The beloved kuia from James and Isey has died peacefully at her Kawakawa home.

Brittany Higgins has been dealt another financial blow after her former boss launched bankruptcy proceedings to recoup costs awarded from her defamation win.

Linda Reynolds sued Higgins over a series of social media posts the ex-Liberal senator believed damaged her reputation.

A Western Australian Supreme Court in August found the posts were defamatory and awarded damages of $315,000 plus $26,109 interest to Reynolds.

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Higgins was also ordered to pay 80 per cent of Reynolds' yet-to-be-determined legal costs, but is appealing elements of the judgment.

She is challenging the damages and costs orders, and the finding that she breached a 2021 deed of settlement between the pair by referring to herself as a "defamation victim" in an Instagram post.

Reynolds confirmed today that she has filed a creditor's petition in the Federal Court, claiming Higgins "failed to comply" with a bankruptcy notice issued to her several weeks ago.

"It is unfortunate that I have to take this step in this long-running saga," the former parliamentarian said in a statement.

"As I have said, this is conduct which comes as no surprise to me however what should be plain now is that I am committed to seeing this through to the end."

Federal Court records show the former senator filed the bankruptcy proceedings against Higgins on Friday.

READ MORE: Study claims social media is making kids dumber as Wells launches ban ad

Higgins' husband David Sharaz has also been served with similar bankruptcy proceedings by Reynolds.

The ex-political staffer apologised to Reynolds following the former defence minister's high-profile five-week defamation trial victory in September 2024.

The trial centred on a tweet Higgins and her husband published in January 2022, which carried imputations that Reynolds pressured Higgins not to proceed with a sexual assault complaint and that she was a hypocrite in her advocacy of gender equality and female empowerment.

Justice Paul Tottle found Higgins' social media posts were defamatory after they implied Reynolds engaged in a campaign of harassment against Higgins, mishandled her rape allegation and engaged in questionable conduct during Bruce Lehrmann's aborted criminal trial for rape.

The 360-page judgment made factual findings about events involving the pair, including Higgins' alleged 2019 rape and that Higgins made 26 false or misleading statements in media interviews.

READ MORE: Personal phone numbers of Albanese, Ley and Trump published on US website

She alleges former co-worker Lehrmann raped her in the senator's ministerial suite, a claim he has always denied.

His criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct.

A Federal Court judge overseeing a defamation case launched by Lehrmann against Network Ten found Higgins was, on the balance of probabilities, raped by her former colleague in the office.

Lehrmann is appealing that finding.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Children who use social media more often are likely to have lower cognitive function than their peers, a new US study has claimed.

The study, published in the JAMA network, found children who increased their social media use between the ages of nine and 13 performed worse than their kids with less social media usage.

Thousands of kids were categorised into groups based on their social media usage, and then tasked with completing a range of memory, reading and vocabulary tests to chart whether social media usage impacted cognitive abilities.

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For example, children with zero or low social media usage scored an average of 103.5 in an oral reading recognition test, whilst kids with low increasing usage and high increasing usage scored 99.4 and 96.7, respectively.

The study found social media usage remains low at the age of nine, but increases dramatically as kids turn 12 years old and enter high school.

"This analysis found that both low and high increases in social media use throughout early adolescence were significantly associated with lower performance in specific aspects of cognitive function," the authors of the study wrote.

"The finding that even low levels of early adolescent social media exposure were linked to poorer cognitive performance may suggest support for stricter age restrictions."

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The findings come as Australia prepares to implement its world-first social media ban on children under the age of 16.

Communications Minister Anika Wells fronted media today to launch an advertising campaign ahead of the ban being enforced from December 10.

Wells claimed it was important for kids impacted by the ban to watch the campaign to get a greater understanding as to why it is going ahead.

READ MORE: 'Warm and loving' teen killed on way to school was days from starting his first job

"They'll see it on TV, they'll see it online, they'll see it ironically on social media, because until the 10th of December, it is legal for kids to be on social media," Wells said.

"And if that's where they are, that's where we need to talk to them about what this means and why we're doing it."

The ban is still receiving backlash from some of the world's biggest social media companies, with officials from Google warning a Senate committee yesterday of the potential negative impacts.

"Forcing kids to use YouTube without an account removes the very parental controls and safety filters built to protect them," Rachel Lord, Google and YouTube's public policy and government affairs manager, said

"It's also the ability of parents to set up supervised accounts for their children."

