Passengers on a river cruise in the Northern Territory could hardly believe their eyes when six-metre crocodile, known as "Dominator", began devouring a juvenile croc within metres of their boat.

The giant reptile, believed to be 80 years old, was seen biting and thrashing its victim on the Adelaide River near Darwin while those on the boat were heard screaming "No! You naughty boy!" and "gross" in graphic footage taken last Friday.

READ MORE: Threats remain as firefighters quench Sydney factory blaze

"If he keeps gobbling up two-metre crocs like the one here, he could eventually grow to being one of the biggest crocodiles in the world", Jake, a representative for The Croc Bus told 9news.com.au

"It's a kind of population control," he said. "This river is infested with crocs every hundred metres.

"And we're just at the end of the breeding season."

READ MORE: Hungry croc rams into family's small boat in remote NT waters

Jake revealed that after four to eight weeks, crocodiles lose their maternal instinct "and in this case, this young croc was seen as prey".

But "Dominator" has reportedly been involved in territorial disputes with another alpha crocodile in the area named "Brutus."

"He's moved down the river, and been getting really aggressive," The Croc Bus team told 9news.com.au.

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On the sixth anniversary of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, its architects are gathering at the sacred space to call for Australians to read and accept its invitation, while sporting bodies around Australia have united to back the Voice to Parliament.

Uluru Dialogue co-chairs Professor Megan Davis, and Pat Anderson, gathered with Indigenous leaders from around the country at Uluru on Anangu Country today.

It comes as the referendum over the Voice to Parliament looms large in the national dialogue, with recent polling suggesting the "yes" vote commands a shrinking majority of support.

READ MORE: Threats remain as firefighters quench Sydney factory blaze

Today, National Sorry Day, also saw more than 20 sporting bodies around the country including the NRL, AFL, Football Australia, Tennis Australia, Cricket Australia, Netball Australia, and the National Basketball League, come together in a landmark ceremony to pledge their support for the Voice.

Former rugby league great and CEO of Indigenous-led boxing business No Limit Boxing, George Rose, said he was proud to be a part of it.

"Sport has always been an equaliser for our people. It's always gave us opportunities to be the best that we can be," he said.

"And I appreciate each and every one of you CEOs who are out here supporting our people."

The pledge from the sporting bodies includes a letter to fans from all signatories, which was read out onstage by a plethora of greats including former Diamonds captain Kath Cox, Hall of Fame basketballer Andrew Gaze, AFL legend Eddie Betts and rugby league Immortal Mal Meninga.

The letter encouraged sports lovers to listen to the Voice debate with "open hearts and open minds" and committed the sports bodies to supporting the constitutional change.

Statement from the Heart 'an invitation'

The Statement from the Heart was the document that proposed a constitutionally-enshrined Voice.

"The Uluru Statement from the Heart was the culmination of the most significant discussions about constitutional recognition ever undertaken with First Nations peoples across Australia," Davis said.

"It is an invitation to all Australians to recognise the dire need for change to the status quo for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to take a step that will make a difference to the lives of First Nations peoples."

READ MORE: What cop allegedly said before Nowland was Tasered

Davis said today was an "emotional" occasion.

"But I am as confident today as I was when I read the Statement at Uluru in 2017, that the Australian people will embrace its sentiment and support the overwhelming majority of First Nations Peoples who simply want to have a say over the decisions that impact our lives," she said.

Her Uluru Dialogue co-chair Anderson said the anniversary was a time to acknowledge the work that led to the consensus at Uluru six years ago.

"This must be the year that Australia makes the words of the Statement a reality and end the torment of our powerlessness. Our people can't wait any longer."

READ MORE: Cops among dead as city remains locked down

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made the commitment to a referendum on the Voice a central plank of his 2022 election campaign.

The wording of the question the Australian people will answer, along with details about how the Voice will function – including its lack of veto or legislative power – was revealed earlier this year.

A date for the referendum is yet to be set.

EXPLAINED: What is the Indigenous Voice to parliament and what would a referendum entail?

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When the pain suddenly came on, Emma Hurst would be left completely incapacitated.

"I could hardly construct a sentence, could not stand, vomited multiple times from the pain, and my body was shaking uncontrollably," she recalled.

Painkillers often didn't make a difference, and one episode was so severe it pushed her to call for an ambulance for the first time in her 39 years as she lay on a bathroom floor.

The New South Wales MP went on to have a series of similar experiences when working in her office before she had surgery to treat her adenomyosis

READ MORE: You've probably heard of endometriosis – but what about its 'bad cousin' that impacts even more women?

