The candidate’s website looks to have posted ‘dangerous’ and sexually disturbing content.

Chosen 40 applicants will meet to discuss the future of Napier’s aquatic centre.

When Brandan was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia last year it felt like everything else in his life "went away in an instant".

The 17-year-old was forced to move from Cairns to Brisbane for Leukaemia treatment and being separated from his friends, family and twin sister was devastating.

But while Brandan's cancer journey was just starting, Millie's was coming to a close more than 2000km away.

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The 16-year-old from Sydney was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2023 and wrapped up six months of gruelling treatment earlier this year.

Her cancer journey was made more complex by her ADHD, severe dyslexia, and anxiety diagnoses but Millie faced every challenge head-on.

Now both teens have been recognised for their remarkable journeys and named the winners of the 2025 Redkite and Coles Dare to Dream Scholarship.

More than 20,000 Australians live with the long-term impacts of childhood cancer, with up to 80 per cent experiencing lasting physical, psychological or social challenges.

About one in three survivors have to repeat a year of school due to treatment-related interruptions and it can seriously affect their dreams for the future.

That's where the Dare to Dream Scholarship comes in, offering Australians aged 13 to 18 up to $5000 in funding to rebuild their futures during or after a cancer journey.

It's the kind of money that will help Brandan pursue his passion for film, while Millie kickstarts her own small business.

Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at Google Play.

Kratom, a natural supplement derived from a tree native to South-east Asia, is getting a lot of attention in the US because it's highly addictive, and many people who think it's perfectly safe are finding themselves unable to stop using it.

Alabama is one of only a few states where it's illegal, but it is still a problem here.

Angela Edwards is living and working at the Lovelady Centre in Birmingham, the state's capital; she's dealing with addiction, and most recently, her drug of choice was kratom.

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"Every day. I was taking it every day. All day," she said.

Experts call it a deceptive drug, because it's plant-based and all natural, there's the belief it must be safe; it's even marketed as an alternative to alcohol.

Frank Long, with the Lovelady Centre said, "It's an opioid-like effect. You know, some people describe it like a warm hug.

"You know, it's kind of that feeling of peacefulness and that everything's OK.

"Or maybe you just don't care about anything.

"So, it kind of makes you forget your worries."

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Long said it's highly addictive and users quickly develop a tolerance to it, so they're compelled to use more and more to get the same effect.

And when they try to quit, withdrawal symptoms are reportedly worse than those associated with coming off heroin.

"I was on kratom for about two years, if not longer," Edwards said.

"And at the time when I was on kratom, you know, it was good when I was on it, but when I was coming off kratom, I thought I was going to die, you know, the withdrawals were worse than any kind of withdrawals that I've ever had."

An estimated 1.7 million Americans 12 and older used kratom in 2021, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

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In July, the Food and Drug Administration recommended a scheduling action to control certain 7-hydroxymitragynine (also known as 7-OH) products under the Controlled Substances Act.

Kratom is illegal in Alabama, but Long said manufacturers have created synthetic versions, and by changing just one molecule, they can skirt the law and sell the products here.

Edwards has been sober for a while now, but she's not out of the woods. "It took me months to feel even normal. I still don't have my full energy back," she said.

Her advice to anyone thinking this might be a good idea?

"Don't do it. It's not, it's not worth it, it's not worth it."

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The NBA star is back in his old stomping ground of Rotorua.

It's almost certain the Reserve Bank of Australia will hand mortgage holders an interest rates cut today, but new research shows inflation continues to plague the economy.

Economists are tipping the central bank will announce at 2.30pm (AEST) a 25 basis point cut, which would bring the official cash rate down to 3.60 per cent.

If banks pass this on in full, a homeowner with a $500,000 mortgage will save $2884 per year compared with what they were paying at the start of the year before the RBA started cutting the cash rate.

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A widely anticipated reduction failed to materialise last month, when the cash rate remained on hold at 3.85 per cent, stunning mortgage owners.

But economists say the RBA board has no excuses not to make a cut this week, with the latest quarterly data showing inflation is within its target range of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent.

Headline inflation dropped to 2.1 per cent, the lowest figure in four years.