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The phone numbers of several high-profile politicians, including the prime minister, opposition leader and even Donald Trump have been published online.

A US data company appears to have used AI to scrape the internet for the personal phone numbers and emails of Anthony Albanese and Sussan Ley and made them publicly available.

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said the government is "aware" of the incident.

READ MORE: Whip-sawing temperatures to see millions bake while others freeze

"We've notified authorities, and that is being worked through, but obviously, there is concern," Marles told reporters at Parliament House.

LinkedIn has been named as a possible source of the information.

However, a spokesperson for the site denied there was a data breach.

"Our policies are clear that third-party companies taking personal data and using it in ways our members did not agree to is prohibited, and these companies are not affiliated with LinkedIn," the spokesperson told The Sydney Morning Herald.

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A spokesman for Ley said the personal information could only be accessed by a login.

"We were made aware of this issue when media contacted us yesterday," the spokesman said.

"This is obviously concerning, and we have reached out to LinkedIn to understand what occurred here.

"We are waiting for their response. We have asked the website to remove the information."

READ MORE: 'Warm and loving' teen killed on way to school was days from starting his first job

The website also published the numbers of former prime minister Scott Morrison, former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop and Trump's business number.

The website has not been named.

9news.com.au has contacted the prime minister's office for comment.

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One of Australia's best-known TV and radio commentators is fleeing Victoria in disgust because of the state's burgeoning crime problem.

After almost 40 years as an entertainment reporter across many outlets, Peter Ford has become better known than many of those whose lives and careers he has reported.

He was born in Melbourne and has lived there most of his life.

https://omny.fm/shows/neil-mitchell-asks-why/peter-ford/embed?style=cover

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Now, he's joined a growing number of people who believe the city is just too unpleasant and too dangerous.

He has told the Nine podcast Neil Mitchell Asks Why that he has given up on Melbourne and holds out little hope of rapid improvement, despite promises from the Labor government.

His own house has been targeted multiple times.

"I just don't want to live here anymore. Why? I'm just disgusted by what's happening here," Ford said.

"I've had issues, security issues at my own home. I won't go into details.

"But five break-ins this year.

"They got into the house once, but there were five attempts.

"And I have been concerned about security prior to that anyway.

"Every day you pick up the paper, there's stories about machetes, and I just can't live here anymore. "

Ford owns a suburban property and a holiday house outside Melbourne.

He will sell both and move interstate. He hasn't yet decided where.

But it is not only the theft and aggravated burglaries driving him away.

"I had a homeless person living 20 feet from my bedroom window until quite recently, and which wouldn't be so bad, except he would then scream out in the middle of the night.

"For whatever reason, my little area, which was a very lovely suburb, the word's got out that this is a great place to go and, you know, shoot up drugs or whatever.

"So the time has come for a fresh start."

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Ford sees little hope of an improvement for what was once the Garden City.

"I don't see the problems in Melbourne turning around very quickly," he said.

"I'm not going to get political because that's not my domain.

"But I'm very saddened by every single day, by the terrible things I'm reading that are happening in Melbourne.

"And I just don't want to live here anymore."

He leaves with regret, but will continue his work in whatever city he decides to call home.

"Of course, I'm lucky to have that option. And that's what I'm going to utilise," he said.

"I will always have very fond memories of Melbourne.

"It's still a beautiful city, but I think we're beset with such problems now that cannot be turned around overnight.

"You know, maybe ten years. And I'll be reading about the improvements in my nursing home somewhere."

Ford's decision adds to Victoria's worsening image as a crime-ravaged place of danger.

It follows another high-profile case where premiership coach Mick Malthouse and his wife were victims of an aggravated burglary.

Charges have been laid, but it was reported Malthouse had an old exercise bar near his bed which he used as a weapon.

Anecdotally, that's a growing trend.

A former senior politician told me recently he is planning to buy a baseball bat as protection.

Some politicians say such nervousness is an overreaction but perceptions weigh as heavily as reality when you're locking the house at night.

Crimes are also becoming more violent.

Young offenders go armed with machetes, and retail crime has surged.

There are frightening gang fights in shopping centres.

The figures to June show a 22 per cent in aggravated burglaries, which is when burglars enter an occupied house, usually in the middle of the night.

Arguably, it is the most frightening crime.

There were 7856 cases.

