been detained in Florence accused of damaging a statue in the 16th-century Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza della Signoria, city authorities said in a statement.

The city estimates the damage to the statue is around €5,000 (A$8,400).

The fountain features a statue of the Roman sea god Neptune atop a shell-shaped carriage pulled by horses.

READ MORE: Tourist who vandalised Rome's Colosseum offers bizarre explanation

The tourist, who has not been named, scaled a protective barrier around the monument in the early hours of Monday and posed on the statue while two friends, who remained on the other side of the barrier, took photos of him, the city statement said, citing police officers who witnessed the event on surveillance footage.

"According to the investigators' reconstruction, after 1 o'clock this morning the tourist, in Piazza della Signoria with two other friends, climbed over the fence of the Neptune Fountain and climbed onto the edge of the pool," the statement said.

"With a jump he then climbed onto the horse's leg, reaching the base of the carriage and, after having some photos taken by his friends, he climbed down. During the descent he placed his foot again on the hoof, damaging it. As soon as the alarm went off, however, the young man had already managed to escape with the two others," it added.

The tourist will be charged under a city penal code that prohibits the "destruction, dispersion, deterioration, disfigurement, soiling or illicit use of cultural or landscape assets."

READ MORE: Qantas' reputation is in the bin. What can the new CEO do?

If convicted, the tourist could be fined and banned from entering the city.

The statue was previously damaged in 2005, when someone climbed on it and broke Neptune's hand. This prompted the authorities to install CCTV cameras.

In August, German tourists were accused of spray-painting soccer graffiti on a wall of the historic Vasari Corridor nearby.

The Fountain of Neptune was commissioned in 1559 by Cosimo I de Medici, Duke of Florence, to mark the marriage of his son Francesco and the Grand Duchess Joanna of Austria.

A Sydney man has tasted global glory after devouring the competition at an international eating competition in New York.

James Webb stunned observers when he downed 276 chicken wings in 12 minutes during the Wing It On! US Chicken Wing Eating Championship at the National Buffalo Wings Festival on the weekend.

His effort set a new world record.

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Webb, at 23 wings a minute, shredded the competition, which included established champion eaters Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo.

Chestnut, who came second, managed a comparatively paltry 240 wings.

"I was just trying to clean the bones as best I could," Webb said after his win.

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"I know I'm not as fast as these guys but if they're goning to weigh leftovers, if there's less chicken, well, I had a chance right.

"I guess my style works."

It was, remarkably, Webb's second eating win in 24 hours.

The day before, he ate 32 "sloppers" – cheeseburgers drenched in chili sauce – in eight minutes.

He said he was "shocked" and "grateful" to have taken the crown in the well-attended wings competition.

"If you told me this yesterday, I would have laughed in your face," he said.

In all the turmoil Qantas has faced over the past week and a half, one person has been kept firmly out of the spotlight.

But attention is now turning to Vanessa Hudson, the woman anointed as Alan Joyce's successor earlier this year who is now CEO two months earlier than expected after the latter's early retirement.

Facing her is what seems an unenviable task: turn around the airline's reputation after the battering it has taken in the court of public opinion and – in the last week at least – the share market, all while the national carrier faces legal action from a consumer watchdog hunting a record $600 million fine.

READ MORE: Hopes for Qantas 'circuit breaker' after Alan Joyce exits early

"Joyce has taken himself out of this because he's become a lightning rod for all the problems of Qantas and broadly, the aviation industry," aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief at Airline Ratings, told 9news.com.au.

"Coming out of COVID has been a nightmare for the airline industry because so many people were laid off.

"Now, Vanessa Hudson has got to just simply continue what Alan Joyce was already doing."

Research firm Roy Morgan said last month Australians consider Qantas to be the country's "13th most distrusted brand in the economy" – worse than budget airline Jetstar at 16th, which is also owned by Qantas Group.

Just three years ago, the national carrier was the third most trusted brand.

While this year's record pre-tax profit of $2.5 billion had indicated customer complaints weren't getting in the way of shareholder success, even that's starting to waver.

READ MORE: Alan Joyce expected to exit Qantas with final $24m payout

Qantas's share price has dropped 13 per cent over the past month and continued to dip even after Joyce's resignation on Tuesday.

But Hudson's task isn't quite as onerous as what it might seem, according to Thomas, who said Joyce had laid much of the groundwork for the airline's recovery.

"The airline's on the right trajectory," he said.

"I think that she's going to benefit from all the things that have been put in place … and now we're really getting to the point where the next six months it really is going to get a lot better, and it's gaining momentum.

"So she's going to ride that momentum."

In a video message sent to staff after Joyce's resignation, Hudson had little hesitation in identifying her top priority as CEO.

"As a company, our job is to get the balance right between looking after our customers; you, our people; and the business itself," she said.

"Right now, achieving this balance must start with our customers, and that's what we will be focused on with our new management team."