A softening labour market has also bolstered expectations that the cash rate will come down.

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The market is even pricing in a roughly fifty-fifty chance of a supersized 50-basis-point cut which would bring the official cash rate down to 3.35 per cent.

But despite falling inflation, new data reveals that everyday costs remain high for Australians who continue to feel the squeeze.

An investigation by The Age found that households are cutting back on spending, such as buying coffee out, entertainment and holiday travel.

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Explosions at a US Steel plant that shook the ground near Pittsburgh have left one dead and sent at least 10 to hospitals, with emergency workers still searching the badly charred rubble hours later for a missing worker, officials said.

One worker was pulled from the wreckage hours after the explosions sent black smoke spiralling into the midday sky in the Mon Valley, a region of the state synonymous with steel for more than a century.

Allegheny County Emergency Services said a fire at the plant started around 10.51am.

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A search and rescue effort was still active on Monday afternoon local time and officials said they had not isolated the cause of the blasts.

The explosions sent a shock through the community and led to officials asking residents to stay away from the scene so emergency workers could respond.

“It felt like thunder,” Zachary Buday, a construction worker near the scene, told WTAE-TV.

“Shook the scaffold, shook my chest, and shook the building, and then when we saw the dark smoke coming up from the steel mill and put two and two together, and it’s like something bad happened.”

The search is ongoing for a missing worker

At a news conference, Scott Buckiso, US Steel’s chief manufacturing officer, did not give details about the damage or casualties, and said they were still trying to determine what happened.

US Steel employees “did a great job” of going in and rescuing workers, shutting down gases and making sure the site was stable.

Buckiso said the company, now a subsidiary of Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp., is working with authorities.

He also said search teams were still looking for one person who was missing.

They think they know the general location of that person, but weren’t sure, he said.

“Obviously, this is a tragedy that we want to understand,” Buckiso said.

Allegheny Health Network said it had treated seven patients from the explosion in its hospitals, and discharged five within a few hours.

University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre said it is treating three patients at UPMC Mercy, the region’s only level one trauma and burn centre.

Clairton residents like Amy Sowers, 49, felt an explosion nearby.

Sowers, who was sitting on her porch located less than a kilometre from the plant, felt her house shake.

“I could see smoke from my driveway,” she said.

“We heard ambulances and fire trucks from every direction."

Sowers decided to leave the area after she said she smelled a faint smell in the air.

Sowers, who grew up in Clairton, has seen several incidents at the plant over the years.

Despite health concerns, Sowers said many residents cannot afford to leave.

A maintenance worker was killed in an explosion at the plant in September 2009.

In July 2010, another explosion injured 14 employees and six contractors.

According to online OSHA records of workplace fatalities, the last death at the plant was in 2014, when a worker was burned and died after falling into a trench.

After the 2010 explosion, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined US Steel and a subcontractor $US175,000 ($268,000) for safety violations.

US Steel appealed its citations and $US143,500 in fines, which were later reduced under a settlement agreement.

“Lives were lost again,” Sowers said.

“How many more lives are going to have to be lost until something happens?”

The Clairton coking plant continued to operate after the explosion, although two batteries that were the site of the explosion were shut down, officials said.

Air quality concerns and health warnings

The plant, a massive industrial facility along the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, is considered the largest coking operation in North America and is one of four major US Steel plants in Pennsylvania.

The plant converts coal to coke, a key component in the steel-making process.

To make coke, coal is baked in special ovens for hours at high temperatures to remove impurities that could otherwise weaken steel.

The process creates what’s known as coke gas — made up of a lethal mix of methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

Clairton Mayor Richard Lattanzi said his heart goes out to the victims of Monday's explosions.

“The mill is such a big part of Clairton,” he said.

“It’s just a sad day for Clairton.”

The Allegheny County Health Department said it is monitoring the explosions and advised residents within 1.6 kilometres of the plant to remain indoors and close all windows and doors.

It said its monitors have not detected levels of soot or sulphur dioxide above federal standards.

According to the company, the plant has approximately 1400 workers.

The plant has a long history of pollution concerns

In recent years, the Clairton plant has been dogged by concerns about pollution.

In 2019, it agreed to settle a 2017 lawsuit for $US8.5 million.