Allowing an average of four people to a house, that is 32,000 victims facing the worst type of threat.

The youth crime surge continued, with 24,550 crimes by 10-17 year olds – up almost 18 per cent.

Car theft jumped by almost half, 42 per cent.

Theft from cars was up 39 per cent and retail crime up 27 per cent.

The state opposition calculates there has been a crime every 49.4 seconds.

Crime statistics do not count the victims, but there were 483,583 criminal incidents, an increase of 18.3 per cent.

That's the highest figure in 20 years.

If it is assumed there are an average of two victims per criminal incident, that is nudging one million victims in a Victorian population of almost seven million.

That means around 14 per cent of the population has been a victim in the past 12 months.

Inevitably, there will be more Victorian victims over the next year.

Ford will not be one of them.

Neil Mitchell Asks Why is a Nine podcast posted each Tuesday at 6am.

Coffins containing the bodies of four hostages seized by Hamas in their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel have returned home overnight.

The coffins of the four dead hostages are now in Israel, according to police, and being escorted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency (ISA) to be formally identified at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv.

After identification, their families will be notified immediately, the IDF and ISA said in a joint statement overnight.

READ MORE: Tears across Israel as living hostages reunite with families

Hamas said earlier that it would return the bodies of hostages Daniel Peretz, Yossi Sharabi, Guy Illouz, and Bipin Joshi on Monday local time.

Before crossing into Israeli territory, the IDF soldiers staged a ceremony in which they draped the hostages' coffins with Israeli flags, saluted them, and recited a chapter from the Book of Psalms, according to their statement.

In previous instances where bodies were returned, a DNA analysis was performed to confirm the identities of the people.

READ MORE: Palestinians celebrate as prisoners are released by Israel

https://x.com/IDF/status/1977800992872898603

While the hostage families did not expect all of the bodies to return on Monday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said previously it had been "were shocked and dismayed" by the news only four would be released.

Under the agreement brokered by the US, Hamas and its allies were meant to release all of the remaining hostages, alive and dead, within 72 hours of the ceasefire being announced.

However, CNN reported last week that Israel assessed that Hamas may not be able to find and return all the remaining dead hostages in Gaza.

READ MORE: Trump claims heroic role as final living Israeli hostages freed

An international committee will help locate the bodies that Hamas may be unable to find, Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Israel's Prime Minister's Office said Sunday.

It is unclear what that taskforce will look like at this time.

"The Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) insists that we will act to locate all of these hostages as soon as possible, and we will do that as a sacred duty of communal responsibility," Bedrosian said.

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It was a day of joy and tears across Israel. Families, loved ones and friends watched as Hamas released the last living hostages held captive for more than two years in the Gaza Strip.

On day 738 since Alon Ohel was taken hostage, family and friends of the young music lover jumped to their feet, cheered, blew into shofars — traditional horns that announce glad tidings — and hugged each other when they saw his picture on a livestream among the seven hostages Hamas first released to the Red Cross on Monday morning (Monday evening AEDT).

"This is the best morning in my life. I just want to hug him," Ohel's cousin, Noam Rozen, 24, said before choking up.

READ MORE: For some, saving hostages means freeing militants who killed loved ones

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By midday, 13 more hostages were freed, bringing the final number of the living hostages released to 20.

With other members of his family, and dozens of supporters cheering, Rozen took down one of the hostage posters that had long been hanging by the village's entrance and replaced it with a banner saying in Hebrew: "Welcome back home — the heart returned to beating and now we can breathe."

The wait on a Galilee hilltop village

Hundreds had been packing the small community centre of the hilltop village of Lavon in the Galilee since before dawn for one of the most important days of their lives — when the last 20 living hostages were scheduled to be released, first to the Red Cross and then to the Israeli military, as part of a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

"I told God many months ago, 'If Alon is coming home, I bring shofar and I say thank you for this,'" said Yaniv Shema Zion, who's known Ohel since he was a toddler.

Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of Ohel, people from Lavon waved flags, sang hymns, hugged and wiped away tears before falling silent in front of the projected screen carrying images from Gaza of the release.

READ MORE: Thousands of Palestinians return to what remains of their homes

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"Knowing Alon, there was no chance not to get him back with us," his aunt, Nirit Ohel said, though she added the family was still worried about his health.

Alon Ohel had had shrapnel in his eye from the October 7, 2023 attack on the bomb shelter in southern Israel where he had sought refuge.

