Underworld kingpin George Marrogi has won a legal fight over his conditions in custody, with a judge finding the killer has been deprived of access to open air.

Marrogi, who is serving a 38-year prison sentence for murder and drug trafficking, took Victoria's Department of Justice to the Supreme Court, arguing his rights had been breached.

He pointed to legislation which states every prisoner should have access to open air for at least an hour each day.

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Marrogi's lawyers argued their client had been deprived of that right during his time at the Melbourne Remand Centre and Barwon Prison between May 2023 and September last year.

Supreme Court Justice Claire Harris on Monday agreed, ruling the rear yards at the remand centre's Exford Units and Barwon's Olearia, Melaleuca and Acacia did not have open air.

"The yard felt enclosed, with limited room to move around and the only view to the outdoors being to the sky above the yard through the mesh on the cell's roof," the judge said in her written judgment.

Justice Harris accepted prisoners did have access to open air in the Olearia and Acacia units' exercise yards.

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After going in person to view the units, she noted she could see the sky in those spaces and it was possible to feel a breeze.

"I felt the warmth of the sun coming into the yard, which was visible in the brightness and shadows it cast, and felt breezes," the judgment read.

"I could hear sounds of birds and other sounds associated with being outside, such as airplanes and the sound of wind."

In contrast, the rear yards at Barwon and the Melbourne Remand Centre were small and felt enclosed with layered wire mesh ceilings, the judge said.

"There was no sense of being outside or in an open space," the judgment read.

Justice Harris also found that there were dozens of occasions between May 2023 and June 2025 where Marrogi's right to dress in private after a strip search was breached.

The parties will return to court to discuss next steps at a later date.

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For generations, scientists considered the use of tools to be the defining separation between humans and animals.

This, apparently, would come as a shock to Veronika the cow.

Because the Swiss brown cow has taught itself how to scratch its hard-to-reach places using a broom.

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According to biologist Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaro, Veronika is the first cow to use tools.

And when studied in a paddock at its home in Austria, it varied its use based on its needs.

When it needed a harder scrub, it would use the stiffer-bristled end.

For a softer touch, it would flip it around and use the rounded tip of the broom.

"The only well-documented case of something comparable comes from chimpanzees, on those – also rare – occasions when they fish for termites by combining the functions of the two opposite ends of the same stick," Osuna-Mascaro told the BBC.

Tool use among primates has been well-documented and studied, but despite how close they are to humans, cows have not been given the same treatment.

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"It is important to know that cows have the capacity to innovate in their use of tools and to use them flexibly, because this sends a strong message about how biased we have been regarding cows' intelligence and their capabilities," Osuna-Mascaro said.

Veronika's life isn't that of the typical cow.

The Swiss brown is a pet rather than part of a herd.

Osuna-Mascaro said he wanted to hear from other people who have witnessed cows using tools.

"The key element is this: grabbing a free-moving object and using it as an extension of oneself in order to reach targets that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to reach," he said.

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So scratching their heads on a fencepost doesn't count.

The notion that only humans could use tools was debunked in 1960.

When observing chimpanzees, the late anthropologist Jane Goodall noticed them using stalks of grass to fish out insects to eat from termite mounds.

Since then, tool use has been observed in certain types of fish, birds, reptiles and octopuses.

Elephants, sea otters, mongooses, honey badgers and other mammals have also been spotted using tools.

Osuna-Mascaro's findings have been published in the latest issue of Current Biology.

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A powerful geomagnetic storm currently in progress could trigger the aurora australis and set the skies above the country ablaze in colourful lights tonight.

But the rare phenomenon won't be visible in every state, if it happens at all.

Yesterday, the sun released a powerful solar flare which sent a coronal mass ejection (CME) speeding towards Earth.

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CMEs are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field that can travel at speeds of up to 3000km/s, and this one kicked off a major geomagnetic storm.

The Bureau of Meteorology's (BoM) Australian Space Weather Forecasting System even issued an alert about the disturbance yesterday.

"The Bureau continues to monitor the situation and will provide updates of significant changes," a spokesperson told 9news.com.au.

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It all sounds like something out of a sci-fi film like Armageddon but Swinburne University of Technology astrophysics lecturer Dr Kirsten Banks said it's normal.

"The sun does release lots of flares, especially around this time of its cycle," she said.

"This is very natural."

The sun follows an 11-year cycle in which it shifts from being not very active to very active, and right now it's in a very active phase.

But what does that have to do with the aurora Australis?

When the sun releases a CME, energy and charged particles may collide with the Earth's atmosphere and interact with the Earth's magnetic field, causing geomagnetic storms.

That can push charged particles like electrons further down into the atmosphere near the Earth's magnetic poles.

Those particles interact with other particles in the atmosphere, like oxygen and nitrogen, to produce colourful aurora.

And Australians in the nation's south have the chance to witness the rare phenomenon tonight.

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People in Victoria, Tasmania, and the southern parts of South Australia and Western Australia may see the aurora australis with the naked eye tonight.

"Bright auroras can be visible at lower latitudes than usual when geomagnetic storms at this intensity occur, including dark-sky locations in the southern Australian region," the BoM spokesperson said.

"As current geomagnetic storm conditions are ongoing, there is a chance that the aurora may be visible this evening, although the chance of auroral sightings may decrease if and when storming conditions begin to subside."

Banks witnessed the aurora australis from Brighton in Melbourne the last time an event like this happened in November 2025.

She urged Aussies to take the chance to see them again tonight.

"It's always a good time to look up at the night sky, today's just extra special," she said.

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As for whether Aussies should be worried about negative impacts from the ongoing geomagnetic storm, Banks said the risks of something going wrong are low.

"Satellites that are higher up in orbit around the Earth may get affected by this solar activity," she said.

"And we do need to put in protective measures to help our uh power grids to not surge from all this activity if we do have [a major event]."

Otherwise, her advice to everyone in the southern parts of Australia is to get the binoculars and train them on the sky tonight.

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