Under the settlement, the company agreed to spend $US6.5 million to reduce soot emissions and noxious odours from the Clairton coke-making facility.

The company also faced other lawsuits over pollution from the Clairton facility, including ones accusing the company of violating clean air laws after a 2018 fire damaged the facility’s sulphur pollution controls.

In February, a problem with a battery at the plant led to a “buildup of combustible material” that ignited, causing an audible “boom,” officials said.

Two workers received first aid treatment at a local hospital but were not seriously injured.

Environmental group calls for an investigation

David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an environmental group that has sued US Steel over pollution, said there needed to be “a full, independent investigation into the causes of this latest catastrophe and a re-evaluation as to whether the Clairton plant is fit to keep operating”.

In June, US Steel and Nippon Steel announced they had finalised a “historic partnership,” a deal that gives the US government a say in some matters and comes a year and a half after the Japanese company first proposed its nearly $US15 billion buyout of the iconic American steelmaker.

The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh-based company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, dragging out the transaction for more than a year after US Steel shareholders approved it.

The Police Specialist Search Group inspected the bag at the scene.

Motorists are advised to avoid the area and expect delays.

US President Donald Trump says he's deploying the National Guard across Washington, DC, and taking over the city's police department in the hopes of reducing crime, even as the city's mayor has noted that crime is falling in the nation's capital.

The Republican president, who said he was formally declaring a public safety emergency, compared crime in the American capital with that in other major cities, saying Washington performs poorly on safety relative to the capitals of Iraq, Brazil and Colombia, among others.

Trump also said at his news briefing that his administration has started removing homeless encampments "from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks".

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"We're getting rid of the slums, too," Trump said, adding that the US would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start.

Attorney General Pam Bondi will be taking over responsibility for Washington's metro police department, he said, while also complaining about potholes and graffiti in the city and calling them "embarrassing".

For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects a next step in his law enforcement agenda after his aggressive push to stop illegal border crossings.

But the move involves at least 500 federal law enforcement officials as well as the National Guard, raising fundamental questions about how an increasingly emboldened federal government will interact with its state and local counterparts.

Combating crime

The president has used his social media and White House megaphones to message that his administration is tough on crime, yet his ability to shape policy might be limited outside of Washington, which has a unique status as a congressionally established federal district. Nor is it clear how his push would address the root causes of homelessness and crime.

Trump said he is invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to deploy members of the National Guard.

About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation's capital as part of the Trump administration's effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday (Early Tuesday AEST).

More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal law enforcement personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are also contributing officers.

The person was not authorised to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department didn't immediately have a comment.

The National Guard

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, questioned the effectiveness of using the Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the DC Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.

Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.

"I just think that's not the most efficient use of our Guard," she said on Sunday on MSNBC's The Weekend, acknowledging it is "the president's call about how to deploy the Guard".

Bowser was making her first public comments since Trump started posting about crime in Washington last week. She noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a rise in 2023. Trump's weekend posts depicted the district as "one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World".

For Bowser, "Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false".

Focusing on homelessness

Trump in a Sunday social media post had emphasised the removal of Washington's homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go.

"The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY," Trump wrote on Sunday.

"We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong."

Last week, the Republican president directed federal law enforcement agencies to increase their presence in Washington for seven days, with the option "to extend as needed".

On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the US Marshals Service assigned more than 120 officers and agents to assist in Washington.

Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was "ridiculous" and the city was "unsafe", after the recent assault of a high-profile member of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Crime statistics

Police statistics show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26 per cent compared with this time a year ago.

Trump offered no details in Truth Social posts over the weekend about possible new actions to address crime levels he argues are dangerous for citizens, tourists and workers alike. The White House declined to offer additional details about Monday's announcement.

The police department and the mayor's office did not respond to questions about what Trump might do next.

The president criticised the district as full of "tents, squalor, filth, and Crime", and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as DOGE. Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.

"This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country," Trump said Wednesday.

He called Bowser "a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances".

Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining. It could face steep pushback.

Bowser acknowledged that the law allows the president to take more control over the city's police, but only if certain conditions are met.

"None of those conditions exist in our city right now," she said.

"We are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down."

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