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Father-and-son duo Ken and Dave Warby were getting set to break their world water speed record when Ken passed away in February

This weekend, Dave and his team will take their jet-powered speed boat the Spirit of Australia II back onto the water for the first time since Ken's passing, as they push to continue his legacy as the "fastest man on water".

Dave, alongside the Warby Motorsport team, will return to the site of the original world record runs in the NSW Snowy Mountains as they look to bring their jet-powered boat up to blistering speeds of 550km/h.

READ MORE: World speedboat record holder, dies aged 83

A classic tale of Aussie ingenuity, Ken built the original Spirit of Australia in his backyard.

During his record-breaking motorsports career, he set the world speed record of 463km/h on Blowering Reservoir in southern NSW, in 1977.

He then broke his own record the next year, topping out the jet boat at an astonishing top speed of 511 km/h.

Before his passing in February 2023, Ken had been closely involved in the design and build of a new boat alongside his son.

Now, after eight years of development, the Spirit of Australia II is "the best it's going to be", according to the Warby motorsports team crew chief, former RAAF squadron leader Phillip Frawley.

"This is the final test for stability, if we get that sorted then we will press on," said the man once considered Australia's most experienced fighter pilot before his retirement."

READ MORE: What we know about 11-13 Randle Street, the heritage-listed hat factory destroyed by the Sydney CBD fire

On Saturday and Sunday the team will take the boat out on Blowering Reservoir, a long, straight alpine river near the town of Tumut.

"It's the best waterway in Australia for us to do it at, and the Tumut council and surrounding people are so incredibly supportive," Frawley told 9news.com.au.

"It's also an emotional attachment because that's where Ken set the record, so Dave wants to do it there."

The team is confident about the boat's capabilities.

But Frawley stressed while they were keen to get their names in the history books, they wouldn't sacrifice their safety to do it.

Asked why nobody had been able to beat Ken's record since 1978, the veteran fighter pilot said: "Two or three people have tried, and they died."

"The reason being, is they succumbed to pressure rather than doing what we do, which is gradual testing," he said.

He referred to the two previous attempts at the official record in 1980 and 1989, which saw both pilots killed in the US.

"We're not in a rush. It's a massive undertaking and it's incredibly dangerous. If it goes wrong, it will be tragically wrong in a heartbeat," he said.

Instead of rushing into the record speed attempt, the team plans to "sneak up on it gradually".

The Spirit of Australia II has undergone extensive computerised testing and wind tunnel modelling with Newcastle University. The team knows the boat has a theoretical max-speed of more than 600 km/h, but the speed seekers will be content just to set a new record.

"Dave and his dad spoke about this many times, and Ken was very very keen for Dave to break the record," Frawley said.

"That's something that they've had between themselves.

"Ken put a lot of work into this boat but sadly he passed away before he was able to see it break the record."

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The next phone call you receive from your loved one, may not actually be from your loved one.

That's the warning from an Australian artificial intelligence expert who said voice cloning algorithms are becoming more sophisticated, and being increasingly used by scammers.

9news.com.au investigated the accessibility, ease of use, and efficacy of AI voice-cloning tools and we were able to convincingly recreate the voice of one of our journalists using an online voice-cloning tool.

You can listen to the two voices – real and AI-generated – in the video above.

So, how does the technology actually work?

READ MORE: Do you feel like your phone is listening to you? You're not wrong

Dr Diep N Nguyen, Associate Professor with the School of Electrical and Data Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney, said AI models can recreate vocal frequencies from a relatively short voice clip and string snippets into coherent sentences.

"Some AI models and algorithms need as little as a minute or less of recording," he told 9news.com.au.

"That's good enough for them to synthesise a reasonably high-quality voice clone.

"(But) the more a person talks the better."

Nguyen added advanced AI models and algorithms can synthesise a voice so well "it is hard for an ordinary person to differentiate the cloned and the authentic one".

READ MORE: Will AI ever reach human-level intelligence? Five experts weigh in 

"Some models/AI algorithms boast that they can achieve 99 per cent accuracy, in comparison with the authentic voice," he said.

"No doubt it would be possible.

"With this one per cent difference, for humans, it would be very difficult to recognise the difference". 

The rise of AI voice cloning scams

Scammers are increasingly using emerging technology to swindle victims out of large sums of money.

"(There's been) many cases overseas, in the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong," Nguyen said.

"No doubt it will come to Australia.

"I believe Australia is vulnerable to many cyber-attacks and voice cloning is for sure a high risk."

READ MORE: Sydney mum shares entire conversation with scammer

A mother in the US claimed she nearly fell victim to an AI voice scam last month after receiving a panicked call – allegedly from her daughter – who said she had been kidnapped.