People in Lavon jumped on chairs and shouted with joy when the first images of Ohel were broadcast, showing him thin but smiling.

People in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square sobbed as photos of the hostages reuniting with their families flashed on the large screens. The names and faces of the hostages and their families have become household names across Israel over the past two years.

Endless days in chains

Ohel was kidnapped at the Nova music festival from a mobile bomb shelter along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli who was killed in captivity in August 2024.

Eli Sharabi, another hostage held with Ohel and released in a previous ceasefire said they were kept chained, with only a moldy pita bread per day for food.

READ MORE: Trump says Israel and Hamas agree to 'first phase' of Gaza peace deal

Ohel became a symbol of the hostage crisis because of his piano playing. At his mother's initiative, pianos in his honour appeared across the country, including next to Jerusalem's city hall and in Tel Aviv's square devoted to the hostages.

"She wanted people to play and through it, to send their love to him," Nirit Ohel said.

Another of Ohel's aunts, Einat Rozen, said she was finally able to feel joy again, and praised the community's support.

"Our community was with us all the time," she said, tears streaming down her face.

The hostages' plight

The fate of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the attack on southern Israel just over two years ago, has weighed on every aspect of daily life in this country.

Hostage posters and stickers are plastered everywhere — from seaside promenades to countryside bus stops — and many Israelis have been wearing yellow ribbons on their lapels, their wrists, their cars and their gardens for more than two years.

Weekly vigils and protests were held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and small communities like the Ohels' home of Lavon — 230 families in northern Galilee — bonded together to help the hostages' relatives. Tens of thousands gathered to watch news of the release.

The country erupted with joy on Monday morning when the first group of the last 20 living hostages still held in Gaza were seen being transferred to the Red Cross as part of the ceasefire deal.

"I think what you are seeing here, the people that are celebrating in the square, something for me that is very Israeli, to see so many people gathering around to celebrate not the death of our enemies but the life of our people, of Israeli people,״ Gili Roman said as he and tens of thousands of others celebrated in Tel Aviv.

His sister Yarden Roman-Gat was freed from Gaza during the first ceasefire in November 2023 but his sister-in-law Carmel Gat was killed in captivity last year.

A long journey

It's the first step on a long journey to healing for the hostages, whose condition wasn't immediately known. Another 28 who are believed deceased are also to be handed over to Israel as part of the deal, although when wasn't clear.

Many Israelis feel that the country won't fully begin to recover from its collective trauma until their remains are brought back as well, bringing closure to their families too.

Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen, who is believed to be dead, said those with relatives who aren't coming home alive will urge US President Donald Trump not to forget them.

"The hostage families meeting President Trump today will express from the bottom of their heart their sincere gratitude," Chen said. "However we will also highlight the mission is not complete and we will not be able to begin to rehabilitate without the last deceased hostage returned to his family."

For observant Jews, Monday held an extra special meaning.

Both the October 7, 2023, attack and the release of hostages overlapped with the Jewish people's celebration of the holiday of Simchat Torah, which marks the beginning of a new annual cycle of the reading of the scrolls. It is one of the most joyous days of the Jewish calendar, with festive dancing around a Torah.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1200 people and taking 251 as hostages.

In Israel's ensuing offensive, more than 67,600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the UN and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

Google has claimed Australia's impending social media ban for kids under 16 could make children less safe by removing parental controls.

The tech giant has not given up on its push for a YouTube exemption to the laws, which come into effect on December 10.

All child accounts active on that date would be disabled, but kids would still be able to watch without an account.

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"Forcing kids to use YouTube without an account removes the very parental controls and safety filters built to protect them," Rachel Lord, Google and YouTube's public policy and government affairs manager, told a Senate committee.

"It's also the ability of parents to set up supervised accounts for their children."

Lord said the restrictions also prevent a career path for emerging stars such as Troye Sivan, who found fame on YouTube.

"You don't need to look too hard to find Australian success stories that started their career on YouTube," Lord said.

Nicola Palfrey from Headspace said while young people were unsure of what would happen on December 10, at least a third were sure they would get around the restrictions.

Despite YouTube's plea to the Senate, Communications Minister Anika Wells today told executives from social media giants Meta, Snapchat, YouTube and Tiktok there will be no exemptions and the platforms will be expected to facilitate the new restrictions.

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Locals have shared sadness online, calling it a loss for Onehunga’s children.