READ MORE: How to claim your unused Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin flight credits

Thomas says Hudson needs to continue Joyce's work to turn around the airline's reputation – continue refunding and redeeming flight credits, buying new fuel-efficient aircraft, and allowing international factors out of the airline's control to subside.

But others have called for far more drastic action.

"The Qantas board cannot hide behind Joyce's resignation. (Chairman) Richard Goyder should go next," Labor senator and long-time Joyce critic Tony Sheldon said after the CEO's departure was announced.

"The board has backed Joyce's behaviour at every step and must be held equally accountable for the disgraceful state of the company."

Sheldon also called for 1700 illegally sacked workers to be reinstated by the airline, and for the board and shareholders to withhold Joyce's bonus.

"If the board allows (the bonus to be paid) after illegally sacking 1700 people, gouging customers and while subject to an ACCC prosecution, it will be the swindle of the century."

Thomas doesn't expect critics to be so vociferous towards Hudson, even though, as a near-30-year veteran of Qantas, her hiring doesn't offer the same feeling of a fresh era as an external candidate might have.

"I think the Australian sense of giving someone a fair go will reign supreme and I think that she will have a fair go and I certainly sincerely hope she does," he said.

"But give it six months' time, if the changes haven't been made or things aren't better than they are right now, I think the knives might come out.

"But I think that she's got six months' grace."

Former Adelaide Crows footballer Mark Mickan has revealed how life-changing technology is allowing a doctor to treat his Parkinson's Disease from 700 kilometres away.

But the medical breakthrough is bittersweet, with many Parkinson's sufferers, including Mickan's brother, unable to benefit from the innovative treatment.

Mickan has had his symptoms eased from the comfort of his couch in Adelaide's western suburbs with the help of Melbourne neurologist Dr Andrew Evans.

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It is a breakthrough treatment for the former Crows Club Champion, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's a year after coaching West Adelaide to the 2015 Grand Final.

He had endured crippling stiffness and tremors.

"My whole feeling of well-being wasn't there and after the surgery, it was life-changing really," Mickan said.

Three implants were placed inside the 62-year-old's brain and linked to two pulse generators on either side of his chest.

These implants and generators are able to be controlled from Melbourne.

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"I can log in remotely to either one and at the same time I can see the effects of the stimulation changes that I'm making now many hundreds of kilometres away," Dr Evans said.

The treatment has seen Mickan regain control of his hands without the need for medication.

"I reserve the right to mow the lawn," Mickan said.

"I still can drive the car and I feel like I'm functioning as well as I possibly could under the circumstances."

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About 150,000 Australians are living with Parkinson's disease but there are only 1000 receiving this type of remote treatment.

Mickan hopes it will be rolled out more broadly in the years to come.

"There are a lot of people out there in the country or in regional areas who don't have access to a neurologist and they too could benefit in the same way that I have," Mickan said.

The treatment is not suitable for all Parkinson's cases and Mickan's brother is among those left to deal with the symptoms the best way they can.

"It was difficult for the whole family," he said.

"We certainly get around him and hope for the best."

Residents of a Queensland city claim noxious fumes from nearby waste facilities are making them sick, and are calling on urgent action to protect their health.

Ipswich locals have lodged tens of thousands of complaints with the state government, but the mayor says it isn't holding waste operators to account. 

"If I take the dogs out and I'm not quick enough to pick up on the smell, it'll bring on severe migraines," resident Gary Butler told 9News.

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"It's either I vomit, I dry retch, my nose, my eyes are stinging," his wife Tracy Butler added.

For five years, the couple has lived just streets away from several landfill and composting facilities in the Swanbank Industrial Area.

They said there is a stench sent across the city that is getting worse.

"When we go to bed, we make sure everything's fully closed as much as we can, we have a towel pushed up in our hallway at the gap in the garage," Tracey said.

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In 2018, the Queensland government established an "Odour Abatement Taskforce" to respond to the issue and since then, it's received nearly 25,000 complaints.

Tracey said locals have been told to keep filing complaints and, when the stench is really bad, to capture the air in canisters.

In a statement, the Department of Environment and Science said it has been "actively investigating odour nuisance reports" but that the issue is complex.

"Businesses involved in these activities are licenced by the department," it said.

"They must comply with their environmental obligations and not cause unlawful harm to the environment or impact on the community."

It said in recent months compliance officers have undertaken "detailed site inspections" and it is reviewing its findings.

"The results of scientific analysis of water, waste and compost product samples will determine potential enforcement action for any non-compliance," the department said.

"In response to community concerns, we will continue to provide air sampling canisters to residents in affected areas who are concerned about potential impacts on their health.

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"Results to date have not indicated any potential health concerns."

Ipswich Mayor Teresa Harding claimed the waste companies were not compliant and said the department was not punishing them.

"But we're not actually seeing any compliance action. We have waste operators in Ipswich who are not compliant," she told 9News.

"We're calling on the Department of Environment and Science to do their job."

The victim’s uncles likely were trying to teach him a lesson, the defence claimed.

Keep New Zealand Beautiful has shortlisted two towns for each category for its comp.