The 15-year-old, who was on a ski trip, never said any of the words Jennifer DeStefano heard.

What to watch out for

Nguyen said scammers could theoretically use existing social media videos and run them through an AI voice cloner to recreate a voice.

"Whatever we share online via Facebook, TikTok, YouTube – including our voice, photos and videos – can be potentially used by deep fake technologies to train AI models for cloning purposes," he said.

"With the ever-fast advances of AI models, less and less training data will be required to synthesise voices that are sufficiently close to the authentic ones for fraudulent behaviors.

"So be wary of your personal digital "profiling/data" that you may share."

READ MORE: The ten passwords to avoid at all costs

He added people should start second guessing any call, which makes a request for a money transfer; whether it be from a loved one or not.

"The best thing people can do is say, 'thank you very much', and hang up the phone," Nguyen said.

"Then re-call the person who allegedly just called you to confirm.

"Let's say it's from my mum, I should call my mum and ask 'did you just call me?' and if she confirms, then yes it's probably ok."

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The moment a 10-person brawl erupted at a US airport has been captured on video, depicting a group throwing punches at one another as others wrestle on the ground.

The physical altercation broke out at baggage claim in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after a "verbal dispute" when passengers disembarked the plane intensified earlier this week.

According to the Chicago Police Department, a 24-year-old woman was allegedly attacked by "two offenders", which then heightened the argument.

READ MORE: Brawl forces local football match to be abandoned in Melbourne

In the video, a group are seen brawling just beside the baggage claim at Terminal 3 of the international airport.

As the fight intensifies, more people run toward to the group, some attempting to break up the argument, others joining in on the clash.

The video appears to show a man brutally shove a woman at one point, to which bystanders jump in with screams: "Hey, hey bro".

An 18-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were arrested.

The duo will face court after being charged with battery.

READ MORE: Children 'screaming' to missing friend as they fled Sydney flames, witness says

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Police are asking members of the public to avoid the area while they make inquiries.

Firefighters say a massive blaze that engulfed a vacant seven-storey building in central Sydney has now been "effectively contained".

The massive inferno saw plumes of smoke drift over the city and nearby streets shut down as the building started to collapse.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the area as the fire burned through several levels of the multi-storey building on Randle Street near Central Station.

READ MORE: Witness accounts from the ground

Some sections of the exterior walls crumbled onto the pavement below.

NSW Fire and Rescue Commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell warned it would be still some time until the flames were fully extinguished.

"The fire is now effectively contained but it will be a substantial and very prolonged duration of firefighting to extinguish the fire completely," Fewtrell said.

"It's a combination of the aerial attack and the ground monitor attack at work at the moment."

Fewtrell said the building was made out of "well seasoned and dry timber" with significant airflow between the levels, which is what caused the building to burn with such speed and intensity.

"The information we have at this stage was the buildings were vacant or unoccupied, whether they were under construction or about to have sort of demolition or work done," he said.

Initial reports suggest the building was abandoned but hundreds of people in nearby apartments and office buildings have been evacuated.

Firefighters then worked to contain a new secondary blaze at a neighbouring building.

Fire alarms went off in surrounding buildings after sensing the smoke, which Fewtrell said contributed to everyone evacuating safely.

"We have some engineers attending the scene and they'll help guide our decisions around safety considerations, particularly around the risk of collapse," Fewtrell added.

"We will make the assessments on a building-by-building basis to determine when it's safe and the conditions that are safe for them to return."

Both NSW Police and Fire and Rescue have warned people to stay away from the scene.

https://twitter.com/FRNSW/status/1661634790662209536

'Bloody scary'

One woman who was near Central Station at the time told 9News she was "a bit in shock".

"I was right there and it was very loud," she said.

One student said he felt a wave of heat move across his face.

"It was bloody scary when it collapsed," he said.

"It was really loud and I was scared for the people who were around there.

"The wave of heat that came on my face, it was scary."

Police added that several road closures are in place around Central Station

Witnesses on the ground during the evening commute described the chaotic scene.

"Probably one of the biggest building fires I've seen in the city," 9News senior cameraman Mike McGee said.

"I first got off the train and saw the smoke.

"That was pretty much before any fire trucks or police had arrived.

"There were flames leaping out from every window."

Transport update

Light rail services on the L2 Randwick and L3 Kingsford lines have been suspended due to the blaze.

Train services have not been impacted by the blaze, a Transport for NSW spokesperson told 9news.com.au.

Some bus services are being diverted in the area.

Road closures

Chalmers Street and Randle Street are closed between Cleveland and Elizabeth Street.

Elizabeth Street is closed southbound at Foveaux Street.

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An officer allegedly asked great-grandmother Clare Nowland to "stop" several times during negotiations with her to drop a steak knife before saying "bugger it" as he was deploying his taser.

The new police allegations come after the 95-year-old great-grandmother died last night, after being rushed to the Cooma Base Hospital from the Yallambee Lodge in the NSW Snowy Mountains on May 18.

Not long before Nowland died, surrounded by her family, police charged Senior Constable Kristian White with three offences including recklessly causing grievous bodily harm.

READ MORE: Man shot dead by police in Sydney suburb

Police will allege Nowland, who used a walking frame, was holding a steak knife when the officer said "stop" several times, and "drop it".

It's the police case that the 95-year-old – who suffers from dementia – then raised the knife to chest height in the direction of his colleague. The senior constable asked her to stop before allegedly saying "bugger it" as he deployed the taser.

White – who is suspended with pay – is charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and common assault.

READ MORE: WA to get 'toughest gun laws in Australia' after school shooting

"He is very distressed. He's concerned for not only his own welfare but the welfare of all people involved in this matter," White's lawyer Warwick Anderson said.

"I don't think that there's any dispute that on his way to this job in his wildest dreams it would unfold in the way it may have," he said.

"He was at home in bed shortly before he got called out to attend a nursing home and I don't think that there's any dispute that on his way to this job in his wildest dreams it would unfold in the way it may have."

His client will be defending the charges.

READ MORE: Coroner accuses Caddick's husband of withholding information

"At this stage I'd anticipate he would enter a plea of not guilty – all of these matters will be reviewed when a brief of evidence is received," Anderson said.

9News understands the charges could be upgraded to manslaughter, but investigators will have to wait until the results of an autopsy, as they need to prove the tasering caused the injuries which led to Nowland's death.

Today, friends remembered the 95-year-old as a much-loved member of her community who adored her family.

"I've just noticed up at St Patrick's Church the flag is at half mast which really says to all of us, even if you didn't know her, she was really important to this community," Cooma local Mike Evans said.

Nowland was a mother to eight, grandmother to 24 and great-grandmother to 31.

Friend Kevin Dunne often visited Nowland at her nursing home and admired her faith in God and her commitment to being a volunteer.

"With Clare the thing that struck me the most was her love of her family," Dunne said.

"She's left a wonderful legacy, I think they'll all be inspired by the example of her life."

Electricity prices will increase between 20 and 25 per cent from July 1 for about 600,000 customers across three states, the Australian Energy Regulator has confirmed.

Half a million Victorian residents and small businesses will be affected by separate increases of $350 and $750 on average.

Thursday's moves will put pressure on many families, who will see their energy bills surge over winter.

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The AER's decision impacts customers in New South Wales, south-east Queensland and South Australia who are on the default market offer (DMO) over the coming financial year.

Customers in Victoria and Tasmania are part of a different process and Western Australia and the Northern Territory are on a different market.

The DMO is the maximum price providers give to households and businesses on standing deals who haven't searched for a more competitive deal, effectively a price cap.

From July 1, residential customers on standard retail plans will see price increases of 20.8 per cent to 23.9 per cent without controlled load and from 19.6 per cent to 24.9 per cent with controlled load, depending on their region.

Small business customers are facing rises of 14.7 per cent to 28.9 per cent, depending on their region.

The price rise is higher than the draft offer proposed by the AER in March when the regulator flagged hikes of 20 per cent to 22 per cent.

The AER said the revised increase was based on stakeholder feedback and factored in updated wholesale, network, environmental schemes and retail costs, the latest inflation forecasts and reduced the retail allowance in NSW.

Victorians will see an increase of $350 per year on the average household bill under their process, $750 for the average small business.

"You will see increases in default offers around the country today," Essential Services Commission chairperson Kate Symons said.

The change will impact 500,000 households and businesses on the default offer.

READ MORE: Earthquake in Banda Sea rattles Darwin and Top End

AER Chair Clare Savage said the regulator had to balance the cost-of-living pressures customers faced with the need for retailers to recover reasonable costs.

"We know households and small businesses continue to face cost-of-living pressures on many fronts, and that's why it's important the DMO provides a safety net for those who might not have shopped around for a better power deal," Savage said.

"In setting the DMO price this year we have sought to protect consumers from unjustifiably high prices and at the same time allow retailers to offer consumers better deals than their standard plans."

Savage advised customers to shop around for the best electricity price offer and use the AER price comparison site at www.energymadeeasy.gov.au.

READ MORE: How 'going woke' can help save dollars in the cost of living crisis

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